Chapter Nineteen
In the flashes of lightning, we watched with a mixture of satisfaction and revulsion as the army of the undead took care of the two Pit crew members they had caught off guard. With a rending and a popping sound, one arm was torn from its torso, and a geyser of blood shot up after it. The two pieces were born in opposite directions in the writhing tangle of groping, eager hands. The other guy had already fallen into the crowd, and similar rending sounds could be heard as he was dispatched. Once their screams subsided, there was only a grotesque chorus of tearing and slurping.
To stem the tide of the undead, the men on the second tier pulled up the one rope ladder. Another guy had nearly reached the top of the other ladder; they pushed him off into the hungry horde, where the horrible screams and rending sounds started up again, as the inmates cut that ladder and threw it down.
As we slowly backed up, the undead reached the cell where Popcorn had been. The guy he had originally slashed lay outside on the floor. He must've still been alive, as they grabbed at him, their fingernails digging into the huge wound on his neck and tearing it wider.
He was too weak to scream, but a lightning flash made the overwhelming fear in his eyes quite apparent. Good. To be torn apart and eaten alive was indeed frightening, as I was starting to realize myself, for it seemed all too likely that it would be my fate as well. But I could still smirk at him because he had the added fear of being dragged before an angry God—for what other kind of God could possibly have created something as obscene and violent as the hungry undead?—right after raping and beating a child nearly to death.
As more hands joined in the bloody rending, his eyes were covered, and they tore his head and his torso in two different directions, a river of blood spilling onto the floor when they finally tore the head loose, leaving behind a stump of ragged flesh.
The other Pit crew member Popcorn had slashed had staggered out, clutching at the mortal wound on his neck, blood still pouring out between his fingers and further inciting the undead's unholy hunger. Those zombies not already feeding on the headless corpse grabbed both his arms and pulled in opposite directions.
At first, it was a comical tug of war: the dead rocked him back and forth as he whimpered, too weak to muster a real scream. But when both sides finally pulled at the same time, the effect was less comical, at least for their victim, though I could still manage a cruel smirk. No longer capable of fear, but just registering unspeakable pain, his eyes bugged out before both his arms tore off.
He hung there a moment, swaying slightly, mouth open, eyes rolled back in his head, blood spurting out both stumps at his shoulders with a flow that steadily weakened. Good—it seemed a more horrible version of Frank's suffering the night before.
Finally, he slumped forward and more zombies fed on his body.
I thought the undead were finished with Popcorn's tormentors at that point, but I had forgotten there was a third inmate in his cell, probably the evening's potential customer. As the undead's horrible feeding frenzy proceeded outside the cell, a weak voice came from inside, "Help! Damn kid stabbed my eyes! I can't see! Who's there? What? What? No!"
Again, the voice trailed off into screams as the undead found their blind and helpless prey. For some reason, his screams seemed to last especially long. Blinded, with claws and teeth tearing into his flesh from all sides, reducing him in seconds from a human being to a pile of meat—I hoped he spent eternity in hell like that, for what he'd done, or even just intended. I looked down at Popcorn, and he was smiling and grunting.
I guessed it was going to be the high point of our evening, for with the Pit crew devoured or retreated, and the means of getting to the second tier cut off, we were the only thing left on the menu. I clutched the bat tighter, and we kept backing up.
Chapter Twenty
I Looked over my shoulder and saw that we'd been joined by the two former prison guards, who cowered behind us. "Back into the one cell," I hissed at them. We were already almost there.
"And then what?" they blubbered.
We were backing into the cell. "And then we'll take turns at the door to the cell, killing them," I said. "They can only come at us one at a time there."
They both scuttled to the back corner of the cell. "So what? There must be hundreds of them! And you know that none of those assholes are going to come down from upstairs to help!"
I handed the bat to Tanya, and I leaned down over the two guards, my fists and face still covered in blood. "Then we'll pile up their rotted bodies ten deep till they can't get at us! And then Tanya will take the rebar and smash our heads in, so we don't become one of them! If you can't help, then just stay the hell out of our damn way! How's that for a damn plan?"
I went back to Tanya. "Actually, I think it'll take two to cover the door," she whispered. "These nails will get stuck—somebody else better be bashing them with the rebar at the same time."
The dead were closing slowly. "Okay," I said. "That's what we'll do." I put my hands on Tanya and Popcorn's shoulders. "I'm sorry guys. I wish it would've turned out different."
They nodded.
Suddenly, the dead stopped, swaying and letting out a rumble of discontent or alarm. The lightning flashed again, and a ripple went through the crowd; a path opened up in it. The crowd parted, and a tall, lean figure emerged, carrying a staff.
As the thunder crashed in the darkness, we could just barely see the figure stride across the remaining yards between us and the army of the undead, and at the next lightning flash, it was right in front of us. It was Milton.
He embraced Tanya and Popcorn at the door, then pushed them farther into the cell, so he could take up a position guarding it. Now there was no way for the dead to get at us, past the leader whom they feared so much, for whatever reason.
"What's the old guy going to do?" the cowering guards bleated.
I glared at them. "Will you two just shut the hell up? Just trust us, okay?"
I patted Milton on the back, shaking my head; I couldn't believe he had the audacity to attack the prison with an army of the undead. "Thanks, Milton."
He looked over his shoulder and smiled. "You're most welcome. Where's Frank?"
I shook my head. "He didn't make it. They killed him."
Milton looked shocked and suddenly began shaking. "What—the dead I brought in here? They killed him? Oh my God!"
"No, no, not them," I said quickly, trying to calm him down. "The guys who run this place. They killed Frank last night."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. But I couldn't have lived with myself if it was because of me." He calmed down just a little bit in the pause. "But why would they do such a thing?"
With walking corpses shuffling around in front of him, sniffing at him and eager to tear the flesh from our bones, it was really quite extraordinary to see that the regular, human evil we had all lived with our whole lives could still so shock and astonish Milton. "Frank was trying to protect Popcorn," I said. "They wanted to… you know… they wanted to hurt him… like that."
Milton's eyes went wide, and I could see he was fighting back tears, trying not to look weak in front of Popcorn, let alone show him pity to his face. "Good God… But he's only a child. I'm sorry, I had no idea there was still such evil in the world. I thought we'd been through enough."
His eyes turned to rage, for the only time I'd ever seen, and he leaned farther out the door. "I brought these maggot-ridden corpses in here, you bastards! Hundreds of them! And they haven't eaten in months! And now they're going to tear you all apart and send you to hell, you sons of bitches!"
I patted his back. "Easy, Milton. We'd all like to see that, but what exactly are we going to do now?"
"I'm not sure," he admitted. "I think Jack has a plan."
Just then we could see that the inmates were finally mounting some kind of counterattack. Arrows started raining down from the second tier onto the undead. But arrows, as effective as they were against living deer and humans, were one of the least effectiv
e weapons against zombies. There were various roars of protest as the arrows lodged into torsos, limbs, and necks, but you could see that almost none of those they hit were falling down. I worried, however, that one of the arrows—either stray or intended—would hit Milton.
I grabbed the mattress off the floor and shoved it in front of him. "Here, hold this in front of you in case one of those arrows comes your way!"
He turned his face away from it. "Good Lord," he choked. Then he chuckled. "It smells worse than me!"
I smiled. "That's why you're here to rescue us."
He looked over his shoulder at me, one arm stretched across the doorway, the other hugging the stinking mattress to his chest. "On my belt," he said, "there's a radio. Get it. Call Jack."
I got the walkie-talkie. "Jack?" I said into it.
"Great to hear you!" came the reply. "Sorry I got you into this. Everybody okay?"
"The prisoners killed Frank last night," I replied.
There was a pause. "That's too bad. He'd been through so much." There was another pause, and then he was all business again. "Where are you all in the building? We need to get you out."
"We're on the bottom floor, at the end farthest from the entrance. Milton is the only thing keeping us from getting eaten right now."
"Milton's got them held back for the time being?"
"Yes. But we're taking fire from the upper floors."
"That I can help with. Franny?"
"Almost there, Jack," I heard her reply.
"Our guys are on the first floor, so aim for the second." Jack told her.
"Roger that. Second floor's the target."
Over the sound of thunder, I could hear the thumping of the helicopter. It got louder and louder, then held steady. The skylights exploded with a flash, and glass and metal cascaded onto the dead outside the cell. A minute later, I could see another flash at the smashed skylight, and with a whoosh, one of the cells on the second floor exploded amidst screams.
It must've been more of Jack's AT4s, being fired by someone now on the roof. As he had predicted, their real value would be proved should we ever have to fight the evil living, rather than the mindless dead.
With a flash and a whoosh, another cell exploded in flames and flying debris. Most of the upper cell block was now shrouded in a pall of dust and smoke, and the injured men were groaning.
No more arrows were raining down, so Milton lowered the mattress. "Glad I don't have to hold that anymore." He raised his hands up and shooed away some of the closer undead.
"Jack, we're not under fire anymore," I said into the radio, "but we're still trapped in here with no way out."
"Okay," he said. "I'm outside. You've got to describe the interior layout of the building to me, as best you can."
I tried to give him enough information for him to visualize the inside of the building, and where we were in it. Finally, he seemed satisfied. "Okay, there's a big wall in front of you, to your left?"
"That's right," I said.
"Then shield yourself from it, if you can, 'cause there's going to be a big hole in it in a few seconds."
"Okay, Jack." I lowered the radio. "Milton, cover yourself with the mattress again, as much as possible. Jack's going to blow some more things up."
"Well, all right," he winced as he raised the mattress again and turned his face away from it. "He does so like to do that, doesn't he?"
A second later, the wall just beyond Milton exploded with a roar that seemed ten times louder than when the rockets had hit on the second level. My ears were ringing like crazy this time. The zombies closest to the hole were thoroughly shredded by the blast, while those behind them were thrown back into the crowd, mangled and torn from the flying debris. There was now a path from the door of the cell to the hole in the wall, and we needed to go through it—fast.
I was right at Milton's back. "You okay?" I asked. He coughed slightly and nodded.
Jack and one of his men came through the hole, firing pistols. Headlights were shining through the hole as well. Jack spotted us. "Come on!" he shouted, as the dead regrouped and began pressing toward him, tripping over the body parts and corpses of their fallen comrades.
I shoved Milton forward and told him to hold back the zombies. Then I hustled the others out of the cell. "Run toward Jack!" I shouted.
They made it through the hole in the outside wall, and I was following them when a hand grabbed my ankle and tripped me up.
"No!" Milton shouted, and he slammed his staff down on the undead wrist. Its hold wouldn't break, and it was pulling its maw up to my ankle. But with a second blow, Milton severed the arm at the rotted wrist. I got up and dashed through the hole with the bony appendage still attached to my ankle. Jack and his partner were right behind me, leaving Milton to prevent his former army from coming through the hole after us.
Once outside, I kicked at the undead hand until I finally got it off of me. The small dump truck was parked thirty feet from the hole in the wall, and we all climbed into the back of it, while Jack got in the driver's seat. He pulled the truck right up next to Milton and opened the door. Milton turned and jumped in as Jack tore off, with dead hands grasping at the side of the truck.
As we drove off, the helicopter rose from the roof of the prison and headed toward the museum.
A few raindrops hit us in the back of the dump truck, but the storm was passing to the south and east. The stars were coming out above us now, and the moon was half hidden by the retreating clouds. The storm had cooled everything, and the air had the freshness that it has after a cleansing storm. It was especially pronounced after the stale and rancid air of the prison, and the reek of death from the undead.
I looked up and breathed in deeply, and almost in spite of myself muttered, "Thanks, God. Really, this time."
Four of us had gone into hell, and three had come out. We were hardly unscathed, but we had survived. In the world of the undead, this was as close to victory as one dared hope for.
* * * * *
As we drove through the gate in the razor wire fence, I could feel the truck stop. I jumped down to see what was going on.
Jack and Milton got out of the truck. Milton walked over to the gate and closed it. Then he threaded the chain that had locked it back through the gate and the fence. "Jack, do you have something to hold this with?" he asked.
Jack slapped his pockets, the way people do when they're trying to see if they have the exact change or something. "You mean people-proof, or zombie-proof?" he asked.
"Just enough to hold it for a while, if some zombies come sniffing around and press up against it." Jack fumbled around in the cab of the truck for a minute. He came back with the key ring from off the truck's ignition key.
"Will this do?"
"Perfect." Milton put it through two links of the chain holding the gate closed.
"What are you doing, Milton?" I finally asked.
"I think he wants to make sure they're stuck in there with his zombie army for a while," Jack replied. "Until they're all eaten." Almost on cue, screams and gunfire could be heard, coming from the prison.
"More than that," Milton said in his dreamy sort of way. "When I was herding the zombies into here, I began to think, why couldn't I just herd all of them in here? It would be perfect, a place to keep them, so they couldn't bother the living anymore, and we wouldn't have to kill them."
I shook my head. "Milton, there are several billion of those things wandering around on the earth now. The most you could push around in front of yourself with a staff would be a dozen or so. I assume you only got so many into the prison tonight because they were all bunched up at the gate."
Milton smiled back and shook his head. "Now don't jump so far ahead, Jonah. Just because there are too many in the world is no excuse for me not to round up the ones I can, to protect you all living at the museum, and make your lives easier and safer. I realized as I led this army in there, against those evil men, that it had been wrong of me to fight against the dead
, once I learned they couldn't hurt me. I should've been trying to help them."
Jack laughed. "Help them? Now you really are just talking crazy, Milton. Get back in the truck and let's get back to the museum."
"No, it's a beautiful night now," Milton said wistfully. "I'm going to round up a few of our dead brothers and sisters, and put them in their new home, away from you all, and where they can do some good, punishing and eliminating the evil living, and turning them into docile, calm dead. You'll see how well it works out."
Jack knew that arguing with Milton was usually pointless. He knew Milton couldn't be hurt by the undead, so letting him wander around outside the museum with a new project wasn't that bad of an idea. "Well, Milton, okay," he said. "You know where to find us. Stop by when you need food or supplies. Give him back the radio," Jack said to me, and I handed it to Milton.
"You know I will, Jack," Milton said. "I'll come back to see you all, and to see my beloved books, that helped me so much. And you'll excuse me if I don't round up the dead too much in the winter. But I have a few months before that, to help you out." Milton turned toward me. "I am so sorry that you all suffered so much in there, and that Frank is gone. Be good to one another and heal your pains. And I'm sorry I misinterpreted your name, way back when we first meant."
"I don't understand," I said.
"Cain slew his brother, as we all have now in this undead world, and that was all that you and I remembered about him. But I was rereading the story again, last night. I was looking for some guidance as I prepared to come into battle to save you all, and for some reason I turned there. And I saw I had forgotten that Cain also built the first city. Help build our city, Jonah, the right way. You've been in the belly of the beast—thank God for less than three days, but I think long enough to see how bad the city of man can become." He gestured back toward the prison.
Dying to Live Page 19
