This Rotten World | Book 1 | This Rotten World

by Morris, Jacy

  The man with the shaved head did not answer, so Ace punched him in the face, causing the man to crack the back of his head on the floor. Ace stood up and commanded the other men. "Grab him."

  The man with the red beard hopped over the counter of the bar while Pudge and the man with the teardrop tattoo pulled the man with the shaved head to his feet.

  It was quiet, except for the ragged breathing of the injured man. Ace looked him in the eyes, those steel-gray eyes. Bitch eyes, Ace thought. "What's your name?"

  "Slick," the man said, defeat hanging in the air like the smoke from a burning stick of incense.

  Ace slapped him on the shoulder and said, "What are you drinking, Slick?"

  Slick wiped his face and looked at Ace, gauging the potential danger in the situation. Ace shot a disarming smiled at him. Slick sat on his stool and said, "IPA."

  The man with the red beard hopped back over the bar, happy to be done with the bullshit. He fumbled around behind the bar before he pulled out a bottle of beer. He popped it open for the man, and slid it down the bar where Slick caught it. He tipped the bottle up to his lips and drank heavily.

  "That was intense," Pudge said.

  "What about me? What's my name?" the man with the teardrop tattoo asked.

  Ace looked at the man. He was skinny. His arms were covered in coarse black hairs. More hair stuck out of the ring of his collar. "I'm going to call you Spider."

  The man with the teardrop tattoo spat his beer on the counter. "Spider? Couldn't you have come up with a more original name? There are a thousand Mexican dudes out there with the nickname Spider."

  Ace shrugged his shoulders. "Names are hard. You remind me of a spider. Maybe you will become a legend, and when everybody says the name Spider, they think of you."

  Spider shrugged. "One name is as good as the next I suppose."

  The man with the red beard handed Ace a beer. "Thank you," Ace said. He looked at the man, trying to think of a name for him. Red... that was a good name, but it was too easy. The man with the red beard was a hulking man, easily six inches taller than Ace. His arms were thick, the skin pink like a pig. No... two animal names would be too much. They already had one Spider in the group.

  The hulking man wore light brown Carhartt pants, copper rivets gleaming in the light of the bar. "What are those?" he asked, pointing at the rivets.

  "Pants?" the man replied, confusion on his face.

  Ace shook his head in frustration. "No, the metal."

  The red-bearded man looked down at his pants and smiled in comprehension. "Rivets?"

  "Rivets!" Ace banged a fist on the counter. "Those are some slutty rivets, friend. I will call you Slutty Rivets. That's your name."

  Slutty Rivets laughed loudly. "I like it," he said. "It's ridiculous, but I like it."

  They continued drinking, Slick sulking at the end of the bar, his head resting on his hand, white powder all over his clothes. From outside they could hear the banging of the dead on the tall windows. Their peace wouldn't last much longer, but it was ok for now.

  "What about you? What do we call you?" Slutty Rivets asked.

  A sheen of sweat clung to Ace's forehead as he sipped from the tall, red, white, and blue can of beer. It was watery, but cool, just the way he liked it. Names... names... names. What was his name in this new world? Who would he be?

  Names entered his mind and left quickly, discarded as being too tacky, too silly, or too stupid. In the end, he went with the first fake name he had ever worn. The past was the past, and though this was a new world, some things were still true. He was still crazy as hell. He was still pissed off. He was still ready to burn the world to the ground. "Call me Ace," he said.

  From outside, they heard gunshots. Pudge ran over to the window to see what all the commotion was. He stuck his fingers between too slats in the blinds and spread them, giving him enough room to see outside. "We got trouble," Pudge said.

  Ace hopped off of his stool, and walked over to the window. He looked outside. Another vehicle had pulled up behind their purloined jeep. The olive green vehicle was larger, more armored, and had a huge machine gun mounted on the back. Soldiers hopped out of the vehicle. It looked like a turtle to Ace. They took aim and fired their rifles, clearing the dead from the immediate area. The majority of the men stood around the perimeter of the street, their eyes scanning the perimeter. One soldier, with a self-important walk, stalked up to the jeep that Ace and his boys had commandeered. He looked inside and checked for keys.

  The man didn't see any, so he turned and yelled something at the soldiers behind him, then he noticed the blood inside the jeep. He spoke into a speaker on his shoulder, then he started pointing and yelling orders at the other soldiers. They grouped up and took positions in the street.

  Ace couldn't tell what the man had ordered, but he knew it wasn't good. "Get your guns," he said.

  They arranged themselves around the bar. Ace sat behind the drum kit on the stage. Slutty Rivets and Pudge were behind the bar, while Slick and Spider hid in the hallway that led to the club's bathrooms. The door to the bar opened, and five soldiers walked into the room. From their vantage point, all they could see was Pudge and Slutty Rivets behind the bar.

  "Howdy, boys," Slutty said. "What can I get you?"

  The soldiers were confused. They had been expecting a lot of things, but a guy standing calmly behind a bar was not one of them. They were young and confused.

  "Don't you know that we're under martial law?" the least confused man said.

  "Right," Slutty replied, "we're staying inside in the best place possible. You boys want a beer?"

  Ace watched the exchange from behind the drum kit. The dark sunglasses over his eyes made him feel invisible. They were young, they were order, and they were pissing him off.

  "No beer for us. We're just wondering if you know what happened to the soldiers that were driving the jeep outside."

  Slutty shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know anything about no soldiers."

  Sweat rolled down Pudge's face. He had the poker face of a five-year-old. "What about you?" the soldier asked. "Have you seen anyone?"

  Pudge stammered, unable to form a coherent answer. Ace hated him for it, but he secretly loved him for it as well. Now he could put his plan to work. Ace grabbed a drumstick, and began playing the drums, banging on them rhythmically, a drumbeat that he had heard a thousand times before, a drumbeat that Hey Fever had belted out a thousand times before.

  The soldiers jumped at first, but Ace just smiled. They looked at him with surprise and gathered right in front of him. Pudge and Slutty Rivets pulled their guns out, and from the darkness of the hallway, Ace knew that Spider and Slick were doing the same.

  "Stop that!" the soldier commanded. "You're going to bring a shitstorm of those things in here. They're attracted to sound!"

  Ace channeled his fury into the drumming. The noise was deafening, and he smiled, making sure he had their attention. He banged on the crash cymbal repeatedly, filling the building with violent noise.

  "Stop!" the soldier yelled.

  Ace grabbed hold of the crash cymbal with his left hand, stifling its raucous ringing. Outside, he could hear more gunshots. Ace smiled. That's exactly what he wanted.

  Without warning, Ace dropped the drumsticks to the ground and drew his handgun. The soldiers, dumbfounded by his erratic actions stood there, not knowing what the hell was going on. Ace pulled the trigger, a sneer plastered to his face.

  As soon as his first shot was fired, the boys joined in, adding their own rhythm to his beat. They made music, beautiful music that filled Beelzebub's with a sound that was better than any sort of distorted rhythm he could have ever wrung from his electric guitar. Smoke and fire filled the building, and then it was over.

  From outside there were more gunshots. Ace hopped off the stage, reloading his weapon. He pulled a rifle off of one of the soldiers lying on the dancehall floor. His boys appeared from their hiding spots.

 
; "That was severe," Spider said.

  Ace smiled. He was having a truly excellent time.

  Outside, the gunshots had stopped. "Grab an instrument," Ace told them. "It's time for the encore." The boys were confused, and he laughed, a choked strangled thing that sounded more like the death rattle of a madman than an indication of appreciated levity. Through the window, Ace could see them coming. This would have to be a quick performance.

  Ace and the boys lined up by the windows, rifles in their hands. Ace took aim at a burly man, a barrel-chested beast of a man who would have wiped the floor with him. But the world was different. Now 130 pounds was as dangerous as 210. His mouth filled with saliva, as he thought about pulling the trigger.

  The soldiers on the street looked around, trapped between the dead and wondering what had happened to their own soldiers. They circled around the entrance of Beelzebub's, the building's dark-tinted windows preventing them from seeing the danger that awaited them. "Fire," Ace whispered.

  Then he pulled the trigger, blowing a hole in the shoulder of the burly man. He spun and fell to the ground. Others dropped, but the soldiers were quick. They took cover behind the vehicles, and returned fire as they could.

  "Move back," Ace yelled over the gunfire. "Stay low." They crab-walked to the back of the building, all except for Slick who was flat on the ground, blood spilling from his throat and pooling on the concrete floor. Ace giggled a bit at the sight, shrugged his shoulders and said, "A four-piece band is better than a five-piece anyway." In the back hall of the club, they reassembled and reloaded.

  "What the hell are we doing?" Pudge asked.

  Ace clapped him on the shoulder and said, "We're fighting for our rights." The sentiment did not assuage Pudge, and his face had the look of one who is given the news that they are about to die.

  "What's the plan?" Slutty asked.

  Ace thought for a second. There were maybe five soldiers outside, with hundreds of dead closing in. But Ace didn't want the dead to have all the fun. "Pudge, you stay here. Fire a shot out the window every few seconds. Slutty Rivets, Spider, you come with me."

  They ran through the graffiti-scarred corridor, and Ace pounded out the emergency exit to the back of the building, Spider and Slutty Rivets on his heels. They could hear Pudge's gunfire. It was answered by more gunfire from the streets. Ace reached the corner of the building and pressed his back to the bricks, enjoying their coolness in the heat. Sweat covered his body, and the sound of gunfire masked their booted footsteps.

  Ace cautiously leaned out, surveying the situation. There were four men, two behind their commandeered jeep and two behind the armored vehicle. That was good, or at least he thought so until he spotted the man sitting behind the mounted machine gun of the armored vehicle. He slowly pulled his head back and looked at Slutty Rivets and Spider.

  "Five guys," he said. "Two behind the jeep, two behind that giant thingy, and one on the gun."

  "The fifty caliber?" Slutty asked.

  "I don't know what you call it. The big gun on the thingy," Ace replied.

  "That's a fifty caliber machine gun," Slutty said. "That thing will turn your body to hamburger and mist with just one round."

  Hamburger. Yum. Ace was hungry again. "You guys worry about the guys on the ground. I'll kill the guy on the machine gun."

  Ace didn't wait for the guys to react. He ran out to the street, his eye already sighting down the rifle. He pulled the trigger, and the sound of automatic fire rang through the streets. Sparks bounced off the metal guards around the machine gun, and he saw the man duck his head down. The turret turned towards them, and Ace aimed again. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Spider and Slutty Rivets gun down the men behind the vehicles. They didn't have a chance.

  The machine gun was almost dead on with him, so he danced to the side, firing his rifle at the tiny square between the metal guards. More bullets bounced off the guards, and Ace thought, This is it. This is how I die.

  Then he saw Pudge climbing up the side of the vehicle, a handgun gripped in his fist. There was a light pop and a puff of red mist, and then Pudge was jumping off the top of the vehicle, a huge smile on his face. Ace had never been so glad to see the man's forgettable face framed by his scruffy goatee. Ace laughed out loud and raised his gun over his head, firing rounds into the sky like a primal ape who had just discovered fire.

  The dead were closing in quickly, so they scavenged what they could, rifles, cigarettes and cash off the dead men's bodies. Ace was digging through the pockets of the dead soldier in the turret when he heard the noise. Echoing off the buildings was a thumping. It was getting closer. He scanned the skies with his eyes, trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. It was a helicopter. His boys looked around as well. They climbed into the armored vehicle, slamming the doors behind them and looking up at the sky through the armored windows.

  As Ace was looking up at the sky, he felt a movement beneath him, and the soldier whose pockets he had been rifling through sprang into action. The soldier gripped his arm, and the grip was so strong that Ace thought the bones in his arm were going to snap. He yelled for help, but the chopper hovering over their heads prevented anyone from hearing him. Ace pushed the soldier as far back from him as he could, which wasn't very far in the confines of the turret. With his forearm locked under the soldier's chin, he pushed his head up, and with his free arm, he reached behind and pulled his revolver free. He placed it underneath the chin and squeezed his eyes shut as he pulled the trigger. The dead soldier slumped in the turret, and Ace pushed the corpse out of the turret and onto the floor of the vehicle.

  Ace turned his eyes back to the sky in time to see the helicopter hovering over them. Without thinking, Ace guided the machine gun in its direction. He pulled the trigger on the gun, and rounds began pouring out of the weapon. A belt to his left slid through the machine gun, and thick brass shells fell to the floor of the turret, clattering metallically before falling inside the vehicle. His initial spray was off target, but it was only a second before he peppered the side of the hovering helicopter with rounds, his ears ringing from the noise.

  Holes erupted in the windows of the helicopter, and it began to swerve off course, spinning out of control. The helicopter hit the ground hard, pieces of metal flying off of the chopper. It did not explode as Ace had hoped, so he continued firing the machine gun, until the belt of ammunition was gone. Still no explosion. He cursed in his head, as he hopped out of the turret.

  "Holy shit, man! You just took down a chopper," Spider yelled. At least, that's what Ace thought he yelled. His ears weren't currently functioning at that moment. After years of playing concerts without earplugs, his hearing had deteriorated sharply. Now he could hardly hear a thing.

  Ace ignored the praise of the others and began rooting through the back of the vehicle. Two benches faced each other, and above them was some room for storage, but there wasn't much room for anything. "Shit!" he screamed, punching the steel wall in frustration.

  Slutty Rivets looked at him, a quirk of a smile on his face, partly hidden by his red beard. He held out his hand and said, "Looking for one of these."

  Ace looked down and saw a spherical shape, topped with a ring and a handle, a hand grenade. This will make beautiful music, he thought. Ace hopped out of the vehicle, the cold metal of the grenade in his hand. He took a few steps towards the helicopter, unsure of how far he could throw the thing. It weighed as much as a medium-sized rock. He hefted it in his hand again.

  A little closer, he thought. Ace jogged forward, his eyes on the helicopter. From inside the cockpit, he could see movement, whether it was a living person or a dead person trying to escape, he didn't know, and he didn't particularly care. A blood-smeared hand bashed against the spider-webbed glass of the cockpit.

  "Throw it, pussy!" Spider yelled at him. Ace laughed, pulled the pin, and threw the grenade as far as he could. His throw was short, but it took a fortuitous bounce and rolled a few feet, lodging under the middle of the heli
copter wreckage. The anticipation was intense, and then it exploded. The wreckage lifted off the ground, shards of metal flying into the air. It erupted in a bloom of flame that rocked the buildings next to the wreck, shattering windows and making Ace's ears ring once more.

  Ace fell back on the ground when the grenade exploded. He watched the second explosion, the smoke and flames curing upwards to the sky. Glorious.

  Chapter 15: Digging In

  This was a war that they would lose. The only real question was how long they would continue to fight it. Sergeant Tejada had delivered his latest report. In the last ten hours, they had lost close to 1,000 troops and made hardly a dent in the population of the reanimated.

  The reanimated, that was the official term that Washington had settled on. The men had logically taken to calling them Annies. At first, he had wanted to snap at the first man he had heard use the term, but it was typical army behavior. It was better to give them a cutesy nickname than to call them what they were. Calling them the reanimated reminded the men of the fact that their enemies used to be the people that they were sworn to protect and fight for. Calling them the reanimated reminded the men that their own families might be out there, walking, searching for someone to eat. If they wanted to call them Annies to feel better about it, then that was fine by McCutcheon. If calling them Annies prevented them from freezing up when they had to pull the trigger, then that was also fine by him.

  Bad news just kept rolling in. An entire squad had gone missing, dead or deserted, McCutcheon didn't know, but he knew things were going to get worse before they got better. They had lost two Apaches in the last 10 hours, in addition to the five-hundred men. One had been inexplicably shot down in the city, and the other had just disappeared. The men were replaceable, the choppers were not. The entire United States Army was spread across the country so thin that it was only a matter of time before the President unleashed the final protocol, and they would neat to make a hasty retreat when the orders came down the pipeline.

  They were on borrowed time here. The best they could do was gather survivors, thin the numbers, and keep a sizeable fleet of movable vehicles for when the order came down. The reports out of New York led him to believe that the order would come sooner than later. In New York, a hundred-thousand troops had been whittled down to nothing in the span of a day.