This Rotten World (Book 3): No More Heroes

by Jacy Morris

  Suddenly, that was no longer a problem. Light flooded the area. From atop the trailer he had tried to dig under, bright flashlights shone into his eyes, blinding him. He put his arm up to shield his eyes, and that's when the dead thing lunged for him. He landed on his back, his hand smashing into a jagged rock. The knife flew from his hands, and all he had left were his hands as he fended off the attack of the dead.

  He struggled, pushing and repositioning his hands to keep the monster's teeth off his skin, burning up all of the energy he had.

  "Take the shot," he heard a voice say.

  There was a pause, and then another voice asked, "Are you sure?"

  "Yeah. Do it."

  There was another pause, and then he heard the click of a bolt-action rifle chambering a round. This was followed by a crack of thunder, and then blood covered Lou's face. The dead man on top of him stopped moving. It's full weight, now limp, crushed him into the dirt. He tried to push it off of him, but he was too exhausted. All he could do was lay there. Maybe if he sat still, they would think him dead.

  "Well, hello there," a voice said. It was the voice of the man from the gate, the one in charge. Lou didn't feel like answering, so he remained silent.

  "I said, 'Hello.' The least you could do is answer me. We just saved your life."

  That was true. It was the least he could do. "Hello."

  "There. Now that's a start." The voice lapsed into silence as the wind rushed through the trees. "Now what business do you have trying to break into our home?"

  "I was looking for my friend. I tracked her here."

  "Oh, you must mean Joan. Well, why don't we get you cleaned up and you can come inside and we'll talk. I'm sure Joan would be pleased to see you. Keith, Stan, why don't you go around front and help our friend?"

  Lou tried to push the body off of him, and this time he was more successful. He managed to free his upper half from the corpse, when two dirty men appeared from around the corner.

  "Now don't go running, mister," said the man on top of the trailer, still shining light in Lou's eyes. "It's a shameful thing to shoot a man in the back, don't you think?"

  Lou waited as the pair of men lifted the corpse of the dead man off of his legs. As they did, the man atop the trailer said, "Bring that one inside. It'll keep us warm. You there, why don't you lend a hand?"

  Lou got to his feet, feeling as if he was about to keel over. He was exhausted, but he bent down and picked up the corpse by its legs. The man across from him carried the upper half by the hands, trying to avoid getting blood on his clothes. They duck-walked around the perimeter of the compound. The man atop the trailers followed them, jumping the gap between trailers when needed, but never failing to shine the light on them.

  They reached the main gate, and as they stepped inside, it rattled shut behind them, the chain-links jingling as it closed.

  "Over there," the man said, pointing to a brick-lined fire pit. They shuffled over to the pit, and unceremoniously dumped the corpse on top. It went up in flames immediately.

  "If we didn't live in a damn forest, we could get rid of them all with a flamethrower or two," Keith said.

  It was true. The corpse, when he had been wrestling with it, had felt abnormally dry, its skin more like flexible leather than human skin. Fire would do wonders against the dead, but then again, it did wonders against the living as well.

  Lou watched as the man atop the trailers leapt nimbly to the ground, a heavy flashlight in his hands. He smiled at Lou, but Lou didn't trust that smile one bit. He had seen that smile before in the streets. It was the smile of a wolf. Meant to be disarming, that smile would disappear from the man's face as soon as Lou turned his back.

  His arms spread open in greeting, and he said, "Welcome to Clarksville."

  Lou just nodded.

  "Is that all you have to say for yourself?" The man looked around at the other people in the compound, as if he were surprised. "Listen. Don't give me all this thug-life bullshit, man. I'm trying to be cordial here. I really am."

  Lou said nothing. He sensed the unhinged nature of this man, and the cowering nervousness of the other people in Clarksville told him that he wasn't wrong to react in such a way.

  "Oh, I get it," the man said with a smile. "We haven't been properly introduced yet. So let's take care of that bullshit right now." The man came closer to him and held out his hand for a handshake. "The name's Chad."

  Lou held out his hand and shook it. It was a firm handshake, a bone-grinder for sure. Chad leaned in close to his ear and whispered, "Otherwise known as the man with whom you don't want to fuck." This was followed up with a punch to the gut that dropped Lou to his knees as his breath exploded from him.

  "I'm sorry about that, mister, but that's a small price to pay for your sneaky little escapade out there." He leaned over, inches from Lou's face, daring him to spit at him or defy him in some such way. It's what he wanted. Lou knew this man. He had known men like him all his life. He was a small man, held down by the world at every turn. The only real power he had came from his anger and his ability to hurt people. He would be an expert at hurting people too. Once a small man found out they had that kind of power, they honed it like the edge of a knife.

  "My name's Lou," he grunted.

  "Lou, Lou, Lou. I don't think I've ever known a Lou," Chad said amiably. "Hell, with the way the world is right now, I don't know that I'll ever get the chance to know another Lou."

  The men in the compound laughed at this, as if it were hilarious, but Lou didn't find it particularly funny. Chad was the type of man who demanded that other people laughed at his jokes, whether they were funny or not. "Well, Lou. You said you were looking for your friend, right?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Oooh. You hear that everybody, I'm a sir. I like that. Well, Lou. As soon as you tell us where the rest of your friends are, we can take you to see your friend. How does that sound for a bargain?"

  "I told you, I'm here by myself," Lou lied.

  Chad just nodded his head, as if that was what he had expected to hear. Suddenly there was a pop from the fire. Chad laughed and said, "I love that sound. You know what that was?"

  Lou said nothing.

  "That was the sound of an eyeball popping. Yeah, boy, when you toss one of those dead things on a fire, those eyeballs, well they just keep getting hotter and hotter and hotter until they just up and explode like a popcorn kernel." Just as he finished talking, the other eyeball popped. "Hey Stan, which one went first, the left or the right?"

  "Looks like the left one this time, Chad," Stan said. He was a wiry dude, with a severe under bite . He looked to be missing a few bars in the grate. Lou could spot a methhead quicker than most people could tell he was black. Unless he was some sort of chemist, Stan was cured of his addiction whether he liked it or not. Lou guessed some good had come from the end of the world after all... you know, until that guy got his hands on some model glue or something.

  "The left one? Dammit! I totally would have bet on the left one, but I was too busy with Mr. Lou here. You just cost me some money, Lou," Chad said while wagging his finger at him. "Now, Mr. Lou, if you don't tell me where the rest of your friends are in the next thirty seconds, I think I'm going to throw you on the fire next, and we'll see which of your eyes pops first. I got right. Anyone want any of that action?"

  "I'll take some of that, Chad," Stan said.

  Chad smiled. "Well, it looks like we got ourselves a wager. How does a hundred sound to you, Stan?"

  "A hundred would be just fine."

  Lou knew they were bluffing. There was something about the new world that made bluffing almost an art form. He admired the way that Chad and Stan had played their game. It was almost as if they had done it before, but Lou knew Chad was full of bullshit. What he didn't know was whether or not Chad was a killer. He had that look, that madman look, but hell, everyone had that these days. The last time he had seen his own face, he had nearly jumped in fright.

  "I'll take some
of that action," Lou said.

  Chad turned to him and smiled, unable to believe what he had just heard. He pointed at Lou uncertainly and said, "You sure that's what you want?"

  "How does two hundred sound?"

  Chad just shrugged his shoulders, and then he and Stan lifted Lou up and dragged him over to the fire. The held him over the coals like a priest holding a new convert over the baptismal pool.

  "You got the money on you?" Chad asked him.

  "What?" Lou said, before he felt Chad and Stan let him go. He fell backwards into the flames, his back cracked across the hot, brick lining the circumference of the fire pit, and he felt warm heat envelop his entire upper torso. He tried to scream, but there was no air to scream with. He rolled over and plunged his hands into the burning coals of the fire, pushing his way up and out of the fire. Lou thought he could feel his skin dying as he rose into the cool night air. He thought he felt his cells scream out in unison then fall dead, leaving exposed and damaged nerve endings behind.

  He landed on the ground, his skin smoking in the coolness of the night.

  Chad leaned over him, looking down at his ruined brown flesh. "Hey, no fair. That's cheatin'. You just cost me some money again."

  Lou could say nothing. He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to concentrate on anything but the searing pain that ran through his body. Then the world went black.

  "Hey, check his wallet," Chad said. "Maybe he has the money on him."

  ****

  The sky was slate blue through the canopy above. The survivors shivered in the cold morning of the forest. A small mist kicked along the ground, disturbed every now and then by the squirrels who bounded their way through the world, oblivious to the fact that the dead walked the earth.

  Katie leaned against the cold, mossy trunk of a pine tree that must have been two-hundred years old. It was as thick and round as two portly men standing side by side. She sat in a cleft between two thick roots that veered off into the loamy turf. In her hand, she rolled a cigarette back and forth. She wanted it bad, but then she felt that kick inside of her. It was still there. A boy or a girl, she didn't know. She questioned if she ever wanted to know.

  But it still clung to life, and so must she. She wanted nothing more than a drink, a quick nip of something that would burn as it went down. But it would go down too far. It would go down into the baby, and no matter how she felt about her own life, she knew that the life of the baby inside wasn't hers to own. It was Zeke's. And though he wasn't here, she had a good idea that he would have wanted the baby to live. So she was willing to press on and suffer next to the others.

  They were dead already, but they didn't even know it. She rolled the cigarette back and forth, wondering just how bad one little cigarette might be for a baby. Hell, mothers throughout the 60's and 70's had doused their children with nicotine for decades, but now it was suddenly bad. But that wasn't her choice. It wasn't her baby. She was just carrying it. Somewhere along the way, she would be freed of it, and when she was, well, she would be free altogether.

  She put the cigarette in the inner pocket of her jacket and pulled her revolver free. It was fully loaded, and she trusted it more than she trusted the others. She sensed their distance the way a fish might sense a human on the shore above them through muddy waters. There was something there, but it was unclear, disturbing, and yet there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

  Clara and Mort slept peacefully, their breathing deep and untroubled, though it shouldn't be. They had all heard the gunshot in the night, and now Lou wasn't back. She guessed they would be packing up and leaving now. If Clara and Mort didn't want to go, she would head out without them. There wasn't any sense in kicking this hornet's nest, and that's exactly what it was. They all knew it, though none of them had said it.

  Who knew what the men in that compound were capable of? She suspected she would very soon be on her own. This would complicate things when she had her baby, but at least she would have a chance to give birth if she left. If they went poking around that compound, they were likely to die... or worse.

  She popped the cylinder open on the handgun, checked all the rounds and then closed it back up with a flick of her wrist. Something gnawed at the back of her mind, some memory of what it had been like to be loyal, to dedicate her life to something other than herself. It was guilt eating away at her. It was why she hadn't abandoned the others, she hesitated to call them friends, days ago. They were all good people, if a little misguided, but she had seen what happened to good people.

  It was safer to be bad. It was safer to not rely on emotions and feelings. Those things just seemed to get people killed. She was pondering her newfound philosophy, when she heard the snapping of a twig behind her. Immediately, she spun around, her handgun up and ready.

  "Wake up!" she yelled as she fired a round into the trees around them. Clara and Mort were on their feet in an instant, their weapons in their hands, their wild-eyes searching the forest around them. They were surrounded.

  "Hold your fire!" a man yelled. "There's no need for anyone to die!" A skinny man, all country and cool cars stepped from behind a tree. He had his hands in the air to show he was no danger, but Katie knew that wasn't the case.

  "What do you want?" Katie asked.

  "We just came to let you know that your friend had an accident. He sent us here to find you."

  "Bullshit," Clara said.

  "No, it's true," replied the man. "We saved your friend from one of the dead last night. You probably heard the gunshot. The fight must have exhausted him because he passed out and fell into our campfire. He's badly burned. If you put your guns down, you can come with us and see for yourself."

  "We're not giving up our guns," Katie said.

  Clara without saying anything tossed her gun on the ground. She stepped forward, ignoring the others.

  "What are you doing?" Mort asked.

  Without looking back, Clara said, "We have to go. Our friends are hurt."

  Mort thought about this and then tossed his own gun on the ground. He followed after Clara. Katie stood alone, the weight of the revolver in her hand seeming to grow exponentially with every moment that passed.

  "And what about you, little lady?" the man asked.

  "I'm not a lady," Katie said, "and I'm not going anywhere without my gun."

  The man just smiled at her, as if she were a big joke, and she wanted to put a bullet right through his teeth. "Suit yourself. But if you want to change your mind, all you have to do is hand that gun over to the guards at the gate, and you can walk right in."

  "I'll be fine on my own."

  Clara turned to Katie imploringly. "Katie, don't."

  "You're a fool, Clara. Your heart is too big."

  Clara turned and walked away. Mort looked over his shoulder apologetically at Katie as if to say, "What are you going to do?" The men from the compound surrounded the two, and then everyone melted into the trees, leaving Katie in the woods, her gun in her hands and no one else around.

  "They left me," she said. She sat on the ground, her knees buried in the mossy turf. It was the first time she had truly been alone in months. It was so silent, so empty. She felt the swelling warmth of her belly, and she knew that she wasn't completely alone. That made it better somehow. She dropped the gun to her side, as tears flowed from her eyes. She tried to tell herself that she was just emotional because she was pregnant, but in her heart, she knew that the tears were real and justified. She had turned her back on the others, though they had deserved no such thing. Shame flowed through her, and she patted her belly, "Boy, you're getting to experience all the emotions today, aren't you?" Katie smiled. All of the emotions indeed.

  Chapter 11: A Safe Place

  In the relative quiet of the morning, Beacham kicked down the door. The door to the janitor's closet flew open, and the able-bodied soldiers rushed in and grabbed a ten-foot, fiberglass ladder. Day and Gregg carried it as they rushed out of the school that had been their home for the prev
ious evening. All of their bags were packed, and they were ready to go. One by one, they slipped out of the window in the dull gray light of the morning.

  The sounds of Beacham breaking down the door had already drawn several Annies to investigate. The soldiers sent them to the ground with the butt of their rifles. And they pushed through, already feeling the pressure of the dead as they attempted to surround and constrict the survivors.

  They rushed through the backstreets, walking quickly to outpace the dead. The dead appeared before them, and they pressed through them violently and quickly, leaving them in their wake. The entire group was focused and ready. There was no conversation, only the solemn sense that they were on a mission, and they would not let it end in death.

  Allen felt their purpose as if it were a tangible thing. They wanted to be somewhere safe, somewhere where they could laugh as loud as they wanted and not worry about the dead coming after them. They wanted freedom from the dead and from the dread that infused their souls with every waking minute. Most of all, they wanted to be able to smile, sit in the sun, and angle their faces up at it with their eyes closed without having to worry about a dead thing coming to take a bite out of their ass.

  They turned onto Murray Road, the ladder clanking with each step. Gregg and Day had transferred the ladder to Rudy and Beacham who balanced the ladder on their shoulders, leaving the other soldiers free to gun down anything that got in their way. Any concerns they had about making too much noise went out the window. This was an all or nothing affair, do or die. They either hit that wall running and gunning and popped over it like it was three-feet tall, or they were going to smash headlong into it, breaking like waves against a cliff face.

  As they neared the mass of dead scratching at the wall, the soldiers opened fire. The smoke and thunder of their press cleared out an area roughly the shape of a pie wedge. They stepped over bodies, firing their weapons at as many of the dead as they could. They picked their targets according to proximity.