Race the Dead (Book 1): The Last Flag

by Cavanagh, Wren

  Theo crouched next to Emma, took her free hand, and dropped a small pill into her palm. As an ER nurse, she quickly identified the offering: OxyContin, 80mg.

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “Personal stash,” he replied softly. “You never know what’s gonna come in handy, right?”

  “Thanks, this will help.”

  Theo nodded, got up, and went to check the view from the roof. Emma broke the pill in two halves and pushed it between Ross’ teeth.

  “Chew this. It will help with the pain,” she said. She lifted his head and poured a swallow of water into his mouth.

  “I'm coming right back.” She got up and jogged as close to the edge of the roof as was safe, then began to run its perimeter until she caught up to Theo. He had been at the far opposite corner of the building and looked overwhelmed as he stared down and shook his head trying to deny what he saw below. She followed his gaze and realized he had a damn good reason for that.

  “Awww; damn it.”

  Theo nodded unhappily, “The fun just never ends.”

  The burning helicopter, the noise, and the commotion from them and from the camp, acted as lively beacons and brought the mordant crowd like sharks to a shipwreck. The Turned surrounded the building. Worse yet, they were climbing the debris pile that the group had used earlier to gain entry to the roof. Some kept their balance, most fell, and the bodies of the fallen were trampled over and formed a growing ramp that brought the rest of them closer and closer to the top.

  “Hey! Hey over here!” Emma screamed and weaved her arms at the two soldiers.

  They ran to her. Miller, who looked career Army through and through, took a good look over the edge and cursed under his breath. The younger man turned paler yet, something Emma wouldn’t have thought possible, short of being dead.

  “Okay, weak point. We got it,” Miller waved them off. “Check the rest of the perimeter. Yell if you see another spot like this one.” He turned to the younger man at his side, who was putting up a brave front but looked like he was trying hard to keep from screaming. “Make every shot count.”

  Emma and Theo made a quick business of the request and in a few of minutes were back to the soldiers. Emma shook her head. “No, this is it,” she said and returned to check on Ross. Theo stuck around, and tapped Miller on the shoulder.

  “Give me a gun, man! Please.” He held out his hand, “C’mon. I got nothing, I dropped my ax when I climbed on the roof.”

  Miller looked him over, then handed him his sidearm and an extra clip. “Stay with your friends. Keep them safe.”

  “Sarge, they are here.”

  Both soldiers raised their weapons to their shoulders and began to shoot: one gunshot, then another, spaced apart, careful. They kept going at a deliberate pace. Emma imagined they had plenty of targets, too many targets, and not as many bullets. She saw colorless hands reach over the edge, with fingers like white claws, grasping the concrete border and holding on tight until boots or bullets dislodged them. Matter of time, we won’t be able to wait for the helicopter, she thought, and grasped Theo’s arm.

  “Theo, do you have any more of those meds?”

  He nodded and pulled an Altoids tin out of his pocket, lifted the colorful metal lid, and spilled an assortment of capsules and tablets into the palm of his hand. Emma took two more Oxycontin pills, broke them in pieces, and pushed them in Ross’ mouth then grabbed his jaw and helped him chew them. She saw no other good options, and this was the most merciful one at hand. Behind her she heard a scream and then rushed footsteps.

  ”They're here. We can’t wait for the copter…we gotta go,” Theo shouted over her shoulder. “C’mon!”

  She looked at Ross; he was already slipping away and his breathing was almost undetectable. With that much Oxy in his system, he was feeling no pain and should soon be dead. She nodded to Theo but behind her, she heard the boy run off. Good luck, she thought, shaken and defeated. Guess we are all on our own.

  “You’ll be okay Ross — won’t feel a thing. Go on, drink this.”

  She trickled more water in his mouth, his shallow breathing stopped. She stared at the dead eyes and hoped she would be gone before he Turned. Who knows, not all of them did. Emma rested his head on the ground and got up, looked for a way out. Jonas was gone from the roof, she guessed he had been the screamer. Miller kept shooting.

  Nowhere to run, I’ve got nowhere left to go, she mused and was jolted with fear when a hand gripped her arm, it shot a spike of adrenaline and the will to fight surged into her. With a reservoir of panic and strength she didn’t know she had left, she spun around, fighting to yank her arm free and run, but Theo held on to her.

  “C’mon!” He yelled, and pulled her to the front of the building, to the roof atop the garages “We gotta try up front! They're climbing the side where the shooting got their attention.”

  But the gunshots had stopped, and she turned to see the sergeant run toward them like hell was on his heels. All she could hear now were the muffled sounds of the bodies writhing and climbing over each other as the turned reached the roof’s surface, and what had been pallid claws grasping for the ledge was now an army of the dead that swelled and then spilled onto the rooftop like a grotesque tide.

  Only one place was left to go: over the ledge, thirty feet down, a desperate and perhaps crippling jump but for the large vertical neon KAZMARECK sign that glowed red and blue against the dark sky.

  “The sign — jump for the sign. And climb down, it’ll get you closer.”

  “You first, you're lighter.”

  Theo got a running start and jumped for the large K, latched onto it ferociously then descended the letters one at time, slipping and struggling to keep a hold of the icy surfaces, until he jumped the last ten feet to the ground, unhurt.

  Emma leaped for it then, grasped the first letter and felt the whole structure move, the frame shifted but the anchoring lines and bolts didn’t give, she made it most of the way down before loosing her grip on the large R and hitting the ground on her side, the breath knocked out of her. Theo rushed to pulls her up and away, one of her wrists stuck out at an ugly angle.

  But the sign is free of her weight and Miller takes his turn and leaps, and they all hear the lines snap and the anchoring frames pop loose from the building as the sign breaks free and jackknifes downward. Miller rides it almost to the ground but let’s go before the hard crash. He tucks, rolls, and staggers unhurt to his feet. Together they sprint for salvation, weaving and dodging the dead bodies trying to hold onto them, running until they are almost at the fence.

  But the crowds there aren’t thin though, both the living and the dead held court at the fence. At the outer fence Emma recognizes Tom on the hood of a Jeep, waving at them. Uniformed troops stood in front of Army vehicles, holding bolt and wire cutters. When the trio is a few feet from the fence, they started cutting into it. The throngs of the turned like iron fillings to magnets closes in.

  “Christ,” says Tom looking at the gathering horde. “Like Trump voters and alt-right believers, but with a little more charm and humanity.”

  He looks on as the soldiers breach the first barrier around the town and set up a line of defense while leaving the inner barrier intact. Some scaled to the top where they neutralized the barbed wire with thick blankets. They were ready to pull the survivors to safety while a larger group below was trying to lay ground fire and creating a tunnel for the survivors to run through.

  Racing to live, Emma could see the breach in the fence; her mind has become a dark, narrow tunnel whose light at the end is the white of their rescuers’ eyes. But as she runs, arms swinging and knees pumping, a sharp scream in a familiar voice breaks through her laser-like focus. She looks back and sees Theo on the ground screaming, thrashing as he struggles to get back up. A wreck of a woman, with yellow, dull eyes, a seps
is-burst belly, and covered in months of dirt congealed in ice, was holding onto his legs. Her filthy talons dug into him as she drew him closer, and the turned nearer to her came to join in on her prize.

  From the ground, Theo aimed the handgun and shot her point-blank in the head. It stopped her, but it doesn’t stop the others from falling on top of her and on top of him. He shot until he was out of bullets. Not enough bullets and too many bodies. He screamed with rage and frustration as he came face to face with an eyeless man, whose empty, ruined sockets didn’t stop him from snapping his jaws, biting at air as he pushed through the other dead bodies, his weight overpowering Theo’s exhausted body.

  A hard kick collapsed the side of man’s head, and Theo felt hands grabbing him and pulling him up. Emma was there, and Miller; they were dragging him away. Miller planted bullets in the turned who reached for them as he dragged Theo along. From the fence, more bullets flew and the tracers drew lively ribbons in the sky. They were so close, so close.

  Then Emma fell, her body tripped him down with her and Miller screamed. On her knees, she crawled away trying to get her bearings. A hand from a severed arm was tight on her throat and she could hardly breathe. She clawed it off as the dead advanced on them. A few feet away, behind the second fence, she saw the rescuers, but they were not coming in. Why won’t they save them? Why? She got up one last time, only to fall again. All for nothing, she thought, all for — a thundering roar accompanied by crushing and breaking cuts her off.

  A relic — a monster of a truck — from another era plowed into the body of the dead and broke them under its wheels. It was a beast of a machine: solid, made of old-fashioned, if rusted American steel, with the name “Kazmarek” on its doors.

  “Get in!” Anjali screamed from the driver’s window.

  She was barely audible over the din, but to the trio she is a God send. Miller yanked open the passenger door and tossed Theo in. Next, he got a hold of Emma and shoved her to safety. As he jumped into the truck, he felt the sharp pain of a bite on his ankle. You fuck! He screamed in his head then points his rifle and does away with the biter. Sickened, he looked at his leg; the fabric on the boot had held and he went limp with relief.

  “Thought you were dead!” Emma shouted at Anjali.

  “No. Left behind.” She paused and caught her breath. “Again!”

  “Ma'am.” The soldier leaned toward her. “We thought you were dead. I don’t think I have ever been so happy to see someone alive!”

  Anjali smiled, but her gaze was focused on the fence, she puts the pedal to the metal and races the truck toward it, mowing down the bodies in front of her then she slams her foot on the brakes a short foot in front of the inner fence.

  They rush out of the vehicle, clamber onto the hood of the truck, the roof of the cab, and hurl themselves at the fence. With numb fingers grasping and clawing their way to salvation. The soldiers at the top reached down and spur them on, and when they are in reach, they grab on and deliver them to safety.

  On the other side, more hands hold on to them and drag them out through the outer fence. They are amongst their own and yet more soldiers waited for them there. Those men and women wore chain-mail on their arms that went up to their shoulders, face shields that covered them down to their chests; they rush the four survivors into an ambulance.

  “Everyone get out! Get out!” Shouted an officer, and the NCOs relayed the order to their soldiers, “FALL BACK!”

  It was the one overriding order of the moment. Men and women rushed away from the barriers, while a few select soldiers frantically secured the outer breach with metal wire then ran. The numbers of the turned were swelling and the inner fence began to fail under the weight and drive of the dead. Wired shut or not, the outer barrier was next. The living backed away, there was no longer any shooting, but noise was ever-present as thundering airships arrived overhead. A rain of fire fell on the dead crowd. The orange flames flickered and danced, as bones and flesh crackled and popped. The smell was abominable.

  ----------

  “Operational area engaged,” Lim confirmed, from his command post. Then somewhat less formally, “Get everyone ready to repair the damn fence once the barbecue is over with.”

  From the isolation of the camp hospital, Joe heard the roar of the engines and the chaos and it brought back memories. The place had all the upheaval and confusion of the warzones he’d once been in, and everyone in the hospital was watching the show. Tracers and fire bombs were better than fireworks on the fourth of July, he thought, and decided that it was time to leave. They could always come get me if they really want me, and once they see I'm okay they won’t even bother taking me back. Joe grabbed a crutch and limped to Ty’s side where he was relieved to see that there was no life left in the man, but plenty of movement.

  “It’s all over but the biting, right buddy?” He asked under his breath and wrapped his belt around Ty’s neck. He grasped the length tightly behind the dead boy’s neck, much like wen in a rodeo latched onto the bull rope, and used it for control while he untied the dead man’s restraints.

  “Let’s go boy, you’re gonna help me get out of here.”

  Joe shoved him off of this cot and kept him at arm's length, while he pushed Ty ahead of himself. With the neck hold, he kept Ty off balance and walking ahead, he watched the guards and hospital personnel, captivated by action outside the tent. With his escort, he walked past the second level, and once in the outer ring of the hospital camp, he shoved Ty away and hurried in the opposite direction. It put the guards at the door nicely in the middle. Timing is everything, he thought, and started screaming.

  “OH, GOD! Hey, he got loose! He got loose! Jesus Christ, he got loose! He’s right behind you!”

  One of the guards screamed, a high-pitched, surprised scream, and as they turned to look for the dead man, their backs were to Joe. Triggers were pulled and they made short order of Tyshon, but in the time it took them to feel secure again, Joe had left. He escaped as quickly as he could limp and hop. The echoes of the gunshots still vibrated in his ears as he oriented himself, it didn't take him long to get to his truck. The guards could have followed him, but they either didn’t care, didn’t realize who he was, or the safety of the hospital was their primary mission. He got into his truck, grabbed the spare keys he hid under the seat, started the freezer-cold vehicle and left in a hurry. It was a long-ass drive to get home, but he was ready for it — more than ready — as he bolted from the pandemonium that the camp’s had become.

  Epilogue

  The small rocky island on the Salish Sea is like a bit of heaven’s own real estate, densely forested and surround by the might of the ocean. They arrived here almost half a year after the show’s end. It had been a hectic period, as they were approached for interviews, books deals, and talks about their experiences. Their story was optioned for a movie that they had no wish to see.

  Theo loved the smell of the fresh sea air as he headed for the small harbor. He finally has a home, with something like safety and something like a family while he looks to put together the one he lost, his sister is still out there, now he has the resources to find her. Then he’ll feel whole.

  He and Emma have pooled their money and bought the tiny island. She brought what family she had that wanted to come, and they accepted him as one of their own. He doesn’t feel so lonely anymore, a nice girl he met online is coming over, and he feels pretty optimistic all things considered, as he skips stones on the water while waiting for the ferry to deliver his visitor.

  A bit inland, Emma sits at the spacious kitchen table, and the coffee in cup in her hand is hot, the smell coming from it rich and almost intoxicating. She had watched Theo walk off down the beach and hoped the new arrival wouldn’t be a heart-breaker. For lunch she's preparing three nice ling cods, which are now roasting in the oven. Olive oil had been generously brushed on the fillets, then salt
, sage and rosemary. At lunch they would sit as a family, the memory of Lew still brought pain but she knew eventually it would fade. She liked this for now but knew that eventually she’d have to return. People needed help and helping, being there had been a vast part of her life, she’d give this place a few more months, then decide.

  After a period of quarantine, Anjali Aluri returned to her husband, children and family, cats and career. They were all a bit nervous at first, but as months passed so did their apprehension. With her help a very rudimentary vaccine was created. It’s failure rate was high, but it was a start toward something better, she held the belief that emotional and spiritual factors contributed to a person’s recovery.