####
“Santa, Baby!” Rocky Roadkill says on the stairwell when a man rears back to strike her with an axe. “Relax.”
“You’re alive,” the man in the blood stained Santa suit observes with relief.
“Yeah,” Rocky confirms. “Just looking for my friends.”
Santa continues down the stairs with a woman in scrubs in tow. “Good luck with that. If you find them, get out of the city. There’s a reserve station in Waterloo, that’s where we’re heading.”
She doesn’t say thank you, Waterloo is where she was intending to go to anyway. Looking into the hallways and units of a few more floors, all she finds are the same odd people, slow moving folks, many with grizzly wounds. She heads back down to the lobby.
Santa is long gone. She makes for the reception desk and finds the phone. On the black device are buttons to reach the various sections of the hospital, also there are instructions on how to use the intercom. She follows the directions that had been affixed to the phone long ago to aid new employees.
After a tone, she delivers her message. “Will Man’s Ruin please come to the reception area? Man’s Ruin to the reception area. Your ride is leaving.”
She sits back on a swivel chair and waits.
####
The chilly night air cuts through Susan’s scrubs, she shivers as she follows her father across the street.
“Passenger side is open,” he tells her while keeping his eye on a small group heading their way. “You’ll have to unlock my door.”
Luke enters the alley. The dome light illuminates the inside of the Caddy for a moment, in that instant he can see the boys are still asleep in the back. His door lock is lifted, the second he is in the driver’s seat he turns the key.
“Mommy?” Hippo dreamily asks from the back. “Where’s daddy?”
24
A sudden commotion raises Rocky to her feet as a set of doors are barged open. Shuffling feet come her way, along with their owners moaning and groaning. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?”
Cherry Bomb has Jan Slaughter’s arm draped over her shoulder to take the weight off of her injured ankle. “Rocky! Thank god!”
The team Captain rolls the chair she had been sitting in to the pair for the downed player to rest in. “Yeah, he gets all the credit. Where’re my other bitches?”
“Dead,” Cherry Bomb says sadly.
Rocky can’t believe it, she shakes her head. Silence from her teammates only confirms the truth.
“It was horrible,” Jan Slaughter recounts from the chair. “People biting each other. Eating…”
“We got away,” Cherry states the obvious. “Ducked down that hall and hid. Sadie was with us but she just… she was bit and it wouldn’t stop bleeding…”
“She died. Then we heard you,” Jan finishes. “Penelope was taken down over there,” she points to a pool of blood on the floor, puzzled that she isn’t seeing her friend’s body, or any bodies for that matter. “Where’d she go?”
“KB was talking crazy on the bus. Said that she heard on the radio that these things are dead, like they’re getting’ up and trying to eat the living,” Rocky tells her girls.
“Zombies?” Cherry clarifies. If not for what she has seen, the unimaginable horrors, she’d say it was impossible.
“Get on the bus,” Rocky instructs her team. They comply, heading towards the exit. Rocky lingers behind debating something. She scratches her head with her tire iron.
“Rock, ya coming?” Cherry Bomb calls at the door, about to push it open with Jan hanging from her shoulder once more.
“I’ll catch up,” their leader simply says as she heads for the door they had emerged from. A firm believer in never leaving a man behind, she sure as hell won’t leave one of her girls to turn into a monster.
25
Watching from the bus, Killer B has just seen the scary Santa again with a woman in tow, now she can see two of her teammates through the glass doors. She pushes the lever to open the bus door for them in preparation. Before she can wonder where the rest of the team is, or Rocky, slow moving figures converge on the women walking together like conjoined twins.
Cherry Bomb keeps herself between the alleged zombies and Jan Slaughter. Killer B yells for them to run to her, but it’s too late. The dead bar the way, and she has only drawn attention to herself. As Cherry and Jan fight a losing battle, the dead bringing up the rear of the swarm turn to where the blonde woman screams.
Rocky has ‘Ugly’, Killer B looks around for a weapon to help her friends but comes up with nothing. Cherry and Jan, having only one free arm each to defend themselves, are overtaken. The ladies are on the ground, all Killer B can do is shut the door before the dead reach her. All she can do is watch her friends get ripped apart and eaten. All she can do is cry.
####
Rocky finds Sadie Sadist in a closet down the hall her teammates came from, dead on her feet. She stands in the dark, swaying slightly. She turns to her captain who remains in the doorway.
The sight horrifies Rocky, the blocker wasn’t just bitten, her arm has been torn down to the bone. She can hear Sadie’s new teammates not far away, wandering distant halls with their pitiful wails. She knows she must do this fast.
The dead derby girl advances, eager yet sluggish. Rocky, not usually one to pull her punches hesitates. She had her trusty tire iron reared back but couldn’t commit to brining it down on her friend’s skull. Sadie shuffles within an arm’s reach before lunging. Her hands are ice cold as they clamp around Rocky’s forearms, the Captain of Man’s Ruin can’t shake her off, she backs away bringing her one time teammate into the hall.
Sadie struggles to get her head close enough to bite, all that keeps her from her goal is the tire iron Rocky has slid between them. Rocky uses all her might to increase the gap of safety so she can get her foot up and kick her friend away. Free of danger for the moment, Rocky thinks of all the movies she has seen, they always suggest going for the head. It makes sense to the life hardened woman, but even she is having a difficult time committing to the deed. She has known Sadie a long time, fought many battles with her on and off the track.
The dead girl lunges again, this time Rocky steps to the side and lets her fall to the ground. The others are coming, she can hear them closing in from the connecting halls, drawn to the noise. It’s now or never.
“Sorry, girl,” Rocky laments. She steps down on Sadie’s back to keep her from rising and strikes.
Two swift blows are all it takes to still the undead derby girl. The feeling of her pal’s skull giving way sends a dreadful shiver through her that she must shake off. Shuffling feet are seconds away from rounding the corner, she has to go lest she be outnumbered. Regrettably, she won’t be able put Penelope Bruise to rest.
The fresh air relieves the nauseous feeling she has from destroying her friend’s skull. The brisk breeze is a welcoming sensation as it raises goose bumps over her exposed skin. Not a welcoming sight is that of her other teammates under a pile of zombies.
The bright lights of the lobby created a glare on the doors that shrouded the activity going on beyond, the horrible feast happening between her and the bus. Cherry and Jan are still and lifeless as several ghouls tear away their flesh, devouring them greedily. It angers her beyond common sense. She screams at the scene.
Instead of driving the zombies away like a flock of birds, her wailing only informs them that there’s fresher game to be had. The ghouls rise, facing the new arrival. They advance, more of them are coming from the street.
Seeing red, Rocky welcomes the chance to brawl. This isn’t like the derby where it only feels like a life or death situation, this is the real thing. However, like the derby, she will retaliate with equal or greater force the roughness shown to her teammates. She doesn’t know these corpses, they are strangers, giving her no reason at all to hesitate.
Rocky clobbers the first one to reach her as hard as she can with Ugly, stilling the ghoul before it e
ven hits the ground. The second isn’t as easy, her first blow staggers the large man but he’s able to correct himself and try again for the lunge. Rocky steps away and swings her iron like a bat crushing a pitch.
Killer B watches her Captain smash in the skull of another assailant. The odds are getting bleak as more arrive off the street. She opens the bus door having found herself a weapon, not much of one but it will have to do if she wishes to help. Killer B is armed with something that has gotten her through a lot of trouble in the past, her umbrella. No sooner does she set her feet on the pavement do the wandering dead come at her. She jabs the pointed end of her trusty accessory into the eye socket of one of them, not far enough to reach the brain. The man remains on his feet coming for her with outstretched arms.
It takes two tries to get the metal tip of her umbrella into the man’s other eye, this time she keeps it there. The zombie presses against it as if he doesn’t notice, driving it deeper until it’s in as far as it will go. Killer B can feel the resistance of the man’s socket and yet he persists to try and get her. She is startled by a hand on her shoulder.
“Get back on the bus, KB!” Rocky commands at her side. “Start ‘er up. I got this.”
Rocky stabs the prying end of Ugly into the man’s forehead, straight through the bone and into his brain before KB can comply with her order. His body falls to the ground taking the umbrella from her hands. She leaves it behind.
The bus rumbles to life as Rocky bashes another ghoul hell bent on eating them. She backs up the stairs and seals the door, her hand shakes on the lever. She can’t remember a time she’s felt this way, her senses on edge like a jungle cat, hyper alert and aware of her surroundings. The exhilaration of all the brawls she’s experienced in her many years in the derby can’t compare to how she feels right now. It’s better than the best sex she has ever had, she lights up a cigarette in the afterglow. “I need a drink.”
Killer B sits behind the wheel, her hands firmly planted to it. She doesn’t share her mentor’s thrill for the kill, she looks all around at the gathering figures. They come from every angle, can be seen in all her mirrors. All she can do is ask, “Are they really…?”
“Yeah,” Rocky confirms, unsure if her teammate is referring to the rest of Man’s Ruin, or the people that crowd their tour bus, either way the answer is the same. “They’re dead.”
“Gotta game plan?” Killer B asks with hope, her voice cracks as she cries for their fallen friends, and for all the walking dead around them.
“Your pal, crazy Santa, mentioned a reserve station up in Waterloo. I guess we head there.”
Killer B had already planned their route to Waterloo, intending to head out of Breckinridge by its northwest corner. That was when the world seemed to make sense and all they were going there for was a match, not survival. The road before her is full of dead, a frightening sight that freezes her hand on the gear shift, unable to bring herself to move.
“I’ll drive, baby,” Rocky tenderly says to Killer B’s relief. The younger of the two is eased out of the springy driver’s seat and led to the back. It’s Rocky’s turn to take care of her. “You just lie down, relax. We’ll be someplace safe before you know it.”
26
Having found a way out of Breckinridge, Nina races north faster than her headlights can handle. She tries to make the forty-five minute trip to Waterloo as short as possible. To the east to sun teases that it will be rising soon, like a glimmer of hope.
With one hand on the steering wheel and the other clutching her cramping stomach, Nina sweats profusely. Whatever it is being passed around, she knows she has it bad. She has nothing to go on but hope that she will find aid in the Wilkes lab at Memorial Hospital, a secret facility she once worked at. Need be, she can buy their help, or return to them their missing sample in exchange.
The streets of Waterloo are just as congested as Breckinridge, stalled traffic makes for a frustrating journey. Large hordes of clearly infected individuals have her redirecting as well. Roads are being blocked off by soldiers.
She is able to pick up speed through the park, having navigated well out of her intended path and heading south now through the city. Quiet suburban homes are a blur as she careens on the final stretch. Her vision darkens around the edges, her head swoons. Waves of nausea increase in her gut becoming a rumbling hurricane. Nina fights to stay alert as she nears the Emergency Room entrance. The big red letters are an announcement that help can be found here, the bleary eyed woman accidentally steps on the gas rather than the brake. She fails to navigate around the concrete lined lawn and instead plows through, briefly aloft skimming the frontage like a stone on the water. The lot is full of cars carelessly parked, folks like her desperate for help. She misses striking the other autos, and instead smashes into the building.
Her door opens during the impact, the girl falls out. She lies on the walk, unable to feel the bumps and broken bones of her journey. Her head had rebounded off the wheel and she hadn’t even noticed, she thankfully can’t feel a thing.
Too weak to move, she remains on the cold rough concrete and lets her mind wander to the day she saw an opportunity to take the sample, the day of the accident in the very lab she was trying to get to. The dead wander around her, drawn to the noise of her collision with the building, some climb out through the breech she has made in the glass vestibule. None of the ghouls give her so much as a moment’s notice, they don’t see the girl on the brink of death as food. This can’t be good, she thinks.
27
The police and firefighters still bravely serving the city of Breckinridge get the word out, telling all they can find to head towards the northwest corner of the city for evacuation. The public broadcast that has been informing folks of places within the city to go to for help has been halted. Anyone capable of making it out is to proceed to the designated point of departure, those that are incapable are advised to stay put and take precautions.
One to hear the call to leave wishes nothing more than to get back home, he waits for his security detail to come retrieve him. After being shot down in the hotel bar, Paul Coburn, followed the blonde’s advice and called his wife and told her he loves her. Then, he rented a pornographic film through his room’s television. The deed didn’t take long, and as usual what he felt after was hardly worth the price, a department store flyer could have served the same purpose. He drank away the shame with tiny bottles of alcohol from his mini-fridge while watching himself rant on television until drifting off to sleep.
The irritating tone used by the emergency broadcast system to get the attention of viewers did its job and woke him up. Under the safety of his blanket, on the California King-sized bed in the presidential suite, he listened to the repeating message as well as the screams in the halls.
Now that the people calling out for help have long been silent, he slides slowly off his mattress, still under the safety of his thick blanket, and to the door. He hears nothing on the other side, none of the yelling, or the moaning he heard before. His hand slowly reaches for the handle and freezes in place. Paul has to gather the nerve to open it.
He pokes his head out into the corridor that serves the higher priced suites of the top floor, encircling the rest of the hotel like a balcony that looks down over the lobby, fountain and restaurant area. The view is dizzying as his eyes scan each floor for movement. He has no idea where his protective personnel are, or which floor the service his network uses put them on. Across the way he sees a few slow moving figures wandering the lower floors and has an urge to call out to them, see if they know what’s going on or where his aides may be. He refrains from doing that, according to what he heard on television, people who have been bitten must be avoided and for all he knows the lumbering folks are infected.
Infected with what? he asks himself, the news wasn’t clear. All he knows is that once someone is bitten they become violent. Some of what was said sounded like nonsense, the dead are rising to feast on the living. He scoffs at the absur
dity and vows that if this is a hoax he won’t rest until the people involved are held accountable. The announcements mentioned the evacuation of the city, he’s always admonished those that ignored such precautions preceding natural disasters and then cried about how not enough was done to protect them, he’ll be damned if that will be him.
Slowly, and under the safety of his blanket, he heads to the elevator. He watches the floors rise up around him through the glass walls of the lift as he descends, all still lit up in the amber lighting that normally gives the place a cozy feel, it doesn’t do much to put him at ease now.
The air he breathes feels thick, it isn’t the environment, he’s on edge as he creeps out into the lobby. Paul fears the ding of the elevator arriving may have drawn attention to his presence. Moving in a quick shuffle he proceeds past the restaurant and dining area near the fountain intent on getting help at the front desk.
“Notorious GOP,” he hears a familiar condescending voice address him that stills him in his tracks.
Paul Coburn is torn, on one hand this is a living person, the first he’s run into since turning in for the night when the world went crazy. On the other, it’s not the person he was hoping to receive help from. Of all people.
“I’m surprised to see you,” the triple threat continues. He carries a plate out from the breakfast nook where the hotel’s guests would normally have a chance to enjoy a complimentary gourmet breakfast come morning. “Thought you’d be well on your way to Washington to advise the president. Kickin’ it in his bunker. Of all people.”
Life Among the Dead (Book 4): The End Page 9