by K Helms
Juanita squeezed close to his side, looked at the padlock and rummaged in her fanny pack. “I’d better not hear any comments about Mexican’s and stealing shit either,” she said as she withdrew a set of lock picks.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” he asked in surprise, but with a tone of admiration.
“I taught myself when I was with Annie.”
“Who’s Annie?”
“She’s dead,” she said quietly as she worked the picks.
“Sorry.”
“Would you shut up and let me work?” Juanita said in exasperation. Arlington held the light for her and watched as her short fingers worked with surprising dexterity. She didn’t like people looking at her hands, she hated how they looked and assumed that everyone else did too. She thought they looked like those little Vienna sausages, but this wasn’t the time for such a trivial discussion. The faster she got through this door the faster they could be on their way and within a few seconds the lock clicked open.
“That was awesome! Can you teach me how to do that?” Arlington asked, genuinely impressed. She placed the tools back in her pack and slid it behind her around her waist. She liked how he had said that, there was admiration there, almost a childlike quality in his voice.
She smiled up at him with perfectly lined, white teeth “Nope. A girl’s gotta have her secrets.” She unslung the shotgun from her shoulder and backed away from the door.
He smiled back in his crooked way.
“Well…are we going in?” she whispered. There was a loud booming noise from the stairwell above them that sounded like something heavy against metal, followed by a long, shrill scream and Juanita’s eyes widened. She looked at Arlington with unspoken questions in her eyes. More screams cut the silence and the hairs on his neck and arms stood on end. He knew there was an exit on the floor above. The dead were close but how close he couldn’t tell.
“Stay here,” he said and ran up the stairs. She grabbed at the holster strapped around his waist, but missed and she watched him sprint away into the darkness above, his body seemed to dissolve into the shadows as if they had consumed him.
The roar of the twelve gauge was deafening in the enclosed space and its concussion surprised a scream from her. The shot was followed by two more before she saw Arlington scrambling back to her, his face pale and scared. He opened the door and ushered her in. “It’s our only choice. They’re comin’ through the exits upstairs and headin’ straight for us.” He slammed the door shut and turned the weak thumb lock.
“How did they…?”
“I don’t know,” he said as he wrapped the chain through the handles on the inside of the door. He clicked the padlock into place and the door boomed as the first of the dead arrived and threw its body into it.
“I hope that chain holds,” he said, then began turning over the metal shelves closest to the doors and barricading it with their weight.
Juanita watched, frozen, staring at the doors and her tiny body jerked each time the doors boomed with brutal impact.
“Ms. Mendoza.”
She snapped her head up.
“D’ya wanna scout around while I secure these doors?” he asked above the din of bodies colliding with the metal doors.
“Yeah,” she said regaining her composure and held her shotgun before her as she scanned the light left and right, up and down as she disappeared into the gloom. She was clearly shaken, but she hadn’t let that stop her. Arlington liked that.
He stacked boxes of dusty artifacts on top of the overturned shelves. The contents of the musty smelling boxes were probably priceless, but to him their only worth was in their weight. He wasn’t particularly fond of blocking his only exit and was aware that eventually they would have to fight their way out and face the almost certain probability of becoming lunch meat or starving to death inside. He was soaked in sweat when he fished out the radio from his pack and called the ship.
“Basil, where are you?”
The radio crackled and broke, “The rooftop. I figured it wouldn’t matter. The dead didn’t come after the ship this time. They went directly…..” the radio signal broke again.
“Basil!” he yelled into the radio
“…here. I think the link between myself and the one that has the other skull knew we were going…..” again the radio signal broke and Arlington smacked the device against his thigh.
“Are you there?”
“…skulls are interfering with the signal…”
“How many of the dead are there?”
Arlington thought he could make out the word thousand but he wasn’t sure.
“Laptu is having a fit….wants to protect the baby…”
“Make sure the big galloot stays in the ship. Is there any way out of here?” He cursed himself for bringing the Bigfoot. Juanita had been right; they should have left the big guy behind and let him play with the babies.
…completely surrounded…”
“What about the roof?”
“It’s covered.”
“Dang it,” Arlington spat. “Keep me posted if anything happens.”
“You….well…” the signal was lost again and Arlington put it back in his pack.
“Neff, back here!” Juanita shouted from the shadows. Arlington worked his way through the rows of shelves and found her peeking over the edge of a large wooden crate. She saw him and said, “I don’t know why I’m surprised, but the skulls are vibrating. It’s really weird.”
He placed a hand knuckle side down on one of the skulls. “Dang, they must be vibrating at like a million beats a minute. I can feel it rattling my eyes.”
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now we throw them in the pack,” he said, as he slid his arms from the straps and laid it on the floor.
“OK…then what?” she asked in agitation as he shoved the skulls into the pack. It was a tight fit, but as he jostled them he was able to secure the flap and close it around them.
He nodded toward the shelves. “I s’pose we’ll take an inventory to see what else we’ve got down here. Maybe we’ll find something that’ll help us get outa here.”
“Right, broken pieces of pottery and a dinosaur shin bone should be more than a match for a million hungry corpses,” she said, waving the light toward the door. She saw that there were small bulges forming on its surface from the fists on the other side.
“Stranger things have happened.”
She glanced at his hook and tapped it with a knuckle. “You need a break?”
“Actually this hook is great, better than the original,” he said then realized that she probably needed one. He couldn’t mask his cringe as he mentally kicked his callousness. “How ‘bout you, you need a break?”
“I could use one, yeah.”
“You should have said something.”
“I don’t like to bitch,” she said and saw how Arlington raised an eyebrow. She gave him a playful shove in the stomach and noticed that there was virtually no fat on him at all. “I mean I don’t like to bitch about my hips hurting.”
He motioned for her to sit. “I s’pose I could use a little break myself,” he said.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, not buying his bull, “I’m just not very good at stairs and five flights of them were way too many.” She eased herself down, leaning on the twenty gauge for support. He saw her face become pained as she lowered herself to the floor. For a moment they just listened to the booming of the doors and the chain rattling with each concussion.
He sat down, legs splayed straight out. He flicked the safety on with his hook and she got a better look at it. There were actually three hooks lined side by side that could curl all together or one at a time.
“I’ve seen artificial hands before but that one is…I don’t know…different.”
“Noah gave it to me.” He patted the back of his head. “Put a chip in my brain too.”
She frowned. “So you were abducted and they did that to you without your permiss
ion?”
“I had my concerns about it at first, but the longer time goes by, the more I appreciate it,” he said.
She continued to frown. “Still, they should have asked first.”
Arlington shrugged, a frown etched on his brow.
“It saved me… see, I used to be into all these conspiracy theories. It was a waste of time, just a selfish fantasy to escape into.” He looked at his hook appreciatively and rooted in a cardboard box, extracting a cylindrical can of non-dairy creamer. She watched as he stuffed the can in his pack and he continued without commenting on the condiment. “I’ve been a screw up my whole life,” he said as he rubbed his hand over the opposite tattoo covered arm. Juanita thought he had nice arms, regardless of the poorly rendered art that adorned them. He looked up at her and just enjoyed looking at her for a moment. “Do you believe in God?” he asked.
She was taken aback for a moment, wondering where that question had come from, and then she reached into the collar of her shirt and withdrew a tiny gold cross. She let it fall between her breasts. “Catholic,” she said as she watched, amused as he tried valiantly not to stare at her breasts. “They aren’t real, you know?”
Arlington was thankful that it was poorly lit in the depths of the basement, because he could feel his cheeks getting hot. “I wasn’t….”
She held up a small hand stopping him. “It’s alright. I didn’t ask for these either,” she nodded her chin toward her chest and told him about the Doctor and Annie.
“If I didn’t have these,” she said, placing her hand between her breasts, “you would probably stare at me because I’m a midget, huh?”
“I thought you were a hypochondriac.”
“Hypochondroplasia, Arlington, actually being called a midget really doesn’t bother me. I‘ve heard it all my life. Technically I am a dwarf, but you didn’t answer my question,” she said, leveling her dark brown eyes on his dull blue ones.
“I’d still stare, I guess,” he admitted. “But it's because you really do look like this one actress I like, not because you're a midget.” He thought for a minute then said, “People used to stare at my old hook too, you know?”
She supposed that she did know.
“I think you look like a pirate,” she said in a matter of fact tone.
“Captain Hook, kinda scurvy? I’ve heard that once or twice,” he smiled.
“No, Neff, not scurvy, you’re actually kind of cute when you aren’t being a dunce. But I can one-up you on that…I’ve heard about a thousand drunk guys ask me if I have a flat head so they could rest their beers on it,” she said blushing, with a laugh, and although he was surprised at her confession Arlington laughed too.
“How many of them did you punch in the balls?”
She gave a sly grin. “I’ve smashed a few grapes in my time,” she said “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we Mr. Neff.”
He shrugged. “I think we make a good pair, Ms. Mendoza.”
“Nita, my friends call me Nita.”
“Mine usually call me asshole, but I prefer Arlington.”
She was silent for a moment as if she were trying to decide something, then she scooted over beside him and rested her head against his arm. She wasn’t sure why she did this, it wasn’t like her to show this much trust, especially with someone she hadn’t known long. He raised his arm and wrapped it around her small frame. His hook rested on her thigh and she picked it up and held it in her hand, examining the strange metal. She watched as the hook coiled around her hand, holding it firmly, but gently and she smiled.
Soon she was breathing lightly from her mouth and Arlington saw that she had fallen asleep. He watched her as she dozed and allowed her to sleep a while.
Juanita woke to the thunderous blows against the doors. The noise echoed through the basement and sounded even louder and more aggressive than before. She patted the floor beside her and found her shotgun. She flipped on the light.
“Arlington?” she whispered and shined the light in every direction searching for him. She jumped as she heard more metallic banging sounds from behind her, opposite the double doors. She rose slowly to her feet, ignoring the pain that ripped through her hips. She walked cautiously to the back of the basement.
“Arlington?” Juanita said again, still in a whisper, but a little louder than the first.
She heard the sound of a light weight metal crashing against the concrete floor like a cheap cymbal, and jumped involuntarily. She forced herself to move forward and her sneakers were silent as she tip-toed across the floor. She eased her finger against the trigger.
“Arlington?”
She heard a whoomp as thin metal dented. She jacked a round into the chamber and shined her light at the back corner. She saw the metal duct work of one of the museum’s industrial-sized air conditioners had been ripped open and from within heard the sounds of movement through its hollow confines.
She barely had to duck her head as she peered into the blackness of the metal duct and shined her light up the vertical shaft. Fifteen feet above her head she saw the bottoms of Arlington’s boots slide to the side and watched as they disappeared from view.
“Arlington,” she said, louder this time, but still received no response.
From behind her she heard something that sounded like a small caliber gunshot and knew that the chain that separated them from the dead had finally snapped. She heard metal wrenching against metal and heavy boxes crash to the floor as the contents broke in smaller pieces.
“Arlington! They’re coming!”
She aimed the shotgun out of the hole in the duct toward the unearthly screams of rage and wails of hunger as they continued to batter their way through the door. She heard the shrieking of metal sliding against concrete as they pushed the overturned shelves out of their way and entered the basement.
She shot a quick upward glance into the darkness of the ductwork and heard even more banging from where Arlington had climbed. “Arlington! Dammit! Can you hear me?” she screamed, and shaking, pointed the shotgun back toward the door. She heard the disjointed slapping of bare feet on the concrete floor then her light caught the milk white eyes of the dead that reflected like an Anubis’s in the beams of headlights. Juanita aimed and fired, disintegrating the head of the leading dead. Its body fell backward into another who slammed its carcass to the side with a sideways sweep of its arm. She chambered another round and fired. It took another one of the dead men full in the chest, staggering it, but it didn’t fall. She knew that to kill them you must shoot them in the head but her nerves made her jump the gun. The ragged chest cavity oozed with puss and maggots. She gagged, almost threw up, but managed to swallow the bile back down. Juanita screamed Arlington’s name as she fired again and again and again until the firing pin struck nothing and made an empty click. The light click seemed virtually as loud as the metal shrieking against the floor. It was a sound of finality.
The dead were moving forward, faster and more urgently. They swarmed into the basement like a walking mud slide through the opened double doors. They were thirty feet away at most. She backed fully into the duct and fumbled to reload the shotgun. She dropped the first shell and it rolled out of the duct and onto the concrete. She grabbed another and thumbed it into the underside of the weapon. She glanced up and saw no sign of Arlington.
The dead were closing fast upon Juanita. Her fingers had grown cold and she was shaking violently; her teeth began to chatter. She managed to insert another round in the shotgun then dared another glance at the dead.
Oh God… she thought; transfixed on the macabre visage that approached.
“Arlington! Please!” Juanita screamed as she loaded a third shell. It was all the time she could waste. She raised the shotgun to her shoulder, pumped a shell and fired, making sure she aimed higher than the chest. Another head exploded, the shrapnel of the buck shot, bits of skull fragments and teeth at this close range ripped into the dead woman behind the first, taking the top of its skull with it.
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nbsp; Arms reached for her, flailing. Fingers twisted into meat hooks and slashed at her face. She felt something drop onto her shoulder, she jumped when she heard Arlington’s voice booming down the duct work as if he were in an amphitheater. “Grab it!”
She moved automatically, without thinking, she dropped the shotgun and grabbed the rope in both hands. As she was being raised up the duct she felt a hand latch onto her shoe. She kicked at it, but it refused to let go. She placed the toe of her other shoe on the back of the shoe being held and kicked off the shoe. The corpse flew backwards and fell onto the row of dead behind it. She felt herself being propelled upward, but the trip seemed far too short and not nearly far enough away from the dead below her. Arlington’s hand and hook grabbed her beneath her arms and hoisted her over the ledge of the duct.
She was shaking uncontrollably. “I lost my shoe,” she said absently, and Arlington knew that she was going into shock.
“We’ll get you some new ones when we get outa here.”
He pulled her through the duct as he backed to the end of it.
“When I give the word, you’ll have to grab on again,” he instructed then hoisted himself up the homemade rope to the next level. The rope was made of multiple lengths of packing twine that had been twisted together over top of the unraveled Ranger bracelet; duct tape spiraled over the outside of the rope helping to hold it together and adding extra strength.
She managed to grab hold of the rope and hang on for one more level, but could go no further. He noticed that her breathing was fast and labored. He dragged her from the edge, reached into his pack, stuffing his para-cord rope inside. He felt around in the pack and found the can of non-dairy creamer that he had found in one of the boxes below. The stuff was highly combustible, he wasn’t sure what was in the stuff that rendered it so, but he had seen it on some television show, so he dumped the contents of the can down the chute. If the dead followed them he would toss his Zippo down onto them and ignite the powder. It wouldn’t kill them, but it might slow them down some.