No sound drifts in from the outside, and neither of us will stick our heads up to see how the people react. It takes what feels like an eternity until they finally say something.
“The fuck was that?” a gruff male voice.
Soles crunching glass, footsteps echoing off the bricks.
“It’s a Ford,” another voice says. “You know how they are, always breaking and shit.”
“Naw, naw, someone’s in there.”
Double shit.
“Food?” the female asks. “Is it food?”
I hope she thinks we’re stray animals or something, and not human. I can’t say she does with much certainty.
“Could be,” the gruff voice says.
Billy and I are hardly breathing.
Outside, a gun cocks. Metallic click-click. That’s okay, we have weapons, too.
The girl starts chanting. It’s almost tribal, and it brings goosebumps up my arms. “Fresh…meat! Fresh…meat! Fresh…meat!”
“Quit it, you’re gonna scare them,” a man says.
Billy looks at me then looks at the door. We got to get out of here. I know that, but I don’t want to waste ammo on these people. I have a feeling we’re going to use up plenty of ammo when we get to the hospital.
Here goes my mind thinking toxic thoughts again. A voice whispers in my head and says, If you get to the hospital, Jack.
Billy hits me with what seems to be charade sign language. You know, fingers pointed to the eyes, a tug on the earlobe, two fingers tapping the wrist, and I’m thinking, Sounds like? Two syllables? What the hell? What’s with this universal language I don’t get? Him and Norm would get along well. They could even speak in their indecipherable charade talk.
Get out, he mouths.
No shit, I mouth back, then nod my head to the passenger’s door. If there’s going to be shooting, I’d want the cab between us and them.
Billy rolls over the seat, not gracefully and pops open the door. The hinges squeak out bloody murder and my heart does that weird little thing where it feels like it’s exploding and dropping at the same time.
Doesn’t matter. The cab is crashed, the guns are cocked, and the damage is done.
I climb over the seat just as a shot rips through the air. More glass shatters. I feel the wind whip at my leg. The bullet slams into the car seat, puffs of stuffing and hot leather wheeze out.
“Don’t run, we want to talk to you,” the gruff voice says.
“Fresh…meat! Fresh…meat!”
I get out of the door, leaving the stale air of the cab behind and take in a lungful of death. Billy aims at the man coming toward us, the man with the smoking pistol in his hand. He screams as he pulls the trigger. The shot takes the man in the chest, knocking him down to the ground.
“Fresh — ” another shot cuts her off.
She pulls her own gun free. Her hair is blonde beneath the muck, I don’t know why I notice this, but I do. It makes me think of Darlene, then my mind connects the dots and as I stand there like an idiot just waiting to be shot, I think of dying and how that would kill Darlene.
“Get down!” Billy shouts.
As a bullet whines off the roof of the cab, I do and it misses me, but I’m showered in metal shavings, hot metal shavings.
A barrage of shots hammer into the cab’s body. I’m breathing hard. My body feels iced over. I speak and it doesn’t sound like me. “We gotta run,” I say.
“No shit,” Billy says. “Just let me drop a few more of them.”
“No! We gotta go now.” It’s only a matter of time before the zombies — the real zombies — follow the sounds of the firefight. Then what? Our escape routes will be few and far between.
Billy stands up as more shots sound from the group. He busts off three more. I hear a man scream and as I look up, I see a spray of blood from his arm. Three more people dressed like the dead eye us from the cover of an alleyway.
Now’s a good a time as any. I grab Billy before he can squeeze off another shot and drag him. This time, he goes willingly enough. Because there’s no brother for him to save. There’s only death and destruction and despite the horribly raw look on his face, I think we are both sick of those two things.
38
We run through another empty street. The quiet is so constant, I can hear their shoes slapping the pavement as they chase us. It’s only a matter of time before they start shooting again. God, save me.
“The alley,” I say, pointing ahead. A crevice between a book store and a five and dime clothing place overflows with garbage. The stench is rotten, almost fresh-rotten, but what choice do we have?
Billy breaks left, me not far behind him and we dive into a pile of papers and wet cardboard boxes.
“Wait ’til they pass,” I say.
“You mean get the jump on them and bury a clip in their spinal cords, right?”
I narrow my eyes at him. Not quite. We can get out of this without killing people. He must see me weighing my options because he says, after a moment, “They shot at us, man. Kill or be killed.” He sounds like Norm.
“Save your ammo for the hospital,” I say.
Billy shakes his head.
The pounding of their shoes grow closer. “Fresh…red…meat, fresh…red…meat, fresh…” the woman chants. Her voice is chilling, almost spooky. Part of me wishes she was a zombie. It would make putting a bullet in her head a lot easier.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” a man says.
Billy’s knuckles are showing bone-white through his flesh as he grips his pistol. I see his finger twitching. He is on the edge, on that last frayed rope of sanity. If the rope snaps, he’s not only going to kill them, but get us killed in the process. I put my hand on his arm. Fire radiates off of him. He’s like a personal human space heater. He spares me one look then looks back ahead at the mouth of the alley.
“Fresh…white…meat, fresh…white…meat,” the girl continues.
Why the change in colors? I shake my head. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand my back against the wall, being cornered and trapped. As I turn around, I see a fire escape.
Billy follows my gaze and shakes his head. Fight, he mouths.
I know where fighting gets you. I would rather not fight if I don’t have to, and right now we have a way out.
“C’mon,” I whisper.
“Fresh…white…meat, fresh…red…meat…”
He’s shaking bad now. I got to get him out of here before he explodes. His face grows redder, beads of sweat dribble down his forehead.
I grit my teeth, the tension too much. Finally, I grab him and pull. We make a little noise, the rustling of old newspapers, the squeak of soles on concrete, but I don’t care. All I care about is getting out of this alley. The walls feel like they’re starting to close in on me, and there’s a group of fucked-up people walking around in zombie guts like it’s the go-to fashion of the apocalypse — we’ve got bigger problems than making too much noise. Yeah, I’ve seen some messed up things, but this is getting closer and closer to taking the cake.
The rungs of the fire escape ladder are not within reach. I have to jump up to grab it and pull it down. Seven months ago that would’ve been a problem. You’re talking to the guy who stands over six feet and couldn’t jump over a box of matches seven months ago. Now, life on the road has whipped me into shape…well, as good of shape as the lame genetics I got from a perpetually frumpy waitress and an absentee father can be in. I spring up. A jackrabbit, practically hearing the boing as my fast-twitch muscle fibers ignite, sending me up through the cold, garbage-filled air. And for a split second, as my breath whooshes from between gritted teeth and my hands close around the black, steel rungs, I am reminded of the last time I climbed a ladder. It was on top of a drug store in Woodhaven, where I discovered Freddy Huber chewing on his girlfriend, and I think it’s really fucking funny how I always end up in the same situations. Running for my life while I’m chased by zombies. Oh well, what can you do?
&nb
sp; The fire escape whines as if it’s made completely out of rust. Yeah, I really don’t care about making noise. If things go any more south, we’ll end up making our own type of fireworks anyway, just like Woodhaven.
I scramble up the ladder, Billy quickly behind me. Just as we are crawling over the lip of the building’s roof, someone says, “There they are!” down below.
“Fresh red meat! Fresh red meat!” the woman shrieks.
Okay, that’s enough. Really.
I draw my M16, which has been banging me in the middle of the spine this whole time — if I survive this, then I’m not going to be able to sleep on my back for at least a couple of weeks. But that’s better than being dead.
Three-round burst, ready to fire, one eye closed, the other squinted and looking down the iron sight. I have a good view of all six of them, dressed in their raggedy clothes, the dried blood caked on their faces like some kind of demented mud-mask.
The ghost of Grady’s voice comes into my head from when he taught me about the variety of this weapon’s firing capability.
Use the burst to conserve ammo, or something like that. I don’t know, it seems like it happened ages ago.
Fuck that. My finger finds the metal tab and switches the arrow to AUTO just as a shot clips the concrete right in front of me. I don’t even flinch, but Billy is whimpering.
No time for that.
My finger brushes against the cold metal. I hate the tingle it sends through my body, that electric buzz of anticipation, but again, what choice do I have? I can’t roll over and let them kill me. I don’t intend them all to be headshots. My aim isn’t good enough to do that anyway.
Kill or be killed.
I suck in a great burst of breath, steadying my shaking arms. Billy whimpers again. “Jack,” he squeals.
I barely hear him. I’m too focused.
Something pokes into the back of my head. My finger drops from the trigger, the gun slowly follows. Damn it. It’s times like these that I wish I didn’t know what the barrel of a gun felt like against my skull.
We’ve lost.
I blink slowly, the cold wind stinging my eyes. Down below, the shabby group of zombie impersonators walk into the alley, their weapons raised.
“Fresh meat,” the girl squeals.
My stomach roils.
39
“Move a muscle and your head is going to have a really big hole in it,” a woman says.
“Really? That’s what you came up with — a really big hole?” a man says. “Can’t you be a little more creative than that?”
“Shut up,” the woman says.
“Listen,” I say, “we don’t want any trouble.”
“You found it,” the man grumbles.
Good one. If the guy didn’t have a gun, I’d laugh my ass off at the cheesiness of that action-movie line.
Silence.
Then he continues, his voice a little more cheery. “See? That’s how you gotta do it.”
“Oh, please,” the woman says, “you stole that from a movie or something.”
Exactly, I think.
“Whatever,” the guy answers. The gun shoves into the back of my head, pushing me forward. I’m already off balance enough as it is, crouched like a frog about to jump, so I go over easily enough, the M16 with me.
A bloody hand reaches down, breaking my peripheral vision. The M16 is ripped off of me, the strap snapping. A boot stamps me on the back, causing the bruise I spoke of earlier to go from forming to formed.
“This is our city, asshole,” the man says.
“It’s the dead’s,” I say through gritted teeth. A pebble has pressed itself into the corner of my mouth. I taste dirt and bird shit — don’t ask me how I know what it tastes like, I couldn’t tell you.
“No, the dead are just overgrown rats and cockroaches,” the woman says.
A little pressure is taken off my spine, but not enough for me to make a move on this guy.
“There ya go!” the man says. “I knew you had it in you!”
I don’t know even know anything about these people. I don’t know how large they are, how much they’re packing. Anything. But I do know this man is heavy. The apocalypse has treated him well.
“You have the rope?” the woman says.
“Now Steph, you think I’d really forget that?” the man says. “What kind of brother do you think I am?”
“A shit one,” Steph, the woman, says under her breath, but loud enough for us all to hear it. Great, this is exactly what I need. Family drama while our lives are on the line.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” the man says.
“You don’t hear a lot, Danny,” Steph says.
Danny scoffs and then I feel ropes against my wrists. He pulls them tight, causing the blood in my arms to pulse.
“Are you sure it’s him?” Steph says.
“Why don’t you just ask me?” I say as the man drags me up to my knees. Now I see Billy is the same way, hands tied behind his back. Take away his gun and all the fire goes out of him, making the reddest part of him his beard. His eyes swell with water, and looking at him makes me feel a mixture of things — pity, sadness, anger. Anger because he’s not the man I expected him to be, the backup I needed. No, that’s not a fair thought. He’s just lost a brother, and I’ve been down that road for a time when I thought I lost Norm. He got it worse, too. He actually saw his brother torn to pieces.
“No, but we’ll take him back before we…” Danny trails off and looks into my face with his black and glassy eyes. “Before we feast.”
All bravery goes out the window. The way he speaks, I can tell he means it. I can tell this human being could chew on my liver and sip on a blood and guts smoothie all while discussing such trivial matters as the weather. At least with the dead, there’s no morale, they don’t know if what they’re doing is right or wrong. I mean they’re dead for crying out loud. This guy and gal, well, they’re not. They’re just hungry. That means these people are worse. So much worse.
“What about Redbeard?” Steph asks.
Danny turns away from me, a snarl on his face. “What about him?” she asks.
Down below, the woman still chants. “Fresh…red…meat, fresh…red…meat!”
I think I’m getting sick to my stomach. My guns are out of reach, my hands are tied behind my back, and the only place I can run to is a three story drop onto concrete. Things ain’t looking up. Ain’t looking up at all.
“What’s your name?” Danny asks Billy.
Billy’s head is tilted. He’s looking at the rooftop. Sweat drips from his hairline. The wind blows, tossing his hair. He doesn’t answer.
Danny walks closer to him, but angles his body so I’m still in his peripheral vision. Besides, the woman stares at me like I’m a piece of meat, licking her lips, eyes wide. Not like she’s attracted to me or anything, but like I’m an actual piece of meat.
“I said, what’s your name, friend?” Danny says.
“Billy,” Billy says, his voice a whisper.
“And your buddy here is Jack Jupiter, right?”
“I’m Jack Jupiter,” I say. I make note to project my voice, to make it heard over the whipping of the cold wind and the woman’s sickening chants below.
“I’m not talking to you,” Danny says.
“Y-Yeah, that’s Jack Jupiter,” Billy says.
“The Jack Jupiter? Slayer of cannibals and Edenites?”
My heart drops. What the hell?
“Yeah, that’s him,” Billy says.
“There,” Steph says, “that’s settled. Let’s eat them.”
Danny turns to face her. Their eyes are off of me for the time being. But each of them are wearing Billy and I’s guns over their shoulders. Steph has a pistol in her hand — not mine — and one tucked into her waistband. Point is, I’m weaponless and they’re not.
“What have I told you?” Danny snaps. He raises his hand and backhands the woman with enough force to jerk her head to the left, t
ussling her brown hair. When she turns back to face her brother, she looks five inches shorter. There’s a trickle of blood that rolls down the corner of her mouth.
“I-I don’t know,” Steph says, slurring the words like a drunk.
“We are lions. The ones below aren’t. But they respect us and worship us and we have to keep their respect. Which means?”
“We have to feed them,” Steph says.
“Exactly! Do you really want to have to hear the Tunnel Woman repeating that God-awful chant?”
So I’m glad they hear it, too. I’m glad I’m not totally crazy. It is God-awful.
Steph shakes her head.
“Good girl,” Danny says and cups his sister’s face in his hands. He wipes away the blood then sticks the finger in his mouth.
I swallow down this morning’s breakfast. The sight of a man sucking on someone’s blood just has a way of making you queasy, I guess.
What happens next happens so fast I can barely comprehend it. Danny, a big grin on his face, his lips red with his sister’s blood, takes Billy by the throat. Billy’s eyes light up, all sadness goes out of them. Now, they’re replaced with alarm. I find myself getting up, heart hammering. Faintly, out of the corner of my eye, I see Steph pointing my SIG at me. How she got it, I don’t know and I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter.
“FRESH…RED…MEAT! FRESH…RED…MEAT!” comes from below, shrieks of joy. Over the edge, I see the faint shadows of arms extended up to the heavens, they are cast against the adjacent brick wall. But there’s more than the group who chased us. Now, there is a whole army.
“FEED US! FEED US!”
I think of talking zombies. I think of crazy people. I think of death.
“FRESH MEAT! FRESH MEAT!”
Billy chokes under the hands of Danny.
“Don’t move!” Steph says to me, but I keep going. A shot goes off, sending a chunk of concrete spraying up at my face. I have no hands to shield it, so I turn away, tripping over my feet and hitting the rooftop hard. I scramble up.
But it’s too late.
Billy is on the edge, screaming now. I barely hear the screams over the chants, over the shrieks and calls from below. I’m in a nightmare. I’m in hell.
Jack Zombie (Book 3): Dead Nation Page 14
