Anarchy

by Peter Meredith

“We’ll want to barricade this door and we’re going to need to keep at least a few guards down here.”

  “We?” Kathy asked. “I’m afraid you aren’t going to be a part of any we. As much as…”

  A cry echoed down the stairs from above. Her portly runner had finally reached the roof, his heart hammering in his chest from the climb. There might have been a few hundred out in front of the building, all around it; however, there were ten times that many. At the sight of so many of them, Donny’s bladder let go in a quick squirt, and he had to mentally clamp down to keep from completely wetting himself.

  Donny ran for the door that led down into the building. “Kathy! He was right! They’re out there. Millions of them.”

  The panic in his voice was electric and it coursed through the little group. Fear did odd things to people sometimes, and instead of retreating from the door, which was the most sensible thing to do, Kathy yanked it open and stared at the huge throng of filthy grey bodies in utter shock.

  “You may want to close that,” Bryce suggested a second before the entire mass launched its collective self at her.

  Chapter 34

  “Shut the door!” one of the men screamed. Kathy had been staring, her green eyes stretched comically wide. Now she jumped forward, slamming the door shut just as a nimble little grey creature darted forward. The zombie didn’t have any concern for its hands which it stuck into the gap just as the door crashed almost closed.

  A half dozen bones broke, and it lost all ability to form any sort of grip; at least with that hand. As Kathy pulled the door back to try to close it again, the thing reached in with the other hand with the same results.

  “Clear the door,” Bryce ordered in a voice that rang out over the zombies.

  Mr. Jennings was the closest and despite his fear, he didn’t hesitate. He hacked through the gap between the door and the jam with his bat. To all appearances, he and the bat were a fearsome pairing. In reality, his baseball days were decades in the past, and his swing was akin to a heavy swat that lacked precision. The wood connected with the edge of the little zombie’s head and carried on to bounce off its shoulder.

  The damage was minimal and when fighting a zombie, minimal damage was very much like no damage at all.

  He raised the bat a second time. Before it got to the raised position, Bryce got a flash of insight: Mr. Jennings swinging the bat a second time with a great deal more energy than the first. He connects, crushing the creature’s head, dropping it in place directly in the gap between the door and the jam. Now the door can’t close and as Kathy struggles to pull it inside, a second zombie smashes into the door, sending her flying back. A third follows and then a fourth…

  “Kick it back!” Bryce cried, this time forcing the command out, demanding that Mr. Jennings ignore his instinct to swing the bat.

  Mr. Jennings’s body reacted to the command before his mind did, and as his arms continued to raise the bat, his right leg pistoned out and sent his booted foot thudding into the zombie’s chest, knocking the little thing back. A second later, Kathy heaved the door closed and then threw herself against it. She hit it just as another zombie did. She was smaller and weaker, and the door pushed back inwards, sending her sliding back.

  The other men rushed forward and slammed into both Kathy and the door. They heaved with all their might and slowly the door clicked shut. Five hands fought to turn the locks as the door shook as the dead piled against it. Once the door was as locked as it could be the little group backed from it, each pale with fear, each wondering how long the little bits of metal would hold against the onslaught.

  “It will fail soon enough,” Bryce told them. “You can count on that as a fact.” They glared, their fear turning to anger. He was a stranger to them, an outsider who was suspect to begin with. He ignored the looks and considered making an attempt at taking a seat on the stairs. These being both hard and somewhat grimy, he thought better of it.

  “That true?” one of the men asked, nervously holding the top of his coat close to his throat. His coat made him seem much thicker and stronger than he really was, but he knew the truth, he was no fighter.

  “He’s trying to scare us,” Kathy said. “The door’s good.” She gave it a couple of thumps with the soft part of her balled up little fist. “It’s good. We should be good.” She was trying to convince herself as well as the others, and they wanted to be convinced. The eerie moans coming from the street were beginning to swell, filling the air which seemed to press in on them like a physical presence. The sound pushed them back from the door and towards the stairs.

  Bryce put out a hand to stop the closest of the men from taking a step onto the stairs, worried that if one started up, they would all follow. As he put that hand out; however, the thin robe opened perilously, and he had to pull it tighter across his broad chest. This brief flash did more to stop the men than his hand. Even Mr. Jennings, who had seen Bryce fully naked, leaned back.

  “As I told you before,” Bryce said, “there is a demon out there and he won’t be stopped by a door. It’ll get in, somehow. We need to make sure this place is buttoned up and then start looking for a way out as quickly as possible.”

  Kathy didn’t want to believe him. She wanted to be safe and sound just as she had been. “No. You just want us to help you escape and that’s not going to happen.” She turned to the others, her eyes flicking significantly to Mr. Jennings. “I say we kill him now just to be sure.”

  “Sure of what?” Bryce asked. “I’m perfectly lucid which means that even if I were going to turn, it wouldn’t be for another hour or two, and by then, that door will be torn from its hinges and this building will be overrun. You have only one chance in this and that’s to listen to me. While you’ve been hiding since all this started, I’ve been fighting them.”

  “It won’t hurt to keep him alive for a little longer,” Mr. Jennings said. “It’s not like he’s going to hurt anyone.”

  Kathy reverted into full teenager mode, rolling her eyes and sighing theatrically. “Yeah, he will. Remember Mrs. Hascomb? We thought the same thing and look what happened there. And Willy Tuttle. His mom wouldn’t let us touch him until it was too late and then we had to put down both of them. This is no different and I’m not…What?”

  Bryce had a finger pointing up the stairs. The sound of slapping feet running down towards them was loud to him. It took a few seconds for the others to hear it. By then, Donny Woods, huffing and puffing like an old locomotive, could be seen as a bobbing shadow spiraling down towards them. As Donny had never moved that fast, they all knew he was bearing bad news.

  “They…they’re attacking,” he gasped between breaths.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Kathy said, jerking a thumb over one shoulder where the dead were making a terrific ruckus as they tried to tear down the front door.

  “No,” Donny said in a breathy whisper, his lungs unable to keep up with the demands of his body. “It’s not like before. They…they’re attacking from all around. On all sides.” Like all other buildings in the city, they had been attacked in spurts, based on the unfathomable whims of the mindless zombies. Cruel experience had taught them that noise or light drew them, and in response the surviving tenants had become near religious zealots when it came to sound and candle use. Even excessive smells were frowned upon. It had been two days since the last attack and in that time, they had developed rigid protocols to keep another one from happening—and now here they were, being assaulted from four sides no less.

  Everyone’s gaze shifted to Bryce. “You have been targeted by a demon. It’s the same demon that has been hunting me and it is relentless.” He paused, then added in a low voice, “They all are.”

  “A demon?” Donny’s voice was high and strained. “Like from hell? That sort of demon?”

  Bryce was just beginning to shake his head when Kathy asked, “And if we give you to this demon will it go away?”

  “Maybe,” Bryce acknowledged. “I would say it isn’t likely. Eith
er way, it wouldn’t call off the zombies. Sorry to say, your fate and mine are tied together.”

  He and Kathy locked eyes and the seconds slipped away as she struggled to figure out what would be best for her and her people. Nothing, it seemed. They were too few in numbers to fight and even if they had double their numbers, many of them were too weak to stand in any sort of battle formation and go toe-to-toe with the dead. Hiding was one option open to them. It wasn’t a good one, however. With a demon controlling the creatures, she could readily imagine her neighbors and friends being pulled one at a time from beneath sinks or from closets, or from whatever pathetic little nook they could wiggle themselves into. They’d be torn apart on the spot.

  This left fleeing for their lives as the only true option, and it was only marginally better than the rest. Out of the hundred and fifty-three people in the building, how many of them could honestly expect to run the gauntlet and make it out alive? A dozen? A sigh escaped her as she realized even that number was too high. It would be less than half of that probably, and that wouldn’t include Kathy’s mother.

  It had been twenty years since the forty-eight-year old Helen Pierce had sprinted any distance, and it would take a prolonged, full-out sprint to get away. One way or the other, Kathy’s mom was going to die that day. Tears of sadness and rage sprang up, turning her green eyes a pretty emerald color.

  “This is your fault,” she snarled.

  Beneath the anger, Bryce felt her despair. Her grief smote him to the core, out of empathy, not guilt. “It isn’t. I’m a victim in this just as you are, and my options are even more limited than yours.” He twisted slightly and groaned. “But I’m not giving up, not just yet. What about you? You ready to slit your wrists? Or are you going to fight?”

  “I’m not killing myself,” she said, pushing past him and heading for the stairs. “That’s a coward’s way out.”

  “Hold on,” Bryce said, easing himself slowly around. “It’s a coward’s way out for some people, but for others it may be their only way out short of being eaten alive.” And you might be in that exact position very soon, he didn’t add.

  Her mother’s face flashed through her mind and she knew that Bryce wasn’t wrong. “So, what do we do? You said you had all the answers.”

  “Step one is to get this door barricaded. We need this room piled high with furniture. Mr. Jennings, you’ll get on that.” The man didn’t hesitate to obey and went puffing up the stairs. Bryce went on, “Next, we’ll need a team down here to defend these stairs. It can be ten or fifteen people right now, but we’re going to need all of your people ready to fight.”

  He read the looks that passed between the remaining group and guessed that very few people in the building were capable of fighting. It was going to be a massacre and he was going to be neck deep in it.

  “Lastly, we’re going to have to find a way out of this building. Find me a sewage line, a tunnel out to a subway. Anything.”

  Kathy grimaced. “We’ve looked already. The sewer lines go directly through the basement floor and it’s concrete. There’s a back exit to an alley, but it’s very narrow. It’s good for defense but that works both ways. We’re trapped.”

  He was about to chide her for being negative in front of the people she led, but just then Mr. Jennings yelled down the stairs, “Kathy! They’re on the fire escape!”

  They were trapped after all. Maybe.

  “Get a group of people down here,” he ordered, “just maybe don’t make them your best fighters. Have them on the fire escapes. Go!” They went, even the men who hadn’t been given any specific orders. Bryce found himself alone facing a door that rattled and shook. The demon was on the other side. Maybe not directly but it was out there, nonetheless.

  And it would kill him.

  “Unless I kill myself first.” That was a choice, a good one in fact. He had little tying him to the world. He was friendless and had never been close to his few family members, all of whom were far away. Only Maddy seemed to matter, and she was gone, probably fighting for her life…and for Victoria’s. Bryce had given Maddy an obligation and perhaps a death sentence, but she hadn’t blinked.

  “She hadn’t given up.”

  With a sigh, he turned for the stairs, knowing that he would fight a little longer, even if they didn’t stand a chance. Up he gimped, one step at a time. At the first level all was mayhem. People ran around carrying the oddest assortment of junk Bryce could imagine; picture frames, cat litter, suitcases. Their collections made no sense and sadly, it didn’t really matter. The people here were older, the youngest in sight was in his mid-fifties and terribly out of shape, unless the shape he had been going for was that of a bowling ball.

  Screams began to ring out as glass broke. The zombies were finding their way in. It was all happening faster than Bryce believed possible.

  He turned for the next set of stairs and was knocked into and pushed by people racing upwards, desperate to get away from the dead. At the second floor, he jerked painfully as a gunshot rang out. The pain wasn’t just in his lower back. His heart cried out with the shot and he had a vision of a man, balding and pudding-soft, tears in his eyes as he stood over a bed of pink and frills. A little girl lay on the bed staring with glassy forever eyes at a blood-covered wall.

  The gun rang out twice more and each time Bryce felt the pain, shockingly deep. A fourth shot carried with it only relief. The soft, pudding of a man would soon grow stiff with rigor mortis. His body would twist and his head would contort around so that he would be forced to confront his shame even in death.

  Bryce could not condemn the man’s soul. He had committed an act of mercy, not murder. The darkness of the act hung with him as he trudged upwards. Around him people raced up and down the stairs, barely giving him a glance and then, only because he was such a spectacle in his ill-fitting green robe.

  Ten minutes passed before he came upon A-Yeoung. The weakest creature in the building was also the calmest. “Come. You late,” she told him before she turned and headed for her apartment at much the same rate of speed he was able to attain.

  “You cannot face Yeomra in garb such as this,” she told him.

  “Oh yeah? Who is Yeomra?”

  She leaned her wizened face in towards his. “Agma. Agma is mean demon.” The two eyed each other. The old lady was an utter blank to Bryce. “Come.” On her table was a blue robe of silk cuffed and hemmed with gold. Folded next to it were matching pajama pants. Under almost any other circumstances Bryce would have given a polite but firm “hell no” to wearing silk pjs into a battle.

  Just then, anything was better than the lime-green robe. “Thank you,” he told her, bowing diffidently, not quite sure how much of a bow would be appropriate.

  “Is Hanbok. Put on. Put on. You must hurry. Yeomra is come.”

  Thankfully, she waddled off and he was able to slip on the outfit, which was not really a robe at all. The overgarment hung only to mid-thigh, and its sleeves were wide but short, ending just after the shoulder. Tucked beneath the robe was a loose white shirt and a belt of blue. When the entire set was on, he felt right, proper, ready to stand against the demon. He stood tall and immediately cringed, his back shooting pain.

  A-Yeoung tsked him as she came back in with newly fashioned calf-high boots of dark leather. These were very simple in design with no real sole and ties of quickly dyed shoelaces.

  “Are these made out of couch leather?” he asked as he put them on.

  “You have big feet,” was her reply.

  As magnificent as he looked, a sharper eye would’ve noted that everything about the garment cried out that it was a slapped-together job, and yet he was completely grateful and a little confused. Who was A-Yeoung and why had she done this for him? Why hadn’t she been looking out for herself? There was no time for explanations. More screams were erupting from below.

  “Go!” A-Yeoung ordered, giving him a little push.

  “What about you?”

  She shook her head
and pointed a gnarled finger, accepting responsibility for her own fate.

  Bryce bowed again, deeper this time and then left her, hobbling back towards the stairs, favoring his left leg. As before, going down was easier than going up and in a minute, he found Kathy, pushing a group of frightened women up towards him. They seemed dreadfully small, like sheep in heavy coats.

  They stopped dead at the sight of Bryce and stared without comprehension. “What is this?” Kathy demanded. “Are you in a costume?”

  “Forget the clothes. What’s going on?”

  She quickly pulled him to the side. “We’re giving up the first floor. There are zombies everywhere down there. We need a plan. You said we should listen to you.”

  They were regretful words, now. Either his insight was deserting him, or mass death was the only fate left to them. “Is there an elevator in the building?” he asked, grasping at straws.

  “No. We have two stairwells and two sets of fire escapes. That’s it.” He nodded, gravely, hoping that something would come to him, some great plan that would save everyone. As he struggled to come up with anything, she waited expectantly, but it wasn’t long before her lip curled. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “All I know is that most of us are going to die. I don’t see this turning out any other way.”

  Chapter 35

  As the blonde demon let Victoria’s limp body slither to the floor, Maddy’s charge faltered. She slowed to a walk and the pipe she held over her head suddenly seemed to gain a hundred pounds in weight. The tip of it came down with a soft tink as it struck some piece of metal hidden within the trash.

  Although Maddy had never really liked Victoria, she felt a sharp sense of loss. The woman had been with her almost from the beginning and yes, Victoria could be a pain in the ass sometimes, but her steadfast devotion to her family was admirable and her courage was sometimes heroic.

  Maddy knelt over her body. “Why?” she whispered, touching the woman’s blonde hair.