Season of Rot

by Eric S. Brown

  Martin gave Jack the signal and dropped to the floor, rolling away from the mob. Jack’s shotgun thundered, and Mitchell opened with his AK-47 on full auto; the other men hit the dead with everything they had. The bodies piled up throughout the hallway as Martin rejoined them, but more of the dead raced to take the place of the creatures who had fallen.

  “We can’t hold them forever like this!” Jack shouted. “Our ammo isn’t going to last forever.

  “Fall back,” Martin ordered. “Fall back and reload.”

  Not all of the dead followed them as they retreated. Many chose the easier route and headed off down the hall in the other direction.

  * * *

  Daniel locked himself in the communications room when the gunshots started. He frantically searched around in his pockets. “Oh God, where is it?”

  He finally grasped the butt of the cigarette buried in his coat pocket and pulled it out. It was his last one, the last one he was aware of in the whole hospital. He’d been saving it for a special time, for when he really needed it. He ran it under his nose, inhaling the scent of unlit tobacco, the scent of heaven.

  He dug out his lighter and flicked it, but it didn’t ignite. He flicked it again and again, pausing only to bang it against the wall desperately.

  Disgusted, he threw it down along with the cigarette and slumped against the wall. Tears slid down his cheeks. His sobs were quiet at first, but soon he wept openly, alone in the darkness as he listened to the howls of the dead and the gunfire on the floor below.

  * * *

  Vince held tightly to Laura’s hand, almost dragging her with him as she tried to keep pace. He had already sent someone to find Daniel and get him up on the roof, but Laura insisted they find Chris and Natalie before they headed up to the helicopter. Vince had no choice but to go along with her; she wouldn’t leave without the child, and wherever they managed to escape to, they would need Laura’s skills for as long as she could fight off the cancer. Besides, given time and the proper tools Laura might one day put an end to the dead virus once and for all.

  Vince wondered if she’d be able to make it the rest of the way to Chris’s quarters, but ever the fighter, Laura gasped for air and pushed on. Her strength amazed him and gave him hope.

  They found Chris’s door barred. Laura struggled vainly with the knob.

  “Move!” Vince screamed, and she stepped aside as he kicked open the entrance.

  Chris glanced up at them as they made their way inside. He sat rocking Natalie, hugging her tightly to his chest. “Save her,” he said, crying. “Someone’s got to. She doesn’t deserve to die like this.”

  “Okay, Chris. Okay.” Vince helped him to his feet. “We’re certainly going to try.”

  * * *

  Daniel selected a heavy wrench from his tools and tested its weight. It would have to do. Like an idiot, he had dropped his gun in the stairwell.

  He cranked up the stereo, and Michael Stipe’s voice blared; the room rattled to the tune of “The Great Beyond.” It was one of Daniel’s favorite songs, and somehow it seemed to fit. The music covered the noise of the dead as they tore the door off its hinges.

  Daniel adjusted his glasses and stood his ground. Two dead things rushed into the room. He swung the wrench and clobbered the first one in the head. It lurched sideways and fell with a crash into one of Daniel’s worktables. Its left eye dangled from its socket as the thing thrashed about on the floor.

  The second intruder came at him too fast, and he couldn’t get a good swing at it. It grabbed him, strained against him, tried to sink its teeth into his flesh.

  Daniel threw the thing off and darted for the door. He nearly collided with a third creature in the hall. He gave a quick hard kick to one of its knees, then fled, not bothering to look back as the creature toppled to the floor.

  As he rounded the bend in the corridor, a voice cried out. “Daniel!” One of the hospital’s defenders, a man whose name he couldn’t remember, was running after him. Daniel skidded to a halt as the man caught up.

  “We need to get you up to the roof!” the guard said. “You need to fly the helicopter!”

  Shit, Daniel thought.

  Vince, Harold, Laura, and any other survivors were all counting on him. Counting on him to fly a type of helicopter he’d never even sat in until today. He remembered the time he’d spent going over its controls and knew he could do it, even if just barely. It would be enough.

  The guard shoved a rifle into his hands as they raced toward the roof. The weapon brought Daniel no comfort. If they encountered a large pack of the dead on their way, it wouldn’t make any difference whether or not they sent a few of the creatures back to hell. They’d be overwhelmed and that was that.

  They rounded another corner and jerked open the door to the stairs that led to the roof. A decaying woman in a bloodstained wedding gown leapt out at them, slashing the guard’s throat with her long decorated nails. Blood spurted from the wound with every beat of his heart.

  Daniel didn’t have time to take a shot at her, so he barreled into her, pushing her back inside the stairwell and over the railing. She hissed, still groping for him as she fell into the darkness below.

  Daniel glanced back at the guard’s corpse, wishing he could remember the poor guy’s name. Then he shut the door to the stairs and sprinted up to the roof.

  * * *

  Most of the hospital’s defenders were dead and had switched sides in the battle. Mitchell had disappeared in the fray, leaving only Martin and Jack to hold back the dead long enough for Vince and Laura to escape.

  The dead had them cornered now two floors below the roof, backed into a waiting room with no way out. Martin was fighting the creatures hand-to–hand, holding them at the door while Jack tried to reload. A purple blood-like substance oozed from numerous wounds and bites covering his body. He punched one of the things in the head, which flew off and landed on the floor to be trampled under countless feet.

  Jack raised his gun and shot a creature that had made it past Martin. The blast hit it in the chest, knocking it to the other side of the room.

  “It’s no use Jack!” Martin wailed as a wounded dead thing, its lower spine shattered, sank its teeth into his thigh.

  “I know,” Jack whispered, letting his shotgun clatter to the floor. He pulled a bandolier of grenades from his backpack, which he had swiped from a fallen friend, and without hesitation he popped the string’s pin and ran into the swarm of undead. “See you in hell, Martin!”

  The waiting room burst into a ball of flames, showering the street below with shards of glass and chunks of debris.

  * * *

  The building seemed to shake as Vince bounded up the last steps to the roof. He lost his footing and would have fallen over the railing had Chris not grabbed him.

  “What the hell was that?” Laura asked.

  “Jack,” Vince answered curtly as he shoved her ahead of him. “There isn’t going to be a trip back, Laura. I’m sure Martin did all he could, but I think we’re it. We’re the only ones who are going to make it out of here alive.”

  Laura nodded sadly as they opened the door to the roof and came face to face with the barrel of a massive, cannon-like gun. Mitchell lowered it and grinned. “It’s about time someone made it up here.”

  Daniel stood with him, waving at them with a trembling hand. Laura embraced him, happy to see their pilot alive.

  Chris cradled Natalie in his arms and headed straight for the helicopter. “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here before the dead catch up with us!”

  Vince met Mitchell with a knowing look. “You’re not going, are you?”

  Mitchell shook his head. “There’s no place for someone like me left in this world.”

  “I wonder if there’s a place left for any of us,” Vince agreed. He laid a hand on Mitchell’s shoulder for a moment, then darted to join the others.

  Mitchell watched as the helicopter whirled to life and lifted off from the hospital’s roof, strea
king away into the sky. He swiveled the machine gun on its tripod until it pointed toward the stairs, and he waited for the dead to come.

  THE QUEEN

  1

  The air stunk of filth and human waste. The summer heat heightened the smell, but Scott had long grown accustomed to the stench. Sweat glistened on his sunburned chest and shoulders. He reached up, running his fingers through his short brown hair. They came away wet and covered in grime. He couldn’t remember for the life of him when he’d last been allowed to bathe. There was a large tub of water in the center of the pen where the prisoners were kept. Scott eyed it, not yet thirsty enough to expose himself to the germs and bacteria it contained.

  Eleven other men shared the small pen with him. Most of them sat around, lost in their own thoughts like he was. Buck and Hank played cards with a tattered deck for which they’d been able to bribe the guards. Hank had traded a section of flesh from his left thigh in order to get it. The bandage he wore had yellowed, and Scott guessed that soon Hank would succumb to infection and die. He had seen a lot of men die over the three weeks he’d been trapped here. The guards didn’t seem to care, as long as they had one or two healthy males.

  The women that had been taken alive were treated much better than the men. Scott had never been inside their actual quarters, but he knew it was inside the breeding center, out of the sun. It had plumbing and was kept clean and free of disease. Unlike the pig slop the men were fed, the women were given real food. It all made sense in a sick kind of way. The dead guards needed the women to make babies, more “cattle” for the pens, whereas they only needed one man to knock them all up.

  Of all the men in the cage, only David stood at the fence, peering through it at the hills beyond the compound. He was a newcomer to the breeding center and still hoped that someone would rescue them. He dreamed of escape. It was a dangerous thing. Scott knew there was no way out other than death; it was just a question of how one died and ended up on the other side of the fence.

  If someone perished in the pen while the guards weren’t around, Scott and the other prisoners made damn sure the corpse didn’t get back up, even if it meant bashing its head with a stone until they were covered in blood. The newly risen dead weren’t always as evolved as the guards, and they often went on a feeding frenzy. Stopping that from happening was worth the lashing. The men took turns so that no one was overly punished or outright put to death for the deed. It was Scott’s turn now, and he figured it wouldn’t be long before he was bashing open Hank’s skull.

  The guards mostly stayed inside the compound proper. Whatever force had reanimated them had also greatly reduced their rate of decay, but hadn’t stopped it. Being outside in the heat of summer was unhealthy for them in the long run.

  Scott watched as “Chief Hole in His Neck” peeked out of the compound door for the hourly check on the pen; the dead man had gotten his name because his throat was torn open and his rotting windpipe dangled out. He was one of the few guards who couldn’t speak, but he held a high rank among the dead and was easy to get along with if you stayed out of his way and didn’t cause trouble. The dead man’s gaze lingered only for a moment on David, who still stood at the fence, then the mute guard popped back inside, closing the door to the air-conditioned compound behind him.

  Scott tiredly pushed himself to his feet, wiping his hands on the pair of tattered black jeans he wore. David didn’t notice his approach.

  “You’ve got to stop doing this,” Scott warned.

  David jumped at the sound of his voice. His bloodshot eyes stared at Scott in shock. “Doing what?”

  “Hoping,” Scott answered. “If you don’t, they’ll likely have you for dinner soon. It makes them nervous when one of us shows any bit of spirit left. Just be thankful you’re not one of them already and get over it.”

  David started to respond, but Scott had already turned his back to the newcomer and was headed towards his spot, where he planned to sit and wait for the cool of the night.

  2

  The dead were getting closer. Riley ducked farther down in the brush, which grew on a hill above the gravel road. Two jeeps, flanked by a number of creatures on foot, crept their way up the mountainside. The whole scene was very troubling. Just how desperate were the dead getting for food if they were sending hunting parties this far out, and did it mean that all the cities had fallen at last?

  The hunting party had stuck to the road so far, and Riley doubted they would stray into the woods, but his cabin was only a few miles north of the road. He counted eight of the things, including the drivers, all heavily armed. He couldn’t face a force of that size by himself, and even if he miraculously took them all out, more would come in search of their brethren, and likely in greater numbers. Then they would surely find his place.

  Riley kept still and waited for them to pass by. When they were well out of earshot, he began to sneak back the way he’d come.

  As he reached home and emerged from the trees, he saw little Brandon playing in the tall grass surrounding the cabin. The boy’s face lit up when he noticed his father. He dropped the stick with which he’d been hacking at the wild flowers and ran towards Riley with his tiny arms open. Despite his worries, Riley couldn’t help but smile as he swept Brandon up from the ground and clutched him tight to his chest.

  “Where’s Mom?” Riley asked, cutting off his son’s litany of questions about his scouting trip.

  Crestfallen, Brandon motioned towards the cabin, keeping one arm propped on his father’s wide shoulders. “She’s getting ready to cook dinner.”

  Riley frowned and placed Brandon back on the ground. The last thing they needed were smoke signals pouring out of the cabin’s chimney today.

  Brandon followed as Riley walked onto the porch and stuck his head inside the kitchen through the open front door. “Hi, honey, I’m home,” he called out, trying to hide his concern from Brandon.

  Hannah looked up from the vegetables she was chopping and greeted Riley with a smile, which died on her lips as she saw the fear in his eyes. “It’s time isn’t it?” she asked.

  Riley nodded. “We both knew this day would come sooner or later.”

  She moved to take Brandon’s hand. “How long do we have?”

  “I don’t know. An hour, a week, there’s just no way to tell. They may never find this place, but they’re close enough for us to be better safe than sorry.”

  Hannah leaned down and kissed her child on the forehead. “Brandon, honey, would you please go play in your room for a few minutes? Mommy and Daddy need to talk, okay?”

  As the boy marched off deeper into the cabin, Hannah got back to her feet and turned to face Riley. “Where are we going to go?”

  He shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  3

  It had been a tough decision but ultimately Riley had chosen to leave the truck. It was in great shape, perfect for off-road travel, and he had stored enough fuel to fill it up twice. But the dead controlled the roads now, and the truck was too risky, even out here in the wilderness. It was better, Riley knew, to set out on foot. They would travel slower and they wouldn’t be able to carry as much, but it would be far safer. On foot, they could stick to the trees and stay clear of the roads; they would be nowhere near as noticeable should they come across a group of the dead.

  Hannah prepared some rations, and the family divided the load of food and water, with even little Brandon carrying a canteen of his own. Riley also let him carry a hunting knife, though Hannah had protested. The knife would be of no use against the dead as Brandon didn’t have the strength or the skill to drive it into someone’s skull, but it made the boy feel safer and that was what mattered to Riley.

  Hannah carried an old-fashioned .30-.06 rifle, which once belonged to her father, and she also strapped a .38 revolver to her hip. Riley carried two holstered .45 automatics, an M-16 he’d bought illegally before the world fell apart, and numerous spare magazines for all three weapons in his backpack.

  Leaving
this place wasn’t easy for any of them. They’d been up here alone for a full three months since the dead first began to rise. In a lot of ways, it felt more like home than the house they’d lived in for years before they fled for the high country.

  They made their way into the woods, and Riley watched a tear slide down Hannah’s cheek as she looked back at the cabin. It cut into his heart like a blade.

  They still had no idea where they were headed. There was no logical place to head for, so Riley and Hannah had merely decided to set out east for the coast and hope for the best. If nothing else, maybe Brandon could see the ocean once before they all died.

  Riley swore to himself the dead would never take his family alive, even if he had to kill them himself.

  4

  It was feeding time in the pen. The sun had long sunk beneath the surrounding mountains. Two of the dead guards emerged from within the compound, carrying a large bucket filled with slop as runny as cream corn. With the help of a third guard, they emptied the bucket over the fence onto the ground of the pen. The human prisoners pounced on it like hunger-maddened animals, scraping it up from the dirt with their bare hands.

  Scott and David did not participate in the fight for their evening meal. David remained at the pen’s far side, staring at the roadway that lead up to the breeding center. Scott sat Indian style on the ground with his arms across his legs, palms open towards the stars. His eyes were closed, his breathing slow and steady. Scott would find leftovers later, or he would fight with the flock at the morning meal. He doubted if David had any thoughts in his head about food, and he didn’t care. Let the newcomer starve if he wanted to. There were worse ways to die.