Vertical City (Book 2)

by George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  “What the hell happened here?” I ask.

  Nobody answers and then Del Frisco whistles from the other side of the room. He’s on all fours, scenting the ground like a dog. Smiling, he urges everyone to lower themselves, which we do. There’s a single pill on the ground, blue, rectangular. Del Frisco points at it.

  “Big whup,” Strummer says.

  “It is,” Del Frisco replies, “it is the biggest of big whups.”

  Del Frisco points to another pill, same color, same everything, next to what looks like a wall of cabinets.

  He scampers across the floor, leaving marks in the dust. We follow and I see immediately that somebody was here. There’s the faintest hint of prints, not bare feet, but boots and shoes. This generally signifies real, live humans came this way once upon a time.

  Del Frisco rises to his full height and begins opening the cabinets, pressing here and there. He works his way up and down the cabinets which are man-made, with expensive brushed nickel knobs and wood veneer.

  There’s the sound of some hidden pressure-plate depressing and then springs or a hinge engage. The back of the cabinet snaps open and Del Frisco smacks his palms together.

  “I knew,” he says, “I goddamn knew it!”

  Del Frisco uses his Onesie to nudge back the cabinet door which reveals a tight space, a cavity really, barely large enough to house four or five people. I know this because that’s the number of bodies I see as we slip inside.

  The stench of death perfumes every square inch of the alcove’s interior. The bodies of three men and two women are visible, lying sprawled on the ground in various states of decomposition.

  Arms reflexively shield our noses and mouths as we search of the space. Curiously, there are no signs of a struggle, no hints of ultraviolence and that’s for a reason.

  The pills are everywhere, on the ground amidst a bevy of liquor bottles, on chairs and a sofa, in the outstretched hand of what was once a young Indian man. It’s apparent now that everyone here offed themselves at some point rather than face the hordes outside. Strummer and Darcy turn over the mummified bodies, some of which break apart as if they’re made of baked clay.

  “Score!” Del Frisco shouts as I swing a look sideways to see him holding up a backpack that he’s just snatched away from a dead, bloated woman who’s lying beside a tiny refrigerator.

  He unzips the backpack to reveal a small cache of bottles and blisterpacks and glass ampoules. Evidently, a portion of the drugs that were sampled by those lying around us before they slipped into the void.

  “Anything good in there?” I ask.

  “Shit, it’s all good, brother,” Del Frisco responds.

  He whips the pack over to Darcy first who scans some of the labels.

  “Increases the supply of dopamine and norepinephrine…”

  “What are those?” I ask.

  “Things that plug drains in the brain, baby,” Del Frisco says, twirling two fingers on either side of his head. “They reduce the amount of your boy’s special sauce.”

  “If anyone needs this shit it’s you, Del Frisco,” Strummer says. “Your ass needs to be medicated twenty-four-seven.”

  “Yeah, well, I like the way I am,” Del Frisco replies, making a crazy face. “Madness helps me hone my rough edges.”

  Strummer grabs and secures the drugs as I swivel and read a banner tacked to a cardboard wall that says “Don’t Be Evil,” which I assume was some kind of company slogan. Laughing at how silly the slogan sounds now, I scan another board filled with photos, most of which are of those lying dead.

  There are shots of the dead laughing, drinking, playing outdoor sports, posing for self-taken pictures, and roughhousing with animals. One in particular, a shot of the bloated woman on the floor, has her miming taking a bite out of another person’s neck.

  Someone whistles and I lean back to see that the others are satisfied with the stash and ready to roll. Strummer points back at the main room as I say a prayer for the dead.

  “Everyone snag a tablet and then let’s see what else we can find.”

  Shuffling outside, we do a quick circuit up and down the floor which appears deserted. There are all kinds of electronics around, but nothing we can really hump back. Strummer makes a note of it, annoyed that we’ve come so far for so little, when Darcy spots the remnants of an opened pharma blisterpack near a stairwell. Normally, we wouldn’t venture down another floor given the hour, but the fact that the building apparently is still secure makes us throw caution to the wind.

  We enter the stairwell, which is neat and tidy, and scoot down to another landing with an open door. We peak through the door, half-expecting it to be filled with Dubs, but it, like the rest of the building, is empty and spotless. We cruise down a hallway that ends at a set of immense, glass-pebbled doors.

  Del Frisco presses his ear against the glass as the others remove their Onesies. He holds up a clenched fist, listens some more, and then lowers the fist as he gently turns the bronze handle on the door and pulls it open.

  The entirety of the space on the other side of the door is clogged with bodies. An ocean of them.

  I gasp and Darcy shoots a hand across my mouth as Del Frisco cackles and runs forward. I’m on my heels, heart in my throat as the lunatic damn near prances through a forest of corpses, past huge wooden crates (some of them eight feet high) and metal tables littered with errant arms and legs and torsos, a featureless frieze of bodies and bodyparts.

  A few more steps reveal that the corpses are mannequins, some nude, others partially wrapped in bits of shaggy cloth. I stare at the head of a bald woman on a table, red still smeared over the lips, one false eyelash on a blank face appearing to flutter in my direction.

  Del Frisco glides by, dancing silently with the severed torso of a female mannequin. He sings what I assume is some old rock song, whispering to the mannequin about how he’s a white knight coming to her emotional rescue.

  Strummer and Darcy bypass the mannequins, preferring instead to examine bolts of fabric and large spools of thin cord and nylon. Certainly nothing of great value as the two trundle through another door that reveals a short corridor that ends in a wide aperture. Beyond this is a circular window, partially smashed, revealing the battered cityscape.

  Darcy returns and kneels. A few of her rats are lowered to the ground and begin racing around the floor. She rips off samples of fabric and a few lengths of nylon that she says might be of value to the high-rollers back in VC1.

  I move through the door toward Strummer and Del Frisco and a band of hazy half-light pierces the circular window and spills over the ground at my feet. The light reveals a fine, nearly imperceptible layer of dust on the ground.

  Dropping to my haunches, I register the footprints in the dust. Naked feet that seem to be moving in both directions, as if a herd of confused, shoeless persons were milling about.

  My finger traces the outline of several of the feet. Most of the feet are missing toes. The interesting thing is how the prints are barely visible. I can see drag marks and it’s almost as if… someone made an effort to conceal the prints.

  It suddenly comes over me, the deep, haunting sensation that something is seriously wrong here. I stand to warn the others and then a note, what sounds like a quick indraw of breath, rivets me and I look back in the direction of Darcy.

  I can see the two rats that escaped from her. They’re doing their best imitation of a cat. Rearing up, the hair on their backs standing at attention. Their beady eyes fixed on something only they can see.

  Darcy is oblivious, holding up swatches of fabric, preening, posing for an invisible camera.

  She doesn’t hear it

  Doesn’t even sense what’s behind her.

  But I can see it all unfolding in slow motion.

  She looks up and her smile slips as one of the “mannequins” rises up out of a crate and wraps its talcum-colored arms around her.

  There’s a look of absolute bafflement on Darcy before she’s viol
ently snatched back into the crate.

  I blink, barely believing what I’ve just seen.

  And then the screaming starts.

  Chapter 9

  “AMBUSH!” I shout as Darcy claws her way out of the crate, a flap of flesh hanging from her eviscerated neck which gushes red.

  Battling the urge to vomit, it dawns on me that we’ve been fooled. The goddamn Dubs were hiding under the mannequins the entire time, waiting for us to funnel down into the one part of the building with the fewest means of escape.

  One of the rules of our profession is that when the shrieks start you look for the first way out and since there’s only one for us, the circular window, Del Frisco immediately smashes it completely open. Unfortunately, the window frame is tethered to a still-functioning back-up alarm system (hooked to some unseen generator) that wails like an animal at a branding.

  “Thanks for ringing the dinner-bell!” Strummer shouts, his voice shrill, a note of hysteria in it as he swings into action.

  I spin on my heels and everything that happens next, happens incredibly fast. Strummer’s just a blur as he passes me, Onesie raised over his head. He hacks into the thing that’s eating Darcy.

  The head of the attacker comes off first, Strummer struggling to pull Darcy up. Her legs are unsteady and she collapses on the ground, vomiting a small river of blood. A gurgling sound rolls out of her mouth next, a sickening note that will probably seed my nightmares for as long as I live.

  Strummer slips on her gore as me and Del Frisco move in to help while a delegation of the dead rise up out of their hiding spots.

  A wall of grinning corpses clamber out of the crates, making a sound like flesh being slapped as they flop to the ground.

  Blitzing forward, we batter their faces and spill their brains as more of the things appear down the hallway, drawn by the sound of the alarm.

  I continue chopping away at the Dubs, hoping I’m buying Strummer enough time to pull Darcy to safety. Looking back, I gasp at the sight of Darcy’s body bucking, as if she’s being jolted by a million volts of electricity.

  Strummer just stands there, watching it all. He’s whiter than sugar, his eyes glassy, almost catatonic from shock. Usually he’s the rock, the one who knows every play and angle. The fact that he’s checked out (at least mentally) is probably what scares me the most.

  “SHE’S GONZO!” Del Frisco shouts, pointing at Darcy.

  The two of us bull back toward Strummer who won’t leave Darcy behind. I scream at the guy to move, but there’s no response; none whatsoever. I note the tears at the corner of his eyes and I realize now that he and Darcy were indeed something more than just professional colleagues.

  His eyes are pinned to her body which is marinated in blood, gallons of hot blood still pumping frenetically from that nasty neck wound. Her death throes cease and then I can see the tiny hairs on her arms go rigid, like the quills on a porcupine.

  I’ve been in this situation before and witnessed enough death and resurrection to know that Darcy has crossed over.

  In seconds, her eyes are open and glowing like two little fires in a pit. Strummer howls for her as we drag him back through the door that leads to the short corridor. We slam the door shut as a newly risen Darcy and the other Dubs begin throwing themselves against it.

  “WHAT’S THE GOOD WORD, STRUM?!” Del Fresco bellows. Strummer’s still too shell-shocked to respond, wringing his hands white. Del Frisco grabs Strummer’s handheld scanner away from him. He punches buttons on it, but the damned thing flickers to black.

  The scanner’s out of juice.

  “This never would’ve happened if they’d just given us those suits!” Del Frisco shouts to himself, loosing a volley of expletives before smacking the side of the scanner.

  The screen miraculously glimmers back to life and Del Frisco places a finger on several items highlighted on the map.

  The screen fades to black again and there’s a groaning sound as the door’s metal hinges begin to bend. This is followed by a note like a bee buzzing over my head which I realize is one of the hinge-screws, popped loose by the weight of the Dubs.

  We’ve got seconds to act.

  I backtrack and look through the busted circular window. There are no hand or footholds in sight, but there is a fire-escape one floor below us. It’s off to my left, maybe twelve feet down.

  It’s a damn dangerous jump, but we’ve made worse ones before. I whistle to the others who shadow me.

  “That’s the only way,” I say, pointing.

  “We hit that hard,” Del Frisco says with a nod, “then we drop down two floors and worm in.”

  “That the escape route?”

  Del Frisco nods again as Strummer smacks himself in the side of the head, finally shaking off his shock.

  “Me first,” he says, hopping into the frame of the window. He measures his weight, pauses and then drops down, feet-first.

  He slams into the fire-escape and rattles around inside. Del Frisco goes next, nearly sailing wide of the escape as Strummer snags his arm and helps haul him inside.

  I’m nervous as hell because, as usual, I’m over-thinking things. I’m trying to calculate angles and windspeed when I should just worry about getting a good push off. The door bursts open behind me and there’s Darcy.

  Time and sound slow as she squares off against me. The worst thing is when she points an accusatory finger and her mouth unhinges like the back of a dumptruck. She screams and leads the other Dubs on a mad dash forward.

  Grabbing the edges of the window, I propel myself forward, little darts of rain forcing me to squint as the edge of the escape comes up fast. There’s the rush of the wind and the sound of my own blood thrumming through my ears like the engine on a train.

  I hit the edge of the escape, the metal bars knocking the air out of me. Del Frisco and Strummer grab my back and pull me to safety.

  We look up and Darcy’s already jumped at us. She soars toward me, tongue flicking and then…

  She flies by, close enough to kiss.

  But the distance between us is distance enough and Darcy misses the mark. She sails wide, arms still chopping the air as a gutwrenching squeal issues from her gullet. She tumbles down, arms over ass and explodes on the pavement.

  I watch in nerve-brutalized shock as a young girl, the very one I was just considering confiding in only a short while ago, becomes one with the road.

  There’s no time to grieve because more Dubs are on the way. Three more jump, two going missing the mark, the third slamming onto the edge of the escape.

  Del Frisco smashes the thing’s fingers to pieces, but others follow and soon one’s hooked its talons onto the escape’s edge and then another and then four or five of the things are hanging on.

  The escape buckles.

  “Get the hell up!” I scream.

  Strummer climbs into the nearest window as Del Frisco grabs and drags me up, but…

  I’m stuck.

  Rooted in place.

  Something has my foot as I peer down into the cadaverous face of a Dub whose skull is partially exposed. Half of his cranium is gone and I can see a portion of the black brain inside. Throbbing.

  The thing grabs my boot in its mouth and shakes it side to side like a dog with a chew toy.

  Del Frisco pulls me up, freeing my boot as the Dub and its cohorts fumble up after me.

  The bolts holding the escape begin to pry loose. They pop free, one at a time.

  Del Frisco grunts and pulls me through the window and into a rear office that’s several floors below where Darcy was attacked.

  Strummer slams the window down and I watch the weight of the pursuing Dubs yank the final bolts loose. The escape peels away from the building, breaking apart in mid-air. The monsters’ eyes are as wide as trash-can lids as they spiral down toward the ground.

  We creep-run through the office into a maze of cubicles and tiny desks and fiberboard partitions. I’m dragging now, fear and exhaustion driving through me, sa
pping my energy reserves.

  “Where to?” I ask. “Where to?”

  Del Frisco motions for me to follow and so I do, gliding through a hallway that widens to a rotunda of sorts. A wide, circular room with a glass dome wreathed by a balcony.

  The floor is pristine here, some exotic looking wood that’s still polished to a high sheen. We rocket across it and then I slide to a stop.

  The three of us hear the telltale patter of bare feet above us.

  Glancing up, I spot a tiny little female Dub with homicidal eyes. She’s scrunched low, framed up near the balcony on the other side of the glass dome up above the ceiling.

  The little Dub’s head cants and then she jumps face-first into the glass dome. The glass caves in her face, but another Dub follows her. And then another and another until the glass is quickly littered with broken bodies leaking blood and fluids.

  “Goddamn they’re persistent,” Del Frisco says with a snort.

  I hear the first crack of the glass, then more fissures appear, and in seconds, little crystal nuggets shower us. Strummer gestures for us to run as the first body slams down next to me.

  The corpse of the man that barely misses me plants nose first in the flooring as the ceiling opens up and we burst ahead, the bodies hitting the ground behind us with sickening thwacks!

  We pass through another corridor, following Del Frisco because he’s the only one who saw the escape route on the scanner.

  We streak toward a rear office and open a door to see a window fronted by an immense cabinet. The cabinet has a yellow smiley face spraypainted on it (left by one of our people in the past) which denotes an escape route.

  With much effort, the three of us push the cabinet aside to reveal a rope bridge leading from the window to another roof that’s maybe fifty-feet away.

  Del Frisco heads out first, followed by Strummer and then me. The rope bridge, frayed and gray, has deteriorated since the time it was first strung.