by Brett, Cal
“Lie down,” Trent ordered as he pulled his shirt over his head, leaving him in cut off shorts and his old army boots. Stretching out his thick, muscular arms he took in a deep breath and posed there for a moment, as if to soak up the sun. He then tucked his big knife into its sheath in the back of his waistband and looked over at Robbie, who stood near the edge.
“You ‘gonna jump?” Trent said with a sneer that made it sound like he expected him to do it.
“Not today,” Robbie replied only half sarcastically. He sat down on the low wall and looked out at the skyline. Trent had not secured him to anything but he was bound at the hands and feet so he didn’t have many options for escape. Except the one his captor had suggested. Robbie looked down at the sidewalk again and seriously thought about it.
Eight floors was a long way to fall. ‘It might even kill me,’ Robbie thought. ‘Probably not though,’ he reasoned, given his luck recently he would most likely survive just long enough to be torn apart by the throng of cannibalistic pedestrians gathered below. They glared up at him desperately moaning their pleas for him to leap into their outstretched arms. ‘No thanks,’ he said to himself. Death didn’t bother him but things hadn’t gotten so bad that he wanted to experience being eaten alive on his way there.
Trent was wearing sunglasses so Robbie couldn’t see his eyes but he was sure he was keeping a close watch on him. If only Kelly could get her leash free she might be able to get it around his neck and strangle him, he considered. But running the idea through in his head he realized Trent would easily overpower her and probably give them both a beating for their trouble. Maybe worse.
Trent was glaring at Robbie from behind his shades. He had deliberately not tied the teen to anything. He was hoping he would make a move. He could see the gears turning in the boy’s head. He could tell by the way he kept glancing over at them that he was plotting something or at least thinking very hard about it. Trent wanted him to try.
If the boy came at him, he could kill him and that would be self-defense. Kelly would not like it but it would be better than just killing him outright. Without Robbie, he would be the only human around to keep her alive.
‘In time,’ he told himself, ‘she’d get used to it and forget about Robbie and that long dead husband of hers, altogether. She’ll be my personal possession and plaything. Then I’ll have to kill her, of course, because that would be boring. But breaking them is such a thrill.’
The low roof wall was rough and hot on Robbie’s bottom so he stood and rubbed his cheeks. Since he spent long hours every day tied to a chair he made the most of the short periods when he was able to stand. Stretching his muscles as much as possible in the cuffs, he made an effort to go slowly. He knew any sudden movements might antagonize Trent.
Trent watched Robbie rise up and begin flexing. ‘Here we go,’ he thought, ‘the little fucker is going to make a move. Perfect.’
But Robbie didn’t. He just stood there looking out over the city as he extended his arms and legs. This pissed Trent off. He wanted the kid to make his move. After a few minutes he decided to make it happen. Standing up he walked towards Robbie while drawing his big knife. Robbie saw him coming and tensed, afraid Trent planned to stab him. Kelly sat up, her eyes wide, with the same thought. She was about to shout when Trent stepped up to Robbie.
“Give me your hands,” he said.
Robbie slowly raised his hands which were bound with plastic flex cuffs.
Trent ran the knife up and cut the cuffs off. “There you go man. Relax a little.”
“Thanks,” Robbie said warily as he rubbed his wrists. He was thinking of grabbing Trent’s neck but he still had the big knife out. That would be a short fight, he thought. Trent slid the knife back into the sheath in his back waistband and stepped away.
Robbie breathed a sigh of relief but suddenly Trent lunged back punching him in the gut while yelling, “What the hell, Rob!”
Caught off guard, Robbie doubled over from the blow. Stunned and confused, he threw his arms out and tried to push back against the larger man who had grabbed him by the waist and was jerking him back and forth shouting, “Back off Rob! Don’t do it!”
It was a show, Robbie realized, as he desperately grappled with the bigger man. Trent was trying to make it look like Robbie was attacking him. From behind, Kelly would only see Trent’s back and Robbie’s flailing arms. He didn’t have time to consider whether she would believe it. It didn’t matter. He was losing his footing and it was clear what Trent intended.
With the ankle cuffs on, his stance was unstable. He tried to throw his weight forward, to keep from going over the wall, but Trent pummeled him with his fists and pushed him back until he felt himself losing his balance. He felt his upper body going over backward. The whole struggle had happened in a blur, as if time had speeded up, but suddenly everything slowed down as his equilibrium shifted. He watched his arms fully extended and his hands grasping at air in front of him. He was tumbling back over the edge of the wall into open space.
As he went over he caught a glimpse of Kelly, in wide eyed panic, rising up screaming from the towel. Then she was gone and the world was upside down. The sky was under his feet as his legs scraped past the lip of the wall, following him as he raced backwards towards the ground. In that hair of a second he was angry, but resigned, to a headlong crash into the cement below.
Kelly watched in horror as Robbie disappeared off the side of the building. She rose to her feet in a rage and charged at Trent shouting “NO!”
Trent turned just in time to brace himself for her assault. He bent his knees, just like back when he played high school football, and absorbed her attempt to tackle him. She was stronger than he expected though and her forward motion pushed him back hard onto the edge of the wall. She wrapped herself around his waist punching at him with everything she had.
“Easy gal! He attacked me,” he tried to say, but her adrenaline laced punches knocked the wind from him. She was like a whirlwind of angry spinning fists. He felt his lips and nose sting as she bloodied them. Everywhere he tried to grab her resulted in a strike from another direction until finally he had had enough. He stopped trying to restrain her and punched her hard in the ribs. At first this did not register and he had to repeat the blows, harder and harder until she crumpled at his feet in tears.
Kelly lay in a heap at Trent’s feet and looked up to see him drawing his fist back again. She didn’t care. She didn’t care if he threw her off the roof or beat her to death right there. She had lost the will to go on. She screamed “No! No! No! You fucker! Nooo!”
She glared up at him through tears and sweat and snot running from her nose and prepared for the beating he was about to deliver. Then she caught a glimpse something suddenly moving behind him like a shadow. An arm wrapped around his chest and pulled him over the wall. Trent’s torso swung backwards and vanished but somehow his legs clung to the lip of the wall. It was impossible, they were eight floors up, but someone had grabbed Trent from behind and was pulling him over the wall. In spite of the surprise of the attack, Trent managed to lock his strong legs to keep from falling all the way off. Kelly had no idea what was going on but she didn’t wait. She stood up and punched Trent in the balls as hard as she could.
Trent screamed and lost the grip with his legs sending him plummeting down the side of the building. Kelly raced to the edge and was shocked to see saw Robbie hanging upside down just below the lip of the wall.
“Oh my god!” she shouted, “Robbie!? How?”
“Please help me,” Robbie muttered breathlessly as he sat up and reached out to her.
“Yes, yes, oh my god! Robbie!?” She grabbed his hands and helped pull him back onto the roof. As she hoisted him up she realized the cuffs on his ankles had become snagged on one of the metal cleats mounted along the outside wall. It must have happened just after he went over, stopping his fall and, enabling him to sit up and grab Trent from behind. She hugged him as he rolled back over the edge.
“Me too,” he winced while rubbing his head, “I may have a concussion and I think....”
“Aaaaagh!” An angry howl blasting up from below cut him off. Trent’s voice bellowed out like the war cry of a mad berserker, “Motherfuckers!”
They both looked back over the edge and, to their shock, saw Trent standing on top of a pile of squirming bodies. He must have landed on them, breaking his fall, and the force of his impact knocking everything down around him. Somehow he had survived and had time to jump to his feet. Using his heavy boots he stomped on those wriggling beneath him while swinging his blade and fists at the others advancing towards him. He was outnumbered but fighting back with mad ferocity.
They watched in shock as he pummeled, punched or sliced everything that got near him and seemed to be holding them off. He glanced up at them and they could see his eyes blazing with anger.
“When I get back up there!” he shouted up to them as he stepped off the pile shouting as he attacked, “You motherfuckers!” slice, “will!” punch, “pay!” kick. Somehow he began to make a hole through the front ranks of the undead. Grey and desiccated body parts were flying as chunks of grey flesh and dried blood spewed into the air around him.
Kelly and Robbie looked on in horror as their tormentor began to plow through the crowd! Their eyes grew wide in fear as they watched him bash his way towards the fire escape. Trent’s will was strong but his progress began to slow as more and more of the hungry creatures pressed in around him. From above, it looked like every zombie in the neighborhood had been attracted by his enraged yelling. They were streaming towards the sounds like sharks drawn to bloodied water. They crowded in behind him as he moved away from the wall until he was fully encircled by their clawing biting mass.
For a few more steps Trent pushed through them, hacking them down and knocking them out of his way but then the weight of the tide turned against him. A grey face got through and latched its teeth onto his shoulder. Several others must have grabbed his legs from below. For a few steps he dragged them, but then others got through and clamped down with their teeth and claws. He may have somehow been ignoring the pain of having his flesh ripped and torn but their weight became overwhelming. He bellowed out an angry string of curses and launched himself forward in a desperate attempt to push through. But it was like diving into a large wave. The zombies surged over him and he disappeared beneath them.
The dead leaped on top of him to make the world’s bloodiest rugby scrum. In a flash, Trent’s body was covered and all they could see was the pile of writhing creatures that had taken him down. The volume of Trent’s yelling was replaced by the low-pitched moaning and scratching of the dead.
“That’s it,” Kelly whispered hopefully, more to herself than to Robbie. “He can’t survive…”
She was interrupted by a familiar growl that was at first muffled, but then suddenly burst out into a loud howl. Trent, impossibly, thrust himself up and erupted from the pile of creatures on top of him. The biting things fell away, pulling bloody strips of flesh with them, as he came up punching and began stomping forward again over their prone bodies.
Kelly gasped in fear and shock. She could see he was being ripped to pieces. Chunks had been torn from his arms and legs and the skin on his back was nearly ripped completely off. He was covered in his own still pumping blood. Yet, somehow, he had gotten back up and was still coming, still enraged and swinging, unwilling to accept his fate. He charged forward for several yards before they took him down again. The tide simply rose up and pulled him down as if dragging him to hell.
Robbie and Kelly watched the scrum pitch and bow as Trent continued to fight from underneath. It looked as if he were trying to crawl forward with the mass of undead on top of him and literally eating his body away from around him. He dragged them like a football receiver hell bent on reaching the end zone with the entire opposing team piled on his back.
The scrum pushed a few more yards before suddenly collapsing leaving only the monsters moving above. Trent did not emerge again but Kelly and Robbie continued to stare down in disbelief at the writhing mass.
Finally, Robbie clambered up. “Come on,” he said holding out his hand. “Let’s go.”
Kelly seemed uncertain and gave Robbie a frightened look.
“He’s not getting up again Kelly.” Robbie said looking down at the buffet of horror below. “He can’t hurt us anymore.”
Kelly took his hand and stood but didn’t look away from the street. She said, “I just can’t believe it. It happened so fast. I was starting to think it would never end.”
Chapter 5
Kelly woke with a start from a dream where Trent was holding her down while stabbing her with his knife. She knew it was a dream but she felt real pain, like Trent’s knife was still in her, burning and twisting. She was crumpled into a tight ball with her hands holding her abdomen. As she came more fully awake she slowed her breathing and made her body relax until the pain dissipated. She straightened out on the couch and wiped tears from her eyes as she pushed the nightmare further out of her head.
She looked around at the break room they had set up in when they came down from the roof. The sun was not yet up but the moon provided enough light through the blinds to see that their tormenter had not returned. The room was quiet and still. Robbie lay curled and snoring in blankets on a couch across from her. They had spent the last few days in exhausted sleep, rising only to drink, eat and relieve themselves.
Still feeling the ghost of pain in her guts, Kelly quietly sat up and decided a walk might help her stretch out and feel better. The loose sweats she was wearing had tangled up while she slept so she pulled them back into place and stood. She liked to be alone in the peaceful, cool of the mornings so she wrapped her blanket over her shoulders and silently padded out of the room.
The glow of the sun woke Robbie. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned as he gathered his bearings. Sitting up groggily he noticed his sister in law was not in her spot on the couch across from his. He dropped a leg onto the floor to balance himself and stood up slowly. The morning sun was just above the horizon and narrow shafts of soft orange light were beginning to ease over the walls.
Robbie stared at the old coffee pot in the corner and wished it could still offer up some of its magical black liquid. He missed getting Starbucks on the way to school in the mornings. With a sigh he adjusted the loose t-shirt and shorts he was wearing and peeked out into the hallway. It was empty.
“Kelly?” He called out quietly. A quick check of the other offices on that floor revealed that she was not there so he padded up to the roof. “Kelly?” He said in a whisper as he stepped out into the open air. The roof was wet from the evening dew and a cool breeze bit at him as he scanned the area for her. She wasn’t there so he returned to the stairs and began checking each floor as he went down.
When he arrived at the fifth floor, he saw her standing there with her blanket wrapped around her old sweatpants and t-shirt. She leaned on the door frame looking into the utility room that had been their prison and torture chamber.
“Hey,” he said softly as he walked to her.
“Hey.” She replied looking over her shoulder at him.
“You ok?” He asked.
“I can’t stay here anymore,” she said.
“Yea,” he answered, “let’s get upstairs. We don’t have to come down here…”
“No.” She said, “I can’t stay in this building anymore. I need to move. After what happened, everything is a reminder. I wake up afraid that Trent will be standing there.”
“That asshole is gone, Kelly.” Robbie said, “He’s never going to hurt anyone again.”
She turned and grabbed him in a tight hug and began to cry, “I know but I feel like part of him is still here. I want to go someplace where I don’t think of him every time I turn a corner.”
“Ok,” Robbie said stroking her hair, “we don�
�t have to stay here. We can go anywhere we want. We can go up to my folk’s cabin in the mountains. Remember we talked about that a while back? I was thinking, if Roy is still alive, and couldn’t find us… that might be where he went. Roy might be there.”
Kelly thought about it for a moment and said, “It’s a good idea but the mountains are a long way off. It would be a risky trip, and we don’t even know what condition the cabin is in these days. I’d hate to get all the way up there and find out the roof had caved in. I think we need someplace closer.”
“Ok,” Robbie said. “Do you have any ideas?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Do you remember that brick building on the river? The one they had just finished renovating?”
“I think so,” Robbie answered, trying to remember.
“We tried to beak into the lobby there early on, when Roy was still with us,” she said sniffling.
“Oh yea,” he recalled, “the tall building with the big, wooden, doors inside?”
“Right,” she said approvingly, “we hid in the entryway for a while but couldn’t get the interior doors open so we kept moving. Well… those doors are probably still shut so I bet nobody else has been in there either. I think if we could get in there now it would make a great place to hole up. And those Condos looked really nice. We can get a view of the river.”
“But, what if Roy is at the cabin?” Robbie asked.
“If he’s still alive, he could be anywhere Robbie,” Kelly said sadly. “We can’t be wandering the earth, risking ourselves, looking for him under every rock. Besides, the last time he saw us, we were in the city. You know Roy as well as I do. If he is alive, he would never leave Fort Garcon without us, he will be looking for us here in town. And we need to stay here so when that time comes, we can find each other. Ok?”
“Yea, I suppose,” Robbie seemed persuaded. “The river is just a few miles away but it will take us a while to move all our supplies over there.”