This Rotten World (Book 3): No More Heroes
Page 18
Without stopping, Walt spun, wrapping the rope around himself, keeping it tight and in motion. He spun away, his back to the dead momentarily before he faced them again and brought the ball crashing down in an overhead arc. The ball crushed the top of an Annie's head, collapsing the skull so that brains flew out its ears. It too fell to the ground, but Andy had lost the momentum on his weapon.
"Hold them back," Walt yelled. Day and Gregg stepped forward, swinging at the dead with their butts of their rifles and pushing them backwards. The Annies had bunched up now; they were a solid mass, a slow-moving wall of death. When they were packed in tight, they were unstoppable.
"We got no choice," Day said. "We have to open fire."
And they did. Walt dropped his bowling ball to the side and pulled his handgun free. Their fire lit up the gloomy hallway, and the dead fell to the ground. The ones behind them trod over them as if they were nothing. Their uncoordinated movements made it difficult for them to traverse the corpses, and the rotting beings toppled to the ground.
Through the ringing in his ears, he heard Gregg yell, "Get the ones on the ground, Walt!"
Walt concentrated on the Annies that stumbled and fell, tripping over the bodies in the hallway. He watched them as they crawled forward, too hungry and uncoordinated to rise from their prone position. He aimed his pistol at their heads, squeezed the trigger and flinched as he popped their skulls. Blood sprayed, but still they were forced to move backwards. Walt kicked his bowling ball backwards. He was going to need it soon, and just as this thought occurred to him, his handgun clicked empty.
He shoved the gun into the waistband of his pants, where the hot barrel singed the flesh above his crotch. He bent over and picked up the bowling ball. He hefted it in his hands until he got a good bead on one of the crawlers. Then he lifted it over his head and brought it crashing down upon the dead thing's skull. Using the rope, he pulled the blood-soaked bowling ball to himself, lifted it again, and brought it crashing down upon the next unfortunate soul.
Time slowed to a crawl, and they fought back the tide. Sweat dripped from their brows. Walt's hands were sticky with blood. Then suddenly, they were standing in the hallway alone. The only noise was gunfire and screaming from other parts of the building. Walt blinked sweat out of his eyes as he looked at the hallway full of carnage. Blood had splattered every inch of the hallway, and gun smoke hung in the air.
"Holy shit," Gregg managed to say, and all Walt could do was nod his head.
****
Tejada nodded in and out of sleep on a soft loveseat that someone had graciously left open for him to sleep in. Though he had dreamed of sleeping on something soft, the reality was that his body, which had become hardened with sleeping on floors and in the back of vehicles, disliked the soft loveseat.
So when Tejada heard banging, he didn't have far to go to drag himself to consciousness. He sat up immediately. His first instinct was to grab his rifle. He checked the magazine and then stood to see just what the hell was going on.
He stood, his back popping like fireworks as he rose. He walked to the top of the stairs where he saw people looking downward. They looked at him, like they expected him to do something, and Tejada knew it was an Annie situation. "What's going on?" he asked.
The civilian shrugged at him, and Tejada resisted his urge to punch the useless fucker in the face. He hightailed it down the steps, his boots clomping on the marble staircase. As he reached the bottom, he saw a crowd of people huddled around the front entrance. The banging was coming from the other side of the crowd.
"What the fuck are you people doing?" he asked as he pushed his way through the crowd.
"It's Manny Gibson?" a young, bookish man said.
"What?"
"You know, the basketball player."
The crowd parted, and Tejada saw what the man was talking about. On the other side of the front door stood a giant beast of a man. He must have been seven and a half feet tall if he was an inch. He had a body that was twice as wide as the bookish young man that had informed him who the man was. Even dead, Tejada recognized the man from the myriad Gatorade commercials and Nike ads that he had been featured in. He didn't remember the name of the team that the man had played for, but that didn't matter now because he was dead as fuck, and the last he had checked, the NBA had played its last season.
The dead basketball star pounded on the glass door in front of him, and Tejada could see that there were quite a few other Annies around him, their faces pressed to the glass, their features flattened by the translucent material. A crowd had gathered in front of the doors, standing there like dumbasses.
"Back away from those fucking doors!" Tejada began. But he was too late. With a massive fist, the reanimated Manny Gibson punched a hole in the glass, and with that, the entire structural integrity of the front door was compromised. It wasn't long before the rest of the shattered glass gave way. Tejada managed to put a bullet through the massive dead man's forehead, but then there was a scramble as the Nike workers pushed backwards, knocking Tejada to the ground as he swore heavily and creatively. Someone helped him to his feet, and then he was stuck in a headlong rush away from the front of the building. If he stopped to go against the flow, he would be trampled.
He chanced a look over his shoulder and saw the dead streaming in through the broken door, jostling each other to be the first to eat human flesh.
"Wake up!" Tejada yelled. "Wake up! We got Annies in the building!" As the crowd fled in different directions, Tejada bounded up the stairs, knowing that he wanted to reach the high ground. He spun and pushed a gawking man out of the way. "If you're not going to kill 'em, get in a goddamn office and barricade yourself in. We'll let you know when it's safe." If the man had had a tail, it would have been tucked between his legs as he scurried off.
Tejada took aim at the dead, mowing down any that he could get a bead on. From his angle on the staircase, he couldn't get a bead on many, but none of them were getting up the stairs. He made damn sure of that. However, the bulk of the Annies, sensing less resistance in other parts of the building, broke off and headed in directions that Tejada couldn't cover from the stairs. It was a giant mess, and still the dead were streaming through the front door.
****
Epps hopped to his feet at the first gunshot. He shook the boot of the man sleeping next to him. It was Max Masterson. Max rubbed his eyes sleepily, and then sat up, his rifle magically appearing in his hands. Together they rose and scurried into the hallway as Whiteside, Allen, and Brown stepped out of the room across the way.
They had slept on the first floor, their bellies full of food and drink from the night before. Epps felt as if he hadn't been asleep for more than ten minutes. He looked at the hands of his watch and saw that it was four in the morning.
Outside it was still dark. Epps jumped as he saw a set of hands press against a window, then another, then another. Soon there were dozens of hands pressing against the ground-floor windows.
"We're in for a world of hurt boys," he said, clutching his rifle and waiting for the inevitable sound of cracking glass.
"Load 'em up," Allen yelled.
Epps was glad to hear Allen say something. Izzy had been quiet all evening, kicking himself for being unable to save Quigs. He couldn't blame the man; he just hoped it didn't turn into anything worse than a little guilt. Allen was a good man. If he had to choose one soldier to have at his back, it would be Allen.
The glass broke and the dead tumbled inwards, flopping onto the marble floors. Civilians scattered every which way, screaming and generally causing nothing but confusion. "Let's put 'em down!" Epps yelled just before he fired his first shot. It went wide, and he swore under his breath. "Remember to take your time," he warned the others.
The dead erupted into blooms of red. Flesh and blood decorated the walls as their rounds ripped through dead bodies. Still they tumbled inward.
"We got more coming down the hallway!" Whiteside yelled over the sound of their explodi
ng rifles.
"I'm empty!" Masterson yelled.
"You ever seen that movie Signs?" Epps shouted to him.
"Yeah, you want me to dump water on them?"
"Swing away!" Epps shouted. Masterson flipped his rifle around, ready to bash in the skull of any Annie that got too close. From his left, Epps could hear Brown praying. Epps, never really a religious man, joined him. If anything, the act of prayer settled his nerves a bit as he took aim again and again, pulling the trigger.
"Me and Whiteside will take the hallway," Allen yelled, and then they were gone.
They heard screams from the other parts of the building, and Epps couldn't help but think, This is bad. This is seriously bad. His rifle clicked empty, and he found that his spare magazines were all gone. He looked down at his feet in the hopes that he had dropped one, but no... they were all out of bullets. This is seriously fucking bad. As a big-nosed man in a cardigan sweater lunged at him, Epps swung his rifle, breaking the man's jaw and knocking him to the side. He stomped on the man's face three times until the man's arms stopped clawing at him. He hoped the others were doing better than he and Brown were.
****
Tejada and the others stood over the corpse of Beacham. Tejada had put a bullet in the gentle man's skull himself. He wasn't the only person that had died that night, but he was the only one they had known. Tejada could see the dejection on the men's faces. Brown knelt over Beacham's corpse, muttering some words of prayer.
A fat lot of good that'll do him, Tejada thought, but he let Brown finish anyway. Suddenly, Tejada felt tired, more tired than he had felt since this whole thing had begun. He stood with his hands on his knees, and for the first time in a long time, he felt tears brimming in the corner of his eyes. He didn't have the words to say what he was feeling. He was incapable of comforting his men, and he saw it on all their faces. Kazinsky, Beacham, Quigs, Ramirez... there were a hundred other names to add to the list, but those four had meant as much to him as any of them. Less than a handful of days, and he had lost a third of the men he had dragged from the brink of self-destruction.
The look on his men's faces said it all. They were done. They were past the point of wanting to be out in the real world, past the point of dreaming and hoping for a better future.
"Sergeant, I have to thank you for your help. Without you, we would all be dead by now." It was Nike, that smug bastard looking just as prideful as he had the day before when he had begged them to stay. He wasn't thankful for Tejada and his men. He wasn't thankful for Beacham's sacrifice. He was just glad he was alive. On any other day, he wouldn't begrudge the man his joy, but today was not that day.
"Save your thanks. We just lost a man, and you and yours didn't do shit to help."
Nike's mouth opened and closed as he attempted to say something clever. But there was nothing clever that he could say that wouldn't get him knocked the fuck out. He knew this, and Tejada knew then that Nike wasn't as dumb as he thought. Nike turned on his heel and walked out, a big, mean-looking bodyguard following behind him.
"These fucking people," Epps said.
"We ought to just leave 'em to die," Allen added. "We lost two people just fucking around with this place, and there ain't a damn one of them worth one of the ones we lost."
Much to his surprise, Tejada could feel the tide turning. He knew that all of his men were ready to hop over those walls and hightail it to the coast. But that wasn't what Tejada wanted. He wanted his men to be safe. He wanted them to be happy. He didn't like hearing his men become bitter and angry. That was no way to live a life. He should know. He had lived that way for the past twenty years. "I don't want to hear any more of that shit." The men looked at him, confusion on their faces.
"I thought you wanted to leave, sir," Whiteside said.
"Yeah, well. Look around. Ain't many of us left, and this trip ain't even halfway over. That's got me thinking, maybe we shouldn't be so quick to leave this place."
Masterson and Gregg bent down and lifted Beacham's body. Without speaking, everyone knew where they were going. The soldiers followed, stomping through the broken glass on the front of the Ken Griffey Jr. building. Outside, the sun rose, turning the slate gray sky a brilliant orange and pink above them. It's a damn sight more beautiful today than it ought to be.
The men carried Beacham's giant body towards the edge of the lake. Bodies floated there, swollen and pale in the middle of the water. If they were going to stay, they were going to have to do something about that. When they found a suitable spot, the soldiers began to dig.
They used their hands, digging into the soft dirt of the campus common. Tejada got down on his knees, the morning dew seeping through his pants as he pushed his hands into the dirt. He couldn't tell if tears or sweat rolled from his eyes, and he didn't care.
Behind them Tejada sensed a crowd swelling. He turned and glared at the corporate fucks who stood outside their building. He wasn't in the mood for any of their shit. They stood watching, their faces drawn and sad, about fifty of them, a damn sight less than there had been the night before. From out of the pack, two men broke, shovels in their hands.
They approached Tejada and handed the shovels to him. He accepted them gratefully, and then they went about finishing Beacham's grave, each of them taking turns at widening and deepening the hole. When they were done, Whiteside and Gregg hopped into the grave. Epps and Brown lowered the man down, and they set him upon the damp earth below.
They stood that way for a while, not saying anything, just looking into Beacham's grave, each man lost in their own thoughts. There were no jokes, no remembrances, just silence. Tejada picked a shovel up from the ground and threw the first shovelful of dirt on his body. He passed the shovel to Allen, and one by one, they filled in his grave.
By the time they were done, the sun was overhead, and the crowd had gone inside. In the distance, Tejada eyed the building that the dead had escaped from. He knew it had to be one of the campus' stupid buildings that had failed and not the wall. If it had been the wall, they would all be dead by now.
"Come on," he said. The men followed him without asking as he set out across the unnaturally green lawn, tall grass swishing at his legs. They reached the building, a flat squat structure. It looked like one of the older buildings. The inside smelled like rot, but it's what was on the floor of the foyer that really caught his eye. The floor was covered in glass. "Son of a bitch."
"What is it, sir?" Epps asked.
Tejada pointed at the glass on the ground. The front door had been busted from the outside.
"What the fuck?" Epps said.
"Sabotage?" Allen asked.
"Who the fuck would do something like that?" Epps asked.
"Who the fuck indeed?" Tejada said, thoughts running through his head at light speed.
Chapter 12: The Compound
Clara and Mort looked down at Joan and Lou. Joan was awake and conscious, her leg severely broken. Mort couldn't look at Lou for long. His skin was blistered and peeling. He had been burned severely.
"What happened to him?" Mort asked.
"He passed out. Fell in the fire," Reed said.
"He didn't just pass out," Clara spat.
"Believe what you want to believe," Reed said, "but that man right there passed out and fell in the fire."
"Why are you keeping us here?" Clara asked.
Reed laughed behind Chad, a squawking, weird sound that sounded frightfully unstable. "We're not keeping you here," Chad said. To Clara, it actually sounded like he meant it. "As a matter of fact, this guy is going to have to stay outside the gates."
Chad was pointing at Mort. "Why?" he asked.
Chad just smirked at Mort. "I'll tell you why. Come with me. Outside." Chad turned and left the trailer that Lou and Joan shared. He stepped outside and Clara and Mort followed, stepping into the clearing in the middle of the camp. The trailers were dust-covered, and the windows were ringed with mildew. Chad spread his arms wide and said, "This is why."
"Notice anything?" Chad said. Reed smirked behind him. To Clara, he seemed like a giggling monkey or that weird creature that always sat jabbering by Jabba the Hutt in that Star Wars movie.
"It's nice here," Mort said.
"You're goddamn right it's nice here. And we aim to keep that way. You see, you people are running around like you're living a nightmare. Us? We're living a dream."
Mort's confusion showed on his face. Clara started to feel uneasy in the pit of her stomach.
"Only problem is there ain't no dark people in my dream, you get my drift?"
Clara's stomach dropped. She couldn't believe it. The end of the world, nothing but a few hundred people alive as far as she knew, and one of them was a racist.
Chad continued, saying, "Now, don't get me wrong. You got every right to live and try and make your way in this world. I ain't gonna stop you. Neither is my brother Reed." Chad looked at his brother, but he was silent. "But you got to do your living outside the walls. If you want to stick around until your friends are alright, then that's fine. During the day, you can come in and visit and trade, but as soon as it starts getting dark, I want you out of here."
"Why?" Mort asked, genuinely confused.
Chad just shrugged his shoulders. "That's the way it has to be. You see, I think the whole reason the world is in the shape it's in is because no one knew their place. Everyone's looking over into other people's yards and saying, 'Ooooo-weeeeee! I wish I had that man's barbecue.' When what they really should have been saying is, 'I'm gonna build myself the best damn barbecue that anyone has ever seen.' And if my neighbor gets jealous, I'm going to shoot him in the face."
Mort was still confused.
"Mort's not going to take your barbecue," Clara said. "He's just worried about his friends. He's one of the most trustworthy people I know."