It was utter chaos. Connor’s mind did somersaults.
“Everybody run!” Doug shouted. He grabbed Olive and steered her around a table of computers, toward the side wall as the hissers came racing in.
Amanita screamed and ducked behind a shelving unit, began throwing bottles of various powders at the monsters.
Instinctively, Connor threw a chair into the fray and tripped up the monsters in the lead. They spilled to the floor and caused a pile up, but it didn’t slow down the spiders behind them. They came lumbering in like giant tanks with legs. Dr. Aja was yanked from the floor and hauled toward a sea of gnashing teeth. His head was torn free and his body, his torso flayed by gouging fingers. The spiders savored the moment by next tearing his limbs off.
“This way!” Dr. Klaus yelled, waving the group toward what looked like a storage room.
“We’ll be trapped,” Connor replied. “We have to go back outside.”
But fear had overtaken Dr. Klaus and the man was running to the metal closet anyway. He opened the door and flung himself inside. So much for his help, Connor thought.
“The kid is right,” Olive said, upending a table and then throwing a computer into the hissers to slow them down. She hit one in the head and it crumbled under the impact. “We have to go out the front door. Otherwise we’re toast.”
“Just fucking go away!” Amanita screamed, pushing the shelving unit with everything she had. It tipped over slowly and hit the spiders, who in turn spun rapidly, looking for their attacker.
Dr. McGowan was hiding under a desk, her hands over her ears, tears in her eyes. She mouthed the words no no no over and over again.
The hissers found Adam, Hall’s assistant, and tackled him. He punched and kicked but their numbers were too many. His intestines were yanked out through a hole in his gut. Connor watched in horror as the man’s face was then skinned off of his skull like a banana peel.
And then there was an explosion. Not a huge one, but a bright, hot one that shook the lab and sent Connor to his ass. The concussion caused his ears to ring and his vision to wobble.
Through a cloud of yellow smoke he saw Amanita hurling more bottles of chemicals at the undead. Atta girl, he thought. Makeshift chemical grenades.
He leapt to his feet, found Doug and Olive next to him. They were covering their noses and mouths, and it was only then he noticed the smell and noxious fumes in the room. He drew his shirt over his mouth and tried to breathe, but the caustic air made him cough. Maybe it was time for Am to stop throwing those bottles.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dr. Klaus open the closet door again, but so did the spider monsters, who ran after him. He slammed the door again but the creatures pushed their way in, and a second later spurts of blood arced out onto to the floor.
“Quickly, while they’re blind.” It was Dr. McGowan, and she had noticed that the hissers were bumping into one another in the smoke. “We can make it out the door if we shove them aside and don’t look back.”
“What’s that smoke?” Connor yelled. “We need more of it.”
“No idea. No time to figure it out now.”
“It’s these right there.” Amanita was at his side, holding up two containers.
“Hexamethylene Triperoxide Diamine,” McGowan said.
It was Greek to everyone in the room. “Well throw it, Am!” Connor urged.
She did and the bottles exploded on the floor again, creating a thick cloud of smoke in its wake. With their shirts over their mouths, and the hissers temporarily confused, everybody headed for the red doors.
“Take this, Connor.” Doug rolled a desk chair to him. Connor snatched it up and used it like a battering ram, shoving zombies to the floor as he ran. Next to him, Doug did the same, his bigger bulk making the path clearer. They got past the red doors and made it to the hallway, listening to the hungry sounds of the spiders feasting on Dr. Klaus.
“Wait, the drive.” Dr. McGowan turned and headed back into the room, choking on the smoke.
“We can’t wait,” Olive said, hitting a hisser in the head with a fire extinguisher. The skull caved and the hisser went down, but more were coming from behind them now.
“She’ll die,” Connor said, remembering how Nicole had died to give him that drive. Could he just let it be lost like this?
Then Dr. McGowan was back in the hallway, the drive in her hand. Connor was just about to feel a modicum of relief when one of the giant spiders came crashing out after them. Together they made for the stairwell, shoving back any hissers they saw, ducking their swinging limbs. It was almost easier here since the hissers couldn’t lunge.
“Last bottles,” Amanita yelled as she threw two more jars of chemicals behind them. The substances ignited and blew a shockwave down the hall.
“Up the stairs. Quick,” Doug ordered.
Through the smoke, Connor could see the frame of the stair doors was completely gone. The massive beasts had torn it clear off. Inside the stairwell the stairs were only half there. Much of it was just twisted rebar and smashed concrete. It was as if someone had dropped a wrecking ball down the middle of it all.
“Shit,” Amanita said.
“What do we do?” Dr. McGowan spoke through hair streaked with blood. “We can’t get up that. We need a rope and climbing gear.” More blood dripped from her chin.
Was she bitten, Connor wondered, trying to see any sense of confusion in her eyes. No, she looked okay, must have been blood from Dr. Aja, but he was watching her anyway. He was watching them all.
“They’re coming!” Olive shouted as the first of the hissers entered the stairwell. “Need help!” Doug was there with his chair, swinging it into the first zombie, then shoving it into the second one and knocking it down long enough to grab a fire extinguisher off the wall and smash its head in. In turn, Olive kicked and grabbed a slab of broken stair cement and beat it over the head of the next creature to come in. Together she and Doug pushed back the first couple but more were coming down the hall. Everyone could hear them.
Connor studied the stairs above him. There was a sense of a path, he saw. It was like any other game he’d ever played. He could get up it; he just had to know where to hold. “I can get us up,” he said. “Follow me.” He grabbed Amanita and pulled her close, squeezed her hand, then ascended the first stairs, seeing the thin path to one side. On the next flight he jumped over a gap, then kick-jumped off the wall to the next stairs. He turned to see Amanita following. Behind her was Dr. McGowan. After that he couldn’t see from the smoke drifting into the stairwell. He prayed Olive and Doug were back there getting the proper instructions in this bizarre game of hopscotch telephone.
The next landing was nothing but two rods of rebar, which he tightrope walked. Three more steps after that and he had to take a small running jump and land sitting on the next stairs up. His leg twisted and for the first time in a while his shin protested with agonizing pain. No time to stop, he knew. If he rested the group would slow up and Doug and Olive would get taken.
The stairs continued in this way. Some only half there, some completely missing, some just nothing but rebar and handholds. It was tough going, but everyone followed. The grunts of exertion echoed up the walls. Finally, Connor was at the ground floor. He flung open the door and raced into the hallway, turning back to help Amanita out. Dr. McGowan came out next, sweat washing some of the blood off her face. And to his elation, Olive and Doug came up next, but Doug was too busy shoving everyone forward to even get out the words he was trying to say.
It didn’t matter though, Connor understood his message when the wall exploded outward and a spider monster shot out after them. He turned and sprinted toward the gaping hole at the end of the hallway where the exit door had once been. The sun greeted him with a brightness that seemed almost ethereal as he leapt outside and ran across a patch of grass, turning back once to see Amanita’s terrified face behind him, his friends racing out behind her. The spider crashed through what was left of the building’s
façade and thundered after them. The stitch in his side grew unbearable, and Connor slowed, let Amanita rush by him. “C’mon,” he whispered, praying the others would hurry.
A wave of hissers appeared in the stairwell and made for the hole in the wall. There were still so goddam many of them. And without the smoke, they were fast and focused.
Connor looked around, saw nothing to hide behind. No cars, no readily accessible buildings. Only the trees across the street, and beyond that the ocean. Doug and Olive were passing him now as well, Olive reaching out and giving him a shove.
“C’mon, kid, run. To the boat.”
“Yeah,” he said, thinking about how close the hissers were now and how fast they would be able to get in the boat and get it started. There was just no way they were getting away this time. And maybe, he wondered, he was purposefully trying to test fate with such thinking, daring it to let them escape out of spite, but what happened next all but confirmed his pessimism.
Amanita swore. “Fuck!”
Connor turned and saw the hissers streaming out of the woods ahead of them. We’re flanked, he realized, we’re done.
They all stopped running, just stood in the sun as hissers approached from the front and back. And what did the sides matter; that was just a road, and the undead things would just merge together and chase them.
He raced to Amanita and held her, looked in her eyes, saw the shock there. She’d thought they were going to make it. What could he say to her now to make it any better? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Instead, he put his head to hers and let her shake in his arms.
He heard Doug yelling, “Come on, you fucking abominations. Come try and take me. I’ve gotten out of worse!”
He saw Olive and Dr. McGowan, the former just huffing in annoyance, the latter praying.
And above it all, he heard the hissers coming. The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was a young undead girl running toward him with yellow eyes and a hand sticking out of the side of her head. It opened and closed as if trying to squeeze sense from the air.
And then…gunshots. Thousands of them. So loud he dropped to his knees and covered his ears, felt gobs of cold flesh splat against him. The ground rumbled as some kind of rocket dug up the earth nearby. Shocked, he opened his eyes and watched as the hissers were torn to shreds all around him. The spiders were blown apart, sending appendages flipping through the air. Puddles of blood and chunks of gore fell on his head like a torrential rain. The little girl coming at him fell apart like a Jenga game, her lifeless head rolling by his legs and coming to rest looking up at him.
Through the red mist in the air he saw Amanita lying prone, her hands over her head. He crawled to her and lay down on top of her, trying his best to shield her from the debris and bullets.
The barrage played out all around them, spent shell casings dropping through the air like parade confetti. Behind the incredible level of hisses, he finally noticed the other agonizing sound in the air.
Buddabuddabuddabudda.
Helicopters. U.S. Army choppers. Five of them, hovering above like sentinels.
As Connor and Am stood up, a rope ladder was tossed down, and a man in gray MARPATs leaned out from behind the gunner and saluted them.
Gunners hung halfway out the doors, spraying rounds, holding the undead back, and Connor realized they had little time to get out of this mess. He hauled Amanita up, dragged her to the ladder, and they climbed into the arms of the people he least wanted to see.
EPILOGUE
DON’T DREAM IT’S OVER
SUNDAY 10: 35 AM
The man with the Command Sergeant Major insignia leaned forward in his seat as the copter banked over the water. His grin almost seemed sinister, until he began to yell over the din of the rotors. “We were out on a search and rescue when we heard your new message. Some of our boys had been pinned down a quarter mile south. They didn’t make it. That left you.”
“You heard our message before!” Dr. McGowan was pissed.
“It’s not so easy to just infiltrate a building right now. It’s not personal.”
“It is to me! So Kraus was right, you just want what we have now?”
“The ingredients of the cocktail. Pretty crazy stuff, or so I’m told. I don’t know much from science, but my superiors tell me it’s a mite important. So Yeah, I’m not gonna lie to you, ma’am, we apparently have a vested interest in that.”
“Where are we going?” Connor asked.
“Mira Mar. Not too far away, as the crow flies. Only base here that’s still standing and fortified. We’ll get you cleaned up and fed.”
“What if we don’t want to go?”
“Son, we just saved your ass and you’re saying you don’t want to go to the only place in southern California that can protect you? Did you hit your head or something?”
“What are you gonna do with us?” Olive asked.
“Do with you?” The Command Sergeant Major shook his head in wonderment. “Not gonna do anything with you but get some soup in you, introduce you to our little group of survivors. Hopefully find you a bed that’s not occupied. Think you can handle that? What’s all your names anyway? I’m Drew, but my boys call me Goon. What’s your name, son?”
Connor hesitated, unsure about that weird smile. Was this guy really ignorant of the prior information they’d broadcast? Was he ignorant of what the hisser cocktail really meant? He certainly didn’t’ seem to care about it that much. Or did he know they had it all on a drive in Dr. McGowan’s pocket? No, how could he. But that didn’t mean Connor was going to just open up to him. Not yet.
“C’mon, kid, I don’t bite.”
Connor looked at the others in the copter with him. Squeezed tightly again his left side were Doug and Olive. Their clothes were torn and their faces covered in dried blood. Both were waiting to see what Connor was going to give up. Across from them were Dr. McGowan and Am. The Dr. was silent, looking out the window at the land beneath them. Connor could see the thin outline of the drive in her pants pocket.
Am looked…tired. Her short hair was red and wet. Her eyes sunken, her cheeks hollow. She needed rest, he knew. Needed to heal. They all did. So maybe for now, until they could better assess the intent of these military men, he should take them up on their hospitality. He could always escape again, right?
“Connor,” he said finally.
“Well, Connor, I want to welcome you.”
“To what?”
“What do you mean ‘to what?’ To the revolution, son. Your broadcast just gave us the most hope we’ve had in a while. Or so say our researchers are the base. I’m getting trickle down info here so bear with me. Now you just sit tight, we’re gonna be home in two minutes.”
The copter straightened out and careened one thousand feet up above the land. Below them, Connor watched the land zip by. As far as his eyes could see there was nothing but wreckage and decay. Cars long burned to crisps clogged the road. Buildings were smashed and scorched, their windows blown out and doors ripped off. Houses were reduced to kindling, trees on their sides everywhere. Fields were littered with corpses and various bits of junk.
So much of it seemed to be military vehicles, as if there’d been a major war here. Which maybe explained why they hadn’t seen as many undead as they thought they would upon arrival. But then again maybe not.
Here and there pockets of hissers still moved about aimlessly. Almost none of them resembled traditional humans anymore. Most had picked up some kind of third arm or leg or second head in their travels. Always close by were the spiders, lumbering along on their multiple hands and feet, their collections of heads all looking in various directions at once, hungry for flesh. Some of them had gotten huge, and as they moved across the land they picked up even more attachments. Always, growing, Connor thought, just getting as big as they can and still be able to move.
But for as many of these as he watched below on the ground, and despite the signs of major battle, he still thought there should be more. He
’d traveled long enough and far enough to know that in a major city such as this the ground should be littered with hissers. Even if the military had killed them, and even with the spiders picking up parts, there should be more corpses.
Where are all the undead, he wondered, thinking back to how bare the land had been of hissers when they’d hit La Jolla. It still seemed off somehow.
Next to him, Olive leaned her head against Doug’s shoulder. “You don’t mind do you?”
“Not at all, darling.”
“Don’t get any funny ideas. I’m just tired is all.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Olive.”
“Don’t worry,” Am piped up, “he’s harmless. First real gentleman I ever met in my life, in fact.” She caught Connor watching her and added, “Except for Connor.”
“We’re almost there,” Goon said. That sinister grin spread across his face again, and Connor followed the man’s eyes outside to the ground.
“Where are they all,” he finally asked. “Why so few here?”
“Them zombies? Son, have a look around, tell me how many people you see. Not a whole heck of a lot. When the plague hit people tried to run, but you’re looking at one of the worst traffic columns in America. Go north and it’s gridlock even on a good day without undead. Go south and….well, south is Mexico. Last we heard the cartels had taken up the fight and were using people as bait. Fact is, everyone here that ain’t in our camp is running around looking to bite you. They took off all over the place, mostly downtown. Word of advice, if you’re thinking about going out on your own ever, do not go downtown. Unless you want to see a million of them things having a parade at Horton Plaza.”
Could it be true, Connor wondered. Could so many people have been devoured already that the hissers food sources were depleting, making them move on? How could the humans compete with such a vast amount of undead? Even if you had all the firepower in the world, you couldn’t take out the entire Earth population.
No, he’s lying about something, Connor realized.
Hissers II: Death March Page 23