by Steve Wands
“I agree…but I want some time with this first. In my dream, the book maker said this was made for me. Me specifically. The secretary might want to take this from me. I can’t risk that.”
“Rachel, you can’t be—”
“I am. Please, Gregory. Give me a day. One day. Go back to your room and get some sleep and we’ll both bring it to Pymn and the others in twenty four measly hours, okay?”
“Twenty four hours and not a minute more, Rachel. I’m serious. This is really something everyone should know about.”
“I know, I just…I feel connected to this thing somehow. I need to understand it before I try to explain it to someone else. I need to know, what I could be potentially handing over. There could be real power in this book.”
Tran simply nodded. He didn’t know what else to say. Rachel gave him a smile which he didn’t return. She put the large tome down on the table and wrapped it in a spare lab coat. She tucked the book under her arm and walked out with Tran, passing the guard and hoping he didn’t ask what she was carrying out.
20 WE GOT IT ALL
(back to top)
The prison continued to rumble, entire walls cracked and crumbled. It was as if the earth itself was trying to eat the place. Dusty was in the lead and he bobbed and weaved through the tumbling debris. Dried blood left trails from his nostrils and his chewed up ear. His head ached with every step. Getting out in one piece was challenge enough, but as Dusty rounded the corner he was met with a wall of the dead.
Reanimates nearly filled the corridor, many of them looked to have been mowed down by the squad’s own weapons. Center mass wounds shown clearly across many of the dead, and their garb looked awfully familiar—the ramshackle hodgepodge of orange prison pajamas and riot gear. One of them managed to grab Dusty by the arm, they were fresh, and the fresh ones could always move a little quicker.
Dusty whirled on the reanimate and squeezed off four shots before the reanimate dropped to the ground. The corridor came to a collective vocalization of undead hunger, the haunting raspy groan for living flesh. A sound they were all too familiar with.
“We can’t get through that!” Niko yelled, running past Dusty and breaking the formation.
“Stupid fucking zombies,” Dusty grumbled, and emptied his two Berettas into the first row of reanimates.
“SIGO!” Torrent screamed, “You recognize where we are according to the blueprints?”
Grant, nervous to answer, and feeling particularly under pressure hesitated, but then said, “Uh…yeah, yeah I think so.”
“Don’t think, kid. If you know start fucking moving.”
SIGO Grant Harburn nodded, finding the resolve that had been drilled into him basic and honed in his time in Iraq. He ran forward, shouldering a reanimate and knocking it down.
“Terry, go! I’ll hold the back of the line.”
“Don’t do any cowboy bullshit, John. We all go home,” Terry said, the side of his face bleeding through the gauze and down his neck.
Torrent simply nodded. He wasn’t planning on doing any cowboy bullshit, but he did intend on getting his squad the hell out of this damned place. He’d gotten them to follow him into the heart of hell, the least he could was to get them out of it.
He stood at the corner of where the two corridors converged and he began to lay waste to the first row of reanimates. He emptied his clip, discarded it, and replaced it with one from his belt.
Grant ran ahead of Niko, the blueprint pictured in his head and unfolded across his vision. While he didn’t have a photographic memory he did have a good one. And in particular on details such as blueprints, driving directions, obscure comic book trivia, and 80s pop music. On most other things he was as aloof as he looked. He ran to the end of the corridor. There were three doors in close proximity and he went for the closest one, which turned out to be a maintenance closet. And inside that closet was a large bald man in an orange prison uniform. He looked terrified, holding his hands up, but Grant didn’t see this. He saw another lunatic about to pounce on him.
Grant aimed his weapon and readied to squeeze, but the big man dropped to his knees and wept, “Don’t shoot, please. I’m not like them, I’m not! Please don’t shoot, please…”
“What the hell is this?” Niko asked.
“Fucking guy was in the closet.” Harburn shrugged.
“Sarge, we got a hostile surrendering. What do you want us to do.”
Torrent couldn’t hear them as he continued to defend the rear from the reanimates as they pushed him further down the corridor.
Dusty stepped forward, “What are you doing in here?” He growled at the man.
“Dude, after the riot, shit started getting crazy in here. They made some dude a king, but he was a zombie, like on TV. Then him and some dudes go around and start killing everyone. Talking about some bullshit. I’ve just been hiding out.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been hiding in this closet the whole time?”
“No, man, all over, had to keep moving. There was more of us, but I…I don’t know if anyone made it. Dude, I’m in here for selling weed. WEED. Not killing motherfuckers.”
“Try any bullshit, Mr. Clean, and I—”
“What the fuck is taking you guys so long?” Torrent yelled, turning around to see the squad engaged with the big bald man.
Grant opened the next door, leaving the guy in the closet to Dusty. Door number two held behind it a stairwell of reanimates. Grant slammed the door close and cursed under his breath. This was not looking good. One door left. Grant opened it, and behind door number one was…more reanimates. Grant slammed that door shut and then lost his shit, “We’re fucked man! We are totally fucked! We can’t get out. Reanimates are all over.
Dusty shook his head at the SIGO. He pointed behind him to the window that Grant stood in front of. It was a large window threaded with chicken wire. “Shoot out the glass.”
Grant did as he was told, regaining some of his composure. Niko took her rifle and began smashing against the wire with the stock of her gun. It budged, but it would be tough work.
Terry came over, fishing a small pair of wire cutters out of one of his pant leg’s cargo pockets. He said nothing, simply came over and started snipping around the edge of the window. Niko seeing this stopped wasting her energy and gave Terry a look. Terry winked at her and tried to smile, but it was crooked and painful, “Never leave home without ‘em. I hate climbing fences. So I just snip a little and crawl under.”
“How the hell did we get on the second floor?” Dusty asked, looking down.
“More importantly, where did all these reanimates come from?” Terry asked, looking down at the grounds which were mostly covered in reanimates staggering around. Most were not in orange, so he knew they weren’t all from the prison.
“Maybe the gunfire drew them out” Niko suggested.
“Time to jump,” Torrent said, placing a new clip into his rifle. “We’re out of time.”
Terry looked down from the window. There was a prison transport van not that far away that they could jump to, but Terry knew he didn’t have the spring in his step that his younger self did. “There’s a van, that’s about our best chance. If we can jump on top of it, we should be able to get out of here.”
Torrent turned to the big bald prisoner and said, “Jump.”
The man nervously looked at Torrent. If there was a such thing as a human teddy bear, this guy was him. He was a massive man, well over six feet tall and easily three hundred pounds. How he did any hiding was a mystery. He had a wiry beard and a head as shiny as polished porcelain. “Ok. I’ll do it. I can jump.”
The man looked out the window. It wasn’t that far down, but the van seemed forever away. “Shit.”
The man backed up, psyching himself up for the jump. Then he let out a yell and ran for the window. He jumped onto the sill and dove out the window. His large frame flailed and he continued to scream. Terry watched as he just barely landed on the van, making a loud thump sound an
d leaving a large depression in the top of the van. The man knocked the wind out of himself but got up and out of the way as he fought to suck air back into his lungs.
“Ok, Mr. Clean made it. That means the rest of us should be able to do it.” Dusty said, more for his own comfort than anyone else’s.
“Let’s move,” Torrent urged, turning his back to fire at the oncoming reanimates, “we’re running out of room.”
Dusty jumped next. Followed by Niko, then Harburn. Then the door to the stairway burst open and a flood of reanimates overwhelmed Terry and Torrent. They were immediately backed into the corner. Both men fired away, so close that they were being covered in the gristle and blowback of the reanimates.
“Well, John, it’s been nice knowing you,” Terry said.
“Fuck that,” Torrent said, grabbing Terry by the shoulder, “You ain’t getting out of jumping that easy.”
Torrent and Terry stood on the sill as the reanimates filled the void in the corridor. As they jumped, dead hands clawed at their leaping bodies.
“Make way,” Dusty said as he jumped down from the top of the transport, which was almost entirely caved in at this point.
The two men landed, destroying what was left of the roof. Both men landed hard, but Terry landed with the full weight on his ankle and at such an angle that he felt it snap on impact. He screamed in pain and when he tried to stand on it, he collapsed. “Broke my ankle,” he wheezed.
“Everyone down. Get to the chopper! Niko prep—”
“Got it, Sarge!”
Torrent pulled Terry up to his side, while Dusty, Harburn, and the bald guy, kept the reanimates at bay. They were beginning to swarm and if they didn’t move quick they would be surrounded.
Torrent and Dusty managed to get Terry down from the top of the transport. They aided him as he hobbled along and ran for the blackbird. Harburn ran forward with the bald guy as Niko left them in the dust.
The dead followed behind them.
21 BECOMING
(back to top)
Leaning her back against the door she took a deep breath and held it for a moment. Her mind was reeling with what had transpired. Her legs felt weak, her stomach queasy, and all of a sudden she felt lightheaded. She wanted to know how it was possible that she now clutched a book bound in flesh that she was given in a dream. Why was it for her? Who was she to the artist? Whose skin and blood contributed to the book and why? And did any of these questions even matter?
Rachel closed her eyes and exhaled. There were no answers.
She moved to a small table and placed the book down. She moved to a counter and pulled a can of warm Pepsi from its plastic ring. The warm fizzy liquid would settle her stomach. She stared at the face on the book for a moment. The ear, the eyelid, part of a nostril, the rest of the details were obscured in the thick folds and creases in the skin. It was sort of a moment of silence before she sat down and opened the book.
When her fingers touched the pages that soft electric feeling returned. She wondered if Gregory had felt it too—or if it was just for her. Her fingers ran along the pages, reading in a way that was part touch, part sight, and another part that was internal, almost autonomous. Images flashed across her mind’s eye. All of these elements worked in unison, giving her a full understanding of what was on the page. She wasn’t so much reading the book as it was communing with her and she with it.
The first pages were about sacrifice and of the woman whose skin bound the book. Her history, her essence. Rachel could see the woman in her mind’s eye. Vibrant with life. She could see her as a newborn, held gently to her mother’s breast. Adored. Her father’s hand cupped against her head, feeling the soft hair and overcome with a sense of love he’d never known before. She could see her first steps. Birthday cards written in crayon to her parents. She could see her first kiss. She could see the young woman’s future. And then, it was all gone. Rachel wept, her tears falling to the page.
Steeling herself, she read on. There were passages about ancient gods, demons, other worlds, different dimensions. Some of the text seemed to describe string theory, and theoretical physics, but it was in crude and magical fashion. She didn’t believe in magic. That was kids stuff. Yet she sat holding a book that appeared from a dream. She read without reading. She found understanding in the fabric of the soft pulpy paper and rough dried blood that connected her by electric charm to another world and another her. Everything that was happening defied her understanding of reality.
Like most things in life, she had to roll with it. Like the living dead, she had to accept it and move forward. If she could accept that the dead could return to life, that corpses could dig themselves out of the ground, then she could accept that the dreaming world was as real as the waking world. She could accept that other worlds—other versions of the world—were also possible.
***
She didn’t sleep that night, she didn’t know if she would ever need to sleep again. At least that was how she felt at that moment. The book was closed. Finished. She’d read the entire tome in one sitting. Still sitting next to it, in easy reach, she felt different. It was as if reading the book had somehow activated a dormant part of her. She felt connected to the world again. Before the dreaming world, she felt like an appalled spectator witnessing, and therefore complicit in, a holocaust for the living. Now she felt electric. Empowered by belief in the unbelievable.
Now feeling full of energy, Rachel decided to leave her quarters. Maybe a walk around the mountain would tire her out, she figured. Since her first day in the mountain, when Agent Cole and his federal goon squad escorted her here, she’d never had a problem falling asleep. She just hoped it wasn’t the beginning of a trend. Sleep was one of her favorite hobbies, if sleep could be defined as a hobby. As she reached for the door it began to open on its own. She stepped backward, assuming Gregory Tran would be on the other side, but as the door continued to open, she was surprised that no one was there. Weird, she thought, and then looked at her hand.
“No way,” she said out loud, staring down at her hand.
Looking from her hand to the door, and then back again. She moved her hand towards the knob, but before she could reach it, it began to move on it’s hinge meeting her grasp halfway.
“Far out, far-fucking-out!” She said, almost goofily. She couldn’t believe it.
Psychokinesis?! She thought, and then knew it to be true. Somehow, reading the book had unlocked dormant psychic abilities.
She tried the door again, this time without reaching for it. She simply thought of the door opening, and as she did, it slowly swung open. Elated, she wondered what else she could do. She thought of having a soda. She pictured it flying across the room and into her hand. She pictured the sound of the can opening, and the fizzy liquid hitting her tongue. She repeated these thoughts and after a long moment, once her anticipation was beginning to turn into disappointment she heard a can of soda hit the floor.
Quick-stepping to the small kitchenette she saw that one of the soda’s from the counter had fallen to the floor. She beamed in delight. Though it didn’t fly across the room she was still able to affect it simply by thinking about it. Unless it just fell, she considered.
Staying optimistic, she reached out her hand as if she were squeezing an imaginary tomato and tried to make the can of soda float up to it. As she did this, she couldn’t help but think of watching Star Wars movies with her brother. She wondered if she were dangling upside down in an ice cave if she would have better luck getting the soda can to fly into her grasp. Still the soda didn’t float up off the floor, but she could swear it at least vibrated a little. She reached down and picked it up, thankful her life didn’t depend on it, and thankful she wasn’t hanging upside down and freezing.
22 OUT OF THE FRYING PAN
(back to top)
Niko ran hard, leaping over the upturned graves in the small prison cemetery. The grounds on this side of the building had far fewer reanimates and she was thankful for that. She jump
ed into the Blackbird and was greeted by two prisoners, both as surprised to see her as she was to see them. Despite that she was breathing heavy from the run, she still managed to pull out her side arm before the two goons could get a hold of their weapons.
“Don’t,” she said simply, with a fierce undertone of authority.
“We just want a ride out of here. We can’t figure out how to take off,” said the small greaseball whose long black hair clung to his head like a slick fungus.
“This ain’t a taxi. Kick the pieces over to me and step the fuck off my bird. You want a ride, you can ask my commanding officer outside.”
“Fine by me,” said the other fellow, with three teeth missing out of his hillbilly smile.
“You. Slick. Out, now, before I put you down and drag your ass out and dump you in one of them graves.”
Slick looked at his gun on the ground. He was a quick one, at least he’d always thought he was. He wasn’t so sure they’d give him a ride if he got off and asked nicely. Maybe, he thought, if I put the gun to this bitch’s head, she’d be more inclined to give ‘em a lift outta this hell-hole. He jumped for the piece and she shot him in the leg without hesitation.
“Oh, fuck!” He cried, sounding as little as he looked.
Niko took two strides and cracked the man in the head with her sidearm, and then pulled him by his greasy hair out of the blackbird. As she threw him to the ground the others had caught up.
“Lemme guess,” Dusty surmised as he looked at the other two prisoners, “these assholes wanna ride out of here too?”
“Yeah, dumb and dumber over here we're trying to fly out.”
“Oh, I didn’t know they taught you fuckwads how to fly helicopters in prison. I thought it was all tossin’ salads and getting banged in the ass.”
“Hardy-har-har,” said the one with the missing teeth, as his words whistled out of his mouth.
