by JJ Zep
And then, in a heartbeat, everything changed.
For one brief moment it appeared as if they had entered a vacuum, the sound of the Z hum dropping away, the fifty-mil falling silent, no sound but the faint flutter of rags flapping in the wind and the idling diesel engines of the Humvees. The Z column came to an abrupt halt, as though it had reached the edge of an abyss. Several of the creatures inclined their heads trying to pick up the signal that had been there a minute ago but was now gone.
“What the hell’s going on?” Paulie’s fearful voice said from behind him. “Why have they –?”
Chris didn’t allow him to finish. “Move!” he shouted, yanking Paulie forward. “All of you, get the hell through that gap. Now!”
He caught a blur of movement to his left, swung towards it, bringing the AK up. The Z’s were turning inward, their blank faces suddenly hungry, suddenly detecting the meal in their midst. One of them stumbled forward and Chris put a bullet in its forehead. Julie slipped by him, then Ana, Ruby guiding them. Strangler and now Sphinx edged by, Chris standing aside to let them pass. Now another of the Z’s made its move. It lurched for Chris, swiping at him with lethal claws. Chris shimmied out of reach, holding fire, not wanting to attract the attention of the Humvees. He felt his foot misstep, his ankle buckle under him, felt himself falling, came down hard against the icy pavement. He flipped instantly onto his stomach and started crawling, pulling himself through the forest of legs, oblivious to the hurt in his hip, to the pain that flared in his elbows as he dragged himself forward. Somewhere, someone screamed, and then, as though a switch had been flicked, the entire mob was in motion. Bare feet collided with his ribs, crashed down onto his back, forcing the breath out of his body. He kept going. A booted foot crashed into his face, sending a cascade of stars across his vision. The coppery taste of blood was in his mouth. Another foot caught him, this time mashing his ear against his head. He fought the urge to curl into a protective ball as blow after blow struck him. He realized vaguely that the Z’s weren’t attacking him, didn’t even appear to be aware of his presence. They were stampeding, trampling him underfoot.
Another foot caught him in the ribs, another against the side of his head, stunning him. He was suddenly back in the ring, that infamous fight against Ronaldo Holmes, a left right combination of short jabs working at his midriff, forcing the breath from him. Now the killer punch, a roundhouse right to the point of the jaw that turned his lights out, legs turning to rubber under him, the light fading.
Somewhere, a long way off, the fifty-mil started up again, its ugly clatter evaporating into nothingness.
nine
Ruby withdrew the katana from its scabbard and let it sing in the frigid morning air decapitating the Z in front of her. She worked the sword left and right, in broad figure eights, the keen blade a blur as it hacked into their rotten flesh, removing limbs and opening putrid guts. The creatures were slow, disorientated, lumbering forward like Saturday night drunks desperate to get at her. Ruby angled away from them, headed for the looming gap in the wall.
She heard the pop of small arms fire behind her, then the deeper thud of the 50-mil as it joined the fray. She kept going, reaching the mound of broken brickwork that marked the spot where the wall had stood. The buildings on either side were smoldering, partially destroyed, one of them billowing black smoke. She scrambled over, skirted a short distance along the wall and then dropped into a crouch behind a pile of rubble. She looked straight down 7th Avenue at the mass of Z’s that milled in the street, filling it from sidewalk to sidewalk. Left, along 125th Street, wasn’t much better. Their way out was right, heading along 125th, back towards the Hudson, then left towards midtown at the first clear road they reached, maybe cutting through Morningside Park if that was empty of Z’s.
Julie scrambled down the mound and slid in beside her.
“Jesus!” she said. “Jesus, that was close.”
“Where are the others?” Ruby said, but before Julie could answer, Paulie scrambled over the top, then Ana and Carlito. The 50-mil started up again, firing in closely spaced bursts. Strangler slid down the mound towards them bringing an avalanche of rubble with him. The big man was breathing heavily, his voice choked, close to tears. “They got them,” he wheezed. “Sons of bitches got them.”
“Got who?” Ruby said, not liking the distressed look on Strangler’s face, liking the desperate sound of her own voice even less. “Got who?”
“All of them! Chris, Sphinx, all of them. Son of a bitching Z’s got them!”
For a moment Ruby was sure she’d heard wrong. Had he said…
“I’m sorry Ruby, there was nothing I could do. He fell, goddamn things were all over him before I could move. And Sphinx, they got Sphinxy too, and the others.”
Ruby stared straight at Strangler, through him, trying to ingest what he’d just said. Was he saying her father was dead? No. That couldn’t be. Not like this. Not on a day when she’d already lost Chico. Not if she had anything to do with it. She turned to Ana, hating the sympathetic look on Ana’s face.
“Get everyone back to the apartment,” she said. “Find Joe, tell him what happened. Tell him I went after my father.”
“Ruby,” Ana said, reaching a hand towards her. I’m so –”
“Don’t say it!” Ruby snapped, shrugging away from Ana’s grasp. “Just get everyone back safely.”
She turned from them, got to her feet and jogged back towards the hole in the wall. She felt tears welling in her eyes and blinked them away. Crying twice in one day wouldn’t do at all.
ten
“Whatcha think?” Hooley said.
“Hard to tell,” Joe said, lifting the glasses to his eyes again. “Hard to tell.”
“You don’t think –”
“What? That Chris bought it down there? No way compadre, that son of a bitch is too tough to cash it in that easily. Take more than a bunch of Z’s to punch that boy’s clock.”
Joe may have said the words but he wasn’t sure that he believed them. From up here, with much of the action obscured by buildings, he hadn’t had a good view of the battle. He’d followed Chris and Ruby until they’d disappeared behind what was left of the barrier wall. Then the zombies had suddenly woken from their sleepwalk and all hell had broken loose. Between the Z’s, and the 50-mils blasting away down there, it would have been a miracle if Chris and Ruby and the others had survived. But miracles did happen, hell, they were living in the middle of one right now. If there was even a slight chance that Chris and the others were alive, he meant to find them.
“I’m going down there,” he said.
“What? With all them Z’s? With your gammy leg?”
“Gammy leg, my ass. I’m going down there to check on them.”
“I’m coming with you then,” Hooley said.
“No. You stay here. Look after Janet and Kelly and the kids. If I don’t come back, you sit tight, wait and see how this thing plays out.”
Hooley looked as though he was about to put up an argument, then nodded. “What about all them Z’s?” he said.
“Looks like they’re shipping out,” Joe said looking towards the barricades again.
“Shipping out? What do you mean, shipping out?”
“Take a look for yourself.” Joe passed the binoculars.
Hooley took the glasses and raised them to his eyes. He scanned north and then gradually west to east. “Son of a bitch, I believe you’re right. But where they headed? And who’s piloting them Humvees, Bamber’s boys?”
“No,” Joe said, “Those are Corporation.”
“Corporation? What are them two-bit sum bitches doin’ this far east?”
“Well, unless I’m mistaken, they’re –”
“Tits on a bull!” Hooley interrupted, still scanning through the glasses. “It’s Ruby!”
***
Ruby waited until the last of the Humvees had worked its way through the gap. This one made a right on 125th and trundled past the pile of rubble
where she’d concealed herself. Like the others, it rolled for maybe fifty feet before turning on its radio transmission, the high-pitched electrical hum that immediately drew a mob of Z’s towards it. She understood what they were doing now. They were using the Humvees to draw the Z’s to different parts of the city, making sure they had the whole of Manhattan covered. Why exactly, was anyone’s guess, but she figured they planned on using the Z’s as some sort of occupying army, a way of keeping the citizens in check. Not that any of that mattered right now. Right now, all she wanted to do was find her father.
She waited a while longer, waited until the Humvee had gained a couple of blocks, drawing its zombie entourage along with it. Then she broke cover, getting quickly to her feet and edging along the wall towards the gap. She peered into the ruined cityscape beyond, the sector known as the Wastelands. Never had that description been more apt. The stretch of 7th Avenue beyond the barricade resembled a battlefield after a particularly brutal skirmish – the street littered with broken Z bodies, torn limbs, black gore. There were human corpses too, clustered together, a broad swathe of crimson on snow acting as a marker.
Ruby felt her breath catch in her throat. Was one of those her father? She didn’t want to believe it, but she had to know. She bounded the heap of rubble, and was off and running the minute her feet hit the ground. The first body she encountered was someone she’d known. Sphinx had been part of their squad, a nice guy who didn’t talk much. Now, his body lay in a contorted position, one of his legs torn off, his chest cavity open, the organs ripped crudely away, his brains spilled in the snow. She recognized the next body too. He’d been a medic, although she couldn’t remember his name. He looked as though he’d taken a high-explosive fifty round in the back. It had torn him in two. She moved quickly to examine the other corpses, most rendered unrecognizable, some missing heads and limbs. None of them was her father. She was sure of that.
It was then that she spotted the AK-47, lying discarded on the ground.
Ruby jogged over to the weapon, her heart pounding in her chest. She picked up the rifle, noticing as she did, drag marks through the snow and a blood trail leading across the sidewalk towards a dilapidated old building with a shattered glass storefront. She followed that trail with her eyes. There was a lot of blood. She was suddenly, deathly, afraid.
eleven
Marin Scolfield adjusted the backpack on his shoulder and weaved his way between the burnt out wrecks that clogged the access road to the Lincoln Tunnel. He was probably early, should probably have waited until Bobo had his Z’s settled in, but darn it, he was just too excited to wait. The entire borough of Manhattan, along with its 50, 000 inhabitants would soon be at his disposal, soon be his to command, to control. Who could wait when such greatness beckoned? Waiting was for wimps. Besides, he was kind of keen on trying out some of his new gadgets, and the Lincoln - said these days to be home to the meanest, nastiest Z’s in the whole of New York - was the perfect testing ground. This was going to be a blast.
The trio of tunnel mouths loomed before him, each of them crudely bricked in with breezeblocks, graffiti decorating every inch of wall space. “George A. Romero for President,” read one line, although Scolfield had no idea who Romero was. “Eat me,” said another, “Punk’s Not Dead,” another.
“I think you’ll find that it is,” Scolfield chuckled to himself. He walked down the inclined ramp, stepped over a twisted length of steel barrier and angled towards a section of wall close to the support struts on the center tunnel. The breezeblock had partially collapsed here, creating a darkened portal into the space beyond. Even at this distance, the smell wafting out from there was toxic.
Scolfield stopped in the middle of the ramp, shrugged the rucksack from his shoulder and placed it gently on the tarmac. He squatted next to it, unzipped the bag and removed two items - a small oxygen tank and a pair of night vision goggles. He fixed the goggles around his head, positioning them on his brow, then placed the facemask from the tank over his mouth and nose and tested the flow. Perfect. He dropped the oxygen canister back into the bag and hefted the bag onto his shoulder. Then he angled his head skyward and took in the brilliant midwinter blue, fetching a deep breath for good measure. Alex was probably going to be pissed at him for not sticking to their plan. Not that that bothered him too much. Dr. Payne might be a useful ally, might be a tiger in the sack, but she was a bitch of the highest order. When the time came that he no longer required her services it was going to be fun turning her over to his zombstrosities to use as a piñata.
He reached the bottom of the ramp and angled towards the gap in the wall. There he paused barely a moment to pull the goggles down over his eyes and adjust the oxygen mask on his face. Lastly, he reached into his pocket and withdrew an I-Pod, spinning the dial to select the track he wanted. Then he stepped through into the stinking abyss.
Despite his bravado in choosing this route, his recklessness in not waiting, Scolfield felt a prickle of fear tiptoe up his spine. It was black in the tunnel, the ghostly green light from his goggles making the vista even more eerie. He drew deep on his oxygen, the clean air filtering into his lungs making him feel slightly giddy. He stepped around the wreck of an SUV and picked a path between the six lanes of bumper-to-bumper vehicles, stored here below ground these sixteen years, like the relics of a long gone civilization. In some of the cabs he could make out the mummified remains of drivers and passengers, in others smashed windshields that the passengers had been pulled through, kicking and screaming, to be eaten alive. He hadn’t seen any Z’s yet, but they’d come. After years trapped down here, the scent of living flesh would draw them like flies to a honey pot. And if it didn’t, he’d just have to call them out.
He fingered the I-Pod in his hand, spun the dial and pressed play, hearing the tinny buzz that emanated from the headphones.
“Honey, I’m home,” he said into the darkness. The words, and his manic laughter, bounced back off the tunnel walls.
twelve
The blood trail led across the sidewalk, through the snow and into a small store that had once been a flower shop. Ruby could make out the word’s ‘In Bloom,’ etched in floral letters onto the shattered glass frontage. Whoever had crept in there had pulled himself across broken glass to do so, the shards jutting out from the pane were stained red.
Ruby withdrew her sword from its scabbard and stepped through, her boots crunching down on the glass, splintering it underfoot. She surveyed the space, a small cubicle with only one place for concealment - the counter. She knew that he was there, could see where the blood trail led, could hear the haggard sound of his breathing. Still she wavered. Whoever had lost this much blood wasn’t going to make it. She didn’t think she could bear the sight of her father, torn apart by a fifty round, or worse still, bitten, the Z virus working its way through his bloodstream. And if he had been bitten, he’d ask her to finish him off. She didn’t think she could do that, knew she couldn’t.
A low, animalistic growl suddenly came from behind the counter. Ruby tensed, felt gooseflesh dance up her arms, hefted the sword above her head.
“Dad?”
“Rube,” came the reply, the last syllable lost in an expulsion of breath that sounded like air escaping a tire. “He..hep…help..meee…”
Ruby crossed the space quickly, dropping to her knees as she rounded the counter. The man slumped there was barely recognizable, the front of his shirt black with blood, his gut ripped open, fingers entwined in a vain attempt to prevent his viscera from pouring out through the gaping hole. His face was pallid, almost paper white, smeared with blood that was also congealed in his quaffed hair. Not her father, but Eddy Montague.
“Rube…Ruby,” Eddy stammered, his face fixed in a grimace that revealed bloodstained teeth. “Help…me.”
“Shh,” Ruby said. “Don’t speak. You’re going to be alright.”
Eddy gave her a grin that was almost a snarl. “Won’t,” he said. “Won’t I been…oh God…hurts…so…”
“Shh,” Ruby said, quieting him. “Let me take a look.”
“No,” Eddy said. “More…more…”
“Morphine?” Ruby said. “Sorry Eddy, I don’t have any.” A thought suddenly occurred to her. “Wait here,” she said, and was up and running before he had time to reply. She passed through the broken window and veered left, crossed the pavement and dropped to her knees beside the body of the medic she’d seen earlier. Piper, she remembered now, his name was Piper. The body had been ripped in two, the legs lying a few yards from the torso, which still had a medical kit strapped around it. Ruby cut the strap with her sword and pulled the bag free, then emptied its contents onto the ground, gathering up the three ampoules of morphine that spilled out, along with a couple of trauma bandages and a roll of thick gauze.
By the time she got back, Eddy had fallen into a fevered sleep. Ruby didn’t bother to wake him, but jabbed two of the ampoules into his thigh, then gently pulled his hand away from his gut. The wound was a mess of raw, bloody flesh that discharged the putrid stench of sewage. Gray-blue lumps of intestine pulsated in the mess, all of it badly lacerated. The damage looked like if had been caused by flying shrapnel, rather than by a direct hit from a fifty. That would have torn Eddy apart, as it had the medic. It would probably a have been better for Eddy if it had, but the gut wound wasn’t the worst of it. What was worse was the wound to Eddy’s left hand. The pinky and ring finger had been crudely chewed off at the knuckle.
thirteen
“Attention! Attention! This is a recorded announcement from the Pendragon Corporation. The city of New York has been placed under martial law. Stay in your homes and await further instruction. Anyone found out on the streets will be summarily executed. Attention! Attention…”
