Rotting to the Core (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 2)

by Durnin, S. P.

  Martin and a middle-aged woman with graying brown hair, in a thread-bare but serviceable sundress, stood together. “No problem at all, 'Becca. We can move our cots into one of the second floor control rooms as soon as we adjourn.” The woman Jake took to be Wanda nodded beside him.

  Penny blanched. “Uh. That's very kind of you, Martin, Wanda, but there's no need for you guys to give up your spot. I know you've both been a little jittery due to the last close call at the gate last month. We'll be fine in one of the silos. There's plenty of—”

  “Now Deputy,” Rebecca smiled, clearly aware of the reluctance in Penny's voice, “you do want to set a good example, don't you? It's not as if you'd planned on remaining a free agent indefinitely.”

  “N-no,” Penny replied. “I've become close with Will and—”

  “I'm sure William will understand this is for the good of the community. Besides, it's not as if he'll be lacking for companionship himself.” Rebecca looked over Penny's shoulder.

  The dark-haired woman followed her gaze, directly to the blonde sitting next to Mullet Ben. “Son of a bitch.”

  Rebecca's smile widened further. Now she looked nothing at all like a PEZ dispenser. If anything, Jake thought she very much looked like a crocodile. All teeth and lifeless reptilian eyes.

  * * *

  The grounds of the Roger’s Memorial Psychiatric Hospital were quiet.

  Daniel liked the quiet. The voices in his head were happy, now that there weren’t any other people around. Well, except for the ugly ones. They tried to eat him if he went outside, but they didn’t talk so that was okay. He only went out at night and when he did, he was mouse-quiet. That way, they couldn’t see him in the dark. Daniel wasn’t afraid of the dark. He always had the voices in his head to keep him company.

  Daniel had suffered from “schizophrenia brought on by severe childhood trauma” for almost thirty years now. His mother had tried to kill him with a cast-iron skillet, after she’d murdered Daniel’s father in his sleep with the same piece of cookware. Daniel had narrowly escaped through his bedroom window when he’d found her, still smashing his father’s already deceased head in with it.

  She had made him an omelet the morning before.

  That had been back when Daniel was eight.

  Everyone else had left the hospital, running away from the ugly ones that came and ate other people, but Daniel had stayed. He didn’t have any family, or anywhere else to go. He’d been in Roger’s Hospital for as long as he could remember, and he liked it there. The last of the staff had locked the outer doors as they left, since they couldn’t find him, so the ugly people couldn’t get in. The staff had all been nice, but when they decided to go Daniel had hidden. Roger’s was his home. They’d been afraid of the ugly ones. The only thing he was scared of was leaving Roger’s.

  Besides, the cafeteria had lots and lots of stuff to eat and, since Daniel knew how to use a can opener, he didn’t go hungry. There were cans of beef stew and fruit cocktail and baked beans and tons of SpaghettiOs. Daniel really liked SpaghettiOs. He knew how to make mac-‘n-cheese too. There was a lot of that. There was apple juice and grape juice in little plastic containers and, best of all, he found a big ten-pound bag of Peanut M&Ms in the back of the pantry.

  Daniel ate some of them as he drew pictures in the common room. He liked M&M’s.

  He liked drawing, too.

  -Chapter Five-

  O'Connor was attempting to brainstorm an escape plan as Ben, Jerry, and William ushered them to the top of the grain elevator. Unfortunately, neither he nor Penny had yet to come up with fuck-all.

  As they climbed the stairways up through the gallery, where most of the grain, oats, and rolled corn was kept within the grainery's twelve, hundred-feet high, thirty-feet wide holding towers, Jake realized he'd never actually considered how very tall such silos were. The writer felt a distinct urge to turn around and ask for something lower in the facility for he and Penny's impromptu bridal suite. Like say, a broom closet. He'd be fine with that.

  Just so long as it was closer to ground level.

  Jake had never been good with heights. Even during his time spent with Britain's SAS Regiment, he'd been forced—many times, quite literally by other members of his brick—to leap from aircraft in flight or be washed out of the civilian combat journalist training. The minimum requirement was eight jumps and during easily half of them, Jake had to ask some of the Paratroopers to throw him bodily out the rear hatch if he choked, prior to takeoff. True to their word, every time he balked due to his sense of self-preservation screaming 'What The Fuck Do You Think You're Doing?!?' loudly in his ear, a trio of the tough Paras took firm grips on O'Connor's jump harness, and flung themselves from the plane with him in tow. They'd laughed about it later—each night over Guinness and Jameson's at nearby pubs of course, but Jake accepted their good-natured ribbing with a smile. The Paras kept him from washing out of the program.

  Even so, Jake had no qualms admitting he'd had to change his underwear a couple of times after safely reaching—and then kissing—England's loamy soil. Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane was not a natural act.

  Upon reaching the top of the gallery, Jake, Penny, and their escorts moved along a slim walkway lining its top edge on the side facing the grainery's outside leg. This was where, prior to zombies rising to eat the majority of the living, human population, large terminal elevators capable of loading 120-car unit trains within a day once transferred product for transportation. Taking into account that the facility stored large quantities of various grains, Jake had expected to see the odd rat or two while they'd tromped the length of the building to the stairwell. What he hadn't expected was the size of the bloody things. Living in the tunnels which ran the length of the grainery beneath the bins, the happily gluttonous rodents were nearly two feet long and weighed as much as large house-cats. Mullet Ben had chuckled at him when Jake shied away from one waddling along a pipe next to his shoulder and insisted the 'critters' were harmless. Jake had still moved away from the wall and kept to the outer edge of the walkway after that. Fear of falling over the railing aside, he wasn't willing to take on a rat the size of a healthy beaver.

  Besides, he was fairly sure getting rabies vaccinations would be nigh impossible if one bit him.

  Upon reaching the head house, which was really an 80x60 sixteen story tower, the five of them began climbing a second stairwell up the remaining seven stories to the top. Jake was fairly tired. After getting little rest and being on the move for almost twelve hours prior to being captured by Rebecca's people, he was ready for a good night's sleep. That had been in short supply for both himself and Kat for the last couple of days, seeing how they'd been trapped in Old Hall by about a thousand zombies.

  That thought caused him to once again wonder where Cho was. It had only been perhaps ten hours since they'd separated at the high school, where Jake had been caught flat-footed by Deputy Penny Carson after he'd followed her towards the cafeteria, but he was still worried about her. He looked out over the dark, abandoned landscape and sighed.

  “What's your problem?” Penny demanded huffily behind him, looking daggers at the guard named Will. Will ignored her venomous glares, for the most part. It had become evident that he hadn't taken their brief 'companionship' as seriously as Penny had. When Rebecca had asked Will to accompany Benjamin and Jerry as they settled the two in the new 'bridal suite', he'd merely nodded, then motioned O'Connor towards the stairs with his Savage Model 110 bolt action.

  Jake turned the corner and began moving up yet another floor. “Just thinking. Did you ever used to go camping?”

  “What, are we playing 'Let's get to know each other’? Now?” Penny looked at him quizzically. “Well, that's new. Most guys just stare at my tits and mumble incoherently.”

  “Nice tits aside, I'm being serious.” Jake topped another set of stairs behind Jerry. “Did you ever go out—I mean way out into the middle of nowhere—where there were no houses, no streetlights, no
nothing?”

  Penny shrugged. “A few times. Why?”

  Jake looked out over the corrugated steel handrail. “You never notice how dark the night really is unless you've done that.”

  “What, you scared of the dark?” Ben laughed. “Afraid the Boogieman is gonna get ya?”

  “That's not what I'm talking about.” Jake stopped at the next landing and pointed out into the gloom. “Human beings in general fear the dark. It's a survival instinct left over from long before our ancestors, a hundred-thousand times removed, came down out of the trees. The night has always been where predators thrive. Those big, fast, sneaky things—with lots and lots of long, sharp teeth—who feel at home in the shadows. Living in sprawling cities, surrounded by bright, gleaming plasma-screens, neon fast food signs, and our brightly-lit billboards of the digital age, mankind tried to forget that fact. We pushed back the night with streetlights, hi-beams, and 10,000 watt LED flashlights, telling ourselves there was nothing to be afraid of.”

  Benjamin frowned and looked into the night in the direction Jake pointed.

  “But now? That's all over, and everyone knows we were just lying to make ourselves feel better so we didn't have to deal with our fears. Look out there. No lights, no people, no civilization. Everything we built, all of humanity’s proud tributes to its own greatness are just so many vacant monoliths now. The Empire State Building, The Superdome, Bourbon Street, Disneyland... They're all empty. Our cities are either abandoned, burned to the ground, or overrun by an enemy we never saw coming. Oh, yeah. I also think any questions about the existence of real monsters are moot at this point. We've all seen them and yes, they want to eat us. So you asked if I'm afraid of the dark? No, not of the dark. Of the creatures that live in it? Hell yes. Anyone who isn't is either stupid, dead, or one of them.”

  Penny stared at him. “How do you know that for sure?”

  Jake wasn't about to let the fact he, and his friends in the Screamin' Mimi, still had a working satellite connection to what was left of the Internet slip out. Well...half the time they had connection. Okay, some of the time.

  “They said as much in some of the final broadcasts that aired while I was still in Columbus,” he told them, turning away from the night to continue up the dim stairs. “The only confirmed safe place left is west of the Rockies, but there might be other communities around that have been able to hold out. I was searching for them when you people Shanghaied me.”

  “Have you found anyone else?” Penny asked quickly, jogging up beside him. Jake was thankful it was pretty dark in there just then. It kept him from being observed as he involuntarily committed an awkward social faux pas. Namely, glancing down as her breasteses bounced firmly while she trotted up the stairs.

  Hey, don't judge. She was attractive. He was human. He looked.

  “There was a group a little to the north-west of here, but they weren't anyone I'd recommend hanging out with. They seemed a little over-fond of questionable activities: Looting, rape... kidnapping.” Jake looked pointedly at Penny.

  “Jesus, I wish we'd never found you. Believe me on that one,” she snorted.

  Mullet Ben laughed as they topped the final set of stairs and came to a security door. Penny's silent sometimes roll-in-the-hay Will pulled a large ring of keys from his belt and used one to open the lock, while Benjamin and Jerry herded Jake through the dark opening. Inside, it was obvious someone had been living in the grainery's top-most room. Most of the furniture was pushed to one side, several of the more obvious control consoles had been dismantled and removed altogether, and all the large, industrial grade windows had been propped open to catch the slightest breeze. Jake moved towards the far wall and saw a few photographs had been taped there: Martin and Wanda at Niagara Falls, both of them again in Vegas, two teenage boys and one girl maybe three years apart in age, then a few of each maybe five years older, one of the girl in a hospital gown, looking tired and sweaty but happy, and holding a newborn infant. There were others, but Jake didn't look at them. He didn't want to know what the couple had lost.

  “We'll be back in the morning,” Will finally spoke. His voice was deep and he didn't look at either Jake or Penny before locking the door behind them.

  “Screw you too, asshole,” she called, kicking the base-plate that ran along the bottom of the door.

  “That'll do a lot of good.” Jake told her.

  Shooting an angry look his way, Deputy Carson kicked the door again. “He didn't even say anything. No 'Have a good time', or 'It was fun while it lasted', or even just a 'Piss off. You're a lousy lay'. I can't believe I had sex with that jerk.”

  Jake ignored her and began peering through the windows, looking for some way to escape the 'bridal suite'. There was no way he was going to attempt scaling the outside of the building. The sheer concrete walls didn't have any protrusions to provide handholds, and there wasn't a convenient ledge he could crawl away on to freedom either. Rebecca's guards had put them at the very top, seven full stories above anything even resembling another rooftop. Maybe he could tear some conduit from one of the walls, use it to get down to the next level? They wouldn't keep the fifteenth floor doors locked, would they?

  “What are you doing?” Penny leaned against the wall to one side of the door-frame.

  “Trying to figure a way down from here.” Jake bent and began yanking at the two and a half inch flexible conduit along the wall. “If I can work this free...”

  Ten minutes later, the conduit was still firmly attached to the grainery's interior wall. Jake had even attempted using his Ka-Bar Tanto knife to cut and pry the damnable thing free, but nothing he tried worked. With his escape plan stymied, he kicked the conduit in a moment of anger with the sole of his Bates combat boot. Then he spent the next few minutes hopping around and walking off the pain that shot up from the bottom of his foot upon doing so. That stupid conduit was on there to stay.

  Penny laughed. “That'll do a lot of good.”

  “Who asked you?” Jake grumbled, finally shaking feeling back into his bruised heel. “You're part of the reason we're in this mess.”

  “Yeah. I held a gun to your head and made you follow Ben, Jerry, and me into the school.” She snorted. “Dumbass.”

  “No, you just held one to my head after I came inside.” O'Connor snapped. “Speaking of which, I'll have my gun back now.”

  “Can you blame me?” Penny pushed away from the wall, pulled his Hammer repeater from where it was still stuffed into the waistband of her rather tight shorts, and tossed it carelessly to him. “What the hell did you expect me to do with some clown skulking after me through a dark building? Cook him dinner? Offer him a cold one?”

  Her bluster didn't impress Jake one bit. He inspected the pistol as he spoke, ejected the magazine, inserted a fresh one from his tac-vest, dropped the slide, and secured the weapon in his thigh holster once more. “Don't give me that. You people had Benjamin out in that van just waiting for anyone to come by. How many survivors have you found that way?”

  Carson grumbled and passed one hand through her long curls.

  “Sorry? I didn't catch that, Deputy,” Jake asked again.

  “Eleven, okay?” she yelled.

  Penny didn't seem particularly eager to discuss the subject, which told Jake there was more to it than that. “How many did Rebecca have killed?”

  The ex-officer of law and order seemed to deflate at that question. “Four.”

  “So, let me get this straight,” Disgust was evident in Jake's voice, “you stood by and let them kill four people, and you've got the brass-fucking-balls to give me shit over being cautious of you at the school. Is that about right? Have I left anything out there?”

  “You forgot the part where I've been planning to ditch this pack of idiots!” Penny growled, fists clenched against her sides in anger. “I've been squirreling away supplies at the high school every chance I got for the last month, just waiting for an opportunity to bolt. The problem is, Rebecca got a rule passed early on t
hat no one goes outside the fence alone, so at least one of her little droogies is always along for the ride! That made it kind of tough for me to stockpile things I'd need to bolt, without attracting attention. ”

  Impressed as Jake was that good Deputy Carson's taste in cinematic entertainment allowed her to quote Malcolm McDowell, he still didn't trust her. “So you were going to take off. Then what?”

  “I don't know, head south maybe?” Penny put her palms flat on one of the defunct control consoles and leaned on it, eyes closed. She didn't realize doing so 'accentuated da' booty' so to speak, and Jake had to admit the woman had a nice one. “I hadn't given it that much thought. Anywhere but here I suppose... I knew it was only a matter of time before Rebecca pulled something like this. I've been a little too vocal with my opinions over her 'matchmaking' practices. I talked about it with Will a couple of weeks ago. I guess he must have said something to her about it, and she decided to take steps.”

  Jake was unmoved. “Uh-Huh.”

  Penny sat down heavily in one of the well-used office chairs still left in the room. “You don't know the half of it. 'Becca convinced the group to pass a new rule a few days ago. Once a woman is preggers, she's done going beyond the fence. 'It's too dangerous for both mother and fetus', she said. 'And afterwards, the woman can't risk dying outside and leaving the child an orphan'. The rest of the sheeple lapped it up, let me tell you. This is just an easy way for her to give my job to someone who kisses her ass more than I do. Fucking bitch.”

  “Sucks to be you.” Jake crossed the room and tried the door. It was a steel security job, along with its frame. No joy there. “Maybe you should've spoken up sooner, taken charge yourself.”