by JJ Zep
Ruby turned back towards the window. She struck out again, using her elbow this time. It was no use, what she needed was more leverage. An answer suddenly presented itself, so simple that she could have kicked herself for not thinking of it right away. If she could just…
“Let me help you,” Julie said, from behind her. “I think I can –”
Ruby heard her shift in her seat as the bus gave another of those metallic groans. “Stay there!” she shouted. “Don’t move!”
But Julie was already at full stretch, her knuckles white against the handgrip. Now she reached too far and lost her hold. She made a desperate grasp for the seatback and missed and then she was falling, tumbling head over heels down the aisle. The creature was about halfway up, just reaching for a new hold, when Julie struck it, sending the two of them bundled together towards the front of the bus, their descent terminating in the ugly crunch of snapping bone.
thirty nine
Ruby looked directly down the aisle to where Julie and the Z lay crumpled together. She was angry with herself, livid. Why hadn’t she thought to kick out one of the side windows earlier? That way she’d have the seatback to support her and would be directing her blows in a straight line, rather than upward. Now Julie was dead, dead because of her stupidity.
Pull yourself together kiddo, uncle Joe’s voice spoke in her head. There’s nothing to be gained by beating yourself up over what can’t be undone. Your job is to get out of here, to get out and make Scolfield pay for what he did to Daisy and Pete and Julie.
He was right, Ruby decided. Scolfield was the one responsible, not her. She was going to get out. She was going to make him sorry he’d ever met her.
She lay down on her back on the seat, brought her heels together and drew her knees towards her chest. Then she struck out with both feet, crashing her heels into the window. On the first blow the window buckled outward, on the second a spider’s web of cracks appeared (and the bus again seemed to shift, but she couldn’t worry about that now), on the third, the window folded on itself and plopped out of the frame.
Ruby didn’t hesitate, she got a handhold on the window frame and pulled herself through. The bus creaked and swayed slightly as she pulled herself onto the roof, eased a couple of feet back before she gained her balance.
She stood up into a crouch with arms spread like a surfer. She had a view of the entire arena from up here. Just left of the bus, the three remaining Z’s were still busying themselves with Pete’s corpse. Further along, beyond the mound, beyond the auto graveyard, was the fence with its impressively painted backdrop. She could see what the razor wire back there was all about now, it designated a minefield that stretched across the entire breadth of the cage. The word “MINES” was etched on triangular signs that hung at regular intervals, black print on yellow background, a skull-and-crossbones symbol above. Something (a memory? an idea?) stirred in her mind.
She looked right, towards the bay window, Scolfield’s lookout post. She could see right into the room. Her father sat in a sturdy wooden chair, his hands secured to the armrests. Scolfield stood beside him, dressed in his Dr. No outfit. He had the binoculars to his eyes, pointed directly at her.
A shift underfoot and the bus slipped back again. Ruby rode the motion in her surfer’s posture. She had to move now, while the Z’s still fed. She scanned across the arena again and this time the thought that had earlier stirred in her mind gained some traction. It was the minefield that bothered her. Why a minefield, why clearly demarcated and why placed where it was? The answer was obvious, to keep her away from the fence. But why the additional security when the fence was electrified?
She felt a sense of elation sweep over her as the answer came. The minefield was there to keep her away from the fence because the thick canvas, Scolfield’s vanity attempt at creating realism, would negate the electrical charge running under it. She could scale the canvas without danger of being electrocuted.
The bus gave another metallic creak and shifted. Ruby steadied herself and gained a few feet before it reached the tipping point and started its earthward drop.
Ruby stepped on the gas, sprinting forward as the bus fell. The Z’s were still feeding to her left and she veered in their direction. She had an idea of how she could tilt the odds still further in her favor. She launched from the roof of the bus, becoming airborne on a trajectory that would take her directly towards the feeding Z’s.
forty
“No!” Chris cried out, hardly even aware he’d spoken aloud.
He’d just seen Ruby jump from the bus into the midst of the three remaining zombies. Why had she done that? Why hadn’t she just kept away, tried to separate them and pick them off one by one?
“Stupid move, Ruby,” Scolfield chuckled. “Very stupid indeed.”
***
Her plan had been to land between them while they were distracted, to inflict quick damage, maybe slow them down. But the bus pitched at the last moment veering her off course. In the split second that she was airborne, she realized that she was going to clatter directly into the back of one of them. The creature was still crouched over the corpse when Ruby’s boot collided with its spinal column, driving the vertebrae up into its brain. Ruby hit the ground in a roll and came up sprinting, veering left, rounding the crater, running for the minefield. She could see the two remaining Z’s, Quinirius and the one whose throat she’d cut, shuffling left, towards the auto graveyard.
The minefield loomed ahead of her and she saw, with alarm, that it was wider than she’d anticipated, twenty-five feet by her estimation. Could she jump that? Maybe. She looked back in the direction she’d come. The Z’s were working their way between the auto wrecks, closing. If she was going to do this, it had to be now. And she’d need a run up.
She backed away, pacing out the distance. Thirty feet took her to the mound, and that was all she was going to get, the Z’s had spotted her.
Ruby bladed her hands like a sprinter and launched, running as hard as she dared on the uneven ground. The minefield loomed closer, ten feet, five. She bunched her muscles and leapt, keeping her trajectory low, like a long jumper. The minefield passed before her in a blur and she clattered into the fence close to ground level, clung there even as gravity threatened to pull her back.
She waited, feet resting on the fold, face pressed to the canvas, fetching deep breaths to steady the rush of blood. Fifteen seconds passed, twenty. Time to get climbing.
She tested the canvas under her fingers, sensing as she did, the jangle of electricity underneath. A jangle of equal intensity sounded in her mind. The canvas was hard and inflexible. There was no way she was going to get a grip.
The wire rattled behind her. The creatures had reached the minefield. They were wading in. Think, Ruby, think. She moved left, keeping her feet to the fold at the bottom of the canvas.
The fold! That was it!
Such a large sheet of canvas wouldn’t come in one piece, there had to be a join somewhere, probably more than one. She shuffled along, running her hands across the surface until she found what she was looking for, an overlap, the edge providing her with a means of elevation that was as good as any rope.
A low thud sounded behind her. One of the creatures had stepped on a mine.
***
“I suppose you think you’ve won,” Scolfield sneered. “Not even close my friend. That’s Quinirius out there, the best, the strongest, the meanest of the lot of them. Ruby doesn’t stand a chance.”
Chris looked across the arena to the fence, where Ruby was maybe halfway up, where Quinirius had just started pulling himself up after her.
forty one
The vibration of the electrical current under the canvas was disconcertingly strong. Ruby tried to put it out of her mind as she pulled herself upwards. The top of the fence was within reach. She’d almost made it.
She felt a tug at the canvas, so strong it nearly shook her loose and plunged her back into the minefield. Her grip was torn loose, spinning her
around, leaving her clinging on one-handed. Quinirius was climbing towards her, not using the seam as she had done, but ripping into the fabric with his claws and pulling himself upwards.
Ruby regained her handhold and climbed with new urgency. Just a couple of feet to go. She reached up and placed a hand on the cross frame, pulling herself up just as a loud rip sounded from behind her. Now she slung a foot over, rode the fence like a cowgirl, being careful to keep her leg away from the exposed wire on the outside. She looked down. Quinirius was back at ground level, looking at a rip in the canvas. A huge swathe of fabric had been torn away, leaving an exposed span of fence before him.
“Come on, Q,” Ruby urged under her breath. “You know you want to.”
She wasn’t sure if Quinirius was smart enough to understand that he should avoid the wire. What she was sure of, was that she didn’t want to be straddling the fence if he launched himself at it. She worked herself into a standing position and walked the cross-support like a gymnast, making a few steps before throwing herself from it. She plopped to the ground on cushioned feet and sprinted away almost immediately.
She heard, rather than saw, Quinirius attack the fence, the jangle of his collision with the wire, the sizzle of electricity, the flat clap as the system shorted out, the series of explosions as Quinirius was thrown back into the minefield. Then, a brief moment of calm before the dissonant screech of an alarm shattered the silence.
Ruby sprinted towards the corner of the fence and around it. To her left lay the prison gate, running open and closed in a loop, giving her a glimpse of freedom and then taking it away.
Scolfield’s bay window was directly in front of her. She could see him there, not spying through his glasses anymore, shouting into a telephone.
She put her head down and ran.
***
The alarm was deafening, but Scolfield was outdoing it, screaming instructions into the phone.
“Get a squad out there! I want that kid taken alive, do you understand me! What do you mean? What do you mean they’re out! Well, get them locked down, you idiot. Seal off the whole goddamn cellblock if you have to, but get those Z’s locked down. Well, then get the power turned back on! And get me a squad out there!” He slammed down the phone.
“Help hey,” he said. “Fucking useless the lot of them.” He shuttled across the room, Chris following his movements in the window, the cut of the glass creating a dozen Scolfields.
“I have a small crisis to deal with, Chris,” Scolfield said matter-of-factly. In the glass Chris could see him slide a drawer open and produce a pistol. “Depending on the severity of said crisis, I may or may not be back.”
Chris said nothing. He’d just caught sight of Ruby, running along the outside of the fence. He didn’t want to draw Scolfield’s attention to her.
“It’s been good spending time with you Chris,” Scolfield continued. “Under different circumstances, I might have afforded you the opportunity of testing yourself against some of my Z’s. Oh well.” He walked towards the door, paused, seemed to contemplate. Now he was walking back towards Chris, the 9-mil in his hand.
“On second thoughts Chris, maybe we should just sever all ties right now, end things on a low, so to speak.”
Chris saw myriad Scolfields lift myriad pistols and he knew he was dead unless he acted immediately. He sprang to his feet and charged directly towards the window, dropping his head at the last minute and crashing through. Glass, and lead beading, tore at his face and he heard a couple of shots fired, one of which thudded into the frame of the chair, and then he was through, then he was falling.
***
Ruby was thirty feet away when the window suddenly exploded outward. She ducked instinctively, caught a glimpse of something that made no sense at all, her father, still strapped to the chair, plunging earthward.
“No!” she screaming, rushing forward.
The chair struck the - now dead - fence, its legs becoming entangled there for a moment, before gravity pulled it earthward again. That pause, that breaking of downward momentum, likely saved her father’s life. He hit the ground side on, with a crash that she prayed was splintering wood and not snapping bones.
“Dad!” Ruby shouted, sliding into a crouch beside him. “Dad, are you okay?”
There was blood on his face, raw cuts across his wrists. His eyes were slotted closed.
“Dad!”
Chris coughed dryly, painfully. “Man,” he said, sounding like Uncle Joe, “I’m getting too old for this shit.”
forty two
“Scolfield?” Ruby said.
“Likely gone by now,” Chris said. “Which is what we should be doing too. From what I heard, the electrical failure took down the lockdown system in the prison. There are Z’s everywhere.”
“We should go after him, we shouldn’t let him get away with this.”
She was already moving as she spoke, Chris caught her by the hand. “Some other time kid,” Chris said. “When we’re better equipped for the task. The likes of Scolfield never win in the end anyway, whether its us or someone else, he’ll get what’s coming.”
Chris worked himself onto his knees and then tottered to his feet, swayed a bit before gaining his balance. He was amazed at how little damage he’d sustained in his suicidal leap. He had some superficial cuts to his face, a rip to his arm where a shard of wood had caught him and various nicks and bruises. His ribs hurt like hell. They were going to have to be strapped and were likely to turn a fine shade of aubergine. But he was a boxer, he’d been there before, he could take it. All in all, he’d gotten off lightly.
Ruby was staring wistfully towards the yellow bus, which was now sitting in a more conventional position, back on its four wheels.
“You did all you could, Ruby,” Chris said.
“Did I though?” she said.
“Yes you did, against incredible odds that would have had most people…Ruby, what is it?”
Ruby had stiffened. She was staring back towards the bus. “I saw something move back there.”
“You sure? I don’t see…” But now he did see it, something moving around inside the bus, close to the driver’s compartment, a flash of color.
“It’s Julie,” Ruby said, and now Chris could make out Julie’s pale face under a mop of disheveled red hair. Julie staggered down the stairs, rounded the bus. She seemed confused, disorientated.
“I’m going in to get her,” Ruby said, and before Chris could stop her she was scampering up and over the fence, dropping to the ground on the other side.
“Ruby! Wait!” Chris shouted, but Ruby wasn’t listening. She jogged towards Julie with barely a backward glance.
Chris looked up at the fence and wondered if he could climb it. Not in his current condition. He looked across the arena. Ruby was walking cautiously towards Julie. That was good. Julie might have been bitten or scratched, a drop of Z blood might had entered her mouth, an eye, a scratch on her skin. She might be infected.
Ruby’s no fool, he told himself. She knows how to handle these situations better than you do.
Ruby and Julie were circling each other. Ruby was saying something, Julie nodding. She lurched forward suddenly and Chris almost threw himself at the fence, cracked ribs or not. But now he saw that Julie had fallen. Ruby was helping her to her feet, getting an arm under her for support. They started back towards him, Ruby half-carrying, half-dragging Julie.
It was going to be okay.
forty three
Chez Burns looked across the mostly deserted expanse of the Wayside Tavern. Business had been in the crapper this past week, with only the hardcore drinkers venturing out. That incident at the prison had really put the scare on folks. Most were laying low, barricading themselves in their homes, venturing out only if their goddamn asses were on fire. Bunch of chicken shits!
So Scolfield’s little house of horrors by the river had been breached, so hundreds of Z’s had escaped, so what! Most of those had been killed by now. Hackensack, New J
ersey, took no shit from Z’s.
And as for the wild rumors doing the rounds, that Scolfield had been developing some kind of super-Z up there, that was a crock of shit if ever he’d heard one. Scolfield wasn’t smart enough for one thing. When it all came down to it, Scolfield was just a pansy-dressing pervert with a thing for women’s feet.
He cast a disgusted glance around the room again and seriously considered calling time, locking the Wayside down for the first time in the eight years he’d been in business. And what am I gonna do then, he chuckled to himself. Go home and bake a pie? Give myself a bikini wax?
Fuck it, he’d stick around, treat himself to some of that good Scotch while he was at it. He crouched and rooted around under the counter, saw the green glint of the bottle of Glenfiddich, resting in the shadows. Something else attracted his eye, the carved handle of the sword he’d taken off the girl. Now that was a thing of beauty. Just looking at it made him smile. He ran his hand lovingly over the blade, reached and got a grip on the neck of the whiskey bottle. He was about to pull it towards him when a voice spoke from above his head.
“I believe you’ve been holding something for me,” Ruby Collins said. “I’m here to collect.”
Dead Things
(Book Fourteen of the Zombie D.O.A. Series)
J.J. Zep
PUBLISHED BY:
JJ Zep
Copyright © 2013
www.jjzep.com
one
On the day that the Rosenthal Plan was initiated, Chris Collins had a fight with his wife, Kelly. The plan called for the extermination of all zombies on Staten Island, to prepare the borough for resettlement by humans. Chris had committed his services to the newly re-elected Mayor Rosenthal. Kelly, now seven months pregnant with their fourth child, felt his responsibilities lay closer to home.
