The Dead Saga (Book 4): Odium IV

by Claire C. Riley

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  We don’t make it there before it blows, but it’s damned close. The engine gives up on the last mile or so, meaning that a) it creates a lot of noise, and b) we have to run and fight the rest of the way to the town.

  The sun is setting as we make it to the town, and somehow we’ve managed to stay ahead of the horde that’s following us. But we’re tired and sweaty now, our arms aching from fighting, our legs aching from running, and of course we’re running on empty—no water or food in almost a full day.

  There seems little point in heading down to the main street, as that’s normally where the bigger hordes end up, so we dive in between the buildings and head for the back streets in the hopes of finding somewhere to stop, if not for the night then at least for a moment so we can catch our breath.

  But there’s no such luck, as every street we pass down is filled with deaders that all turn to follow us as they catch a whiff of our pungent-yet-no-doubt-delightful scent.

  I hack across another deader’s head, my arm almost too tired to pull my hatchet back out until I kick at it and free my weapon.

  I look down the alleyway we turned into, grateful to see only a handful of deaders since we can’t go back the way we just came. The light is dying and the streets are filling with shadows as I cut another deader down.

  “Mikey, this way,” O’Donnell gasps breathlessly. Her hands are gripping holding of the straps of the bomb backpack to try and stop it from jiggling around so much, and I once again pray that she’s done a good job of making them.

  The deader I just hit is on the ground, and I put my foot on its face and pull with both hands to free my hatchet, feeling the deader’s nose and cheekbones crushing beneath my boot.

  I’m tiring, but adrenaline and instincts are still keeping me pushing onwards. I almost fall backwards as my hatchet comes free, and I immediately turn and follow O’Donnell, Ricky, and Phil, turning a corner and realizing that if deaders could think then they’d have just ambushed us.

  The horde is even bigger back here, and we all take several steps backwards as the horde turns to stare, their hungry gazes fixing on us. I head back down the alley, but the other end is already filling up with deaders so we’re blocked in from both sides.

  I look up at the high walls of the buildings, which have us trapped, looking for any way to get out of here. There are fire exit stairs to the left, but they don’t reach all the way down and there’s no way I can reach them on my own.

  I turn to Phil. “Gimme a boost,” I say, pointing up toward the stairs.

  He nods and bends down to one knee, and I climb onto his shoulders. He grunts as he stands up and I reach up, my fingertips brushing against the metal of the stairs.

  “Still can’t reach,” I yell down to him.

  “Mikey, they’re getting close,” O’Donnell calls back.

  “Gonna have to stand on your shoulders, Phil. Can you hold steady?” I don’t hear his response, but when I glance down, Ricky’s standing by Phil and has a hold of my ankles as he helps boost me upwards. My hands grip onto the metal railing. “Got it,” I call, holding on tightly and pulling down hard.

  The ladders are stuck through years of rust, but I pull again and finally feel them moving. The hordes are almost upon us, and I pull with the last remaining strength I have, finally feeling the ladder free itself and come loose. Phil steps away and I hold on as the ladder drops down, and then I climb up the steps as quickly as I can, hearing the rest of them following me. O’Donnell is the last up, and as she crawls onto the first floor landing, I help her pull the ladder back up.

  A deader is still clinging to the bars, and O’Donnell grips her long-range rifle and swings it down, hitting the deader in the face and then in the hands until it lets go and falls on the ground with an unsavory splat.

  “Stupid ass,” she calls down after it before turning to face us. She’s covered in sweat and gore, her eyes are wide with fear and adrenaline, and by God she looks wild and alive.

  “Okay, we need to head up again,” I say, turning to head up the next set of ladders.

  O’Donnell lets out a scream as a deader from inside the apartment we’re standing outside of smashes its face against the glass. Dark blood splatters across the glass and its teeth mash and snap relentlessly. It throws itself angrily against the window again, this time finally breaking through, and splinters of glass shower us all. It lunges for O’Donnell, who swings out with her rifle to hit it while instinctively taking a step away from it, the backs of her legs hitting the low railing and sending her tumbling over into the abyss behind her.

  “O’Donnell!” I call, watching the whole thing play out from my spot on the stairs.

  She screams all the way down, her eyes wide in shock and horror, arms and legs reaching upwards as if she could cling onto the air around her and stop herself from falling. But of course she can’t.

  “O’Donnell!” Ricky yells after her as he lunges toward the edge, but Phil grabs the back of his shirt and begins dragging him away and up the next set of stairs as more deaders begin to come out of the apartment, climbing their way over the broken glass and gutting themselves.

  We climb the next set, and I drag those steps up and immediately turn to head up the next, until we’re finally on the roof of the apartment building. I clamber over the side, falling to my knees. I’d like a minute to process what the fuck just happened, or to at least catch my breath, but instead I grab my hatchet as I survey the scene of deaders before us.

  There aren’t many, maybe five or six, but we are exhausted. The deaders begin their shamble toward us, the loud gasps of hunger echoing out into the now-dark night air. I stay near the edge, waiting for them to lunge for me, and then grab them and throw them off the edge. Two of them meet their maker this way before Phil and Ricky take care of the rest and we can finally stop and stare at each other breathlessly.

  Ricky falls to his knees and begins sobbing, and I look over the edge at the deaders surrounding the building. I can’t see much—it’s too dark now, the sun finally setting—but I can hear them down there. I look back and watch Phil go over to Ricky and kneel down. He whispers something to him, and Ricky shrugs him off but quits crying.

  I’m breathless and exhausted, and now there’s crushing guilt about the loss of O’Donnell. I had begun to care for her, at least in that way that survivors do, and now she’s gone. And though I know logically that her death wasn’t my fault, the guilt still festers inside of me.

  “We need to lock this roof up for the night,” Phil says, and I nod.

  We leave Ricky to his demons as we scour the rest of the roof, finding the sole entrance to it and locking it up as quietly and securely as possible. There’s no moon tonight, and I can barely make out Phil’s expression as he stops walking.

  “I can’t believe O’Donnell’s gone.” He speaks quietly, his words a whisper. “Aiken’s gonna be pissed, she was one of our best shooters. And Ricky…” His words trail off and we both turn to look at Ricky, who’s still hunched on the floor. “This is all fucked up,” Phil finally says, and then begins walking back toward Ricky.

  I can’t disagree with him.

  I follow him over so that we’re all together, and then I sit down. We stay in silence for a long time, none of us having anything left to say, or maybe too afraid to speak in case of what might come out. If I feel guilty, then Ricky will no doubt be blaming me. That’s how we work. One of us has to be the bad guy in all of this, and since it was my idea to get to this town, I’ll be the one to take the blame. I’m okay with that; I’ll take his blame if I have to.

  I think of our night together and feel even worse. She had just wanted someone to connect with, and after all these years on her own, and she had chosen me. And what did I do? I turned her down flat.

  She had wanted one night to forget the world, to find some hope in a hopeless situation, and I had been too broken up about Nina to do it. I had finally cried, letting O’Donnell hold me un
til my well of sadness and grief had been empty, at least for the time being. And she hadn’t said a thing. She understood; women always do.

  I don’t regret not sleeping with O’Donnell, but I do feel bad for it. Because, like she said, it’s human nature to want to connect with another person. And that was all she had wanted.

  I stay on first watch as Phil and Ricky fall asleep, and I watch the horizon for the small flickers of light that show any form of humanity that might still be living. I see none, and all I hear as the night draws in are the incessant groans of the dead below us.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Phil and I swap shifts somewhere between night and day, but I wake feeling just as rotten as I did when I went to sleep. Ricky is still sleeping, and when we wake him he looks like a Chucky doll, with his angry expression. He sits up and glares around us, his eyes red-rimmed from sadness and exhaustion, even though he slept through the night. My stomach grumbles loudly, as does Phil’s, and my throat is drier than sandpaper, but I lick my lips out of habit all the same.

  The day is already starting to warm up, and we need to move before it gets too hot or we get too weak to fight our way down from here. I stand up and head over to the ledge to look down. There are a couple of shamblers down there, but most of them have moved on. There’s a large stain of blood on the ground that I can see even from this height. I feel dizzy as I think of O’Donnell, and I silently pray that she died upon impact and didn’t feel a thing as the horde pounced on her still-warm body.

  “How’s it looking?” Phil asks as he comes to stand next to me. He looks down and then quickly away. “Like that, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I agree, knowing that he’s talking about the bloodstain, “like that.”

  We turn our backs on the ledge and look around us. The building we’re on isn’t particularly tall, but we can see sufficiently around the small town. There are a couple of other buildings with deaders on their roofs, but they all seem to be standing still—just the odd tremor running through their rotting bodies.

  “So, you thinking down and out?” Phil asks, seeing my gaze move over to the door we secured last night.

  “I’m not sure. We don’t know what’s inside.”

  “Or how many.”

  “Or how many,” I agree. “And once we get down, then what? We’re still stuck with the problem of getting a working vehicle and getting back to Haven. And I’m thirsty—we need water ASAP.” I look up at the sun, seeing it rising, a bright orange burning fire in the sky, promising yet another scorcher.

  “One thing at a time, buddy,” Phil says. He looks around, going over to the other side of the building, and I follow him, stepping over the air conditioning pipes and around the electric boxes and such. He stops at the edge and looks down and I do the same, surprised to see that this way is clear.

  Phil steps back and then looks across to the other building. There’s another ledge and another ladder, and more windows, but the roof is clear. There’s a set of ladders reaching across from that building to ours, though how stable it is is anyone’s guess. Not just that, but surrounding that building is a barricade, and it still looks sturdy, meaning the only thing to worry about is what’s locked inside it. With the ladder the way it is, perhaps there are people alive? Perhaps not. But either way, we need to get off this roof.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask, trying to work out his plan. I watch him slowly nod and rub a hand over his beard before turning to me with a serious look. I have a feeling he has a great plan and is going to blow my mind right now with it.

  “I honestly have no idea. I’m not good at making plans,” he finally confesses.

  Normally I would laugh, but I’m not much in the mood for laughing right now so I shake my head and take over in his thinking.

  “So we get inside this building, get to the—” I count the floors on the other building, “—third floor, jump across to the other building, and check out if over there is any clearer? If it’s not, we make it to the roof and grab a quick breather before moving on to the next building along. One of these is sure to give us a decent escape route.”

  Phil nods and looks back over his shoulder. “You’re going to need to watch your back with him.”

  I turn and look at Ricky, who’s standing up and looking over the ledge to the ground, his shoulders slumped.

  “Ya think?” I ask, worry bubbling in my gut—because I’ve been thinking the same thing, but hearing someone else voice that exact same opinion makes it seem more real.

  “Yeah, dude. He’s going to blame you for her death—”

  “But it wasn’t—” I cut in.

  “I know, dude, I know. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s but the goddamn zeds. You don’t need to tell me that, but Ricky,” Phil looks at me, “he’s always had a thing for that chick, and everyone saw the spark in her eye when she looked at you. She would have followed you anywhere. Even here. Plus, we went against Aiken’s orders; we looked for the kid instead of taking out the barn. We’re both gonna’ catch shit for that.”

  I think about that for a minute, letting the silence of the still day descend over us. There’s no point in arguing with any of what Phil’s said. He’s right. I had known how O’Donnell felt about me, but I’d shut down that road with her as soon as I could. As for following me—fuck, there had been nowhere else to go but here! I figure we can discuss it all with Aiken once we get back home though. If we make it home. And as for the consequences to my decision, I’ll take whatever punishment he sees fit.

  “She really cared about you, Mikey,” Phil says, lighting up a cigarette.

  “She was a good friend, for the little time I knew her anyway,” I say sadly.

  Phil cocks his head to one side. “It was more than that though, right? I mean, you two hooked up.”

  “Nope, we never did,” I reply.

  “Well damn, that’s not what Ricky thinks. He was mouthing off about you coming in here and stealing his chance with her. They’ve both been single since the last attack, everyone thought they’d hook up at some point—and then you showed up.” Phil goes quiet as if thinking about everything, and then he shakes his head again. “Damn, dude, what a revelation.”

  I shake my head, not sure what to say. “Whatever, there’s more important things to think about right now,” I say, and begin walking over to where Ricky stands.

  He turns around as we approach, his eyes full of sorrow.

  “We’ve got a plan—at least a semi-plan,” I say.

  “Hopefully it’s better than your last one,” Ricky replies flatly.

  I force myself to not rise to the bait. It isn’t worth it. “We need to get inside this building. I think we can get across the next building along if we get to the third floor. There’s a ladder reaching across. I think if we can get to that one and get inside we stand a better chance.”

  Ricky pulls out his knife and I flinch. His eyes spark at my obvious anxiety. “All right, let’s go then.”

  I look to Phil, who’s watching Ricky warily. “I’ll go in first, Ricky, you flank the rear, okay?”

  They both nod and we fall into line as we make our way to the door. We pull away the barricade that we put up last night, and then I pull the door open and look inside. It’s dark and quiet, not a groan or a growl to be heard. I take that as a positive sign and head inside with Phil and Ricky following me.

  We take the concrete stairs slowly, ignoring the obvious stench of decay coming from somewhere. It might be deaders, or it might be a genuinely dead body for all we know. I hope for the latter.

  The staircase gets darker the lower we go, until we’re practically in complete blackness. Ricky pulls out a small flashlight and passes it forward to me, and I shine it in front of us. It’s almost dead, the light barely penetrating the ground in front of me, but I’m not complaining as any light is better than none.

  We hit the first landing and I shine the light on the wall to see which number we’re at, seeing that we’re only
on number five.

  “Two more to go,” I whisper, and continue downwards into the black abyss.

  On the next landing we’re met with the cause of the stench, which has grown exponentially the lower we’ve gone: bodies—lots of them. They were deaders at one time, but now they’re nothing more than rotting mush. I step over the first one, keeping my hatchet tight in my grip in case any of them aren’t quite dead-dead, but thankfully none of them move.

  Phil is less graceful than me and kicks the bodies out of the way, much to our own disgust. With every body moved, more stench is unleashed until we’re practically choking on the rot smell. I gag and keep on going downwards, knowing that it should be the third floor and the one we’ll have to enter. I hurry down those last few steps, eager to get away from the smell and back out into some fresh air.

  As we hit the third floor landing, stepping over a deader’s body halfway up the stairs, its head smashed in, we hear the first groaning we’ve heard in a while. I don’t bother to look back at Ricky and Phil, but instead choose to let the sound spur us all on since it’s coming from farther down the building.

  The door to the third floor has a small window in it, and I shine my shitty flashlight through the glass to try and see what’s beyond. From what I can make out, it’s quiet, so I lower the flashlight and pull on the handle before stepping inside.

  The air smells stale and humid, a small amount of light penetrating the musty interior from the window at the end of the hallway, and we head toward that to give ourselves a better reference on where we are.

  The window is smeared in blood and is one of those that doesn’t open. But we can see out of it, and we work out that the ladder we need to use to cross to the other building is at either the third or fourth apartment on the left.

  Apartment A68 or A69.

  “I say we go with sixty-nine first,” Phil whispers next to me.

  “I wonder why,” Ricky whispers back.

  “What can I say? It’s a lucky number,” Phil replies, his tone serious.