He found that being outside was only a little bit safer. Everywhere there were screams.
The scientists had rushed out into the rain, rejoicing over their liberation and smiling up into the falling rain. With the light of the building behind them, they were all too human appearing and the remaining zombies in the area, about sixty in number, came swarming to feast.
The defenseless scientists ran in every direction. Some made a dash for the cars in the employee parking lot, others ran for the supposed safety of the little cottages, and some just ran off into the night. With Stephanie so weak, Chuck hoisted her as far up as he could into one of the low cherry trees and then climbed up himself. Like a pack of dogs treeing a cat, five zombies sat below, staring up hungrily.
John Burke paused in the middle of the mayhem to get his bearings and to catch his breath. His cancer wasn't as far along as Stephanie's, still, the smoke had done a number on him and he was unable to take a full breath. Wilson came up behind him and took his arm. "I have a car in the lot. We can..."
"Get off," Burke snapped. "I gotta find my girl." An ambulance was pulling away from the largest of the cottages. John hurried as fast as he could to intercept it before it drove through the gates. With his lungs clogged with ashy mucous he was too slow to get in front of it. The best he could do was hammer on the side as it drove by.
He tried to scream, "Jaimee? You in there?" only his lung capacity was that of an infant's and the words came out soft and wet. He hacked up something black and for a moment he thought he'd been infected, but then he remembered he was immune. "Jes the smoke," he said to himself.
A second later Wilson was at his side. He was wide-eyed and frightfully scared. There was a woman in a white lab coat being eaten twenty feet away. With so many zombies on her, Wilson didn't know who she was. "We should get out of here," he whispered to Burke.
"Not yet," Burke replied. He started heading for the rich man's house where he had eaten dinner the night before. On the way a zombie tried to eat him. It wasn't much of a zombie. It had been one of the CDC agents and had been partially devoured with great chunks of flesh missing from its neck and face. One of its arms hung by a strap of tendon and it was missing a foot. Burke used his mop to topple it.
Wilson walked around it, staring as if it were a circus freak, his medically trained eye trying to make sense of it. How had it not bled out? How could it stand to walk on the root of its tibia? The pain of that must be excruciating, worse than almost any torture.
It was a horrible puzzle that he hoped he would never have to contemplate a second time, however, not a minute later, as they were approaching the big house, they encountered another poor creature that defied logic and sound medical reasoning.
It was a little girl.
"Is that your daughter?" Wilson asked, hoping to God it wasn't. There wasn't a lot left to the girl's face. One eye missing and nothing but a hole in its head where it had been; both ears, most of the nose and its bottom lip had been chewed off.
"Elp eee. Oooh elp eee," she said.
"That ain't her," Burke said, his face twisted in disgust. "Jaimee got legs on her like a ger-aff. That one's too small."
"It sounds like she's trying to talk," Wilson said, bending low to look at the girl. He saw she was missing her tongue on top of everything else. The sight made him shudder. "I wonder why some of them can talk and others can't."
"Cain't say as I give much of a shit 'bout that," John replied. He held the girl back with the business end of the mop and glanced up at the house. It was altogether quiet. "Ah'm goin' in. Y'all can stay here iffin you wanna."
Wilson didn't want to be alone; even though he thought John wasn't much more than a hillbilly, he was a better companion than the grotesque little girl zombie. They went in and knew right away that the house was empty. The air didn't feel right. It was stagnant and dead.
"Jaimee?" John called out softly. "Jaimee?"
He went room to room searching, fearing he would come across more bodies, afraid that he would find his little girl's among them. On the third floor he found Jaimee's little traveling case. "Oh, no, that ain't right," he said, fighting back tears that wanted to jump on out of his eyes.
A girl traveling needs her traveling case, he figured. For some reason he flipped it open; sitting on top was a pair of her worn underwear, looking as though a family of mice had got at them. John began to cry.
Without Jaimee, he had absolutely nothing in this world and no reason to live.
"Mr. Burke?" Wilson asked from the doorway. He hesitated stepping in; it seemed wrong to step over the threshold and into the man's misery. "We can't stay here. We really should go."
"To where?" John didn't know where he fit in or where he could go that would matter.
"Anywhere away from here," Wilson said. At that particular second he didn't have a destination in mind. The idea of going home appealed to him, but he couldn't chance it. How the Com-cells were transmitted was still a mystery and he wasn't going to risk infecting his family.
Anywhere wasn't much of a draw for Burke. Nowhere might have been a better answer. He glanced out the window, wondering if she was out there walking around with all the rest, trying to eat people. Or had she been in that ambulance?
"Would they have tooken her in that am-ba-lance?" he asked Wilson. "She don't got no money for no am-ba-lance."
"Of course they'd take her," Wilson replied. "She's probably on her way to the nearest hospital even as we speak."
Burke's initial reaction to this was one of suspicion. After the last day, a hospital was the last place he wanted her to go. "Could we go find her?"
Wilson jumped at the chance to get the man moving. "Yes, of course."
Imbued with a new purpose, Burke led the way, running down the stairs and out the front door, only to freeze just outside. The grounds were thick with roving bands of zombies.
“Shee-it,” John swore. There was no getting through all of them and there was no staying in the house neither. Already many of the closer ones were turning to stare at the two men. They'd be charging next and the house, with its large windows wasn’t going to be much of a refuge.
Fortunately for them, General Collins’ helicopter came swooping in from the north. All the zombies stopped what they were doing, even the ones eating the screaming scientists, and canted their heads up at it. Burke was staring up as well, but not Wilson. He saw that the helicopter represented a moment frozen in time. It was a chance to get away. A hundred and twenty yards to the parking lot where his Lexus sat beading rain on its newly waxed metal hide and if the copter would hang around for just a minute he could get to it.
“Come on,” he said, taking John’s arm and pulling him down the porch stairs and running. They ran among the mindless and mesmerized zombies, over the pretty lawns in front of the cottages, and across the front of the hospital which burned with a white noise that was like radio static turned up to an ungodly volume. Lastly, they ran past the cherry tree where Chuck and Stephanie were stranded in its thin branches.
Chuck yelled, “Burke! Hey, Burke!”
It was then that Collins’ copter swung overhead on its way to scout out Poughkeepsie and neither Burke nor Wilson heard the cries. And even if they had there wasn’t much they could’ve done, they were now the focus of every zombie in sight.
When Wilson saw this he let out a breathy, “Oh…man!” Both men were already winded and they still had forty yards to go. The zombies gave chase and for some reason Wilson began laughing. It made no sense whatsoever, still the giggles came bubbling up out of him and there was no stopping them. Next to him, Burke was coughing himself into a fit and looking at him as if he were crazy.
With the laughing and the coughing, both men were barely at a jog now and only just made it to the car ahead of the first zombies. They climbed in and the pounding on the glass followed immediately. It wasn’t like someone thumping with the soft part of their hand below the pinky, these were full on punches; the back window crac
ked after three blows.
“Go, go, go!” Burke cried, slapping the dash with the flat of his hand.
A little touch of Burke’s good ole boy Dixie rubbed off on the normally staid Wilson. He gunned the Lexus, letting the wheels scream, not caring that he clipped a stray zombie or two or that he bounced the car over a couple of curbs. He was even going to let out a rebel yell as the gates came up, but then he happened to glance back and caught the full extent of the death all around the hospital.
Bodies were everywhere. Most were very dead, but some of the scientists were still alive and screaming as zombies ate their fill. There was nothing Wilson could do. He pointed the car through the gates and left the grounds, turning south at the first intersection.
“Is this the way to the hospital?” Burke asked.
It was the way home for Wilson. The image of his wife: tall, stunning, and statuesque, drew him on. He knew he couldn’t go home but he wanted to be close. He needed to be close because he knew this wasn't over, not by a long shot. “Yes,” he lied to Burke. “I’m sure it is.”
3
Deckard had long before shed his jacket, now he draped it across his and Thuy’s faces. The heat had become torturous and anything that could come between exposed flesh and the inferno was a blessing.
Thuy rested her forehead on his chest, her normally large doe-eyes were heavily lidded; she was fighting to stay conscious but losing.
“Another minute,” Deckard whispered. “Hold on, the elevator will be right back.” The elevator had slowly dropped away, leaving the three of them alone and in pain. It felt like ages ago. She nodded, her eyes drooping further closed.
“You’ll let me get on, too?” Riggs asked. He was a miserable creature. The Com-cells were barely into his system, nevertheless he looked more than half zombie already. He seemed to be shedding his humanity at quick rate.
Regardless, Deckard answered, “Of course. We won’t leave you behind.”
Thuy pulled the coat away. “I’m sorry," she said to Riggs. "I'm so sorry.”
“Not your fault,” Riggs said. “Someone messed it up. I don’t blame you at…”
He stopped as the sound of the elevator could be heard grinding it’s way upward. Their excitement peaked with the light ding! And then vanished altogether as Von Braun emerged, resembling a fiend from the lowest planes of hell. The unbelievable heat was making him into a mad thing. He was in such a rage that he forgot completely his desire to have his revenge on Thuy and flew directly at the first person in his way.
It happened to be Riggs who had been so terrified of being left behind a second time that he had stood right in front of the elevator door. Von Braun struck him with an overhand punch breaking Riggs’ nose and squashing it sideways on his face—he dropped to the linoleum, his eyes going in two different directions.
Von Braun resisted the urge in his blackheart to leap down on Riggs and tear open his throat. As much as he wanted to, there were more humans to consider and these two smelled much purer than Riggs did.
Deckard pulled Thuy back, shielding her with his body as Von Braun charged. With a quick move, Deck threw his coat over Von Braun’s face and followed it up with swooping haymaker. His fist connected with such force he felt the jolt run straight up into his shoulder; there was an ugly crunch sound and he felt something give beneath his fist.
Von Braun yanked away the coat. His face was misshapen, one of his cheekbones had been crushed by the blow and yet he was completely unfazed. Again, he charged and now Deck was down to one very poor option: he kicked the zombie in the chest, striking with the flat of his shoe. It was about the only method of attack left to him that didn’t involve direct touching.
It was basically worthless. Despite that it had been vicious and that Deckard had put his all into the kick, Von Braun ignored it completely and came on.
Now Deck was seemingly done offensively, while defensively he had shot his wad by throwing the coat. This left retreat as his only option—a retreat down a dead end hallway where the heat brewed the air to over a hundred and forty degrees.
Deckard shoved Thuy aside and waved his hands at the foul beast. “Come on, Von Braun! You want to fight? I’ll fight you, man to man.” As he spoke he began walking backwards, in the hope of drawing Von Braun away from the elevator. It seemed to be working.
They were thirty feet away from it when Thuy jumped at the elevator door, which had been slowly closing. She caught it with an inch to spare. Maybe because the explosion had warped its inner workings, the door took that moment to ding once again. Von Braun began to turn; Deckard waved his arms wildly at him.
“Over here, jackass! I’m right…” He was still walking backwards when his foot came down on the face of one of the zombies they had killed earlier. His ankle rolled, sending a bolt of pain up his leg. He fell backward and could only watch as Von Braun turned his back on him. "No! Over here!"
The zombie ignored the yelling. He had spotted Thuy and his hunger flared to new heights. He bore down on her and she was stuck with the terrible choices of run or die.
She turned on her heel and raced into the smoke, under no delusion that she could actually get away. The heat and the ash made it so she could barely sip at the air and yet it didn't seem to be doing anything to Von Braun. He came on fast. One moment he was just a dim figure in the haze and smoke and the next, he was running past the open elevator twenty steps behind her. He would catch her for certain.
And he would eat her.
If she had the lung capacity she would've screamed. All she could do was make a whining noise in her throat as her inevitable death came for her, but then, amazingly, Von Braun fell.
Riggs had grabbed his ankle as he passed and now the two were rolling around on the raging hot floor, each looking for a death grip on the other.
It was a foregone conclusion that Riggs would lose the fight. Everyone knew it, including Riggs himself. Von Braun had been an accomplished killer before, now he added zombie strength and an invulnerability to pain to his abilities.
Riggs only had guts and no reason left to live—it wasn’t enough.
With a grimace and a grunt, Deck got to his feet; he would help Riggs and in the process die trying. Von Braun was covered in the black residue of the Com-cells which meant Deckard would get infected the second he touched him and that meant death, a real death. Deck wouldn’t leave the building if he was infected. He’d let the fire and smoke kill him before he turned into one of them.
With grim determination he began hobbling toward the two men wrestling around on the ground. He took six gimpy steps and then his phone started ringing in his pocket. He was sure it was going to be Stephen Kipling demanding to know what the hell was going on in his hospital. Deckard was sort of looking forward to this last minute chance to scream at his former boss.
“What?” he barked as he kept going. His ankle was a storm of pain and was already swollen to the size of a baseball, making his progress slow.
“You can’t fight him bare-handed.” It was Thuy speaking to him from the cooler end of the hall where the interfering clouds of smoke hid her.
“I don’t have a choice,” he said. Twelve feet away--now Von Braun and Riggs were much clearer. The killer was atop the scientist with one hand crushing down on his throat and the other trying to tear Riggs’ eyes out.
“You do,” Thuy said. “The ram, where did you put it?”
Deckard stopped eight feet away from Von Braun. He had a weapon after all. "Son of a bitch!" he cried, feeling stupid for having for having forgotten it. He spun on his good foot and began to run/hop toward where the heat and smoke was the greatest. “I’ll get it, but you have to promise me to get on that damned elevator the first chance you get.”
Thuy did not promise anything; she hung up on him instead. He didn’t have time to argue or call her back. The environment around him was no longer able to support human life. The air seared his lungs and the smoke closed his throat. Even keeping his eyes open was next to
impossible. He hobbled on dropping the phone and then ripping off his shirt and holding it to his face. It was the only way he could breathe.
The ram was somewhere up ahead, he had left it sitting against the wall at the far end of the corridor. Without the ability to see he had to shuffle painfully along waiting to trip over it while his skin went cherry red from the heat. Two seconds later his shin barked into the metal. It would have hurt if he wasn’t already in so much pain; as it was he barely felt it.
His hand certainly felt the heated metal. There was a sizzling sound and he had to let go. Again, he didn’t have time even to cry out. With both hands he ripped his shirt in two. One half went across his face and the other he wrapped around his hand to act as an oven mitt.
Then he was hurrying back the way he came, the pain in his ankle diminishing with each step as his fear for Thuy overcame everything else.
Ahead was Riggs’ lifeless body. It was laid out in front of the elevators. It was alone. A scream ripped the dark air, “Deck!”
Deck’s ankle was totally forgotten now. He raced through the smoke and saw them, struggling together in a standing embrace—he was touching her! The vision sent a spike of fear right to his heart. She was diseased now. All his efforts to save her had been for nothing.
The fear in him abruptly switched to hate as Von Braun threw her down and jumped on top of her. Deckard, at a full sprint now, was on Von Braun before he knew it.
“Hey!” Deck yelled. He paused just long enough for Von Braun to turn and look in his direction before he swung the heavy ram.
It struck Von Braun just under the jaw sending splinters of teeth flying and snapping the bone square in two. The zombie’s head flew back, while his hands shot outward. He toppled off of Thuy; Deckard stood over him just long enough to take a deep breath and then the ram went up before flashing downward and striking Von Braun on the temple where the bone was thinnest. The metal head lodged there four inches deep. Von Braun took one last rattling breath and then his hands dropped to floor and his eyes slipped into the back of his mangled head.
War of the Undead (Day One): The Apocalypse Crusade (A Zombie Tale) Page 37