by Locke, Linus
Roger dropped down from the window of his third floor suite onto the canopy over the main entrance. The drop was only a few feet after extending from the window. He pulled a rope from his backpack and tied one end to a set of lights and tossed the other end to the ground. Slinging the backpack straps over his shoulders, he slid easily down the rope and grabbed the spiked club he had made from a desk in his office at the Channel 13 News station. The spikes were made from small pipes, sharpened to resemble large piercing needles. He made a holster for it on his backpack, and anytime he held it he thought of Guillermo and how he liked to call it Dead Breaker.
A young woman crawled over to him from the row of palm trees next to the hotel. Her lower half was gone, and she dragged her guts behind her. Dry tangles of intestines caught in the tall, rough grass and unwound from her body as she closed in on Roger slowly. The leathery flap of scalp that had been ripped from her head folded and curled backwards, revealing her dirty skull.
Roger wasn’t too concerned about the slow moving fiend, so he turned back to the street and walked over to the parking lot entrance. The barricade covered in brush and barbed wire had been trampled and busted down, yet he still did what he could to clear it away. Wrapping that barbed wire around the tires of the truck would put an end to his plans quickly.
He stepped into the garage but quickly stepped back out. The sound of an engine roared overhead. Roger crouched down by the busted barricade and watched as a jet flew low over the city. The F-16 blasted by, followed shortly by another, and then a much slower moving airplane that Roger was sure was some kind of crop dusting plane. The bright yellow plane was followed by two other F-16s that stayed just on the crop duster’s heels.
“What the hell?” Roger watched the planes fly out of sight to the east before remembering that he had to make his way to the Ramcharger. He ran back into the garage, not knowing how close he had come to the crawling fiend. She reached for his leg, closing her decaying fingers around the air that filled the empty space his leg just occupied.
Fiends were still fighting their way through the layers of furniture that cluttered the floor around the entryway into the hotel. The decision to park the big black truck next to that entryway all of a sudden seemed like a poor call. Roger remained crouched next to a blue hatchback as he waited for the fiends to scuttle through the busted furniture. He started as the hand grabbed his ankle.
The crawling fiend from outside moved quicker than he thought she would, catching up to him and trying to tear a chunk from his leg. The commotion caused several of the fiends to turn around and move away from the door. Roger fell to the ground, grabbed Dead Breaker, and drove it into her temple. The motion was an awkward version of swinging a golf club.
Noticing that the fiends were running after him, Roger climbed to his feet and made the quick decision to fight instead of run. It was only three of them. The first fiend was a man that Roger was almost certain he recognized as a neighbor from a few houses down from his own. He tripped the man with his club and drove it into the skull of the second man, ending his shrieks.
The third fiend was much slower but still able to jog. Roger drove the blunt end of Dead Breaker into her face. Her skull crunched and she rolled to the side. Roger stood above her twitching body and slammed it straight down onto her head, launching skull fragments and brain chunks in every direction.
“Now I have something I want to say to you,” Roger said to the first fiend as the dead man stood up. He smashed the club into the fiend’s mouth. Blood and teeth rained onto the concrete. “I’m sick of that goddamned dog of yours shitting in my yard.” Roger beat the dead man in the head as they stood facing each other. After the third powerful blow, the dead man finally crumpled, collapsing on the ground in a heap of rotting flesh.
More shrieks, this time from the parking garage entrance, filled the large concrete room. Roger counted eight fiends, and each one was already at a dead run in his direction. Turning on his heel, Roger took off toward the truck but stopped abruptly. Two more fiends had stopped fighting their way into the hotel and ran toward him, blocking his path to the truck. With no other options, Roger ran across the path and behind the cars. Running along the wall, he hoped to lead the fiends around until he could make a clearing around the truck.
Deacon leaned into the push bar of the fire escape door and pushed it open. It was a heavy steel door that opened up to the red steel stairs of the fire escape. There was no breeze in the alley blowing in fresh air. The rotting stench of flesh and garbage was almost overwhelming. His mind raced as he tried to focus on each possibility for escaping the undead horde that came for their living bodies. It was certainly a long way down. Luckily the stairs went all the way down, ending in a ladder that was currently raised off the ground. No sign of Roger in the alley made Deacon’s heart beat a little faster.
Mark walked down the stairs to the third floor emergency exit. Listening through the door he heard nothing. If Roger was still on the third floor there would surely be some commotion. The fire exit had no way of opening from the outside, so Mark climbed over the railing and peered through the window. He could just make out the fiends moving up the stairs.
Waving for Sophia and the twins, Deacon watched as they ran toward him. The twins were scared, yet they’ve always done a great job of keeping that fear contained. He could never tell if they were just used to the fear, they didn’t understand how afraid they should be, or if they knew how to place that fear in a tiny box and bury it deep in their minds. Regardless of what they did with the fear, the twins trudged on, accepting the world they were thrust into.
Glass shattered in the hallway behind them as they ran. The fiends had busted through and were climbing over the couches that Deacon and Sophia placed in front of the door leading to the stairwell. The glass shards cracked and popped under their feet. A barefoot fiend left a trail of thick black blood behind as she ran up the carpeted hallway toward Deacon and the others. The glass in her feet drove in further with each step.
Sophia screamed as she saw the undead fill the hallway.
“Hurry up!” yelled Deacon. He shut the door behind Sophia as she stepped out onto the metal stairs. A few seconds later the fiends hit the door, rocking it on its heavy hinges. An explosion of glass erupted just to their left as fiends shot through the large window. They poured out, just missing the fire escape a few feet to their right and falling the four floors to the alley bellow.
“Where’s Roger?” asked Sophia. Her voice cracked slightly. She looked down at the fiends that had fallen to the alley. Most of them were back on their feet and clawing at the wall in an attempt to climb to them. There is no way out of this. I couldn’t keep the twins alive. God I hope their deaths are quick.
Deacon had both feet on the hand rails and his back pressed firmly against the door when Mark came back up the stairs. Neither man was ready to admit defeat just yet, but they really only came with the one plan. Deacon’s knees were aching, but he held himself in place. The only thing between them and the fiends was that door, and he would hold it closed for the rest of his life.
Sophia held the twins close to her. “Everything is going to be fine,” she whispered. She embraced them. She loved them as if they were her own children, and she knew if they couldn’t live forever then she wanted their deaths to be quick. Looking down over the railing she tried to prepare herself mentally to jump.
The roar of the Ramcharger echoed loudly up the walls of the alley. The massive Mickey Thompsons were inches from rubbing the walls on each side, rolling easily over the fiends. Blood and entrails clung to the front and spattered the windshield. A fiend hung from the front bumper right in front of the tire, her arm snagged. Her lower body had been crushed and shed away. Most of the flesh on her upper body had been peeled off in a sheet, leaving nothing but muscle.
“You get the twins down there. I’ll hold the door until your safe,” Deacon yelled. Someone has to stay behind.
“You go with them,” Mark order
ed. He wedged himself in between the door and railing without waiting for a Deacon’s argument. “GO!”
Deacon looked at Mark and stepped off the railing. “I’ll be right back for you,” he said. “I’ll get them to the truck and be right back.”
Sophia was already halfway down the stairs with the twins. She could hear the fiends beating on the door overhead, and a few continued to fall from the window and hit the concrete just behind the parked SUV. Deacon caught up just as they hit the last platform. He helped her lower the ladder down, holding it just above the Ramcharger as the twins descended and dropped down into the open sunroof.
“I’m right behind you,” he said to Sophia as she hesitated to climb down without him.
“Hurry.”
As Sophia vanished through the top of the truck Deacon looked up at Mark. He could just make him out through the layers of metal grating that separated them. He watched as Mark removed one foot from the railing and placed it firmly on the ground. Shit, Deacon thought. He looked around frantically for some way to help his friend, but found nothing.
“You need to go, Deacon,” shouted Mark.
Deacon did. He didn’t want to, but he dropped down onto the truck and watched for his friend. He can survive the fall. He can survive.
Mark place the other foot on the grating and the door burst open behind him. Moving as fast as he could, Mark stepped onto the railing and jumped off. Instead of falling, he stopped. The hands grabbed ahold of his shirt and jeans. He could feel the rotting flesh and rough, boney fingers squeeze his ankles. They pulled him up and he watched–but not heard–Deacon scream for him. The shrieks and groans were deafening.
As his leg was lifted over the railing, a dead woman bit down into the soft flesh. Mark didn’t feel any pain, but he heard the pain in the scream. He looked up to see Roger pushing the fiends back, blood trickling from the bite on his right wrist.
“Grab the rail!” Roger ordered. He dropped Mark as soon as he saw the man had a firm grasp on the fire escape.
“Hurry up!” Mark yelled up to the man who had just saved his life.
Roger continued to kick and push as the fiends fought to barge out through the door.
Mark could see that he needed to leave, despite his not wanting too. Roger saved him, and he knew he couldn’t return the favor. He dropped down to the third floor, than the second. A loud crack came from up above, and he looked up just in time to duck as the railing came down. He hopped into the second floor fire escape, and reached out just in time to grab Roger as he fell past. Mark couldn’t catch him, but he slowed the man’s fall.
Roger, along with a number of fiends bounced off the top of the large SUV.
Deacon grabbed ahold of him, and Sophia hit the gas. The Ramcharger jumped backward causing the fiends to roll off of the top, landing in front of the truck. She drove forward, crushing their bodies under the massive tires. She drove forward and backward several times as new fiends rained down from the fire escape. Finally, with a short gap she drove forward far enough for Mark to jump down.
Mark dropped down and dove feet first through the sunroof. “Holy shit!” he said as he grabbed Roger’s wrist and examined the bite. “There has to be something we can do.”
Sophia backed out of the alley and took off down the street.
“You need to let me out,” Roger ordered. “I’m only a risk to you. I’m done for. I served my purpose here.”
“I don’t accept that,” Deacon said. “Pull over!”
Without question, Sophia pulled the truck onto the sidewalk.
Deacon jumped out, followed by Mark. After checking that the fiends were out of sight, the two men pulled Roger from the truck.
“What are you doing?” Roger asked in an annoyed tone.
“Sorry about this, mate,” Deacon said and pulled out the shotgun he had grabbed from the hotel.
“I know I don’t deserve an honorable death, but that’s a bit messy don’t you think?” Roger asked as he began to turn around, ready for his execution.
“Yeah, but it will get the job done,” Deacon said as he pulled the trigger.
The blast echoed off the buildings, but it was dwarfed by the screams. Roger grabbed his right arm, just above the shredded flesh that hung down just below his elbow. The lower half of his arm lay shredded on the street. Roger screamed until he couldn’t anymore. He watched the blood pour out, and then he closed his eyes.
Chapter 22
The hands tore at his coat and pulled his hair. Jonathan swung his arms and kicked, trying to break free. Just when he felt that all hope was lost, a monstrous roar bellowed from beyond the dead circle that surrounded him. Soon, that monster barked. It was Dog. He barked and snarled and those barks were followed by a burning smell. Then gunshots. Not loud gunshots, gunshots from a small caliber handgun.
Then the hands grabbed at him again lifting him up. Jonathan fought them. He still had to stop all of this. He couldn’t die here. So he fought.
“Will you stop hitting me, asshole!” Mad Man Rob said. He supported Jonathan with one arm while defending them with the brass torch he held in the other.
“We got you, Jonathan,” Michael stated. “We have Guillermo in the truck. We have to go now.”
Jonathan nodded, still shook up from hitting his head in the car.
As Michael walked Jonathan past an Orbit Orange car he realized where the roar came from. The Judge sat there, still running. Even at idle he could feel the Pontiac GTO powerhouse shaking the ground as they walked by. And then Jonathan saw the chrome grille of the Semi. It was grinning at him in a way so sinister that he knew it had to be alive. That grille was so clean and perfect, yet it seemed to bend in a wicked snarl.
“In you go,” Michael said. He pushed Jonathan up the steps with one hand on the small of his brother’s back and the other just under his ass.
Jonathan climbed in, groggy but aware. He saw the bed in the back of the cab, Guillermo sitting on the edge of it behind the driver’s seat, and made his way back. His eyes were shut before his head hit the pillow. He was sure that Guillermo had told him he needed to stay awake. That he had bumped his head pretty good and couldn’t sleep right now. Jonathan didn’t care. He slept.
The gunshots died down as the survivors arranged to retreat, but the explosions only grew louder. More and more of the massive wall tumbled down. Mad Man Rob had the large gates opened in the driveway and prepared to lead the survivors through.
“How is he?” Mad Man Rob asked as he climbed into the massive semi after lifting Dog in. Fiends beat on both doors.
“He’s out,” Guillermo said in a panic.
“May will look at him when we get to the park.” Mad Man Rob started the large diesel engine. It knocked for a second before smoothing out into a devilish purr. He drove it slowly toward the opening. A black trailer was pulled behind the cab, and a string of cars followed behind that.
The Judge in front followed by a Plum Crazy Purple Dodge Challenger with a large chrome blower jutting from the hood. An orange Mustang, a yellow Road Runner, a black Yenko Camaro, and finally a Dodge Little Red Express pickup with its chrome exhaust stacks standing behind the cab. They looked more like a car cruise on a Saturday night then a group of survivors in a world occupied by the undead. The noise from these classic beasts would certainly draw attention.
The semi turned out onto the street in front of the wall. Thick smoke rolled from the exhaust stacks. One of the Humvees swerved to avoid being plowed into by the much larger truck and ran over one of their own men. Blood sprayed from the man’s face as his head collided with the hood of the Humvee. The driver hit the brakes, not realizing that the front tire came to rest on the man’s chest, shattering his ribs and sending bone fragments into his heart.
Mad Man Rob paid them no attention as he worked the long gear shifter. He felt a bit like an apocalyptic Smokey and the Bandit with a trail of muscle cars behind his rig. Michael pressed a button on the dash that retracted a hydraulic piston. Th
at piston opened a door on the side of the semi’s trailer. Once open, a dozen fiends spilled out and landed in the ditch between the street and the field where the attacking army was. This was Mad Man Rob’s idea of slowing down their attackers. Kind of like a sadistic version of a spy movie oil slick.
The line of American muscle behind the semi lit up the concrete with a roar of V-8 power. The big block power plants came to life with gasoline pumping hard and fast through their monstrous veins. The Road Runner, driven by Rick, and Camaro, which was driven by a teen named Aaron, whose father owned the car before the bone bags tore his limbs off last year, dropped out of the convoy and flew with ease to the front of the line.
The semi gradually picked up speed as it barreled down the street. Mad Man Rob avoided the stop at the intersection by cutting through the gravel lot of the fire station and shot up onto the road. The large trailer wobbled but stayed on all of its tires. Guillermo held onto Jonathan the best he could, hoping his friend didn’t bounce around and cause any more damage. Dog assisted by laying across the young man’s legs.
Bill sat in the passenger seat of one of the Humvees that was taken from the National Guard Armory just outside of town. He watched with morbid delight as the wall started to crumble. His pale, empty eyes scanned the smoky field. Bodies lay strewn about, most missing limbs. He felt nothing for his dead friends. Those who followed him into this battle meant nothing to him.
Before the deadies came, he was a regular man. He worked hard as a construction worker, paving roads for miles in the heat of the day. Finishing early one afternoon, he drove home to find his wife, Janet, in bed with his best friend, Corey. Neither of them heard him until it was too late.
The twenty pound sledge hammer dropped down onto the small of Corey’s back. The man’s spine shattered, rupturing his bladder and both kidneys, and causing blood to run from both the orifices below his waist. His eyes bulged and became bloodshot. The pain was so much that he couldn’t scream.