7 Sykos

by Marsheila Rockwell

  “Back in a while,” Light said. Sansome raised an objection, too, but Light hurried out before the big man could even finish his sentence.

  The street was quiet. The whole Valley seemed to be, for that matter. Light had expected hordes of rampaging brain-­eaters, like the ones he had mowed over at the hospital. Sure, they’d encountered groups of them here and there, but in the usually bustling downtown area, nothing seemed to be moving at all. He had thought that by now, there might also be pockets of human resistance—­like the ­people in the hotel, but more assertive, taking to the streets to defend their right to intact craniums. This is Arizona, after all; we have more guns per person than almost any other state. If they were illegals instead of brain-­eaters, ­people would be out here in force.

  He wandered down 2nd Street, and as he crossed Adams, he spotted a trio of Infecteds coming his way. They were scanning storefronts, looking in windows the way hungry diners studied restaurant menus before going inside. They didn’t see him, so he dashed across the street and took refuge in an alley midway down the block. A Dumpster and some shipping cartons shielded him from view; though if they came down the alley—­or if they could somehow sniff out living humans—­they might still find him. They would also find destruction from the barrel of his M249.

  A ­couple of minutes later, they passed the alley with barely a glance inside and continued down 2nd. He gave them some time to get past, then moved cautiously to the alley’s end and peeked around the corner. The Infecteds had moved on at a reasonable clip. Checking their back trail seemed beyond their mental capabilities, but Light took no chances; he followed, but quietly, taking advantage of recessed doorways, newspaper boxes, and any other cover he could find.

  The light rail ran down Washington, and there was a train parked at the station. From the corner, Light couldn’t see anyone on it. The Infecteds noticed it, too, and diverted their course, crossing the usually busy street diagonally, a move that might have gotten them run over if the city had been functioning normally.

  They climbed up into the train, looked around, and left again. Empty, then? Light waited until they were down the next block, then raced across the street on the same path they’d used. He hoisted himself up into the car.

  Not empty, after all. There were plenty of ­people inside, but they were all dead. He couldn’t count how many because some had been torn to pieces, body parts strewn on seats and on the floor among the whole corpses there. Mostly whole, anyway, except for skulls cracked open and brains removed. The stench was ghastly; these ­people had died in the last few days, their clothes still reeked of the piss and shit of their final evacuations and the blood from the wounds that had killed them. Flies were thick on the corpses, an undulating, buzzing black blanket.

  Light had seen enough gore in his life that it seldom bothered him. This scene made his gut clench, though, his blood run cold, despite a vague stirring of arousal. His killings were merciful, meant to deliver ­people from pain and hopelessness. But maybe he was a psychopath, like O’Meara claimed. Maybe he was fooling himself about the nature of his actions, and he really did belong in a cage.

  He looked up and saw that the Infecteds had reversed course. They were coming back his way. He ducked so they couldn’t see him from ground level and moved inside the car just far enough that if they looked at the doorway, they wouldn’t spot him. His left foot brushed up against an arm that had been ripped off just above the elbow, with stringy muscle and flesh hanging out. He glanced at it, dispassionately, his momentary doubts forgotten. Touching a severed arm would bother some ­people, but not him. Hank Light was stronger than that. Better.

  He lifted his head above the window’s edge, just enough to keep track of the Infecteds. They were wandering down Washington, back across 2nd, toward Central. He waited, immersed in the stink of violent death, flies crawling on his skin and buzzing around his face, until the Infecteds were almost out of sight. Then he jumped down from the train and darted toward the corner. By the time he reached it, they were almost to the corner of 1st Street. They crossed it and kept going. When they reached Central, Light hurried to 1st, across it, and down the next block.

  He made it to Central just in time to watch them go into Duck and Decanter, in the One North Central Tower. He’d been there before; it was a small, upscale food and gift market and eatery, tile-­floored and trendy, with huge windows all around. Light went to a window and stood, mostly blocked from view by a section of wall, and watched.

  The Infecteds were two men who had probably been in their mid-­twenties before Crazy 8s got them, and an older woman, sixtyish, with silver hair and deep lines in her face. All three had the rosy cheeks and red eyes symptomatic of the virus, and their cheeks and lips and chins were bloodstained, symptomatic of creatures that fed on human beings. Their clothes were filthy and torn, as one would expect of those who walked the streets and survived through violence. The market appeared empty, but the Infecteds spotted a door, back past the refrigerator cases and the soda dispenser. They tried the door handle, but it didn’t open.

  Light expected them to give up and started to duck back behind the wall. Instead, one of the men picked up a chair and started slamming it against the door. The chair was wood, and it splintered before the door budged. The Infected tossed it aside, then he and the female hoisted one of the tables. It had a steel center post with short crosspieces at the bottom, for stability. Together, they rammed the door with that end.

  The fourth time, the jamb gave way, and the door swung open. Light could hear screaming from inside. He ran around the exterior, to a window that offered a better view. Behind the door was a storage area containing steel shelves stocked with drink cups, napkins, cartons of foodstuffs and merchandise.

  Two ­people had been holed up in there for days, from the looks of them. One was a young woman, blond and pretty despite being unkempt, and the other was a man in his forties, unshaven and greasy-­haired. They both wore shirts bearing the Duck and Decanter logo. Employees, Light guessed, who had taken refuge early on and stayed inside, probably subsisting on stored food and beverages. He guessed there was probably an employee bathroom back there.

  They both tried to fight off the Infecteds, the girl with a carving knife and the man with a length of steel pipe that looked like part of the shelving. But the Infecteds were not dissuaded. The knife struck home a ­couple of times, and the woman was battered with the steel bar. They kept going, though, ignoring their wounds. When the girl saw that her knife was doing her no good, she hurled it aside and tried to run deeper into the back room, screaming so loud Light could hear her. In her panic, she collided with one of the shelving units, and the delay allowed one of the Infecteds to catch her long hair. He yanked her backward and got his hands around her throat, then drove her down to her knees, and farther. When she was face down on the hard floor, he started bashing her skull against it, keeping up a steady, rhythmic pace. Light saw when the blood started to flow, and when her resistance was gone, he knew she was dead.

  The other man joined the woman, attacking the older man in the Duck and Decanter shirt. He swung his bar for all he was worth, but finally the woman batted it out of his hand. With that out of the way, she surged forward, biting and clawing. The man stepped in on the guy’s side, cutting off his only avenue of escape. The guy punched and kicked, but those were no more effective than the bar had been. If the Infecteds were hurt at all, they didn’t show it. When the woman got in close enough, she dug her teeth deep into his throat and tore. Blood geysered forth, and the guy’s knees went weak. They let him fall to the floor, then the woman picked up his metal bar and started jabbing the end of it into his skull.

  Light stood there, watching, unnoticed, while they exposed the brains of their victims, then scooped them out with their hands and ate them. They shared, two brains between three Infecteds. Watching the greyish folds dangling from between bloody teeth was disturbing, even to Light, but
he pushed from his mind the idea that either the victims or the Infecteds had ever been human and was able to watch with the dispassionate interest with which he’d view a TV show about life on the veldt. A lion eating a zebra was pretty much the same thing.

  The Infecteds were efficient machines. They had done away with the niceties society imposed upon them and focused on their own needs. There was no communication between them that he had heard, but they knew they were safer together than alone. They didn’t bother trying to sweet-­talk their prey, but took what they wanted by force.

  It wasn’t for him, of course. His calling was to end human suffering or to limit it as much as possible. But he didn’t see a lot of difference between a psychopath like Sansome or Warga and these once-­human creatures. Fallon said he was a psychopath, and he supposed he was, in a clinical sense. He knew most ­people would think of his ser­vices as murder, so he was careful to provide them only when he could be sure it was safe. He didn’t experience emotions the way other ­people did, but he thought his way was better. Safer.

  Anyway, considering how he was brought up, who could expect him to live up to society’s definition of normal? His mother had died giving birth to his sister Juliet, leaving both kids to be raised by their physically abusive, drunken wretch of a father. The old man had farmed out a lot of that work to a succession of short-­term girlfriends who shared his general temperament and weaknesses. Light’s first time helping someone out of misery had come when he was fifteen and Juliet twelve. The old man and his current piece, Constance, had been fighting. Somehow, Juliet had found herself dragged into it, and when it turned physical, she’d been knocked down the stairs—­by whom, Light never found out. He had been downstairs, and when he heard the commotion, he raced to her side. Her neck was broken, and her eyes pleaded for release. By the time their father and Constance got downstairs, Light had set Juliet free with a pillow. He lied to the paramedics when they arrived, and he decided then that he would someday join their ranks.

  He also decided he would do what he could to help those beyond the reach of medical intervention. The next time came soon after, when Constance passed out with a lit cigarette between her fingers. She woke up when the cheap sofa burst into flames, but she’d spilled so much gin on her blouse that she couldn’t escape the blaze.

  She was so badly burned that no one bothered to look for another cause of death. Like suffocation. But her pained mewling had been infuriating.

  Warga and the rest were psychos, sure, but he was no cold-­blooded killer like them. He rendered the only aid that could ease the pain of the unfortunates he encountered. He was a caregiver, really. Instead of a prison cell, he deserved a medal.

  Maybe he’d get one, when this mission had been accomplished. If he bothered to stick around for it.

  CHAPTER 27

  38 hours

  “Where’s Elliott? What have you done to him?” Fallon demanded, stepping into the room.

  “No hablo Inglés,” the Latina replied, gesturing helplessly with her left hand. Her right hand was behind an open case on the room’s desk. Fallon couldn’t see the contents from where she stood, but she imagined it included more torture implements.

  “Bullshit. Elliott doesn’t speak Spanish, so if you were trying to question him, it would have had to have been in English. Try again, sweetheart.” As she spoke, Fallon pulled out her gun and started to raise it, but the other woman was faster, snatching a gun of her own out of the case and leveling it at Fallon’s head.

  “Put your gun on the floor and kick it over here. Sweetheart,” the Latina said, her accent heavy, her r’s rolling like marbles across tile. Even so, her sarcasm came through loud and clear.

  Fallon briefly considered refusing. If she gave up her weapon, there was nothing to stop the woman from killing her outright. She wasn’t so sure of her aim up close and personal like this, though. It was one thing shooting into a crowd of Infected—­they were the proverbial fish in a barrel. Even for a definitional psychopath, it was an entirely different proposition to shoot at someone who you knew was human and who could shoot back at any second. She wondered how many ­people would still hunt for sport if the animals also had weapons. Not a lot, she imagined.

  Even psychopaths prefer their victims to be helpless.

  Fallon slowly bent to place the gun on the floor as instructed, her eyes never leaving the other woman. Once she’d released it, she straightened and used her foot to shove the weapon halfheartedly across the floor toward the Latina. It made it about two feet before friction from the carpet slowed it to a stop, in between the two women but closer to Fallon. The Latina frowned in annoyance.

  “What do you know about Jameson? Why are you here looking for him?”

  Fallon decided to use the same lie here as she had downstairs. After all, it had worked once. Maybe it would again.

  “Elliott’s my husband. We’ve been separated, but our son was killed by one of those brain-­eating . . . things, and now he’s all I have left. And I want him back.”

  “What is the word you used? Ah, yes—­‘bullshit.’ Jameson was not married. We did a thorough check on him.”

  That was interesting. Apparently the Mexican version of Jessica Rabbit was not working alone.

  “So why are you really here? Jealous lover? He owes you money? Perhaps you are la policía?”

  Fallon laughed bitterly.

  “I’d like to think a cop wouldn’t be so easily disarmed, wouldn’t you?” She knew the woman would pump her for information—­maybe even torture Fallon like she had Elliott—­and then kill her. Keeping the conversation going until she could get her own information and find a way out of this little predicament seemed like a good idea.

  As did honesty.

  “He’s my partner. He stole from me, and I want a piece of his hide.”

  Well, partial honesty.

  “It seems your Elliott is good at that. But what, exactly, did he take from you? Money? Or something else?”

  Fallon knew the Latina was fishing, and the fact that she was focusing on “something else” gave her a pretty good idea what the other woman was hoping to catch.

  She didn’t have the prototype. Which meant Jameson couldn’t be dead, because he was the only one who knew where it was.

  “Tell me what you did with him, and I’ll tell you what he stole,” Fallon countered. If the woman couldn’t—­or wouldn’t—­tell her where Jameson was, there was no reason to keep playing her game.

  “Wrong answer,” the Latina said with a hard smile. And then she pulled the trigger.

  The Infecteds had finished their deli meal and were on the move again. Light hung back but kept an eye on them, torn between being riveted by how they fed their terrible hunger and wanting to put an end to them. If he had known about the ­people hiding in the back room at the market in time to save them, he would have opened fire. Next time, he would be ready.

  It didn’t take long for the next time to come around. The Infecteds were walking past a UPS delivery truck parked beside a curb. They seemed to hardly notice the truck, but then one of them stopped and climbed up onto the front bumper. He put his hands against the glass and peered through.

  Although Light couldn’t see any communication taking place, the other two moved toward the rear of the truck. The first one got down from the bumper and went to the curbside door. He tried it but couldn’t get in. A concrete garbage bin with a removable steel top stood on the sidewalk nearby; the Infected hurried to it, snatched off the top, and returned to the truck. A few blows with the steel broke through the window, and the monster dropped his tool and reached through, opening the door from the inside.

  Light readied the machine gun. If there were human beings in that truck, he would open fire before they were hurt.

  Then everything happened so fast, it caught him off guard. The back doors flew open, and four ­people sprang out. One w
ore UPS brown. The Infecteds were ready, though. They caught two of the ­people—­both women—­immediately. The UPS driver made it a ­couple of steps, then tripped on the curb, and before he could get up, the Infected who had broken the window was on him. The fourth human, another man, sprinted away down the middle of the street.

  Light opened up with the M249. He squeezed the trigger and held it down, firing an extended hail of steel-­tipped rounds. The weapon had a serious recoil, but his targets weren’t far away, and he was able to maintain his aim well enough. The Infected wrestling with the UPS driver went down first, his arms flailing at the air until the bullets penetrated his skull. The other two fell more easily, first the other male, then the female, both of them jerking spasmodically as the heavy rounds tore into them. Brass clinked around Light’s boots, and the air filled with the biting scent of gun smoke.

  When he was sure the Infecteds were finished, Light walked closer to their victims. He was too late for the first two, it turned out. The UPS driver still lived, but there were tooth marks on his face, where his cheek had been bitten into, and his neck showed multiple claw marks. He was alive but infected. Unless he had a psychopathic brain, he would become one of them.

  And he was in incredible pain. He couldn’t speak, could only make pathetic, squeaking sounds. His left hand clutched weakly at the curb. His eyes were wide, panic-­stricken.

  Light laid his weapon down gently, placed his left hand across the man’s mouth, and with his right, pinched the driver’s nostrils closed.

  It didn’t take long.

  CHAPTER 28

  38 hours

  Fallon had been watching the other woman’s eyes as they spoke. She’d seen their slight narrowing when she’d offered to exchange what she knew for what the other woman knew. So she was already lunging for her own gun when the Latina fired. Fallon felt the bullet whizz by her ear. She tried not to think about the fact that if she’d moved any slower, her brain would be too fragmented for even an Infected to find useful.