“Dad wouldn’t do that!”
So saying, he turns and runs off back toward the door to the utility closet as we watch him go.
“Is he blood to you?” Naia asks.
“No, but he thinks he is.”
I’m about to run after Stan, but then I realize some people are better suited for this place. For all of its flaws and evils, VC1 provides a barrier against the outside world. Stan wouldn’t last a minute on the Flatlands so I grab the first rung on the ladder and look down.
The bottom can’t be seen and I’m readying to complain about the distance we’ll have to climb, but there’s no other choice.
We either go down or try and fight our way up.
We discuss this for a few seconds and then commence the descent, the two of us fumbling together down the ladder which I imagine runs through the heart of the building. As we go we feel the changes in temperature between the floors and listen to the sounds of shouts and laugher and the booming noises made by the heavy machinery that give life to the building.
We’re likely down around the tenth floor when a horde of terrible sounds punctuate the air: angry howls and creative obscenities unleashed against the backdrop of someone that appears to be singing a song.
A few rungs down and the voice grows clearer, familiar even.
It’s coming from the other side of a metal grill ten feet below us.
I’d know the voice anywhere.
It’s Del Frisco.
13
Scrambling down the ladder, I squint through the gaps on the metal grill and Del Frisco is indeed visible.
He’s in a room on eleven that we used to train in. The space is without windows and painted red and I remember Shooter using it to mimic being trapped in the dark on the Flatlands. He’d put you in the middle of the room and kill the lights and you had to defend yourself for sixty seconds as people came at you from every direction.
By all appearances Del Frisco’s been worked over good, face swollen and bloody, his wrists tied behind his back by ropes that are fastened to a faraway wall.
There are at least seven well-armed men surrounding Del Frisco, including Strummer and Shooter who are overseeing the torture.
Strummer stands at a distance as Odin’s thugs take turns beating the holy hell out of Del Frisco even as he belts out a series of old rock and funk tunes.
A fist opens up a cut near Del Frisco’s eye and he winces and continues to sing about watching the wheels go ‘round and ‘round.
Strummer screams for him to shut up and he sings louder.
Strummer kicks Del Frisco in the stomach and my hand goes for the grill and Naia grabs it, her face nearly pressed against mine.
“There are seven men in there, Wyatt,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“Seven men with guns.”
“I know that too.”
“What then?”
“I know the guy being roughed up.”
“Is he family?”
“He’s my friend,” I say, shaking my head. “And sometimes a friend like that is closer than family.”
She looks from me to Del Frisco and a frown creases her face. “You’re seriously shorthanded and we have to go.”
“We could try and save him.”
“You’re not good enough to take on seven men.”
My gaze smokes into hers.
“I watched you for weeks, remember?” she adds. “I studied you. I know your limitations.”
I don’t respond and she squeezes my hand. “I’m sorry, but your friend’s beyond help.”
“He’s being beaten because of me. Because of us.”
“I’m leaving,” she says, continuing past me.
What Naia said is true, there’s no way I can help Del Frisco, but that doesn’t make any of it easier to swallow. How does it benefit anyone for me to break inside and get to within maybe ten feet of my friend before Odin’s boys shoot me down? How can I find Gus and tell others about what happened here if I’m dead? If the tables were turned, I’m pretty sure Del Frisco would do the same, but I’m still ashamed by what I have to do.
I turn back and watch Del Frisco, the bravest sonofabitch I ever met, absorb punch after punch, still singing and figuratively flipping off his interrogators. I say a prayer and hope that he crosses over lightly and then I grab the ladder and pause.
I hesitate and punch the grate as loud as I can and listen to the interrogators startle and shout as I climb down into the semi-darkness.
We reach the bottom of the ladder about thirty minutes later and are shocked to see no access panels, no exits from the metal chute at all.
I’m beginning to realize how stupid it was to rely on someone like Stan and then Naia pulls a few hairs from her head and holds them up and they flap side-to-side like blades of grass.
There’s something, some breeze coming from the faraway wall.
Naia drops to her knees and follows her nose like a dog and then she blows into the dust on the floor.
There’s a nearly invisible wire in the grit that she plucks up.
The wire leads into the wall and Naia tugs back on it as a section of metal sheathing groans on invisible hinges.
She inserts her fingers in the corners of the sheathing and pulls it back to reveal a hatch that leads to a clutter of industrial and heavy-moving equipment perched on top of a loading dock that slopes to a fortified roll-up door and a metal fire-door with a white smiley-face painted on it.
We quickly maneuver between the equipment and I glance at the ground which is covered in a fine layer of dust. There are no prints of any kind and it doesn’t look like anyone’s been this way for some time.
We press ourselves against the fire-door which is locked, but unchained.
“I’m gonna come back,” I say. “I just … I wanted you to know that.”
“Come back where?”
“Here. I’m going out and then I’m going to find Gus and get help—”
“There is no help.”
I’m about to reply and she silences me with an icy stare.
“We looked for other places, Wyatt. Me and the others I came in with. Other compounds, other safe havens. Up and down the coast we went, back and forth and all around. I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think there are any. Aside from upstate, this place was the last, best hope and look what it turned out to be.”
“There are good people upstairs and in the other buildings—”
“Where were they when we needed them? Where were they for your friend, Gus?”
“They’re scared,” I say.
“Scared people aren’t worth saving,” she mutters.
“I don’t believe that.”
“Then you’ll die.”
“Better to live one day as a lion than a thousand as a lamb.”
“That’s cutesy, bumper-sticker bullshit.”
“It’s what Gus used to say.”
“And look where it got him.”
My fists ball up and she reads my look, but doesn’t back down.
“Once I go through this door I am not turning back for anything. Not for you, not for anybody. You need to know that so stay or go, cause I’m rolling out.”
She slams an elbow against the door and shoulders it open and I follow after her.
The sunlight’s blinding as we barrel onto the street at the rear of VC1.
There are no Dubs in sight as we sprint raggedly across the road. My eyes are everywhere, scanning every building façade, every low-level rooftop and alley, but nothing looks out of place. We’re headed toward a secondary street and there’s not a Dub in sight. I can’t believe how easy the whole thing is, how we were able to tiptoe right out the door and under Odin’s nose and make it to safety on the Flatlands.
And then Naia stops up ahead and jerks back in surprise.
I spin and something glints off the top of the building.
Then the window on the car next to me blows out.
And the trunk
implodes.
And then the ground between my legs and the air over my head hums with the steady drone of bullets.
14
“GET DOWN!” I scream, diving evasively behind a fire-hydrant as bullets chew up the ground up and down the street.
Naia’s twenty feet from me, lying under a pickup truck jack-knifed in a gutter.
Bullets star the front of the truck, tires bursting, rounds ricocheting off the streets and adjacent building fronts.
Grit showers me as the bullets kick up off the blacktop and snap past my head.
The angle of the sun’s terrible, so I can’t tell where the shots are coming from, but my guess is the various blinds on top of VC1 manned by Matthais and his snipers. I guess I was wrong about Odin and his muscle preferring to do their killings in the safety of the shadows.
I roll over and peek from behind the hydrant and sure enough there are winks of light, sniper-scope flashes from the upper reaches of the building.
Lots of them.
“Snipers!”
Naia looks over at me. “And you wanted to go back and save everyone, huh?”
“Just the good ones.”
She rolls her eyes and I measure the intervals between shots.
The snipers fire in volleys spaced six seconds apart.
I count to five and then the bullets fly again, rounds hitting near me, tiny pieces of hydrant-shrapnel whizzing past my head.
More bullets ratchet down, pummeling every inch of space around me.
One slug whines off the pavement and kisses the tip of my nose and another grazes my eyebrow and draws a bead of blood that curls down my cheek.
Naia’s shouting something to me, but I can’t hear her because I’ve slipped down into the zone.
It’s as if I’m up again on The Dream Catcher.
Sounds are muted and when a shadow passes overhead I lever myself up.
I wait for the last bullet to hit and then I take a chance and bomb across open ground.
There’s a lull, no sounds except for the screech of a pair of birds on a lamp-post. Blood roars in my ears and my feet suddenly feel heavy, as if they’d been dipped in cement.
I’m close to a safe place, maybe three seconds away, but I’ve lost count and pray that I’ve got enough time when the firing begins again and I belly-flop as the first bullet whines past me.
I crash to the ground beside Naia as the truck absorbs more incoming fire.
“What the hell did you do that for?!” she says.
I don’t respond and she reaches a finger up and gently blots a pearl of blood from above my eye.
“You’re wounded.”
“Nicked.”
“You’re lucky.”
“So are you.”
“Which one’s gonna run out sooner? Our luck or their ammunition?”
I point to the edge of a building that’s maybe thirty feet from our present position.
The building’s probably twenty-stories high which means it’s a natural barrier between whatever is on its far side and the top of VC1.
“If we can hit that corner, we’ve got a shot,” I say.
“Big if.”
“Got a better idea?”
She breathes deeply and shakes her head. I roll over and spy around the rear wheel-well of the truck as a bullet takes off the side-view mirror.
“We’re blind right now. They’ve got the sun to their backs so we need to wait for the next shadow.”
She purses her lips. “That’s a pretty solid plan, Wyatt.”
“Thank you.”
“Only one problem.”
She points and I follow her gaze down the street.
A small delegation of Dubs have apparently heard the firing and are coming to investigate.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I ask.
“That I wish I’d never come into this goddamn city?”
“Besides that.”
She shakes her head.
“We wait until they’re almost on top of us and then we use them as cover.”
“Can I tell you something, Wyatt?”
“Please do.”
“That is the worse plan I’ve ever heard.”
“The way I figure it, the snipers don’t have enough ammo to shoot all of the Dubs and us.”
She registers this.
“That’s super comforting.”
Naia gulps and I wave at one of the Dubs. It’s a kid, or was, garbed in a moth-eaten tracksuit and hoody, a pair of cracked sunglasses rammed into the gray flesh above his right eye. The teen ghoul barks and lurches forward.
The others follow and soon there’s bedlam in the middle of the street as the congregation of the risen sweeps toward us.
My eyes are so fixed on the Dubs that I barely feel Naia’s hand grip mine. When the Dubs are close enough to smell we take in four deep breaths and rise up and the shooting begins almost instantaneously.
The Dubs, who are staggered in lines across the street, provide a crude barrier between us and the top of VC1. The zombies fall in waves, smithereened by bullets that tear through poisoned flesh.
Heads burst.
Torsos erupt in sprays of black and gray.
Ragged limbs drop to the ground.
Naia grabs my hand and pulls me back and I trip and roll over as a female Dub wheels on me.
She reaches down and her neck blows out, smothering me in gore.
Naia shrieks at me and I weave between the falling Dubs, rushing toward the edge of the cover building as the brick right behind my head is stitched with bullets, fragments of stone whistling past my ears as I duck for cover.
We rifle through the scraps of the world’s unwinding, sliding by machines and structures landscaped by the elements and time-worn hills of trash and jellied rivers of sludge seeping from piles of the decaying dead.
We’re about to cross over an intersection when two items catch my eye: a section of a red shirt lying discarded and torn and a broken crown smeared with blood.
The very same things Gus wore when he was shunned.
15
If Gus fell here, he did so only after a struggle.
I can tell this by the way the shirt is ripped with at least one bullet hole in the side, the crown cracked in half. There are little rivers of black Dub blood on the ground going in all directions which makes me certain Gus gave as well as he received.
Bloody boot-prints lead across the street and my gut seizes as I picture Gus, wounded by a sniper round and harassed by the Dubs, making a last stand in what was once a small bodega. The fact that the rucksack he was given is nowhere in sight bolsters my suspicions that he survived whatever ambushed him here.
“Gus was here,” I say solemnly.
She examines the clothes, the trails of blood. “If he was, he’s gone.”
I point to the bodega.
“There’s no time, Wyatt.”
“If he’s hurt, I need to help.”
“Then go help,” she says softly. “But I’m not coming.”
Before I can respond there’s the roar of engines and then we spot some of Matthais’s killers driving motorcycles down the street. They’re a good two blocks away, but see us and open fire.
We cover our heads and dash across the street and into the bodega and are nearly dropped by the stench of death and decay.
Every inch of the narrow space was ransacked years ago, the aisles nearly impassable, coolers and display cases turned over on their sides and stripped of metal.
We hurtle the refuse, listening to the shouts of Matthais’s men behind us melding with the soulless screams of the approaching Dubs.
Naia grabs my shoulder and I turn to eye the battle raging on the streets outside.
Nothing is crystal clear, but we can see rows of Dubs being cut down by bullets fired by Odin’s men.
The rounds thud into Dubs, skulls splitting apart like rotten vegetables, ropes of blood and entrails flung into the air.
An explosive detonat
es in the middle of the road and diseased body-parts soon litter the ground and spatter the inside of the bodega.
Suddenly, one of Odin’s killers appears at the entrance to the bodega.
He’s a sick-looking man in a black vest with a sponge of brown hair and uncovered, tattooed arms that seem as thin as blades of grass.
He also holds up an assault rifle and aims at me.
I blink and wait for the bullet to cleave my head.
If I’m lucky I’ll have crossed over before my body hits the floor.
There’s a muffled shout and I jump, thinking that the kill shot has already been fired.
When I open my eyes the killer is on the ground under the weight of two Dubs who are plunging their hands into the man’s chest.
One of the Dubs looks back, a long string of flesh hanging from its black lips.
It points and screams and several of the Dub rearguard appear and head toward us.
Naia calls for me and I follow her voice toward the rear of the bodega which is steeped in shadows.
Everything looks menacing in the murk, our reflections in a wall of mirrored glass causing me to jump in fright.
There are three Dub bodies on the ground in front of a walk-in cooler, so much blood on the floor that it looks like some kind of abstract painting.
The necks on the Dubs are either hacked open or slit and I can tell the kills are fresh because the feet of one of them still pulses with half-life.
Clutching the only thing in sight that could be used as a weapon, an old coat-hangar, I grab the handle on the cooler and throw it open.
Sheer reflex, that’s the only thing that prevents the teeth belonging to the thing hiding inside the cooler from tasting the meat near my forearm.
Jerking to the side, my arm slams into the lower jaw of the Dub, violently pushing its mouth closed.
I’m about to put the hangar through its eye when I realize to my horror that it’s him.
It’s Gus.
He’s shirtless and bloody and sports two wounds: an angry looking exit wound (undoubtedly caused by a bullet) near his upper chest and the bloody outline of a Dub’s mouth just below his right bicep.
But the thing that really causes my stomach to spasm is his head.
Vertical City Box Set [Books 1-4] Page 32