"Fuck you."
"Listen," Klaus said in a near-whisper, holding out a hand in an offering of peace. "I... I just saw my wife killed by these things. Please, just let us join you."
The man raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked away, shaking his head.
"Look, I'm sorry about your wife, but... I've got to protect my family. I told you, find your own place."
"Is that really how you want to play this?" Conor asked, stepping toward the man. "We can help. Safety in numbers, ya know?"
A sudden burst of noise came from down the darkened street, zombies charging toward them, not yet visible but numerous by the sound of it.
"We don't have much time, man," Conor asked, looking over his shoulder nervously. He cracked his knuckles and turned to the man once more. "Like I said, we can help you."
"Don't need your help, goddamit," the man replied with a scowl. "Need you to get the hell away from us."
"You got a gun on you?" Conor asked.
"Won't need one if I can get us into the tunnels..."
Conor punched the man square in the nose, the sound echoing hard against the building fronts, blood spraying out both sides as the man's head whipped back. He dropped the manhole cover and fell to the side, but Conor got his hands under it and held it open for the others to continue their exodus.
"That's all I needed to hear," he said as he motioned for everyone to hurry down the hole.
CHAPTER TWO
The man sat against the wet wall of the sewer, bloody cloth against one side of his nose, his eye beginning to swell as he scowled at Conor. Just before the slobbering zombies had reached them, Conor had pulled him by the ankles into the manhole and dragged the heavy metal lid into place. Together they had fallen down the rusted rungs of the ladder that was loosely bolted to the curved concrete wall.
Now the group, some seventeen shaken people in all, huddled together against one wall of the sewer system, their eyes wide and full of absolute fear. They had taken the nearest tunnel, traveling in a crouch as the ceiling dropped and the numerous rats scattered before them. After nearly half an hour of shuffling through the darkness, a point of light had pulled them forward into a round chamber, a junction of three tunnels, each passage that led into it covered by a heavy iron grate.
With luck they were able to squeeze through a break in the grate that blocked their way and enter the chamber. The place was roughly thirty feet across and twice as tall, lit somewhat by moonlight that filtered in from above, ladders rising up the sides to other manholes and drainage openings. To save the batteries, the flashlight was turned off and they sat in shadow. It was beyond filthy, with every imaginable type of debris and human excrement gathered in piles and clusters around them, giving off a vomit-inducing stench that had them covering their faces with the backs of their hands. At the center of the room was a pool of coagulated liquid about ten feet across that bubbled occasionally from the trapped gas within it.
"Did you have to hit me so hard?" asked the man, his voice muffled from the cloth.
"You were being an asshole..." Conor answered in a low voice as he stared up at Gibby who had climbed to the top of one of the ladders and was watching the horror taking place on the streets above. "We were desperate. You were going to let us all die."
"I was just trying to protect my daughters," the man said. The two young girls sat next to him, huddled against either shoulder, staring at Conor warily. They were beautiful blonde girls, one fifteen, the other seventeen, their faces now smudged and scraped from the night's ordeal. "This was my weekend to have them. Was on my way to take them back to their mother's when this shit happened. Those things are zombies, aren't they?"
"Looks like it," Conor replied, glancing over at his brother who sat next to a silent and brooding Klaus.
"They always said it was impossible, all this zombie apocalypse stuff," the man said, pulling the cloth away from his nose. The bleeding had stopped it seemed. By the looks of it, the nose was broken, switching angles abruptly about halfway down the bridge. "They made fun of everyone hoarding weapons, stockpiling supplies. Guess they weren't fools after all."
"Can't be zombies," came a new voice from across the room. He was a large black man, long dreadlocks hanging in a clump over his shoulder. A cane sat across his lap, a silver skull for its handle. He seemed to be in his thirties as did his two companions, both black as well. "That's some made-up Hollywood shit. Gotta be some virus or somethin' got these people gone crazy. Ain't no people fixin' to come back from the dead, Jackson."
Gibby began to climb down from the top of the ladder, Aiden standing to help him manage the last few steps.
"It doesn't matter what you call it," Conor said. "Zombies, undead, mutants, a virus. Either way, there are thousands of monsters that used to be human up there, tearing the city to pieces and killing every living thing they come in contact with."
"True, true," the black man agreed, tapping his thumbs on his cane. "I guess it don't matter. The motherfuckas wanna kill us all no matter what we call 'em."
"Hey, man. Language," the father said, pointing to his girls.
The black man rolled his eyes and waved it off.
"So you don't think they heard that word before, huh? They ain't two, daddy," he said.
"I'm just sayin' show some respect, that's all," said the man, Vernon was his name. His daughters, Trish and Mina looked at one another with small, secretive smiles.
"Dad, it's all right. The guy's right, we're not babies," Mina, the youngest of the girls said.
"Thank you, Miss," said the black guy with a nod. "My name's Uncle Leo. These are mah boys Bobo and Ink."
"Those aren't your real names..." Mina said with a smile.
"Straight up, but we don't like our real names. Ya'll be laughin' yo ass off, if you knew 'em," Uncle Leo said with a shrug. His buddies nodded and grinned, gold teeth shining in the dim light.
"Whoa... did that hurt? Getting those gold teeth?" asked Mina. Trish slapped her on the leg, feeling thoroughly embarrassed with her younger sister's line of questioning.
"Nah..." Ink said, his voice much higher than they expected, almost feminine. "Hurt a helluva lot more when dey got knocked out."
Conor noticed several others trying their cellphones with no luck. He grabbed his as well, scrolling through the address book for his wife. In all the craziness, he had not had time to contact her.
Soon everyone present was staring at their phones in frustration. All lines were busy or so the operator's voice said.
Then amazingly Conor's phone began to ring and after a few seconds, his wife Felicia answered.
"Conor?" she asked.
"Yeah, honey, it's me. Listen, I don't know how long this connection will last-"
"Is this all real, what we saw on television?" she asked. "Are you-"
"Yes, it's real. Listen - pack your bags and head to my mom's. Hopefully, that far out in the country, you and Luke will be safe-" Conor explained.
"Where are you? I'll just wait for you to-"
"No, no. Go now. I'm trapped downtown, me, Aiden and Gibby. Klaus is here, too. I have no idea how soon I can get home, honey. This... this is just insane," he said.
"Conor, I'm scared. Dead people? It's true?"
"Yes! Now, please go to my Mom's house. Do it now!"
The phone line startled to crackle, her voice stuttering as she spoke.
"I love you, Felicia," he said, but had no idea if she had heard him. Then the phone went dead.
The others stared at him with concern as Gibby approached, returning from his vantage point atop the ladder, his face as white as a sheet.
"Hey, you guys need to keep it down, all right. Everybody," he said as he crouched down next to them. "The zombies are pretty much finished with their business up there and things are getting quiet. We already know that they can hear a pin drop from miles away, so they'll be able to hear us down here."
"Stretch, I done said they ain't zombies," Uncle Leo explained.
"Ain't no dead people comin' back to life-"
"Wrong," Gibby said, shaking his head. "That's exactly what's been happening since I started watching up there. They bite someone, half an hour later, that person pops back up. Everyone that gets bitten, comes back as one. I'd say that fits the zombie description, wouldn't you?"
"For real?" asked Bobo, rubbing his fingers over his goatee.
"You can go up and take a look for yourself if you want," said Gibby, motioning to the ladder with his thumb.
"Nah, I believe ya. Don't want to... but I do," said Bobo.
"Conor, your plan worked, I think," Gibby said, dropping down to sit next to him. "I heard the radio kick on in the van. Someone tried to steal it, got it started and the music brought about a zillion zombies down on them. Hopefully the van is still there. Hopefully it and my drums are still in one piece."
"I think you need to forget about the drums, Gib," Conor said. "I really don't think they're going to make it."
Gibby had no response, glancing over at the two guitar cases that rested against the wall.
"Maybe things will have calmed down enough in the morning to let us get out of here..." Klaus said, snapping everyone to attention. He had not spoken in some time and everyone had let him be. "I'm not staying in this shithole a moment longer than I have to."
"Me neither," Uncle Leo replied. "I agree. When the sun comes up, I say we do, too."
"Young man," came the voice of one of the other six, sitting together in a group apart from the others. She was a grey-haired lady in her late fifties, dressed in business attire, clutching a red leather handbag to her chest. Another woman, bearing a strong resemblance to her sat at her side, obviously her daughter. "Some of us are not as physically fit as the rest of you. If those things see us, we can't outrun them."
She looked at the other four that sat with them. Two older couples, women with hair of white, men with no hair at all, save for the bushy tufts that sprouted over their ears.
"Nonsense," one of the old men said. "I can get you out of here. Not a problem. I can protect you as well as these guys can. Go into the bedroom and get my gun."
The entire group looked at one another in confusion, one of the old women holding up her hand apologetically.
"Albert suffers from dementia," she explained as she placed her hand on top of his.
"So... playah won't know if he's gettin' eaten or not..." Ink said with a chuckle. No one laughed, only shot him warning glances. "Come on, I'm just playin', ya'll."
The woman ignored Ink's comments and went on.
"We can't go out there. Albert will never make it," she said.
"What's your plan, then?" Aiden said, holding up his hands. "You gonna camp out here for awhile?"
"Come back for us," said the woman. "We'll wait here while the rest of you go back up."
"What happens if we all get eaten alive and never come back?" Klaus interjected. "You could starve to death down here. I'm sorry, but that's a stupid idea. No offense. You'd be safer with us."
The woman held her tongue though she was visibly angry.
"I have to agree with Klaus," Conor said. "If we are lucky enough to make it to the van... and if the van starts... and if the streets are clear enough... we are getting the hell out of here."
"So you would just leave us here to die?" asked one of the other women.
Conor hesitated.
Was she right? Was that what he had said?
"I just... I mean we may only get one chance to escape. We may not be able to come back to get you. We are not that close to the van right now. We walked much farther than you think down here. We shouldn't separate. I truly believe that."
"He won't make it very far," Albert's wife said. "Please go get your van and come back for us."
"So some of us go for the van, the rest wait here," Aiden said, thinking the plan through. "We need to be able to find these manholes from above. We bring the van here, everyone climbs out and we drive off into the sunset."
"Shit... if it's that easy, I'll kiss yo white ass," Uncle Leo said with a smile.
"Well, I'll probably have a lot of lonely ass. You're right, no way it's gonna be that easy," said Aiden.
There came a shuffling sound from the passage that they had taken to arrive there. Everyone stopped talking, listening intently.
"What was that?" Trish whispered and her father grabbed her by the arm, motioning for her to keep quiet. More sounds echoed from the near distance, though the tunnel was so dark nothing could be seen.
"It's those things," Uncle Leo hissed, looking to the ladders for a means of escape. He was a big man, though, and knew it would be difficult for him to reach the top. "If we managed to get in here, so can they."
Everyone began to stand, glancing around anxiously as the sounds drew closer. Now gurgling moans were evident among the scraping of feet as the things moved toward them.
"We have to secure that grate, man," Aiden said as he moved over to Conor's side, looking down at the bent opening that they had squeezed through. "They'll come right through there."
Conor nodded, eyes darting around the room as he thought.
"Belts! Anyone with a belt on, toss it over here. I'm gonna tie this thing closed and hopefully buy us enough time to get up those ladders. The rest of you start climbing," he said. Six belts flew his way, landing near his feet, some of the owners grumbling as they gave them up.
Conor took of his own belt, one he only wore onstage with metal studs fastened into the black leather. He hoped the metal would give it a little more holding power. He and Aiden worked on the grate, pushing it, bending it back to its original position. One would hold it and the other would feed a belt through the openings and fasten it closed. Just as they finished the last belt, the dead eyes became visible as the group of zombies emerged from the black.
As soon as they made eye contact, the things bolted forward, slamming against the grate, forcing it inward, the bolts holding it squeaking with the pressure. Their arms reached through the openings, grey hands and fingers clutching at the air, trying desperately to reach the living flesh within. Their faces were in every manner of decomposition, some jawless, their wagging tongues hanging down upon their neck. They barked and growled like animals, the spit flying from their teeth as they struggled against the obstacle before them.
They were seemingly mindless, only driven to kill and consume.
Conor turned, studying the ladders. The girls had gone first and were near the top.
"What the hell?" he called out. "Get a guy up there. Those manhole covers are not light. They may not be able to lift those things. Hurry, I don't know if this grate's going to hold."
"Ah, damn. Hold up, girls," their father called out as he started up the ladder behind them shaking his head.
The heavy grate was bending inwards under the weight of the undead. One bolt broke loose from the concrete wall and flew across the room to ricochet above their heads.
"We're just about outta time, brother," Aiden said, watching as the girl's father shoved the manhole cover up and slid it away with a loud scraping sound. Behind them, Klaus was assisting one of the old ladies up the ladder. She was almost sitting on his shoulder as she climbed and soon she reached the top and managed to pull herself out.
Klaus began to climb back down.
"Klaus, what are you doing? Get out while you can, man!" Conor shouted.
"The others will need help, too," Klaus replied, his breathing heavy as he searched below him for the next rung. He was a big guy and the climb had taken a lot out of him.
"No, we'll take care of it," said Conor. "Get yourself and the others to safety."
"You sure?" asked Klaus.
"Yes! Go!" Aiden said as he helped one of the ladies to the ladder.
The zombies were growing louder and more crazed as they sensed their quarry might escape. They struggled so violently that bits of them broke off and fell to the ground, a finger here and groups of teeth there. Soon the grate was covere
d with a gelatinous slime, the combination of blood and drool.
More bolts snapped as the creatures surged forward, crawling over each other to be the first to the feast.
Conor helped the others, choosing which would go in what order.
"Ya'll are gone have to help my fat ass up that thing, too," Uncle Leo said to Conor as the last of the women disappeared through the manhole. His companions were on their way up when part of the grate folded inward, the metal finally weakened to the point of failure.
Only Conor and Uncle Leo remained, both staring wide-eyed as the first of the monsters started to force its way through the opening, wriggling and thrashing its body about.
"Fuck, man," Uncle Leo shouted. "I don't know if I can do this!"
"Start climbing, man. We're both getting out of here," Conor urged.
Uncle Leo was a large man, close to four hundred pounds and none too fit. Just getting his foot up to the first rung was a monumental task.
"Bobo! Ink! Get yo asses down here! Help me up!" he screamed.
Bobo's face appeared above, silhouetted against the sky.
"What? You shittin' me? You can't even climb a goddamned ladder? Fuuu..." Bobo said, shaking his head. He was soon back down, pulling hard on Uncle Leo's arms, helping him get up each rung.
The first zombie was through, immediately standing and glaring at Conor who was still at the bottom of the ladder.
"Hurry!" he shouted as the thing screamed and ran at him, arms outstretched, rotten fingers grasping. Conor looked frantically around him for some sort of weapon, settling on a shaft of metal about four feet long, possibly the support for a street sign by the looks of it. He snatched it up as the thing reached him.
Conor swung it two-handed at the thing's throat, laying it wide-open, the head falling to the side, suspended by a short length of stretched flesh that left it hanging on its shoulder. The creature stopped, stumbling about, arms still reaching out for Conor as fluid ran down its chest. Conor threw a solid kick into its chest, knocking it to the ground as he turned back to the ladder.
There was now room for him to get out of reach of the rest of the zombies.
Die Dead Enough Page 3