Race the Dead (Book 1): The Last Flag

by Cavanagh, Wren

  “We're good. It’s clear back there and it’s got some good places to hide. Big café there — block away — can’t miss it. The sign is shaped like a coffee cup and someone already busted one of the windows. We can meet up there. Let’s go.” He shivered, looked at the sky, and held out his hand. Small drops of water stung the palm. “Cold and rainy, great.”

  “We about to get some exercise. Don’t worry, it’ll warm you right up. Alright people, let’s split up. We’ll meet at Theo’s coffee shop,” Alvin said.

  Alvin and Theo sprinted for the building. Eliza took a quick upward glance, hoping for a glimpse of one of the drones. Drones: cheaper than helicopters. Helicopters that — contrary to her experience and expectations — had been kept mostly on the ground. The drones hovered above them and would cover Tyshon’s part of the action. Cheap. A cheap and fast-assed production, she thought and started to feel real dread set up business in her head. What was I thinking? This could go so bad.

  All the same, she’d have to go inside to record the other two. Eliza ran after them and quickly caught up. They didn’t escape the attention of the dead; a few noticed them right away and split from the crowd, ambling toward them with a renewed sense of purpose.

  The small group rushed into the building only a few feet ahead of their pursuers. Theo picked up a large vase by the door with both hands and plowed it into the head of a dead man at the door’s entrance. It bounced off the man’s head with a thick hollow sound as it felled him flat to the sidewalk.

  “Help me out, Theo!” Alvin shouted as he raced to the lobby’s table and hurried to block the door.

  “Right on,” he muttered and helped Alvin move a large heavy desk in front of the door.

  “It’ll hold ‘em long enough. Let’s go upstairs. Fire exit, here.” He sprinted toward and they took the steps two at a time as behind them, the dead struggled for entrance.

  “I think we're safe…doubt they’ll figure out the door to the stairs. They're definitely not going to figure out the elevator,” Alvin said as they exited on the second floor and pulled the fire alarm. He then headed for the first room with a street view above the flag. There, Alvin and Theo hurled a heavy office chair through a window, went on to furiously break the two remaining ones before they went on to yell, howl, and drop anything they could lift over the side.

  “Here, you dead ass losers! FUCKERS!!!!” Alvin howled with fury as he hurled out a short metal cabinet, it flew through the air, completed a full 360 as its drawers slid open along the path of its gyration and spilled their contents along the way. A carnivalesque stream of paper followed its fall until its flight ended on the head of a woman below, cracking open her skull and dispatching her to a permanent death, if that was possible.

  Eliza was filming their release of anger and fear as the two launched out anything they could pick up and move, and shouted courses and taunts. When Theo unzipped his fly and took a break to piss a steaming yellow stream onto the crowd on the street, Eliza choked off her laughter — wouldn’t be professional, but kept filming. She could imagine the bleeping and censoring on some of the more restrained affiliates carrying the show.

  On the sidewalk beneath the window, the ragged crowd was fast consolidating into an impenetrable mass. Ty saw his chance: only two of those things for whom the loud pings were irresistible remained in front of the flagpole. Wishing he had asked for the bat he looked around for a weapon, from a trash can picked up a large, solid liquor bottle by the neck and ran to the Mustang, swung it and smashed it as hard as he could on the head of nearest man, then put as much power as possible on the backhand swing to hit the another turned at his side. The bottle shattered on the dead man’s forehead, but Ty held on to what remained of it as he leapt onto the hood of the car and jumped on its roof to retrieve flag and backpack.

  “Motherf....glued the damn flag again?!”

  He cursed through gritted teeth and attacked it with the sharp edges of the broken bottle, leaving jagged tears in the fabric, while he kept turning his head to keep watch on the dead drawing closer. His presence was bringing some of them back, their disturbing eyes were focused only on him. With the flag finally free, he jumped back onto hood of the car and leapt to the ground. An epic misstep twisted his ankle and gave a belly flop that knocked the wind out of him, but fear and adrenaline had him scrambling to his feet. Chunks of skin came off the palms of his hands as he push himself upright but he was up — up and sprinting like a madman. He barreled into the legs of one of them, bowled him down but managed to keep running.

  “Okay, he got it,” Alvin announced. “Hold on...wait...” He took careful aim dropped a compact copy machine on the face of a man below and looked on as both shattered on impact. “All right, let’s go.”

  They ran down the corridor and found the back exit, there Theo helped himself to an unexpected gift. The building was old enough to have a fire hose on the wall by the door, coiled neatly against it, green and dusty. Above it, hung on the wall like a piece of art, was a red ax in a glass case.

  “Mine!” Shouted Theo, and launched a roundhouse kick at the glass case, sending sharp shards flying. “All mine!”

  “All yours—let’s go.” Alvin pushed the door of the back exit carefully, with all the care he wished he’d used back at the abandoned home where they got their first flag, it opened on a cold, dark stairwell that smelled of cold, age and cement. “Can’t see a thing, prop the door open.”

  Theo grabbed a framed print from the wall, jammed it under the door, with hearts hammering they made their way down.

  “That noise, what’s...” Eliza muttered.

  “Hush.” Alvin stopped and brought them to a halt. They listened carefully. The muffled noise repeated: something scraped and buffeted the exit door of the first floor. “It’s not in the stairwell,” he whispered with a sigh of relief. “It’s out on the floor. Keep going.”

  It was short trip, but when they hit the door and exited, the light of day felt like a blessing. In the deserted street no one waited for them and as they made for the café, every so often they looked back, expecting Ty to join them. They waited, they stomped their feet, they tried to keep warm. The temperature drop was dramatic.

  “Where the hell is Ty?” Alvin finally asked through chattering teeth.

  ----------

  Cheryl went to take a much-needed break in Fats’ office. It was all an executive office was fabled to be, and by her reckoning, it should have been hers. She walked out on the terrace, closed her eyes, and breathed in as deeply as she could, then held her breath briefly before slowly releasing it, trying to relax. The warmth of the sun was a comfort.

  She opened her eyes. The panoramic view of Los Angeles delighted her as always. Above the haze, the sky was a light blue and held the promise of infinity, below in the street, cars and people looked as artificial as small toys, and as disposable.

  “This should be my office. Damn you, fat man,” she muttered with bitter resentment.

  Extreme Sensory Productions. It had been a new venture that specialized in extreme reality shows, what else?

  Her great opportunity. On joining it she had been promised a meteoric rise — her chance to make it to the big times and become a major player. Fats had joined the company at the same time.

  But Fats rose faster, eclipsed her and took jobs she wanted, had edged her out of all the better projects. Another woman executive who wanted to be her friend and believed in teamwork told her delicately that he had ‘emotional intelligence’, evidently something ‘they’ thought she lacked.

  “You took what was rightfully mine, fat man. I worked hard and you took it. I’ll make you hurt if it's the last thing I do.”

  No one reasonable that knew her or had worked with either person would see it that way, but Cheryl, fully blind to her faults, delusional about her character, and obsessive with her petty grudges
had just never been “reasonable”. She nurtured her hurts like she nurtured her anger, and cultivated her resentments. In return, that brew of sick emotions motivated her and kept her going. She went back in the office where she fell into the comfortable leather chair.

  Cheryl felt drained. Her toes were starting to feel numb, the soles of her feet and palms of her hands had tingled unpleasantly for a couple of hours now. She turned on the monitors in the room and surrounded herself with the streaming videos of TLF as she grabbed her tablet and checked the metrics, disappointed that they hadn’t yet gotten a money shot. A strong moment would make the viewers sit up and notice. She wanted to see what it would take to have anyone one the team makes that first conscious kill. Not anything like the ‘kills’ the Cobra boys had gotten when dropping office pieces on those things’ heads. Lew had come close. That had almost made her happy. And the arson — the arson had been a nice bit.

  It would have been better if the turned had walked out of the building with their heads on fire, but no such luck, they checked in, cooked, didn’t check out. Shit, so hard to make a good show, she thought with a sigh, brought the scalding hot coffee to her lips and drank a mouthful. Not feeling it burn her skin but picking up on some of the flavor. Bitter, like my heart, she thought then cackled without mirth, and called in to the ground producer for the production.

  “Hold on with Joe Riesling’s extraction.” On the other end the man paused. He didn’t sound happy when he replied, but she didn’t care. “He'll be just fine. Yes, I’ll take responsibility. Hold on the extraction. ALL extractions. Until I say otherwise.” Absentmindedly, she listened to him argue, and when he stopped making noise she continued. “Fats isn’t here now, it’s my call and it’s just a damn twisted ankle. He can wait. We need drama and emotion. Create some fucking tension.”

  She cut off the call, placed the smartphone on the table, and began to open its drawers one by one until she found what she wanted. There: a bottle of Grappa in the bottom left drawer and, symmetrically opposed to it, a bottle of gin in the right one.

  “Just what I needed, thank you fat man,” she poured a generous amount of the high quality Italian moonshine into her coffee. “You owe me anyway.” Yes! She thought after a delicious burning mouthful of grappa, much better; so much better. But alcohol was a depressant.

  I need a couple of bumps, she mused, as she looked at the scene on a large tablet and watched Joe Riesling in HD, alone, leaning against a lamppost and keeping watch for the expected rescue. She wondered how long it’d take him to figure out that no extraction would be forthcoming. What would he do? Hobble fast like a laughable gimp and provide some comic relief as he tried to catch up to his teammates? It would be funny, and it would be good for ratings. Or would he try to limp back to the fence like an abandoned dog? She leaned back thought about it and hoped for the gimp option, she definitely liked that scenario the best.

  As she looked on the scene on the tablet switched to display the mother and daughter duo. It looked like they finally had some trouble. About time. She took out a small gold box from her purse and with the small gold spoon, arranged two generous lines of coke on the screen of the tablet and snorted them with delight.

  ----------

  Joe grimaced in pain, struggled to his feet and stretched. Sitting on the ground, his body had gotten cold and stiff. He tried to put weight on his bad ankle and almost screamed. He hadn’t thought it possible but it hurt even more. Where was the rescue helicopter? They had been assured that in case of injury or change of heart, the contestants would get extracted right away. But way more than half an hour had passed, it was now almost mid afternoon and soon it would get dark. On top of that, short bouts of light rain had turned into bouts of light snowfalls. The flakes had been tiny, delicate, had melted on contact with his skin but as he looked at the horizon and doubted that would keep up for long. The next snowfall would stick; and stick hard.

  “Christ, they just forgot me?”

  The drone that had monitored him had left, and he hadn't seen it in a while. He removed the headset and looked it over. Useless. He couldn't call out on this thing. It was set up to only receive and respond.

  “They ain’t coming,” he muttered out loud. “Fucking ditched me, just left me behind for good.”

  He looked for shelter. Not much here, but a few hundred feet off, there was a street with a few stores and even some two floors buildings.

  “Podunk town...” He muttered and took a couple of tentative steps, the pain his ankle hurt so much he cried out. Gasping, he looked for anything that could offer some support, but didn’t see a damn thing. He hobbled and hopped on one leg until he got to the first block lined with stores.

  He looked cautiously into windows, and tested doors for entry. Espiga Dorada — locked, but maybe he could break the window. Dox Rentals — locked. Jensen insurance — a vandalized, burned out hull. The last shop on the corner, Uncle Hank’s Food & Sundries — open! He pushed on the handle and the door swung inward.

  “About time! Thank you uncle Hank.” He whispered with relief and hopped inside the store with the respect normally granted to mine fields, but he saw no one and heard nothing. Better yet, the place felt safe and he trusted his instincts. Maybe I’ll find a first aid kit, he thought. Maybe even a magic lamp — wouldn’t that be nice. He looked behind the counter, but there was no magic lamp or gun, but an aluminum baseball bat. He made his way to the back of the store and, in a small dingy room that had served as restroom and cleaning closet he found a first aid kit. Band aids...Useless. Elastic bandages…okay, yeah, those could help. And pain pills — some of that on the shelf. And beer in the cooler. That would absolutely help.

  “I’ll take these, please,” he said out loud absent-mindedly, as he grabbed the first aid kit and hopped to the cooler. He passed the fresh grocery section. It was small and the produce was now dry and shriveled or rotted mush giving off a smell of decay. He gave thanks to God that the butcher section at the back had been cleaned out. He opened the cooler and grabbed all that was left: the dregs of beerdom.

  “Shitty Coors and PBR, Jesus! Warm too, guess I am gonna have live with that,” he said with a grimace of disgust as he grabbed the two cans and looked for a place to sit. If that extraction would be forthcoming any time soon warm shitty beers would be the least of his problems. He gobbled a handful of ibuprofen pills and chased them down with the first can of beer then sighed in relief. “God bless you uncle Hank, better than no beer.”

  “What to do? What to do?” His eyes scanned the store shelves. “Ha! Okay, then.” He shuffled to a dusty shelf lined with cans of paint, grabbed the red one and made his way back outside. Keeping an eye out for the turned in the street, he sprayed large letters on the road — ‘JOE’ — and drew a large arrow pointing to the store. “There, that should do it. Now show up already.”

  Soft footsteps to his left got his attention. Two dead Latinos types were making their way toward him. He hopped back in the store and flipped the lock on the door.

  “Okaaaay. What else have I got here?” The counter! Mom and Pops were always creative with what they kept behind their counters. He rummaged around, but the only useful thing he found was a solid, thick block of wood in the shape of a ‘U’ that the owners had used to secure the door handles together. He grabbed it and slipped it behind the metal handles. “Not fancy, but effective.” For the hell of it he flipped the ‘Open’ sign in the window to ‘Closed’. “There; it’s official motherfuckers.”

  Joe headed back behind the counter and dropped to the floor, taking the second beer with him. When comfortable he popped the top and grabbed the phone that sat on one of the lower shelves and brought it to his ear, it was an old-fashioned land line and it was old-fashioned dead, he cursed and tossed it to the side. Nothing electric lived in the store. He thought of the owners. Like refugees the world over, they must have held hopes of return: To norma
lcy, to the only home and livelihood they had probably known; so when they left, they had turned off everything, fearful of the place burning down while they were gone. Fearful they’d be coming back to a burnt shell.

  A loud impact told him the two men had arrived at the door, they wanted in and kept it up, pushing and slapping at the door oblivious to or disregarding the ‘Closed’ concept for ten more minutes before they ambled off. Joe wiped his hands over his face and snorted a laugh at his situation. Eventually he got up and grabbed an ancient wheeled office chair from behind the counter, dragged it close to the entrance and fell into the chair like a dead weight , hoping he’d hear an helicopter soon. A man can dream, he thought angrily. He took a few moments to focus and calm down before he gingerly removed boot and sock from his wrecked limb.