Gary Lee laughed, not fazed by the knife to his throat, “I always knew this day would come. I just didn’t know it would be at the hands of you, Satchmo. What are you doing running around with this cracker? Why are you doing this?”
Lou looked at Gary Lee and said, “You’re not the Gary Lee I grew up with. The Gary Lee I knew would be fighting, trying to help people. Instead, you’re up here, high as hell, and… I can’t even say it.”
Gary Lee laughed some more. “Go on. I’m not ashamed. She lets me do whatever I want to do. It takes a little while to get used to the cold, but it can be done. Go on give her a try yourself. I'd stay away from her mouth though.” Lou's laugh was a booming one, tinged with a slight hint of madness.
“Don’t listen to him, Lou. Find the goddamn guns and let’s get the hell out of here.”
Lou tossed the room, coming up with a submachine gun, a couple of pistols, and a few boxes of ammunition. Lou loaded the guns and they were ready. He took aim at Gary Lee and said, “Any last words?”
Gary Lee looked at Lou with defiance in his eyes, “You’re no son of mine.” With that, Lou pulled the trigger, sending Gary Lee’s brains splattering across the dirty white mattress.
Zeke sprung to his feet and grabbed the submachine gun from Lou. He had known all along, of course. The resemblance was too much to be a coincidence. Give Lou a Jheri Curl, and he would be the spitting image of Gary Lee, only twenty years younger and without the haggard junkie face.
“You good? You ready to move?”
Lou looked at Zeke and said, “Nah, man. I’m not good. But I can move.”
Just then, they heard what they had been fearing. With a shriek of twisted metal, the gate came down. Zeke pulled the curtain back and watched as 30 dead people shambled across the courtyard, breaking glass bottles and crushing cans with each footstep. There were more dead heading their way, drawn by the shriek of the gate or the gunshot. It didn't matter.
“What do we do now?” Lou asked.
Zeke squeezed a round into the naked lady's head and said, “We wait.”
Chapter 43: Til Death Do Us Part
Old Han fired his pistol without thinking as the youth slid through the broken window. His wife’s shrieking drove all feelings of romance away. As more people appeared at the window, he retreated to the back of the house, dragging Fang along with him.
“Bad things are happening,” Han said, “very bad things.”
Fang stopped screaming long enough to state the obvious, “You killed that child.”
Normally, he would have told her to shut her mouth, but it was important that she realized what was going on. “He was already dead. Look.” He pointed at the figure of the youth wearing a black Bruno Mars t-shirt. The youth stumbled down the hallway, blood seeping from the bullet hole on his shirt.
“I don’t understand,” Fang whimpered.
“Of course you don’t. What would you do without me?” Han took aim and the child fell to the ground, a hole in his forehead and his brains sliding down the living room wall. There were more behind him. Han dragged Fang into the bedroom and closed the door behind him.
He set the pistol on the bed as he began to drag the dresser to block off the door. Despite the fact that the dresser weighed twice as much as he did, he managed to get it in front of the door just as the pounding began.
He turned around to wipe the sweat off of his brow when he saw her standing there, the gun leveled at his face.
“What you doing?” Han demanded. He took a step towards her, and she yelled at him to stop, her finger on the trigger. “You crazy?”
“You’re the crazy one,” she yelled. “You always have been.”
“I’m only say once. Give me that gun.”
“Then what? Don’t you see? It’s here. The end of the world is here.” She smiled as if a grand idea had blossomed in her brain. “It’s here.”
She pulled the trigger, and Old Han fell backwards onto the floor. His hand went to his chest. Blood pumped out of it spraying across the room with every beat of his heart. Fang dropped the gun on the bed and knelt beside Han, cradling his head. He looked up at her with questioning eyes.
They said nothing. Fang held her man until he faded away, tears streaming down her face; the pounding at the door become deafening. His eyes closed one last time, and she knew he was safe, her devoted husband, safe from his own madness and perhaps even her own.
Fang had waited patiently for the end of the world, waited years in fact while that decrepit little ball of hate had slept silently next to her for decades. That cheapskate, heartless bastard refusing to die on his own, yet refusing to leave her at the same time. Pride is a strange thing, strange enough that it could make two people who loathed each other sleep in the same bed for year after year, neither one refusing to budge, refusing to give in and admit that somewhere along the way they had become wrong for each other.
Han’s inability to embrace the opportunity around him, to understand the new world that they were living in, had driven a wedge between them that set them growing in different directions for decades. Each day they woke up, they were further and further apart.
She had looked at him from the corner of her eye during breakfast, plotting against him for years. She could see the same looks from him every now and then, but as is always the case, the woman was always better at hiding her feelings, at being more circumspect.
Now it was done. Her new life awaited her just outside the door. All she had to do was shoot her way past them and make it to somewhere safe. She stood up, gently setting Han’s head down on the floor.
She pulled an old piece of luggage from the closet, the same luggage she had used when they had come to America. She began putting her clothes in the luggage, cramming them into the suitcase with shaking hands, unconcerned with tidiness.
She was zipping up the suitcase when Han’s hand, still slightly warm, seized her ankle. He pulled her down to the ground and began clawing at her. He was small, but she had always been smaller.
Fang screamed as Han straddled her and bit into the flesh of her bicep. She punched and kicked, but nothing had any effect. The struggle lasted longer than one would have expected looking at the size of Fang, but in the end, the pounding on the door stopped, and Han and Fang were united forever as husband and wife, trapped in a squalid room in America, far from home.
Chapter 44: Swords and Flames
Rudy sat in his apartment, his busted door yawning open as the day brightened. His mind whirled with possibilities… or the lack thereof. He could see if he could find a car, maybe something with the keys still in the ignition. He could try and escape on foot. Despite the fact that he had never learned to drive and was woefully out of shape, either of these ideas would be better than sitting in an apartment with a busted door waiting for another dead person to wander in.
He grabbed the remains of his last bottle of Code Red off the counter and unscrewed the red cap. Sweet, sweet sugar flooded his gullet, and he wiped his brow as if he had just finished with a long day of work. He could have been filming a soft drink commercial.
A thought suddenly popped into his head as the caffeinated refreshment coursed its way through his body. His neighbor, the jerk-off British guy across the hall... he was dead. He seemed like the type that would have a weapon stashed away here and there. At the very least, he would probably have a butcher knife, which would be an upgrade over the dull, ancient steak knife that he had sitting in his lap.
Without hesitation, he walked across the hall and stood in front of his neighbor’s door. He tested the handle just to be sure, but it was locked. Rudy took a running start at the door and hit it as hard as he could. He bounced off, the only damage being to his pride.
From down the hall, he heard a giggle.
"Who's there?" he queried tremulously, rolling his body over so he could stand. There was no answer. Rudy looked down the hallway at the door at the end of the hall. A girl lived there, not as attractive as the girl dow
nstairs, but he would count himself lucky if he could even talk to her. His face blushed as he stared at the darkness of the peephole in her door, imagining her there, her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle her laughter.
Rudy hoped he was just hearing things. He lowered his shoulder, pumped his thick legs, and charged into the door again. This time, he did a backflip as the surprisingly sturdy door rejected his ponderousness. This time there was more than giggling. There was outright laughter coming from behind the doorway at the end of the hall.
"Cut it out!" he yelled. "It isn't funny!" Spittle flew from his mouth as he knelt on the floor, his face flushed with blood and his eyes beginning to tear up. He knelt on one knee, trying not to burst into tears. The door at the end of the hallway opened, and he thought the floodgates were going to open with it, but he was able to maintain his fragile emotions as she appeared, laughing, with her hand over her mouth.
She was wearing black cargo pants and a red T-shirt with a grey long-sleeved shirt underneath. Her boots were clunky brown things, and they pounded on the floor of the apartment complex as she rushed to help him to his feet. Through their combined efforts of struggling and groaning, they were able to get him standing again.
"What are you doing?" she said between her smiling teeth.
Rudy was never very good at directly answering people's questions. He always had something smart to say, whether he wanted to say it or not. Maybe it was the shock of the night and its terrible events, but Rudy found himself answering sincerely for one of the few times in his life. "I'm afraid."
The woman stopped laughing and said, "I am too."
Rudy straightened out his bedraggled clothing as he continued, "I thought maybe this guy might have some sort of weapon in his apartment, so I was trying to kick the door down."
"Maybe we can do it together," she said.
For a second, Rudy thought she was talking about sex, and then he shook his head. Of course not, he thought. Who would have anything to do with him and his ginger bulk? "Yeah. Let's give it a try."
She counted to three, and they both charged at the door. It splintered off the hinges, and they both fell inward. She was the first to her feet, and again she helped him stand, her warm hands sending electricity up his arms and into his brain. He was still looking her in the eyes when he became aware of how awkward he had become. Then he noticed the surroundings.
The man's apartment looked like some sort of deranged torture chamber. Whips and chains hung from the walls, and the entire room had the smell of old, stale marijuana smoke. A huge, four-person bong shaped like a dragon with swooping wings sat on the living room table. The floor was covered in plastic, and the garish lighting turned the room into a sea of pastels and shadows. The windows were shuttered, and the room was eerily quiet.
"Oh, my God," she said. "Look at this place. It just goes to show you, you never know who your neighbors are until you break in and find a weird sex dungeon."
It seemed like Rudy would never stop blushing today. "Your place isn't like this, is it? Are you some sort of pervo as well?" she asked.
"No..." he stammered as he tried to think up something clever to say. Before he could, she had hopped up on the couch and pulled a whip off of the wall and began making whipping sounds.
"Is this the type of weapon you're looking for? I don't think it will do much to those people out there, at least not according to the news."
"I don't think you want to be touching that. You don't know where it's been," he said. Rudy laughed as her face went from mild amusement to outright disgust as it dawned on her exactly what she was doing. The whip fell to the ground, and she ran into the kitchen and began washing her hands.
Rudy followed her. When she was done, she pulled open the fridge and discovered that it was just as sad as Rudy's spread. There was beer though. She grabbed one off of the shelf and tossed one to Rudy.
"Are you even old enough to be drinking one of these?" Rudy asked.
"Pshh. Of course I'm old enough... in Canada. What about you with that babyface?" she shot back.
Rudy popped the top off the beer and took down a swig. It was horrible. Despite all of the wild ideas he had about how beer actually tasted, it tasted nothing like what he had expected. He could not hide his disgust, which made the girl laugh even harder. Suddenly, he realized he didn't even know her name.
"My name is Rudy," he sputtered, trying not to gag at the taste of the beer.
"First beer, huh, Rudy? Don't worry; it'll grow on you. My name is Amanda. You go to Portland State, right? I've seen you around there."
The idea that someone would see him around and still talk to him was a new concept for Rudy. The idea that someone would notice him at all was news as well. "Yeah. I'm a junior. What about you?
"What about me?" she said as she took a swig from her beer.
"Do you go to Portland State?"
She laughed at him then, "No. I just stalk random guys on campus."
"Oh."
Amanda slapped him on the arm, "I'm just joking. Of course, I go to PSU. I'm a theater major."
Despite his revulsion, Rudy took another sip from the beer. They journeyed into another part of the apartment. It looked like the British man's bedroom. It was somewhat less freaky than the rest of the apartment. Rudy didn't know why, but it was comforting to know that the man at least slept in a normal space. Amanda pointed at the ceiling; it was covered in mirrors. There was also a camera on a tripod in the corner.
Amanda began fiddling with the camera, but Rudy had his eye on a display that was on the wall. In a wooden display case, two swords hung on the wall. Rudy's eyes were large as he approached the swords. He was no sword expert, but he thought they looked Japanese or Chinese maybe. He reached up and pulled the curved blade off of the wall. There was another shorter sword underneath, but it was the larger one that he was interested in. The weight of the sword surprised him, but the way it moved in his hand felt good. If one of those things showed up again he could definitely do some damage.
"Hey. Check this out," Amanda said. He walked over to her and looked at the viewfinder of the video camera. On the camera, his neighbor was half-clothed and having sex with some sort of inflatable doll. Rudy didn't watch for long, but Amanda kept watching and laughing. The laughing didn't continue for long though, as outside the bedroom window, an orange glow could be seen.
Rudy walked over to the window and peered through the blinds at the building next door. It was engulfed in flames. As he watched, a body fell from an upper floor where the flames were the thickest. Cinders and ashes floated past the window. It was only a matter of time before the building they were in would go up in flames as well; of that he was certain.
Amanda, all mirth gone, snaked an arm around his.
Rudy looked at her, feeling as if he were dreaming. "Grab that other sword. I think we're going to need it."
Chapter 45: To Sleep or Not to Sleep
Mort's face rested on the cool tile of the bathroom floor. In his hand he held a bottle of pills that he had pulled from the cupboard behind the mirror. Ms. Luella Bates must have suffered from insomnia judging by the wealth of Ambien that she had in her possession. His eyes moved back and forth as the creatures outside continued to try and find him. He could see three sets of shoes through the crack beneath the doorway.
There was no window in the bathroom, or else he would have jumped out of it long ago. He couldn't stand the thought of turning the gun on himself. Instead, all he had was a bottle of Ambien. He was debating taking the pills. Mort could just pop a handful of those bad boys in his mouth and hop a train to eternal sleep. He looked at one of the oval pills. Pink with the letters "AMB" printed on it... he wondered how many of the things he would have to choke down to end it all.
The last thing he wanted to do was take the pills and still be semi-conscious if those things made their way inside. He couldn't imagine being eaten alive. The real question was, "If he took the pills and overdosed, would he come back from the
dead?" In the end, he didn't really care. All he wanted was to not hurt anymore, and if dying from an overdose of sleeping pills was the only option to avoid being ripped apart by cannibals, well, then that was how it had to be.
When he turned on the tap for some water, the banging intensified. He would have to choke these things down quick. They would be in here in no time. Thankfully, the house seemed to be of older construction. If it was a newer house, the door would have been busted down by now, and he would be rotting in the stomachs of three dead motherfuckers.
He held his lips to the stream of water and choked down a pill. He had never been good at swallowing pills. The best he could ever do was swallow them one at a time. He put another pill in his mouth, as he bent down to the tap, he jumped. A gunshot rang out in the hallway, followed by another, and then a third. Bodies slumped to the ground.
He stood there, not moving, a pill slowly turning bitter in his mouth.
"Anybody in there?" a nasally voice asked.
Mort stood there dumbfounded for a second. Then he finally found his voice. He spit the pill into the sink, and yelled, "I'm in here!" He moved closer to the door, and asked, "They all dead?"
"For the second time, my friend. You can come on out now."
Mort opened the door and two bodies fell at his feet. He jumped backwards but they didn't move. They were dead along with another one on the landing. His savior stood at the top of the stairwell. He looked to be a hillbilly sort. Cowboy boots, a white T-shirt, and blue jeans held up by a plain leather belt with a huge, brass eagle belt buckle, this was not the man that Mort had envisioned saving him.
"C'mon now. Move yer ass. Them gunshots'll be bringin' some more of them things in no time at all."
The man turned around and walked away, as if he expected Mort to follow. Mort decided that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea. The man was a good shot. He yawned as he stumbled down the stairs. Mort was starting to feel very sleepy.
This Rotten World (Book 1) Page 18