Vertical City (Book 3)
Page 11
Turing from her, I shake my head and massage the back of my neck.
“We can go back to VC1. Matthais, that’s his name, he’s the killer. We can go back and I can talk to Odin and Shooter for you. They run the place and would be willing to listen and probably-”
“Jesus, if they’re running your settlement then they know what’s going on! They’re part of it!”
“You don’t know that!”
She points to the monitors.
“How much more do you need to see?”
She continues to talk, but I’m not listening. My eyes are glued to another monitor that’s showing real-time footage of the streets.
There’s something in one of the shots, a solitary man fleeing from a battalion of Dubs.
I gasp because I know the man by the slump-shouldered way he moves.
It’s him.
It’s Gus.
He’s alive and running for his life.
Chapter 19
“GUS!” I scream, jabbing a finger at the monitor.
I grab my Onesie and Naia’s penlight and run to the front door. The bolts slide back and the security bars are kicked aside.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Naia screams.
“I’M HELPING HIM!”
Naia grabs my arm.
“There’s too many of them!”
I shrug off her hand and she throws her body in front of the door.
“I’m not letting him die.”
“He’s already dead, Wyatt. There’s no way he’s going to make it.”
“Get out of my way.”
“I’ll stop you.”
My hands white-knuckle the Onesie, the weapon poised at my hip.
“You can try.”
“Why the hell would you risk your neck for one person?”
“Because he’s my friend and you did it for me, didn’t you?”
A sour smile creases her face. She makes a sound of irritation and then steps aside. I snap on her flashlight and head down into the garage.
In short order I cross the garage and am back near the door that Naia pulled me through. Taking up a position behind the door I press my ear to it. Nothing sounds on the other side.
Clutching my Onesie against my chest, I throw open the door and shoot a look down the passageway. It’s clear but there are sounds coming from out on the street.
I wait for Naia but a stifled cry of distress issues from somewhere out in the blankness. My brain tells me to run in the opposite direction, but my body won’t abide and so I thread down the passageway.
A Dub confronts me halfway through the space and I shoot it down and then another does the same and I spill its diseased brains with a flick of the wrist.
Exploding out of the other end of the passageway, I run on pure instinct, drawing a bead on whatever it is that’s bleating, calling out for help.
The noises resolve into a pack of Dubs that spring into view. They’ve got something, presumably Gus, trapped inside an overturned truck.
Drawing two quick breaths I shout and the Dubs turn and I fire, spraying darts from my gun.
The ghouls topple in stages.
I reach the edge of the truck and spot Gus who manages to dredge up a smile.
“Funny meeting you here.”
“How?” is the only thing I can think to ask.
“I did what I do best. I played dumb.”
Gus twists himself out of the truck and we turn to confront the things that twist and toil in the shadows.
“How many are there?” I ask.
“More than enough.”
We linger near the truck for a few heartbeats as Gus hunts in the ground debris, pulling up a piece of rusted rebar to use as a weapon.
The adrenaline that came with my run to the truck seeps away. My head throbs and my muscles ache and my stomach bunches. Gus senses my anxiety and grips my wrist, steadying me.
“Remember that first time they took you out on The Dream Catcher?”
I nod, the Dubs drawing close.
“You were what? All of fifteen?”
“Sixteen.”
“And there you were with Shooter, fumbling around, falling down, slamming against the side of the building. But you kept getting back up. Know what Shooter told me?”
I shake my head.
“The kid ain’t much, but he don’t quit.”
Gus smiles.
“How much you have left in the tank?”
“Fumes.”
“Fumes are enough,” Gus says.
The Dubs surge toward us from every quadrant of the city block and Gus begs for forgiveness for what will come next and promises to take no pleasure in the killing of Dubs.
“Don’t worry, Wyatt,” he says, the Dubs crashing down toward us. “If I come back I won’t bite you.”
“You might not have a choice.”
The faintest wisp of a smile comes over his face.
“I’ve seen some things,” he whispers. “I think there’s still a little piece of free-will in all of them.”
We hesitate and then charge forward.
I fire out the remaining darts in my gun, making a dent in their ranks and then we’re knee deep in the suck.
The duel cleaver-like blades on my Onesie carve through the Dubs’ flesh, slicing off arms and heads and bisecting rotting torsos that break apart, steam and putrid air billowing out.
Maybe it’s simply survival instinct, but a fury seems to build in Gus. He meets the incoming tide of Dubs with a sky-shattering scream, kicking and battering them with his two-handed rebar. He thrusts the rebar through the throat of a female Dub with a maimed face and cracks the skulls of two teenagers before a Dub, a particularly fat-bellied male specimen, overpowers him.
Gus collapses under the Dub’s bulk, holding the thing’s chin up to prevent a bite. I take the top off the Dub’s skull and then Gus and I are running through a gap in the attackers that quickly closes.
We’re surrounded in an ocean of death, the Dubs matching us step for step, drawing closer and then-
There’s a sickening wet crunch as Naia shows herself, a sledgehammer in each hand. She thumps skulls and generally pummels the Dubs, beating a path forward for us.
We rush to meet her and I bob my head in Gus’s direction.
“Naia meet Gus, Gus, meet Naia.”
They exchange tense looks and then the Dubs counterattack, led by a nude, one-eyed monster with a doctor’s stethoscope wrapped so tightly around the neck that it has become one with the flesh.
We stand our ground and brace for the worst, readying to fight back, realizing there’s simply too many of them to defeat.
Sweat and blood weep down my wrists, my hands greasy. It’s nearly impossible to lift my Onesie. Naia looks used up, face slapped red, pearls of sweat clustering on her forehead and neck.
The Dubs charge and Naia bursts forward then-
WONK! WONK! WONK!
A series of bonfire-bright spotlights flash on.
Cones of white light sweep out, turning night to day.
I’m blinded and drop my Onesie. My hands shield my eyes and then engines roar and men shout and the shooting starts.
The three of us drop to the ground and squint, watching as the remaining Dubs are cut down. I still can’t make out who’s doing the shooting, but I have a guess and in seconds dark cutouts are running at us, backlit by the spotlights.
Gus and Naia stand and throw their hands up and in the sweep of light something flashes.
There’s a flash and then a crackle of electricity followed by screams as Gus and Naia drop to the ground, convulsing.
Shouting, I wave my hands while trying to hood my eyes. There are men in goggles and masks. Something jumps at me and I swing my Onesie up and a hand grabs and rips it away from me.
Turning, I peer up into the same battle mask I was so grateful to see back in VC1.
I’m staring at Matthais.
He’s holding my weapon.
“You!” I say and the
n Matthais punches me in the jaw and my world spins and I crash to the ground.
I drift in and out of consciousness, but rally, able to roll over and see Matthais standing over me.
He’s holding a weapon I’ve seen in magazines before.
A device, a gun, known by its manufacturing name back before the great dying: Taser.
There’s a blue light that shimmers on the end of the thing and then the gun fires and something hits me in the chest and it feels like I’m burning from the inside out.
I rock and quiver and foam gushes from my mouth. The last thing I hear are volleys of laughter and then the world spins and everything goes dark.
THE END OF PART 3
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About The Author
George S. Mahaffey Jr. is a practicing lawyer and screenwriter. His script HEATSEEKERS was bought by Paramount with Michael Bay producing and Timur Bekmambetov directing. In addition, he’s sold or written scripts for Arnold Kopelson, Jason Blum, Benderspink, director Louis Leterrier, and is the creator of IN THE DUST, an action-horror graphic novel in the vein of 30 DAYS OF NIGHT to be published by Top Cow with art by Christian Duce, and the author of BLOOD RUNNERS, Book 1, and the horror novellas, AMITYVILLE: ORIGINS, RAZORBACKS, RAZORBACKS II, THE PACT, VERTICAL CITY (Parts 1 and 2), as well as the THUNDER ROAD action series (Books 1 and 2).