by Rick Jones
The hushes grew from above, the hisses getting closer, louder, and then the heads of the living dead looked over the railings to locate the position of Skully’s team below.
Bony fingers pointed accusingly at them, their mouths dripping with black bile as they opened their mouths to whisper a concerted mantra.
. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .
Skully’s team was on the third level, with one level to go before reaching the mainframe.
. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .
The living dead were on the sixth level looking down. Then several more heads appeared from the levels above them, with tier after tier of the dead looking down and pointing their tine-like fingers as if the living were a novelty when, in fact, they were pointing out prey.
. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .
The Force Elite set their laser sights to the skulls of those on the fifth tier.
. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .
“On three, boys.” Skully held up three fingers and began to tick them off.
One finger went down. Two.
Another went down. One.
When he balled his hand into a fist, a volley of synchronous gunfire went off as bullets ripped through skulls, blowing gore and matter through the exit wounds. In less than a blink of an eye they had cleared the stairwell on the sixth tier, downing the dead. It also galvanized others to race down the staircase to get to their quarry, their whispers now tongue-lolling cries.
. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .
“Let’s move, people!”
Skully headed his team up the flight.
The living dead seemed to pour down the stairs like insects, screaming in wails that were primordial.
Skully’s team made thirteen steps with thirteen more to go.
The living dead did twice that, being much faster and more agile.
. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .
Seven steps to go for Skully’s team.
But the dead proved much faster, having closed the gap from the seventh tier and above to reaching the doorway on the fourth level.
Assault weapons went off in a quick chain of gunfire as muzzle flashes lit up the stairwell in strobe-light fashion. Portions of heads were sheared or blown away, falling the dead. But they were like the hydra; you kill those in the front line, and three others took their place.
. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .
Skully’s team made it to the door to the fourth level. Those of the dead who received fatal wounds to their heads pooled at their feet as twisted limbs wrapped together in wild tangles. The gunfire continued, causing more bodies to spill down the stairs.
“Let’s go, Mr. Schott!” yelled Skully. “If you know the code to this door, then you better get to it!”
The mantra and screams were getting louder: Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.
There was a keypad to the left of the door. Schott punched five numbers:
ACCESS DENIED
“What?” Schott said more to himself. His finger was shaking wildly. He had punched the wrong keys.
“It’s not like we have all day!” screamed Juggler.
Bodies were piling at their feet; the smell of rot was all around them.
Schott tried the buttons again, this time striking pay dirt as the bolts to the metallic door drew back from their little circular sockets and unlocked it, the door opening marginally as if in invitation.
Jim Schott was the first man through. He was quickly followed by the rest of the Force Elite with Meade the last man launching himself through the opening. Schott hit the keypad with the tip of his forefinger, punching the lock code.
Decaying hands offered palsied swipes through the opening as the door began to close. Arms that were caught had collapsed between the doors hydraulic pressure, snapping the bones and tearing away the flesh in brutal amputation.
Limbs lay unmoving at their feet, with blue-gray hands lying about with curled fingers looking like crabs upon their backs.
But they could still hear them through the thick metal door.
. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .
Skully looked at his watch. They had twenty-four minutes left to retrieve the president and exit the mausoleum. “Where’s the mainframe?” he asked Schott.
Schott pointed to the end of the corridor. “This way,” he said.
They all followed.
#
They had twenty-three minutes left to find the president by the time they reached the mainframe.
The room was circular with a bevy of pipes running across the ceiling. The floor was of metal grating that could be removed to get at the electrical lines underneath, if need be. The mainframes were actually three monolithic panels situated in the room’s center. Against the far wall was an 8x10 foot screen.
“This room is actually the brains of the ship,” Schott said. “These panels control everything on board.”
Juggler walked around the mainframes in examination. There were no lights, switches, or anything to tell him that they were anything more than smooth panels made of composite. He ran his fingertips over the surface of one mainframe. “They seem tiny for such a large ship,” he said.
“Tiny but effective. From this vantage point we can tell if there’s any kind of a problem anywhere onboard Mausoleum Twenty Sixty-Nine. We can scan every level visually on that monitor right over there.” He pointed to the wall-mounted screen. “The screen will show you twenty separate images for each level. If you want to pinpoint the location of the president, then this is it.”
“What are you waiting for, then?” Skully showed him his watch, meaning that time was running short.
“Yes, sir.” Schott booted up the computer. After a moment a light mote appeared on the screen, then blossomed to twenty separate monitors on one screen, five rows of four for twenty live shots per level.
The walking dead were everywhere.
“What level is this?” asked Skully.
Schott checked the data. “Eighth level,” he said.
Funboy shook his head. “It’s gonna take a helluva lot longer than twenty minutes to wade through those things,” he commented.
“What level was the governor being buried at?” Skully came up beside Schott and looked down at the console.
“Eighteen,” he said. Without waiting for Skully to issue the command, he switched to the Observatory level.
Schott then manned the joystick, moving certain cameras to get a panoramic view of the landing.
“Now that’s more like it,” said Meade.
The camera panned back and forth, sighting nothing. And when he caught the governor’s tomb, he zoomed in. The entire landing was clear.
“The president’s not in the Observatory,” said Schott.
“Try the next level,” said Skully.
The seventeenth level was a different story, however. The dead seemed to be everywhere. They leapt from one side of the hallways to the other like simians at play.
“How many did you say were buried in this place?” asked Meade, stepping closer to the screen.
“Um, well, the mausoleum can hold up to eighty-five thousand.”
“People?” Meade appeared astounded.
“Yes, sir.”
“And how many are actually buried here?” Skully asked evenly.
“Close to seventy-five thousand.”
Now everyone appeared astonished as mouths began to hang.
Skully pointed to the screen while keeping his eyes fixed to Schott. “Are you telling me that there could be seventy-five thousand of these things running around out there?”
Schott held his hands up in surrender. “I have no idea how many of these things are running loose,” he told him.
“Pan around,” said Skully.
He did. There was no sight of the president or anyone in his party.
Just the walking dead.
“Look, Skully,” started Juggler. “There ain’t no way we can get thro
ugh that.” He waved his hand at the screen. “This would be a suicide mission, and you know it. There’s no way in Hell that the president could still be alive.”
Skully turned to Juggler to meet his stare. The most noticeable thing about Juggler was an old scar that ran laterally down his cheek to his top lip, the scarring pulling down the corner of his lower eyelid enough to expose the glistening pink tissue within.
“Are you a member of the Force Elite or not?” Skully asked him.
“Of course—”
“Then you question nothing, soldier. You’re given orders, and you take those orders to the very end. Is that clear?”
Juggler nodded. “Aye, Sir.”
Skully turned back to the large monitor, biting his lower lip. Then: “Take us to the next level. I want to know where the president is.”
Schott did as requested, going in descending order until they reached the thirteenth level.
“There!” yelled Skully, pointing to the screen. “The president’s on the thirteenth level.” He quickly turned to Schott. “Can we communicate with them?”
“Not from here. No.”
Skully slapped the console, hard, causing Schott to back away with his hands once again held in the air.
They continued to watch the monitor. The president and others had just exited through a hatch with Wyman locking it behind them.
“Where does that hatch lead to?” Skully asked.
“Not a good place,” Schott said. “I’m surprised they took it.”
Then in a more demanding tone. “I asked, where does that hatch lead to?”
“It leads to the tube that recycles oxygen throughout the ship. There’re fans in there that will suck you right into their blades. I really don’t recommend that as a route.”
“They made it.”
“And I’m sure others didn’t.”
They watched as the president was talking to Wyman. It was like watching a silent film when all of a sudden their attention was alerted to the hatchway. The panel started to give as the edges peeled away enough for the light inside the wind tunnel to shine into the corridor.
“Something’s punching its way through,” Funboy commented to no one in particular.
When the panel started to hang precariously, the president and the entire team bolted. As soon as they rounded the bend, the hatch gave entirely and flew off into the corridor as if an explosion had set it free from its moorings. The hatch caromed off the tubing, the impact creating a massive dent in a metal pipe before it came to rest along the floor.
Even with the poor visual play on the screen, everyone could see the living dead gushing through the gap as if they had been the particles of projectile vomiting, the corridor filling with them, and then giving chase.
“Follow the president,” ordered Skully.
Schott manned the joystick and followed the team.
“Where are they going?” Skully asked.
“Well, knowing Eriq, I’d say to the starboard side where there’s a small access room we call the Chem Lab.”
“And?”
Schott sighed. “And I think they’re running themselves into a grave.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“One hallway looks much the same as another,” stated Eldridge, his breath short as he and everyone else ran along the corridors on the thirteenth level, the mausoleum’s section of walled crypts.
About twenty percent of the crypts had their wall plates kicked out from the inside with pieces scattered about the floor, and those tombs were empty, with the exception of the shrouds that once covered the bodies. The remaining tenants within the walls continued to move about their chambers, their bodies having become too wasted over time to power their way free.
“You hear that?” asked Lisa Millette. “They’re all around us.”
The sound of bony talons scraping against chamber walls sounded like rats gnawing.
Then Lisa started to lose it. “No-no-no—”
Father Gardenzia took her into his embrace and pulled her close. “It’s all right, my dear. They can’t harm us.”
They started to walk slowly down the corridor as the scratching intensified, the corpses sensing their presence.
. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .
About two-thirds of the way to the ship’s starboard side, Sheena saw the opening to her mother's tomb and felt her heart tighten in her chest as if it was twisting into a Gordian tangle.
Along the floor were pieces of her mother’s wall plate. So she began to put a few of them together.
Lov Mother
The other pieces were missing, perhaps jumbled together on the floor with so many other pieces from other wall plates.
“Sheena, let’s go,” Eriq urged, holding his hand out for her to take. “We have to move.”
She stood with a marble piece in each hand, then she pointed to the empty crypt. “She’s alive, Eriq. She’s come back.”
He went to her. “No, Sheena. She’s hasn’t.” Then he attempted to escort her by grabbing her arm to lead the way, but she resisted by breaking free of his grasp.
“No!”
“Sheena, honey, please. We don’t have the time for this. You know she’s gone. You know this.”
The only thing she knew was that certain types of love were indescribable, especially when ‘Mother’ is the word ‘God’ to children. And sometimes it was so powerful that it could alter certain perceptions of certain realities. Her mother was dead . . . but yet she wasn’t.
Eriq could see that Sheena was on the cusp of deciding between reason and irrationality, while holding a marble stone in each hand as if weighing the balances between them like the scales of Justice. One side Reason, the other Illogical.
He continued to hold out his hand to her. “Please, honey. We have to go. Those things are coming after us.”
Her face was beginning to crack.
“Mr. Wyman, time is running considerably short,” stated Michelin, placing emphasis on the word considerably.
Then they could hear the horde of undead racing toward them and closing the gap.
. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .
“Mr. Wyman! Please!” yelled Eldridge.
And that’s when something emerged from the depths of surrounding shadows.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“All right,” Skully began, lowering his lip mic so that the mouthpiece was directly in front of his lips. “Juggler and Funboy are with me. Meade, you stay here with Mr. Schott and direct us right into the president’s lap. Understood?”
“You got it.”
“I want the shortest distance between two points, if possible, with minimal resistance. I do not want to run into heavy pockets of opposition.”
“Understood.”
“Give me a beta test.”
Meade lowered his lip mic and depressed a button on the lip-mic’s stem. “Testing. One, two, three testing.”
Skully shot him a thumbs up. As did Juggler and Funboy.
“Communication’s strong,” Skully commented. Then he pointed to Meade. “You get us to our primary asset, and then you bring us home.”
“Will do.”
“If anything should happen to us—” Skully cut himself off. Then: “Should the mission be compromised and the package is unattainable, you take Mr. Schott here and get yourselves to the Winged Banshee.”
“Sir—”
“You have your orders, soldier.”
“Yes, sir.”
Skully laid a gentle hand on Meade’s shoulder. “Just get us through,” he told him kindly. “We’ll do the rest.” After he lowered his hand he had his team do a quick weapons’ check, and then they made sure of their ammo stock. A Special Forces soldier never runs out of ammunition. All shots were either to the center of body mass or to the head. One shot, one kill.
When his team was ready, Skully lead them on a mission to conquer the impossible.
But the word ‘impossible’ didn’t mean that something
couldn’t be done, Skully always said. It just measures the degree of difficulty.
They went to find the president.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The behemoth’s olfactory senses had taken in the scent of the living somewhere on the decks below, not too far from its position. As it walked along the corridor to intercept them, those of its kind stopped feeding on the guard’s entrails and gave it a wide berth to pass. Yet one refused as it stayed on its knees and remained folded over the eviscerated body gorging itself on the man’s liver.
The behemoth didn’t hesitate. It reached down and grabbed the undead by the back of its neck, raised it effortlessly off the floor, held it up for all to see, and tore the body in half as easily as tearing a sheet of paper in two. Then it tossed the severed pieces aside.
It had made a statement.
Its kingdom. Its rules.
And it commanded respect.
In this hierarchy, it was king. For those who did not stand aside, then their fate would be as equal as that which now lay upon the floor, with its ability to walk about in search for sustenance now stolen away.
When it picked up its pace into a sprint, and then its sprint into a lope, the others waited until it was gone. When their senses no longer picked up its presence, they returned to the body like scavengers to the feed with their teeth, gnashing flesh from bone.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
It had come from the shadows.
What used to be Sheena’s mother in life was now something vaguely resembling her in death. Its skin was gray with dark moons and shadows surrounding its eyes. When it opened its mouth, it did so to an impossibly long length as black honey-thick bile spilled from the lower edges of its lips, the viscous drippings landing and staining the blouse she had been buried in.
It raised a palsied hand in their direction, then splayed its fingers to resemble a Freddy Krueger’s hand device, the bony talons now appearing long and keen, and wickedly sharp.
. . . Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee . . .
Everyone backed away with the exception of Sheena, who hugged the marble stones to her bosom, the ones that read: Lov Mother.
