The Risen (Book 4): Courage

by Marie F. Crow

  “You ready?” Lawless whispers his question to me as I roll my eyes with frustration.

  Knife to a gunfight and I’m on the front row. Tickets, please! I would love the chance to point out that Rhett wanted us on the back row, not the front!

  Lawless takes the bullet from his chamber and tosses it high, sending it sailing across the herd, to hit against the wall across from us. At the sound of the sharp metallic ping, their heads turn in unison with an almost snap of attention, placing us now behind them. The first few branch off to examine the source of the noise as we hug the wall beside us, hoping to keep from their angle of sight. It is not enough. The rest still stay frozen in their statue form. I can mentally picture their eyes swaying, searching the shadows for their prey. The bullet does not bleed or have the flesh they desire. It will not hold their attention long.

  “We have to get these doors closed. We can then play them off each side of the room with one group at the set of doors here and the set outside.” Lawless whispers to me as if we are wearing a matching set of knights-in-shining-armor outfits.

  “You want to play Ping-Pong with the Risen?” My frustration is growing with my question and my knife is looking less and less useful with his answer.

  “You have a better idea?” He meant to be serious with his question, but his sense of adventure just fills his face with mirth.

  “No,” I say, and I don’t. This only pisses me off more.

  “When I say run, run. Don’t detour. Just hug the wall all the way down and get the doors closed.” Lawless speaks to me as if his plan is brilliant, but I am seeing a lot of holes. I’m seeing holes that will eat me alive if given the chance.

  “You want me to run right into the middle of them?”

  My voice must vibrate with doubts as he smiles at me because he says, “Isn’t that your normal plan?” His smile is so wide that it makes an easy target and my knuckles itch to land a perfect bull’s-eye.

  “No,” I say with more bruised ego then anger, “it is not. It is just the way it happens.”

  “A lot,” Marxx mutters, and I wonder when this conversation became a slapstick comedy hour. There are only rotting flesh-eaters ahead. Let’s all stop to make some jokes!

  “You ready?” Lawless’ mirth is still abundant, wearing my trust a little thin.

  “…or you could just wait for them to spot us while you two debate it till our deaths.” Marxx sinks to the floor, supporting Aimes with his body as her weight pushes his damaged arm to its limit.

  All of my anger fades as I realize my hesitation could be her death. If they spot us, Aimes cannot defend herself in this state. If we become over-ran, we would have to leave her as we fled. She would be left to them to destroy and feast. Survival isn’t pretty anymore. Everyday, we are taught a new lesson by it. I nod, signaling that I surrender again.

  “Run,” Lawless whispers.

  It is such a small word to inspire so much fear. My legs falter with it before I can gain traction. My body falters with a last chance to save itself from what I am about to do again.

  I hug the wall as close as I can, but still allow myself room to run. I know Lawless will be shooting over my shoulder to clear the biggest threats to me. He will have to wait though until I am closer than I want to be. The sooner he shoots, the sooner they will become aware.

  My boot’s flat heels click against the tiles as I see their heads cock in their hunting stage. They are attempting to use their ears to find a reason for the new noise, a noise that is slowly turning their heads towards me as I rapidly close the space between us. The glazed eyes from my nightmares will soon become focused on me. I can hear J.D. laughing in my mind, inspired by my constant mixture of “balls” and stupidity.

  My hand finds the hilt of my hunting knife as easily as the knife finds the skull of the first target. It falls without a sound to signal the one in front of it to my presence, but my flesh gives me away. Each of us has a scent that is our own. A scent that we as humans no longer can notice, losing so much of the hunters we once were. The Risen are pure hunters, so they notice. They notice fast.

  There is no gradual alert of me. They snap towards me, turning their bodies in whichever way they need to, with a sharp movement unlike anything I have seen from them before. The normal slow turning with strings is gone and replaced with a new attack. An attack they unleash with viciousness, reaching for me with hatred and hunger. I completely forget about the doors with them upon me.

  Nails dig into my arm like a bird of prey’s talons, preventing me from pulling away or risking more damage to my already pierced flesh. I scream with the fire-like pain and the female that holds me still smiles at me. My scream and the smell of my blood flowing to the floor around us bring forth a cry of victory from the cafeteria. It clenches my stomach tight and my body begins to sweat in panic. The only saving grace that I have is she only attacked my left arm. My right is still fully capable and proves it so as I arch my arm to connect the blade with her forehead.

  Her eyes follow the blade and, at the last moment, she pulls me off-center with her talons, landing the blow as a deep gash to her cheek. She smiles at me as if to say, “My turn”, and she opens her jaw wide for her rebuttal.

  Its black coloring and its rotting tissue from her many meals of blood-filled flesh surround me with the scent of plagues. All logic leaves me as I watch her. I could try to bring my knife back up, hoping to still land a blow, but she has almost twisted me with my arms crossed, using her body to counterbalance me. They shouldn’t be able to plan this well. They shouldn’t be able to fight this smart. I really should stop running into the middle of them.

  The first shot finally comes, bouncing her head sideways with the hit. It explodes in a spray of carnage with the exit of the bullet and she falls limp. She tears the flesh of my arm with her fall and I follow her down out of sheer self-preservation. The shots come quicker now with our cover being blown. There is no reason to hold back. Unless you take into account the not limitless amount of ammo we have, but being at the bottom of a pile of rotting monsters again that are trying to eat me, I’m voting shoot now, worry later.

  My arm feels limp as if it’s on fire, but my job is to get the doors closed. I can do that with one hand. I use the cover fire to crawl to the open metal doors as more Risen are rushing out of them towards me.

  Bodies are collapsing around me from the well-aimed shots. They bounce against the floor, leaving their eyes wide and staring at me. It unsettles my heart even more. Seeing the mass of horrors heading towards me unsettles it completely.

  Wrestling my mind free from its enslavement of fear, I force my body to move again. Sliding across the floor to avoid taking a shot, I only come to kneeling to reach for the metal handles. The first door is easy. It closes with an eagerness compared to my own to block the running horde. The second door is held open with a wedge and my frantic pulling has managed to lodge it underneath the metal. Pushing the door open again, I kick at the crudely shaped wooden block, hoping to spin it enough so that it will slide and not become jammed again even as it laughs at my attempts. I am not standing tall enough to give me the leverage that I need. It only inches with each kick as the horde is closing the distance with my delay.

  Lawless bounces the door off his palms with a thrust before turning his attention to the room. It gives the door the needed separation for me to pull the wedge free. He fires one shot into the room, hitting the one closest to the disappearing gap. Their bodies collide with the doors at the same instant they close, bowing them open before we can brace to close them again. Their pounding fists vibrate the metal, echoing through our palms.

  Fingernails torture the paint as they claw, sending squeals of protest from the doors. The doors pop open with the many combined desires. I don’t know how long he and I can hold them at bay.

  Sensing my thoughts, Lawless grunts with the efforts to fight and says, “Rhett and Chapel have already gone around to the main courtyard. They are going to draw their attenti
on from that entrance.” He flips, using his back to brace better. “They will pick off what they can before shutting their doors. We will just keep repeating.” He looks to me and asks, “Did you get an idea of how many are in there?”

  “A lot. What if they are in the courtyard too?”

  His face twists with his efforts as the doors pop open, bouncing us against the cold metal before we push them shut again. He says, “We didn’t see any through the windows. Paula checked. She and Marxx are already headed for the gym with Aimes.”

  His words are chopped short with our bodies bouncing off the metal doors. My feet are losing against the slippery floor. They slide out from under me made slick by the blood from upstairs on them and the blood that is now splashed in puddles around us. It leaves long, red trails smeared across the once grey, boring floor. I miss the boring floors and my mind wanders with the thought.

  “Law, how thick do you think these doors are?” I ask.

  He laughs a short sound of masculine amusement before saying, “I don’t think they can dig through.”

  “Could a bullet?”

  His amusement fades to one of shock with my question. “Shit,” he says and pulls us both to the floor as the first shot comes from the room behind us.

  CHAPTER 5

  The weight against the door halts, suspended between pushing and letting it fall back closed. The faces that once were covered with expressions of anger now slacken with their confusion. Their eyes are still glued to us between the gap in the doors, but they are no longer trying to reach through it. Their bodies still crave us. Their minds have just become more concerned with something else. Something they have learned is dangerous.

  I can hear Rhett taunting them. The doors muffle his voice, but it still reaches me. “Here, freaks,” he taunts them. “White meat or dark meat? I got them both for you right here. Come and get it!”

  “Charming…” I whisper from the floor, mentally picturing the hand gestures he used to match his words. I can feel the gore sticking to me while the empty eyes from those we have already killed stare at me.

  “Stay down,” Lawless says. He pushes against my back to keep me from rising as the shots sound behind us.

  I would almost rather take my chances with their bullets than to remain laying face-to- face with the bodies around us. When the shots slow, so does my heart.

  “What are they doing?” I ask.

  Lawless shrugs with a smile. “Wasn’t blessed to have Superman for a dad, but knowing Rhett, he is reinventing duck, duck goose.”

  “I’m glad you find this all amusing.”

  His smile disappears at my tone. “Yeah, it’s a laugh a minute around here,” he says.

  “Law, I didn’t mean…” I stop, refusing to go on with his dedicated stare at the wall in front of us. He is straining to hear every noise from the other side of the doors and to not hear me at all.

  There is no noise. The room is silent now. I worry we missed some signal saying it was our turn, or worse. Lawless’ face wears the same concerns. He stares at the door over his shoulder as if he could see through it, demanding it to give up its secrets.

  “It’s cleared.” Chapel’s voice comes from down the hall, and it startles us both. He tells us, “Weren’t as many as we thought, but we got a problem.”

  “What problem?” Lawless asks. The front of his shirt is as thick with the muck from the floor as mine. Like two twins of battle, we wait for the other two men to reach us.

  “The other doors show signs of them. We locked the cafeteria to prevent any from sneaking back in,” Chapel says once he reaches us.

  “What do you mean “signs”?” I ask, but I really don’t want to know. I never really want to know.

  “Scratches, dents, that sort of thing,” Rhett says, shrugging with his explanation as if it is just another day. I wish I had just a shot glass’ worth of his crazy.

  If I thought Lawless and I look like survivors of something horrible, I was wrong. Rhett is covered in dark splatters that cling to his arms and adds a shine to the leather vest. The spot where he held Aimes to him now blends with the new carnage. If battle carried a face, it would be his.

  “Duck, duck, goose?” I repeat Lawless’ idea while staring at the tall man covered in his venting. Lawless smirks, but the other two look to each other before back at us. “Never mind,” I say.

  “What do you want to do?” Lawless recovers the conversation that I lured into paused confusion.

  “Split up,” Chapel suggests. “We need to make sure they aren’t walking into a trap, but we can’t leave until we make sure the things aren’t all over the place.”

  Lawless nods and says, “Hells and I will cover down here. You two can catch up with the others and make sure they get Aimes to safety.”

  I nod in agreement and with the majority, except for one.

  “No,” Rhett tells us. “Hells and I will clean up down here. You and Chap go check on them.”

  Lawless starts to argue, but Rhett ignores him while inspecting my arm. I had forgotten about it with all that was going on, but now the burning pain flares back to life as I stare at it and he probes it with his fingers. Out of sight, out of mind.

  “Gonna need to bind that,” Chapel says, staring at the wound. “Looks like stitches later.”

  “Even more reason for you two to hurry up and make sure they made it.” Rhett urges them forward with a glare and a hint of what may be happening to the others. It works. Law isn’t happy about it, but it works.

  He caresses my lower back as he passes by me, but we don’t look at each other. Our death toll is mounting, even though it’s still early in the day. We are both too afraid to admit the very real truth that this could be the last time we see one another. We don’t have time for long goodbyes. Aimes and Marxx may be in danger, so every moment stalled could cost them – costing us.

  Rhett rips the shirt from one of the dead bodies on the floor and shrugs with my disgust. He is completely honest with his voice when he says, “What? Not like he is using it. I prefer to keep a little something between me and them or I’d offer you mine.”

  “I don’t think putting a dirty “rag” on an open wound is the best idea. Pretty sure I read that somewhere.”

  “Did you now? Well, Barbie, I would love to offer you something better, but we are kind of in the shit of it at the moment. We need to cover the smell of your blood, and this will do that, but I’ll remind Paula to clean it real good for you if we live, okay?” He cinches the cloth tight with his last statement. I wince not only from the pain, but his tone, too.

  He walks away from me in the opposite direction Chapel and Lawless took. The hall looms around us, suddenly much more alarming knowing that around any corner they could be waiting.

  “What’s the real reason you split us up like this?” I ask him as I trail a few steps behind.

  “He can’t focus if you are near. He will be too worried about you and not have his mind on what is around him. We don’t know how many made it in or how outnumbered we are.”

  “You are worried about us being outnumbered, but we split up anyway?” I ask and he doesn’t answer me. I guess I wasn’t supposed to see the flaw in the plan so early. “You don’t think he could keep me safe?”

  Rhett chuckles as his eyes roam ahead of us. He is looking for any more “signs”, letting the conversation remove the edge of the fear we are both feeling. He says with his predatory smile, “Sweetheart, you don’t need anyone to keep you safe. You were kicking these things’ ass while the rest of us were still trying to figure out what they were. I was more worried he wouldn’t be able to keep himself safe. Love makes men into heroes, and heroes make good victims.”

  I don’t want to talk about heroes or victims, so I focus on the task we have set and say, “The only other place this leads is the library and the main office. Simon keeps the office locked.”

  “Library it is.”

  “Library it is.” I echo as its double doors come into
view. The place where I once hid to avoid the man who stands in front of me may be hiding something else now, something even the pages of the books within could not contain.

  Rhett stands motionless in front of the doors. It’s hard to form a plan when one is blind to what is on the other side. I remember the lay out. I am about to be Zombie Barbie again and my Ken is something more from a slasher film than a prince charming tale. It seems fitting.

  “There is a block of space when you first enter where the librarian’s desk sits. Once you have passed it, you have tables with chairs for reading in groups and the computer tables. The bookshelves follow behind them. They are floor to ceiling but some shelves are half of the wall along the outside wall. I can lead us in,” I say, trying to help him picture the room.

  “Then ladies first,” he says while smiling at me. I really hadn’t counted on him taking me up on that offer.

  I walk around him to center myself in front of the doors. One last deep breath to convince my heart and my mind that I can do this and away we go. The doors open slowly against my palm, revealing the room inch-by-inch. I’m starting to develop a serious phobia with double-metal doors.

  No sound greets me. No snarling face jumps out to startle me. The room is silent and seems to be empty. “Seems” being the key word and I would almost rather have them waiting for me at the door with dinner forks in their hands.

  Rhett holds the door open for me with the “I dare you” smile still on his face. I use to wonder how his mind worked. I’m kind of over that.

  I tell him, “I guess I don’t have to worry about you being a hero.”

  “Sweetheart, what I have for you isn’t love, but I’d be a victim all the same,” he tells me. The humor is supposed to take the edge off what we are about to do. It gives us each a moment to prepare for what we are avoiding, the Risen.