Season of Rot

by Eric S. Brown

  “So just how bad is it out there, really?” Wade asked.

  Jeremy glanced over at the burly little man. “Everyone I saw on my way here was dead, crazy, or both. The power’s off everywhere.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. I knew that.” Wade turned his gaze to the roadside for a moment, as if collecting his thoughts, then looked back at Jeremy. “There used to be one of those large chain hardware and electronics stores just on the other side of town. Did you see it on your way up here?”

  “No. But I know where you’re talking about.”

  “You think we can get in and out of it without getting our asses chewed off?”

  “I don’t know. Those creatures… some of them are pretty fast. If they’re inside the store…”

  Wade picked up the twelve-gauge shotgun from the seat between them and pumped a round into the chamber. “Shit,” he said, “just another day in paradise, huh, Jerm?”

  On their way through town, Jeremy had to floor it twice as the creatures poured out of the ruins of buildings and shops, attracted by the sound of the passing jeep, but he and Wade managed to get by without any real close calls.

  When they pulled into the large parking lot of the hardware store, only two creatures were milling about. Jeremy parked the jeep directly in front of the store’s Plexiglas entrance and grabbed his Uzi. He started to open fire on the creatures, but Wade smacked his weapon down.

  “Don’t do it. You saw how the ones in town reacted to the jeep. The noise will just bring more of them.” He pulled a pistol out of the jury-rigged holster on his tool belt and screwed a silencer onto its barrel. As the creatures came snarling towards them, Wade dropped each one with a single shot to the skull. “Geoff taught me a few things,” he explained, tucking away the gun.

  Together they shoved open the store’s heavy doors and stepped into the dark interior. “I’ll just be a minute,” Wade said, reaching for a buggy. “You stay here. Only shoot the fuckers if they get too close and you have to, okay?” Wade cocked his head to the right. “And keep the damn jeep running,” he added as he went inside.

  About seven or eight of the creatures now occupied the lot, but they hung back, almost as if they were waiting for something. It was really creeping Jeremy out.

  Finally Wade returned with a buggy full of circuit boards he must have ripped out of PCs; Jeremy couldn’t even begin to guess what the other odds and ends were for.

  Wade tossed everything into the back of the jeep and hopped in. “Let’s get the hell out of here before they decide they’re hungry.”

  “No argument here,” Jeremy said, switching the jeep into drive. He peeled out and tried to steer clear of the creatures.

  As the jeep neared the exit to the interstate, a second pack of monsters came bounding out of the woods and made straight for them. Wade cursed and snatched up Jeremy’s Uzi. He opened fire out of his window, and several attackers fell, but now the creatures from the lot were charging at them too, advancing from the other side as if trying to block them in.

  “Fuck—hold on!” Jeremy thrust the gas pedal all the way down. The jeep struck the curb and bounced out of the lot onto the road.

  Wade looked back at the shrinking figures still giving chase. “That was too fucking close,” he muttered. “Way too fucking close.” Then he clapped Jeremy on the shoulder and grinned. “Good driving, new kid. Glad I brought you along.”

  13

  Amy opened her eyes. She didn’t feel completely rested, but some sleep was better than none. Eighteen hours had passed since her flight from the docks. She sat up in the backseat of the Toyota, which she’d finally found after a nasty encounter with a creature on the interstate. She had used the car to flee the city proper and had driven for hours, out into what seemed like the middle of nowhere, nothing around but the road and the trees, the safest place she could find for a nap. So she had locked the car doors and had stretched out on her seat, hoping that if any creatures stumbled across her and tried to get in, the noise would wake her up in time to deal with them.

  It had been worth the risk. She felt much better physically, but she was still haunted by the horror of her situation. She was alone. The car was nearly out of fuel and she was down to only five rounds left in her .45. She missed Katherine. Hell, she missed the world. But worse, she still had no long-term plan, no idea how she was going to survive, no clue where she was headed. She had fled south, but she didn’t know how far. Virginia maybe? She wasn’t sure. Amy figured it didn’t matter. One state was just as dead as the next.

  She needed to find others like herself who’d made it through the wave without going crazy, though she wondered if she were the last sane woman on Earth. The thought terrified her. And the creatures… If the cops who’d almost killed her were any indication, some of those things out there were getting smart. Not normal, but intelligent, and that made them a hundred times more dangerous. It was one thing to outrun or hide from a pack of mindless monsters and another thing altogether when they started shooting back and driving cars. What else were the things capable of now? Amy shuddered and pushed the thought from her mind.

  Tenderly, she reached up to touch the wound on her forehead. It wasn’t serious, but she was worried about infection. She had no water or food, much less medical supplies, and trying to locate some in a city or town was out of the question. Even if she had been well armed, she wouldn’t have tried it on her own. So the big question was, what did she do now?

  Using the car was dangerous. It attracted the mindless creatures and made her more noticeable to the intelligent ones as well. Going at it on foot seemed like an equally bad idea; she would have no way to outrun the creatures and she certainly couldn’t stand her ground and fight. What the hell was she going to do?

  Finally she made a decision: Amy unlocked one of the car doors and got out, leaving the vehicle behind.

  Water had been the deciding factor in her choice. In the car, she would have driven right past the supplies she required so badly to stay alive, unless she stopped at a gas station or something of the sort, and then she would have to deal with the hordes of monsters she attracted. The way she reasoned it, on foot she might be able to find a stream or some kind of berries in the woods. So she walked off the road and headed into the trees, feeling her way carefully through the newly fallen night.

  14

  Geoff met Jeremy and Wade on the road home about two miles outside the complex. “You done good, kid,” he told Jeremy when he saw the parts they had gone after. He ushered them on towards the base, but stayed behind to take care of any creatures that might have followed them back. He promised to meet up with them later in the mess, and then he disappeared into the trees, becoming a part of the woods themselves.

  #

  The inhabitants of Def-Con all sat in the meeting room. Sheena was allowed her rant on the importance of determining the various trajectories of the wave’s fragments—not that they could change those trajectories should a piece be aimed for the sun—and when she finished, Wade stood up and informed everyone that the base’s air system was fully repaired; he also updated the group on the life expectancy of the power core before giving the floor to the communications officer Toni.

  Jeremy had not formally met her yet, so he watched the woman intently. She was tall and thin, in her late twenties or maybe early thirties. Her eyes were a bright green, and brown hair touched the tops of her shoulders. She spoke softly in a controlled, though almost shy, voice. Her efforts to reach anyone else in the government or military, or anyone on civilian channels and the small band frequencies, continued to meet with failure. Toni had no clue whether that meant they were alone in the world, or if the aftereffects of the wave simply hadn’t cleared enough to get out a good signal.

  Geoff was the last member of the staff to speak, and despite the bleakness of the other reports, his was the most unsettling. The number of infected wandering close to the base was increasing at an alarming rate. Geoff hadn’t realized how much until today. No one
blamed Jeremy’s arrival or Wade’s shopping trip, yet Geoff clearly thought these factors contributed to the problem. He wasn’t concerned about running out of ammo in the near future or worried about the creatures penetrating the complex; he was afraid the army of infected would grow so large there would be no way out of Def Con without a bloody fight. Geoff did not suggest abandoning the complex, as no one knew of somewhere remotely safe to set out for, yet he made sure everyone understood the threat of being trapped here for the rest of their lives.

  When the meeting was over, people broke up into their own little clusters to continue private arguments over what should be done. Geoff and Troy pulled Jeremy out of the room and led him outside toward the garage. The night sky was clear and sparkling with stars. Two creatures were straining against the fence, and when they spotted the trio, they howled and slashed their flesh on the barbwire in their attempts to get in.

  “Didn’t you just tell everyone to limit their trips up here?” Jeremy whispered.

  “Yeah, but there are times and there are times,” Geoff said, walking to the fence as he drew his pistol.

  “Come on.” Troy slid the heavy garage door open and led Jeremy inside. “Forget about them. They’re not why we’re up here.”

  Jeremy heard two faint popping noises in the darkness behind him. When Geoff caught up again, Troy closed the door and hit the interior lights. He waved his arm around like a game show hostess showing off a prize. “Welcome to paradise.”

  “The garage?”

  Geoff tried to rub something red and wet off the front of his uniform. “It’s not the place but what’s in it, kid.”

  Troy returned from the rear of the garage with a large jug in his hand. “Ta-dah! This here is Wade’s special home brew.”

  “It’ll knock you on your ass,” Geoff said, “that’s for sure.”

  “But you could drink in the complex. Why come up here?”

  “There’s nothing like this down there.” Troy turned up the jug to his lips and took a long swig, coughing as it burned down his throat like liquid fire. “And hell, Geoff here would go crazy if he couldn’t see the stars. Mankind wasn’t made to live in the earth.”

  “What he means is…” Geoff grabbed the jug from Troy’s hands, “we’d go crazy if we were cooped up with those suits much longer. All of them except Wade are educated people, and me and Troy here are the last of the grunts. None of them take him seriously at all, and they only listen to me because I saved their asses when the shit went down and they know I’m the only one who can do it again.”

  Geoff offered Jeremy the jug, but he waved it aside. “No thanks. Isn’t getting wasted up here dangerous?”

  Geoff laughed. “Isn’t breathing dangerous these days, kid?”

  Jeremy didn’t answer.

  #

  Many, many feet below them, Sheena rolled her chair closer to Lex’s bed and reached out to take the woman’s wrist in her hand. Lex’s pulse still felt steady, if somewhat weak. There had been no change in her condition for days.

  Sheena looked Lex over and winced. Once, she’d been a vibrant thirty-three-year-old woman whose charm and laughter lit up the dark corridors of Def Con. Now her skin was a sickly pale color and her long blond hair had lost its luster. Sometimes Sheena found it hard to believe she was looking at the same person who’d been her assistant, friend, and lover for the last five years.

  She leaned forward in her wheelchair and rested her head on Lex’s chest. Tears glistened down her cheeks as sobs shook her broken body. She lifted her head, and her hand crept to the main power cord of the life support system. “I’m sorry,” Sheena said, no louder than a breath; then she pulled the plug.

  A sharp, piercing tone filled the room as Lex’s vital signs flatlined. Sheena silenced the alarm with the flip of a button and turned out the lights. She wheeled herself out of the dark room without looking back.

  #

  “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,” Troy sang as the staff of Def Con gathered before the grave at the edge of the large gardens. Black-eyed Susans bloomed around the freshly dug dirt, their yellow petals straining to touch the sun.

  To Jeremy, Troy’s voice sounded like that of a weeping angel. But as beautiful as the sound was, it stirred the creatures at the fence into a fury. Jeremy tried hard to block out the raging and the thrashing.

  There were more of them today. They numbered in the dozens, and Jeremy noticed Geoff’s unease as the ceremony continued. The guard was armed to the teeth and clutching a fully loaded AK-47 in his hands. Everyone else seemed focused on saying goodbye to Lex, even Ian, though the CIA man didn’t look well. A sheen of sweat covered his snow-white skin, and he fidgeted with his handkerchief.

  When Troy’s song ended, they all stood together, watching the bloodthirsty horde outside the gates until finally Geoff barked, “Okay! Everybody back inside—now!”

  Jeremy wondered as he went if this would be one of the last times he would feel the sunshine on his skin.

  Sheena kept the nature of Lex’s death to herself. Some suspected what she’d done, while others didn’t care, but no one confronted her about it. Lex’s death affected them all, including Jeremy, though he’d never met the woman.

  A somber air fell over the Def Con complex. On the surface, Geoff, Troy and Wade waged a quiet war against the growing tide of the infected. Ian kept more to himself than ever, rarely leaving his makeshift quarters in the armory. Only Nathanial seemed to actually improve since Sheena suddenly stopped riding him about collecting more data on the trajectories of the wave in space.

  Jeremy at last found the time to introduce himself to Toni, and the two spent hours each day trying to enhance the base’s communications gear to extend its range and the power of its signal. She was a very kind and warm person, Jeremy discovered, once you wormed your way around her defensive layer of shyness.

  “Pass me the screwdriver,” Toni called from beneath the control room’s main communications console. Jeremy selected a Phillips head carefully from the toolbox and passed it over. He heard Toni work for a moment with the tool before she slid out and smiled at him.

  “I think that does it. Anyone on this side of the country with so much as a handset should be able to hear us now.”

  Jeremy grinned and pointed at the top of the console. “So this little red light is supposed to be on and flickering this way?”

  “What?” Toni pulled herself up and looked at the light. Her whole body tensed up and she barely seemed to breathe.

  “Was it something I said? I’m sorry if…”

  She whirled on him and threw her arms about his neck as he stood there, totally dumbfounded.

  “Someone out there is trying to reach us!” She half giggled, half screamed as she slammed a finger down to transfer the incoming transmission to the room’s speakers.

  The broadcast was garbled by terrible static and interference, but they managed to understand a few words. “This… Freedom Station… Anyone… us?”

  Toni held a hand over her mouth.

  “Freedom Station,” Jeremy repeated. “Holy shit.”

  Toni had already opened the channel and was responding. “We copy that, Freedom. This is Def Con, and you have no idea how happy we are to hear you.”

  “Repeat… Couldn’t…” the voice replied.

  “Go tell the others!” Toni told Jeremy. “I’ll try to clean this up some and keep the channel open… Go!”

  Jeremy dropped his toolbox and darted off, yelling down the corridors.

  15

  The woods were quiet and a gentle rain began to fall as Amy made her way up the mountainside. The night had given way to a gray sky full of clouds. The rain was a warm one, however, and she welcomed it. She fished around in her pockets and brought out the last of the berries she had found during the night, plopping the whole handful into her mouth. They were wonderful, the food of the gods, but she longed for more and hoped she would come across another patch soon. She wasn’t a nature person, havi
ng grown up in New York, but she knew some berries were poisonous and had to be careful what she picked.

  Briefly, she entertained the notion of trying to shoot or catch one of the rabbits that ran rampant in the woods, but she had no idea how to hunt them. If it came down to it, she swore she would eat grass rather than waste the last five rounds in her weapon. She couldn’t risk being defenseless if one or more of the creatures crossed her path.

  Amy reached the top of the large hill, which, to a city dweller like her, was considered a mountain, and she looked down at the town below. The instant she saw it, she ducked into the foliage out of instinct. She cursed herself for being foolish. It was miles away. Nothing could see her… unless the creatures down there were the smart kind, keeping a watch with binoculars.

  There didn’t appear to be any kind of road or trail leading from her position to the town. It looked as if the forest stretched all the way to the city limits. The town’s proximity meant she was much more likely to come across the creatures than she had thought, even if she kept to the woods and tried to cut around it. She took a moment to steel herself before heading straight for the town. She was going there, and she was going to find the things she needed. Maybe, if it was mostly deserted, she could find a home or some kind of building to hole up in and finally get some rest.

  As the sun began to sink from the sky, she made it to the edge of the town. She hadn’t bumped into any creatures, and that was a good sign. She didn’t see any in the parking lot of the gas station either. It was the town’s most outlying building. It was damaged a bit on the outside, a few bullet holes and shattered windows, but from what she could tell it hadn’t been ransacked. It called to her with the promise of food and other wonders.