“Yeah, I see it. And?”
“And,” Kiefer said, “If you had a distraction, say I jumped down first and made a whole hell of a lot of noise, drew them away a bit. You climb down, no offense –”
No offense? None taken you cocky shit.
“ – get your ass to that dock and leap.”
“It would be quicker to just go down the embankment and into the water.”
“Yep. Only you slow down when you hit the water. Can’t run anymore. They might not be able to swim but they can probably wade water just as well as you or I. My money’s on the dock. Run and jump and its swim time.”
“Okay. Makes sense. When do you – ”
Gone.
Just like that and he was gone.
No plan.
No count down.
No fucking one, two, three, go!
Kiefer had leapt right off the train car, hit the ground hard, rolled over and got back to his feet.
“Kids!” Kiefer yelled, “Time to come in for supper!”
Clover spoke up as Bob grabbed him and tucked the cat under his arm.
“Yeah, I don’t think I like him either.”
Half falling, Bob climbed down the ladder of the train car. A zombie lurched for him but he straight-armed the mangy thing and broke into a run. That headache he had started developing an hour or so ago was throbbing now. He had picked one hell of a time to fall off the wagon and climb back on. His heart thudded in his ears and his lungs rasped from the twenty plus years of sucking down those coffin nails. Clover had his claws dug into the flesh of Bob’s stomach and he tore a little with each hurtle and stumble he took. He ran onward, with the dock the only thing he kept his eyes on.
When his foot hit the wooden planks of the dock his footing became uneven and he almost toppled over into the shallow water. There were zombies everywhere. Some already in the water wading toward him just as Kiefer had predicted. But he was almost there. So close. All he had to do was make it another few yards when a hand clasped on his shoulder and spun him around into the face of a decaying person with ass-smelling breath and starving teeth. Bob was able to get his forearm between him and the zombie, slamming it just under the dead’s mouth and into its throat. He could feel the force of the jaw opening and closing, trying to chomp at his face. He tried to let go of Clover. He had to. There was no choice. If he didn’t drop the cat, he was doomed. Only Clover wouldn’t let go. The cat was sinking its claws into him deeper and deeper, trying to climb up his body and immobilizing his left arm altogether. Bob was forced down onto one knee. His forearm still bracing against the zombie but his face now turned away trying to stay out of reach of those teeth. It was so strong. How could something dead be so strong? The zombie was pushing him along the dock planks, his pants tearing at the knee and the sharp pain of a splinter – no that wasn’t a splinter it was like a sharpened bamboo skewer from a Sunday barbeque – that slid deeply beneath his kneecap.
Clover let go of Bob as the man fell to the dock with a zombie climbing on top of him like a horny prom date. Bob quickly got his left hand under the zombies jaw and tried with all his remaining strength to close the drooling trap of pending eternal living death. He may have forgotten about the hangover but it hadn’t forgotten about him. His head blazed and his muscles grew weaker from exhaustion fighting the relentless monster.
“Heavenly Father,” Bob grunted through gritted teeth, “forgive my sins.”
A tear dripped from the eye not stinging closed from the acrid zombie drool.
Whump!
“Not yet, you may still have a few sins left in you, sir.” Kiefer stood over Bob extending a hand. He had come out of nowhere. Later when Bob thought about it, when he had time to think about it, he had been pretty sure that Kiefer hadn’t made it, or if he had they weren’t going to group up ever again and that would have been the last of seeing the kid. He’d always remember him as the dumbass that encouraged a horde of zombies to chase him like a turkey dinner so he and a damn cat could get away.
Kiefer had used a rusty old plumbing pipe and taken that zombie’s head half off. Fucking thing was still alive – alive, dead, whatever – missing half its head and trying to get up while its mouth still chomped at the air and it hacked and coughed in that odd language that made the others wandering in the dark turn toward them.
“Move!” Kiefer yelled. “And grab your flea bag.”
Bob did as he was told. As the two of them ran for the end of the dock Bob reached down and plucked Clover up. He had time to think how much the cat was going to hate this before all three plummeted into the Merrimack River and were pulled away from the train tracks and stumbling death by the river.
Chapter 16
“Grab hold of something!” Kiefer yelled over the roar of the Merrimack River.
Bob reached out for tree limbs, as they swept by, his hands fumbling through soggy branches and dead leaves but unable to get purchase. Kiefer was right behind him. Bob wished that the younger man was ahead of him. He felt weak from the attack and his eye burned and was blurry from the drool that had leaked into it.
“Bridge!” Bob heard Kiefer yelling. He was looking through the darkness with his one good eye and trying to pick out the bridge that Kiefer had seen. The dark, murky water of the river rolled over his body like ice. There was no bridge up ahead, only the rock foundation remains of a bridge long forgotten to history.
It was hard to swim, almost near impossible. But Bob had time. Not much, though. The current was strong. Holding Clover, he pulled himself with one arm, swallowing mouthfuls of dirty water, and angled himself so the current slammed him right into the old rock foundation that once held a bridge across the Merrimack.
“Ooof.” Kiefer hit the rocks as hard as Bob and the two of them panted together as they clung to safety.
“Now what?” Bob asked.
“Are you kidding me?” Kiefer asked, “Do I have to come up with everything?” He threw his head back and took in a cold gulp of bitter air.
“Shore’s too far.”
“Yep.”
Bob looked into the darkness and saw nothing but obstacles and no solution. “Dammit, I don’t know.”
“Coast Guard?”
Bob looked over at Kiefer and saw the crack of a smile and they both began to laugh. It was the first genuine feeling other than fear, anger, and sadness that he felt since the day the world went away.
Kiefer took his wet shirt off. Tied one of the long sleeves around his left wrist and the other long sleeve to Bob’s right wrist. Bob nodded with understanding.
“Together?”
“Yep.”
The two pushed off and road the current. Scratched by branches, muscles banged by rocks, almost drowning on the crashing rapids. It was Kiefer’s strength that finally towed them to a peninsula of small beach. Bob puked up the Merrimack into the sand while Kiefer lie on his back breathing heavily. Clover had leapt away from the two of them and was shaking off the water and eyeing them both with hatred.
“I…I…think your…pal is pissed,” Kiefer said.
Bob looked over at Clover, “Probably. He was the only one that didn’t have anything to escape from.”
From his pocket Kiefer drew his pocketknife and with no regard for his shirt sliced the sleeve freeing himself and Bob. Now he wore the fabric like some hippie bracelet. He got to his feet and handed the knife to Bob who also cut the sleeve away and then tried to free the knot from his wrist with no luck.
“Do you hear anything?” Bob asked.
“No,” he said, “But that doesn’t mean anything. They’re out there. Everywhere. I just don’t know if they are on this beach with us.”
“They either are or they aren’t. I gotta get some sleep, Kiefer.”
The younger man grabbed Bob under the shoulder and hauled him to his feet with what felt like little effort. “Not now. You want to survive the night we have to get inside, find shelter somewhere. If the zombies don’t get us on this beach hypothermi
a will. Come on, Bob, get your lazy ass up.”
“You’re a little shit you know that?”
“My ma used to say the same thing, but never with a smile.”
Chapter 17
It was still night when Kat woke to baby Bowen crying. She listened to the silence outside of the elevator that the two of them had turned into a suite, and pulled the baby gently to her breast as she began to rock him while making shooshing sounds into his ear to soothe him back to sleep. Kat felt the wet cloth that covered his bottom and reached into the darkness for another of the cloths she had taken from the kitchen. Beside her was a small fountain cup of room temperature water that she would have to use to clean baby Bowen. For now it would have to suffice until –
Until nothing. This was the end. No one was coming.
– help arrived. Out there somewhere in the world there were groups of scientists trying to find a cure and the government and Red Cross would send people to look for survivors of this plague. Someone was coming. They had to be.
“Kid’s crying gonna get Zee’s all over us.”
Fletcher’s voice, “Shut it, Jonesy.”
She didn’t look up when he came to the door of her elevator. Instead she continued to try and soothe baby Bowen. Kat had been on the prenatal floor for a few years and had always been good at getting the babes to settle down – Sarah was the best – and now she had no more answers. There were no more tricks up her sleeves. All she could imagine was how very hungry baby Bowen had to be, because she was hungry too and he was only a newborn. If they didn’t find shelter and help soon…Well, she did not want to think about that.
Not yet.
“Sorry,” Fletcher said.
“Don’t be,” Kat said. Still she rocked the baby. “He’s right.”
Fletcher sat down on the carpet, his feet just touching the metal plate of the threshold that separated the lobby of the Parker House and the right elevator. He did something with his gun, a flick of one finger that made a clicking noise, and he laid it between them. With him on eye level with her it was hard to not look at him. Even harder – was she insane? – to not see how handsome he was. Not cute or pretty like the men her age with their fancy going out clothes. The same clothes she put on the nights she wasn’t working, and went clubbing to find some random hot guy she could ride until they were both sweating and climaxing at the same time. All her thoughts and stresses taken away. Afterward she would hail an Uber and go home; pull on the Batman tee and pj bottoms covered in little bat-symbols that an ex had left at her apartment, that were secretly her favorite. Kat looked into his face and saw something, not the age difference that had to be near ten years. She was twenty-four so on paper it wouldn’t look that bad. It wasn’t as if she were some love struck seventeen or eighteen year old with a grown-up crush.
“He’s not right. Just scared like the rest of us.”
“You don’t seem scared.”
“Not supposed to. Part of the training. Doesn’t mean my knees aren’t shaking like everyone else. May I?” He held his arms out.
Without thinking Kat passed baby Bowen to Fletcher who cradled the baby on the forearm of his body armor. With his teeth he pulled off the tactical glove on his right hand and began to run his finger, in a vertical motion, down baby Bowen’s forehead to the bridge of his nose.
“Besides,” he went on, “Zee’s are barking at the door with or without your son crying. They know we are in here as much as we know they are out there.”
He’s not my son, she thought.
Instead she said, “How long can we stay here? How long until help arrives?”
Baby Bowen had stopped crying and was lulled back to sleep in the Boston police officer’s arms.
“No one is coming for us. Just the facts. Maybe if we could get to the roof, but we can’t. Only chance we have is to make it out of here and head for the harbor.” He said that last word, hahbah, with his working class Boston accent.
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. That’s as far as I’ve planned.”
“You think someone is there though? Help?”
He shrugged. “It’s a big world with billions of people. We aren’t the only ones left. There are boats on those docks. Private, commercial, even the BPD has some. Coast Guard. I think it’s a good plan.”
“And how do we get past them?” Kat asked looking back over her shoulder where hundreds of zombies migrated outside of the Parker House Hotel.
“Run.”
“We won’t make it.”
“You will. Your son will.” Fletcher looked at her. That hard look that she had only ever seen on his face, one that spoke of trust and promises, “I give you my word.” And she didn’t doubt him.
It came out softer than a whisper, “He’s not my son.”
“Hmm?”
“Baby Bowen, he – he isn’t my son.”
Fletcher looked to the child and then back to Kat.
“Parents?”
Kat shook her head.
“Then he is yours. Your son, Kat, because no one else will go through what you have for him. This world is going to get ugly long before it gets pretty again. Especially the longer we endure the worst of this world. Kindness will dissolve to selfishness, not because people want to be that way – most don’t, not really, but they will because they have to in order to survive. And you’ll have to. For him.”
Fletcher, still cradling baby Bowen in one arm, reached for his sidearm and drew the weapon out and handed it over to Kat, “You’re going to need this.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Take it.”
She did.
“See the slide?” Kat put her hand on it and Fletcher nodded she was correct, “Pull that back. Now you have one in the chamber. The weapon is hot.”
“I don’t know how to shoot.”
“You don’t need to. All that we’ve encountered, bullets don’t kill them. Slow them down a little, sure. But you can’t kill what is already dead. Just aim for their chest or if they get close. You don’t have to be a marksman, Kat, I’m not going to lie to you. If they get close enough that you can put one between their eyes, that’s most likely game over for you.”
“That’s not very – ”
An echo of the sound of metal grinding against metal shut Kat’s mouth and got all the SWAT members on their feet. No one said a word. For minutes everyone was silent. Fletcher handed baby Bowen back to Kat and she had tucked the gun into the waistband of her pants. The SWAT team began fanning out, their weapons at the ready as Fletcher made silent hand motions that told his team what to do. Kat was pushed back into the elevator and Fletcher put a finger to his lips telling her not to make a sound. Her heart was pounding so loudly that she thought it could be heard in the cavern of the lobby.
Skreeeee
Fletcher’s eyes looked away from Kat and up to the ceiling of the elevator. He pointed up, leveling his weapon at the roof of the elevator.
Skreeeee
This time the noise came from outside the elevator, but close. Jonesy came silently running across the carpet of the hotel lobby with one hand on his weapon and the other pointing up at the other elevator shaft. Fletcher grabbed Kat and pulled her out of the elevator and pushed her behind him. He kept one hand on her as he stood in front of the open elevator while Jonesy stood in the other.
“Doors?” Jonesy whispered.
“Gotta be,” Fletcher responded.
Together Jonesy and Fletcher stepped into the elevator both with their rifles pointed at the ceiling. When the crash came only Jonesy jumped back. Fletcher waited, listening. There was movement above them. One or maybe two – well he couldn’t be sure what could be up there. He moved, circling around the elevator so that his back was to the far wall and Jonesy was in front of him. Whatever was up there would have to go through both of them.
There came another sound of grinding metal on metal and something twisting. Above Fletcher he could hear murmuring.
; “Zee’s?”
Fletcher shook his head. He didn’t think so.
“Boston police! Who’s up there?”
“Jeezus! Get us out of here!” A frantic voice called from above the elevator ceiling. Fletcher and Jonesy slung their weapons behind them and began working together to undo the ceiling hatch. Green and Rivera came rushing to the elevator and leveled their weapons.
“What’s going on?” Green asked.
“Civvies.”
“How many?”
“Don’t know.”
“Move back,” Fletcher called up to the unknown number of survivors. “We’re going to get you out.”
“Hurry.”
“Ready?” Fletcher was looking at Rivera and Green. He didn’t have to tell his partners that as soon as the civvies were out of the shaft that hatch was locking behind them. He knew, and assumed, that part of them did as well. If there were survivors in the elevator shaft then it wouldn’t be long before there were Zees as well.
Fletcher cranked and the hatch popped. He pushed it up and in the darkness saw the outline of a body coming toward him. A hand stretched out, dirty but alive, and Fletcher pulled one and then another person down.
“It’s just us,” one of them said, a kid in his early twenties, “the rest are dead.”
“They’re all dead!” Screamed the other survivor. Another kid. Two guys that booked a hotel room in Boston to probably head out clubbing at night and trying to get lucky. There would be no more lucky nights.
“Lock the hatch.”
Fletcher’s hand was on it, but his eyes were fixed on the small amount of red light beaming down from the shaft. Up five flights, six maybe, one of the dead loomed by the entrance of the elevator shaft, squeezing and pushing its way between the doors that had been locked. It made a chattering noise with its hungry teeth and the hacking noise echoing into the shaft through its dead lungs.
The hatch came shut with a thunderous echo that bled into the empty lobby. Before Fletcher could even finish his sentence, “They’re coming,” the first heavy thump of a body striking the roof of the elevator sent them all reeling back a couple feet.
Beyond Dead | Book 2 | The Day The Whole World Went Away Page 5