by JJ Zep
“Oh yeah,” Charlie said. “He was walking, trying to talk. He drank some water.”
If the nurse understood what he’d said, she paid no attention. She was unbuttoning the man’s shirt, pulling it open. Now she sprang back in a rapid expulsion of breath, crossed herself, and muttered something that sounded like a prayer.
Charlie looked down at the man lying on the floor, his shirt parted to reveal a lean, muscled chest. Even among the mess of blackened blood, he could see what had startled the nurse. This man had been stabbed several times in the chest, stabbed so brutally that his dead heart lay exposed. Judging by the condition of his injuries he’d been dead some time.
“How is that possible?” Charlie started to say when he spotted something in the wound. He dropped to his knees and pried it loose. It was a sliver of hardened, red plastic, the kind that vehicle taillights are made of.
twenty one
Ruby had never fought a quick Z before, although she’d heard stories about them. Most of it was bullshit, she was sure, but some was likely to be true – that they were smart, that they could communicate one with the other, that they moved more quickly and were more aggressive than normal Z’s. That was how Marin Scolfield had designed them, after all.
The three approaching now were being cautious, the male in the cop uniform directing operations with clicks and clucks of his tongue. He’d have to go first, Ruby decided.
But that was easier said than done. The Z’s, perhaps sensing that she was a dangerous adversary, were taking their time working themselves into position. The leader had come to a stop some twenty feet away while the other two kept moving, the fat woman to Ruby’s left on the golf course side, the kid at right, by the empty wave pool. With the climbing wall at her back Ruby was going to be surrounded unless she moved quickly.
She saw immediately what she had to do. Smart they might be, but they were still predators and no predator could resist the lure of the chase. She turned and sprinted the short distance to the wall, pistoned her legs hard and gained a good eight feet before she pushed back, flipped in the air and landed behind the young zombie. The desperate clucking of the leader came too late to warn him of the trap. Ruby was already spinning in a balletic pirouette, the business end of the Katana singing its death song as it neatly trimmed the zombie’s head from his shoulders.
Ruby heard the thunder of footfalls as the fat woman charged, huge breasts slapping at her green-hued skin. She stood her ground, dancing aside at the last moment and sweeping the woman’s ankles out from under her. The Z went down hard, face first onto the pebble-blasted running path, which removed the skin from her face like a rasp.
Now the cop closed in, swinging a balled fist. Ruby swayed out of reach of the blow. But as she brought her heel down, she felt it slide out from under her on the canted deck. She was falling, fighting for balance, hitting the ground on her butt. Instantly she felt a crushing grip on her ankle and she was wrenched backward, losing her hold on the sword. She hit the deck and bounced, came to an untidy stop on the plastic turf of the golf course, only her leather suit saving her from a serious case of road rash.
The crowd roared its approval.
Ruby sprung to her feet as the fat woman barreled towards her, her destroyed face drawn into a bloody grimace. To her right, she spotted the cop, over by the climbing wall, squatting down to retrieve her sword.
The woman closed on Ruby like a runaway bulldozer. Ruby shifted her weight to her toes ready to throw herself out of the way. She spotted a pennant fluttering in the breeze in one of the golf holes. She grabbed for it, swung it up like a lance just as the fat woman reached her. The flagpole penetrated the woman’s multiple chins on an upward trajectory, skewered her throat and punched through the back of her skull.
The fat Z responded like a remote controlled toy with a crossed wire. She went blundering past, her arms flailing in erratic circles, body jerking in lunging movements, eventually grinding to a halt and collapsing to the green where she lay convulsing like a child in the midst of a tantrum.
The crowd seemed to find the woman’s demise particularly humorous, but Ruby didn’t have time to admire the spectacle. The cop stood before her, the Katana in his grip scything through the air in wild arcs. Now Ruby heard a sound from the holding area. A new batch of Z’s had been released, six of them scurrying across the deck like a pack of rabid dogs.
twenty two
The cop stood before her, wide-eyed, a scowl etched on his face, the sword a blur of movement in his hand. He wasn’t attacking, he was backing her off, holding her at bay until the cavalry arrived. Ruby could hear them now galloping across the deck towards her. There was little time to lose.
She focused all of her attention on the blur of deadly steel carving up the air in front of her. In her mind’s eye, she reduced the sword’s movements to slow motion, then to freeze-frame. She stepped in towards the cop, ducking under one wild swipe, deflecting the next with her arm against the flat of the blade. She dropped her shoulder, clattered into the cop, closed a hand on his wrist and twisted hard. Bones cracked under her grip with the sound of dry kindling. The sword rattled free.
Ruby pushed the cop away from her, planted a kick into his ribcage, sent him blundering into his onrushing brethren. That bought her a valuable few seconds. She scooped up the Katana and sheathed it in one fluid movement. Then she turned and sprinted towards the climbing wall, threw herself at its rough surface and scampered upwards. Seconds later, she was 60-feet above the deck, clinging to a handhold, her breath coming in rapid bursts. Already the Z’s had begun climbing towards her.
Ruby looked down on the gray-skinned creatures scurrying up the wall. They looked as emaciated as the junkies she used to pass on 19th Street on her way to the work, but she was under no illusions. If she stayed where she was, she was going to be pulled from the wall and eaten.
She scanned frantically for an escape route and spotted the climbing harnesses. Could she…
A shard of pain suddenly exploded in Ruby’s head, almost shaking her free of the wall. Light blossomed before her eyes, forming a kaleidoscope that seemed to consist only of varying intensities of whiteness. A cry escaped her as she clung desperately to her handhold. A picture flashed across her brain, a panic-stricken crowd in flight. Immediately, it was displaced by another, a small child screaming, now another, a couple kissing on a park bench. Faster and faster the images flickered, a crowd on its feet and cheering in a sports stadium; bloodied, broken bodies being bulldozed into a mass grave; a baby gurgling up at its mother; a row of burning houses; a horde of dead-eyed Z’s shuffling across a field.
Ruby heard the roar of the crowd and opened her eyes. The Z’s were halfway up the wall, climbing towards her, the cop directing operations from below. She looked across at the climbing harnesses and knew what she had to do.
The first of the Z’s was just feet below her, scraggly claws digging into the wall as it ascended. She could see the top of its scabby head, smell its putrid aroma. She hung on, waited for the thing to reach for its next handhold and then brought her boot down, crushing its bony fingers. The creature looked up at her, scrunching its face into an enraged snarl and Ruby lashed out again, smashing her boot heel into its face and sending it plummeting towards the deck.
A cheer went up as the Z smashed into the woodwork, barely missing the cop. He unleashed a flurry of urgent clicks, exhorting his brethren on, like a shepherd guiding a team of sheep dogs.
Ruby wasn’t going to wait for them to reach her. She bunched her calf muscles, released her grip on the wall and threw herself to the right, arm outstretched, towards the climbing ropes.
For a moment she thought she wasn’t going to make it. But then her outstretched fingers brushed rough fabric and she felt the nylon chaff at her palm as she closed her fist. She hung there a moment, holding on one handed, looking back to the wall, where the Z’s were now changing direction, scurrying across to get at her.
Ruby got both hands on the rope, planted her feet a
nd walked along the wall, away from them. Reaching the edge she pushed off, her momentum carrying her a few feet before the rope hauled her back. She clattered into the Z’s like a wrecking ball, dislodging one of them immediately, smashing it into another. As those two plunged earthward, they pulled two more of their number from the wall.
The rope had reached the end of its arc and was beginning to pull her back in the opposite direction. Ruby allowed it to play out across her wrist, dropping ten feet, twenty, twenty-five. She heard the frenzied click-cluck-click of the cop, as the remaining Z launched itself from the wall.
The creature slammed into her, flailing with claws that ripped at her leather suit. Ruby heard a loud snap as one of the carabineers holding the rope gave way and she was plunging earthward, still locked in a deadly embrace with the zombie.
The ground raced up to meet them. At the last moment, Ruby got hands on the creature’s throat and flipped it. A millisecond later the zombie seemed to explode under her, disintegrating into a porridge of black blood and rotten innards.
Ruby felt the breath driven forcibly from her lungs. An entire universe of stars exploded in her head. Next came the pain, a shroud of nettles drawn over her body, its epicenter at her chest, her wrist, one of her knees. She tried to rise and couldn’t, rolled over and felt herself sliding, coming to rest in a pool of stinking water. She fought to hold on to consciousness, but realized it was a battle she wasn’t going to win. The light began to fade. From above came the sound of footfalls hurrying across the wooden deck.
twenty three
Ruby peered into the darkness that engulfed her, so black it seemed to have painted itself on the inside of her eyelids. Now she heard the sound again, faint but unmistakable, a child’s cry.
“Pearl?” Ruby whispered into the void. “Pearl, is that you?”
The cry was strident, pitiful, terrified. Which direction was it coming from? Left or right? Ruby chose left and stepped off, hands outstretched, totally blind. She heard the trickle of water, sensed its rank aroma in her nostrils. Up ahead a barely perceptible graying of the light hinted at a junction. She hurried towards it, peered around a corner. Some sort of cavern lay beyond. A shaft of light spilling in from above gave the scene an almost ethereal appearance. Ruby looked towards its source and saw a jagged swatch of blue sky. A memory swam hazily to the surface. She’d been here before.
“Pearl?”
A wail issued from the gloom. Ruby squinted her eyes and could make out a pipe extending from the forward wall. Her heart skipped a beat as she discerned a child’s grubby face peering out from the pipe. It wasn’t Pearl. It was Ferret.
Ruby crossed the space on the run, dropped to her knees and looked into the pipe. “Ferret! How on earth did you get here? How did you –?”
“Listen,” Ferret said, speaking not in a child’s voice but in that of the young adult that she now was. “Listen to me, Ruby!”
Ruby heard footsteps behind her, looked nervously over her shoulder. “We’ve got to get you out of here, Ferret. Got to get you out before –”
“No!” Ferret all but screamed. “Listen to me Ruby. You’ve got to wake up. Wake up now!”
“What?” Ruby heard the splashing of water. “But I am awake. I’m –”
“Wake up Ruby. He’s coming!”
“Who? Who’s coming?”
“The cop, Ruby. He’s coming! Jesus, God, he’s coming! He’s coming! He’s coming! Wake up!”
The sound of splashing was louder, like someone wading through a paddy field. Then spectral fingers grasped a handful of Ruby’s dark hair and yanked her backwards. A rush of filthy water streamed into her mouth and nose making her cough and splutter. Her eyes flew open, taking in a broad expanse of blue sky. She tried to twist loose but whoever had her wasn’t letting go.
Her head dipped under the green bilge again. When she emerged, she could hear the shouts and cheers of the crowd. She finally made sense of her situation. The fall from the climbing wall had knocked her out. Somehow she’d ended up in the wave pool. The thing dragging her across the pool was the last surviving Z, the cop.
Ruby tried to gain a handhold, but the surface of the pool was just too slick. She felt her hand bump up against some submerged object and grasped it, but it came away. She was dragged onward, then hauled from the water, dumped unceremoniously onto dry ground. The sun was blinding, and hot against her face.
The crowd had fallen into a deathly silence, although Ruby could make out individual voices, exhorting her to rise.
“Get up, Ruby!”
“Come on, Ruby!”
She lay very still, eyes screwed shut against the glare, every muscle, every sinew of her body, aflame with agony. The Z was leaning over her, grabbing a fistful of her leather suit, hauling her to her feet.
Ruby opened her eyes and looked into the creature’s dead face, held just inches from her own. He looked down at her like a lover about to deliver a kiss in a 1930’s melodrama. His mouth cracked open, revealing a set of crooked, yellow canines. His breath reeked of spoiled meat. Drool slewed from his mouth and trickled onto Ruby’s cheek. The zombie angled his head, directing his teeth towards her throat.
Up until the last moment Ruby wasn’t sure if she’d have the strength to wield her weapon effectively. She shifted the shard of jagged metal in her palm, the remnants of the broken carabineer that she’d scooped up off the bottom of the pool. Then, when the cop’s mouth was almost touching her neck, she swung, driving the weapon through his ear, into his brain.
The Z stiffened, an expression that was almost surprise forming on his face. His eyes rolled over to their whites and he crumbled to the ground, pulling Ruby with him.
Ruby lay on the deck, pinned under the dead weight of the cop. Her breath came in shallow draughts that delivered exquisite agony with each intake. The last thing she heard, before she blacked out again, was the crowd chanting her name.
twenty three
They carried the man out onto the street. Morales had been adamant about that. He wanted the body removed from his compound and disposed of. He seemed pissed at Charlie for bringing the man there in the first place.
“What was I going to do?” Charlie had said. “Leave a badly injured man to die at the side of the road?”
Morales had shrugged. “One more man dying by the roadside doesn’t change much either way, senor.”
He was right of course, but Charlie had not yet reached the stage where he was prepared to let someone die without at least trying to render assistance. Wasn’t that why he’d signed up in the first place? To help when he could?
None of that mattered now, of course. The guy was dead as disco, as Uncle Joe liked to say.
“Will this do, Lieutenant?” They’d reached the intersection of West Orange and 4th, the spot where Morales and his men had held their previous mass cremation. The road surface here was still blackened, still scattered with bone fragments.
“Yeah, this will do,” Charlie said.
Thunder rumbled overhead. Charlie looked skyward and was surprised at how much the day had clouded over, thick cover rolling in, a strong breeze carrying with it the promise of rain. He cast his eyes towards the south where incandescent lightning forked earthward like the roots of some diseased tree. An involuntary shiver ran through him, the portent of some calamitous event.
“Let’s get this cookout started,” he heard Wackjob say. “Looks like the good lord’s about to piss on our parade.”
Charlie watched as the man’s body, still on its makeshift litter, was placed on the ground. Wackjob was prying the lid from a canister of lighter fluid with one hand, reaching into his pocket at the same time. When he withdrew it, he was holding a Zippo.
“Anyone want to say a few words?” he joked as the first fat raindrops spattered the road surface.
A shrill whistle sounded. Charlie turned back to the Morales complex and could see the lookout atop the main building gesticulating wildly. He raised his binoculars to his eyes, p
icked out the man in the sandbagged bunker behind the familiar shape of a 20-mil. The lookout was shouting something to someone on the ground, pointing south, now east. He definitely seemed excited about something.
“How ya’ll like your meat?” Wackjob continued in jocular vein. “Medium rare or fucked up crispy?”
The lookout had now raised his own glasses to his eyes and was scanning the horizon, east to west. Another man appeared beside him in the bunker, who Charlie recognized. Cowboy accepted the glasses from the lookout, brought them to his eyes. When he removed them, Charlie saw an expression on his face that he wasn’t sure he cared for. Cowboy, who had faced down the quick Z’s in Mexicali without flinching, looked petrified.
A sudden gust of wind buffeted Charlie, bringing a snatch of noise that sounded like someone using a buzz saw at a distance.
“Fuck!”
He turned and saw Wackjob struggling to coax a spark from the Zippo in the sputtering breeze. Suddenly Charlie felt very exposed. He wanted to be away from here, behind the fence at the school with the REPULSE frequency keeping the Z’s at bay. Because he had no doubt now that the Z’s were back. That was most likely what Morales’ lookouts had seen, what Charlie had heard just a moment ago.
Wackjob finally managed to spark the lighter. He crouched and applied it to the man’s pant leg. A blue-tinged flame sputtered into life, danced for a moment and then spread rapidly to envelop the body.
“Let’s get out of here,” Charlie said as a fresh volley of raindrops drummed against the tarmac.
twenty four
A panicked crowd fleeing an invisible threat, a baby suckling at its mother’s breast, a mound of broken corpses being plowed under by a bulldozer, a couple entwined in animal passion, a city in flames, children at play in an inflatable pool, columns of the dead shuffling along an endless expanse of highway, Skye.
