Anarchy

by Peter Meredith

  She sat up and the corridor seemed to tilt a little. “I’m so tired,” she muttered.

  “Yeah? Join the club.” He put out a hand and when she only stared at it blearily, he sighed, bent and lifted her to her feet. The air was stifling and she sagged into him. “I get it,” he told her. “Life sucks. Come on. No, don’t touch the wall.” She had made the mistake and jerked her hand away. A larger hunk of the ceiling fell, exploding next to Bryce’s foot. The two leaned in on each other and followed the hall to where Victoria lay in a reddened, somewhat scorched heap.

  It had taken her ten minutes to crawl this far away from the heat and she didn’t know if she could go any further. There didn’t seem to be any point. The building was burning around them and zombies by the thousands surrounded the building. As she wasn’t currently being flambéed nor the main course of a feast, she didn’t think moving was worth it.

  Bryce gave her a nudge with his foot—all the effort he was willing to spare for her. “The building is going to collapse soon.” He and Maddy hobbled to the door at the far end of the corridor which he suspected of leading to an ally; however, it led to an underground garage.

  And it was blessedly, wonderfully cool.

  The three collapsed just on the other side of the door and simply sat in the dark as the wall behind them rumbled and shook. They knew they couldn’t stay and yet none of them had any energy. It was only when an explosion brought down part of the garage’s roof that they finally teetered to their feet and stumbled up out of the dark and into a blessedly cool rain. They found themselves on a side street that looked the same as the street they had just left, only narrower and less overrun with the dead.

  There were only a few dozen milling about, and with the dark and the rain, none gave them so much as a glance. It helped that the three moved like zombies as well. Each of them lurched and gimped across the street; the women crossing it simply because Bryce was leading. Bryce crossed it for the steak house on the corner. It had been far too fancy for a cage across its front window. The door was most certainly locked. Next to it was a long window with a Buick lodged squarely through it.

  Along the driver side was a gap big enough for them to slip inside.

  “It’s not exactly Fort Knox,” Victoria remarked, looking around.

  “We’re not staying,” Maddy told her. “He’s just hungry.” She was as well, but liked the idea of putting their rest stop on Bryce’s shoulders.

  Victoria had nothing to say to this and followed after Bryce with her head hanging low. As they knew they would be, the kitchens were dark. At least, they were to Victoria. To Maddy and Bryce there was something of a twilight feel to the crowded, windowless rooms. Maddy took Victoria’s arm and led her through the kitchen as she would a blind person.

  Bryce muttered a disappointed, “Hmmm. Things are starting to go bad already.” Nothing was rancid yet, but there was an unpleasant tang in the air and when he opened the first walk-in his eyes fluttered. “Ooof. What is that? Old cauliflower? It smells like ass.”

  Maddy’s nose was even more sensitive and she backed away. “Grab me something, will you? Victoria, too.” Victoria was about to argue; Maddy knew it, though she really didn’t need any power to feel it coming. “You need to keep up your strength, too. We have a long road ahead of us.”

  “You think so? Really? What about the demon? Can you feel it? Is it gone?” There was too much hope in her questions. Hope was too costly of an emotion.

  “I can’t feel it. That doesn’t mean it’s gone. It may be tired, too. You may not have realized it, but it was putting out mega-watts of power. Crazy power.” Maddy could feel the power even in her memory. It made her head rock back and forth. How had it been able to do that? she wondered. It had gone on and on.

  “My guess is that nothing was really contesting it,” Bryce said, from the walk-in, answering her unspoken question. “The demon wasn’t running for its life or fighting endlessly. And it had veritable slaves to command. When we were trying to hold the wall, I had to overcome so much more resistance. Overcoming fear is like walking through foot-thick mud with fifty pounds on your back. And then add fighting to all that…no, the Spider Demon isn’t as powerful as you think.” And yet, every time Bryce faced it, he had been certain he would lose. And he was still sure of this. He had loads of excuses to fall back on, but the truth was the Spider Demon was more than his match.

  The same had been true of the black demon. And it was dead and I’m not. He had beaten it, with Maddy’s help, and after a train had run it over, and after it had fallen from a building. There was no way he could expect to have that much luck when it came to the Spider Demon. It had every advantage.

  “But I’m not dead yet,” he muttered under his breath. In truth, he didn’t know how much worse death could be. He hurt all over.

  Gathering up as much meat and cheese as he could carry, he stepped back into the kitchen and saw that Maddy already had little loaves of bread laid out and cut. She tapped one of the uncut ones on the breadboard; it made a thock sound. The loaf was old and well past stale—a possible sign that maybe he was dead and currently in some sort of hell world.

  “There’s got to be mayo around here,” Bryce said, rallying.

  “Third cabinet on your right,” Maddy said as she reached for the meat. “Grab the salt and pepper, too.” There was no reason for Bryce to ask how she knew this. It was fact and he accepted it as such. Three sandwiches were made in a minute. Victoria pecked at hers; Maddy chewed with determined, but lady-like bites; and Bryce would’ve made a fine mulcher if he cared for wood as much as he did normal human fare. He was readying a second sandwich before the first was half-gone.

  Regular conversation lagged, while an unspoken conversation went on throughout.

  I don’t know how much further she’ll be able to go on, Maddy thought, casting a look at Victoria, whose face sagged in exhaustion.

  I don’t know how much further I’ll be able to go on, Bryce answered. The sandwich was helping, as was the rest; he wasn’t nearly as drained as he had been. Still, he was in desperate need of sleep and he didn’t think it was a good idea to try to take a nap this close to where they’d last seen the demon.

  Maddy shrugged at this. She didn’t agree. “I think the fire is masking us.” When she closed her eyes, the fire was so very present in her mind that it blotted out almost everything. There was no blotting out the darkness surrounding them. From the moment she had woken from her drug-induced coma days before, there had been darkness clouding her mind. Sometimes it grew so thick it was almost impossible to peer through it at the world. At other times it hung in the background. Currently it was less than it had been when the Spider Demon had been hounding them, but it was still dark. She wanted to say that danger was near, only that would be like saying water was wet.

  Bryce sighed at this, but even the coming darkness couldn’t stem his appetite and he started in on his second sandwich. Maddy could tell that he had room for at least another pound or two of meat in his belly, but after, he’d be impossible to move for at least an hour. The only question would be if Victoria would be able to find the willpower to get up in an hour. She was doing everything and more that could be expected from the average mother and housewife, but she was still just that: average. She was a weight around their necks. She slowed them down. She put them in endless danger. Without her around, they would’ve been far away, doing…

  “Doing what?” Bryce asked, taking just a long enough break from his sandwich to raise an accusing eyebrow. It was a one-second eyebrow raise and then he was back to work.

  The eyebrow put Maddy in her place. When it came down to it, she was not Victoria’s superior. Yes. She was younger, faster and stronger, and had certain nifty powers, but in the great scheme of things, her life wasn’t really worth any more than Victoria’s. If Maddy were to face the Spider Demon and fail, who would remember her in a year? Compared to the vastness of the universe she was a blip and one that was only infinit
esimally greater than Victoria’s.

  Besides, Victoria was their mission. Without her, Maddy didn’t know exactly what they’d be doing. The idea of “getting to safety” seemed absurd. With the country being overrun, she had no idea where it would be safe. Iceland? The North Pole? With Magnus?

  At this thought, Bryce glanced up from his sandwich and they shared a quick, guilty look. Being among “The Chosen”, they would be as safe as anyone could be. And they wouldn’t be obligated to risk their lives for strangers, and ungrateful strangers at that. How many lives had Bryce saved during the battle for the wall? It was probably at least a hundred, but judging by how many people had thanked him, the number was zero. Instead of thanking him, they had formed a posse to hunt him, and her as well, for that matter.

  All of this was predicated on the idea that Magnus would even take them in and there was a great deal of doubt in Maddy’s mind that he would. After all, she had told him to fuck off…twice, and she had the sinking feeling she would do it a third time because there was the issue of Victoria. Unless Magnus was in need of a toilet scrubber, the woman would be turned away from his gleaming doors, and none of the Chosen would lift a finger when she was surrounded by the dead and torn to pieces.

  “Can you even see that far?” Bryce asked.

  “No.” She couldn’t see further than the deep and very necessary sleep that was descending upon them. The need was so great that she would’ve thought a spell was being placed upon them. Her eyes grew so heavy that it was all she could do to keep them open, and Bryce was chewing his third sandwich on autopilot, like a cow. Only Victoria was not about to fall asleep. She had gone from wet and freezing to flash broiled, and as everything beneath the first layer was still in a state of damp that bordered on the boggy, she was back to freezing again. Maddy pointed across the kitchen to where a cupboard door sat shut tight.

  “Linens,” she said. “Grab a bundle.” It came out like an order, to which Victoria’s eyes narrowed. Maddy added a belated, and only partially sincere, “Please.” As far as she knew, Victoria had yet to thank her or Bryce for the many times they had risked everything to save her.

  Victoria returned with her arms filled with tablecloths. After handing over half of them, she stripped away her tattered coat and wrapped herself in layers of white linen, saving only a couple to form a pillow. Then she promptly fell asleep without a word. As Maddy didn’t require more than a single tablecloth to use as a blanket and another as a pillow, she was asleep before Victoria. The moment her eyes closed, she was gone, dreaming of flying over the city. It wasn’t a good dream. She sat in a crowded army helicopter with her feet dangling over a rushing drop of two-hundred feet. Below her the dead seemed endless in number as well as in hate. They were a seething mob of humanoid piranha. Here and there among them were the demons. Nightmare creatures that were sometimes no longer even human in shape, stood out among them. One resembled a slug with the bloated face of a man. Another had the tail of a worm, nine feet in length, long gorilla-like arms and stunted, pig-like legs which seemed to spin, propelling the oddly angled monster along.

  Do not fret over them.

  Maddy jerked and looked around into the faces of the people around her. Just to her left was an exhausted soldier. He drooped in the doorway with one arm hooked around the leg of the man behind him. This person was an utterly shell-shocked civilian. Maddy recognized him. He’d been on the wall fighting near Bryce at one point. Too many hours fighting the beasts had taken their toll. Next to him was Nichola. She had proven to be a survivor once again. Maddy twisted about, hoping to see Billy. Instead, she found herself staring into the milk-white face of Wha-de.

  Her black hair roiled around her, independent of the whipping of the rotors. Other than the flowing currents of hair, Maddy thought she was completely naked.

  How can I not fret? Maddy said of the demons and the dead. They fill my mind.

  No, it is not they which fill you with such darkness. It is the fire from the sky. That is what you fear. A terrible, brilliant light suddenly filled the city from the north, causing Maddy to flinch away. Yes. That is what you fear. You must stop it. Magnus has decided this. Behind the light a great consuming fire raced across the city, destroying everything it touched. Bodies turned to ash in a blink and buildings became sand.

  In fear, Maddy leaned back into the helicopter. She went to grab Wha-de’s arm but the pale woman was like smoke. We can’t! We can’t even get out of the city. Tell Magnus to stop it himself, Maddy said.

  You owe him, Wha-de said. Besides, this is what you have to look forward to if you don’t. This was barely out of her mouth before fire swept over the copter and searing pain ripped over every inch of Maddy’s body. When she screamed her mouth filled with flame and her teeth exploded.

  Chapter 25

  The fire exploded from her mouth as she sat up. She felt the heat, and it blinded her until she could blink the yellow blobs away and the kitchen returned to its complete darkness. Her breath came rushing out of her in harsh gasps as she felt her exploded teeth and blackened lips with shaking fingers. They were whole and unhurt.

  “Fucking bitch,” she muttered. “If I ever see you in real life…” Terrible images of her pummeling the woman spun through her mind, bringing with them a dark grin. Wha-de, tall though she might be, was weak and Maddy knew she could crush the woman if she chose—a very odd thing for the one-time pacifist to consider.

  “I should be better than that,” she told herself. Still the anger and the images lingered and only gradually, her anger cooled enough for her fists to un-ball. It helped when she gazed about, taking stock of their situation. She guessed it was somewhere between three and four in the morning. Next to her, Bryce was breathing softly and so slow that between the first and second breath she thought he had stopped altogether. Compared to him, Victoria’s breathing seemed unnaturally loud and off-putting. She snuffled and snorted.

  More like a pig than a woman. This was unkind, especially considering Maddy’s own past. She didn’t want to know what she used to sound like in her sleep. Far worse, she had no doubt, though what would be worse than being compared to a pig, she didn’t know. A warthog? The thought brought to mind the bizarre demons she had seen among the dead in her dream. “Magnus had done that. That was his work. And he thinks I owe him?” She snorted in derision. She didn’t owe Magnus a thing. Sure, she was skinny now and her heart wasn’t about to burst from climbing a set of stairs, and she had these odd powers, but for how long?

  Her life had an expiration date, nuke or no nuke. Either they would run into a demon that she and Bryce couldn’t handle, or a horde of the creatures would corner them. And if they tried to run around doing Magnus’ bidding, they would have to fight their way out of the city, and even if they made it, they’d more than likely get shot by some over-eager National Guardsman. Or they’d be arrested by the Secret Service and used as lab rats by the government.

  “No. Mister High and Mighty, Daniel Magnus can run his own errands.” She was almost sure that this was some sort of test. A science experiment or maybe a loyalty test, she didn’t know, and she didn’t really want to know. If there was a nuke, why didn’t Wha-de simply implant herself in the President’s dreams? Or why didn’t Magnus go himself? He was famous and knew the President personally. What was more, he’d had some sort of charm power even before he had turned himself into a freak…

  “Into something else, I mean,” she said. Name calling was beneath her. In the past, this had always been her stated policy, though she had rarely adhered to it. Bryce was a constant reminder of that. She had called him every name in the book with the slightest provocation. She had known it was wrong, but she always made sure to armor herself with excuses. Looking back, she was ashamed.

  “Magnus may no longer be exactly human, but that doesn’t make him a freak. And nor does it make him better than human. In fact, if anyone owes the world anything it’s him, not me.” She was still rattled by the dream and once more touched
her mouth, feeling an echo of pain.

  Thrusting it from her mind, she stood, wobbled slightly until her head righted itself, and then tiptoed around the kitchen. Food was everywhere; in great canned stacks on shelves, and piled in pyramids in the walk-in, and arranged with regimental neatness in the cupboards. There was a literal ton of food in the kitchen. There were a hundred types of fruits and vegetables, two dozen varieties of meat, bread and pasta and sauces by the score, and yet she made herself another sandwich.

  Except for salads, which didn’t sound appealing, everything else had to be cooked, and she wasn’t going to risk drawing a mob of zombies over a hamburger. Veal Saltimbocca or a dry-aged New York strip sounded far better than a hamburger which was pretty much the extent of her cooking skill—she might have been obese in her past life, but that didn’t mean she liked to cook. It meant she liked to eat.

  The sandwich was good enough and it hit the spot. She was just thinking about a second when Bryce woke with a stifled groan. The groan turned into a triple sniff. “Pastrami? Do we have rye bread?”

  “We? I have rye bread, but only half a loaf. Not really enough to share.”

  Bryce started to bridle at this until she threw the loaf at him, aiming for his face. He snatched it from the air easily. Next, she winged the pastrami, this time throwing it even faster, and again he caught it without effort. She considered hurling the jar of mayonnaise at him with all her force, only he was wearing an expectant grin and she realized that he was just showing off, proving that he could take anything she threw at him.

  She underhanded the jar to him, whispering, “We don’t want to wake sleeping beauty.” Victoria was still out of it and likely would be for another couple of hours at least. Maddy didn’t need another second. The blisters on her back were healed completely, and she saw that Bryce, after that initial groan, was more than a hundred percent. He looked even larger than ever, and likely had grown two inches overnight. The pain from his dislocated shoulder wasn’t even a twinge anymore and he was as clear-eyed as ever and far more handsome.