This Rotten World (Book 3): No More Heroes

by Jacy Morris

  He stepped up to the wall, hesitated a moment and then began to paint. The spray paint fumes smelled like hot junkie candy, wafting around his head as his arm moved methodically up, down, and around.

  He stepped back and admired his work. Underneath the line, he had written: TRAPPED IN DEATH'S EMBRACE."

  He let the empty spray can fall from his hand, and it tumbled to the ground with a hollow clunk. He ran to catch up to everyone else, and as he climbed over the barricade of cars at the end of the tunnel, he pondered how long the tunnel would last without constant maintenance. How long until there was no way into Portland from the west?

  Ahead of him, the trees on the side of the road gave way to blue sky. It seemed like ages since he had seen such a thing. The smell of smoke was still in the air, and a few scattered plumes of smoke still swirled into the sky like upraised cat tails, but there was that blue sky, the same as when this whole shitty situation had begun.

  He fell in line next to Epps, who shot him a look that said he was an idiot. They were moving slowly. Rudy, God bless him, had actually made it up the hill. It was afternoon now, and they were all feeling the march and suffering the aftereffects of prolonged adrenaline exposure. Their pace had been slowed by Rudy, who gasped the whole way up Burnside. It was a steep hill and not an easy climb, but Rudy had toughed it out. It helped that they had never been in any real imminent danger. The dead were still present as they climbed, but they were in such small numbers that they could afford take a break every now and then when Rudy needed to pause.

  In the tunnel, they had paused even longer, everyone stopping to take in some fluids or piss against the tunnel walls. Allen's calves had been burning by that point. He silently cursed at how out of shape he had let himself become on the bridge. Just because it was the end of the world doesn't mean that you can't keep in shape.

  Birds chirped in the air, and Allen actually couldn't remember the last time he had actually heard a bird singing. As he caught up to the others, he found himself walking through a cemetery. The group fell into a solemn silence, and Allen admired the rolling hills. The lawn, which had once been well-maintained, had grown to knee length, obscuring many of the grave markers. The taller tombstones jutted out of the grass, looking lost and forlorn. On the crest of the hill, a shuffling zombie walked towards them, head cocked to the side and an ill-fitting suit hanging from its wasted body. It's arm reached out to them, and Allen had the impression that it was asking for help. It was the first zombie they had seen since climbing the hill. He wondered if the dead were like water, collecting at the lowest point possible. Perhaps the mountains would be free of the dead if that were the case. He trained his eyes to the west. That was where they were headed, and he saw the hills rising as purple shadows in the distance.

  They were far away. They held such promise, room to breathe, a place to live and survive. He wanted to be there now. If only they had a helicopter, their struggle would be over in a few hours. He thought again about his decision to stick with Sergeant Tejada. Perhaps it had been a fool's choice.

  When the message had come down from the President, a feeling of woe had swept through his fellow soldiers. How could he do this? How could the President just give up? If the President is giving up, all is lost. These were the prevailing sentiments of the day. Izzy Allen had not been immune from them. The next day had seen many deaths. Some soldiers just stole off into the day without weapons or supplies, their minds seemingly robbed of any common sense. General McCutcheon had relieved them of all their obligations and declared that he was going to Colorado. Izzy could have gone with him. He wanted to. Colorado was certainly closer to Alabama than Portland was, but something had held him back.

  Then Tejada had talked to him, and everything had changed from there. Izzy was 22. There wasn't much waiting for him back at home. There was a girl, maybe. There was his family. But he couldn't bring himself to find out what had become of them. To find them dead would be too much for his soul. He knew this without a doubt. He knew that to see his parents rotting and dead would render this world pointless. Even worse would be finding that he couldn't find them. If he showed up at the old family homestead and couldn't find his sister, his parents, or any of his family, he would be left in a state of limbo, an unresolved morass of emotions that would lead to his eventual death as he hunted through the city and the Alabaman countryside looking for some sign of their survival or death. That would be a long haul, a long draining haul, and he knew he would wind up walking with the dead at the end of it.

  No, it was better to cut the past off, sever it like a gangrenous limb and move forward. The past was nothing anymore. That was an entirely different world, a place where someone could sit on their back porch and sip some ice tea while listening to a ball game on the radio. There was no radio now. There were no ball games, and the amount of effort required to produce an ice cube wasn't worth it anymore. You would have to find a generator, find some potable water, hook a refrigerator up to it, and wait with your firearm in your hands for the Annies that would show up, drawn to the sound of a generator's chugging motor. Allen didn't expect to have iced tea any time soon.

  They wound down the road, the overgrown cemetery sliding by. The other soldiers kept to themselves. The only real sound came from Beacham who was breathing hard, holding his broken arm to his chest. His face was ashen and covered in sweat. Allen couldn't help but feel that Beacham would be dead sooner or later. It was a harsh thought, but not improbable. That arm would never heal fast enough. He could almost see the halo of fear that surrounded the man.

  Beacham was big and simple, a real teddy bear. His impending doom was not being taken well, as the big man seemed like he was on the verge of tears. His head swung from side to side, more so than the other survivors, as if he expected an Annie to pop up behind him at any moment. Allen felt for the man; he felt for all of his fellow soldiers.

  The dread of being stuck in a dying world had been too much for many of them. He remembered walking into a bathroom on the base soon after the announcement of their release. He found them hanging from the pipes in a shower room that dockworkers had used after work. Soldiers of all different sizes and races, their hands and feet twitching, ropes wrapped around their necks, the other ends of the rope secured to the pipes above.

  Allen stood, watching them, lines from Abel Meeropol's Strange Fruit running through his mind. He tried not to look at their faces, but he did. He knew those faces. He had gone through basic with one of them. Others he had had beers with, conversed with, and shared smokes with. His heart felt like it was going to split, and he dropped to his knees, two dozen dead eyes following his every movement.

  That's when Tejada had found him. He had jumped as Tejada had placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You're not thinking about joining them, are you?"

  Allen had no answer. He had, in fact, been thinking about killing himself, finding some rope and tying it around one of those sterling silver pipes. It would have been easier that way. The dread would be gone. The doubt would be gone. He wouldn't have to see his friends die.

  "Come on. Let's finish this," Tejada said. He pulled Allen to his feet and reached across his body to draw Allen's sidearm from his holster. "Let's send these boys home." He held the pistol out to Allen, and Allen just stared at it. He nodded as he took it from Tejada, tears streaming from his eyes. Then, one by one, they sent the boys home, putting them to rest forever.

  "Should we cut them down?" he had asked when all the bodies were still.

  "Leave them hanging. We've given them all the mercy they deserve. Come on."

  Allen had followed. Tejada had never asked him to come along on their little journey, and Allen had never asked where they were going or what they were doing. He just accepted it. Tejada had saved his life. His life belonged to Tejada now, and he was fine with that. He spotted a small cat bounding through the grass in front of an apartment complex, and he thought, That's the most beautiful thing I've seen today... until I see the next.


  ****

  Andy could feel adrenaline rushing through his body yet again. They were in a residential area. Apartment complexes rose to their right and left. Along with the apartments came the dead. Gone was the quiet of the cemetery, replaced by the scrape of shoes and bare bones on the pavement.

  He didn't mind the sound of the shoes so much, but the sound of bone scraping on the pavement made Andy grit his teeth. The rhythmic scraping of the dead woman in front of him was driving him nuts. He had to forcibly keep his finger off the trigger. He was becoming, and to give in to his urge to stop that incessant scraping would only make the others look down on him again. He needed their trust, but more than that, he needed their respect. He wouldn't get either if he ended the noise. He walked around the dead woman, and she turned and followed him, her teeth locked in a horrible smile due to her missing lips. Dried blood covered her scalp where her hair had been, and she walked with an uneven gait, as she had lost one of her shoes. As she turned, the bones of her exposed toes, the flesh worn away, scraped across the gray street one more time, sending a shiver up his spine all the way to his teeth.

  He walked past the dead thing, though the sound of her shuffling followed them. Down they went, Andy trying not to look at Rudy. The bastard had made it. Against all odds, Rudy was still alive and kicking. His entire body was covered in sweat. His pants, which were held up with shoestrings that had been knotted together, kept sagging. His shirt, a red polo that floated on his body, was covered in his sweat, and his red hair, which had begun curling in the strangest of spots was slicked down to his head despite his many cowlicks. He walked with his head down, his legs flopping forward as if they weren't being controlled by Rudy at all. He reminded Andy of a child at the end of a long shopping trip forcing themselves to make it to the car. Amanda stuck close to him.

  He didn't trust her, but no one else seemed to mind her presence. But that was ok. She would get hers. The universe had a way of making people pay for being shitty people. The universe would bide its time, and she would pay. Rudy would as well. Though the man had done nothing to him, Andy couldn't stand looking at him. His freckly face, his billowing neck, the sheer size of him. Even when he talked he sounded like a whiny little bitch.

  The scraping continued behind him as the road curved to the right. For his part, Andy felt just as tired as Rudy looked, but he was able to put on a show of not looking as tired as he was. The soldiers seemed fine, with the exception of the man with the broken arm. Andy shook his head. Tough break, literally. He smirked a little bit at his joke, but then wiped it off his face as Tejada turned to survey his people.

  "Keep your eyes out for some place to hole up. It's been a long day."

  They all agreed, and he could see the other soldiers perk up at the prospect of resting somewhere, and as they rounded the bend in the road, their wishes were answered.

  Ahead of them was a supermarket, its front windows smashed. Bodies lay in the parking lot amid cars with their windows bashed in and overturned shopping carts.

  "What do you think about that?" Quigs asked Tejada.

  "I think it has some promise. Beacham, I want you to stay outside with the civvies. Everyone else, let's sweep and clear that place. No guns. You see an Annie, you bash its head in. Let's keep it quiet; I want to be able to sleep tonight without any damn banging on the walls."

  "Can I go?" Andy asked. Tejada looked at him sideways, and he turned away from Andy.

  "Walk with me, Andy," Tejada said.

  Andy trotted to keep up with the Sergeant as they made their way closer to the supermarket.

  "What is going on with you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Do you have some sort of death wish? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

  "No... I just..."

  "Spit it out."

  "I just want to be useful. I want to be capable."

  Tejada nodded, and patted Andy on the shoulder, and Andy knew he wasn't going in the store with the others. "You said you want to be capable, and that, to me, means that you, down in that great big heart of yours, know that you're not capable. And until you are capable, I can't take the risk. So please, stay outside and help protect the others."

  Andy nodded, though he was screaming in his head. He had been dismissed again. As he stood in the parking lot, he watched Tejada and the others step inside the supermarket through its smashed front windows. The interior was black, and despite the fact that he wanted to go with them, he waited with Beacham, Amanda, and Rudy. The latter sat on the ground wheezing.

  He flinched as he heard bone scraping against the pavement.

  ****

  Quigs halted at the threshold of the store. He reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a flashlight. He fastened it to his rifle and turned it on. The others did the same, tiny pools of blue-white light illuminating the darkness of the grocery store. They spread out wide over the front of the store, and they pushed forward through the cash registers towards the aisles.

  Quigs couldn't help but lick his lips as package after package caught his eye. Though much of the shelf space was empty, there was still plenty of food left over. This fact alone was a testament to how fast the Annies had overrun the world because there shouldn't have been a scrap of grub left.

  He walked softly, heel to toe, but the glass still crunched under his boot heel. They moved through the line of cash registers, pressing forward as a group, and he had to resist the urge to reach out and grab a candy bar off the rack. There would be plenty of time for that later.

  From somewhere in the darkness, he heard one of their calls, a soft little moan like that of a child being woken up when all they really want to do is sleep. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. He flipped the safety of his rifle to the on position. The last thing he wanted to do was accidentally shoot himself while taking a swing at an Annie... not when he was this close to scoring some tasty food. God he was hungry.

  The moan came again, and he shined his flashlight down the aisle in front of him. He was in the baked goods aisle. Tin baking pans and rolls of wax paper sat untouched, along with a rack full of flour and sugar. He stepped forward and lost sight of the other soldiers in his area. He pushed dislodged packages of cupcake wrappers out of the way with his boot and slid forward, despite the fact that he wanted to turn around right then and there. There was something unnatural about this whole situation. They should just keep running, but Tejada wanted to stop, and Beacham and Rudy needed a rest. But still... that groan. It came again, closer this time.

  He was in the middle of the aisle when he heard a thump against the rack to his right. "Shit," he said a little too loudly.

  From the aisle to his right, he heard Ramirez shout, "I got one!" Then he heard the sounds of struggle. The next thing he knew, the rack next to him was falling over and he was buried underneath bags of flour and sugar. They might as well be bags of cement.

  The tumbling rack was unbearably loud, and then he heard voices screaming left and right. He was trapped, the weight of the rack combined with the weight of the sugar and flour to prevent him from moving.

  "This place is fucked!" Epps yelled in the distance.

  "Keep cool!" Tejada yelled. "Fall back! We'll get them outside!"

  Quigs could hear Ramirez swearing in Spanish as he struggled with one of the dead. He heard the crinkling of plastic as they fought among the groceries, and then he heard the sound of broken glass. Then Quigs heard something else, something that made him stop breathing. It was a groan, the one that he had heard before.

  He was trapped on his back with only his head sticking out of the pile. He had to tilt his head backwards to see where the source of the sound was coming from. But he couldn't see anything. He could only sense someone approaching. Then he heard a pop and a crunch as someone or something crushed something on the ground in front of him.

  That was enough for Quigs. He wasn't going to go out like this.

  "Help! Help! I'm trapped underneath th
is goddamn thing!"

  He heard their voices then, his fellow soldiers, his fellow survivors.

  "Where are you?"

  "It's Quigs!"

  "Where the fuck is he?"

  "We gotta get Quigs!"

  But these words were not comforting, as all of the voices were too far away.

  "Over here!" Ramirez yelled, and Quigs remained quiet. The shuffling was closer, and he could smell the death coming from the Annie in the aisle. It was old rot. Quigs saw flashlight beams shining through the darkness, and in his brain he screamed. He tried to breathe as quietly as he could, and then he felt something bump into his head... it felt like the toe of a shoe.

  He heard someone sniffing around, and then a drop of something cold fell and splattered on his face. Quigs squeezed his eyes shut as he felt the first caress of the Annie's dried digits. Not my eyes, please, God not my eyes.

  There was a loud bang, and cold liquid splattered his face.

  "I told you not to shoot Goddammit!" Tejada yelled.

  "He was going after Quigs!" It was Brown; he could have kissed the guy.

  "Get him out of there," Tejada yelled.

  Quigs thought he was going to explode from sheer joy as the others began kicking groceries to the side and pulling the shelf off of him. He felt the pressure loosen, and it was like being born again.

  "Someone go get Beacham and the others. That shot will bring more Annies. You can bet your nuts on it. Hey, where the fuck is Ramirez?"

  "I haven't seen 'em," Epps said. "Anyone else seen him?"

  Everyone looked around, but Ramirez wasn't present. "I heard him fighting with an Annie. He was right over here." Quigs walked through a crack in the displaced shelf, unslinging his rifle as he went. It seemed no worse for wear despite his tumble. He shined his flashlight around and spied a puddle of blood, next to an Annie with its forehead bashed in. The blood was fresh and not dark like the blood that came from the dead.