by A. J. Sikes
“What do you mean?” Meg asked. “The streets are almost empty. Can’t they get back?”
Rex and Eric traded a look that threatened to put Meg back on the ground, curled up and in terror. But she let her anger at the situation get the upper hand.
“If we’ve lost them, and we’re all that’s left, then we’d better get to work. What do we have for weapons?”
Eric’s face went tight. “Just these axes,” he said, pointing to the rack beside them. “They took all the Halligan bars.”
“So we make do with what we’ve got,” Meg said.
Eric gave her a smile and went the basement stairs. “I’ll get more cots. We’ll probably need them.”
“We should be safe in here,” Rex said, still standing there like a rabbit ready to jump.
“I’m not worried about us, Rex,” she said.
A banging on the shutter doors froze them in place, and Meg could swear she heard Rex whimper like a puppy. Eric had just come up from the basement with a folded cot under each arm.
“What’s that?” he asked.
The banging repeated, moving along the shutters, in the direction of the entrance. Meg went to the doorway to the chief’s office and looked at the glass front door. A man leaned up against the door, holding someone close to him. The man looked scared, and clearly in need of help. But he wasn’t a monster.
Not yet anyway.
Lifting an axe from the wall beside her, Meg stepped into the office, staying behind the front counter. The man shouted and his muffled voice came through the window.
“We need help! There’s a whole line of us out here. The Army left without us and you guys weren’t coming. We need— We need help.”
Meg nodded at him and tried to smile. “Okay,” she shouted back. “We’ll help you.”
The man sagged against the door with what looked like relief, and Meg nodded at him. She was going to ask if anybody outside had been infected, but her eyes were drawn to the secretary’s desk behind the counter. The phone was lit up with every line flashing.
“Eric!” she called back to him. “The phone’s going crazy. Why isn’t it ringing?”
“We turned off the ringer,” Rex said from the doorway behind her. “It wouldn’t stop, and we couldn’t go anywhere anyway. The Army guys said we had to stay here in case people started coming to us.”
Meg looked up at the door again. The man was still there, holding his arm around whoever he’d brought with him. It looked like it might be a young girl. Meg could see other people milling around, huddled together, some looking like they were about to fall over and others turning their heads left and right like scared rabbits. It was a big group, at least twenty or more.
The man in front of the door clutched an arm around his companion, and she hung onto him tightly. Maybe it was his daughter? Meg thought she could see long blonde hair under a coat that was covering the person’s head and shoulders. Rex was still in the doorway behind her.
“Rex, will you—”
In that instant, Meg felt the world slide out from under her feet. Dizziness whipped her head to the side and she fell against the counter. She only kept hold of her axe because she had the head hooked over the edge of the counter.
Outside the door, the crowd of people screamed and ran in different directions. The man by the window stayed put. And he changed. His eyes grew a sickly yellow. Blood leaked from them and from his nose, like he’d just gone ten rounds with a prize fighter. The person next to him, under the coat, shook and staggered back a step, so that she was out of view for a moment.
Then the person stepped back into view. It had been a woman once, maybe a girl, but not anymore. A monstrous face of pale white flesh pressed up against the window. The woman’s skin was crisscrossed with scratches and thick blue veins, and her mouth had grown into a bulbous sucker, just like Tim’s had. Needle-like teeth stuck out from between the puffy, blood-stained lips.
The infected man fell backward, giving the monster room to fill the window. The creature reared its head back and then slammed it forward, splitting the glass into shards that fell out of the frame. She did it again, not even noticing when slivers of glass sliced into her cheeks and forehead. The creature let out a horrifying shriek.
— 10 —
Elmhurst, Queens
Jed zig-zagged down an alley between two apartment blocks, moving away from the screams and looking for a hiding place at every turn. He had to get to his grandma’s place. It was the only safe spot he could think of.
Small crowds ran down the street with cops and soldiers around them. Jed hid from them all. He knew the cops would take him down for what he had in his backpack. Safety in numbers was one thing, but right now Jed was only thinking about Number One.
After what felt like an hour of playing cat and mouse with the cops and all the screaming people running around the city, Jed was finally near his grandma’s place. Up ahead, the low balcony hung from the side of the apartment building. The fire escape was down. Jed went for it, climbed up quietly, and put his hand under his shirt to lift the Glock when he got to the top. He was careful not to touch the trigger.
Learned that lesson like a damn fool. But I learned it.
The balcony was off the kitchen of his grandma’s apartment. Jed looked through the glass door. It looked cool inside, nothing crazy like he’d seen in the places back near where Chips lived. The furniture was all where it was supposed to be, and he didn’t see any blood. The pictures were still on the wall above his grandma’s pink sofa. His own smiling face stared back at him from the biggest picture. He’d been eight years old when it was taken, hanging out on the subway with his grandpa right after his dad died and his mom sent him up to New York.
Jed tried the door. It was open, and right away he knew something was wrong. His grandma never left the doors unlocked. He slid the door open slowly. The place smelled like shit. Jed put a hand up over his nose, waited, and listened. He kept the Glock up and ready.
Weapon at the ready. Clear the room and move on.
Jed poked his gun around the corner of the door, aiming at the kitchen. He kept his finger alongside the trigger, just not on it. A trickle of sweat ran down his arm under his shirt sleeve and tickled his wrist. He had to slap his other hand around the Glock to keep from dropping the thing. A wave of funky stink came to his nose and he gagged, but he kept his stomach down. He gave a quick shake of his head and let some of that bullshit from the suck go through his mind, get him pumped like the drills told him it would back in Boot.
He poked his head into the place.
The lights were all off, but the sun was sneaking down into the alley and lighting everything up. Jed could see the kitchen better now. There was a frying pan on the stove, all covered in dried egg or something disgusting and yellow. Flied buzzed over the mess and around the sink. Jed gagged hard when he checked the sink and threw up a little in his mouth. He spit it out and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
The sink was full of some funky shit, like chewed up sausage, with dried blood all over it.
He flinched when he heard a clicking sound, like someone drawing back the bolt on a weapon. The sound came from down the hallway off the room with the sofa. Jed spun around to see his grandma come into the room on all fours. She was fucked up, turned into one of the zombies, and Jed felt his guts try to let go in his pants. He kept it in, but backed up until he was leaning against the sink. His grandma crawled forward on her stomach, but her arms and legs were all crazy. She moved like some kind of spider. Blood leaked out of her eyes and everything. And her eyes—
It was like some kind of monster movie. His grandma’s eyes were yellow slits now.
Jed reared back as she let out a loud hiss. He’d thought she was just making a face at first, but now he could see what happened to her mouth. It was like a suction cup, all round and with a bunch of sharp-ass teeth like little pins inside.
Jed watched, with his throat closing up, as his grandma clamped onto her own ar
m and chewed out a chunk of flesh. Lifting the Glock, Jed said, “I’m sorry, Grandma. Sorry—” He squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. His grandma twitched her head at him and shrieked so loud he almost had to drop the gun so he could cover his ears.
His grandma came at him, jumped forward and landed between him and the glass door. Jed racked the slide and fired. His shots went wide, but he corrected his aim, putting rounds into his grandma’s chest and face. She went down in a heap. Her brains blew out the back of her head. Jed heaved again, coughing up whatever was left in his stomach as he staggered past her body. He kept the Glock on her as he stepped out the balcony door. He looked up the ladder and thought about going higher, safer. Then he remembered the one thing his squad leader said that felt helpful.
“You don’t go up to get safe. Going up leaves you only one way out. And that’s down.”
Jed went down the fire escape and ran. He made it to the end of the alley before he heard more screams behind him, and some other sounds. Shrieking, like some wild animal shit, and then the heavy chop-chop-chop of a Ma Deuce from down at the end of the alley. The unmistakable sound of boots on pavement echoed down the alley then, and for the first time in a long time, Jed smiled at the thought of being around the military again.
Four army dudes came running down the alley, all with M4s and covered in battle rattle. One of them called up to him. “You okay up there? Have you contacted any infected?”
Jed looked at himself all over, checked his pants and sleeves. He was clean.
“I’m good. No blood, man. I’ma come down. Okay?”
“Okay, but hands where I can see ’em. Gotta know you’re friendly.”
Jed switched the Glock to his other hand so he could hold it by the slide and with his fingers away from the trigger. He held the gun over his head and slowly went down the ladder, one foot down, then the other, using his elbow to steady himself as he moved down the rungs with his free hand. A team of soldiers waited at the bottom, eyes out on the alleyway and all the balconies above them.
Shit, if Grandma was infected…
“We gotta move, Sarge,” one of the soldiers said.
Jed looked up, following the soldier’s line of sight. Three of the monsters crawled down the side of the building, lips all puckered and sucking together like leeches out for blood. Their arms and legs bent at weird angles and their joints popped and clicked.
“Go, men! Go!” the sergeant yelled. He fired off a burst at the lowest of the monsters and it came down, falling like a dead bat to land in a messy heap. Its flailing arms banged off a balcony railing on the way down.
The other soldiers bailed with their sergeant on their heels.
Jed thought about trying to cap one of the monsters on the wall, but two more emerged from a window on the top floor. They jumped from the window and landed on the building across the alley. Now four of them, with their greasy looking white flesh and bloody yellow eyes, crawled down at him, and from both sides.
“C’mon!” the sergeant yelled at Jed from the end of the alley.
Finally, Jed’s feet got the message his brain was trying to send, and he ran like hell after the soldiers. They’d made it to a Humvee at the end of the alley and were piling inside. The top gunner swiveled his Ma Deuce and opened up on the creatures tearing down the walls after Jed. Bits of brick peppered down on Jed’s head as he ran, fearing any second that one of the shrieking horrors behind him would land on him and clamp down on his neck.
— 11 —
Upper East Side, Manhattan
Meg lifted her axe from the counter edge and sprang forward, putting a foot on the desk and climbing over the counter. She swung the axe up and brought it down just as the monster was thrusting its face through the shattered window.
The axe split the creature’s skull and splattered gore onto the floor at Meg’s feet. Meg steadied herself a few steps from the bloody mess on the floor and carefully removed her axe so she wouldn’t spatter any blood on herself. She had to be ready for the man to try and break in. But she only heard the screams of people running away outside. The corpse of the one she’d killed hung half in the window, with clawed hands reaching toward the floor as if to scoop up the brains and blood.
She could hear Rex whining behind her. “Where is it? The other one. Where is it?” he said.
“Not here, genius,” Meg said, finally fed up with the bigger man’s candy-assing. “Eric! Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, coming up behind Rex. He had a nozzle under one arm and the hose held around his waist with the other hand. “Let’s put up a barrier or something. We’ll have to hold them off from the app floor.
“What if people come in and need help?” Rex asked.
Meg curled her lip up and looked at him like he was an idiot. “If they need help, we have to make sure they’re not infected first.”
“What if they are?”
“If they are, we can’t help them.”
“She’s right,” Eric said, still eyeing the body hanging through the window. “If anybody comes around with blood on them, they’re already lost.”
They retreated into the app floor and shoved a folding table and some trash barrels into the doorway. It wouldn’t hold anything bigger than a squirrel, and Meg knew it. But it was all they could do for now. The engine and truck were gone, making the floor just one big open space with gear, and now cots, piled up around the edges.
Eric and Rex held the hose on the door while Meg suited up in her full turnout gear, including a face shield. Once she had her gloves on, Meg held the hose so Eric could get suited up, then he came back and let Rex gear up. When he was ready, she passed the hose back and retrieved her axe, finding comfort in the familiar weight of the weapon.
“You guys keep the hose aimed at the door. I’ll get some better barricades set up. We can use the dirty lockers for starters.”
Without waiting for a reply, Meg marched toward the lockers at the back of the floor. They weren’t secured to the wall, so they could be shoved into place to block the open doorway. They would only cover the bottom two thirds of the opening, but it would create a funnel for the things to get through, and that might give them a chance at survival until help arrived.
Meg hesitated before she set her axe down. She threw a look over her shoulder at the heavy shutters that shielded them from whatever was happening outside.
They were safe. Only for now, maybe, but still. They were safe.
Eric aimed the hose at the doorway to the chief’s office. Rex supported him, but held the hose like it was a piece of string.
“Eric,” Meg said. “Use the Bowring. Rex, come help me with the lockers.”
The big man shook his head and gripped the hose tighter, bracing it against his hip. Eric looked over his shoulder at Rex. Then he dropped the nozzle and snatched up the tool from the wall. He snapped it against the hose, seating it and sliding the tool forward. Taking a knee, he braced the hose against his raised leg, then said, “They’re not inside, Rex. And if they get inside, I have the hose. Go help Meg.”
Meg slapped a hand against the lockers and the metallic clank echoed. Rex jumped. Then he seemed to shake off whatever was eating at him and dropped the hose. He shuffled over to Meg and bent to help push the bank of lockers across the floor.
The metal case squeaked, creaked, and groaned as they shoved it together. Meg pushed from the top and Rex squatted down to use the power in his thick legs, shoving from the base of the lockers. A loud shriek startled them and they halted their progress, both of them looking to Eric to see if he’d heard it.
He had. His face was slack when he said, “That was you guys. The locker scraped on the floor.”
Meg and Rex leaned back to push the locker again. But Meg screamed a warning instead.
The man from before was back, and he’d fully changed. He was no longer a man, just a monster hanging upside down from the ceiling in the chief’s office. Its ghastly white face stuck through the doorway. The cre
ature’s bloody yellowed eyes were fixed on Meg and Rex. Then it flicked its predatory gaze to Eric and opened its sucker mouth. The thing let out a shriek that nearly split Meg’s eardrums.
Eric aimed the hose up and opened the valve, releasing a torrent straight into the thing’s sucker mouth. The creature shrieked and flew backward from the spray, landing out of sight in the entry office. Eric kept up the spray and Meg thought she heard the sound of the monster scrabbling on the floor or climbing the walls.
“The axe, Meg! Help!” Eric shouted over the rush of water.
Meg reeled away from the lockers, leaving Rex to the task on his own. It was something simple, something he could be good at and that would keep him out of her way. She snapped up her axe from where they’d started pushing the locker, and cursed herself for ever leaving it behind to begin with. In a second, Meg was past Rex and standing beside Eric, holding her axe at the ready.
The monster was pinned to the far wall of the chief’s office, behind the secretary’s desk. The jet of water crushed into its chest. Its arms flailed and its head whipped side to side, with a thick tongue snaking out of its sucker mouth. Shrieks echoed around the app floor like something out of a carnival horror show.
Meg stepped to the side, avoiding the flow of water, and brought her axe up over her head. She kicked the trash barrels aside at the doorway and waited for them to roll clear before she shoved the folding table with her foot. It slid a foot or so, but got hung up on the door jamb. Rex appeared on the other side and yanked it out of the way. When the path was clear, Meg slipped around the jet of water and into the chief’s office. She stepped forward and sliced down in a single motion, burying the blade in the monster’s skull just as she’d done with the first one.
Eric kept the hose on it until its arms stopped clawing at the air and it drooped against the wall. Meg backed away as Eric turned the flow off. The wet slop slop of Meg’s boots on the floor almost mimicked the sound of the creatures as they smacked their puffy lips together.