Race the Dead (Book 1): The Last Flag

by Cavanagh, Wren

  Say hello Dr. Aluri.

  Amazing! I felt my face come alive, from intent to action. I wanted to smile, and it happened. God, it’s amazing —bit by bit, I am coming back.

  “Dr. Aluri?”

  “Dr. Aluri, can you tell our viewers how you're feeling?” Ross asked from behind his camera.

  She looked into the camera, hoping friends and loved ones were watching. She gave a quick look at her hand and saw a wedding ring. Oh well, hope he is nice, she thought.

  “Grateful,” she replied. “Very, grateful.”

  “Can you tell us what happened to you?”

  Emma put her hand on Anjali shoulder. “I'm afraid we don’t have time for that now, because we need to leave. You don’t mind, Anjali, do you?” Anjali shook her head. “We need to get you dressed. Let’s see what we can find.”

  Emma found enough. Not top of the line gear, but she was able to outfit Anjali in new clothing, socks, and shoes that would fare far better in the weather than her hospital rags. Within the hour, they left, in pursuit of the third flag.

  ----------

  Lim’s sarcasm was dry, the officer was a disappointed man. “Glad you talked some sense into them.”

  “Harrrrrgh, damn it,” Tom groaned out loud, this crap was bringing his headache back, and it brought friends with it.

  “Let’s get your executive producers on the line. Find out if they might see reason.”

  “Oh yeah...” Replied Tom and reached for his flask. “They always do that, see reason.”

  Lim leaned over and deftly grabbed the silver flask from his hand. “Let’s go with coffee and water for while, I can hear your liver begging for mercy from here. Sergeant Jensen, get me Extreme Sensory Productions on the line.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  On the room’s speaker the phone rang. And rang...and rang.

  “No one is picking up, sir.”

  “It's still early—no one is going to be there this freaking early in the morning. The producer left Cheryl Shields in charge, but try Fats direct. That’s Frank Whitford, friends call him Fats. Maybe he’ll answer you,” said Tom and rattled off Fats’ mobile and home numbers from memory.

  The Sergeant tried those numbers with as much success. “No answer.”

  “Are you going to turn off the WiFi again?”

  Lim looked at his watch, shook his head and got up. “No, no need. We intercepted your stream and are redirecting your viewers.” Tom looked at him with utter confusion. “Man-in-the-middle attack, in the interest of national security. Yeah I know. First amendment, our lawyers will talk to your lawyers for the next decade and all the way to the Supreme Court, but for now we are taking over, stay here. I want to you in reach and ready to chat. I’ll have someone bring you some breakfast.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Have someone send you breakfast? Sure I can. The spoofing? Technically, I can’t, but the Army has other people that do that part. I'm just another man in the middle myself.”

  Tom shook his head and got up. “I want to check in with my group here, see how they’re all doing. Thirty minutes and I’ll come back. I’ll check with the director and see if he’s made any other contacts.”

  “Don’t make me go looking for you.” Lim warned and left the trailer.

  ----------

  The building housing Extreme Sensory Productions had begun its transition to a gory carnival funhouse early in the day. Cheryl had unmuzzled and loosened her dead companions on each of the floors all the way up to ESP’s own floor. The Turned welcomed the workforce with a lethal and final surprise. At times, from her floor she fancied that could hear screams.

  Keep work interesting, engage your workers, be a news maker and thought leader. Well, this oughta do it, she mused. God knows, the two janitors she ran into on the second floor found the experience terminally engaging.

  She sat down on the comfortable chair in the executive room, picked up the phone and dialed the number for Fats’ wife. It was about time someone lit a fire under that fat ass, and since he wasn’t answering his own damn lines...

  ----------

  The footsteps were smooth hollows in the snow mantle, all the easier to follow for being the only ones in sight. But that didn’t last, new footprints — unbalanced, irregular, smears in the mantle at times — joined the trail.

  “Three guys...Following the kids,” Lew said between ragged breaths, the two men picked up their pace.

  By the time they ran a block, Lew couldn’t distinguish their footsteps from those of their followers but he ran on, hoping against hope for a best case scenario.

  “Those things are slow — the kids should be able to outrun them. Don’t worry.” He panted, but got no answer from Pine.

  The blood drops didn’t start until the end of the next block, and by then, even through the snow’s sound dampening effect, they heard the fighting. Lew forced himself to run faster, he turned the corner and saw the boy on top of the cab of a truck, swinging a baseball bat. A crowd of about fifteen turned surrounded him and the exhausted looking boy was losing the fight. Without stopping, Lew and Scott rushed in swinging and hitting.

  It took some time but between the three of them they were able to take out the Turned, Carson slid off the truck and landed on the ground spent, out of breath, disheveled and distraught.

  Lew put his hand over the boy’s shoulder. “Where's Tessa?”

  Carson looked at him. His mouth worked but he couldn’t get out a word. He managed a strangled, woeful sound then ran and stumbled for a nearby alley. They followed him, at the alley’s entrance he stood grief struck, his hands grasping the side of his head.

  “Told her to hide!” He wailed between gasps. “Told her to hide! I Told her!”

  Tessa laid the end of the alley, her face peaceful, haloed by her blond hair. Her eyes stared at the lead colored sky. But under her body the snow had turned as red as a bed of rose petals, and the Turned had gathered to eat as thought it was a family gathering. They swarmed over her body as ants on a sugar cube. Scott let out a strangled wail. Lew looked at him, horror and grief etched his features. Whatever his fucked-up notions of parenting and marriage were, he loved his children and wife.

  He watched as the other man slammed both his hand against him mouth to shut off his scream and closed his eyes tightly as if that would allow him to refute the images now in his head. Minutes passed.

  “This is your fault, Carson,” Scott’s voice, cold and rough as a rasp held much comfort as ice. Like ice, it cracked, and he began to cry in ragged, ugly sobs. “This is on you. You go do what needs done now.” He yanked the backpack from his son and shoved him forward.

  Lew grabbed Carson and dragged him back. “Stay there.”

  “No! This is on him!”

  “He is a kid. You brought your family here. I'm sorry for your losses and I can see you're hurting, but leave the kid alone. Please, he’s hurting as much as you.”

  He turned to check on Carson, but the boy had walked on toward his sister, until crying he fell to his knees halfway down the alley. Lew staggered over, the sickness and physical exertion were sucking the energy out of him. He took Carson’s arm and tried to pull him up, and get him back and away from the danger. Some of the dead things had noticed them and they were beginning to show a lot more interest in them.

  “She's going to return, Carson, and the other Turned will be coming for us soon enough. We have to go.” Lew whispered as he looked at the dead girl on the ground, her face was almost angelic, her hands—held out for protection—had been gnawed to the bone. Ladyfingers, he thought crazily. I am going to need therapy when this is all over.

  “Stay here, I’ll take care of this.”

  Scott ran up and swung his bat then. It was a hard blow and it hit a tired and distracted
Lew square on the back of the head; the sound of breaking bone echoed loudly in the alley and Lew crashed to the ground, his eyes rolling to white in his head. Dazed, blinded by pain he convulsed in the snow and fought to remain conscious.

  “Dad, no...NO!”

  Scott looked at his son with undisguised disgust, then turned back to Lew and raised his bat to finish what he had started. Carson charged, with a full-body tackle, he slammed into his father and drove him into the ground. There he flailed and punched at the bigger man, what he lacked in size and weight, he made up for in grief and years of pent up anger and frustration.

  As the blows fell, neither noticed the Turned from the street as they began to stream in the alley.

  Drawn by the loud screams, the noise of the fighting, and movement they wandered in. Silent, without fanfare or drama, they drew closer to their targets. Drama was for the living.

  Father and son clashed and struggled like they hated each other, and blows were soon shared unevenly between the two, the larger man getting the better of the fight.. No one noticed Tessa as she rose into her new existence. Hell, Tessa didn’t notice Tessa. Anjali could have told them that, had she been there.

  Too late, Carson saw movement from the corner of his eye: the familiar color, the known body shape, accompanied by the muffled noises of footsteps in the snow. He snapped his head to it and saw her.

  “Tessa.” He murmured from his split lips. “Dad, it’s Te…”

  It was only an instant of distraction — a fraction of a second — but it was enough for his father to smash his fist into his face with a nasty blow that dislodged several teeth and knocked him to the ground. Face down in the snow, barely conscious, he didn’t even feel his father rolling on top of him then turning him on his back. Scott sat astride him and grabbed him by front of his coat. Sick with rage, he lifted him up and slammed his head against the ground, again and again. Carson felt sharp blinding pain, saw the sky and falling snow blur and swirl around him as his eyes rolled into the back of his head. When the final cruel blow came down on his face and broke his nose, he had already passed out.

  A few feet away, in a testament to willpower, Lew had remained conscious. In agony he staggered to his feet, dizzy and nauseous. Blind in one eye, he held onto the Bo, the only thing that kept him upright. Panting he fought to get his balance and wits back, as he saw Scott slam Carson’s head into the ground and Tessa drawing closer.

  He tried to yell at him to stop and almost passed out, he fell back against the wall and could only watch as he saw the man rear back and deliver a last unforgivable blow that broke the boy’s nose.

  He took a chance and stepped forward — just two steps — but that was all he needed to be in striking distance. He lifted the sturdy oak Bo and swung it down on Scott with all the strength he had left, aiming for the head but hitting him on the side of the neck. It worked just as well and Scott went limp and plunged forward, burying Carson’s body under his own as Lew fell to his knees by the two bodies. Rolled the big man over an grabbed the flags from Carson’s coat, Scott let out choked, guttural groan. He was still alive.

  “Fuck you,” Lew sobbed. He felt like he was speaking through a mouthful of rubber and pebbles, and barely heard himself. He doubted Scott heard him at all, and he didn’t give a shit. He placed his fingers on Carson’s neck and checked for a pulse, found a weak heartbeat, he grabbed the boy by the collar and began to drag him away toward the exit.

  “Nhhuu...no...don’t leave…don’t....”

  The sound, soft and barely audible. Lew turned and looked at the man on the ground. Paralyzed then, not dead. The man’s eyes were the only things that moved, they rolled wild and fearful in their orbs.

  Lew turned away, wrote him off without remorse and trudged to the alley entrance, dragging the boy along. Behind him, Tessa had reached her father’s side. Unhurried but in earnest, not bothered by his screams and pleadings, she began to eat a man she had once loved.

  ----------

  “Not that many,” moaned Lew between ragged breaths. “Not that many.”

  He slid along the alley with his back to the wall for support and protection as he kept moving himself and Carson toward the street. He let one of the Turned come in close enough to thrust the end of the Bo into the bridge of his nose, driving bones into brains. The man crumpled but two more advanced to take his place. Desperate, Lew thrust and parried, each time it got harder to find the strength to lift his weapon.

  “Almost there...c’mon...” A swing blessed by luck and assisted by gravity thwacked the temple of another man and brought him down. Two women tripped on the fallen man and landed on Carson tearing him loose from Lew’ tenuous grip. Lew screamed in frustration and shoved back a man who had latched onto his chest, he looked down at Carson. The two women already biting into the boy, he could do no more for the kid, but he was just a few steps away from the street and forced himself to hurry his pace.

  “Gonna make it, gonna make it...Damn it. God...C’mon. Gonna make it.” He did make it, but only as far as the street and then fell to the ground.

  Oh, Emma, no. Emma, I’m sorry. He saw silhouettes in the falling snow running toward him. When a hand on his shoulder grasped him and turned him on his back, he was too drained to fight and not surprised. The surprise came when he saw who it was holding onto him. Lew tried to think of the name but came up blank. He tried to talk but no words came out of his mouth. He wanted to say. “Help me,” or “Get me out of here, I have people I love waiting for me, people who love me.” But he was too far gone.

  ----------

  Theo ran, careful to avoid the oddly-shaped mounds in his path. Some moved when he ran near them and some didn’t. If he was fast or far enough away, they usually didn’t break out of the snow’s cold carapace in order to follow after him. Others, milky silhouettes moving in the falling snow, never stood still long enough for the snow to lay full claim to them, and walked about with a dazed, meaningless countenance. Then their shapes multiplied, and angry, irregular noises disturbed the silent street. He kept running, not wanting to stop, but a man tumbled out of an alley. His blood was too vivid on the snow and on his face —far too red, too fresh to be from one of the Turned. Theo rushed to the fallen man. He had just enough space between himself and the Turned to make break for it if he needed to. He reached the man, knelt and recognized him.

  “You’re alive,” he gasped, and rolled him on his back, trying not to hurt him. “Lew.”

  Theo recoiled at the sight of Lew’s face. Oh, man so, so sorry. You ain’t gonna make it, you ain't gonna make, he thought, and he was right. Part of the of the man’s head was caved in and blood was coming out of the ears and nose. One of his eyes had rolled almost all the way back in its socket and the pupil of the other was pinprick small. Then he saw the flags, tucked into the front of Lew’ coat. On instinct he grabbed, he now had four.

  “Sorry, Lew, man. Sorry.”

  Not that it mattered. He didn't think the man knew he was there. His breathing was ragged and barely noticeable, one of his hands was reaching for something and Theo took it and held it.

  “Emma.” It was barely whisper but Theo heard it and understood.

  “You're going to be okay. Emma is coming okay? Rescue is here and everything will be okay.” Theo lied and made it believable, Lew relaxed, stopped struggling and closed his eyes. “You're going to be fine, rescue is here Lew.”

  Theo was pretty sure Lew was past seeing or hearing much, but what if…what if he was wrong, they’d eat him alive. The Turned were coming their way, and were almost in reach. Theo let go of his hand and got to his feet, he raised his ax high and swung it down with a guttural moan. It was the only thing he could do to spare the man more pain. Shaking he walked away, a quick look in the alley told him there was nothing to be done there either, and he started to run, kept running until fast, colorful movement ah
ead in the swirling snow caught his eye.

  “Another one of ours. What the hell?”