Anarchy

by Peter Meredith

  “It’s not that bad,” Maddy said, pushing through a half-dozen of them, crowding in someone’s tiny kitchen. “Because of their grip strength, they aren’t bad climbers.” She squeezed her long form through a window, continuing, “But they can’t fight and climb at the same time. Watch.”

  Once more, the axe was a blur, though this time, she didn’t need to go for kill shots every time. A zombie hand, strong as it was, depended on the structural integrity of the thin little bones within it. She simply reversed the axe and used the hammer side and swung about like a carpenter gone mad. There were so many of them that even with her speed, she was nearly overwhelmed. She roared for help and Kathy led her little gaggle of women out onto the fire escape where they hacked about with their makeshift weapons.

  They had barely cleared the cage before Donny Wood stuck his sweat-glistening head out the window. “We can’t hold them back.”

  The Spider Demon was exerting all its power and its pulse beat into her temples and with each pulse, the psychic darkness surrounding the building increased. The web of death around them grew tighter. Zombies were pouring in through the second-floor windows and the north side fire escape was being overrun. She felt she had to be in five places at once, but her mind guided her back down the main stairs where the actual darkness matched the danger they were in.

  “Where is everyone?” she cried. There were only two men and a woman fighting against countless monsters.

  “Run off,” the woman said, breathless. She was not nearly as old as Maddy had at first assumed. Her lack of makeup and the perennial pinched look she always wore had added a good fifteen years to her appearance. Her weapon of choice was a three-foot section of copper radiator piping. It was thin and sturdy, but lacked the weight needed for guaranteed kills. This had led to her nearly being pulled down twice.

  Because there were only three of them, they had given ground much faster than Maddy wished and if they retreated at this pace, Bryce’s plan would have no chance at working.

  “Look out!” Maddy cried and then jumped down among the creatures. Desperation lent her a mad energy and she waded into the horde of zombies until she was knee-deep hacking and hacking, bringing the ice axe up and down with brutal efficiency. She killed without wasting a single breath. A dozen swings, two dozen, then three dozen and the dead piled up. There should’ve been enough corpses to fill the stairwell and slow the beasts down.

  The Spider Demon would not let that happen. Maddy felt it lurking below in the dark, directing its army. As each zombie advanced up, it would pause to drag one of the limp grey bodies down so that when Maddy killed one of them, another seemed to pop up in its place.

  She got no respite and needed all of her newly jazzed up constitution to keep out of the reach of the creatures. Even then it was close, and against her will, she was forced to give ground. The beasts were constantly at her feet and knees doing everything they could to trip her up or drag her down.

  It’s part of the plan, she told herself.

  However, the demon was not following the plan. It felt that something wasn’t right. Its pulse changed and the zombies in the stairwell paused and cowered, and the darkness swelled becoming a living, breathing thing that wrapped itself around Maddy’s heart and squeezed.

  The Spider Demon was coming.

  Chapter 39

  Maddy’s throat tightened as she felt the ghost of the demon’s foot crushing down. Without realizing it, she started backing up the stairs.

  “What is it?” the woman asked. She and the two men were on the verge of running away. Their nerves were jangling and the hair on the nape of their necks was standing on end.

  “It’s something worse than the zombies,” Maddy told her. She was about to add, Something we can’t fight, only they had no choice except to fight. You’ll die, a voice whispered in her mind. “Yeah,” she whispered right back. But did it matter whether she died here or on the roof? Not as far as she could tell. And maybe she could put her death off for a bit.

  “Find that girl, Kathy,” Maddy ordered the woman. “Tell her we’re going to need as many people as possible down here. And get someone with a gun.” She felt dirty and less-than just saying this. The honorable thing to do would be to meet the demon fair and square in open combat, but that entire concept had been thrown out the window almost from the start. Not to mention, she was not really its equal, and they both knew it, which meant open, single combat could be shunned without a loss of face.

  So why did she feel like a coward?

  Furious at herself and needing to do something, Maddy tromped down the stairs and slew a few more of the zombies. They didn’t put up any fight and Maddy had to stop after the fourth one. It was sickening and only made her feel worse.

  Her jaw set and her body stiff, she waited for the demon which wasn’t long in coming, looking very much like a hell-spawned spider as it moved up the stairs, using both its feet and hands in an insect manner. The demon scuttled over its undead thralls, stepping on faces and crushing the smaller ones under foot without care. The being was so white that it seemed to give off an eerie glow, and it was so gauntly tall that at the landing, it stood with its long skinny legs bent at the knees, its back kinked, and its head thrust forward on its long neck. It grinned up at her through the wreck of its face, showing sharp white teeth set in black gums.

  The spidery thing would win this fight. They both knew it.

  Maddy hefted her ice axe and gripped it hard to keep her hands from visibly shaking. The reach of the weapon was so dreadfully short that it made her feel as though she had no chance.

  No chance…no chance…

  This pulsed from the demon and as much as she knew it was trying to crush her will to fight and that it wasn’t necessarily true, her insides began to tremble, nonetheless.

  “I don’t die here,” she told herself. She would die up on the roof—which was no consolation at all, and she found herself freezing up. “Stop it!” she snarled, again, talking to herself. She couldn’t freeze up and she couldn’t run. If she did, the demon would chase her right up to the roof and she knew the outcome of that. The only thing to do was to attack.

  With a scream of rage, she willed herself forward, leaping down at the beast which stuck out a hand to catch her by the throat—she saw this perfectly and twisted in mid-air so that she fell sideways and was only grazed by the tips of the thing’s fingers. She landed and on two steps, knees bent, already swinging the axe, hoping to plant the spike in the demon’s back between vertebrae.

  Paralyzing it was not meant to be because it too twisted around, swinging a deadly sharp elbow at the side of her head. The spike of her axe speared its kidney, puncturing it, ruining it—temporarily. It didn’t even flinch, and she knew better than to think she had scored a major blow.

  She ducked the elbow and now it continued its spin thinking to grab her with its other hand, but she was already moving, getting even closer! Maddy danced on the screaming edge of death, darting in and to her right, so that she was lower on the stairs between the demon and its horde. The silver axe glowed with the same intensity as her eyes, as it whistled at the back of the creature’s knee. Her weapon sank home, four inches deep and remained embedded there as she ducked and twisted away from a huge grasping hand. She found herself in an awkward position unable to make any quick moves—and a second from that moment, she saw the demon’s other hand come around and grab her by the throat.

  Once more aggression was her ally. Maddy didn’t wait for the hand; she reached out for it, taking the demon by the wrist and forearm. Surprised, it pulled back, lifting her off the stairs with ease. It went to smash her against the wall, but she was already falling, crouching low as she darted for her axe and pulled it clean out from its leg.

  The instant her hand touched the handle, she realized going for it had been a mistake. Like a chess master, she saw three moves ahead: she spun, dropped down to dodge a fist, pushed off the wall and was…caught! In such cramped conditions and wi
th such a lengthy opponent, these were her only moves. If she didn’t spin, it would have her. If she didn’t dodge her face would be crushed, if she didn’t push off the wall it would pin her there.

  The only thing she could do was hope to get in one last strike with the axe. It was already blind in one eye. If she could get the other one, then maybe Bryce would have a fighting chance against it.

  As she had foreseen, she spun, dropped down as a huge fist swished by, pushed off the wall before the demon simply collapsed down on top of her…and was caught by the arm. It gripped her with crushing force as it swung her bodily at the wall. This is gonna hurt, she thought as the wall flew at her. She could’ve absorbed some of the blow with her other hand; however, it was zipping around with the axe out, aiming for the demon’s eye.

  At the last second it either saw the axe or felt the danger and it jerked back. The spike whistled harmlessly past. Her one chance was gone, but at least the demon hadn’t been able to smash her into the wall with all its force and instead of her brains being splashed across the white paint, there was only a smear of blood from her nose. Maddy might not have been dead, but she was stunned. Her legs were wobbly, and her vision went in and out.

  Opening its mouth as wide as it could go, which was horrifically wide, the demon bent down to feast, only just then a gunshot rang out. The .38 caliber bullet fired by Mr. Jennings struck somewhere within the demon’s extended torso and did no visible damage. However, it did keep Maddy’s delicate throat from being torn open. The enraged monster jerked up and glared into Mr. Jennings’ muddy brown eyes.

  STOP! This pulsed into Mr. Jennings and the gun wavered and began to sink.

  “Shoot it again!” Kathy cried, shaking Mr. Jennings violently. He looked even more stunned than Maddy and with the shaking, the gun fell to clatter down the steps towards the demon. Kathy was already closer to the demon than she wanted to be, but she knew that without the gun they were doomed. She and the demon went for the gun. Even though it was further away, because of its fantastic reach it would get to it first, only Maddy woke from her haze long enough to drive the ice axe into the demon’s foot.

  It screamed, but in rage only. Kathy had gotten to the gun and now brought it up in one motion. Having never fired one before, she was no sharpshooter and as she raised the gun, she pulled back on a surprisingly tight trigger, causing the barrel to lift more than she was prepared for. Despite the demon’s great size, the bullet would’ve missed the creature entirely except that it stuck out a hand to shield its face and the bullet took off its left thumb, skipped off a wall and disappeared into the masses of zombies below.

  Kathy went to aim again, this time using both hands, and as she did, Maddy ripped herself from the demon’s grasp. Maddy was no threat to the creature; however, the gun was another story and rather than face it, the demon turned and dove down among the zombies. For an instant Kathy had one last clear shot and this time she was ready. She took deadly aim.

  Click.

  “What the…” Kathy whispered, confused. She had been raised on movies in which guns held almost endless amounts of ammo and when she had braved going for the gun, she had assumed it would have more than a single bullet in it. Her legs went suddenly wobbly as it dawned on her just how utterly vulnerable she had been, facing the demon with only a little hunk of metal in her hand. “Holy shit. There were only two bullets in this thing?”

  Mr. Jennings was still too stunned to answer; not that anyone would’ve been able to hear a word he said, either way. The hundreds of zombies down in the darkness opened their black, fetid mouths and let out a collective roar, a sound that went right to the soul.

  The mentally and spiritually weak among the small group of fighters screamed and fled as the mass of undead charged up the stairs, leaving the rest to face insurmountable odds.

  Maddy, axe in hand, tried to slow them down—there was no holding them back. This was the final push and all around the building the dead surged upward. Maddy fought but did not fight well. Her head was ringing, and her equilibrium kept cutting in and out. To add to this, her exhausted, trembling legs were unsteady, and her arms felt like lead. She stumbled frequently, tripping as she backed away, and backed, and backed.

  The option of standing her ground was gone, if it ever existed in the first place. If she stopped, she would be swarmed over and crushed down by sheer numbers. Her only consolation in the exhausting retreat was that she knew her death would come from having her throat crushed and not from the gnawing teeth.

  The pressure from the dead was so great that Maddy couldn’t break off even though she was desperately needed in other parts of the building. The defense of the fire escapes were abandoned minutes later. It was too soon. Maddy saw the creatures pouring in through the windows when they should’ve been climbing all the way to the roof.

  “It’s time!” she yelled out to Kathy. When Maddy didn’t get an answer, she cast a quick glance back at the girl. The teen was standing, frozen, her green eyes staring blankly into the horde. Even though she didn’t have Maddy’s second sight, she saw her death in ten different forms playing out in her mind. “Kathy,” Maddy called out, gently this time.

  A shiver racked the teen. “Already?” she asked, sounding like the kid she was.

  Was this how she had sounded when her mom told her it was time to leave the mall? Maddy forced her mind away from that. “Yes. Those who are going to try to escape have to get in position, now. The rest of us have to do our parts. I got the stairs covered. People need to get to the fire escapes.

  Still somewhat blank-eyed, Kathy nodded and went up the stairs, slowly at first but then faster when she heard a scream from within the building. When she opened the door to the next floor, the sounds of panicked chaos rushed into the stairwell in much the way an arctic wind will pour through an opened front door in the middle of January.

  Maddy turned her mind from the hysteria and concentrated on facing the storm of zombies fighting upwards at her. If there was a Hell, she figured it would look very much like this and for the first time she cursed her new acute eyesight. With the darkness so very nearly complete, she saw each of the sickening creatures in varying hues of shadowed grey, which made them appear even more inhuman than ever.

  Perhaps it was this which sapped her strength. She fought without conviction and her retreat up the stairs was more akin to a rout than an orderly withdrawal. Unfortunately, it was the same everywhere. The zombies came on without let up, chasing the doomed remnants up and up.

  Only when she came to the top floor did Maddy make a determined stand. Somewhere on the floor people were racing for the stairs afraid of being trapped. They were doomed, one way or another, but the sharpness of their fear cut her deep and she held out as, one after another, they burst into the stairwell, looked down in terror at the horde of zombies and then raced for the roof. Kathy was the last of these, though her eyes were not filled with terror but with a stony hopelessness that wasn’t misplaced.

  With the zombies literally nipping at her heels, Maddy followed her up to the roof where the door was hurriedly slammed shut behind her with a hollow boom.

  Now, other than the muted howls coming from the other side of the door there was silence on the roof. Including Maddy there were nine people.

  Bryce was not one of these.

  Chapter 40

  “Where is he?” Kathy demanded, outrage lifting her voice.

  Maddy went to one edge of the roof and looked down at a thousand zombies crawling over the metal works. At first glance they reminded her of a colony of bees about to swarm, but they were not so benign as that. They were more akin to an Old Testament plague. The closest of them would reach the top in seconds. “Let’s not worry about him,” she said. She could feel his presence in the building. His pain was less. His calmness was grating.

  Didn’t he know she was trapped? Couldn’t he feel the Spider Demon pressing ever upwards?

  “I need three of you at each escape and three at the door,
” she said, dismissing these thoughts and concentrating on what she could do right then.

  “What for?” Mr. Jennings asked. “We did what we were supposed to. I say each of us should decide for themselves.” How best to commit suicide—Even though this was unsaid, the message was conveyed.

  Maddy knew the plan’s end had been left undefined; still she shook her head, saying, “No. We’re not there yet.” And I’m not supposed to die by suicide. The image of the demon crushing down on her throat was now clear enough that in the vision she saw an artery pulsing in her neck; it was a second from popping. “The others haven’t even tried to escape yet. No. We need to keep the focus up here.”

  The others thought any excuse to put off death even for a few minutes, was a good one. Mr. Jennings only shrugged and went to the ledge that looked over the back alley. He stared down a long time before he swallowed twice with unsettling loudness, and leaned far forward. His body took on an impossible angle one in which gravity took a firmer and firmer grip of him. At the last moment, his body protested and his mind balked. His arms began pinwheeling as he tried to back out of the plan, but it was too late, and he fell still with his arms making useless circles. It looked like he was trying to fly as he hurtled straight down.

  Everyone cringed and turned away, most slamming their hands over their ears so they wouldn’t hear the god-awful thud/splat noise his body made on impact. The sound seemed to hang in the air as the little group stared about wide-eyed, their minds overwhelmed by fear and grief and the fact that their own deaths would be just as violent and maybe not as quick. Each wondered if they would have the strength to jump when it came to it.