The Smell

by Damon Hunter

“I don’t know,” Dino said. “Seems like it might come apart. I don’t want to fall down into that shit.”

  “So you’re saying with all your ‘training,’ no one bothered to learn to tie a decent knot?” Donna asked.

  “That is pretty much exactly what he is saying,” Jo said.

  Donna shook her head again. “No one knows anything about tying knots?”

  “Do you?” Dino asked.

  Donna had no reply.

  The door behind them opened, and they all swung their guns to the shirtless, overweight bald man with the three-day-old gray beard. He took a swig from a Bud Light tall boy before saying, “You promise not to shoot me and I can tie a knot or two.”

  The way the man looked did not inspire much confidence. Dino asked, “What do you know about tying knots? Were you a boy scout or something?”

  “Hell no, but I’ve been sailing all my life. You know anything about sailboats?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it requires a whole shitload of knot tying.”

  “You mind if I ask why you’re still here?” Donna asked.

  “You mean why I stayed in my room instead of going to an evac check point?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m old, broke, and just tired of all the bullshit. So I figured I would stick around and see this crazy shit for myself.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, well that and I got drunk as shit last night and slept through the whole thing. I didn’t know anything was going on until I looked out my window and saw all hell had broken loose. I even slept through you assholes blowing up the stairs.”

  They lowered their weapons as the man took another swig of his beer.

  “You have a name?” Lumpy asked.

  “My friends call me Barnacle Bill, or Bar for short.” He looked at Dino. “You can call me sir.”

  Lumpy quit looking at Bar and peered back down the shaft. “How many do you think we need?”

  Bar stepped through and tossed his empty can down the shaft and listened as it bounced.

  “Might as well do all of them. No one ever fell because a rope was too long,” Bar said as he went back into his room. “Anyone want a beer?”

  “No thanks,” Ana said. “But can I ask one more favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can you put on a shirt?”

  “Why? My manly physique making you lightheaded?”

  “Something like that.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Sea Shell Hotel, Oceanside, CA

  They moved through the top floor in teams of two. Donna went with Dino to make sure he and Katelin didn’t go into any hotel rooms alone together. Jo and Lumpy were the other team. They brought the bedding to a still-shirtless Bar, who started tying the sheets together.

  Ana and Katelin were stripping the bedding off the second-to-last room. They cleared the room carefully, checking the bathroom and the tub for possible stray infected and then doing the same with the small patio overlooking the Pacific all the rooms on the hotel’s west side had. Finding the room clear, Ana had set her rifle by the wall so she could use both hands to strip the bed. Katelin put her pistols on the nightstand to help.

  It appeared that other than Bar and the members of SWARC, the top floor of the Sea Shell Inn was deserted. The hotel was not very big as far as hotels go, only ten rooms per floor. With the sheets and bedspreads, they still had plenty.

  They had just pulled off all the bedding when they heard breaking glass. They turned to see one of the vampire rotters burst into the room.

  Ana, who was closest to the sliding glass door, drew her hatchet but it was on her before she could swing. It drove her to the bed and pinned her arms. She saw its mouth open wider than seemed physically possible, revealing two rows of sharp teeth. She tried to break free and avoid the teeth coming towards her face but the thing was too strong.

  The extended jaw flew off before it could bite her as Katelin’s pistol roared. The second shot removed the top of the vampire rotter’s head. With it’s brains leaking out onto the threadbare carpet, Ana was able to push it away.

  “Wow,” Katelin said. “That was, like, intense.”

  “A little too intense from my end,” Ana said as she rose to her feet. “I guess I owe you one.”

  “I’d say we’re even,” Katelin said as they both looked at the shattered sliding glass door.

  “I would have sworn we cleared that,” Ana said as she moved to the door. Katelin followed as the others came into the room.

  They looked over the balcony and saw another of the vampire rotters jump from the first floor balcony to the second.

  Ana took aim and blasted him out of the sky as he leaped for the third-floor deck.

  Katelin looked to her left and saw another one had come up to the balcony next door, this one a girl in a bikini. She put bullets in it until it tumbled off the balcony. As it fell, a low guttural moan emitted from its mouth. It made the disturbing noise until the impact of hitting the street shut it up.

  “What the hell are you shooting at?” Dino asked as he stepped on the balcony with Donna.

  “They’re climbing up the balconies,” Ana said. “We need to get out of here. We can’t cover both sides of the building very long.”

  “Let’s be sure to shut all the doors,” Donna said.

  Katelin pointed at the shattered slider. “They don’t seem to care about doors.”

  “Sure, but let’s do it anyway. Besides, the others aren’t made of glass.”

  Lumpy and Jo were in the room staring at the dead vampire rotter.

  “Who got him?” Lumpy asked.

  “Killer Kate over there,” Ana said.

  “Nice,” Lumpy replied.

  “Anyone get the video?” Jo asked as they left the room.

  “Close the door behind you when you go, and watch your backs. They’re climbing the balconies,” Donna turned to tell them before moving down the hall, shutting doors.

  During the whole thing, Bar just kept tying sheets and bedspreads together. He took the last two and deftly attached them with a knot none of the rest would have ever come up with.

  “I take it they have figured a way up,” he said as he set the improvised rope on the floor and chugged the rest of his tallboy.

  Donna nodded.

  “Clever bastards,” he said with a shake of his head. “Let me get a fresh cold one and I’ll rig up a way down. Anyone else want one? I’ve got a bunch and they’ll go to waste if no one drinks them.”

  “How about you rig up the rope first?” Ana asked. “I don’t think we have the time.”

  “Always time for a beer,” he said as he went into his room to retrieve one.

  “Maybe put on a shirt while you’re there,” Ana said.

  “Holy shit,” they all heard him say.

  Dino was the first in the room and saw the infected man perched on the railing outside Bar’s room. It leaped, looking like a big cat pouncing on its prey. Dino fired, knocking it out of the air and back over the balcony.

  “All right kid, you can call me Bar now. You sure you don’t want a beer?”

  Dino took the cold can from Bar. “Wow, my first kill.”

  “Glad you popped your cherry, kid,” Bar said as he pulled on a stained wife beater and grabbed a fresh Bud Light for himself, “but let’s get the hell out of here.”

  With the door shut behind him, Bar started rigging the sheets to the doorknobs on both sides of the hall, so if one came loose there would be a backup.

  “Use the pillowcases to tie the bags of gear to your belts,” he told them, adding, “I showed Jo and Lumpy a knot. They can help the rest of you.”

  With the help of Jo and Lumpy everyone had a bag of guns and gear tied to them as Bar lowered the rope down the shaft.

  “This is going to be the hard part...” Bar began before something slamming hard into a door down the hall interrupted him.

  “Should we get him?” Dino asked.

  “As long as he’s
locked in, it might be better to save your ammunition,” Lumpy said. “Who knows how nasty it’s going to get down there.”

  Everyone agreed and did their best to ignore the constant pounding.

  “All right,” Bar continued, “I don’t suppose any of you has done any rappelling?”

  Everyone but Donna and Katelin said yes.

  “Unlike knot tying, rappelling was part of the training.”

  “Good, it will make it easier, but not impossible.” He looked at Katelin and Donna. “Just hang on tight and do what the others are doing.”

  “We don’t have the right rigging to rappel,” Jo said.

  “No, so you are going to have to improvise and take it slow,” Bar told them. “I’m confident in my knots, but there’s a reason they don’t use bedding in sailing or mountain climbing. We need to go one at time, maybe two if it gets any crazier up here. Since Lumpy and I are the only proud owners of a glorious gut, we will go last.”

  “Who first?” Ana asked.

  No one seemed anxious to volunteer until Dino said, “I’ll go, we need someone who can keep the area clear if there are any hostiles.”

  “Ana’s the best shot,” Lumpy said, “maybe she should go.”

  Dino looked hurt.

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” Ana said.

  The vampire rotter locked in the room hit the door again.

  “We don’t have time to argue,” Donna told them.

  “Exactly,” Dino said. He took a slug of beer, set it down, and grabbed the rope.

  Lumpy grabbed a flashlight and shined it down the stairwell so Dino had some light.

  They watched him work his way down, Donna and Katelin paying attention to the way he kept his feet on the wall and lowered himself down with his hands. He was not really rappelling, but knowledge of the technique was helping him navigate down the shaft. It wasn’t long before he was no longer in their sight.

  The saw a light in the shaft and realized it was Dino turning on the flashlight on his rifle.

  “I’m down,” he yelled back. “Looks clear, send the next one.”

  “If you’re the best shot, I’d feel better with you covering me on the way down,” Donna told Ana.

  Ana took the rope and started lowering herself down.

  The light Lumpy was shining didn’t help for long. Ana noticed Dino’s enthusiastic use of explosives had taken out all the second landing too. She kept moving as she saw his light. He appeared to be at the top of the first flight of stairs. Ana almost lost her grip when he started firing.

  It was dark below her, but between his flashlight and the muzzle flashes she saw him mowing down a thick group of amblers heading his way. She started moving down faster when his clip went dry.

  “Stay up there,” he told her as he slapped in a fresh magazine.

  He turned to fire when a vampire rotter leaped over the mass of ambler bodies Dino had created and knocked him over.

  Ana wrapped her left hand in the sheet as best she could. With her right she stuffed a flashlight in her teeth and drew her pistol.

  With the light in her mouth she could see the vamper tear into Dino. It was too late for him but she opened fire anyway, squeezing the trigger until a dead vampire rotter rolled off of Dino.

  Ana ignored the shouts of the people still on the fourth floor and yelled at Dino, “Are you bit?”

  He didn’t reply. She moved the light and saw he was bitten and then some. He was torn up enough they did not have to worry about him turning. She had a feeling killing the infected made the vampire rotters angry. Instead of spreading the infection, they were attacking to kill.

  She started moving down when she saw another vampire rotter loping toward her, followed by more amblers. As the amblers filled the stairwell, the vampire rotter grabbed the sheets and began to pull itself up.

  She emptied the pistol into it and watched it fall. She was glad it dropped. She couldn’t reload while hanging on and it was climbing faster than she ever could. Ana was unsure what to do. Even without the more aggressive vampire rotters down, the stairwell was full of amblers scrambling to get at her.

  They couldn’t climb like the vamper, but the first group to reach the wall were trampled by the ones in back, moving them closer to Ana. The next group was moving in and stomping down the second, moving them another layer of flattened humanity up the damaged stairwell.

  Ana holstered her pistol and started going back up.

  CHAPTER 9

  Oceanside, CA

  Deke downed sixteen ounces of sugar and caffeine-filled, carbonated water in three gulps as he sat on the hood of the SWARC Urban Assault Wagon and admired his work. He had put some Pantera on the assault wagon’s stereo. Just as he did during his time over in the ’Stan, he stuck an obscene amount of Copenhagen chewing tobacco between his cheek and gum and cranked the song “Mouth for War” to celebrate coming out on the right side of a firefight. He could see more infected out there, but they seemed to be ignoring him at the moment. He decided to save his ammunition for when the kids got closer. They might need some serious cover fire.

  “I am the motherfucking Lebron James of zombie killing,” Deke declared to the pile of dead bodies left by his fifty-caliber. They did not argue.

  “I can’t believe Tactical Medical Response Team turned down my application,” he said. He took the silent dead’s lack of a reply to be agreement.

  He looked at Trey, who he propped into a sitting position beside the Suburban. “Sorry buddy. But you know as well as anybody, shit happens.”

  Trey did not answer, but Deke felt he understood. There was a time when Deke would have gotten emotional losing friends, but after seeing it happen enough, he just looked at it as part of the cost of being in the war business.

  This was the first time he had to do the deed himself though. “I hope there’s no hard feelings about the way it went down,” he told his dead friend. “I’d like to think if things were reversed and you had to put a K-Bar in my brain I would understand.”

  Trey didn’t answer, but Deke felt that if he could have, he would have agreed.

  He had just spit a long stream of tobacco juice when he looked up and saw one of the vampire rotters, this one with a pair of tusks jutting from the green skin under his jaw, stand up on one of the abandoned cars.

  It pointed at him and made a low growling sound. Deke raised his rifle and took a shot, but the the thing dropped down among the cars before Deke’s bullets reached him.

  Deke saw the infected moving among the cars all turn to face him. They began moving his way.

  He went for the mounted machine gun on the roof as the horde picked up the pace. He had dropped in the vehicle and grabbed the gun when he made a quick glance to his rear. The fifty-caliber did not cover his six. This operation was supposed to have at least three people. One to drive and another gunner to watch the back of the person manning the fifty-caliber.

  He was glad he looked. Two of the fast ones were running like wolves right at him. As he abandoned the mounted gun and put the rifle to his shoulder, he wondered if the amblers out front were supposed to be a distraction so these vampire rotters could flank him. He wasn’t under the impression they were smart enough, but it sure felt like they were doing just that.

  It didn’t matter. He was fast with the AK-47 he had modified himself to go full auto. He dropped the first one as it leaped for him, stitching it with rounds from its belly to its chin as he knocked it out of the air. The other moved to the side of the vehicle but he shredded it before it could jump on top of the Suburban.

  He swung back to see the pointer with the tusks had jumped up on the hood. He kept firing with the AK but it kept coming. It was on the roof before he put enough 7.62x39 rounds into it to drop it.

  Amblers were coming from all sides, and by this time they were starting to climb the Suburban to get to him. Deke emptied the Kalashnikov on the nearest ones before dropping it in the SUV and grabbing the newly loaded fifty-caliber.

 
; The big machine gun turned the nearest infected into piles of body parts. It was easy to find a target; any way he turned there was at least one coming his way. Deke methodically moved the gun in a half-circle, ripping apart infected as he went.

  When the long belt of big bullets ran out, there were still a handful of infected coming his way. Deke pulled out his pistol and knife as he climbed out of the machine gun nest they had made for the old Chevy.

  One ambler had climbed onto the hood. Deke stabbed it in the head and shot the next three coming his way as he held the knife still embedded in the skull of an infected. He tried to yank it free but it was stuck in good. He decided to leave it until the rest of the threats were neutralized.

  He turned to see the last two coming his way. He aimed the pistol but his shot went wide as a vampire rotter came over the rear of the Suburban and hit him in the back.

  Deke tumbled off the hood, and on impact he lost both the gun and his prosthetic lower left leg. Hitting the pavement also knocked the vampire rotter off of him, but only for a moment. Deke went for the gun, but it was on him before he got close.

  Deke got a hand up and grabbed a fistful of the vamper’s curly hair. It took every steroid-enhanced muscle in his right arm to keep the teeth from sinking into his neck. He felt the beast’s claw-like fingers dig into his side as he looked for the gun.

  He couldn’t find it. They had rolled around enough it was no longer in reach. The metal foot covered in his left boot was close by, however. Deke grabbed his fake lower leg and bashed the heel into the vampire rotter’s temple. It didn’t seem to do much, but he kept going, pounding on the thing’s head until he was hitting something soft.

  When the vampire rotter’s brains started dripping on Deke’s shirt, he shoved it away and rolled to his foot. He immediately fell since he only had a leg and a half to stand on. The pain from the wound in his side made itself known as he rolled over to try to re-attach his foot. He was torn up good. Deke put a hand on the wound and pressed, fearing some internal organs might fall out if he didn’t hold them in.

  He glanced over and saw that even though he had caved in half of the thing’s head, it was getting up. He looked for the gun and saw it about six feet away. He dropped his leg and let go of the wound and rolled over. He pushed off with every limb he had, going for the pistol as the vampire rotter leaped.