by Rick Jones
Eldridge feigned a smile. “Yeah,” he said. “You keep holding onto your faith. You keep turning that blind eye of yours to the truth. But in the end, the truth will eventually rear its ugly head and send you along that road paved with good intentions.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll be right beside me.”
Eldridge nodded. “I won’t deny that.” Again he stared ceilingward. “I won’t deny that at all.”
Michelin stood up, and deeply disgusted, drew space from Eldridge. He no longer wanted to communicate with the man because of one matter: Eldridge was stealing away his hope.
Michelin continued to turn a blind eye.
#
“Michelin was wrong,” Sheena said. She’d overheard the exchange between Eriq and President Michelin, the painful accusations of leading everyone to slaughter.
Eriq traced his finger lovingly against her cheek. “Yes and no,” he said. “I did lead us to an area where there was no way out.”
“You were led here by those things out there. Everybody knows that. You tried your best, Eriq.”
But he found no comfort in her words.
“I haven’t given up,” he said to her. “I haven’t.”
She fell into his embrace and could hear the strong heartbeat in his chest. “I believe in you.”
Don’t believe too hard, he thought.
Like John Eldridge, he was seeing things through the eyes of a realist, things as they truly were.
But unlike John Eldridge, he had not completely lost his faith.
#
Michelin wandered by Father Gardenzia, who corralled Lisa Millette into a comforting embrace, and proffered a look of repugnance. Why was this woman always out of control? They all shared the same tragedy and misfortune.
“Ms. Millette, you really need to get a hold of yourself,” Michelin told her. “Your lack of control can be infectious. And nobody want’s that, do we? It’s always about maintaining hope, isn’t it?”
She leaned forward with her face creased and flushed from pressing it too tightly against the priest’s garments. “Why don’t you just piss off,” she told him.
This seemed to catch President Michelin off guard.
“My mother always said that you were the bottom of the barrel not only as a politician, but as a man. You build hope only to take it away, that’s what you do. You make promises, and then you make excuses as to why you can’t keep them.”
“Where the Hell did this come from?’ he asked. “I only said—”
“I have no interest in what you have to say,” she said. She turned to Father Gardenzia. “Excuse me, Father, but I need a breath of fresh air.”
“Understood, my dear.”
When she left, Michelin felt awkward while standing next to the priest. “Don’t tell me that you’ve lost your faith, Father. It seems to be in short supply around here.”
“My faith is bulletproof,” he answered. “It can be struck and struck repeatedly, but never with a killing blow.”
How poignant, Michelin thought, wanting to roll his eyes. Then: “So tell me. These things. What are they? How did they come to be?” He cocked his head. “Why would God allow such an abomination to exist?” He didn’t care about the priest’s thoughts. It was simply in his nature to be malicious, even with a blunt stroke of a few insulting words masked to seem sincere.
Gardenzia shrugged. “Who knows who or what they are, or what their purpose is.”
“So you don’t have an answer?”
“Should I?”
“You’re the one who’s supposed to have a grasp on the realms regarding the living and the dead. Here we have both.”
“I’m a priest, President Michelin. I provide faith and spiritual healing. I don’t provide answers to questions I don’t have answers to. Whatever these things are, for whatever reason the dead have risen, is not for me to say. Nor do I lay claim to know why God has, or has not, provided me an answer through divine intervention.”
What good are you then? I need to hear that we can get out of here.
Father Gardenzia raised his hand as if to use it to brush by President Michelin. “Excuse me,” he said. Then he walked away, leaving the president to stand alone.
#
In his effort to provide comfort, Farther Gardenzia walked throughout the chamber offering reassurances. Senator Newel was sitting in the corner cradling his head as tufts of hair bled through the cracks of his fingers, the man looking as if he was about to tear them out by the roots. Lisa Millette was walking in circles embracing herself, the woman repeating over and over about how badly she wanted to go home. The Detail guard stood sentinel by the door holding his firearm, and John Eldridge was off in his own little world as he stared ceilingward. Eriq stood before shelves lined with bottles of hydrochloric and muriatic acid and appeared studious, as if considering their potential uses. Sheena was in the center of the room appearing blissfully reposed.
The priest sidled up to her. “You look remarkably calm,” he told her, gently smiling.
But she had a thousand-mile stare. “She remembered,” she said.
“Who?”
“My mother.” She turned to him. “She remembered me. She said . . . daughter.”
Father Gardenzia recalled the moment. “I do remember,” he said.
But she had questions. “Father?”
“Yes.”
“Obviously you believe that our bodies are the seats for the human soul, correct?”
“I do.”
“And when the body dies and the soul passes, the soul takes with it the conscious mind. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did she remember me? Why didn’t the conscious mind pass when her soul did?”
After hesitating, he honestly stated, “I don’t know. But I do know that your mother saved us all. She remembered and reacted with undeniable love, sacrificing whatever was left of her so that you, and we, could go on. It’s nice to know that such love is everywhere and encompasses everything. It doesn’t matter if we understand it or not. All we have to know is that it exists.”
“Do you think that she’s finally passed?”
He nodded. “Trust me, child. Love always finds its way.”
She sighed a measure of relief, then laid a hand gently upon his forearm. “Thank you,” she said. “For promoting faith when faith was all but lost.”
Gardenzia smiled.
He had done his job.
Even if it was rebuilding faith one soul at a time.
#
Eriq was standing before the rows of shelves containing liters of acids, pondering possible uses. The surrounding steel walls were one-inch thick, and though acids proved corrosive, he knew they weren’t strong enough to eat their way through the walls. The thought of having no options to fall back on to save their lives sickened him.
“Got a plan in mind?” asked the Detail guard. The man stood by the door with his pistol double-gripped and held high.
“No. Not particularly.”
“We ain’t got all day, man.”
I know that!
“And they’re getting closer,” the guard added. “I can hear them coming down the hall.”
Eriq began to rake his fingers through his hair. There’s a solution for everything. There’s a solution for—
And then something rammed against the door. Something powerful. Something large.
The guard took a step back, his firearm directed at the metal door.
. . . BANG . . .
The entire area shuddered, causing the bottles of acid on the shelves to rattle.
. . . BANG . . .
The first dent appeared, one the size of a grapefruit.
. . . BANG . . .
A second dent.
“That’s impossible,” said Eriq. “That door’s supposed to be damage proof.”
“Yeah, well, you better tell the manufacturer that his products suck!” yelled the guard.
. . . BANG . . .
A t
hird dent.
“It’s not going to last much longer,” said Eldridge.
Somewhere in the background, Lisa Millette began to cry uncontrollably and screamed.
And Father Gardenzia prayed.
. . . BANG . . .
#
The behemoth stood before the door. Its massive fists like sledgehammers against the steel plate.
. . . BANG . . .
Driving.
. . . BANG . . .
With methodical precision.
. . . BANG . . .
It was not about to be denied.
. . . BANG . . .
Chapter Forty-Five
Skully and Funboy were working their way down the corridor with their weapons leveled when they began to hear indecipherable whispers ahead.
“We’re closing in,” Skully said into his lip mic. “About how far?”
“Sixty meters,” said Meade.
“Copy that.” He then redirected his conversation to Funboy. “How many Semtex grenades you got?” he asked him.
“One.”
And Skully had one. “We’ll use mine to thin out the herd, and then commit to headshots. Clear?”
“Clear.”
They moved along slowly with their heads on a swivel.
The whispers were getting louder.
And then they ceased altogether, the sudden silence just as terrifying.
“They know we’re here,” Skully whispered. “Get ready.”
How do you get ready for something like this? Funboy asked himself.
And then the chatter started up again, a slithering of soft hushes growing to a chant.
“Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.”
And then something began to lope in their general direction, the steel grates shaking beneath their feet as the living dead closed in.
“Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.”
Skully removed his Semtex grenade with his thumb in the ring, ready to pull it free. “Stand ready,” he said.
“Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.”
The shaking of the grate beneath them acted as a barometer of sorts. The closer they got, the more they shook.
“Sounds like a Hell of a lot more than fifty,” Funboy said.
But Skully didn’t respond. He simply held the grenade high.
“Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.” The call of the mantra was much louder.
“Here they come,” said Skully.
The undead rounded the bend of the corridor and leapt from wall to wall, from one side to other like insects, having learned that moving marks made for difficult targets. Particularly when headshots could permanently down their kind.
“Coooooome tooo meeeeeeeee.”
Skully thumbed the pin free from the grenade and tossed it down the hall several meters before the horde, hoping that it would detonate within the first or second line of their approach. So timing was critical.
“Coooooome to—”
A Semtex grenade was extremely powerful, and when it went off it did exactly what it was meant to do.
A ball of fire erupted upward then outward, the concussion of the blast knocking Skully and Funboy off their feet, whereas it completely decimated the front lines of the undead. Limbs and viscous matter blew apart in an instant, marring the surrounding walls with dripping gore and gruesome designs. Pipelines were compromised, the tubes having holes through them; parts of the walls were damaged and dented.
Pieces of the undead lay scattered about as a battery of smoke rose from the floor. Behind the gray veil of smoke, the walking dead appeared partially restrained as if they’d been stunned by a flash bang, their surroundings suddenly alien to them as they reached their bony talons out for the support of a wall to use as a crutch.
Skully and Funboy were quickly on the feet with their weapons at eye level.
“Now!” yelled Skully.
They moved forward pulling triggers in quick bursts, the bullets finding their marks and trailing gray matter through the exit wounds.
Bodies fell.
The corridor filled with the light of muzzle flashes.
And the Force Elite began to take new ground.
Heads continued to blow out explosively, the bullets hitting true.
Internal fluids ran across the floors and down the walls as sludge.
“Keep pressing!” Skully took the walking dead on the left, Funboy the right side, firing calculated shots that thinned the corps of undead.
Body parts lay everywhere as Skully and Funboy waded through the pieces.
Hands, forearms, legs, thigh meat, and portions of heads smelled like death and decay.
The pools of honey-thick bile beneath their feet was as slick as ice.
And more bodies fell.
“Keep moving!” cried Skully.
Six remained. Those who were fortunate enough to hang back from ground zero.
As the soldiers approached, they fell back, clawing the air and hissing like serpents.
“Six,” called Funboy, sending off a volley of shots.
Two more went down, their heads exploding from their necks as splashes. Then the other four attacked, bounding from one wall to the other, making themselves hard to hit.
Skully strafed his weapon from left to right, the high caliber bullets of the weapon cutting across upper legs and thighs, the impacts dismembering them from their bodies and taking away their means to move.
In the aftermath of the firefight, as the bodies tried to belly crawl their way to them, Skully and Funboy removed their Ka-Bars and proceeded to drive the points through their skulls, snuffing them out.
Funboy leaned against the wall and blew out a long breath of relief. Around them bodies lay everywhere. “That was a bitch,” he said.
“Ammo?”
Funboy made a quick examination. “Still got a healthy level, but it won’t be much longer if we keep running into these things. They’re getting wise, Skully. They know enough to get out of the line of fire.”
“Yeah. So I’ve noticed.”
Skully lowered his lip mic. “Meade?”
“Right here, boss.”
“You catching all this?”
“You guys are making me proud,” he answered.
“Don’t be too proud,” he said. “We’re not through this yet. Anything going on at your end?”
“No. Most of the tangos are either topside or in the stairwells. We’re good.”
“How far to the shaft?”
“Sixty meters. The left tunnel will take you to the central corridor, which will lead you directly to the shaft.”
“How big is this damn ship?”
“It’s big enough. But you need to get going. Your path is clear, but there’s no telling for how long. These things seem to rebound quickly after they’re given a bloody nose.”
“Understood.” Skully raised his lip mic.
“We good?” asked Funboy.
Skully pointed his weapon down the corridor. “We’re clear. But we have to hurry.”
“I can relate to that.”
Skully took the lead.
And Funboy followed.
Chapter Forty-Six
. . . BANG . . .
“The door’s not going to last forever,” said Eldridge. “Are we just going to stand here?”
Eriq grabbed the mobile rack of shelves holding the bottles of acid and maneuvered them over by the door. After locking the wheels in place, he stepped back.
. . . BANG . . .
“Are you serious?” asked President Michelin. “That’s your answer? Placing bottles of acid in front of the door? Seriously?”
Eriq removed the gun from his waistband and directed its aim to the bottles. “If they break in,” he said, “that acid will consume flesh and bone. We can cripple them and get by.”
“Do you have any idea how many of those things are out there?” Michelin went on, obviously frustrated. “There’s no way in Hell we can go out that way. We need another route.”
“There is
no other way out!” he countered loudly. Then he spoke softer, as if regretting his harsh measure, “There’s no other way.”
. . . BANG . . .
The door began to give on its hinges.
. . . BANG . . .
And the bottles continued to rattle against the force of the blows.
. . . BANG . . .
President Michelin stood next to Eriq. “Well, Mr. Wyman, it appears that you failed us again. Good . . . job!”
Eriq closed his eyes.
. . . BANG . . .
And waited for the inevitable.
#
“We’re never gonna get there in time. You know that, right?”
Skully knew of no such thing as they rounded the final corner to the shaft’s panel, so he ignored Funboy.
Skully had removed the panel leading into the freight shaft. Seeing that the channel was as black as pitch, they utilized the night-vision faceplates of their helmets. After they entered the chute and locked the panel behind them, they began to climb the rungs. Several flights up they could see the bottom of the freight elevator, which didn’t bode well with either of them since the elevator clung to the rails by the use of magnets. Should the energy of the magnets fail, then the elevator would fall and clip them off the walls.
“We’re in the shaft and moving up the levels,” Skully stated into his lip mic. “You got eyes on the prize?”
“You need to step it up, boss. They got company on the thirteenth,” said Meade.
They moved quickly along the rungs, bypassing numbers on the shaft’s walls denoting the levels of the mausoleum. When Skully reached the thirteenth level, he pressed his ear against the wall.
Nothing.
The elevator was suspended a few levels up.
“I’m at the location now,” he told Meade.
“On the other side of that wall is the primary asset. You need to blow it now, Skully. If you don’t, then the mission’s over. Game goes to the walking dead.”
Skully reached down to Funboy with an open hand. “Semtex,” he said.
Funboy removed the doughy, off-white plastique from his cargo pocket and handed it over, along with the detonator pin. “The wall’s one inch of steel,” he told him. “I don’t think that’s gonna be enough.”