by Rick Jones
Skully removed his last grenade and molded the dough around it before attaching the gummy wad to the wall, and then he fixed the pin to it. “How about now?” he asked hm.
Funboy pointed to the elevator above. The message was clear: The concussive wave may generate enough force to detach the elevator from its moorings, despite any attempt to blow out the wall.
Skully looked up to appraise the situation, then he turned back to Funboy and nodded. I got your meaning. “You blow the pin,” he told him. “But only after we get above the rupturing point, so that we’re clear of flying debris.”
Once they climbed to the fifteenth level, Funboy removed the detonator from his pocket, lifted the safety cap, and depressed the plunger with his thumb.
Suddenly the world below them exploded.
#
. . . BANG . . .
Everyone could see the hinges begin to bend against the driving force.
And Eriq had never felt so impotent in his entire life.
. . . BANG . . .
A few more raps would do it.
. . . BANG . . .
And somewhere inside the room the priest prayed, his words loud and clear and free of any measure of fear.
. . . BANG . . .
And then the world around them exploded.
. . . BANG . . .
#
The plastique and the grenade went off simultaneously, the explosion so powerful that the entire mausoleum appeared to shake to the point that it threatened to throw Skully and Funboy from the rungs.
Whereas Skully caught himself, Funboy hung on by the grip of one hand while he kicked his feet for purchase until he found a lower rung.
A boil of smoke shot up the shaft like the cap of a mushroom cloud, and enveloped them, but as soon as the dust settled, they could see that the wall had been breached.
Then something above them whined like the hull of an ancient tall-ship, something like old wood bending and creaking. The elevator wobbled on its electromagnetic moors as if it had a life of its own and tried to pull free. The entire cab shook.
And then it slipped, the rails beginning to lose their grip.
And the creaking got louder as the mooring attachments cried out in unbearable stress.
“Move!” yelled Skully.
Funboy took the rungs quickly to the lower level with Skully following so closely that he almost stepped on Funboy’s fingers on the way down.
. . . schreeeeeeee . . .
The elevator began to buck violently.
. . . schrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeee . . .
And then it parted from the rails, the 2500-pound cab falling and bouncing off the walls as it made its long descent to the bottom level.
“Moooooooove!”
Funboy was going as fast as he could, the opening so close, yet so far.
The cab loomed large as it closed on them, falling.
Funboy saw the opening, and dived into the hole where he hit the floor and rolled to a standing position.
Skully saw the opening as well, could feel the elevator almost upon him. When he looked up he could see sparks as the cab bounced off the walls, the bursts of flames flying, then dying as the elevator suddenly became enormous as it neared him with incredible speed.
He instinctively raised his arm over his head as if to ward off the blow of the elevator’s fall.
But as a true soldier of the Force Elite, he did not scream.
#
When the wall blew inward, everyone inside the Chem Lab were lifted off their feet and sent airborne. The only collateral damage was Senator Newel, who was driven across the room like an incoming missile against the racks, and broke some of the containers of bottled acids.
As he lay there in a daze, acid cascaded over him, the fluid devoured his flesh to the bone as skin bubbled and bled, the smell sickening as it filled the room with acidic stench.
Thickening smoke also filled the room, causing coughing jags.
And in this smoke stood the outline of a man standing beside a passageway against the far wall.
A savior?
And then one of the hinges against the chamber’s door gave, the screws popping loose as something massive tried to force its way into the chamber.
. . . BANG . . .
#
Skully’s mind had little time to register the fact that he was about to die when a hand lashed out, grabbed him by the ammo belt around his waist, and tugged him into the opening. While he was in flight and not fully inside the room, the cab of the elevator skinned the soles of his boots as it fell by.
Moments later, it crashed at the base of the mausoleum, the sound of metal twisting was quite clear to those thirteen levels above the wreckage.
Skully’s breath came in hitches and gasps, his life so close to getting snuffed.
“You all right?” Funboy was standing over him.
Yes and no.
Skully immediately got to his feet and surveyed his surroundings.
And when he saw Eriq Wyman standing before him, his heart almost misfired.
#
Eriq watched the shape distend a hand out of the opening to snatch something from within the shaft, and tossed it to the floor of the chamber.
Another savior?
But through the smoke and haze they were mere shapes. So he closed in.
When he saw who it was that the man had saved from the shaft, his stomach turned into a slick fist with revulsion.
#
“Eriq Wyman,” Skully said with an edge. “So this is where they put your ass, huh?”
Eriq was furious. On the day he was in the Wastelands doing field ops with his unit to protect the Fields from the savages, Skully was the sergeant and second-in-command who took over the platoon when Wyman laid his gun down and refused to execute the savages. It was by Skully’s command that the killings went on. Eriq could recall the moment he closed his eyes but could see the muzzle flashes through his lids during the volley of gunfire, knowing that the young girl who waved to him was now dead.
“Still executing children?” Eriq stated bitterly.
“You still a coward?” he returned.
“Enough!” intervened the president. “The last thing I need right now is a couple of ball-swinging commandos dissing each other.” He pointed to the door. Of the four hinges holding the door in place, a second hinge was starting to give. “We need to get out of here,” he said. “Now!”
Skully nodded. “Yes, sir.”
. . . BANG . . .
“How far have we drifted?” asked the president. “Can Air Force Six still make it back? Or have we drifted beyond the point of no return?”
“Air Force Six, Mr. President, has been compromised and rendered unserviceable, but you’ll be all right,” he told him. “We’ll be returning to the Fields inside of a Winged Banshee.”
Eriq’s heart dropped inside his chest. He knew exactly what that meant for the rest of them. A Winged Banshee had very limited carrying space that could hold no more than six people, and since the president and members of status were guaranteed transport, that left the majority to stay behind to fend for themselves.
This was not good news.
When Skully gave Eriq a sidelong glance after making the statement, and then seeing the obvious expression of enlightenment on the man’s face, he smiled with malicious delight.
And Eriq took umbrage to this. You prick!
“We need to get you below, Mr. President,” said Skully.
“Through there?” The president pointed to the gap in the wall.
“Yes, sir. All you have to do is climb the rungs all the way down. Simple. But we need to move.”
. . . BANG . . .
The sound of the behemoth pounding the door was enough to galvanize him into action.
. . . BANG . . .
More screws securing the second hinge took flight.
. . . BANG . . .
“Let’s go, people!” yelled Skully, waving them to the hole. “It’s
a long climb downward, so be careful.”
. . . BANG . . .
Funboy led the group, who was followed by the president, then trailed by the rest of the team, with Skully the last to leave the chamber.
The shaft was dark with the exception of a little light filtering in from the breach.
“I can’t see much,” stated the president.
“Keep climbing downward,” Skully said. “Funboy will let you know when we’ve reached bottom.”
So they descended with Eriq, wondering what to do next. Guaranteed seating onboard the Winged Banshee would be delegated to the president and the remaining members of the force. If there was any seating left, then they would go by the VIP pecking order, starting with Eldridge. No matter how Eriq looked at it, there was no upside for him or his crew.
We’re doomed, he thought.
Nevertheless, he continued to descend because it was the only way left to him.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Muscles stretched taut as the behemoth continued to ram its powerful fists against the door.
. . . .BANG . . . .
Just as the door began to loosen and give, it heard a loud explosion within.
Its olfactory senses picked up the addition of two more after the loss of one, which told it that it did not corner its prey as it first believed. There was an opening. And they were escaping.
Rearing its head back, it bellowed in a cry of absolute anger from deep within its lungs, the area trembling as its underlings fell further into the shadows.
And then it continued to pound away, driving one fist after the other like a drummer.
. . . BANG. . . BANG. . . BANG. . . BANG. . .
The remaining screws to the hinges began to give.
#
. . . BANG. . . BANG. . . BANG. . . BANG. . .
“Let’s go, people!” Skully shouted. “I hear company knocking on our door, and they sound pissed.”
. . . BANG. . . BANG. . . BANG. . . BANG. . .
The deeper they descended, the more the feeble lighting diminished into darkness that was absolute. It was like climbing to the base of a well where the atmosphere slowly began to turn cool.
Everyone moved as quickly as they could, some slower than others, causing congestion amongst the rungs. Father Gardenzia retarded the movements of those who were many years his junior, the aged priest far from agile, which drew the ire and caustic tongue from John Eldridge.
“Let’s go, Padre!”
When they reached the seventh level, that’s when all Hell broke loose.
. . . .Bang! . . . .
The undead had finally smashed their way through.
#
The behemoth wound its fist back as far as it could, then drove it forward like a pile driver, knocking the twisted door free as if it was shot through a cannon, with the door smashing through the racks of acid before caroming off the walls.
Acid pooled at the base of the entryway with acidic steam rising off the floor. When the undead took to the room, the acid immediately devoured flesh and muscle and tendon, rendering some immobile as they fell into the shallow pools. Flesh melted like the tallow of wax as they reached for the purchase of something not there. Others stayed behind, watching without any sense or obligation to aid them.
Moans and cries filled the chamber. Bodies of the dead stacked up at the door, waiting to enter. When the acid could consume no more, they entered the chamber like locusts to fields of harvest.
#
It sounded like a distant whisper: “Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.”
So Skully wasn’t surprised when he looked up and saw the heads of the undead peeking down at them through the gap in the chamber’s wall.
“Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.”
“If there was a time to move faster, people, this is it!” he cried. “We’ve got company!”
That’s when they entered the shaft.
#
They spilled into the elevator’s chute like cockroaches running from the light. They clambered onto the rungs. Some jumped like crickets from the hole to a rail against the opposite wall, a twenty-foot leap, and began to descend with the ease of monkeys. Others used the rungs and moved much faster than the living.
Skully looked up and saw the undead moving through the lime-green field of his night-vision faceplate. Dammit! He then unslung his assault weapon from his shoulder, clung to a ring, took careful aim, and set off a burst.
Muzzle flashes suddenly lit up the shaft as Skully strafed bullets to stitch along the wall vertically to take out the ladder rungs. The rungs shattered as the bullets struck their marks, and the undead clinging to them at the time had fallen from the wall and into the well, the corpses tumbling past the living and doing awkward ballets through space.
“Move!” prompted Skully. “They’re getting closer!”
More bursts of gunfire.
And more muzzle flashes.
But the living dead countered by leaping from wall to wall, from rail to rail, ping-ponging from one side to the next like crickets. Skully couldn’t believe how fast they adapted to opposing conditions. Shooting his weapon now would only serve to waste ammo. He would never get off a shot that would be meaningful.
They continued to descend at a much faster rate than that of the living, the space between them narrowing swiftly.
They leapt from wall to wall, springing from one side to the next, with every leap a move closer to their quarry.
“Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.”
Now they were hanging from the opposite rail directly across from Skully’s group, the undead capable of smelling the delectable scent of living tissue.
“Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.”
And then one took flight from the rail, leaping effortlessly across the divide and latching onto Lisa Millette. Its arm wrapped around her chest like a festooning ammo belt, snatched her away from the rungs, and leapt to the opposite wall where it raced up the rail to the top level to feed.
She never knew what hit her.
And she never barked a cry until she was out of earshot of her colleagues.
The Detail guard removed his gun from his holster and began to shoot randomly, the bullets ricocheting off neighboring walls and coughing up sparks. The flashes were like beacon calls that brought attention similar to drawing moths to light. Two of the undead jumped from the rails against the opposite wall from the Detail guard, landed simultaneously on his back, and played a vicious game of tug-a-war. The guard screamed as they ripped him in large pieces by parting the man in half in equal division, then leapt to the opposite wall with their bounty and climbed the rail with relative ease, despite the added weight of their kill.
The living began to scream.
And the undead continued to pick them off.
“Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.”
Another soared the distance between the walls, leaping from one side to the other and landing next to Father Gardenzia on the rungs. In the light of muzzle flashes, Father Gardenzia could see the deadness within its eyes and the rancid smell of its breath. It was that close. But instead of taking its prize topside, its cold eyes seem to settle on the design of the cross that hung around Gardenzia’s neck. Quickly, it reached out and grabbed the crucifix and held it within the clammy palm of its hand. It cocked its head, trying to remember why this symbol once meant so much to it at one time, but remained at the periphery of recall that would forever be unattainable.
It hissed at him and opened its maw, allowing a release of a greater stench, then released the crucifix. “Pah-reeeeest?” it said, sounding more like a question. Then the moment faded, its humanity vanishing within a blink of an eye. With savageness, it raked its bony talons across the priest’s back and tore four grooves that ran deep.
And then it was gone, leaping away into darkness.
The wounds were painfully hot, but Father Gardenzia forced himself to move on, taking the rungs to the lower levels as blood ran in runnels down along his back.
/> The undead continued to crisscross through space from wall to wall, every leap effortless.
Eldridge had been slowed due to the progress of the priest beneath him. When he saw the corpse sharing the rungs with Father Gardenzia during the muzzle flashes, he panicked, knowing that they were all around them like a plague of locusts.
After watching it rake its talons through the priest and then leap off into distant shadows, Eldridge pressed himself to the rungs with paralytic shock, and closed his eyes until the moment he felt the ice-cold whisper of breath against his cheek.
When he opened his eyes, the creature that had raked its talons across the priest’s back was staring at him through frost-laden eyes. Then it lowered its jaw to an impossible length, its maw widening to show irregular rows of teeth, a black tongue, and began to spill out a stinking, tarry substance that dripped onto the lapel of its burial suit.
Eldridge’s chin began to wobble gelatinously with terror. “Please,” he uttered to it. But when he realized that the thing beside him operated with the cold fortitude of a machine, he said, “It’s not fair. It’s just . . . not . . . fair.”
The corpse then wrapped its hand around his throat, its strength incredible, and began to squeeze the life out of Eldridge, who gagged and slapped at its clammy hand in a futile attempt to knock it free. But the edges of his sight began to take on a darkness that was far greater than that within the shaft. His life was slipping away.
No! Not like this! Please, God! Not like this!
“Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.”
Eldridge choked. And gagged. And slapped at the hand.
And then in a fleeting moment he was pulled from the rungs and flying through the air, traversing the distance between the walls as everything around him suddenly appeared to be a swirling maelstrom of darkness.
In its hand he was feathery light as it crawled up the rail to the upper level.
And Eldridge knew that it would have no mercy. It’s just . . . not . . . fair.
And then he was gone, the corpse having dragged Eldridge back inside the Chem Lab where his maddened screams could be heard echoing throughout the shaft.
Above them they continued to leap.
And they continued to call to them: “Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.”
