by JJ Zep
“Nothing that comes to mind right now.”
“The small matter of a couple hundred thousand Z’s I’ve got camped at the other end of the island? I’ve already mobilized them by the way, they’ll be here in, oh, ten, fifteen minutes.”
“You’ll call them off.”
“Why on earth would I do a thing like that?”
Conan didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to the man standing to his right, whispered something in his ear. The man nodded, started working his way between the motorcycles, towards the rear, towards the hospital.
“This is all very intriguing,” Scolfield said. He yawned, stretched elaborately. “But I’m already bored, so I’ll bid you gentlemen goodnight.”
“Wouldn’t do that iffen I was you,” Conan said. “You’ll want to see this.”
The man now stood in front of the entrance to the hospital. On the way there he’d pulled a few of his colleagues from the crowd.
Alarm bells jangled in Scolfield head, followed by a flash of anger that actually sent a shudder through him. He realized now what this was about. Maybe these scumbags were not as stupid as he’d first thought.
“I think you understand what’s happening here,” Conan said. “My men are going into the hospital to rouse up your stock, get them out on the street. You call off your Z’s or your stock gets eaten.”
“And if I do call them off, you and your men turn me into sirloin, is that it? What’s in it for me?”
Conan brought his hand up to his chin. “We can work something out,” he said after a moment’s contemplation.
“Something like, you and your men mount up and get the hell off my island?”
“Hell no,” Conan laughed. “More like we give you a ten minute headstart and you high tail it out of here like your ass is on fire.”
“In that case,” Scolfield said. “No deal. Been nice knowing you boys.” He turned away. He had no intention of making deals with this rabble. Not while he was holding all the aces.
“Okay boys,” he heard Conan shout behind him. “Looks like this peckerwood’s going to have to learn the hard way. Caleb, you move that stock out of the hospital, we got us some Z’s headed this way, and they’re likely to be hungry.”
eighteen
It was Ruby who heard it first. Then, it had sounded like a dull rhythmic thud. Now, as they mounted the motorcycles, the crump of thousands of footfalls had taken on the timbre of a distant artillery barrage augmented by the crackle of high-tension electrical cables.
Chris kicked the motorcycle into life, waited for Ruby to mount up behind him then accelerated the short distance to where Joe waited.
“Holy crap!” Joe shouted over the rumble of the off-roaders. “He must have pulled every Z from Manhattan onto this little island. This is going to be cutting things fine, compadre. Sure you want to go through with it?”
“Let’s just get it done,” Chris said. “We leave here without those I-Pods and we might as well let the Z’s eat us.”
He pulled the goggles down over his eyes, popped the clutch and opened up on the gas. The bike climbed briefly onto its back wheel, then roared into the darkness along Main Street. Chris was a bit rusty when it came to riding a motorcycle, but at least the road was clear of obstructions, running between high-rise apartment buildings on either side. It was like riding through a valley. The valley of the shadow of death, he thought wryly.
He raced through the darkness. Every inch of distance they put between themselves and the encroaching Z’s increased their chances of getting off this island alive. Either way, those chances were scant.
A junction loomed ahead and he took it, veering left and picking up the stretch that ran along the island’s western barrier. He was now running with apartment buildings to his right and the East River at left. The towers of Manhattan loomed out of the dark across the water, bathed in eerie moonlight. The wind ripped at his face with icy claws.
Up ahead the road made a sharp right to join up again with Main Street. Chris slowed and pulled the motorcycle to the curb just short of that bend, allowing Ruby to dismount.
“You take care,” he said giving her arm a squeeze. Ruby nodded, then turned and sprinted across the road, disappearing into a walkway between two apartment buildings. Justine followed close behind her.
Joe pulled up to one side, Hooley to the other. Under different circumstances the picture of his friends dressed in leather jackets and denim cutoffs, would have been funny. Now it was deathly serious. If the disguises didn’t work, they were dead.
He pulled the bandana up over his nose and nodded to Joe. Then he revved the bike up and rounded the corner.
nineteen
Never go in without a Plan B. It was a credo that had served Scolfield well over the years and one that was definitely required now. He was going to lose his stock. That much was certain. Even now, the Dead Men were herding them from the hospital into the square where they were going to be torn apart by the approaching Z’s. After all the work he’d done gathering up these subjects, that hurt. But it was still a lot more attractive than the alternative, which was for him to call off the Z’s. Once he did that, the Dead Men would skin him alive, spit and barbeque him.
An explosion from below alerted him to the urgency of his situation. The first of his booby traps had been triggered. That meant that the Dead Men were in the foyer. The surprises he’d left down there would slow them, but he had to get moving, had to leave now. He crossed the patio quickly and entered the apartment, walked to the sideboard and scooped up the rucksack lying there. Then, as an afterthought, he swept up the I-Pod dock, unzipped the bag and slotted the dock in amongst the myriad devices resting at the bottom. He dropped in his treasured night vision goggles, shouldered the bag and made his way through the living room towards the front door of the apartment. An electrical thrum alerted him as he passed through the hallway, his zombie bodyguards. He wasn’t going to need them any longer, except for one last task.
He opened the door a crack and peered out into the darkened corridor. From below came a pair of explosions. Then came the sound of somebody screaming, and footfalls climbing the stairs. They’d triggered his last two booby traps. They’d be here soon. Scolfield hurried through the door leaving it ajar behind him. He found cover in the darkness and waited. The footsteps that had been ascending the stairs stopped briefly and he heard a snatch of breathless conversation. He picked up another sound, further off but getting closer, the muffled tramp of an army on the march. A heavy caliber weapon opened up from outside. Pointless really, they could fire all night and not make a dent in the numbers he’d unleashed against them.
Closer at hand he heard a furtive footfall and spotted the first of the bikers, working his way down the corridor, creeping close to the wall. He picked up others, eight of nine of them, clustered together as though for mutual protection. Like that was going to help.
“The door’s open,” one of them whispered. “There’s movement in there.”
“It’s a trap,” another voice stammered. “I ain’t going in.”
“You want to tell that to Conan?”
“Shut the fuck up,” another, more authoritative, voice growled. “We’re going in. Any of you chicken shits decide otherwise, I’ll personally put a bullet in his head. Now get moving.”
“I ain’t doing it, Junior. I ain’t.”
A single shot rang out. A body slumped to the ground.
“Any more of you ladies got an opinion you want to share with me? Thought not. Now move!”
The figures separated themselves from the darkness and crossed the corridor, the first pushing the door open and the others following. Scolfield waited a moment and then spun the dial on his I-Pod to the track designated “Mosh Pit.” He pressed his thumb to the button and then slipped back along the corridor, even as the screaming started.
twenty
The roadblock loomed up ahead, a couple of pickups, turned nose on, cutting off the road, machineguns mounted on the b
eds pointing outward towards the approach. Chris killed the headlight on the motorcycle, let it cruise the last few yards and stopped just short of the barricade. He half expected to be questioned, maybe even searched, but then one of the trucks reversed, opening a gap. He guided the motorcycle through the space and heard Joe and Hooley follow him.
The scene in front of the hospital was chaotic, the square a mass of humanity in motion. It was clear what was happening. The Dead Men were evacuating everyone from the hospital. But why? The answer to that soon became evident. They were forcing these people into the path of the oncoming Z’s. Chris brought the motorcycle to a stop, dismounted and allowed the machine to clatter to the ground. An explosion suddenly rocked the building to his left, forcing him to duck involuntarily. Now came the clatter of gunfire and the sound of screaming.
“You, you! Follow me!”
Chris looked into the bearded face of the man barking the instruction. For a moment he considered resisting, but Joe nudged him.
“Yeah you, dipshit!” the man snapped. Two more explosions erupted to his right. Chris followed the biker, a burly man with lank black hair reaching down to the back patch on his jacket. He crossed the square, buffeting past the panic-stricken people who were being hustled to the fore. The biker stopped at the destroyed door of a three-storey building with an unusual, dome shaped roof. The interior was smoky, illuminated by scattered flame.
“Get in there,” the biker said. “Whoever gets Scolfield, gets first cut from the herd.”
“Scolfield’s in there?” Chris said.
“No, dipshit, he’s vacationing in Maui. Now get in.” A confused expression crossed his face. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Who the fuck are you?”
“The last person on earth you want to see,” Joe said from behind Chris. A single shot rang out. A neat hole appeared in the man’s forehead, then his knees unhinged and he slumped to the ground.
Joe was already past, through the door, heading into the building.
“You heard the man,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Scolfield’s inside. Let’s go!”
Chris followed Joe into the building, with Hooley close behind. The foyer was a mess of broken brickwork and broken bodies. Chris vaulted them, ran for the stairs and started up after Joe. The old guy seemed to have his vigor back and Chris had a hard time keeping up. By the time they reached the third floor, he was blowing heavy. Hooley had fallen half a flight behind and they waited for him to catch up.
“This is it,” Joe said, when Hooley reached them.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Follow the bodies, compadre. Always follow the bodies.”
Chris could see what he meant. There were corpses scattered all along the corridor and unlike those downstairs, these hadn’t died in a bomb blast.
twenty one
She had never known hunger like this, never known such an intense longing for anything. It gnawed at her gut like a cancer, occupied every fiber of her being. The creature that had once been Dr. Alex Payne ripped at the chains holding her to the bed, twisted and wrenched her arm until the skin was chaffed away from her wrist and the blood flowed. She experienced no pain, save for the pain in her belly, the empty space that needed to be filled. Her anger temporarily spent, she lay still and breathless, listening to the sounds outside her door - footfalls, screams, shouted commands, gunshots, something else too, a distant electrical thrum that was strangely mesmerizing. Overriding every sound, was the delicious fragrance of blood. It caused thick saliva to well up in her mouth and dribble down her chin. She thrashed at her bonds again, gave up within a few seconds. Something else had caught her attention.
A light appeared in the darkness, a door opened. Within its frame, almost filling its space stood a man. Alex worked her nose, scenting him – unwashed flesh, grease and smoke and underlying that, the mouth-watering aroma of living flesh and pulsing blood. A fresh burst of saliva exploded in her mouth.
The man took a tentative step into the dark. “Anyone in here?” he said. He waited a moment longer. “Guess not.” He started to turn.
Alex couldn’t allow him to leave. She tried to call to him, but what came instead was an animalistic grunt, the only sound of which she was capable. It had the desired effect. The man was turning back. “Who’s there?” he said.
He started crossing the floor, his tantalizing odor getting stronger with each step. Now he was standing beside her bed, now a light flickered on in his hand. He was a big man, beefy, bearded, his face glowing ruddy in the blush of the flame.
A growl rumbled in Alex’s throat and she stilled it. Something, some predatory instinct, told her to be patient.
“Ain’t you a pretty one,” the man said. “What’s a pretty little thing like y’all hidin’ out here in the dark?” He reached across and ran his fingers through her hair, then trailed them across her cheek, brushed them over her lips and forced them into her mouth. He tasted delicious. It was all she could do not to chomp down and remove his fingers at the knuckle. Still, something told her to wait.
The man was running his hand over her body now, roughly cupping her breasts, now moving across her belly towards her crotch.
“Seems to me it would be a waste throwing prime sirloin such as yourself to the Z’s,” the man said, sounding slightly short of breath. “How about you and me hunker down here until this is all over, get to know each other a little better?”
Alex grunted.
“Ain’t much of a talker are you?” the man chuckled. “I like that in a woman. Now let’s see if I can do something about them cuffs.” He produced a large knife from his belt and began working at the bonds. “Done yourself some damage there, sweetheart.”
Excitement welled up, almost threatening to overwhelm her. Still Alex waited. She heard one of the cuffs click open, then the other. In the next moment, stars seemed to explode in her head as the man struck her a meaty blow with the back of his hand. Before she could move, he’d grabbed a handful of her hair and had his knife at her throat.
“Consider that a warning,” he growled. “Just in case you have any designs on trying to run out on me. You try anything and I cut you, understand?” He removed the knife from her throat and placed it on the side table by the bed. Then he started working at his belt.
“Now, I’m going to put something in your mouth,” he said. “And when I do you’re going to take it, all of it, and ask for more. You got that?”
twenty two
Chris edged the door open with his foot and peered inside. It was dark in the apartment but he could immediately make out a shape lying on the floor between the hall and what was probably the living room. He could see too that the figure was missing its head.
“What do you see?” Joe whispered from behind him.
“Shh,” Chris said. He tried to block out the mayhem from outside - the screams, the gunshots, the ever-louder footfalls of the approaching Z’s – and focus on the sounds from within the apartment. A faint but distinct hum reverberated from the darkness.
“Z’s,” he said over his shoulder.
“How many?”
“Can’t see them, but I can hear them, smell them too.”
“Want me to toss in a couple of grenades?” Hooley said.
“Not a good idea,” Joe said. “If any of those I-Pods are laying around we’ll blow them all to hell.” He was silent for a moment. “Guess it’s Alamo time, fellers. Chris, you want point?”
“I got it,” Chris said. He heard Joe and Hooley shuffling into position behind him. The Alamo was a tactic they’d used in close quarters fighting with Z’s before. It involved standing back-to-back, weapons pointing outward, blasting away at anything that came at them.
“Ready,” Joe called.
Chris shuffled forward, Joe at his back, Hooley picking up the open flank. Beyond the spot where the decapitated corpse lay, the apartment opened into a large open-plan living space. Looking across it, Chris could see a pair of glass doors at the other end, leading o
nto a terrace. In the scant light from outside, he picked up shapes in the darkness. He fired off a burst and stepped across the threshold. Something moved to his right and he swung the AK and took the Z down as it lurched forward. Now Hooley opened up, the heavy thud of his LMG deafening within the confines of the apartment. Joe was firing too, single shots, picking targets. The door loomed ahead. Chris fired at it, shattering the glass. A blast of frigid air swept into the apartment carrying with it the cacophony from outside. He stepped through onto the tile, took a few more steps and then broke away from the formation and swung back towards the apartment and dropped onto one knee firing at the shapes within. One of the Z’s, a gangly, emaciated individual, actually made it onto the patio. None of the others did.
***
Ruby stood concealed in the mouth of the alley and surveyed the chaos in the square. A mass of panic-stricken humanity was being hustled from the hospital, amidst screams and curses and gunshots. She understood what the Dead Men were trying to do. The square was closed in on two sides by the hospital, on a third by the apartment block with the strange octagonal tower as its centerpiece. A road fed into the area, stopping at a t-junction. It was at this junction that the human barrier was being created, driven directly into the path of the Z’s.
Her father had told her to keep a low profile, to keep her head down, but Ruby knew she wasn’t going be able to stand by and watch these people being murdered right in front of her eyes. She reached behind her and closed her fist on the handle of her Katana.
“Not our fight kid,” Justine said clamping a hand on her shoulder.
“Not yours perhaps,” Ruby said, shrugging her off. She slid the sword free of its scabbard and stepped from cover. The first biker she encountered barely had time to react before his head was loped from his shoulders.
twenty three
