This Rotten World | Book 1 | This Rotten World

by Morris, Jacy

  The chair squeaked as Murph plopped down in it, wheeling it closer to the console and the controls for the monitors. He followed the chief's progress on the screen. He was in the cafeteria now, scrambling over the cafeteria tables to avoid the outstretched hands of the dead. He spun out of the reach of a creature, only to spin right into the arms of a grasping woman, her ankle bent at an impossible angle. The Chief shoved the dead woman backwards, and she flew through the air and slid ten feet across the slick cafeteria floor.

  Murph's heart beat in his chest, thundering underneath his sternum. He could only imagine what the Chief was feeling as he scrambled for his life. He had a sudden urge for a bowl of popcorn. The Chief made it through the cafeteria, and then bolted out the door that led to the loading docks.

  Murph switched the camera with one hand, while clutching his radio in the other. On the loading docks, the dead were staggered far apart, but as the door burst open, all heads turned to the Chief as one, and the circle of the dead started tightening immediately. The Chief ran to his truck, hopped in the cab and began rooting through it, his back turned to the camera and the dead that were shuffling towards him. When a man in a flannel shirt was within three steps of The Chief, Murph hopped on the radio and said, "You got one behind you. Pretty close."

  The Chief popped out of the cab and spun around, delivering a solid punch to the creature's face, and shoving it backwards, where it tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs. The Chief hopped back into the cab and closed the door behind him. The dead were around him now, banging on the flimsy metal of the Mazda pick-up.

  "Come on, move your ass, Chief."

  Inside the truck, the Chief found what he was looking for, and he fumbled with it in his lap. When he was finished, he raised his hand, and there was a flash of light as he blew out the glass of the driver's side window. One of the dead dropped to the ground, but another stepped up to take its place, its arm clawing through the broken glass.

  Murph saw the Chief swing his elbow, smashing out the back window of the truck's cab, and then he was crawling through the broken glass. He stood up in the back of the truck, and waved around a revolver. He tucked it into the back of his pants, and then bent down to pick up a crowbar that was lying among the garbage and empty beer cans in the back. As the dead surged around the truck, he lashed out with the crowbar, with little effect.

  The Chief took a small, running start and then leapt out of the back of the truck, landing hard upon the ground. He was on his feet in a flash, his feet pounding the dust of the yard into the air as the dead moved after him. Murph watched him run. His steps were slower, and he was tiring out. Murph pumped his fist as the chief ran past one of the dead, clocking it in the face with the tire iron. It fell to the ground, but stood back up again as the Chief ran off the camera.

  Murph switched to the conveyor belt camera, and panned the camera to the side, where the mini-dozer sat unmoving, like a child's forgotten toy underneath a mountain of coal stacked higher than the camera could see. The dozer was a company vehicle on a secure lot, so the key was still in the ignition as the Chief hopped into the black driver's seat and turned the key, stomping on the gas pedal.

  Murph could see that there was trouble, so he grabbed his radio and said, "What's wrong?"

  The Chief ignored Murph's question, banging on the dashboard of the dozer, pounding on the gas pedal and angrily turning the key. The dead had begun to wander onto the screen, drawn by the noise of the choking engine.

  "You got company, Chief. They're getting closer."

  The Chief set his handgun on the dashboard within easy reach and continued to try to start the vehicle. Around the front of the dozer, the dead spread out in a semi-circle, inching closer. A black cloud of exhaust erupted from the dozer, and the Chief threw the dozer into reverse, spinning it in a wide circle. As he spun the dozer around, he brushed by one of the dead. It reached out to grab the Chief's arm, but he jerked the dozer to the side, throwing the creature to the ground and plowing into the mountain of coal. Angular chunks of coal cascaded down the side of the mountain, making walking treacherous for the dead, but still they came. At the impact, his handgun flew off of the dashboard, and Murph cursed in the control room.

  The Chief operated the dozer, pushing a pile of coal ahead of it as it trundled towards the hoppers. In the process, he ran over the dead, people with familiar faces, if not names. The vehicle was slow, so it didn't kill them, but as the dozer's tracks rolled over their broken bodies, they came out the other side worse for wear and less functional than they had been before.

  The Chief continued the process for four or five loads, and Murph watched as the dead's numbers dwindled, mown down by the heavy tracks of the dozer or pushed inadvertently into the hopper along with loads of coal. The dials rose slowly and the power plant began pumping out more energy.

  Then disaster struck. One of the dead reaching out for the Chief missed and grabbed hold of something vital to the dozer's operation. Its arm jerked for a second as the dozer pulled away, and it came away with a rubber hose in its hand. The dozer left a dark stream of liquid as it trundled across the dusty desert ground. Murph knew something was wrong when the dozer crawled to a halt. He pressed the button on his radio and asked, "Chief, I think you got a problem. You're leaking something."

  There was no answer from the Chief. He hopped out of the cab of the dozer with the tire iron in hand. He ran around the front and looked. Murph could tell right away it was bad because the Chief shook his head, and his shoulders slumped down. The Chief held his radio to his mouth and said, "It got the damn oil line. It's fucked."

  "What are we going to do?" Murph asked.

  "We can't do shit." A dead woman approached the Chief from behind.

  "You got one behind you," he said.

  "Thanks," the Chief said into the radio as he spun and delivered a one-handed blow to the woman's head with the tire iron, caving in the side of her skull and knocking her to the ground. The creature's limbs still reached for the Chief.

  All the noise and excitement had brought most of the dead in the area to the Chief's position, but it didn't seem to faze him at all. "Alright. I'm coming to get you."

  Murph didn't know why he said it, but he knew it was true as soon as he did. "Don't. You'll just get yourself killed."

  The Chief scrambled up the side of the mountain of coal away from the dead that were after him. He looked around and then located the camera and looked straight at it as he held the radio up to his mouth. "You sure, kid? I can come get you. I don't mind."

  "Nah, I'm fine. I think I'm just going to sit here. Maybe listen to the radio."

  "I'll get some help. I'll be back for you. Just hang in there."

  They were nice words. Murph wanted to believe them, but he knew they were just words. They had failed. "Good luck, Chief."

  "Call me, Walt," the Chief sent back.

  Murph laughed. What a weird name for the Chief. "Good luck, Walt."

  "I'll be back," the Chief said as he scrambled sideways on the mountain of coal.

  Murph leaned back in his chair, having nothing to do but stare at the dials on the console. He watched as the needles ebbed, and eventually the hum of the cooling towers ceased altogether. The lights went off in the power plant, and the monitors went black. Murph reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He probably should have told the Chief that he still had cigarettes, but it wouldn't have mattered. He pulled one from the pack and lit it up.

  The banging on the door didn't bother him at all. He put his feet up on the desk, grabbed the FM radio from the console and fiddled with the channels until he found a station that was still playing music. The only one he could find was a classical station. He didn't mind this either.

  He listened to the swell and rise of the music, turning it up loud to drown out the banging on the door. It was beautiful, he closed his eyes, took a puff of the cigarette and blew the smoke into the air, as his mind swirled with colors that undulated
and moved to the rhythm of the music, brightening with each bang of the drums, slithering with the whine of the violins. I should have learned an instrument, he thought to himself.

  Then the music died. Gone, just like that. It was his fault. He knew that. The power plant was responsible for well over 60% of Portland's power, but along the way, it fed all the small towns throughout the gorge. The power was running its last wires, like a river damned up at the source.

  Portland was in for a world of hurt. He'd hate to be trapped in an elevator when the juice ran out. Murph laughed and lit his lighter. On the radio was an ancient tape deck. He pressed the eject button and pulled out the tape cassette. It was white and ancient. Cheap Trick. He laughed, put the tape cassette in the tape deck and pressed play. He closed his eyes and refused to open them, as "I Want You to Want Me" blasted on the radio. Underneath the guitars and drums, the banging outside let him know that he was indeed wanted.

  Chapter 33: The Pied Piper of Portland

  Ace and the boys had lived through an interesting 24 hours. They had rolled through the city, collecting refugees, calling out to them, and picking up cars and supplies. The supplies were mostly junk food and beer. The cars were mostly hot-wired, hastily brought to life by his checkered-past compadres during stops. Behind the Turtle stretched a line of cars, filled with bland, thoughtless people, people who would have rotted in their homes were it not for Ace and his merry band of liberators. They were happy to be saved, but should they be?

  Behind that line of cars came a different line. The dead trailed them. They could have lost them easily, but Ace didn't want to lose them, so the convoy moved at a snail's pace. He wanted them to join in the fun. This was going to be Ace's final concert, and he wanted the entire city of Portland to be there, dead or alive.

  Pudge had finished securing the amp to the roof of the Turtle, rigging it with bungee cords and some ratchet straps they had found underneath one of the benches in the back of the vehicle. The people in the back of the Turtle smiled at him, as he moved to the side to let Pudge crawl back inside via the turret. They didn't know what he was planning, and even if they did, there was nothing they could do to stop him. Ace threw the guitar over his shoulder and mounted the turret, poking his head out to see the ruins of the world around him.

  The sun was going down, and shadows were taking over the city. To the west, the sun glowed a fiery orange, as it began its descent behind the hilltops that made up the Willamette Valley, Portland nestled smack dab in the middle. The sky looked like fire. Ace smiled, and felt the buzz of his guitar building as he turned all of the knobs on the amp up as high as they would go. He strummed the guitar, and sound blasted through the evening.

  Smoke hung heavy in the air. Buildings burned throughout the city, and they had stopped combing the streets for survivors. Now people ran out of their houses upon seeing their convoy. Dozens of cars lined up behind them, and for anyone that was ready to go, they had plenty of time to reach one of them and board the train to safety... or so they thought.

  The Turtle was great for clearing out random cars that were blocking the streets. There were times when they had to circle around particularly nasty wrecks, but for the most part, they could just shove everything out of the way if they moved slowly.

  As the sun disappeared and the shadows overtook the streets, Ace caught a glimpse of the Rose Garden in the distance. That was where they were headed according to Pudge, not to the giant building that resembled a sleeping headless turtle, but to the squatty building next to it. That was where the government was. That was where the show was. It was going to be a hot ticket. He was going to blast the gates off the place.

  He smiled at the image that was building in his head, an image of chaos and carnage. He climbed out of the turret and stood on top of the Turtle. He looked down at the amplifier strapped down on the roof of the vehicle. With his faded Converse shoes planted firmly on the roof of the Turtle, he struck the guitar. The noise was deafening, and his ear drums shook with the force of the amp, but he didn't care.

  He didn't care about anything. He played a song, like a piper of long ago... only there were a lot more than 130 children following him, and they were going into town, not away from it.

  ****

  Joan was busy putting salve on a rotund man's hands when the lights went out. "Shit," she said, for there was nothing else to say. The darkness lasted a few seconds, and then the emergency lighting kicked in. It was an orange light, not nearly as bright as the florescents she had been working under, and now the entire triage center was laced in shadows.

  She heard her patient exhale heavily, as if he had been holding his breath for a long time. His face matched the fear that Joan felt at losing power. Joan attempted to calm him down by saying, "Freaky, right?"

  The man looked as if he was on the verge of tears. His eyes were filled with a watery shine that could spill onto his cheek at any moment. Without warning, Clara appeared, skidding to a stop on the concrete floor. From the corner of her eye, she saw the patient reach up to his face and wipe his eyes.

  Clara strode across the floor, oblivious to the presence of the patient. "This is not good."

  "I'm sure it will come back on in a second. The Army will figure something out," Joan said, more to calm the patient than anything else.

  "Are you blind, Joan? They are barely keeping this place together. What makes you think that they can get the power back on?"

  "She has a point," the man said.

  Joan didn't bother to acknowledge his presence. "What do you want me to do about it?"

  "We've got to get out of here."

  Joan had heard this before. As soon as they had made it to the Coliseum, Clara had started working on figuring out a way out of the place. "There's no place to go, Clara."

  "Any place is better than here. What happens when we run out of food? What happens when those fences come down? What happens when those soldiers go from being assholes to being sadistic assholes?"

  Joan shrugged her shoulders and admitted defeat. "You're right. Of course, you're right. We'd be better out there on our own, fighting off the thousands of dead with our bare hands. Is that what you want?"

  "I may know a way out," the man said. They listened as the man, whose name was Rudy, detailed the plan that had been told to him only that morning.

  "Do you think they'll let us go with you?" Joan asked.

  "I don't see why not," he said.

  "It's worth a shot. It's not like anyone else is offering us a chance for survival."

  "Great," Rudy said. "Follow me."

  ****

  The night deepened, and outside the Coliseum, a sound could be heard over the thousands of dead, wailing. It was a harsh sound, starting faint at first. Then as the sound came closer, those inside the Coliseum could hardly believe what they were hearing. It was music, the harsh, distorted twangs of a guitar being played at lightning-fast speed. The soldiers stood dumbfounded as one of their own vehicles approached, a train of cars following behind, the vehicles' headlights shining in their eyes.

  They stopped at the edge of the sea of dead, and the man stood on top of the vehicle, playing like a mad man. The music built, until it seemed the man's hands would fall off. By now, refugees from inside had filed out to see what the commotion was. No one noticed as a group of people split off from those watching the impromptu concert. No one cared.

  The man played and played, and the dead began to shift away from the fences, drawn to the skinny man in the leather jacket, standing on top of a Stryker and giving the performance of his life. The soldiers cheered, causing a scattered handful of the dead to turn in their direction once more. But the main mass of the dead continued heading towards the guitar-playing madman. He smiled at them, lit up by the massive, generator-powered spotlights that the soldiers had erected just in case the Coliseum lost power.

  Then the song was over. The soldiers stood, looking at the man... wondering what he was going to do next. They didn't have to wait
for long. As he popped back into the Stryker, a voice came over the loudspeaker of the vehicle.

  "Martial law is over. We, the people, declare our independence."

  Major Miller was standing in the courtyard, trying to understand what was going on, when the turret on the Stryker erupted. Bright flashes appeared from the muzzle of the fifty caliber machine gun, and the Stryker accelerated. The machine gun sent rotting body parts arcing through the air, and the Stryker's wheels bounced over the dead that it mowed down.

  With the aid of the machine gun and its own crushing momentum, the Stryker cut a swath of destruction through the dead and was at the fence in no time. It didn't stop at the fence as the crowd in the Coliseum's courtyard expected. Instead it barreled forward, fifty caliber shells ripping through the fence, the soldiers, and the refugees on the other side.

  The soldiers opened fire on the Stryker as it lurched across the courtyard, launching the bodies of the living into the air. The Stryker turned in a tight circle, sparks erupting from its armored plating as soldiers fired at the vehicle. Then it plowed through the other side of the chain link fence, ripping it down, and opening up a hundred-foot gap in the Coliseum's defenses. The vehicle was a knife, slashing its way across the refugees' throats. Then it was gone, shooting off into the night, dripping blood and leaving the soldiers scrambling to plug the hole as hordes of the dead poured through the gap.

  ****

  Lieutenant General McCutcheon was in the comms room when he heard Major Miller's panicked communiqué. It was hard to hear the words over the machine gun fire in the background, but he understood the gist.

  As soon as the Major was done talking, McCutcheon scrambled his troops. The choppers wouldn't be much use in the dark, but at the very least, they could get some of his men, and maybe the refugees out of there. McCutcheon stood on the apron of the terminal, squinting his eyes to protect them from debris as he watched the choppers take off.