THE VALUE OF JADE (Mace of the Apocalypse #2)

by Daniel J. Williams

  No one wanted to mention the Thompson’s. They had all prepared themselves for the worst.

  Chelsea piped in. “I want it to snow. I want to make a snowman.”

  Lisa leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “You will honey. Now finish eating your dinner.”

  Chelsea looked at the bowl of stew in front of her and made a face. When Lisa turned her head back towards Mace and Jade, she fished out a carrot and slipped it under the table, where Buster had been patiently waiting for the next morsel to come his way.

  Hannah stood watching Chelsea, wondering if she would ever have children again. She’d been a single mother raising a son. He’d been fourteen when the attacks came. She’d never found out what had happened to him or heard from him again. The hardest decision she’d had to make was the one to join the caravan, but after she’d been injured she’d felt so strange she didn’t want to be left on her own. Jacqueline had become her caretaker and she was extremely thankful for that. Now that she was gone, she either wanted a place to start over or a place to lay her head down and die. Either one would suit her just as well.

  Sitting at the next table, Bill refilled his glass of wine. They were telling stories of the wildest infected they had seen. “I saw this one guy running around in a bondage outfit,” Bill said, nodding his head as he told it. “He had on leather underwear and a ball stuck in his mouth.” He marked a cross across his chest. “I swear it. Hope to die."

  The others around the table were cracking up. Chelsea turned to Lisa and started giggling. “He said he had leather underwear.” She slapped Lisa’s shoulder with her little hand and covered her mouth with the other. “That’s funny.”

  Watching the reactions of the other table brought a smile to Lisa’s face. She hadn’t heard what the conversation was about but thought it was good to see them laughing. She looked back to Chelsea. “What did I tell you about listening to other people’s conversation? Now let’s go get changed for bed. It’s going to be dark soon.”

  “Aw, Mommy. It’s early. Can’t I just stay up a little while?”

  Lisa shook her head no. “I want you to get plenty of rest. You’ve been getting cranky in the car.”

  Chelsea gave her a stern look and waddled off the bench. “That sucks!” she said as she headed on her own towards the hotel.

  Lisa gave a command to Buster. “Keep her company, boy.” Buster immediately trotted from under the table and slid next to Chelsea, who looked over and yanked gently on his ear. Looking apologetically at Mace and Jade, Lisa slid her legs over the bench. “Sorry. She’s a little headstrong some times.”

  “She sure is cute as a button, though,” Jade remarked, and they all watched as Chelsea started making dramatic hand gestures as she sang a song to Buster. Lisa smiled warmly at the sight. “I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

  They said their goodbyes and the boys at the other table yelled goodnight as Lisa walked quickly to catch up with Chelsea. Yvette gave Jim a quick kiss as she got up and waved her goodbyes to everyone. She was crazy about Jim but was tired of being at the boy’s table.

  Looking at his watch, Mace said, “We’d better get this cleared up. Lisa’s right. It will be dark soon.” As they slowly began dispersing and cleaning up, they double checked the guard rotation for the night. Jim was on first watch, replaced by Paul three hours later. They wouldn’t make it to the third.

  It was a little after eleven pm when Paul spelled Jim. He had just come from a heated argument with Noreen. They had been arguing practically the entire night, but had remained quiet and in darkness according to the rules, bickering in the claustrophobic confines of their bed. Melissa, insanely tired of the battle, curled up in a chair and tried to drown out their whispers with the tired music on her walkman.

  Paul had left Noreen with a nasty comment as he departed their motel room for guard duty. Noreen sat fuming in their bed, tossing and turning until she could take it no longer. She rose after about twenty minutes to find Paul outside, pacing in front of the hotel, smoking furiously on a cigarette, the crossbow swinging lazily back and forth in his other hand as he held it by the bowstring. She flashed her flashlight at him to get his attention as she stood outside her door.

  “Don’t think you can just leave the way you did,” she whispered loudly. Paul felt his anger rise up immediately upon seeing her. Walking quickly towards her, he was ready to pounce.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing? I’m on watch here. I had to leave.”

  "You think you can just say anything you like and I’m supposed to take it? Melissa is crying herself to sleep again because of you. This is no kind of life. I don’t know what we’re doing here anyway.”

  “It’s real easy to make me out to be the bad guy, but have you ever take any responsibility for yourself? Do you even know how much you nag me? Or Melissa? You can’t seem to accept that this is the way life is. We left to try to make things better, remember?”

  From down the street an infected had been lumbering in their direction. It had originally seen the flash of Paul’s lighter as he had lit his cigarette, and was slowly being drawn to the source of the glowing ember that kept moving and bobbing in the night. Cigarettes had been deemed off limits during guard duty, but Paul didn't care. He'd had to put up with enough bullshit as a smoker. It was Armageddon. He'd smoke if he felt like it.

  At the brightness of the flashlight, the infected let out a sigh of sickly excitation as it recognized the forms in the light. A second infected now diverted its heading to move in their direction. The widespread destruction in this area had led to no new converts in quite a while. They had grown slow, but their thirst for devastation had not weakened.

  Meanwhile, the arguing continued in whispers. “You jackass, you made the decision to come here. Melissa and I were perfectly fine trying to build a life again back home. At least we had a home!”

  Paul flicked the flashlight on and pointed it towards their hotel room door. “I suggest you get back in there now before I do something I’ll regret.” He flicked the light off and squeezed it in anger. He looked past her as Melissa appeared in the doorway of their room. He flashed the light at her then shook his head at his wife. “Do you see what you’ve done now?” He took a step towards the door before turning and ending with “you stupid bitch.”

  He reached the room, ordering Melissa to go back inside. She raised her middle finger and wagged it in front of his face. In a low whisper, she said, “God, you are both so pathetic. I’d be better off on my own. I hate you!” Paul grabbed her arm and thrust her inside, and from behind him the flashlight came on again as Noreen came rushing up at the sight. “Don’t you touch my baby! Don’t you touch my daughter.”

  They all entered the room, leaving the door open. From all around the infected were coming, lumbering in quiet rage towards the light. Low guttural moans triggered understanding in others, and they began to merge in their progress towards the small motel. They, who had seemed all but dead, came to life in ecstatic yearning for hatred’s fulfillment, and with each slow and ailing step the rage grew and multiplied.

  Mace stirred slightly in his sleep. He was dreaming of Father McCann. He could see him waving and yelling in the distance but couldn’t hear his voice. Pointing excitedly behind Mace, Father McCann was trying to bring his attention to something. A volcano of fear erupted within him as he turned to see an army of wild-eyed zombies moving swiftly upon him. He turned to run but his feet were now stuck in quicksand, and each step seemed to suck him in further.

  He turned back in desperation towards Father McCann, who was now directly in front of him. Father McCann screamed “Run!”

  Mace woke up and stared into the blackness of night, sweat dripping off him like a death row inmate strapped to the gurney. His clothes were wet and sticky, and he wished he could change or take a shower. They all chose to sleep in their clothes, understanding the need for readiness and action in case of an emergency. He rolled over and tried to catch his breath, when out of
the corner of his eye he noticed movement right outside the motel window.

  Something had leaned against the front window, and he could see the impression it left. In the eerie light of a quarter moon, Mace watched the shadowed movements of something large and slow, and as he stared at the object something else crossed in front of the window. His heart started hammering against his chest as he tried to focus on the objects. Somewhere down the hall, their rose a blood-curdling scream.

  The bickering had been so all consuming that Paul and his family had failed to notice the things that had followed them into their room. Melissa had noticed them first; not by sight, but by smell, the room being covered in the black paint of night.

  The foul gagging stench of rotting flesh that emanated from their every pore found her nose as she turned away from her parents in disgust. While her parents continued their hushed battle of wills, Melissa stood frozen as she realized the stench belonged to something lingering a few feet away.

  Her head sparked with small electrical currents of fear as she lifted the small flashlight she had in her hand and shone it in the direction of the smell. Her scream sat stifled in her throat as the electrical currents became lighting bolts of terror that surged through her cerebral cortex and bathed her in a momentary blindness of light and shock. Standing two feet away from her were four bloody, horrific apparitions of death and madness. Their mouths were open wide in rage, displaying bloody tangles of rancid meat and bone. They covered their lifeless eyes in pain at the light but moved forward just the same. With their hideous faces boring into hers, Melissa’s knees went weak and she lost control of her bladder, stumbling backwards into her parents. As she fell into them, their hushed bickering ceased immediately, and they turned towards the infected a few feet away, their minds reeling and confused by the depth of horror and danger that stood before them.

  Melissa’s eyes bugged out as she screamed endlessly in mindless panic, clawing at her parents as she tried to scramble over them. The infected reached for her, and their shrieks pierced her ears as one of their bony hands grabbed a hold of her arm. She yanked it free and ran to the bathroom where she slammed the door shut behind her, tripping over her own feet and slamming her head against the porcelain toilet. As she blacked out the last thing she could hear were the tormented screams of her mother as the infected were upon her.

  Paul pushed his wife at the approaching infected who immediately attacker her, and then tried to maneuver around them in the darkness. He hit his shin on the coffee table and cried out in pain. He turned on the flashlight to find the quickest way out of the room when a horrible shriek erupted behind him. He swung around to see Noreen coming at him full of infection, eyes wild and clothes bathed in her own blood. He tried to scramble backwards but stumbled over the corner of the coffee table. She lunged at him as he went down, biting into his collar bone and ripping out bone and flesh once they hit the ground.

  He screamed in pain, feeling the hot rush of infection race through his bloodstream. She came at him again, burying her teeth into his face, and with horror he felt his nose and upper lip torn away, her face barely recognizable and filled with furious anger as she spit them out and drove her teeth into his neck.

  He started to convulse as the infection took root, and recognizing the change occurring within, the creature that used to be Noreen stopped the attack, jumping up and shrieking in madness and outrage. Paul howled like an animal from the floor as the transformation took hold, and his teeth cracked as he clenched them with uncontrollable fury.

  Mace jumped out of bed as Jade and the rest of their caravan were startled awake by the screams, and he made an immediate grasp for his flashlight and gun. Running towards the door, he turned the knob and was pushed back immediately as the door surged inwards from the force of the infected.

  Yelling out in shocked surprise, he tried to slam the door closed again, but the pressure was too great. As they pushed their way further inside he screamed for Jade to run, letting go of the door and backing up to cover her.

  Jade jumped out of bed as Mace fired a series of rounds at the invaders streaming into the room. Mace grabbed her and pushed her through the bathroom door as he retreated, locking it behind them.

  Jade fell into the bathtub as he took the cover off the toilet and launched it through the bathroom window, with the infected slamming against the bathroom door trying to break through.

  “Get up!” he yelled as he helped her stand. He looked at her with a mixture of panic and concern, staring for a brief second at the bulge that protruded from her belly.

  “We’ve got to get out!” he yelled, grabbing her by the hips and helping push her through the window. The infected pounded on the door with steady hammering blows. She slid out carefully, easing her stomach through , before tumbling to the ground and immediately jumping up, swinging her flashlight and gun in a half circle, expecting to be attacked by an army of infected any second. There were none in the back of the hotel. They had all congregated in the front.

  Mace tried to squeeze himself through but his shoulders were too wide. Standing below him, Jade yelled “Hurry!” as she frantically looked around. He continued to try to maneuver through, before finally giving up and speaking to her quickly and breathlessly in the sphere of the flashlight.

  "I can’t make it! I’m going to have to go back through the front. We need some type of diversion. If you can get to the car, use a flare to blow one of the vehicles. Hurry!”

  He disappeared back through the window and she could hear gunshots as he fired through the bathroom door, trying to keep the infected at bay. Tears blurred her vision as she ran around the back of the hotel and she struggled to keep her composure as the light from the flashlight bounced and danced from the movement, creating leaping shadows that threatened to derail her from within. She had limited visibility and the images jumped at her like a child’s feverish nightmare.

  She turned the rear corner and could see a number of infected making their way from the side towards the center of the motel. She fired several shots, dropping them and bringing a chorus of dark hisses and moans from the creatures waiting around the bend.

  She slowed down as she came to the front corner, terrified at what lay beyond, and she jumped as a gunshot pierced the front door of one of the motel rooms. It had come from Bill’s room, the one that he shared with Jim and Mike, and she jerked in response as he continued to fire several shotgun blasts through the door at the infected who swarmed outside his room.

  Noreen came barreling out of the Turchet's room and Jade yelled her name before seeing her condition. Noreen turned and sprinted towards her, with Jade backpedaling in shock at her horrid appearance.

  She fired a single shot into Noreen's skull as she reached within a few feet, and jumped out of the way as her body crumbled towards her. She could feel her heartbeat pounding in her head and she wanted to cry out in fear, but she also wanted to stay completely still and remain quiet so no others would notice her. If Noreen was gone then Paul and Melissa had most likely suffered the same fate, and she watched their door closely as she moved around the front of the building.

  There had to be at least fifty of them that had congregated at the front of the hotel, and she let out a cry of fear as she heard another scream come from one of the rooms. She swung the flashlight nervously across the door fronts, and it appeared that the infected had so far only entered two rooms, hers and the Turchett’s.

  She heard more gunfire from the rooms and watched in horror as an infected crashed his upper body through one of the hotel windows. She could hear Lisa’s voice screaming obscenities followed by a volley of shots, and the infected who crashed through the window fell back, sprawling across the pavement.

  She turned the flashlight to the cars, and noticed that there were very few infected beyond the front motel walkway. They all seemed to be focused on the hotel rooms and swarming into the two open doors. She panicked as she saw the open door to her room, yelling out “Mace!” as she gave
the infected a wide berth, heading for the Grand Cherokee.

  She fired several shots into the infected who were closest to her, and as she scanned the outside area with her flashlight she could see a number who were spread out and slowly making their way towards the motel. She opened the door to the Jeep and jumped inside, flipping down the visor. The car keys dropped into her lap and she fumbled with them as she tried to insert the key into the hole. She turned the ignition, firing up the engine and turning on the headlights.

  She switched on the high beams and hit the door locks, noticing as a few infected turned towards her at the commotion before raising their hands and moaning loudly, enraged by the light of the vehicle. She didn’t want to waste time looking for the flare as she stared at the infected who continued to pour inside the motel room.

  She felt terror-stricken and unsure of what to do. The seconds that followed felt like hours as she debated her next course of action. She finally put the car in reverse and turned her body around, stomping on the gas pedal and punching the SUV backwards.

  The car’s tires squealed as it fishtailed backwards before knocking down an infected lumbering up behind her. She screeched to a halt fifteen feet from where she had begun. She turned back around and took a deep breath, switching the car to drive and hitting the gas pedal again. She headed straight for her motel room door, swerving slightly as she tried to keep the vehicle under control. She had the gas pedal floored as she slammed into the infected in front of the door and crashed through the wall of her motel room. The car came to a hard stop six feet inside as her foot stomped down on the brake, and she suddenly felt herself surrounded by monstrous faces turning to shriek and claw at the car windows.

  Claustrophobia descended upon her. She felt like she was being buried alive and fresh dirt was being shoveled on top. She put the car back in reverse and twisted around, punching the gas pedal once again. The SUV jerked and struggled to climb over the debris from the fallen wall and infected before gaining momentum and squealing out of the room. It barreled backwards and she brought the car to a screeching halt twenty feet out.