Anarchy

by Peter Meredith

  That trap was sprung on them three seconds after the smaller tunnel emptied into a larger two-track subway tunnel. The darkness was incomplete as a flickering yellow light came from the north end of the tunnel. A fire had been lit beyond the bend. Between her and the fire were zombies by the dozen ranging up and down the tracks in odd intervals. What was even stranger was how stationary they were. The closest to Maddy and Victoria turned towards them; however, the others were very un-zombie like in their lack of movement.

  Maddy couldn’t dwell on them as the first zombie reached out long arms for her. It reached and reached but only with its hands the rest of it strained against a thin cord. “It’s tied up!” Maddy exclaimed, but even as she did, the cord snapped and it lurched at her. The creature was taken more by surprise than she was and it tripped over its feet.

  The next closer zombies were now beginning to realize the two were human and they too strained at their cords. Getting past them as fast as possible was their best chance and Maddy leapt forward, gazelle-like, while behind her, Victoria struggled to keep up, moving stumpily, like an old mule.

  Maddy dodged and weaved through the grasping hands and every eye was on her which was the only reason Victoria was able to survive the ordeal. The zombies clamored for Maddy while ignoring Victoria to such an extent that she frequently smashed over the ones that got loose. At first, she wanted to yell for Maddy to slow down, but she found herself basically overlooked, and during a zombie apocalypse it wasn’t a bad thing at all to be overlooked.

  When they got to the bend and saw the fire, Victoria began to feel actual hope. The fire burned brightly along a deep stretch of one set of tracks but hadn’t covered the second completely over yet. The flames there were hardly more than a foot in height.

  In front of her, Maddy saw the situation as far bleaker and knew they would never make it. The demon was here. Not the Spider Demon; that was the only consolation she could find in the situation. The Spider Demon was far beyond her. No, it was the second demon, the one that had been stalking them, the one that had set this trap up. And now that she was close, Maddy knew the demon.

  This was the little blonde creature she had fought the morning before. It was her counter-point, a demon with the same ability to see into the future.

  At first, Maddy saw only its shadow slunk down between the upright girders, but when it stood, there was no mistaking the demon. Its hair was still blonde though it was now dark in spots with grease, and its eyes were insect-like black voids. Just as Maddy saw it, she also “Saw” what it planned to do.

  “Faster!” Maddy shouted as the blonde grinned yellow teeth and lifted a red gas can. They were twenty feet apart which was too far to make up the distance before the blonde could drop the gas on the fire. In full stride, Maddy hurled the pipe, spear-like. But the blonde was already ducking away, and the pipe went over her head. Still, this gave Maddy an extra couple of seconds to get closer.

  She was one second too late and could do nothing as the demon threw the gas can down onto the tracks just before Maddy got to them. With a harsh roar, the flames exploded up and out, but Maddy didn’t slow. In fact, she raced faster and jumped as high as she could, tucking into herself as she passed through the flames. There was an instant of searing, blinding heat before she was through and rolling in an artful ball across the wood slats.

  Then she was up, standing with the pipe in hand. She had known the blonde would duck the thrown pipe and had purposefully aimed for a girder behind and a few inches to the right of the blonde. The pipe had clanged off of it and rolled to a stop just at Maddy’s feet.

  “Nice try,” she said, wearing her own grin. Now, there was nothing between her and the creature; nothing to stop her from cracking open its blonde head and turning off those terrible black eyes. Just as she was about to charge at it, Victoria screamed over the roar of the fire. If she used actual words, they were lost on Maddy. Still, the meaning behind her cry was obvious; she was caught on the wrong side of the fire. Her and about fifty zombies.

  “Jump through!” Maddy yelled. It had seemed easy to her at the time, but now that she was seeing the flames a second time, she saw that there was something of a curtain of flame hanging from the ceiling—old oil had dripped down through a crack and had collected above the tunnel and now the roof of it was burning like an inverted bonfire with flames pressing down. There was no way Victoria could jump through that. She was trapped!

  The demon had set this up, too. Maddy swung back towards it and saw that it was darting away and in its place were two more zombies. These came stumbling from the northern section of the tunnel.

  As far as zombies went, they were not impressive. Both were slow and crippled and would have been mere nuisances in other circumstances. Maddy almost lost her head and killed them right there, but then she realized that a corpse was not altogether useless. She fell back, retreating before them until the fire was hot against her back. Then she lashed out with the pipe, hitting the first squarely on the top of the head with such force that the blow seemed to drive the creature an inch into the ground.

  It was dead where it stood and as she dragged the pipe back, the zombie came with it, tipping slowly towards her, she stepped to the side and it fell into the flames, sending up a horrid stench as its hair lit on fire. The next one came on in typical mindless fury and with the smoke and the flames it was already confused and became even more so when Maddy ducked its outstretched hands and it found itself tripping over the dead body of the first zombie.

  The creature took two steps into the flames before it started to turn. That was when it received the full force of the pipe through the thin bone of its temple. The blow sent it reeling back and it fell full out across the fire. Maddy darted forward, using the bodies to bridge the flames.

  “Come on!” she screamed to Victoria, who was picking up bottles and hunks of wood from the tracks and throwing them at the zombies converging on her. With a hulking beast within inches of grabbing the back of her hood, Victoria fled in a crouch onto the bridge of bodies. Above, the fire forced her down while below, the corpses shifted under foot as though she were walking across a jelly and bone-filled beanbag. She was moving too slowly, so Maddy reached out a hand and hauled her to the other side.

  Victoria found herself being dragged along by Maddy who was chasing after the blonde demon. It had scampered down a narrow lane that ran between two of the tunnels.

  Behind them roared the great hulking zombie. It was long and broad, and its reach was amazing as well as terrifying. The fire hadn’t slowed it for a second and it was impossibly close. It stretched out an arm and snagged the hood on Victoria’s coat. For a fleeting second, she was caught between the two competing forces and choked by her own coat. Then the hood ripped away and she was flying along. The huge zombie came on as well, filling the lane and blotting out most of the light from the fire.

  It barely registered on Maddy’s consciousness. Knowing that the demon was the true danger and that it would never stop once it had her scent, she was bent on destroying it. Only then could she get Victoria to safety and go back for Bryce.

  The demon took a turn into a small electrical room that sat off the lane and darted inside. It tried to slam the door shut in Maddy’s face; however, Maddy was full of rage and struck the door with not just her shoulder, but also with an unknown power inside her that sent the demon reeling. It smashed into a bank of dusty and cold electronics, before slipping around it as Maddy leveled a blow at it with the pipe. Sparks flew as she missed the creature by an inch.

  Behind her, Victoria stumbled into the room, saw that it was a dead end and threw herself against the door, just managing to shut it as the big zombie hit it. Thankfully, it wasn’t smart enough to ram it with its shoulder. Instead, it pounded on it with its big, meaty fists, and even as backward as this was, Victoria could barely hold it back. She screamed for Maddy, only her entire focus was on the demon. For the moment, the two were locked in a battle of wills to see which would c
ommit to the first blow.

  It was cat and mouse, and if Victoria wasn’t bleating as she was, Maddy would’ve maneuvered the blonde creature into a corner and killed it like a trapped rat. But the zombie was seconds from getting inside the room and so Maddy attacked, swinging the pipe in short sharp arcs, hoping speed could take the place of power.

  The demon was small and quick, and with its ability to see the future, it was able to dodge the pipe again and again, but each time it was forced further back. It was running out of room. In the heat of the fight, Maddy seemed to grow and swell, her eyes flashed and a rose hue sprang up in the cream of her cheeks. She was suddenly in her element, fighting like an Amazon.

  And then the zombie got a single finger inside the doorway. Victoria slammed her entire weight against it; the finger cracked and crunched and bled, but the gap remained and it widened as the zombie got a hand in there as well.

  “Maddy!” she cried when it was already too late.

  The zombie bulled into the room, its eyes centered on Victoria shrieking and kicking back across the dusty cement as fast as she could. It charged, thinking she would be an easy snack; however it didn’t see Maddy break off her attack and whip the pipe around in a blur.

  Like the rest of it, the zombie’s head was huge and thick, like an old tree trunk and it absorbed the blow with a heavy thudding sound. Slowly, it looked up at Maddy just as she whipped the pipe around a second time, delivering the blow with all the force she could muster. When the pipe struck, she nearly lost her grip on it as it rebounded away as if the creature’s head had a strong rubber content mixed in with its bone.

  And still, the zombie did not die; at least not right away. It swayed in place, its dead eyes losing their limited focus by degrees as its cranium filled with blood. Then, it took one step forward and fell with an indescribably disgusting sound. The sight of the blood shooting from its head in a black wave was even worse.

  But Victoria, who was somewhere behind her said nothing. She didn’t make one sound of disgust. This was so out of character for her that Maddy didn’t need second sight to know that the battle had ended and that they had lost.

  Chapter 31

  As Mr. Jennings and his terrible bat strode from the stairwell, Bryce fell from the roof and dropped twenty feet before hitting a line of illegally strung cable which held momentarily against his weight as he folded over it. The line dug into his belly, but it was his lower back that sent out a shriek of pain. Then the coupling holding the line parted and he fell again.

  He flung out a hand as he fell past a jutting ledge of brick, and by all laws of science he should not have been able to grip the ledge. Flesh should’ve ripped from his fingers and his nails should’ve been torn right off. He should’ve fallen and died a slow death, yet he did not. His right hand slapped closed on the brick and his grip was like iron. It was so strong that he didn’t feel the need to flail about for another hold, but only hung there as he looked around.

  The situation he found himself in: hanging forty feet above concrete, with a possible broken back, alone, and in a world filled with zombies, was not as bad as it might seem.

  For one, there was a window not three feet away and from it stared the wizened face of an ancient being. Bryce unfurled the best smile he could manage under the circumstances. As the glass was dirty and the person was so very, very old, he could not tell one way or another if it was a man or woman. He even nodded in a neighborly way before he recommenced the survey of his situation.

  Above, he could hear Kathy Pierce saying, “He was right here.”

  “There was a zombie? Up here?” This was undoubtedly Mr. Jennings. The tap of his bat on the roof was both loud and disconcerting.

  “Like I said, it was almost a zombie. It probably climbed down.” Her steps moved away and towards the edge Bryce had climbed up from mere moments ago. It would take her all of ten seconds to see Bryce wasn’t there.

  Grabbing the ledge with both hands, Bryce pulled himself closer to the old person behind the window. “Do you mind if I come in? I won’t hurt you, I promise.” He spoke in a whisper and didn’t fear being overheard by Kathy and Mr. Jennings. Although their quick conversation had been perfectly clear to him, a normal person wouldn’t have heard a thing.

  Bryce added a smile to his request, and not just a normal smile, he gave the gentlest “shove” with the smile, just enough to bolster it without forcing anything on the woman. It had been a mistake using his power to stop Kathy. People dug in their heels when they were being forced to do things against their will.

  There was a woman behind the glass—A-Yeoung—and although she had been surprised by the falling man, she wasn’t afraid. After all, he was out there, hanging by his fingertips, while she was snug and safe inside. To be on the safe side, she took a knife from a kitchen drawer, slid the window open, and propping her elbows on the sill, looked down at Bryce through eighty years of wrinkles as well as the natural folds in her Korean face. Her dark eyes were mere slits and yet she missed nothing.

  Of course, A-Yeoung saw his strangely bright blue eyes—they were impossible to miss—and she saw his pain and wounds; these were obvious as well. Beyond these surface items, she noticed how calm he was; his self-assuredness, even hanging off the side of a building. Deeper than that, she saw hidden shyness, currents of life-long empathy and even better, wells of kindness.

  “Hi,” she said, smiling back at him, showing all six of her grey and crooked teeth. Her dentures had been missing for years and were really not missed at all. Her smile soured when she caught the stench of the sewers coming from him. “You need bath. Yes.”

  She stood back, allowing him to enter, neither helping nor hindering. In her limited view of the world, which had become even more limited in the last week, if he fell then he was meant to die and that was the way it was meant to be. But she did not think he would fall even though he dragged his legs behind him.

  “You visit by Juhseung Chasa,” she told him as he slithered across her sink. “Tuseok touch you. Yes, but he no take. Ha-ha!” Her life in Korea before the war had been ages ago and she had forgotten a great deal of not just her people’s history, but her own as well. Still, she remembered the ancient stories told to her by her own grandmother of when heroes and gods walked the earth.

  Bryce was barely attending her words. Instead, he was wondering how he was going to make the transition from counter to floor without using his legs…and without crying. “Excuse me, Tuseok, could you slide that chair over here?” He pointed to a wooden chair that was so frail and worn that it appeared even older than the woman.

  “I A-Yeoung,” she said, pointing to herself. Her finger was still on her chest when he fell from the counter and crashed heavily onto her floor. Making a tsking sounds, she went to the window, closed it and then squatted over Bryce. “I A-Yeoung. Tuseok is reader of name. Then poof. Bye-bye.”

  With his head spinning and his vision going in and out, Bryce couldn’t piece together any of what A-Yeoung had said. He could only lie there twitching and shivering from the pain.

  She watched him for a time before taking the ice axe from his waist. A single glance was all it received before she set it aside. She then poked him on the arm and gave it a squeeze as if he were a pig she was considering purchasing. With a shrug she said, “This way bath. I gas still. Make hot.” Without looking back, she strode down the hall and began running water. She was far too small to help Bryce and he would either drag himself along or not. It took a minute of concentrated breathing, in which he felt and sounded very much like a woman about to give birth, before he managed to get a grip on himself. Then, using just his arms, he pulled his limp body down a short hallway.

  A-Yeoung greeted him with the near toothless smile as well as the knife. Speaking in Korean, she gestured to him with the blade. Sawing the air with it and then pointing at different parts of him, perhaps the more edible parts? “Let’s put down the knife,” Bryce suggested. “What do you say?”

 
She lifted up the lower hem of the oversized shirt she wore and mimed cutting it. Looking down at himself, he realized that his clothes were hanging off his body in ratty, filthy strips. They could hardly be called rags anymore. “Yeah, right. My clothes. They are pretty bad, but this is all I have.”

  The knife waved back and forth as she assured him in Korean that it would either be okay or that she could easily slice him into a thousand artistic pieces. He started to protest as she made the first cut, only the blade of the knife was cold and sharp, and it seemed best to just remain as still as possible as her tiny, mottled hands worked to free him from his clothes.

  To Bryce’s relief, she stopped at his underwear. These were far tighter and no longer white, but an ugly grey. Again, she gestured with the knife; she wanted his underwear off and him in the tub. Since she couldn’t help him into the tub and wouldn’t help with his whitey-tighties, she gathered up the remains of his clothes and left him on his own.

  Swallowing the pain, Bryce slithered out of his shorts and mounted the side of the tub, sweating and grunting as though he were climbing a mountain. The scalding hot water was worth the pain of getting into the tub. The relief was immediate and he lolled back, letting his body heal.

  A deep rejuvenative sleep came quickly. He was interrupted twice by A-Yeoung who added more hot water the first time and brought him a washcloth and a lit candle the second time. She scowled at the grey ring around the tub and made scrubbing motions before pointing at his crotch, which he had covered with both hands.

  He cleaned himself, drained away the water and then added more and hotter water until his flesh glowed vibrantly red. A second, deep, deep sleep swept him again and he found himself so lethargic that he couldn’t lift a hand. Slowly he slipped deeper into the tub and had it not been for his growling stomach he might’ve drowned. She was cooking. Sweet onions were being fried; carrots boiled; rice was in a pot, steaming. All of that was fine, but he needed meat.