by Jacy Morris
Once they were at the wall, Tejada and Walt lifted the ladder off of Rudy and Beacham's shoulders and planted it firmly on the ground after they had kicked a dead body out of the way. Brains ran down the wall as the ladder went up. They sent Quigs up first. He was the eager one of the bunch, always ready to move onto the next pitfall so that he could be the one that said he had jumped first. He was the type of guy who, if you took him sky-diving, would jump out of the airplane before the instructor even gave the order.
He stopped on top of the wall, and turned around, balancing on the edge to help the others over. "It's clear over here," the blonde-haired man announced. The wall was thick, but not as thick as one of Quigs' size-10 shoes. His toes stuck out over the edge of the wall. As each survivor reached the top, he lent them a hand to help them over the two-foot difference in height between the wall and the ladder. Amanda went first followed by Rudy, then Beacham, who managed to climb the ladder with his one good arm, the other hanging in a sling.
Allen fired into the crowds of the dead. He was responsible for all of the dead to the south of the ladder. It was almost unfair. With his rifle, he was able to line up shot after shot, but even after doing so for two full clips there were still more. The ground was littered with the dead, yet more still came, and they were getting closer and thicker every second.
The other soldiers, including Tejada, climbed up the ladder until it was just he and Epps at the bottom. "You go," Allen said. If Quigs was always the first man into a door, Allen was always the last man out of the room. Epps shouldered his rifle and then clambered up the ladder. Once he was up, Allen did the same. At the top, Quigs bent over to help him up, the soles of his feet still balanced on the edge of the wall. A small rectangular book edged out of the pocket on his chest, hanging precariously and then falling completely. Quigs moved to catch it, over-committed, and lost his balance in the process. He fell forward and Allen reached out for him with his hand.
He grasped onto the inside of Quigs' shirt, but the extra weight pulled the ladder off balance. It began to tilt to the left and was in jeopardy of falling completely over, which would mean death for them both with the dead closing in.
From the other side of the wall, the others yelled at them, asking if they were ok. "Don't let me go, man!" Quigs pleaded. Allen and Quigs locked eyes, and then Allen did the unthinkable. He let Quigs go.
He moved quickly after that, fear nipping at his heels along with the screams of Quigs below. When he was at the top, he stepped to the side, balancing on the edge of the wall and spinning around. He leaned over and pulled the ladder up and over the wall. The ladder gave a loud metallic rattle as it hit the ground, and then he scanned the outside of the wall to find Quigs buried underneath a crowd of Annies. He had no shot, but Quigs still screamed, so he pulled his pistol and tried to kill as many of them as he could. One round after another, he fired into the mob of Annies feeding on his friend. He must have killed a half-dozen of them by the time he could finally see Quigs' face. There wasn't much left of it, and the man that he had known as Quigs was no longer there as the Annies feasted.
Allen took aim and squeezed the trigger. It was all he could do. Guilt washed over him like a tsunami, sweeping away everything that he was. He knelt on top of the wall, his mind lost to him. He was raw emotion oozing with rage. The dead looked up at him from below, aching to reach Allen's flesh. He screamed so hard, he thought he would turn himself inside out, and then he fired into those faces. Man, woman, and child fell under his onslaught. And when his handgun clicked empty, he let it fall to the side. There were more here than he had ammunition for.
"Get down here, son."
It was the voice of Tejada, calm, sympathetic. He had never heard the man's voice like that before. It calmed him immediately. He hung from the inside of the wall by his hands and then dropped to the ground with a thud. Epps was there, putting his hand on his shoulder. Allen's eyes had gone blurry with tears, and he wiped his arm across his face, keeping his eyes on the ground.
No one needed to say anything. They had seen Quigs fall. They had heard the screams and the gunfire. They stood that way for a few minutes, until Allen sucked in the snot, dried his eyes, and said, "I'm ready to go." But he wasn't. None of them were.
****
They were surrounded by overgrown nature. Flowers, grass, and bushes grew wild. In the distance, they could see buildings rising up above nature's bounty. The buildings were large and the architecture strange. The closest building was a pristine white. It was all angles and lines. In the center a large glass atrium rose. Inside, they could see shadows moving about in the morning light.
Their hearts fell. The dead were here too.
"Bring that ladder," Tejada said.
Rudy and Beacham tossed the ladder over their shoulders again, and they walked with their heads poking up between the rungs. They pressed forward through the grass, the soldiers scanning left and right, all except for Allen. His rifle hung at his side, and he had a blank look on his face.
Walt felt sorry for him. But he would keep an eye on the man. It was the least he could do. As they pressed forward, they began to see evidence of a large battle. Bodies lay rotting in the tall grass, their corpses keeping the grass underneath from growing. The smell of the dead hung in the air, and there was evidence of gunfire. Many of the corpses, in addition to the mutilations that lead to their birthing as the living dead, had bullet holes in their foreheads.
Andy noticed the name of the building to their right. It was called the Tiger Woods Center. Then he noticed the tell-tale signs on the buildings around them, each emblazoned with the name of a famous athlete. If you knew what to look for, you would see the tell-tale swoosh symbol everywhere, both on the buildings and on the clothing and badges of the dead.
"I always wanted to visit the Nike Campus," Beacham said.
It all made sense in a weird sort of way. Only a company flush with money could have managed to create their own little compound with the end of the world going on around them. As they pressed forward, Andy stopped. "What is that sound?" They all stopped and listened. A faint mechanical whine could be heard. Then they saw the source; a small golf cart trundled towards them. At one point it stopped, becoming stuck upon the body of a corpse. A large man, dressed in the all black uniform of a security guard, hopped out of the cart and pulled the body of the corpse out of the way. Then he hopped back in, and the cart headed towards them once more.
"Be ready," Tejada said.
The soldiers checked their weapons, and Walt let his bowling ball drop to the ground. He pulled his handgun free and held it at his side. He would be ready if anything went badly.
"Hello there!" a round-faced man with a white beard called as the golf cart pulled to a stop in front of them. Now that the man in black was closer, they could see that he had a submachine gun slung over his shoulder. It was currently aimed at them.
"Hello to you," Tejada said, his voice letting the man know that he didn't much care to have a weapon pointed in his direction.
"Don't mind Harper here. You can never be too careful these days." The man looked them over with a careful eye. "I see we have some soldiers here. Are you good soldiers or bad? We've seen both."
"We're good," Tejada said shortly.
"We'll just have to see about that. Bad soldiers wouldn't tell me they're bad, would they?"
"I suppose not," Tejada said.
"Well, either way, welcome to Nike World Headquarters, not that there's much of a world left. But hey, at least there's we won't have any competition for a while. Not many other companies still holding together I suppose. Why don't you come on in and take a rest?"
"That sounds just fine," Tejada replied.
The trollish-looking man in the golf cart, hearing that they were welcome, let his machine gun drop. The soldiers did the same.
"Follow us," the man in the golf cart said. He spun his golf cart around, jiggling as he rolled over the arm of a dead Annie in the process. "Oops," he g
iggled.
Walt bent down to pick up his bowling ball as the survivors moved to follow the odd old man.
"That building over there is the Tiger Woods Center," the old man began as if giving a tour. "You'll find that it is not a place that you want to go. The dead are in there. As a matter of fact, most of the buildings here are not places you want to go."
"What happened?" Andy asked.
"Oh, you know. The same thing that happened everywhere," the man said wistfully. "We thought we were safe. We weren't, and by the time we had the situation under control, we had to lock up most of the buildings. It's a sad thing really. There are some truly great people roaming the buildings of this campus. But come, we can speak more of these things once we get to safety. The buildings are all sealed up tight, but with the living around, the dead can get a little agitated. And when they get agitated enough, they can escape. We've seen it before."
They followed the man in quiet, admiring the unique buildings and the campus, which at one time must have been beautiful to behold. The buildings still were, but the grounds, which were once faithfully manicured, had fallen into a state of overgrowth. The cart motored along a covered walkway.
There was a large lake to their left. Instead of ducks floating along placidly, there were bodies, floating face down. Their corpses were swollen and pale like gooseflesh. The late summer wind rippled across the water, and Walt felt a chill on it. They entered a building named Ken Griffey Jr., another glass behemoth of modern architecture. At the entranceway, the old man climbed from the cart, leaning on the arm of the security guard, who had thus far remained quiet.
They followed the toddling man inside the building. There were other people about, soft people who looked upon them with fear in their eyes. Walt thought that they were lucky to still be alive. He wondered if he had once had that look. Is that what the other survivors had seen when he had allowed them into the movie theater? A soft-faced boy, barely capable of wiping his own ass?
They filed through an entranceway and up a flight of stairs. They found themselves on a second floor. Small couches and chairs filled the spaces. Haggard-looking men and women lounged on the chairs, doing nothing other than looking upon their new visitors.
Walt nodded at each of them in turn, hoping to exude the confidence that he felt. These people were no threat to them.
"You still have power," Tejada said.
"Yes, yes. Before this whole thing started we had just turned this place into a 100% green paradise. Only on the most cloudy of days do we not have enough energy for our needs. Now that there's no TV, no internet, no wi-fi, well, we really only need enough power for lights, cooking, and the water heater."
"You have hot water?" Amanda asked.
The old man smiled at her. "Yep. Water stopped working a month ago, but we were able to rig something up. After we talk, I'm sure we can arrange a shower for you and your friends. That's the great thing about having all these engineers and scientists on hand... nothing is ever truly broken."
Everyone brightened up instantly.
"But before that, we need to have that talk. So come with me."
They walked down a corridor, the chairs and sofas disappearing from view. They passed a wall decorated with hundreds of baseball bats and several golden baseball gloves, and then they were in a meeting room. The old man stood to the side as they filed in, and then he closed the door behind them.
At the head of the table, a man sat with wild eyes. He had the look of a hippy about him. He had a red and grey beard that was unkempt. A strip of red cloth was tied around his forehead to keep his shoulder-length gray hair out of his eyes... to Walt, he looked like if a businessman had gone feral. To his left and his right sat several pinched-face people, suspicious, their eyes darting from one survivor to the next, weighing and judging.
"Please, have a seat," the man said. "My name is Nike, and these are my trusted advisors."
The survivors sat in the chairs. They were soft and luxurious, and Walt could feel the tension release from his back.
"You said your name was Nike?" Tejada said.
The bearded man smiled. "It was not my birth name, but that name belonged to a different world, a different place. That name belonged to a person that died. We have all been reborn in this place, as many of you have probably been reborn as well, out there... among the dead. It's a different world out there than the one we were born into. A different name seemed fitting."
"Well, my name is Tejada, and these are my soldiers and a couple of people we picked up along the way. We lost a man getting into this place, and we don't have much time for bullshit, and that's what this place smells like... bullshit. Now what do you want from us?"
Nike laughed, his mouth opening wide as he threw his head back and bellowed like no man had ever bellowed before. The fucker was crazy. Walt could see that.
When he was done, Nike regarded Tejada with a good-natured smile. "Your directness is apropos. You know, in the time before all this, I would have been put off by such adroitness. I would have counted you a feeb and a simpleton. But I suspect that directness has probably kept you and your men alive this far."
Tejada and the other survivors waited patiently.
"I won't waste any more of your time, Mr..."
"Tejada."
"Mr. Tejada. We have many problems here. You've seen the dead in the other buildings I suspect. We have everything here we need to survive. Walls, land for food, people, water... but what we don't have is people like you and your friends. People that can get things done. We were all pencil-pushers, people who worked with our minds, not our hands. When our friends turned, there was nothing we could do but lock them inside these buildings. But they are a danger to our way of life. We cannot live if they still live in death. Does that make sense?"
Tejada nodded as the other soldiers looked at each other, unsure of what was happening here.
"In short, Mr. Tejada, I want you and your men to kill the dead on these premises. I want you to be a part of our community, to train us, and help us survive."
Nike fell into silence, his underlings eyeing the soldiers expectantly as Nike's request sank in.
"What say you to our little deal?" Nike asked.
Tejada pulled his backpack off of the floor and unzipped it. He reached inside and pulled out a bottle of water. He twisted the top, the flimsy, ridged plastic crinkling in his hands as he tipped it back. He let out a great "ah" of satisfaction and then set the bottle on the table. Nike showed signs of impatience at Tejada's display. He was not a man used to waiting for a response.
Tejada wiped the back of his mouth with his hand, slapped the arms of the chair he was sitting in and said, "We'll sleep on it." With that he stood up and waved to the others. Walt was laughing on the inside, struggling to keep a straight face. Absolutely badass, he thought. Tejada had just emasculated this hippy turned leader without even trying.
Nike, for his part, showed no ill will other than the crinkling of the skin around his eyes as he attempted to hold back his displeasure. "By all means," the man said, "take the evening to dwell on my proposal. We have plenty of food, and if you need to freshen up, we have plenty of water , which should make you feel more at home. We'll talk again in the morning. Zimmer, would you show these men around?"
The toddling old man nodded at Nike and then gestured at the survivors to follow him. They filed out of the meeting room. When Andy looked over his shoulder, Nike was still sitting there. The smile glued to his face was like a picture of Bigfoot, fake as hell.
****
Rudy had to hand it to the people at the Nike campus. They knew how to make some pretty good food with stuff from cans. He was famished, and for the first time in who knew how long, he could finally get down to the business of eating without worrying about tomorrow. Rationing your own supplies of food in the hopes that you would have something to eat the next day was practical, but certainly not the way that he wanted to live.
Speakers played some soothing mu
sic. It wasn't the type of music that he would have ever listened to, but he didn't mind it one bit. The song was simple, soft jazz. He normally hated jazz, finding its rhythms and instruments jarring and annoying. But he hadn't heard music in so long that he thought he could listen to this particular song for hours.
The soldiers sat around them, slurping up food that had been prepared by some of the denizens of the Nike campus. They were good, normal people, the likes of which he hadn't seen in forever, since everything had gone to shit at the Memorial Coliseum. They were the type of people that you would see walking down the streets, shopping in the grocery stores, and basically living a "normal" life.
He had never imagined such an existence for himself, but here, after having gone through everything he had gone through, he thought that maybe there was a chance that he could have a nice normal life. Maybe he and Amanda could have that together. He scooped another mouthful of the ramen-chili concoction into his mouth. He had to hand it to the end of the world, food had never tasted so damned good... even if it was just chili plopped over a plate full of unseasoned ramen.
Amanda stuck a forkful of peas in front of his face, and he opened his mouth and made them disappear within. Oh, so good! He turned to her and smiled, and she bumped shoulders with him. They were both ecstatic.
The soldiers however were not in the same mood. They had lost a friend outside, and they spoke in hushed tones at the other end of the long cafeteria table they sat at. Andy, or Walt as everyone seemed to call him now, was down there with them. Whatever the soldiers decided, Rudy knew in his heart that he was going to stay. He hoped they would take Walt with them. He had changed subtly since they had left the movie theater. It had only been a few weeks since then, but there was something about him that just didn't seem right. The bowling ball incident had been dangerous, not awesome like the soldiers thought, and he had seen some of the disdainful looks that Andy had cast his way. Rudy knew those looks. He had experienced those for the better part of his life whenever he walked down the street.
