This Rotten World | Book 2 | Let It Burn

by Morris, Jacy

  She pushed herself off of the multi-colored carpet, its flares of colors going all over the place like some sort of absurd fireworks show. She looked up at the hatch in the ceiling, and then she climbed.

  No one saw her. No one paid any attention to her. Why would they? They weren't family. They weren't mothers and fathers. They were simply adults, comfortable in their own world, comfortable in their own power. They couldn't know her or her pain. On top of the roof, she saw one of the black men sitting on the ground, lost in thought. They weren't as scary and violent as her father had always said, but then again, her father had been wrong about a lot.

  She walked across the roof, the ground feeling soft under her feet. And then she threw herself off of it. As she fell, she thought, So this is what freedom feels like.

  Chapter 3: Popcorn and Raisinets

  She was down there. They all knew that. No one had paid attention to her. No one had helped her, and they all felt a sense of guilt. Lou felt it most of all. He stood at the railing, watching as her broken body stumbled around down there, Jane, Brian's daughter, the last member of a family that had been cursed from the get-go.

  He had risked much to save them, and, in the end, it had only ended in death. He wondered if things would have been different if Zeke had been there. What would Zeke have done? he thought. The truth was, he didn't know. He didn't know what Zeke would have done; he didn't know what he should have done differently, but he knew he should have done something.

  Lou was too busy getting lost in his own thoughts, wallowing in his own self-pity, contemplating doing just what Jane had done. One minute she was there, and the next, she was gone. All he had seen was a brief flash of the hair on her head as she disappeared from sight.

  He hadn't even had a chance to yell. Now he stood at the edge of the roof, trying to avoid seeing the remains of Zeke and the animated corpse of Jane. She looked up at him, her arm twisted at a sharp angle, the side of her face caved in. With her one good arm, she reached up to him, inviting him to join her.

  Just a little bit ago, Lou thought that he had wanted that. Death would be simpler. He wouldn't have to figure anything out. He wouldn't have to take responsibility. But seeing her down there, among the dead, he only knew one emotion. Outrage. None of this was right. He was through with self-pity. He was through with letting events happen to him. It was time to take charge.

  Now it was time to set things right. He held out his hands, keeping his eyes locked on Jane. She did her part and kept her eyes locked on him. He felt the weight of the rifle as Blake placed it in his hands. It was his responsibility. Lou had saved them, back when Little Jane and her family were trying to flee on their boat. He should have kept looking out for them, but he had relaxed, content with the lack of responsibility, never knowing how hard the loss of their lives would hit him, always sure that someone else would be there to pick up the slack. Now he knew the truth. He knew, and it was a guilt that he couldn't bear.

  He did the only thing he could to make things right. He sent a rifle round through Jane's head, and with that, an entire branch of the human genealogical tree was wiped off the face of the earth. He had never even learned their last names. He handed the rifle back to Blake, still swirling in the vortex of his thoughts.

  On the rooftop, hard glares were being sent in the direction of Katie. Lou didn't like the lady; she gave him the creeps, but she didn't deserve those glares. They were blaming her, fair or not, for the little girl's death, but the truth was, none of them had done anything to prevent it.

  "I am tired of losing people," Lou said. It was the only thing he could think to say. The rest of the group looked at him. They were all assembled there, even the movie theater guy, who still felt like an outsider. He wasn't one of them. He wasn't one the ones that had escaped from the Coliseum, but he would get there. Lou was sure of that.

  They were still looking at him, waiting for him to say something else. "We can't stay here."

  There were groans from a few members of the group. Joan, Chloe, and Amanda mostly. The men just listened. That was a good sign. If he had the men on his side, that meant he could do this. He could take Zeke's place.

  "What do you want us to do? We barely made it here from the Coliseum," Joan said.

  "Yeah, I don't know if you noticed, but we're not the army. We don't have helicopters. Hell, even the army couldn't stand up to the... the... whatever the fuck you want to call this," said Chloe, waving her arms in the air to encompass the entire city.

  They were right. But Lou was right as well. Now they just had to figure out who was more right. "We're not the army. We're survivors. There's a voice in each one of us that has gotten us to this point, and deep down, that voice is telling you that we can't stay here. That voice is asking you how long you think you can live off popcorn and Raisinets?"

  "A hell of a lot longer than we can out there, that's for sure," Andy said. The group looked at him, reproachful glances letting him know that his input was not yet entirely welcome. He wasn't a survivor. He didn't know what it was like out there. He was a hider, an unwelcome intrusion into their society.

  "The kid has a point," Joan said.

  Lou looked up at the sky. This wasn't going as well as he planned. Where were the words? Where were those magic words that leaders used to get people to agree to do things that they didn't actually want to do?

  "We're all going to die, either way," a voice said. "Stay here, die. Go out there, die. The difference is, if we stay here, we know it's going to happen, and it's probably going to happen in one month, maybe less once the food and water runs out. Out there, maybe we have a chance... a chance to live a little longer than that."

  Lou looked at the speaker. Mort was his name. He could have kissed the guy.

  "But what about those things?" Amanda said.

  Rudy, who had been lost in thought, chimed in, "Every day, every minute, there are more of those things. I don't think they're going away. I did a count earlier today. There were 71 of those things out there. We don't even have the ammo to clear them out right now. Two, three days, how many of them do you think will be out there then?"

  They all walked over to the wall and looked over.

  "Shit," Katie said. "That's a lot more than 71." Down below, the dead milled around, bumping into each other, bouncing off of each other, walking aimlessly in an attempt to get to the wall, where the lucky dead in the front were busy pawing at the side of the building, looking for a way to reach the faces looking down at them.

  It dawned on them all at the same moment. They were living on borrowed time. They could huddle inside the theater for as long as they had food and water. When they ran out, it would be too late to escape. The dead below could sense their presence. Every moment, more dead came from afar, shambling across parking lots and unused streets strewn with automobile accidents and shattered glass. It was as if instinct were driving them to where the food was. They just knew. Somehow, they just knew.

  "I'm not going to make anyone go with me, but I'm not going to stay here and die either," Lou said.

  "That's bullshit," Chloe said. "You're not leaving us any choice at all. Either we go with you, or we stay here with the couple of people that want to stay, and then we have no chance of escaping at all."

  Lou looked at her, and he truly did feel for her situation. "It is what it is," he said.

  "I'm with you," Mort said. "This place already feels like a graveyard. The whole city does."

  One by one they all agreed. They all stepped into the circle, even Andy, the new guy.

  After an evening of rest and preparations, they stood in the theater lobby, ten people with bags stuffed full of candy bars and snack foods, crinkling, plastic water bottles tucked into any pocket they could find, their weapons in their hands.

  They stood in the darkness, trying not to think about what was on the other side of the theater doors, trying not to think about what was going to come next. In the dark, no one could see the fear on their faces.
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  Chapter 4: Escape

  When the doors were thrown open, the world assaulted Amanda's senses. The sun blinded her. The smell of rot crawled up her nose and did things in the back of her throat that made her want to vomit up her breakfast of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The sound of gunshots pounded her eardrums. In her mouth, she tasted the metallic tang of saliva laced with adrenaline. In her hand, she felt the handle of her sword, a small thing stolen from a perverted neighbor's sex den in an apartment building that was probably nothing more than smoldering ashes by now.

  She swung the blade at the rotting creature in front of her. It's belly was bloated, and it's arms were grayish, except for wound ringed by loose rotten flesh with a blackened hue. The loose flesh reminded her of barbecued chicken that had been left on the grill too long. The face on the body was pedestrian, forgettable. Good, she thought as she swung the blade at the dead woman's head. The blade caught her on the side of the skull, and the force sent jarring vibrations up to her elbow and shoulder. All she managed to do was knock the creature off balance, so she stuck her leg out and watched as it toppled over on its side, and then she was down on her knees, using the sword to stab the creature in the eyes as hard as she could. The blade sunk into the rubbery eye, caught on the thin orbital bone behind it, and then slid home, ending the second life of the dead thing at her feet.

  As she stood back up, the survivors all around her fought to escape their would-be tomb. There was no time to watch the carnage. Their situation was too precarious. There were too many of them. Amanda took a step forward, sticking close with Rudy on her left and Chloe on her right. They had been through a lot together, and Amanda had no intention of being separated from them. Chloe's handgun blasted in her right ear, while the sweaty sound of Rudy chopping away with his sword filled her left.

  In front of her, another figure appeared, a former police officer. His hair was short, but he was tall, certainly more than a match for the 5'7" Amanda. The officer's reach was long, and she had to get closer than she wanted to in order to take down the cop, but she moved in tight, stepping into his grasping arms. There was no going back now. She swung the sword, trying to take one of the officer's arms off, but it just clanged off the bones in his arm. Sure, it cut through the flesh like it was made of air, but the bones were the true bitch.

  She swung the sword again as the officer grabbed a handful of her hair, wrenching her head sideways. The blade of the sword landed around the officer's neck, but did no significant damage. The officer pulled her closer, its teeth yellow in the sunlight. The pungent odor of death emanated from the man's mouth as it leaned in for a bite.

  Amanda panicked and reached out for whatever she could find, dropping the sword from her hands. It was too late for the sword. She was too close; the sword couldn't help her now. She pulled something from the police officer's belt, something heavy and hard. It was a nightstick. She drove it under the officer's chin, knocking the creature backwards, its hands still clutching her hair. She bent forward, her arms pinwheeling to catch her balance, and then, without warning, she was free. Suddenly, she tumbled backwards, catching a glimpse of Rudy's sword, a bigger version of her own. He had cut her hair. Her scalp ached from the force of Rudy's chop, as the blade of the sword had been dulled against an unknown number dead bodies..

  She scrambled to her feet with the nightstick in her hands, and she ran to the police officer, swinging the stick like a bat. It impacted the side of the creature's head, and it fell to the side, still clawing for her. She stepped on the officer's throat, keeping it on the ground. Then she bludgeoned its skull until her arms were numb and it could no longer move. Before she could take account of the situation, hands were propelling her along, Chloe's hands.

  Screams broke out on the sidewalk in front of the theater as they ran, sprinting past the crowds of the dead, their heads turning this way and that, trying to find all possible threats. The dead were everywhere. The survivors knew their goal; they knew which direction they needed to head in.

  ****

  Blake stuck to the middle of the group, his rifle a living thing in his hands. He could no longer hear the powerful crack of the rifle, but he could feel it in his hands and in his shoulder when the butt of the rifle kicked against his flesh. Behind him, Mort stood guard, a handgun clutched in his weathered and scarred hands, hands made rough by hours of exposure outside, living under bridges and hopping trains to new towns. Mort watched his back for any possible threats. Blake trusted him completely, and they worked as one, moving through the crowd of the dead, Blake firing off rounds from his hunting rifle, Mort taking shots when they were clear, and laying waste to anything that came close to them... and they were all close. They were all near.

  As soon as they had opened the door, the dead surged around them. The dead that clung to the walls like sucker fish, scratching at its bricks, turned and trudged towards them almost immediately, a tide of the dead, looking to break over the small pocket of humanity that tried to escape their grasp.

  The survivors mowed through them, and when Blake's rifle ran out of ammo, he slung it over his shoulder and pulled another gun from the bag he was carrying. It was a cannon of a handgun. Sleek metal, a kick like a mule, and a report that would send shivers up the spine of anyone that was using it. He couldn't hear that part, but just as with his rifle, he could feel it.

  Not all of his shots hit their mark, but enough so that they could keep moving through the crowd. Then they were through, spinning around in the open, looking left and right, trying to see if anyone needed their help, their eyes wide like cattle being herded into the kill chute of a slaughterhouse.

  Blake saw Katie, unaware that a corpulent dead man was sneaking up behind her. He held his handgun in front of him, leveled it at her would-be attacker, and pulled the trigger. It smashed the monster's cheekbone, and it fell down, its arms raking the back of Katie's jeans as it fell. But it was dead. Blake smiled as Katie ran to him. It was a good shot.

  They gathered in the far end of the parking lot. It was mostly empty except for a few forgotten cars waiting like puppies sitting outside of a store for their owners to come home. He doubted their owners would ever see their cars again. Most of the cars either belonged to people who had abandoned them or to people who had gone to work and never made it back. The parking lot abutted against a MAX station, Portland's light rail system that spread throughout all parts of the city. This was their target. This was their ticket out of town.

  They had argued heatedly about plans, escape routes, all sorts of things on the rooftop. Many people had wanted to go along with Rudy's plan of escaping through the mall. In the end, they decided that they didn't know what awaited them the mall's windowless walls. All the doors could be locked or all the stores might still have their shutters down, which would make the place useless for their needs anyway. In the end, there were simply too many unknowns, so they had gone with Lou's plan.

  The MAX ran throughout the city, on tracks that followed streets for the most part. But there were also pockets where the MAX made its own route, the tracks delving through tunnels or speeding through channels through which only it was meant to travel. The highways were screwed; they had all learned that at the Coliseum. Portland was a deathtrap as far as transportation was concerned. Highways were stuck in a perpetual state of gridlock, the cars dead in their tracks, having been abandoned by their drivers, or in many cases, having had their drivers pulled right out of the vehicles. The highways were tombs, rivers of the walking dead penned in by concrete barriers and stalled semi-trucks. They were not where you wanted to be.

  So they had chosen the MAX tracks. There would be some hairy moments; on that they all agreed. There was no way of getting around that. Any movement through the city would be dangerous, but they had to get out and away from the burning buildings, the desperate humans, and the dead. Once they had decided follow the MAX tracks, they had argued over which direction to go.

  Some wanted to head south, perhaps down to Sale
m, which was a much smaller city than Portland. Chloe was hopeful that her family had survived there. Some wanted to head east to break out of the city and get into the gorge. Some wanted to head North, to get across the river into the less populated southern part of Washington, but the only way to get across the Columbia river, a wide expanse of dark blue water, was to swim, grab a boat or use the I-5 bridge... and even then they still had to punch their way through the city of Vancouver. No one really considered that option. So, they were left heading west, into the suburbs of the city. There was only one river to cross, and then they would have a climb up and over the ridge of hills that separated Portland from its outlying towns.

  After that, it would be a long easy hike to the beach along country roads, and perhaps they could use the highway once they got further away from the city. From the theater to the end of civilization, it was only twenty miles. But twenty miles was more like a thousand these days. It wouldn't be easy, but it was doable, and once they escaped from the suburbs, the walking would be easier, and they could make their way to the coast where the population was less dense and supplies and resources would be more readily available. The ocean always provides.

  These were all the things that they had talked about... but talking and doing were too completely different things. So far, they had gone 200 feet, used up a good portion of their ammo, and some of them were already huffing and puffing from the exertion, their bodies fueled only by the simple sugars in candy. It turns out sitting and eating candy for a couple of days wasn't as conducive to high tension escapes from the dead as one would think.

  They jogged across the parking lot. They were all there, some covered in blood, some fumbling in their pockets for more ammo to reload their guns. But the same look was on each one of their faces. It was a look of relief. They had made it out of the theater. They had escaped, and now they were on the run. It felt good to Blake. It was scary as shit, something he would never admit to anyone else, but it still felt good. He pulled some rounds from his pocket and loaded up his rifle, readying it for the next time it would be needed.