But he felt her heartbeat. He remembered holding her for the first time. Barely bigger than his hand and still trailing the lifeline to her mother. Cupping her in his palm and feeling the hummingbird-pulse of her heart as she screamed at a new and terrifying world. Feeling the softness of her skin and whispering to her that he loved her and he would be her daddy forever and he would protect her because that was his job and that was what daddies did.
He couldn’t give up.
He began to lower himself again.
Looked down.
And stopped.
Another pulsing bridge of bodies had extended out over the emptiness just below them. This one even closer to the cable, the leading edge of the zombies just inches away from grabbing the thick tether.
There was nowhere for Ken and Dorcas and Hope to go.
They were trapped.
49
The things had been silent before.
Now, inches away from completing the span of flesh that would enable them to reach their prey, Ken could hear them again. Sniffling, grunting.
Growling. Always that same growl, that same wheezing noise that invited listeners to come to them. To give up. Give in.
To die.
He wanted to. Wanted to let go. To let it end.
Suspected it was already over. Even if he hadn’t accepted that fact yet.
Certainly Hope seemed to want the end. She strained for the things above them, reaching up like a supplicant at the many feet of a throbbing, wheezing god made flesh.
Then she noticed the things below. She cooed. Cooed, like she was a baby again and had just received a shiny new toy, or had just seen her mother after a long absence. And then she was reaching not up, but down.
More appropriate, Ken thought, because if this was some strange god, then surely it was a god of darkness, of abyssal regions too black to contemplate.
The mass below them was larger than the one above. It was impossible to tell how many of the zombies were clinging to the side wall of the elevator shaft, and to each other. Ken couldn’t tell where each ended, where each began. There was just a massive agglomeration of oozing arms and legs, of dripping trunks and heads partially covered by black, cancerous growths.
He couldn’t see individual monsters.
But he did see the hand that reached out and grabbed the cable.
Surprisingly, the thing didn’t haul itself onto the line. Didn’t pull itself up to where Ken and Hope and Dorcas waited, easy spoils.
It just held.
And Ken realized that the thing didn’t want to grab them itself. That wasn’t its job. It wasn’t its place.
Ken looked at the bridge of bodies. Saw a half-dozen things scampering across the span. And knew that these were the hunters. The killers. The beasts that would end his life.
Half would go up to kill him and Dorcas and Aaron and Christopher.
The others would go down and finish Maggie and Liz and Buck.
The things were not only working together now, they were strategizing.
Thinking.
The first of the things was halfway across the bridge.
It had those same plate-like growths on its face. Its cheeks were pocked with them, its forehead partially obscured. Its eyes were completely covered. Bristling growths had either enclosed them, or replaced them.
Ken expected the thing to fall blindly off the roiling mass of bodies under it. But it bounded along on hands and feet with the sure movements of a spider in its web. Roaring. Growling.
Blind, it has to be blind.
Why doesn’t it fall?
The blind zombie roared. And looked with eyeless eyes right at Ken and Hope.
The rest of the zombies in the shaft – the ones that had formed themselves into a bridge, the ones that still skittered like bloody roaches across the walls, all of them – shrieked as well.
50
The sound of the monsters was so loud, so deafening, so nearly complete, that Ken almost didn’t hear… the other signals.
Almost didn’t hear the low thud.
Almost didn’t hear the wrenching crack.
Almost didn’t hear the whistle.
But he must have heard them all. Must have, at least on some subliminal level.
He looked up.
Something was falling.
Something big.
Huge.
His first thought was that something new was happening. And new was bad. New was always bad, new was just this world’s way of trying to kill them with more variety. Evolution was speeding up, and had focused on one task: the complete eradication of humanity.
They’re growing. They’re already invincible and spewing acid and they climb walls and now they’re growing, dammit!
The thing fell from above, plummeting through the shaft like a piece of the night sky.
Invincible. Acid-puke. Stick to walls. Growing. What next?
And then a voice forced itself into his fragmented, panicked thoughts. Christopher: “Timmmberrrrr!”
Ken’s fingers clenched even tighter around the cable, his arm pulled Hope so close to his chest that he wouldn’t have been surprised to hear her bones creak and crack.
The whistling increased in intensity. So did the growling.
Then….
BOOM.
The falling mass hit the fleshy bridge that had built itself across the shaft above Ken and Dorcas. The zombies screeched and then seemed to shatter into ten thousand fragments. Bodies and body parts exploded in every direction. They fell past Ken.
He saw a disembodied hand, fingers still opening and closing, and he tried to convince himself that it wasn’t reaching for him. That it wasn’t trying to grab Hope as it passed her.
But he failed. Because he was certain that the hand was doing just that. No brain, completely disconnected. But still reaching. Still trying to kill.
Then in the next instant he saw a huge piece of what looked like rock – the mass that had plowed through the bridge above them – rocket past.
It hit the zombie with the growths covering its eyes. The thing had time for a single abortive shriek before the gray block went right through it. Then the massive chunk continued through the bridge, tearing it apart as violently as any explosive could have done.
“Look out below!” screamed Christopher, his voice still coming from the dim light far above. Ken thought wildly that this must be what it was like to talk to an angel. To hear a voice from the light of Heaven.
Sure. If God sent angels who had weird senses of humor and dropped bricks on monsters’ heads.
But that was what had happened. Christopher must have somehow managed to climb up and loosen some of the wreckage around the sides of the shaft.
He had saved them. Again.
It occurred to Ken that he owed everyone in the company his life, many times over.
Hope was still screaming, but her shrieks were no longer the fever pitch they had been a moment ago. As though when the monstrous bridges had been torn apart, so had whatever power held sway over her.
She quieted.
But there was still screaming. Not hers, but screaming nonetheless.
It’s not over.
Ken looked up.
And saw that some of the zombies had made it. Were on the cable above them.
And climbing down toward Dorcas.
51
There was nothing Ken could do. He could only watch.
Dorcas had saved him. Not just once, but time and again. Had dragged him unconscious through the most hostile environment, had protected him and provided for his physical and mental safety.
And now that she needed help the most, he could do nothing. Fate was playing a cruel game, making him watch from inches away and making those inches an infinite gap.
Two zombies had made it to the cable. One of them was missing a leg, the other was one that had flayed its way into the tunnel: no skin on its body, just gleaming, seeping muscle and bone.
They oriente
d themselves, then began sliding toward Dorcas as she hung below them.
“Down, down!” she screamed.
Ken started sliding, but they were on her before he had gone five feet. They were fast, too damn fast.
She screamed again.
“Down, doowwww….”
The last word elongated into a shriek of terror. He knew he should keep going, knew that there was nothing he could do for her. But he stopped.
He looked.
She couldn’t do much. She only had one good hand, and if she let go of the cable, she could die.
The things seemed to know it, too. Not moving too fast. Taking their time.
Getting into position.
They climbed down the cable, down onto her.
Not interested in knocking her off. No, they were going to change her. There was no doubt. As soon as one or the other of them brought its face in range, it would bite her. It would bite her and change her and the warm, brave, good woman Ken knew would be gone.
Then there would be three zombies on the cable instead of two.
Ken cursed and began reeling cable between his fingers, letting it pass through his legs. Not knowing how far he had left to go.
Definitely knowing that it didn’t matter. Because he only had seconds left. And that wasn’t enough time.
The remaining zombies, the ones that still held to the walls of the shaft, resumed their growls. As though urging on the two that were about to add to their ranks.
Hope started cooing again.
Ken looked at her.
She was smiling. She started to laugh.
And as bad as the thought of his own death was, the sound of his little girl laughing as doom poured down on them was infinitely, exquisitely worse.
52
Ken almost let go of the cable as what sounded like a pair of sonic booms exploded through the confined space of the shaft.
Boom.
BOOM.
And then infinite reverberations, echoes that bounced back and forth and up and down and became the entirety of Ken’s world for the space of an eternal moment.
He felt dizzy. He closed his eyes. Tried to find his center, tried to regain some semblance of self.
It didn’t work.
He opened his eyes and looked up in time to see one of the zombies, one of the things that had been about to bite Dorcas, let go of both her and the cable. It was the legless one, and as it fell Ken saw that it had somehow lost a huge piece of its head as well. Its face had turned inside out, a blasted crevasse ringed by bone and blood.
The back of its head was worse. Just a nub of spine, a bit of hair and skin.
It wasn’t dead, though. Of course not. Only people died in this horrible reality, this twisted waking nightmare.
The monsters went on forever.
The legless thing fell and disappeared into the darkness of the shaft, spastically clenching its hands and arms, its one leg kicking back and forth.
Ken wondered what would happen once it finally hit bottom.
He wondered if Maggie and Liz and Buck were still alive down there.
He looked up and saw Dorcas still struggling with the other zombie. The one that had no skin, only blood and muscle and bone.
It couldn’t bite her, not anymore. Like its legless brother, this zombie had lost most of its head – including its teeth. It had nothing to bite her with. But whenever one of these things suffered what should be a killing head trauma, they seemed to go insane. This one was no different.
So it wasn’t biting her.
It was beating her to death one-handed.
53
Ken tried to climb. He could have convinced himself that two of the things was too much to handle – especially when all it took was a single bite. But now, watching his friend be pummeled only ten feet above him….
Hearing her scream.
He would hear that scream for the rest of his life if he didn’t try to stop the thing from killing her.
But he quickly discovered that wanting to go to Dorcas’ rescue was not the same as being able to do it. He still had one hand clamped onto the cable, the other arm dedicated to holding his daughter to him.
He thought for a moment that maybe he could let go and then grab the cable a bit higher and kind of… lurch his way up to Dorcas. A bit of wishful thinking that flew in the face of every law of physics.
He actually relaxed his grip for a moment, but the instant his fingers loosened past a certain point, he felt himself start to swing sideways and his hand clenched automatically before he lost his balance and fell away from the cable.
Hope was still laughing. Cackling and clapping as she watched the damaged, maddened zombie pound at Dorcas’ arms, trunk, face.
What’s wrong with her? What’s happening to my daughter?
The other zombies in the shaft were silent again. Crawling around the walls. Skittering almost too quickly to be seen, as though looking for something. Probably searching for a new anchor spot. A new location to begin building another living bridge.
The shaft was nearly silent. Only the suction sounds of the things’ hands…
… Dorcas, weeping and praying to God and Jesus and someone to save her save her please save her…
… the muffled thud-thumps of the thing as it pounded at her flesh with its own seeping fists…
… and the chirping laughter of Ken’s daughter as she watched it all unfold with eyes agleam.
Dorcas gasped and Ken looked up and saw she was about to let go. She couldn’t hang on any longer.
She would fall.
And Ken suddenly realized that when that happened she would fall straight down.
Straight into him.
Straight into Hope.
54
“Jesus dear Jesus sweet Jesus please Jesus.”
The words were a prayer, but the wet thuds between each one stripped them of their sanctity. The thwop of flesh on flesh as the zombie pummeled Dorcas took what should have been a call for heavenly help and converted it to shattered weeping.
The thing hit Dorcas on her already-broken arm.
She screamed.
In Ken’s arms, Hope gasped. She sounded like she was on the verge of ecstasy.
Ken closed his eyes. His fingers curled around the greasy cable, the metal fibers biting into his palms and drawing stinging tears from his eyes.
“Oh Jesus please Jesus please –“
“Get offa her!”
Ken’s eyes jerked open, his chin snapped up.
The thing was still on Dorcas. One wet hand held to the cable, the other was drawn back, pulled into a tight fist and ready to rain a final blow onto her face. Dorcas was weeping, crying, praying through lips that were bloody and split.
And Aaron flew out of the darkness like vengeance made flesh. He was flipped upside down, his legs twined around the cable, holding his .357 Magnum with his left hand. Smoke poured from the barrel and Ken realized belatedly that that was what must have made the explosions. Aaron had finally used his last two bullets. Had blown the heads off the zombies that were crawling on Dorcas.
Ken had to consciously refrain from shuddering. The cowboy had made the shot in near-perfect darkness, and so far away that Ken couldn’t even see him. He had done it hanging upside down, and using his left hand.
And the shots had been perfect. Two head-shots, negating the instant threat, buying Dorcas a few precious seconds.
Ken made a mental note never to get on Aaron’s bad side.
Aaron dropped the last few feet and hit the zombie before it could slam its final punch down on Dorcas. The cowboy’s gun didn’t have any more bullets, but he used it as a combination battering ram/stake, driving the shining barrel into the crater that had once been the monster’s head.
Aaron’s hand disappeared into the thing’s neck. The zombie jerked. Aaron grunted and twisted his arm as it jammed vertically through the zombie’s throat.
The zombie made a strange noise, a kind of hiccuppin
g cough. Then it shuddered and fell away from Dorcas, peeling off her like a grotesque second skin.
It fell past Ken and Hope. So close that some of the blood from the thing’s peeled flesh wiped across Ken’s forearm. It was tacky and surprisingly cool. A breeze followed the thing, and a moment later he heard a thud, then a scream somewhere below him.
“Maggie?” he shouted.
There was no answer.
Dorcas was crying. Shaking so hard that Ken could feel the vibrations in the cable.
He looked back up as Aaron grabbed the cable with his blood-drenched hand and flipped himself over in a move that Ken couldn’t even have described, let alone hoped to duplicate. Then the cowboy’s legs were wrapped around the cable and he was once again right-side-up, his face only inches from Dorcas’.
“It’s okay,” said the stocky older man.
Dorcas’ eyes were closed, her face a mass of blood and bruising. Aaron used his right sleeve to mop some of the blood from her face. “It’s okay,” he said again, his voice so low Ken could barely here it. “I gotcha, girl.”
Dorcas nodded. She was sobbing. But the sobs slowed a bit when Aaron put his arm around her. And slowed still more when he said, “Let’s get outta this damn place.”
It grew brighter as he spoke. Christopher was coming down.
“Did I miss anything?” he hollered.
Dorcas started laughing. Still crying, but laughing as well, as though refusing to let distress claim her completely. Refusing to be cowed.
“Not much,” she managed a second later. She looked down at Ken. “Don’t just hang there staring up my petticoats. Get a move on!”
Ken nodded. He started down again.
And tried not to think about the zombies he saw a few feet above Christopher, clinging to each other, clinging to the wall.
Building another bridge.
55
Hope stopped laughing.
“You okay, Hope?” Ken said. He didn’t stop descending. Just kept letting the cable slide through his grease- and blood-soaked palm. Kept letting himself drop foot by aching foot into the black.
The Colony: Renegades (The Colony, Vol. 2) Page 9