by David Rogers
Marching through the Apocalypse
By David Rogers
Marching through the Apocalypse
Copyright © 2013 by David Rogers
[email protected]
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased or lent for your use, then please return to your preferred ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of original fiction set in Georgia. Some real locations and businesses have been used to set scenes, but all such trademarks are the respective property of their owners. All depicted characters are fictional and not intended to represent specific living persons.
Table of Contents
Chapter One – You will never find a more wretched hive . . .
Chapter Two –I’ve got a bad feeling about this
Chapter Three – Someone has to save our skins!
Foreword
Zombies
Chapter One – You will never find a more wretched hive . . .
“This weekend is going to be awesome!” a male voice said from somewhere behind him.
Jack grunted as he heaved another plastic tote box out of the back of the van. “Yeah, great Simon. You wanna help me get this crap unloaded? It’d be nice if we can get the van into the parking deck before it fills up.”
“Fine.”
Simon reached past the much taller Jack and grabbed the end of another tote.
“Careful, they’re not all taped shut.”
“Well why not?” Simon asked as he pulled the tote out and deftly swung it onto the luggage cart without dropping it or spilling the contents.
“Because I let Sherry help with the packing.”
“I heard that.”
Jack straightened and gave his wife a tired look. “I love you sweetie, more than life itself, more than Lucas and lightsabers, but you can’t pack worth a damn.”
“Maybe I won’t help then?”
“Don’t be like that.” Simon said as he lifted another tote box out and added it to the growing stack on the cart. “You can punish Jack all you want, but don’t hurt me too.”
“Sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly . . .” Sherry began in a cheerfully ominous voice.
“. . . you have to tell that person terrible lies.” Jack and Simon finished in unison, completing the Penny Arcade quote Sherry had been fond of for several years now.
“Right. So ask me no questions, and I’ll poke out no eyes.”
Simon groaned. “Is she going to be like this all weekend?”
Jack glanced across the steadily mounting chaos in the Marriott Marquis’ covered, circular front drive. The building’s second floor loomed above them, held up by pillars of concrete. Peachtree Center Avenue was a good half minute’s walk away from the front doors of the hotel on his right, that’s how big the roundabout drive was. Even though it was only a little after nine in the morning, there were easily at least a hundred people in view, with more moving about inside the double doors of the hotel.
The enormous fountain pool in the middle of the space made the area loud, but idling engines, shouting bellhops and fans, and the occasional whistle of the Atlanta Police officer standing in the middle of the street managing the pedestrian jaywalk crossing all added to the aural assault. And all this just after 9 on Friday morning.
Just as he turned back to the unloading of the van, he spotted a teenager dressed as Cloud Strife crossing from the Hyatt over to the Marriott side of the street as the cop tweeted his whistle and motioned the crowds on both sidewalks to come ahead. Jack wasn’t a big Final Fantasy fan, but even he knew Cloud Strife. If the distinctively spiked and overhanging hair didn’t give the costume away, the eight foot styrofoam sword the kid had slung over his shoulder like a bazooka sure as hell would.
“Damn, people get into costume earlier every year. This keeps up, we’re gonna have to build ourselves a real spaceship to come in instead of the van.” Sherry said. Jack glanced at her to see she had followed his look and was studying the kid’s Cloud costume.
“See, that’s what I’m saying.” Simon insisted. “It’s gonna be awesome.”
“It’ll be less awesome if we don’t get the van put into the parking deck where it can’t be stolen.”
“Downtown is safe these days.”
“Safe, not safe, I don’t care. It’s my van and I want it in the deck with cameras and rent-a-cops keeping an eye on it on their monitors. I don’t want to have to fool around with police reports or renting a truck or arguing with some asshole tow company about whether or not I paid the parking fee come Monday.”
“Okay, but when we get up to the room you need to have a couple of drinks so you’ll loosen up.”
“It’s not even ten am.” Sherry observed as she took another tote from Jack when he slid it out from the back of the vehicle.
“So?” Simon shrugged. “It’s DragonCon! Who cares? We’re here until Monday. In fact, I may start drinking myself.”
“Dude, no one likes a drunk trooper.” Jack said.
“Are you kidding? Last year Dante DJ’d a dance party right over there for three hours on Sunday night.” Simon grinned, pointing at a section of sidewalk just underneath the hotel’s overhang, but still near enough to the street to qualify as sidewalk. “And he was drunk as hell.”
“That’s Dante. He’s got style.”
“I’ve got style.”
“You’re gonna have my foot up your ass if you get moving.” Jack muttered, looking at the guy who seemed to be in charge of the Marriott bellmen. He was making no secret of how he was trying to hurry the guest vehicles in and out of the roundabout as quickly as possible.
Jack didn’t blame him. The official stats for the attendance this weekend were forty thousand, but the real numbers were likely to be more like sixty or sixty-five. As far as Jack knew, every hotel room within a ten block radius of the Hyatt and Marriott was sold out, had been since they opened up for reservations by each facility.
Simon didn’t cease his running commentary of how awesome and fun the weekend was going to be, but two minutes later all the totes had been transferred from the back of the van to the cart.
A bellman came over when Jack raised his hand, the five dollar bill clearly displayed.
“Yes sir, want me to move this over to holding while you get checked in?”
“Already did.” Jack said, handing over the five and a post-it note Sherry had jotted the room number down on. “514. Can you get this upstairs if my wife goes with you?”
“Certainly.”
“Thanks.” Jack said, closing the van’s back doors and reaching in his pocket for the keys.
“What about me?” Simon asked.
“Well if you’re going to drink, all the booze is on the cart, so come on.” Sherry observed.
“I’ll be up when I’ve got this parked.” Jack promised. Sherry nodded, the smiled at the bellman. As the cart was rolled into the hotel, Jack hopped back into the van. It took him twenty minutes to get the parking sorted out and registered to his room, then he took one of the elevators up into the hotel..
“That might be about the last time this weekend I’ll be able to use the damn thing.” Jack muttered as the doors opened with a ding on the fifth floor. He had told the reservations operator he didn’t care which room they gave him back in ’94. They’d ended up on the twenty-seventh floor, spending half an hour each time they wanted to go up or down, waiting five minutes between elevators, that were usually beyond full, would finally show up. Now he always took a
room on a floor low enough to walk from the lobby.
When the door opened to his keycard, he heard voices he didn’t recognize, and frowned mentally. The convention was officially open, but it was kind of early for a room gathering. But when he got out of the entry and into the room proper, he saw the television had been tuned to the convention’s closed circuit channel.
A trio of people were sitting behind a table in a room he easily recognized as the Hyatt’s Centennial Ballroom. They were reading out off changes to the schedule and guest bookings for the weekend, which he ignored. He had the convention’s mobile app downloaded to his phone. Any change the convention staff was discussing on the tv feed would already be punched into the app’s updates.
“Where’s Sherry?” Jack asked Simon, who was sitting on the edge of the bed with a open bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a metal flask in his hands.
“Bathroom.” Simon said without looking up as he carefully poured whiskey into the flask.
“Are you seriously going to start drinking now?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Dude, it’s Labor Day and we’re in freaking Georgia. You’re going to dehydrate if you drink all day.”
“This ain’t my first DragonCon you know.” Simon said as he finished filling the flask. “In fact, if memory serves, I’ve been here longer than you.”
“Never gonna let that go, are you?”
“You’re the one that said it sounded like a little local con that wouldn’t be around the next year.”
Jack frowned and opened his mouth to respond, but he heard the bathroom door open behind him and turned. Whatever he was going to say to Simon died in his throat as he caught sight of Sherry posing seductively in the doorway.
His wife smiled as he let his eyes drift across her body, which was quite on display in the Slave Leia costume. The metal bikini did wonderful things for her chest, and the drape hanging from the bottom bared her tanned legs from ankle to hip in a way that he never got tired of looking at.
“I love you.” he said when he managed to get his gaze back up to her face.
“I know.” she said with an impish smile.
“Nooooo, please don’t tell me you guys are going to quote the movies all weekend.” Simon said with a groan.
“No time to discuss this in a committee.” Jack and Sherry said in unison, both looking at Simon.
“I’m getting my own room next year.” Simon said darkly as he took a long swig from the fifth of Jack before putting it down and screwing the cap back onto the metal flask.
Chapter Two –I’ve got a bad feeling about this
“Ooooh, um, excuse me? Excuse me . . . can I get a picture of you two?”
Jack turned and centered his helmet on the woman with the camera who had tapped him on the shoulder. Actually, to be fair, she’d knocked rather briskly on his shoulder; the ABS plastic was rigid and hard. There was no chance he could feel her just tapping him. Which she’d seemed to know.
“Sure.” he said, his voice coming out flat and ‘radio-ified’ via the mini-loudspeaker he had in the helmet. “Princess, we have a fan.”
Sherry looked up from her phone and saw the newcomer waiting there with camera poised eagerly. As Jack hefted the ‘blaster rifle’ into a cross chest grip that made it look like he was ready for battle, Sherry arranged herself next to him and leaned in close, hiding the phone behind her so it wouldn’t be in the picture. The woman with the camera raised it and fiddled with a setting while the stormtrooper and ‘slave’ waited, holding their positions.
“There, got it. You two are great. That’s one of the best Slave Leias I’ve seen in years.” the woman said.
“Thanks.” Sherry said with a brilliant smile. Jack canted his helmet down to look at his wife, then up at the woman and smiled behind the plastic obscuring his face.
“Okay, move along now, move along!” he said cheerily, making a motion with one hand like he was chivying her into action.
“Yeah, they’re getting pretty mercenary about traffic flow this year.” the woman said, headed past them.
“I don’t blame them, every year there’s more people.” Sherry said in a voice pitched just right to carry to him through the helmet.
“Where else can you have this much fun with your clothes on.” Jack grinned.
She batted her hands at the plastic armor covering his chest. “Maybe you can.”
“I didn’t beg, you put that on without any prompting.”
“TK-419, who is this prisoner?” another radio modified trooper voice said from Jack’s right.
“O’Riley!” Sherry shrieked as she looked past Jack. She flung herself at another man in stormtrooper armor. He had his helmet in his left hand, so his grin as he wrapped the barely dressed woman in the metal bikini up in a hug was quite obvious.
“Now I’m wishing I’d worn my officer’s outfit.” he said as he hugged her.
“Letch.”
“Guilty.”
Jack took his own helmet off and sighed in relief as the air conditioning hit his face directly. “Who else have you seen so far?” he asked O’Riley as Sherry stepped back.
“Stacy and Bill are posing in the lobby, but George is around here somewhere.” O’Riley said, gesturing vaguely upstairs. “It might take him a few minutes to catch up, he wanted to grab something to drink from the gift shop.”
“Idiot.” Jack laughed. “Three dollars for a soda?”
“Yeah, well, he never learns.” O’Riley shrugged.
“Speaking of which, I’m thirsty.” Sherry announced. “And I need to put my phone away. Turn around trooper.”
“Sure thing, but I’ll need to get this armor off first.” O’Riley said.
“Not you letch, my husband.” Sherry laughed as she pushed at Jack’s shoulder. “Come on, assume the position.”
Jack turned and bent at the knees so his wife could reach the top of the backpack he wore. It looked like part of his costume, and to be fair it was. It was cast and sculpted and painted to look just like a pack worn by the stormtroopers in Star Wars. But this one, unlike most similar costume backpacks, was an actual backpack. She flipped up the hinged top and pulled a bottle of Dr. Pepper out of the little soft sided cooler inside the pack.
“You want anything?” she asked. “And what about that late lunch you mentioned?”
Before Jack could answer, he heard screaming. He straightened curiously as his brain registered the sound, and then evaluated it as sounding real. Most fans were pretty well behaved, but it wasn’t unheard of, literally, for some to occasionally whoop and holler for some reason or another. This sounded like actual screaming though, and more than one person.
“What’s all that about?” O’Riley asked, looking through the nearest open doors into the ballroom. The level right below the Marriott’s lobby was used by the convention as exhibition space, or in the common vernacular an extension of the dealer’s room on the floor below. Jack and Sherry had decided to hang out sort of near the wall, where they could see most of what was happening elsewhere in the fairly open expanse of the floor while still being out of the way so they didn’t get yelled at to move by either hotel or convention security.
“I don’t know . . .” Jack said slowly. There was something about the screaming, something that was making the back of his neck tingle a little.
His first thought was that there was a problem, but he told himself to calm down. He was over reacting. It was a convention. There were dozens and dozens of reasons why someone or something might be making all that racket without there being any cause for alarm. If one of those were true, it was kind of rude, and whoever it was would probably get told off by the convention security staff for doing it, but everything would be fine.
While he was trying to convince himself, more screaming erupted. Some of it was in the exhibition hall, but some of it was coming from the open floor. He turned his head in time to see a man trying to pry a girl who couldn’t be more than ten, maybe eleven, off his left a
rm. She was hanging onto him with both hands, and her teeth were working as she chewed on his flesh.
“Uh . . .” Jack heard O’Riley say.
“Is that something the Nightmare Factory people are doing?” Sherry asked uncertainly, and not entirely unreasonably. The display booth advertising the Halloween Haunted House company always setup at the base of the escalators, which was about twenty feet beyond where the man was struggling with the girl.
“I don’t think so.” Jack said as a couple of people, one of them wearing a radio headset that marked him as a member of the convention’s ‘security’ staff closed in on the altercation.
Jack heard running, and turned just in time to see a good number of people rushing towards the doors from inside the exhibition hall. Most of them were just running, but two were cradling injured arms, and a third man was being carried between two men as blood streamed down his leg.
“What in the fuck is going on?” Jack said in a very loud voice.
“Dude, I think someone’s been dropping a the wrong acid or something.” one of the running people shouted back. “They think they’re zombies.”
“Acid?” O’Riley asked, sounding skeptical.
“Zombies?” Sherry asked, sounding confused.
“Where?” Jack asked, ignoring them both.
“In there, toward the back wall.”
Jack stepped out from the wall for a better angle and looked in through the doors.
“What are you doing?” Sherry asked immediately, grabbing his arm.
“Trying to see what’s going on.” Jack answered.
He barely had time to register a sort of scrum that seemed to be going on about halfway down the aisle aligned with the doorway when he heard still more screaming start behind him.
Turning, his jaw dropped. He saw over a dozen people being attacked by others. In every instance except one, the attacker was gnawing or biting their victim and blood was flowing around their teeth. The exception was a fairly tall man wearing furs and a crown, probably going for a sort of barbarian king look, who had managed to shove the smaller man who’d bitten him away. The biter struggling to get to his feet, eyes locked on the barbarian.
