Empire's End

by David Dunwoody

  So, with his heart in his throat, running on legs of rubber, he went into the street. A rotter leapt at him. He smashed its teeth in and threw it to the ground. “Fuck you!” he screamed. Another grabbed his shoulder from behind. He whirled and bashed its skull in. “Fuck you!”

  A shadow fell across his vision. He turned. “Fuck—”

  The lanky giant, with vines of bone that wove in and out of its gray flesh, reached out with stiff arms and hooked its fingers into Gulager’s clothing. He was lifted off the ground, toward the thing’s gaping maw.

  The Petrified Man sank his teeth into Gulager’s face, slicing through his eyeball, splitting his cheek, and biting right through bone into his brain.

  The rotter cast Gulager to the ground and left in search of its next victim.

  Thirty-Four / Hospital

  Dalton kicked open the ER doors and helped Briggs into the admitting room. “Rotters! They’re in the city!”

  The nurses froze in place, transfixed with horror. Dalton set Briggs in a chair. “His ankle’s broken. Look, can somebody help him?”

  “I’m fine,” Briggs said through gritted teeth. “This place is going to be packed in a few minutes.” He pulled out his radio. “Briggs to Fetters. Come in Lieutenant.”

  “Fetters here sir,”e was lift

  “Are the men in place?”

  “Sir... you’ve been removed from command. We’re taking orders from Senator Cullen. He’s instructed us to secure the perimeter and—”

  “I know.” Briggs dropped the radio into his lap. “Fuck me.”

  And moments later, just as he’d predicted, people began stumbling into the hospital, most covered in blood, all hysterical.

  Dalton knelt by Briggs. “We’ve got infected pouring in here.”

  The nurses were refusing to help the wounded. They locked themselves in the triage station. People began beating on the doors and walls.

  “Calm down! Calm the fuck down!” yelled a block cop. “Listen to me dammit!” He saw the two soldiers and ran over. “We gotta get the fuck outta here.”

  “Got any ideas?” Dalton asked. The cop nodded and pointed through a pair of doors to the emergency room itself.

  Dalton helped Briggs to his feet. They walked slowly past the others—far too panicked to notice, anyway—and through the doors.

  “All right.” The cop slammed the doors and threw the bolt, then grabbed a gurney from against the wall and dragged it over. “Those poor bastards are already dead. We gotta start building a barricade.”

  “What’s your name, son?” Briggs asked.

  “Rhodes,” the cop replied, pulling a Glock from his jacket.

  “I thought you didn’t carry,” said Briggs.

  “I do.” Rhodes motioned to Dalton. “Help me out here!”

  They started stacking chairs and medical equipment in front of the doors. They heard cries from the other side.

  “Let us in!”

  “We need help!”

  “I’m not infected!”

  “Poor bastards,” Rhodes said again.

  They were throwing themselves against the doors now. Then someone screamed.

  “ROTTERS!”

  Briggs, Dalton and Rhodes listened silently to the sounds of death and mayhem. The assault on the doors ended as people tried to escape admitting. It didn’t sound like anyone got out.

  “Hey,” someone said softly. Dalton and Rhodes both spun, guns at the ready.

  It was a doctor. Hands raised, he said, “I’m clean. I’ve been in here the whole time.”

  He extended a hand. “Name’s Zane. So it’s finally happening.”

  “It’s happening,” Briggs sighed, sweating from the pain in his ankle.

  “Listen Doctor,” Dalton asked, shaking his hand, “you got any morphine?”

  “I don’t need it,” Briggs said. “I’ve gotta stay straight.”

  “You’re in agony. You’re no good like this.”

  Zane walked over to the orderlies’ station and rummaged around until he found a key. “I’ll be right back with something for you.”

  “We need to barricade any other exits in here,” Rhodes said. He ran down the hall.

  “We just let those people die,” Dalton mumbled.

  “Rhodes was right—they were already dead. It’s my fault. I couldn’t keep them out of the city.”

  “There were too many,” Dalton said.

  “We knew this was coming.” Briggs clenched his lower leg and moaned. “We tried to tell them, but they wouldn’t listen. They really believed they’d be safe forever.”

  There was renewed pounding on the doors. The undead. Briggs hunched over in pain.

  “Sir,” Dalton whispered.

  “What is it?”

  Dalton pried back the collar of Briggs’ shirt. He lowered his head and sighed.

  “You’re bit.”

  Briggs touched his hand to the wound and looked at the blood on his fingers. He didn’t move or speak for several moments. Then he sat up. “I didn’t even feel it.”

  Zane returned with a syringe. “It’s not morphine, but you’ll be floating. You want it?”

  Briggs shook his head with a bitter laugh. “No, that’s not what I need.” He looked at Dalton, who nodded and drew his sidearm.

  “I’m infected,” said the major. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it.”

  Dalton helped him to his feet and into an observation room. He quietly shut the door.

  Rhodes was on his way back when he heard the gunshot. “What the hell was that?”

  Zane cocked his head to one side, as if listening, and replied, “That’s the Devil laughing.”

  * * *

  Finn Meyer stood back as Pat Morgan and another lieutenant nailed boards across the door to the warehouse where they’d been trapped. “Hurry up!” Meyer barked.

  “Help us, Finn!” Morgan shot back.

  “Fuck.” He didn’t want to go anywhere near the doors or windows. But the pounding was getting worse. He grabbed a two-by-four off the floor. “Got another fucking hammer?”

  “On the table by the nails!” Morgan snapped.

  Finn headed over to a window facing the alley. There weren’t any rotters out that way. He’d dick around over here while the others finished up, then collect their guns. If they weren’t willing to give them up, he’d take them.

  A hand smashed through the window and seized his throat. “Help!” he croaked. “Fucking help me!”

  Morgan rushed to him and buried a hammerclaw in the rotter’s hand. It held on. She dug into the hand until bone snapped. It finally withdrew.

  Meyer stumbled back, coughing. “God! I thought that was it, Patti. God.”

  “Finn...” she frowned. “You’re bleeding.”

  “What?”

  “It must have cut you with its fingernails.” She was stepping back from him.

  “What?” he shouted. “You can’t get infected that way!”

  “If it had blood on its hands...”

  They stared at each other. For a second, time stood still.

  Meyer was faster.

  Morgan slumped to the floor, blood trickling from a hole between her eyes. Meyer’s other lieutenant looked over in shock. “What in the bloody hell?”

  Meyer shot him in the heart. Then he wiped his neck clean with a handkerchief while the man gasped his last breaths.

  Then he collected their guns.

  Thirty-Five / Severance

  Ernie ran into the squadroom and locked the door behind him, then grabbed hold of the nearest desk and started building a barricade.

  “Officer!”

  He nearly jumped out of his skin. Casey came rolling out of his office, a shotgun resting across his lap, and said, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “They’re everywhere! There’s nothing we can do!” Ernie panted as he dragged desks. “It’s all coming apart out there. It’s already over, man!”

  “Those don’t sound like the words of
a peace officer—” Casey began.

  “That’s easy for you to say!” Ernie yelled. “You’re holed up in here! You haven’t seen it! They’re pulling women and children into the streets and ripping them to pieces! And they’re almost here!”

  “I expected better from you,” Casey said. Wheeling himself over to the nearest window, he pulled the blinds down without looking outside.

  “Help me over here, Ernie.”

  “Forget the windows, man! We’ve gotta secure the door!”

  “I am still your superior!”

  A window on the other end of the room shattered. Casey saw a dark blur fall into the room, between two desks.

  “What the hell was that?” Ernie cried.

  “Shhh.” Casey picked up the shotgun and waited for the rotter to show itself. But none did; there was only the faint sound of dead skin rustling.

  The dark shape flew across the aisle and disappeared among the desks again. What was it, a child? “Ernie,” Casey whispered, and nodded toward the place where the thing had gone.

  Ernie shook his head.

  “Ernie!” Casey hissed.

  “You’ve got the gun! You go!”

  Tiny feet padded across the floor. The thing was weaving in and out of the desks, drawing ever closer. Casey took aim at the end of the aisle and waited.

  The scampering stopped. Ernie crouched behind his barricade.

  Silently cursing, Casey began to move forward. Just a child, he told himself. A child already dead. I won’t hesitate.

  The Dwarf leapt onto the nearest desk. Casey’s jaw dropped at the sight. Then the rotter jumped into his lap and sank its claws into his face.

  Ernie shot across the squadroom like a fucking bolt, faster than he’d ever moved in his career, and dove into Casey’s office, slamming the door shut.

  Casey rolled backwards with the tiny rotter thrashing atop him. The shotgun clattered on the floor. He screamed and pummeled the Dwarf with his fists, trying to knock it loose, but it had its fingers beneath his skin and blood was pouring down the front of his shirt as his face began to come off.

  The wheelchair hit the wall. The Dwarf closed its fingers around Casey’s left eyeball and ripped it free of the socket. Casey’s vision was skewed wildly as the eye came loose. The optic nerve was still connected when the Dwarf popped the organ into its mouth; its teeth finally severed Casey’s sight. He wailed.

  The Dwarf hopped down and surveyed the room. It heard Ernie pushing Casey’s desk against the office door. It charged at the door, seizing the knob and scratching and kicking at the wood. Ernie screamed from within.

  Casey sat and watched numbly as blood pooled in his lap, streaming in dark rivers from his ragged face. Why had it left him to go after Ernie? Why wasn’t he dead?

  No matter. He soon would be.

  * * *

  Gregory sped down the road from the airfield in Gillies’ Hummer. He had plenty of guns and ammunition in the back. He was going to drive straight into Gaylen and bring Armageddon back to those godless monsters.

  The British had filed out of the plane and begun shambling across the tarmac. They were too slow and too decayed to catch any of the other Senators before they and their men fled. No one had questioned Senator Gillies’ fate. It was every man for himself now—as it always had been, but now without the democratic posturing.

  “For you, Barry,” he muttered, jostling as he left the road and headed directly for the city.

  * * *

  The streets downtown were flooding with people.

  Some were trying to fight the undead. Though they had the rotters beaten in sheer numbers, stark panic and lack of weapons made it a losing battle for the living. Spilled blood ate at the growing snowdrifts. Soon the humans began retreating west. Those who stayed behind slipped in the guts of their neighbors and were torn apart.

  There was little biting. The pack knew that if they bit their prey, they’d be losing meat. And the meat was all they cared about.

  “We’re chewing through ammo pretty quick here!” Tripper called as people streaked past him.

  Cam nodded. “Fall back to the storehouse!”

  They ran for the soup kitchen, Halstead in the lead with Lily clinging to her back. “I’m scared,” the girl whimpered.

  “I’m fucking terrified,” the cop replied.

  “Thanks.”

  “Door’s locked!” Halstead cried. Tripper stuck his key in the lock and turned the knob. He was met with firm resistance. Someone was inside, and they’d blocked the door.

  “Hey! Whoever’s in there, let us in!” he yelled. “You’ve got to let us in! We can help you!”

  “We left the cellar open,” muttered Cam. “They’re set. They’re not going to listen to us.”

  “All right.” Tripper glanced down the street and saw a wave of undead sweeping over the civvies. He sighed. “Cathouse.”

  High overhead, an apartment exploded; ruptured generator. They fled through a shower of burning debris.

  * * *

  When they entered the dark front hall of the cathouse, Cam caught Tripper’s shoulder and whispered, “Listen.”

  There was a metallic whine coming from elsewhere in the building. Then a long, mournful scream.

  Cam took point with machine gun in hand. Tripper locked the door they’d come through. It wouldn’t hold long.

  Cam descended the stairs to the basement corridor where the girls’ rooms were. The whine was much louder now, and more distinct: a gas-powered saw. It was coming from the last room. Cam slowly made her way to the door. There were more screams, a man’s screams. She reared back and kicked the door in.

  Logan stood over a dismembered rotter, chainsaw held high over his head. He wailed and plunged it into the chest of the spasming corpse.

  “What the fuck!” Cam snapped. Logan turned and stumbled, dropping the saw on the floor. Cam kicked it over to the wall and trained her gun on the soldier’s head. “You’ve lost it.”

  “No!” He held trembling hands out in protest. The others joined Cam in the doorway.

  “Don’t look,” Halstead told Lily.

  “Too late,” Lily said.

  “I just didn’t want her to burn.” Logan stroked the fake hair on the rotter’s decapitated head. “She never did anything wrong. She shouldn’t have to suffer.”

  “What do you mean, burn?” Tripper asked.

  “The Army’s going to torch the entire city,” Logan said. “Orders from Cullen. They’re lighting up the perimeter right now.”

  Halstead’s face fell. “So it’s over.”

  “Maybe for Gaylen, but not the other cities.” Walking over to Logan, Tripper nudged him aside and felt along the wall until he found a crack gummed with blood. He knocked, and they all heard the hollow sound.

  Tripper pulled the panel away to reveal a dark passage. “Cam,” he called. She resumed leading the group, now including Logan and his saw.

  Tripper replaced the panel behind them. “This used to be part of the sewer system,” he said. They stood in a tunnel with no light source. Tripper felt along the floor until he found the torch he’d placed there. Igniting it with his lighter, he passed it to Halstead. “Mind the kid.”

  “Meyer uses some of these tunnels to run drugs,” Tripper said as they walked, “but he doesn’t come this far downtown.”

  “Speaking of which,” Cam said, “we should probably find a tunnel going back east. We’ll avoid more rotters that way.”

  “Good idea baby.”

  The couple led the way through winding, fetid sewers. It was so quiet beneath the city. It almost seemed like the world wasn’t coming down right over their heads.

  They entered a tunnel lit by lanterns, with several crates stacked along the walls. “Booze,” Tripper said. “We’re on Meyer’s turf now. Gotta keep an eye out for his goons.”

  Cam stopped at a ladder. She took the torch from Halstead and held it up to the shaft from which the ladder descended. “Looks like a trapdoor up t
here.”

  “Let’s not bother with it,” Tripper said.

  “Might be ammo up there.”

  “You’re right.” He grabbed the rung above the one she was holding. “But I’m taking point this time.”

  Halstead let Lily down. “You go ahead of me, okay?”

  They ascended into the dark shaft. Tripper nudged the trapdoor with the barrel of an Uzi. “It’s open.”

  He rose swiftly, throwing the door back. Three men with pistols gawked at him.

  Lily cringed as she heard gunfire being sprayed up above. People dying left and right. Would any of them be alive in the end?

  “Clear!” Tripper called down, and they each in turn climbed up through the trapdoor.

  It was a long room lit by firelight and filled with tables and chairs. A long counter ran along one wall, behind which were stocked bottle of liquor.

  “Speakeasy,” Cam said.

  Lily stepped over the bullet-riddled arm of one of the goons. “Is it safe?”

  “I don’t know,” Cam replied. “We shouldn’t stay long. Em, grab their guns will you?”

  Logan pulled a chair out and sat down, slouching like a man who’d given up.

  Tripper hopped up on the bar. “Cullen... why did Cullen give the order to burn the city? What about Gillies?”

  “Dead,” Logan said.

  “Karma’s a bitch.” Tripper shrugged.

  “And what’ll you call it when you die?” Logan muttered.

  Thirty-Six / Man’s Charity

  Becks crouched behind a vegetable bin as the Geek crept into her market stall.

  She’d heard the cries, seen the carnage unfolding blocks away, and come straight here. She was about to do herself, knife pressed to her jugular, when she heard the rotter and lost her nerve. She didn’t want to be food for these things. Even without Blake, she couldn’t bear to go through with it.

  The rotter had three or four arms, all misshapen and swaying as it walked among the bins. Becks crawled toward the back. There was an exit there. She could race down the alley and to the amphitheater. There were places to hide there.