Vertical City Box Set [Books 1-4]

by George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  He’s laughing like a crazy man.

  We look back and watch him pluck two grenades from his tactical vest.

  “If I’m going down, you’re coming with me!” he says before standing on his own good leg. He pulls the pins from the grenades and dives onto a pile of fertilizer sacks as the Dubs arrive.

  There’s a moment of silence as the Dubs reach for Strummer and then the air is sucked out of the room as we dip trough the pocket-door and the room vanishes in a fireball behind us.

  19

  The resulting shock-wave shudders the floor and lifts us off our feet. What’s left of the walls shield us from the blast that causes the building to rock side-to-side.

  We take shelter in an alcove between corridors, covered in dust and debris, my cheek ripped open, blood dribbling down into my mouth.

  The lights flicker off and on.

  “You still in one piece?” Naia asks me, rubbing her swollen ankle.

  I run my hands over my body and aside from a few scratches on my arms and the lacerations on my face (and a few missing teeth) I’m fine. So are Del Frisco and Zeus who paces, peering back into the smoking wreckage of the growing room, barking.

  The spine of the room (and the floors below) has been exposed, the lightweight composite floor torn open, cement flung into the air, the metal decking underneath visible and twisted.

  Dozens of Dubs writhe on exposed steel frames and rebar like bugs on pins.

  Some of their bodies, worn by time and the elements, simply split apart as their carcasses tumble to the floor below.

  But the others, and now we can see there are literally thousands of them pouring into the building below, are slowed only momentarily.

  Naia and Del Frisco haul me to my feet and we move down the corridor as terrified residents rush past us. They look like a band of refugees fleeing a war.

  I come to a stop in the middle of the corridor.

  I know it could cost me everything, but I get the feeling that if Gus were here he’d tell me that it isn’t right to punish the many for the sins of the few.

  “The Dubs are here! Get up to fourteen!” I shout.

  “What the hell are you doing?!” Naia screams.

  “I can’t let them go down to their deaths.”

  “They tried to kill us!”

  “Not all of them.”

  I spot Stanley Storch who’s huddled in the middle of them. I reach out my hand and he takes it, trembling, hugging me.

  “Wha – what’s going on, Z?” he says. “You and the girl went down the chute and now you’re back and—”

  “You still wanna go to the outer buildings?”

  A smile tugs at his face and he nods.

  “Then let’s go,” I say.

  I turn as many of those around us have stopped running and are staring.

  A woman holding a little girl hiccups a sob.

  A young kid holding a broom that’s been made up like a doll faces me, lip quivering.

  “Listen to me,” I say to the stragglers. “This is not a drill. This is real. The Dubs are in the building and they are coming for us. We need to go right now!”

  I throw up a hand and many of those around begin to follow. The rest are doomed, heading down the corridor to where the Dubs are waiting for them. There’s nothing more than I can do for them and I wince and cover my ears as the Dubs ambush them.

  Del Frisco, flanking me, grimaces from his wounds, but soldiers on.

  “Where are we headed, hoss?” he asks.

  “Like I said, we’re going to see Roger Parker.”

  “But he’s in one of the other buildings.”

  “That’s right.”

  We move up another flight of stairs and down through a rear passageway until we come to a secure door.

  On the other side is the exit that I used before when I left the outer buildings and crawled back into VC1 across the retractable metal ladder that was camouflaged in mesh.

  I grab the door’s handle and pull back, but it doesn’t give.

  Soon, the others that followed have latched onto the door and are collectively tugging back until the handle breaks off.

  I stare at the handle as my face scrunches against the metal door. I’m being pressed forward by the sheer weight of those stationed behind me.

  Panic sets in and next come the hands, fists and open palms, slapping and pounding on the door furiously as the sounds of the Dubs grow closer.

  The door’s hinges bend, turn white, and then one breaks off and the door falls away before us as I’m almost sucked outside—

  —Into the dizzying open space that stretches between the buildings.

  A chasm that plunges hundreds of feet to the streets below.

  A hand grabs my back and steadies me and then I hear someone shout:

  “How do we get across?!”

  I look back to see Del Frisco clutching my shirt.

  “We’re in a world of hurt,” he whispers.

  Wrenching my head around, I see that the retractable ladder from before has not been maneuvered over.

  There is no way across to the other building.

  And the worst thing is when windows shatter several floors beneath us and a cluster of people are either thrown out or leap out of the building followed by an equal number of Dubs.

  I turn from this to face the stragglers, the men and women and children gathered before me. The lack of a way across spurs a chain of whispers and I can see the fear in their eyes along with glimmers of rage. I promised them safety and led them into a trap.

  Strangled cries ring out down the hallway and a woman screams because a Dub appears at the other end of the hall, then another, then three more.

  “Get ready to fight!” I say.

  Stan holds up his drum sticks, daggering them like weapons.

  “I’m ready for ‘em!” he shouts.

  Del Frisco waves his hands and I look back and now there’s someone on the other building, a kid who’s emerged from a doorway with a scarf wrapped around his face. He’s looking across at us, fronting the retractable ladder.

  We wave our hands and shout and he stares quizzically at us. He doesn’t react, doesn’t extend the ladder, doesn’t do a damn thing.

  My eyes go to Gus’s pistol and then to Naia.

  “How many rounds do you have left?” I ask.

  “I wasn’t counting,” Del Fresco says.

  “At least three?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good,” Naia says and slowly I realize what she means. If it gets to it I’ll do the deed. I have no choice but to cross us all over before we’re turned.

  More howls and shouts, the Dubs moving steadily forward.

  The stench of the risen hits us first, the air perfumed with the funk of death and decay and an odor that reminds me of rancid bodies that have been heaped onto a bonfire. The sour smell someone once said of corruption.

  There’s a Dub nearly on a man and his little girl and so I shoot the thing in the head which seems to piss off the ghoul’s comrades.

  The screams of the Dubs rise, their bodies so tightly packed that the sheetrock on the walls begins to crumble.

  One of the Dubs squirts free and runs, arms raised, at a squat, muscular woman who faces the thing down. The woman reaches into a pocket and plucks out something trivial and throws it at the Dub’s head.

  BAROOM!

  The Dub’s head shatters.

  Bone-confetti and gore spatter the woman, the bullet that just decapitated the monster zinging into the wall.

  Silence is sucked out of the hallway and then the sound of sustained gunfire bounces off the walls.

  “GET DOWN!” I say.

  We duck and cover our ears as holes are blown through the flood of flesh-eaters. I watch their bodies jerk spastically, the walls rupturing all around them, bullets gouging holes in the walls, piercing the roof.

  And then the last Dub falls, skull-capped by a perfectly-placed shot and a spasm of fear grips my gut a
t the thought of who fired the shot.

  I bring my pistol up, expecting hell and overjoyed to see a black face appear out of the smoke and haze.

  It’s Brixton.

  He’s followed by Asian Phil and the big man named Donkey and Mad Meg who’s wiping off the gore from a stabbing knife across her thigh.

  Brixton exhales and removes the empty ammo magazine from his assault rifle as Zeus runs and jumps into his arms.

  He hugs the dog and I reach out a hand that he grips and pumps.

  “How many lives you use up getting here, Jumper?”

  “At least four.”

  He smiles. “You come from the lower levels?”

  I nod.

  “How bad is it?” he asks.

  “They followed us in.”

  “How many?”

  I pause, assessing the faces of everyone staring at me and then I whisper: “Jesus. All of them.”

  20

  Brixton does a quick recon of the doorway, the gap between the buildings, the kid on the other building still staring at us.

  “We need to move quick ‘less we wanna be shanked. Your old mate Shooter is rounding up his boys with Odin’s blessings and they’re not too far behind us.”

  I point at the kid on the other building and without hesitation, Brixton turns and aims at him.

  “Aye!” Brixton shouts.

  The kid holds his hands up.

  “Swing over the ladder!”

  The kid hesitates and Brixton shoots the windows above the kid’s head, little shards of glass showering him as he quickly unfurls the ladder.

  “FUCKING NOW!” Brixton says.

  The kid commences to extend the ladder, turning a wheel that powers it slowly toward us.

  I kneel and spot a kind of hitch on the ground and as the ladder nears us, I grab it and maneuver its black metal ball and then set it down on the hitch, securing the thing in place.

  Brixton takes a few steps and jostles the ladder which bends, but holds.

  Then he points at the stragglers that followed us and windmills his arm.

  “GO, GO, GO!”

  I grab Stan’s arm and lead him out.

  “Can you make it?”

  Stan nods, shivering in the cold air.

  “Is it like they say it is over there?” he asks, pointing at the other building.

  “Better.”

  I kiss him on the forehead and he grins and moves across, the other stragglers filing after him. It’s chaotic, some of them running, others petrified and on their hands and knees, unwilling to look down or side-to-side.

  I see Roger Parker emerge from the other building. He’s got on a tactical vest and for a moment I think he’s going to prevent the stragglers from making it across the ladder. Instead, he mounts it and heads over to us.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Parker says to me, standing between us and the ladder, blocking the way forward.

  “We’re sending people over,” I reply.

  “You have permission?”

  “We don’t need it,” Brixton says.

  Parker looks at Brixton then glances down the hallway at the Dub bodies lying in heaps. The sound of sirens and shouts are far off, but audible.

  “They’re in the building, Parker,” Brixton says. “The dead have taken the building and there ain’t no good way down.”

  “What about Odin?” Parker asks.

  “Odin’s a murderer,” I say.

  “A murderer who still holds the keys to the kingdom.”

  “Not for long,” I reply.

  “This is your moment, Mister One Zero,” Brixton says, leaning in close to Parker. “This is your chance to stand up and be counted.”

  “And when the dust settles?”

  “Who else is gonna be on top but you?”

  Parker nods and then Brixton grabs his wrist.

  “Save as many of our people as you can and make sure you do right by ‘em,” Brixton whispers. “Don’t fuck these good people over a second time or give them any handle against ya or you’ll answer to me.”

  “Absolute powers corrupts absolutely,” Parker says, nodding, waving his hand to signal to the other stragglers that it’s okay for them to follow him over into the other building.

  “When they cross the widow-maker you and your people follow,” Brixton says to me, watching the stragglers filter over the ladder.

  “What about you?”

  “Don’t worry about us. We got business downstairs and besides, Sweepers are always the last ones to piss off to the big show,” he says, Asian Phil nodding, the team reloading and readying their weapons.

  A scream rises behind, the two of us looking back to see one of the stragglers, an older woman, shot through the back.

  She spins like a drunken person on the ladder, blood smeared across her chest. Glancing back at us, another shot shears off half her face and then she’s falling, eyes wide, mouth open, her screams drowned by the echo of rifles bouncing off the canyon between the buildings.

  “PROWLERS!” I shout.

  I see Parker grab the other stragglers and make it safely inside the other building as bursts of gunfire ring out.

  “HOLD ME!” Brixton says, Asian Phil grabbing the back of a yellow safety harness strapped to Brixton’s back. This allows the big man to swing out and glance up and then he’s pulled back and nods and sucks in a breath and swings out again.

  In one fluid motion he fires a burst from his gun at the top of the building.

  There’s a cry and then one of the Prowlers falls past us, nearly hitting the ladder as Asian Phil pulls Brixton back to safety.

  “How many are up there?” Naia asks.

  “Too many to count.”

  I look across the ladder and spot Stan in a window, hands pressed to the glass. I wave goodbye and step back from the open door.

  “What say?” Brixton says to me.

  “We can’t go across the ladder.”

  “Figured that out all by yourself, didya?”

  I point to the floor. “What’s down there aside from certain death?”

  “There’s a machine,” I say. “A huge battle truck that’s big enough to drive out of here.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I saw it with my own eyes. It’s down below ten.”

  “Which means we have to go past the Keep.”

  I nod and Brixton’s people exchange quick glances.

  We caucus for a few seconds and introductions are made between Brixton and his people and Del Frisco and Naia, and then, sensing no better plan, weapons and ammunition are given to us.

  Mad Meg hands Naia a pistol.

  “Time to sack up,” she says.

  “Ovary up,” Naia replies, racking the slide on the pistol as Mad Meg grins and smacks Naia on the head and whispers, “good, very good.”

  I steal a glance at Brixton.

  “I guess we’re all traitors now, huh?” I say.

  “If this be treason, then let’s make the most of it,” he replies with a smirk.

  We trek down a veranda corridor that runs along to the left of the building, then at a T-junction, joins the main thoroughfare that bisects the floor.

  The junction is loaded with Dubs so we swing to the right where there’s a large bullpen filled with cubes of glass-walled offices. A four-foot wide aisle runs between the offices, leading to a set of wood and glass double-doors.

  Brixton crouches and flicks two fingers to us as if to say “advance,” and we do.

  We scurry forward, me, Naia, and Del Frisco in the middle, the others around us. Brixton has his hand over Zeus’s mouth, the hair on the back of the dog’s neck ridged.

  We’re halfway across the floor when there’s a grunt and then a burst of breath from the other side of a glass panel.

  Brixton holds a finger to his lips and then we wait.

  Slow deliberation turns to anticipation as a shadow rises up, visible through the glass. Then a face, a wet mouth, presses to the glass and yel
low eyes rotate down and the Dub, a shaggy, blue-boated mess who’s missing his right hand, pounds its left stump on the glass.

  The other ghouls hear this and throw themselves at the glass.

  “Double-time it!” Brixton says.

  We rise and run as the Dubs shatter the glass behind us, flopping over the wooden portions of the office walls.

  We open up on the Dubs, blasting them back as we hit the double-doors that spill to marble steps which are speckled with blood and body fluids. Corpses of the recently slain, residents ambushed by the Dubs, lie scattered, twitching and convulsing, on the verge of being resurrected.

  The building, which only hours earlier had been a hive of activity and commerce, is now a shattered husk filled with the dead and soon-to-be dead. There’s a part of me that thinks they had it coming, Odin and his people. Every evil thing that has ever been done in the name of the community is being revisited on it.

  And then upon searching the bodies I spot a young girl, only a few years younger than me. Blood trickles out of her nose and when she mouths the words “kill me,” I know nobody deserves to die like this.

  An explosion jars everything, forcing me to look back.

  Asian Phil’s tossed a grenade at the pursuing Dubs, knocking a handful of them to the ground.

  One of the wounded zombies, a woman with a shaved head, rises, dragging coils of her own intestines before Brixton shoots her through the mouth.

  Against the far-off battle cries of the Dubs we weave down the steps and slam shut a pair of heavy doors that safeguard an inner chamber filled with terrified residents huddled around a long metal table and a grouping of large, leather chairs.

  I imagine many important meetings were held here and decisions hammered out in the years before the world ended. On the other side of this space, through a shattered glass door, is a foyer of sorts and a bank of elevators.

  We tread across the chamber and past the residents, all of us shouting, imploring them to take shelter and arm themselves.

  There’s a titanic blast somewhere overhead and a dry rain of dust falls from the ceiling.

  Suddenly, from speakers hidden in the drop-ceiling comes Odin’s voice.

  Perhaps the most eerie thing about hearing him again is how quickly the range of his voice changes.