by Nick Cole
He pushed on it with his hands. His fingertips, really.
And it slid outward. Away from him with the slight suck-pop of a vacuum equalizing air pressure. Then it pivoted on unseen hinges to rest against one wall within the darkness ahead.
Not darkness.
Not Blackness.
Not Black. But that was its color... the color black.
Except, thought Holiday, there was no such thing as black. Hadn’t he heard that somewhere, once? That black was merely the absence of color.
Or was that white?
He got down on his hands and knees and inched toward the portal. Getting close, he felt that just beyond the threshold lay some kind of void. Some massive empty space that seemed the opposite of the all the tight spaces he’d been in. The opposite, in fact, of everything ever known.
It was...
A nothingness.
He poked his head through the door and found himself staring into a pit. A yawning well of nothingness. There were no walls. No nothing. Just infinity. And it instantly caused the mind to reel and consider the possibilities of madness.
He looked down and felt, more than saw, a yawning chasm of endless nothingness without end or shape.
Nothingness.
Endlessly.
A beckoning void.
For long moment he stared into it. Incredulous. Trying to comprehend it. Trying to understand the concept of nothing, because how often do you think about it? Actual nothing. His mind tried to fray and yet his curiosity continued to stare into it. Wanting to understand what nothing actually was.
What were its limits?
Its depths?
Its reaches?
And in the end... what was it? And why was it?
He knew that the doorway was a mere portal opening into it and that he was standing in that portal. And all he had to do was step forward into it and he would... know?
He kept thinking about that moment, above, in the simulation when he’d seen the man drowning in mud. It had seemed so real and he’d heard that phrase in his head.
This is death.
And at that moment, after everything he’d been through in the past few weeks, that had maybe seemed like the worst thing that could happen to a person. Death. Swallowed down into the mud. The worst thing that could happen to you was to be swallowed by the mud. Helpless to change the outcome.
But now he knew...
There were other worse things.
Endless Nothingness. To fall into it... was to... what?
To fall Forever. With a capital “F.”
That, he thought, that was worse.
He backed away from the portal and continued to crawl along what seemed the never-ending wall. But he could feel that opening into nothingness behind him. Waiting for his return. That rent in the void. And then the void beyond.
Endless...
Nothingness.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Frank is crawling across the hot surface of the metal container. It sounds as though a million angry bees are inside, each buzzing as though loads of caffeine and sugar have been injected into their tiny bodies and a million small heart attacks are just moments away.
It is the sound of all the dead piling up under the wall and flooding down the drive that leads to the gate from the street beyond. More and more are still flowing down the narrow palm-lined road, funneled into the gate by the sides of the three-story container walls that form the U-shaped entrance. Drawn by noise that draws more of them that will make more noise to draw more of them. A perpetual machine that will feed itself forever so that it may go on feeding itself forever.
Dante misses one of the dead struggling to reach the top and strikes the container, creating a resounding metal Claaaang!
His strength and focus are fading.
Do something, thinks Frank. But what can they do?
His hands close on one of the fire axes they’d hauled up here for just such an emergency. He thinks about the 45s back at his condo. Under the upstairs bathroom sink. His “cleaners” he used to call them.
As in... time to clean.
But the bullets he’s got on hand won’t even make a dent in the growing crowd below.
Whoever thinks they’re going to need that much ammo when they’re at the gun store? Certainly not a professional assassin. Generally, he only needs three bullets. A magazine at most. And that’s only if things go terribly wrong.
Except that time in Budapest.
He’d needed a lot more than that. They had needed a lot more than that. And of course... there had been the last time. Because... Marie.
It takes all of Frank’s strength to heave himself to his feet, gripping the axe with both hands. He waits until Ritter finishes an off-balance swing, aiming badly and taking off the side of a gray-fleshed dead woman’s head as she falls lifelessly into the press below, disappearing into the crowd as though she were being swallowed by a sea of angry dead people.
Dead. Finally. Again.
Then he taps Ritter on the shoulder. Ritter turns, exhaustion and fear fighting for advertising space on his tight drawn face.
Dante’s growling with each strike now. Working himself into a rage just to keep going. His breath is coming in huge ragged wheezes as he heaves the axe and slams it down into some new predator. Again and again and again...
“Five minute’s rest and then you take over for Dante.”
“Frank, you gotta rest too,” says Ritter. “I got this...”
But he doesn’t. He’s already dropped the head of the axe to the surface of the container. Too tired to keep it in the ready position.
No one understands how hard it is to stay in combat, hand to hand combat, until they’ve done it. It ain’t like the movies. Thirty seconds at most.
Adrenaline pumping like a street rod off the line winding up to max rpm.
Fear telling you you’re about to die.
Hate telling you it’s got to be the other guy.
Pushing away the consequences because in the end, it comes down to who wants it more. Who wants to hurt the other guy bad enough to walk away from this fight as the winner.
Whatever that means.
“You can’t,” Ritter mumbled weakly, seeing something in Frank that Frank doesn’t want to think about.
“Got to, kid. This is the way it has to be. We’ll keep rotating until we’ve cleared them off the wall. Okay?”
But with the noise and the crowd surging forward, clearing them off the wall seems impossible. And if they do, there’ll just be more. Sisyphus had it easy. Just one big old rock to deal with. This is a tidal wave that doesn’t stop hitting the beach. The corpses are like a machine that keeps feeding itself more and more of its own, its noise drawing all the dead from nearby. Which had seemed, just days ago, impossible. They’d been rarely seen. Now they’re coming out of the woodwork. Coming from everywhere. Heading straight for this point on the wall.
Like they were aimed or something.
“Got to, kid. Got to be this way.”
Ritter steps back. His eyes are dully watching Dante massacre zombie after zombie. Track suit guy and business girl and so many others. Stay at home mom and some middle-aged guy who had on pants but no shirt. Someone after someone. Crunching bone, snapping chops to foreheads, necks and shoulders. Dante is a corpse-killing machine. His eyes are filled with hatred. But even he’s starting to fade. Each blow is a little more badly aimed than the last. A little harder to disengage from torn skin and broken bone. From rib cages and deep cuts down to the spine. A little less “oomph” with each swing.
The end is approaching. If not of all things... then this... whatever this is.
Frank puts too much effort into his first swing and cleaves a dude from forehead to collarbone, almost losing the axe as the zombie falls. He pulls it out and adjusts his feet as another
guy, a rail-thin crack addict shriek-moaning like he’s on fire with the DTs and the horror of the infinite, waves scabbed and blood-crusted hands upward. What teeth he still has, gnash between hyperventilating shrieks as he comes straight at Frank.
Do you remember that, he asks himself. Do you remember when you said, “It has to be this way.”
“Yeah,” he grunts aloud, as he uses the spike on the axe’s head to pulp the crack addict’s brain. The guy goes limp and surfs downward, headfirst, along a mindless horde trying to pull themselves up his falling body, everywhere their gray-green hands and hoary faces struggling upward for the top of the wall. For them.
I remember, thinks Frank.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Warlord to convoy.” The voice was flat, always emotionless and more so across the net. “We’re heading away from the freeway. Drone Intel indicates it’s too jammed with vehicles and infected.” And... “Stay with the convoy if you want to live.”
The undulating snake of military vehicles, blood-spattered and dusty, bashed front ends and gore-covered windows, wallows out of the construction site, struggling up from the depths of a lake of drowned corpses.
The convoy dives into a another large crowd of the walking dead. One of the Humvees suddenly goes sideways and flips. The dead dogpile it, and it’s clear to everyone in the other vehicles that there is no hope for anyone. Including themselves.
But hey... fight on. What else is there left to do?
Gautreaux shot Braddock a look. A look that said... well, that’s that. We’re mercenaries after all.
The dead were climbing atop the Hummer just in front of them. The gunner was trying to take them out with a sidearm because he couldn’t get the minigun to come to bear. Suddenly one of them latched onto his arm and bit. Blood spray erupted out across the hot orange daylight. The man’s black face was instantly gray and he stuck the pistol under the zeke’s chin and pulled the trigger, blowing off his own arm in the process. Then he just collapsed into the turret.
For a moment the convoy ahead was free, as the big MRAP ground zombie skulls and bodies beneath its giant-sized knobby all-terrain tires. Then the convoy was accelerating down a wide boulevard divided by a dry median of dead grass. Braddock checked his watch. It was just after midday. If they didn’t reach the objective by nightfall they’d be out here, in it, without walls to get behind.
For all these weeks of running ops for Tarragon and Task Force 19, there’d always been a safe zone. A place to get some sleep, at least for a few hours. A meal. More ammo. Safety.
But out here, tonight, exposed... there’d be none of that. No safety. No rest. And eventually they’d be out of gas. Then they’d really be trapped.
And then there was Steele’s threat. The threat that he’d burn the world if he didn’t reach the objective by nightfall.
Braddock pushed those thoughts away. Steele’s Humvee smashed through a fence that ran alongside the road. The flimsy barrier was wrapped in a green mesh that obscured visibility for anyone trying to see what was on the other side. Usually government bases, prisons, or construction sites used this same kind of fencing.
Gautreaux drove the iron monster MRAP through the ragged gap as Braddock checked the side mirror. Zekes were already flooding after them from between tall buildings along the empty street.
The whole area seemed to be some sort of downtown business district undergoing redevelopment before everything went sideways. But old. Sixties Telstar architecture co-mingling with old time turn-of-the-century mercantile bank design.
Beyond the tear in the fence lay a large sprawling mall complex. The entrances were all barricaded with construction materials.
Recently.
Steele’s hummer increased speed as the gunner in the turret fired into one of the makeshift barricades, tearing it to wooden splinters and shredded plywood in a blur of subsonic lead dispensed in bulk.
The Hummer slowed, then threaded the demolished barrier, disappearing into the darkness of the mall.
“Got clearance?” asked Brees, his voice tense and worried.
“About to find out, mon frère,” said Gautreaux as he gunned the engine and forced the massive vehicle into the mall atrium. Glass and bits of plaster facade rained down across the bulletproof glass and armored hull.
In the darkness of the mall, Braddock could see the other vehicles heading down the arcade of darkened shops, smashing into tables and chairs as they made for the main concourse.
Passing survivors coming out from the shadows.
They were coming out of darkened stores and from further back in the mall, staring incredulously at the passing military vehicles. Braddock could read it on each and every face. Wondering why these “saviors” were leaving them for the deeper recesses of the mall.
“Halt!” ordered Braddock.
“But... mon Cap-i-tain... the convoy will leave us behind.”
“Halt.”
“Cap... zekes are crossing that parking lot fast. They gonna be all up in this in just a few.” Brees rotated the gun back toward the entrance. Braddock could see outside in the side mirror. The burning bright daylight. The distance and the zekes crossing the sunbaked parking lot fast.
A woman, one of the survivors, her face dirty, her clothes ragged, approached the MRAP, holding a hunting rifle. Two small children followed until she waved them back into the shadows of a cell phone store.
“Paladin Six,” called Steele over the net. “Continue with the mission. We are leaving this mall by another exit on the far side of the building. The Infected will pursue these survivors while the convoy escapes.”
The woman came forward, holding her rifle across her chest more for protection than anything else. She mouthed words up at Braddock, but they were drowned out by the grumbling roar of the MRAP.
Braddock rolled down the window.
“Paladin Six... respond or we will leave you behind.”
“Sir,” whispered Brees.
“Aren’t you here,” shouted the woman over the rumbling idling engine noise. “Aren’t you here to rescue us?”
“Paladin...” Steele’s voice was cold. Emotionless. To the point. “You understand the stakes, Captain Braddock.”
Braddock keyed his mic.
“I do, Warlord. But we are not leaving survivors behind, or defenseless.”
Then Braddock ordered Gautreaux to back the large vehicle up and block the entrance as best they could.
In the closing distance, the zekes shambled toward the gap, some even running out ahead of their stumbling gray brethren.
Running.
Which seemed a new thing to Braddock.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Holiday was on his belly and slithering again. The maze alongside the curving and immense wall containing the well of nothingness Holiday was now trying not to think about, had dead-ended in row of bizarre futuristic computers.
Holiday was sure they were some kind of computers. They hummed and had the occasional status lights. Like old-school mainframes. They felt warm to the touch. Like a space-age version of computers made back in the 1970s. Row upon row and stack after stack of them. The only way forward was to crawl beneath them on a floor so smooth, the surface tension was almost nonexistent. There wasn’t even any dust down there. Just a dull red light and that silent warm hum of thrumming ultra-powerful processors crunching numbers all around him. During a short break, Holiday turned over on his back and stared up at stacked racks of processors climbing several stories up and almost seeming like some sort of infinity mirror trick.
How could he still be anywhere near where he’d first entered that weird game simulation? he wondered.
After what felt like an hour later, he crawled through the last of the processors and found a floor that was like a sea of glass. Its mirrored reflection showed a dim vision of a baffled ceramic white ceil
ing high above.
The silence was overwhelming. Not an absence of sound. But the sound of silence as an overwhelming tone muffling everything in a living blanket.
A few steps away from the forest of enigmatic computer processor racks, and he could no longer hear their quiet insectile hum.
This, Holiday thought, is the largest room I’ve ever been in.
The room was indeed huge. Vast even. Probably several football fields wide, side by side. He started out across its hellishly lit expanse. Even his own footsteps seemed muted by its distance and depth.
Holiday stopped, thinking he was hearing some machine-like sound, growing from buzz to deep hum. But it wasn’t that. It was the silence itself. It was as if it was growing in intensity. Increasing in volume. Its decibels slowly rising into some vast ocean of white noise, and when he was on the verge of no longer being able to bear it...
... a croak like a bullfrog announced the presence of a giant electronic eye that appeared out of nothing. One second it wasn’t there, and in the next, its two lids parted in what was the vast emptiness of the room, opening to reveal a cyclopean eye that gazed immediately upon Holiday.
Holiday stopped beneath its glare. He could feel his heart thundering against the wall of his chest. His mouth was dry as he tried to swallow, and distantly he remembered he had not had water in...
... he could not remember how long.
That the eye was alien, was clear.
It was an enormous dark pupil that was more oblong than round. But it wasn’t a real eye. It seemed... almost like a cartoon of an eye. Or something animated. But incredibly lifelike.
Holiday moved to the left, trying to circumvent it. It followed him. There was no rage in it, or hate, it merely studied him, as one might study a captured lab animal, or some pinioned thing before you dissected it limb by limb in a tray.
It followed him and he began to run. And even as he ran, he knew there was no reason why he should be running. He just ran. Just wanted to get away from it. Away from everything that had happened since...
... since everything began to get so weird...