He sat up, and managed to stand on his one good leg, his other dangling gingerly, just barely touching the ground. He looked back up the hill he had come down, and saw shapes moving underneath the streetlights. They were coming. He didn't have much time. He hopped over to the truck and saw the man from the grocery store. His forehead was curved the wrong way thanks to the steering wheel of the truck.
Mort looked at the other car, and didn't imagine that things would be much better on the inside of that car, as the entire front of the sedan had been ripped off by the diesel beast of a truck. Mort fumbled around in the man's pockets, searching for his gun. No luck. Then he noticed a glimmer of silver on the floor of the truck. He reached for the shine and pulled out the man's handgun. It was heavy in his hands.
He backed away from the car, holding the gun gingerly and trying to avoid tripping over the cans of food that littered the street. His only thought was of escape. He looked at the gun in his hand, and for a moment, he was tempted to put the barrel in his mouth and take the simplest way out. But that's not who he was. He wasn't a quitter, and if he had been, he would have been dead a long time ago.
Behind him one of the cars caught fire. That was a good enough sign for him to move. Mort hobbled down the street, looking for anywhere to hide. There were plenty of ramshackle houses along the street, but the last thing he wanted to do was break into a house and hold people at gunpoint. He settled on a small restaurant named Hot Chops.
It was a two-story house that had been converted into a business. Ten wooden steps climbed up to the first floor of the house. He limped up the steps, each flex of his bruised knee bringing more agony. He looked over his shoulder and back down the street. They were gaining ground. Soon, the dead would be at the vehicles he had left behind.
As he reached the second floor landing, Mort put his face to the windows to see if he could see inside. It was pitch black inside. Using the butt of the gun, he smashed in one of the windows and then cleared away the glass. He crawled inside, grunting in discomfort as he tried to maneuver his injured leg through the window with the least amount of pain. Once he got inside, he laid there, catching his breath and waiting for the pain to subside.
He listened for footsteps or any other sounds of alarm, but there were none. When he was satisfied that no one was going to come and shoot him in the back, he rose to his feet and looked out the window. He was just in time to see the burning car explode. It wasn't a huge explosion, but he felt the force and heat from it down the block, and the sound was deafening. Car alarms erupted in a cacophony of wailing throughout the neighborhood.
Shadows stumbled in front of the fire, outlined against its brilliance as they moved down the street and towards his hiding spot. Flame-engulfed figures emerged from the conflagration and stumbled after them. A man with a hunting rifle burst out of the front door of one of the houses next door. With his back to Mort's vantage point, he began taking aim at the bodies moving down the street. The loud report of the man's rifle echoed through the streets. He might as well have been spitting spitballs at a mannequin for all the difference it made. In the darkness, he couldn't see exactly where the man was hitting them, but he watched just the same. Then, to his elation, one of the burning shapes went down, and didn't move again.
Mort pulled his head back in the window and smiled to himself. "So they can be killed."
He stumbled around in the darkness of the restaurant, bumping into clunky wooden tables. He swept the place settings onto the floor with his arm, and tipped a table over on its side. He pushed it across the wood floor and set it in front of the broken window he had crawled into. It wasn't much for the moment, but it should give him some sort of warning if one of those things tried to crawl inside, and he simply couldn't do anything else with his knee in the condition that it was in.
Car alarms blared and the occasional sound of rifle fire masked all the noise that he made. He was tempted to turn on a light, but he didn't know if the light would draw those things to the house. Rather than risk it, he felt his way around the dining room, and then made his way into the kitchen. Cold metal counters and the smell of used cooking oil assaulted his nose. He would give anything for a flashlight, but there was none to be had, at least not that his eyes could distinguish in the dark.
He felt around the kitchen until he discovered what he thought was a stand-up freezer, visions of dead creatures in the darkness danced though his head. He pulled it open. The light from the inside lit up the kitchen enough for him to see. The kitchen appeared to be clear, so he tucked the gun into the back of his pants. The barrel was cold against his skin.
By the light of the freezer, he pulled up the left leg of his pants and examined his knee. The swelling was awful. His knee looked like it belonged more to an elephant than an out-of-shape homeless man. Mort lowered himself to the ground, his leg stretched out before him. He reached into the freezer and pulled out a pork chop, placing it on his knee. He sucked in a breath as the frozen meat touched his skin.
He closed his eyes and sat there. Enjoying the brief respite. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. It was his last one, who knew for how long. He lit the cigarette, took a deep breath, and blew the smoke into the air.
He imagined that he was on a train, headed to wherever, hiding in a train car, ready to jump off at a moment's notice. Maybe he would go to the country. Maybe he could find a way down South, take a look at the old family homestead. He doubted it was still standing. It had been little more than a tin shack when he had left it.
It was all just a pipe dream anyway. He took a drag off of his cigarette and then ashed on the floor. He wasn't in the mood for etiquette at the moment. As he exhaled, he heard a noise upstairs. It sounded like the scraping of furniture on wood, but he couldn't be sure. He put the pork chop he had been icing his knee with back in the freezer and closed the door. He sat there, listening for any further noise as his eyes adjusted to the dark, then he rose to his feet, pulling on the counter to get himself up. Now that he had rested, he was calming down and the adrenaline was leaving his body. He realized just how sore and tired he had become. He didn't know how much longer he could go on for. All he wanted to do was sleep, but first, he had to check out the noise.
He walked into the dining room, and checked the table just to be sure. It was still there, ready to be knocked over at the slightest disturbance. In the darkness, he found a door that opened onto a steep staircase that led upstairs. He pulled his purloined revolver from his pants and took a deep breath.
His climb up the stairs was slow and arduous. The house was old, and the stairs squeaked with every step. When he reached the top of the stairs, he stood there shrouded in silence, clutching the pistol.
"Hello? Is anybody there?"
From somewhere in the house, he heard footsteps coming towards him, shuffling steps, uneven. He couldn't tell what direction they were coming from. It was too dark to see who or what was approaching him. His left hand instinctively searched the wall for a light switch, while his right hand shook with the pistol in it.
"Stop where you are."
The footsteps continued, shuffling across the wooden floor.
"I have a gun. I don't want to hurt you."
The fingers of his left hand touched on a switch, and he flipped it up just as an elderly black woman reached for his throat. He had time to see vomit dribble from her mouth before they both tumbled down the stairs.
Somewhere in the tumble, the gun went off. Blood dripped onto him as he fended off the woman's bites. She was straddling him, and it was only a matter of time before he was bitten. He fumbled around on the ground for the pistol, but he couldn't find it. With his left arm locked at a ninety degree angle, he pushed the woman back as far as he could, which wasn't far enough as far as he was concerned. Vomit dripped from her mouth onto his face, and her cold weight sent fear through his body.
The fingertips of his free arm brushed against the metal of the pistol. It was just out of his reach. H
e pushed the woman backwards and sat up, straining abdominal muscles that hadn't been used in years. Holding the woman at arm's length, he finally managed to grasp the butt of the gun. In one smooth motion, he brought it up under her chin and pulled the trigger. The flash temporarily blinded him in the darkness.
The struggling stopped, and Mort let out a scream of rage as the woman's body tumbled to the side, limp and very dead. He gestured at the woman's corpse with the gun, searching for something, anything to say. But mostly he was just a raw pile of emotions and fear. He heard the table in the dining room falling over, as one of those things attempted to climb inside. He turned and fired blindly at the window.
The light from upstairs barely reached where he was, so he couldn't see anything, but he heard a large thump as someone or something slithered in the broken window and landed on the floor. That was enough for him. Mort backed up the stairs; his entire body seemed composed of aches and wounds. He heard a couple more thumps, and then he heard the telltale sound of shuffling feet, a sound he was coming to despise. When he reached the landing, he examined the hallway.
There were multiple doorways, but he chose one at random. He closed the door lightly. He was in luck; the door he had chosen was to the bathroom, and it had a lock on it. He stepped into the bathroom, closed the door, and turned the lock. At least he was trapped in a place that had water. Mort wondered if he would turn into one of those things if he died from thirst.
It wasn't long until there was banging at the door. It was uncanny how they seemed to find him everywhere he went. Mort lowered himself onto the ground, and peered through the crack between the floor and the door. He could see a pair of shoes standing in the hallway. Behind that pair of shoes he could see a corpse climbing up the last few stairs in the stairwell. The sun couldn't rise soon enough.
Chapter 38: Hey, Neighbor
The police weren't coming. Of that he was sure. He could see the beginnings of sunrise out the window. He had thought about running to the fire escape, but he was frozen in place in the hopes that the cops would come. They were still banging on the door, and Rudy had no idea what he was going to do.
He was glad he lived in an apartment complex with thick doors. He was even more glad that he had several deadbolts. Rudy's stomach growled at him. It wasn't a sound he was used to hearing; he usually did an excellent job of keeping his stomach full. Part of him wanted to just run into the kitchen, pop a Hot Pocket in the microwave and eat his last meal, but the other part of him thought that the added noise would just keep the freaks outside banging on his door for even longer. They would have to get tired sooner or later? Right?
Rudy rose from the ground, his legs quaking under his bulk. He walked over to the window that looked out on the fire escape. The first touches of pink lit the horizon to the east, and he could see people moving in the street. It wasn't normal movement however. There were people running, and here and there he could see forms stumbling right down the middle of the street. The people weren't walking on the sidewalk, and he had seen that shambling gait before.
Things were bad, and for the first time in Rudy's life, he knew that he was going to have to get himself out of this jam on his own. No one was going to help him. With a groan, he unlatched his window and lifted it up. His breathing was labored, and he swore to himself when he looked over the ledge that led to the fire escape. His head spun, and he cursed himself for ever agreeing to live on the third floor of an apartment complex.
Rudy threw one of his legs over the edge of the windowsill. The banging at the door continued. His head spun as he looked down at the street. He couldn't do it. Just as he was about to pull his leg back inside, he heard the sound of splintering wood. The banging at the door became even more intense, and there was no turning back.
He pulled his other leg over the railing and put all of his weight on it. He yelped as the fire escape shifted under his weight. He could see the bolts rattling ever so slightly in the holes that had once been drilled in red brick decades ago. At any moment, the fire escape could give way, but given the choice of being eaten alive or plummeting to his death, Rudy would just as soon tumble to the rain-soaked pavement.
Rudy inched down the stairs of the fire escape, grasping the iron rails as he went. Wherever his hand touched the rails, the white paint flaked off to reveal rusted iron surfaces. The sun emerged over the top of the tall apartment buildings, and he was bathed in an orange glow. From up above, he heard the door to his apartment burst open. He had reached the landing to the next apartment, and he peeked inside.
The lights were off, and the reflection of the sun prevented him from seeing anything other than his own freckled face. Without warning, the window was thrown up, and a hand pulled him inside. He fell without grace, sprawled on the ground and in pain despite all of his unintentional padding. A soft hand was placed over his face, and as he lay there, muffling his groans of pain. He realized that he had been saved by the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen.
"Shut up," she said.
He was too shocked to make any noise. She left him wordless on the ground, as she ran to the window and slammed it shut. That’s when they heard them, the two monsters that had been banging on his door all night. They clumsily clambered onto the fire escape, their footfalls echoing throughout the not-so-quiet morning. There was a loud screech of metal, and then the fire escape tumbled away from the building, bits of eroded brick dust glittering in the sunlight.
Rudy and his savior rushed to the window. With a grace that matched her beauty, she threw up the window, and they both looked over the edge. In the street, the fire escape sprawled out on the pavement, looking like nothing more than a white-ribbed worm, a giant DNA model that had fallen to the ground. Amid the twisted metal, his pursuers wiggled and squirmed, their appendages broken in numerous spots. He shuddered to think what he would look like if he had been on the fire escape when the two had emerged from his apartment.
He pulled his head back in the window, and that’s when he noticed that the most beautiful woman he had ever seen had a gun pointed at him.
“You can leave now.”
Rudy’s experience with talking to women was confined to arguing with his own foster mothers and giving female professors a hard time. He wanted to talk to this woman; he wanted to get to know her. But it was going to be hard to do that with a gun pointed at his head.
“I have nowhere to go,” he whined.
“Not my problem,” she shot back. Clearly she had a heart, or else she wouldn’t have saved him, but it was also apparent that she was scared out of her mind.
“Listen, I can’t go back to my apartment. The door is broken down. If I get trapped in there, there’s no way to escape.” Her only reply was to cock the gun.
He put his hands up and backed away as a reply. “Can I at least know your name?”
Rudy didn’t think she was going to say anything, but then she cocked her head, as if to “Say what could it hurt?” With a voice like sweet apple pie she said, “My name is Chloe.”
Rudy smiled his best disarming smile and said “My name is Rudy, Rudy Lincoln.”
“Nice to meet you Rudy. Now get the hell out of my apartment.” She gestured at the door with her gun.
He turned to go. Undoing the chain and throwing the deadbolts open, he pulled the door open and stepped into the hallway of the apartment complex. As he shut the door behind him, her heard Chloe’s sweet voice say, “Stay safe, Rudy.”
When he shut the door, he heard the chain rattle against the door and the deadbolts slide home. He wanted to be inside that apartment with Chloe. He wanted to protect her, or be protected; he didn’t quite know which.
With his head sunk between his shoulders, he moped up to his apartment. The door hung on one brass hinge. The wood of the doorjamb was broken. He tried to close the door, but the wood was damaged beyond repair.
Rudy sat in his La-Z-Boy, and watched the sun rise. He opened his last Mountain Dew Code Red and turned on his Xbox.
>
“Well, I might as well get in a few more games before the end of the world.”
Chapter 39: As Day Breaks
As the day broke across the city, and even across the country, thousands of scenes of horror like the following played out, tragic deaths of those that had no idea that something was going on, something apocalyptic.
***
Nina Gonzalez-Santiago slept with earplugs in. That’s what you had to do when you lived in an apartment complex where ranchero music blasted until three in the morning. It’s not that her neighbors were rude. It was just normal. Your cousin got married? Time to drink until 3 in the morning, singing songs drunkenly with all your family members. Your daughter turned fifteen? Time to have a quinceañera, and then drink until 3 in the morning, singing drunken songs with your family members. Hey! Someone had a baby! You know what that means… drinking until 3 in the morning… singing loudly… while loud ranchero music makes the walls shake.
Nina had learned long ago, from her own family’s experiences, that one does not simply go over to the apartment of someone who has been drinking for the whole day and ask them to turn the music down. That’s not how it works. Even if they did turn it down, they would likely only do so until you had climbed the stairs back to your own apartment and crawled in bed. Then it would come on, most likely louder than it was before. That’s how her dad had always done it.
So it was with earplugs that Nina slumbered at night. She could still feel the bass from time to time, but feeling bass wasn’t nearly as irritating as actually having to listen to it. When Nina raised her head off the pillow that morning to greet the sunshine, she had slept through the gunfire, the explosions, and the screaming. As far as Nina knew, today was just a regular day.
This Rotten World (Book 1) Page 14