Race the Dead (Book 1): The Last Flag

by Cavanagh, Wren

  Surprised, but not wanting to be alone, he upped his pace as he ran toward the figure.

  “Kate!” Yes, Kate, who was now backing away in fear.

  “Stay away from me!” She screamed, tears etched the snowflakes that stuck to her skin.

  Fuck, he thought with a sigh, dropped his ax and put up his hands to signal no bad intent. “He wasn’t gonna to make it! Okay? He was hurt real bad, he was dying. Nothing I could do. I didn’t want him to get eaten alive.”

  “Lew...” She yelled in the cold air. “He looked dead to you to? He was moving!”

  “He wasn’t going to make it, his skull was caved in okay? Dragging around someone that is already dying would only get me killed.” He gestured, pointing out to the absence of people around her. “Your friends didn’t make it either, did they?”

  Overwhelmed, Kate slumped to the snow and wept.

  “No. No, no, no!” Theo grabbed her arms, lifted her back up, and got her moving. “If you want to stay alive, we don’t have time for this shit. And if you want any part of the prizes, you’ll help me out, and better hope I need you.”

  “The prizes?”

  She really looked at him then, and saw the camera slung over his shoulder. “You brought the camera?”

  He took the camera in his hands, nodded, and pointed it at her. “You're live, look pretty.”

  She looked at him, appalled.

  “That’s not pretty, that’s more like...” He shrugged and put the camera away. “Ghastly.” Theo picked up the ax and started to jog again, pushing Kate along. “It’s on fucking mute, with occasional selective viewing, but, yeah — I got four flags now. I'm going for the last flag and I'm out of here.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Tallest building in this dead ass town...” He gestured with his chin toward the horizon and pointed the camera at it, held the shot as he ran, then stopped and turned the camera toward himself. “Prideful Community Hospital — you all watching, if you are still watching. I am making it there, I am winning this race.” He pointed the camera at Kate. “Kate, say hi. You all — I got Kate with me.”

  Kate didn’t say hi. She looked hollow-eyed and broken as she stared into the camera, until Theo rolled his eyes like a frustrated director, powered off the camera and slung it over his shoulder again.

  “Let’s go; you should try to be more, like, camera friendly you know.” He pushed her on. “Do you like younger guys? ‘Cause I'm going to be rich soon.”

  Together, they headed at a steady jog for the tallest building in town. It was almost 11 in the morning.

  Welcoming the workforce

  They had arrived like ants returning to a colony and automatically dispersed to their appropriate chambers. And there, right at the elevator entrances, they found Cheryl’s welcome parties. She had left none in the lobby of course, or the garage. That would spoil the surprise.

  People came in, expecting another day of work, no different from the one before. And in short order the Turned greeted the new arrivals, took them out of the workforce forever and added them to their ranks. None got a chance to raise the alarm. Leopold Ogwaro, a small and gentle immigrant from Sudan who was doorman and security in one for the entire building, sat at his desk in the lobby. He welcomed the people coming in with his lyrical accent and warm courtesy and did Sudoku challenges in the quiet moments, entirely unaware of the bloodbath in the upper floors.

  ----------

  The fat man’s hand shook as he took the phone from his wife. The smears of blood on his hand were small but undeniable. He didn’t recognize the reedy voice on the other end, and shell shocked, he tried to figure out who’d be calling him.

  “It’s me Fats,’ve we got problems at the studio. The metrics — they’re fucked up, and the show has been hijacked.”

  “Who…who is this?!”

  “Cheryl, Fats. It’s me, Cheryl. I really need you to come over…we…need you here.”

  “Fuck the show,” he replied, fumbled and almost dropped the phone as he fell into the living room sofa.

  “Fats, people are getting hurt. Lots of the contestants have died, you need to come. You need to help, please…Fats?”

  Fats slumped in a chair, drained, and dropped a bloody, steel statuette onto the expensive, lush carpet in the living room.

  “Frank?!” The voice was angry and incredulous now. “Can you hear me? Frank?”

  He picked up the phone, “Wait for me,” he exhaled into the phone, and hung up.

  “You can’t leave us, where are you going?”

  “We are safe for now, and the nurse is with Nate, I’ll be right back.”

  ----------

  Ignoring the howls of fury, the screeching, the memes, and the venomous comments from a rabid viewership, the show didn’t stream as scheduled and promised. The man-in-the-middle attack had done its work. Anyone trying to view the live feed of the show would be redirected to an official government site with prepared statements and links to resources. For Extreme Sensory Production, all metrics were dropping to zero as viewers were going everywhere else they could think of to get a glimpse of what was happening.

  Cheryl sat in the executive meeting room — the ‘war room’ for The Last Flag — and watched the numbers plunge. She felt a twinge of sadness. After all, she had worked hard to help the show see light; the meetings, the marketing and financial reviews. This job had been her life, but it no longer mattered. Now it was just a way for her to get even, and to ensure her last act from this world would be as memorable as her existence hadn’t been. Showing them and getting even: it was all she had left now.

  Screams echoed through the hallway as her co-workes were welcomed by her small but growing army. Early on she had waited at the elevator and shot some as they came through the doors, only to realize she didn’t have as many bullets as she’d like, and she wasn’t as good a shot as she thought. In the end they all fell to her dead crew, her private workforce. Petty and mean, she had enjoyed watching the victims become brunch.

  Oh...How sorry some of them were. How those pleaded and screamed. How others cursed and fought. But she was getting her due. Fats had finally picked up a damn call, sounding a bit nasal, like he’d been crying and quite lost. He promised her that he’d arrive forthwith. Well, not quite, she had to admit. He had said ‘Wait for me.’ Close enough, Cheryl thought, for what she wanted. She had almost called back; to find out just when he’d be waddling in, but the longer any conversation went, the more likely he’d grow suspicious.

  But he had to hurry. Oh God, please God let him hurry and get here on time. She got up on unstable legs. Her vision was dimmed to the point that everything looked like an old black and white movie viewed trough a narrowing hole. A moment of utter grief and desperation hit her as she realized with painful clarity that her lifespan was now measured in minutes.

  I don’t want to die! Oh Not fair! Terrified she screamed it in her head, while putting a foot in front of the other, moving on entirely on fumes and willpower, she tottered to the elevator in the hallway to wait. She knew not how long but finally the floor notification pinged and the elevator signal lit green. She let out a reedy whimper of anticipation as the shiny chrome doors split open.

  “Come out, Fats.” She sighed with relief, and continued in a sibilant weak voice. “It’s me.”

  The expression of the disheveled fat man in the elevator went from shock to amazement and then curious disgust. He looked at her like she was a carnival act and Cheryl began to panic, this not going to go according to plan.

  “Out, or I’ll shoot!” She croaked with urgency. “Out, now! Hurry!”

  He stepped out, looking around the hallway. The dead, the wounded, and the Turned occupied the hall on either side of him. If the Turned had been closer and hadn’t been eating, he’d have had a far mor
e serious problem.

  “Hell of a mess you made here, Cheryl.” He looked at her coldly. “Hell of a mess.”

  “Not sticking around to clean it up.” Clicking sounds came from her mouth. Laughter, they both guessed. Her angry sneer on her near-dead face was a grotesque animation. “You should be begging me not to shoot you.”

  “A workplace shooter,” he sneered, and hedged just a bit closer. “You pathetic, cheap cliché.”

  This is not how it should go! Cheryl thought. Not at all! And I don’t have any more time! The gun shook in her hand as her sight gave out. She could see nothing, even though her pupils had expanded in the well lit corridor, her body, that fallible fleshy prison, was shutting down. With the last dregs of oxygen in her lungs, she laid claim for that one little bit of revenge she knew had succeeded completely. “I bit your boy.” She croaked and pulled the trigger.

  Fats let out a startled yell of pain and surprise as the bullet hit him in the guts. He tottered back and almost lost his balance. Then just stood there; confused, his body tingled with fear and he felt pain. When he looked down at his belly he saw the round neat smoking hole in his shirt, watched as the blood began to tint the fabric. But still he stood, he know he wasn’t hurt bad. It stung a hell of a lot but the fat had stopped the bullet. In front of him Cheryl dropped the gun, it fell from her hand and she sank to her knees. Full of grief and mute with fury, Fats kicked her square in the chest and sent her sprawling backward. He picked up the gun, pointed it at her head, and pulled the trigger.

  “No second acts for you.”

  He got back into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. There he had Leopold raise the alarm, but didn’t stick around. His family needed him.

  It’s locked tight, damn it.

  Humboldt Street. Emma looked at their destination, double checked the address on the map, then looked at the key in her hand with serious doubts. They had made crap time, on some stretches she had tried to carry Anjali, but it hadn't helped. Now, finally at the target destination, she was getting a bad feeling. She rushed to bank’s entrance and pushed the key into the lock. It didn’t fit. She tried to force it in. Willed it to fit. Cursed it to fit.

  “What the hell?” Emma slammed her hand on the door out of frustration. “A key that doesn't’ work?! On a bank?! A bank...really??? Assholes. Assholes! DOUCHEBAGS!!!!”

  Anjali and Ross nervously checked their surroundings as Emma continued to curse. Shapes that had been still on their arrival had begun to move.

  “Emma...Shut up, please?” Ross whispered.

  “Douche bags,” she growled through clenched teeth. “A bank, locked tight. Unbreakable windows, reinforced doors, and a fucking key that doesn’t work. The roof — can I climb on the roof?”

  “Well, I guess...”

  “That was a rhetorical question…of course I can climb on the damn roof.”

  “All right, then...” Ross replied under his breath and stepped back a bit. Muffled sounds in the background became louder and he turned around, they had company. He zoomed in his camera on the gathering spectators. “I think we better hurry.”

  “I. Can draw them. Away,” offered Anjali. “They don’t. Bite me. I think. Meet you at. Hospital.”

  “You think? So…they tried?” Asked Emma, “You seem to be getting better. There's definitely an increased blood flow. I can see it in your face, your fingers. What if they decide you're alive enough to eat?”

  Anjali nodded, continued. “Don’t know. But sure, still…Okay. Now.”

  Emma gave her a quick glance, then nodded. “Hold on.” She sprinted across the street to a gas station. She side-stepped two of turned and shoved a third with unambiguous wounds into a snow bank along the way. In the open garage she rummaged for heavy tools, grabbed a ladder, and found a small air horn. She raced back to her group, passing the horn to Anjali. “Here, go.”

  “Later. Alligator.”

  The comeback brought brief surprised laughter from Emma. “Oh God, I needed that, after a while, crocodile. Meet us at the hospital.”

  Anjali walked to the middle of the street raised her arm defiantly, blasted the horn, and began to walk away. “Still faster, than you,” she said and let out two more loud horn blasts. The turned honed in on her and began to follow. She began her journey, leaving an auditory trail in her wake.

  Ross filmed the procession for a few minutes, then focused his camera on Emma, zooming in for a close up. She briefly glanced into the camera but her attention was on staying alive and getting done with the race.

  “I am gonna do whatever I gotta do,” she said over her shoulder, and leaned the ladder against the wall. “And you might want to come with…a few ain’t following.”

  Ross looked behind him and saw a few graceless, snow-covered figures that had fallen out of the procession — or had never joined it to begin with — head toward them. He didn’t need to be told twice. “Hurry up, I'm right behind you.”

  On the roof, Emma lifted the ladder behind them. “They might just have enough brain cells for a simple ladder. I doubt it, but they can certainly knock it down and leave us stuck in here.”

  “Would that be so bad?”

  “You can stay if you want to. I'm taking your camera and heading on in that case .”

  “It was a rhetorical question…mostly”

  “Yeah. A sarcastic rhetorical question,” she replied, and ran to the roof door, attacking it with a heavy crowbar and energy fueled from anger and frustration. It took about five minutes but the door gave way in the end. As they ran into the main floor, the alarm went off.

  “Shit, what the hell?” Ross cursed. “There's no power!”

  The building was empty, cold, and silent. Its only illumination was the weak natural light coming through the windows.

  “Back up, I’d guess, I think a bank especially would have a separate back up for the alarms in case of a break in. And I wouldn’t put it past your producers to have found it and put in some nice, fresh new batteries for it. Even the dead outside can hear that thing just fine,” Emma replied. “This cold is sucking the energy out of me and we're going to be surrounded soon, and your teeth are chattering like castanets.”

  “Can hear yours too.”

  Fast and frantic she walked through the atrium, looking for the flag, jumped and ran behind the cahsiers’ bank and the service desks. After a while she slumped in one of the cushy customer chairs and covered her ears with her hands to get some respite from the cacophony. Her eyes searched walls, cubicles, anything in sight.

  “WHERE THE HELL IS THE FLAG?” She screamed.

  Outside the door, a group of five dead things had congregated and more were walking in front of the windows. Looking in every so often, making her feel like an unlikely goldfish in an unlikely fishbowl, more kept coming. They had to get out.

  “You’d think the snow would freeze them, or slow them down. It doesn’t even faze them. Just makes them look like raggedy ass homeless snowmen.”

  “Maybe not cold enough...Sorry.” Ross said. “Rhetorical question again?”

  “Wasn’t even a question.” She waved off the topic with a feeble sweeping gesture. “But yeah, maybe it’s just not cold enough to make a difference. Death doesn’t stop them, why should snow?”

  She got and sprinted through the bank with the hammer at the ready, opening every drawer she could. Emma looked behind desks, behind cubicle partitions. They found the note on a tabloid-size print out in the employee room, with the TLF logo, pinned to an otherwise empty cork message board. The backpack rested on the break room table. With an expression of disgust mingled with disbelief Emma read the note out loud.

  “New mission go to 1902 Camino Drive for double the flags. No flag here.” She tore the message to small confetti and tossed it over her shoulder. “This is a joke. No. We are
joke.”