Anarchy

by Peter Meredith

  “Hi. What did I miss?” It was Bryce. He had suddenly appeared behind the group of people at the end of the hall. A few screamed and they all jumped. One man, barrel-chested with beefy arms raised a long metal rod aggressively. “Sorry, I thought you heard me,” Bryce said.

  “How’d you get in?” the beefy man thundered, the rod still raised. “The doors were all locked. I checked. And did you leave them open?” His face had been beet red in his anger, but now he paled, his skin going blotchy.

  Bryce had his long pipe and a heavy garbage bag held in one hand. He pointed with the pipe. “I came in through a window. One of the second story ones was open a tad and with a little pull it came right open. I hope you don’t mind. I shut it behind me.”

  “Those windows are twenty feet up,” the priest said, his watery eyes showing open disbelief and a touch of world-weariness.

  “I used the wall. You know; I kind of kicked off it? You never did that as a kid?”

  “Not twenty feet up I didn’t.” O’Lyn glanced over at the beefy man, who wore a frank look of suspicion.

  Bryce could only shrug. “I never did either, but you know, I was all pumped from the chase. And I left this stuff on the ground until I got the window open, so…” He sort of trailed off, realizing it didn’t sound real in his ears, either. At the time he had just launched himself at the wall without giving it much thought.

  The beefy man, Jim Battey, a former lineman with Con-Ed, muttered, “We gotta start thinking about who we let in from now on.” The priest remained utterly passive and only stared at Jim without comment, until the big man turned away, saying, “I’m going to check the doors.”

  “Let’s see about those clothes, shall we?” O’Lyn said. “Come.” He led the five of them into the church itself. It was a high-ceilinged affair made of brick and stone. The windows were either barred or set high up. If there was a weak point it was the front doors but even these were stout oak and bound with black iron. They should’ve been perfectly safe and yet as they sat in the first pew waiting for some of the priest’s followers to get back with the bags of clothes, Maddy grew uneasy.

  Bryce did as well, though it didn’t affect his appetite. The garbage bag contained a hurriedly grabbed assortment of French rolls, pork and beef strips, pate in jars and, of course, his new favorite condiment.

  Using the pew as both bench and table, he made Maddy a sandwich before he started in on his own, but halfway through it, as Victoria was going on and on about Daniel Magnus, Maddy suddenly lost the taste for it.

  O’Lyn, who had been casting glances their way, saw a look pass between the two, and misinterpreted it. “You need not be afraid. They won’t keep it up for long.” Outside, the horde had been growing and were mounting an attack on the doors. “As long as we keep quiet, they’ll grow bored and move on.”

  Maddy closed her eyes and concentrated. Almost immediately, she felt the pulsing demand: Kill! Kill! Kill the Two!

  “Not this time,” she said.

  Chapter 20

  “It’s back,” Griff said, with a quick look at Maddy. “I can feel it.” He looked grey and beat down, worn to a shadow of his former self. He hadn’t wanted the sandwich Bryce had offered and nor had he been following along with Victoria’s rambling tale. He had been trying to understand the growing anger in him, and now that he named it, he was able to crush it.

  Bryce froze, a second sandwich poised in front of his face. His mind picked up on the demon’s commanding pulse and as it did, he pictured the creature: eight feet in height, long and spindly, and yet strong and nimble. Very much like a giant spider. “Will you be okay?” he asked Griff.

  Griff actually smiled, showing a ghost of his former self. “If we don’t get torn to shreds, yeah I’ll be fine. It’s not after me.”

  “What?” Victoria asked. “What is it? The demon again? The scary skinny one?” Her eyes skipped from Bryce to Maddy, who nodded and then took a bite of her sandwich, deciding she would need all the energy she could get. Victoria watched her eat, and as she did, her face grew old. The lines around her eyes seemed to deepen and her mouth drooped. “Can they get in? Can you see that?”

  Maddy and Bryce shared a look. The shadows in their minds were darkening. They both nodded, sighed and took a bite. Victoria looked to be on the verge of a breakdown. She started going back and forth in front of the altar, her hands clasping and unclasping like two large spiders fighting.

  “They can’t get in,” insisted the priest. He turned to his congregation, a somewhat amorphous group of just over a dozen heavily clothed people, and reassured them, “The doors have been tested. Nothing is getting in.” Swinging around, he addressed Victoria, “And I’ll appreciate it if there is no more talk of demons and all that. The situation is bad enough without hysteria entering the mix.”

  “I can draw them away,” Bryce said, finishing his sandwich. He stood and took up his pole, cast a last lingering look at the bag of sandwich fixings and decided to leave it behind. There would be more restaurants; the city was filled with them.

  Maddy stood as well. “It’s after both of us. If you escape it, it’ll just come back here.” She closed her eyes briefly and in her mind’s eye saw the streets filled with the dead, in numbers beyond count. But they were standing back as something heaved at the doors, which gave way before its strength; then a great shadow filled the church. The shadow fell across her, standing alone. “We will draw it away.”

  No one knew what to say to this. Bryce didn’t want Maddy in more danger than she already was, while the priest was secretly eager to be rid of them. Not only did they stink, but he also didn’t trust the idea of a mutated form of the zombies. Still, he couldn’t very well kick them out into the street, either. The others in his group were of the same mind and would’ve been happy to see them all go and yet, the priest had been leading them for the last two days in prayers concerning mercy and compassion, something they felt was coming back to bite them in the ass.

  Plinkett and Griff were also silent on the matter. Plinkett was running on fumes at this point and didn’t have it in him to run another step and he didn’t have enough bullets left to make even a dent in the numbers facing them.

  Oddly, it was Victoria who spoke first. “I’m coming with you two.” Again, Maddy and Bryce shared a look. Going out into the world was dangerous enough, but it was doubly, if not triply so when burdened by a “normal” person, especially one who couldn’t fight. Victoria saw the look and began to swell in indignation.

  Bryce put up a hand to forestall her. “We know. Your son and husband.” He fought to keep from sighing once again over his promise. Instead, he turned to Plinkett and Griff. They seemed like old friends at this point, as if Bryce had known them for years. “If we hear anything, you know like a rescue, we’ll come back for you, if we can.” He added this last, hurriedly. For all he knew, they could be twenty miles away by morning with a thousand zombies after them.

  Plinkett tilted his head and lifted one shoulder. “Yeah, that’d be nice, but I don’t think we can hang our hats on a rescue. I think we might try the river tomorrow. Depends how Griff is doing and if we’re still alive.”

  Next to Bryce, Maddy shivered as if someone had walked over her grave. She suppressed the feeling, pushing it down deep, not wanting to know the future when it came to theirs or anyone else’s death. She suppressed the feeling admirably but perhaps too much so, making her wonder what else she was bottling up. This wasn’t something to be thinking about just then and she dismissed her dismissal, laying out a meaningless platitude, “We’ll find you if we can.”

  Beyond an awkward, lingering look, this was the extent of their goodbyes. With the creatures growing louder by the second, Bryce handed out some quick thank yous to the priest for taking them in and then felt himself being pulled away by Maddy.

  Danger loomed like a black wall all around them, but here and there were slim cracks in the darkness and she was chasing the brightest of these as it slowly closed. Sh
e led the way, jogging around the back of the altar to a little corridor. “There’s a dorm of sorts this way,” she said, picturing a row of simple rooms with little to them besides a bed and dresser—these were located on the third floor of an attached building. She had no way of knowing any of this and yet she knew. It came to her like a memory, making her wonder if it really was one. Someone else’s memory that was simply drifting in the ether. Or was it the priest’s and she had plucked it from his head? These thoughts dimmed the vision and she physically waved them away with one hand as she started for the closest stairwell.

  When they entered it, they went from dark to pitch black, and Victoria balked, grabbing Maddy. “This goes up. Maddy, hold on, I saw an exit sign down the hall. Maddy, this won’t lead anywhere. Hey! Did you hear me?”

  Maddy had not slowed and was already little more than a fading shadow within the darkness. Bryce took Victoria by the arm, explaining, “The demon has set this trap. Do you understand?” She couldn’t. She didn’t feel the looming danger…the hidden danger. Although the church was surrounded, there were fewer of the zombies in the back. Just enough for appearance’s sake. Just enough to draw them out into the open. Was the demon somewhere in the maze of alleys behind the church? Was it hiding a few hundred of the creatures further back?

  Bryce only knew for sure that there was a trap ready to snap closed if they weren’t careful, or lucky. “The demon will have the back covered, but probably not the roof. I take it that’s where we’re headed?”

  “It is,” Maddy answered. She didn’t add more because she didn’t know more. Instinct alone drove her on, and in seconds, she burst into a long hall. Here were the dorm rooms. Most had been unoccupied and their doors were canted open, giving the hall some light. It was plenty for Maddy to see by and what she saw was not hopeful. As she had known they would be, the rooms were almost sterile. There was nothing to get them out of their plight.

  She ran down the hall, but stopped as her mind centered on one of the empty rooms. Its window looked out over a courtyard, which was empty save for a spindly old tree. Now, the tree was leafless, not because of the season, but because it was dead. Its limbs were more suited for kindling than for climbing.

  But that was the way to the roof. The only way.

  “Shit,” she whispered, stepping into the room and gazing through the window and up at the tree. It ran higher than the roof, but the branches were frail and skinny, like the bones of an old woman.

  Victoria came in next, her mouth hanging open in shock. She started shaking her head. “I can’t. There’s no way.”

  “It’s the only way,” Maddy said. She took a pillow from the bed and proceeded to smash out the window. Cold rain licked her as she stuck her head out the window. “The roof isn’t very slanted, so that’s a plus.” It was the only plus.

  Bryce glanced out and grunted. He would rather take his chances with the zombies. With Victoria tagging along, that was out of the question. And so was going first. As far as he could tell none of the branches could bear his weight and if he fell, Victoria would never consent to making the attempt. As the lightest of them, it would’ve been smart for her to go first, but she wouldn’t do that either. There was no use even asking.

  This was going through Maddy’s head as well. She stepped up onto the sill and even with all her new-found powers and her new strength, she wavered. The courtyard was brick and it seemed a long, long way down. Because it is, she thought. A fall from that height would shatter a bone. And the limbs jutting from the tree would never support her. She reached out to one of the smaller ones and gently pulled. It snapped off—she had to clamp her lips closed to keep from crying out. Ten seconds later she realized that her hesitation had become something more permanent. She had frozen in place.

  “Alright, let me up,” Bryce said. He tugged her gently backwards until she had to take a step down. Then he was in the window, the rain spraying his dirty face, saying, “Hmmm.” This was his way of saying: How the fuck are we going to get on the roof? He turned on the sill and reached up, the tips of his fingers scraping on the underside of a gutter. If he jumped up and out, he could probably snag the gutter, but would it hold? It was a definite “not likely” and he wasn’t about to risk his life on it.

  “There’s no other way?” he asked Maddy.

  She closed her eyes and felt darkness building around them. Even the window was turning grey, but was that from their fear? Was their fear dooming them? She had no idea. “This is it and even this won’t be good for much longer. But…but I just don’t know. How do we get from the trunk to the roof? Jumping?”

  As is, it was a jump of some seven feet from a frail arm-thick trunk. Bryce could easily see how Newton’s third law of motion—for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction—would send the leaper, falling almost straight down. A thrust from the trunk would send most of the force backward, thus moving the trunk and not the leaper. “Hmmm. Maybe if we sway back and forth and then jump?”

  And if the trunk breaks? Maddy didn’t dare say this out loud, not only for fear of jinxing herself, but also there was no way Victoria would follow her with that suggestion in her head. “There’s only one way to find out,” Maddy said and pulled Bryce down. She hopped up onto the sill and didn’t pause more than the time it took to eye a landing spot before leaping across to the trunk. Her grip was like that of a feral cat’s.

  “You’ll have to go up,” Bryce said, unhelpfully. Of course, she had to go up, the one direction she did not want to go. “Don’t look down,” he added, again, unhelpfully. Now all she wanted to do was look down and her eyes, as if weights were attached to them were pulled down. From her high perch, the tree appeared even more spindly and was now swaying dangerously. “Keep rocking. Back and forth.”

  Was he trying to get her killed? “Why don’t you shut up for just a second! I need a moment.” A few deep breaths coupled with the fact she hadn’t fallen yet, helped her to regain her confidence, and still with a fearsome grip, she began to shimmy upwards. “The roof is not that steep. It’s really not that bad.” She just had to be able to get across to it. When she had risen a good five feet she took a deep breath and began to push and pull on the trunk. At first, she made no headway at all, but then she began to move a little —and then, alarmingly a lot more!

  Looking down, she saw the cause; Bryce had his pipe stretched out to the trunk and was pushing with it. “What do you think? Almost there?” The second he said this, there came a sickening crack from somewhere within the trunk at right about her knee level.

  “Aw crap,” Bryce said, pulling the pipe back.

  “What did you do?” Maddy demanded, hissing through gritted teeth.

  “Nothing. I was just trying to get you closer. What do you think? Will it hold?” He tapped the trunk with the pipe, making a thunking sound.

  She held on even tighter. “Please stop that.”

  “Sure. Maybe we’re getting this wrong.” He glanced over to Victoria, who had backed to the bed clutching her torn coat. She wasn’t going to go out the window.

  “No. This is it,” Maddy said, “and we have to hurry. I-I think I’m going to have to jump.” She set one foot on the sturdiest branch to test; it immediately snapped. Bryce used his pole to steady her, which gave him an idea. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard!” she cried when he’d told her. “Do I look like some sort of circus freak to you?”

  She looked like someone who would never make it across on her own. “There are branches you can hold onto to steady yourself. And it’ll be all about momentum. Just step forward onto the pipe and I’ll heave you over. Easy-peasy.”

  “You did not just say easy-fucking-peasy!”

  “Trust me.” Bryce pushed one end of the pipe into the juncture of his hip and thigh, and tilted the other end up at Maddy. “Just don’t hesitate. Step forward onto the pipe and keep going forward. Don’t worry about your balance. Don’t worry about anything just do it. Now!”

  It was
an order, one filled with the power of his voice, one she could not refuse.

  Chapter 21

  In an act of blind faith, Maddy reached out with the ball of her right foot as she pushed away from the tree with her other—it was like stepping off a building and into nothing. With her fingers trailing on branches that were little more than sticks, her foot came down on the tip of the inch-wide pipe. She couldn’t think about how insane this was, she had to will her entire body forward knowing that her next step really would be onto nothing.

  But Bryce was very strong now and the pipe didn’t sink as she expected it to, and nor did it wobble; however, it did move. Bryce wasn’t just holding her up, he heaved the pipe in a short arc towards the roof so that Maddy didn’t have to make some wild desperate leap. Instead, she threw herself at the roof and hit it right below the hips.

  The roof of the building was shingled and rough, which helped to keep her from sliding right off. At the same time, there wasn’t a single handhold and the shingles were slick and wet. She began to scrabble with her nails, hooked like claws—and still gravity wanted to suck her down. Once more, Bryce came to her rescue, planting the tip of his pipe beneath one of her feet, which allowed her to push off and up.

  “Made it,” she said, gasping, lying fully flat against the slanting roof. She wished she could lay there for a minute to get over her fright, but exposed like she was, she felt the relentless pulse of the demon. It was calling more of the dead to it. “Shit,” she whispered and rolled over. “Send Victoria up.”

  Bryce fully expected a fight from the woman and was about to command her to jump to the tree, when she stepped up onto the windowsill. “Start with getting to the tree,” he said. “See that branch? Land on that as close to the trunk as possible.”

  “God. This is the only way?” He nodded. “And you won’t let me fall?”