He moved towards the door, urging them to follow. Tom reached down and helped Dr. Faraday to her feet, Elsie picking herself up and the doctor gripping her hand tightly with her left hand. The girl was looking back at her mother and sister, Dr. Faraday pausing and looking down at her, "C'mon, hun, I know, but we're going inside now. It's safe there. I hope."
"I'm scared."
"I am too, darling, but we'll look out for each other, okay? Plus, Tom here won't let anything happen to us."
"Ah yes," Branch paused at the door, "while that display was quite graceful, you'll need to disarm, Mr. Gabriel."
Tom grunted, shaking his head.
"I do insist. This is my society, and my rules, mind you. Don't worry, you'll get them back, just like everything else."
"I better."
"Oh, you will," the automatic doors parted before them, a rush of cold air greeting them along with soft music being piped in throughout the immaculate lobby. What once was a casino and hotel now served as Branch's personal home, so the lobby went from the home of slot machines to a reception area with a bold, steel desk with the name "BRANCH" emboldened onto the front greeting them. Inside, a large tree reached up into the ceiling, surrounded by a stream with a wooden bridge over it. Somehow, the garishness of the lobby as opposed to the desolate wasteland littered with bodies was revolting.
"Here," Branch stopped at the desk, grabbing an apple from a bowl and tossing it to Tom. Tom snatched it out of the sky and inspected it for a long moment. "Yes, it's fresh," Branch boasted. "We grow our own food here, anything that you could wish for is here. There's even a pasture on one of the upper floors where we raise cattle. I don't much care for that floor, but it does the job, I suppose."
Tom took a bite of the apple, the juices running down his mouth before he looked down at the girl and handed it to her, tousling her hair. "Here."
"Thanks," she said quietly before biting, inspecting it carefully, looking to Dr. Faraday for approval.
"You should try it," she was weary. All of this, inside of this building, from that man. That man who had just ordered the execution of all of those people outside.
"Amazing, isn't it? You are just in the lobby, my friends. There is so much more to see, so much that I'm just salivating thinking about showing it all to you, to sharing my world, my vision with you."
"Those people didn't fit into it, I gather."
"Oh Mr. Gabriel, you have much to learn. Much, much to learn. I suppose that you are tired, Roxanne here will check you into your rooms."
Two
The Cannibal
Rage. Tunnel vision like a darkened corridor, worming through his subconscious searching fervently for light. Devoid. Terrified. The rage chased him through the maze inside of his mind, looking to overcome him once again. There had to be more, there once was more, but the names, the faces, the language was drifting in an ethereal plane just out of reach. Only the darkness existed.
Remember.
Written in neon ink on the smooth stone surface of the wall, invisible when the lights were on, but visible only in the dark, only to him. To him. Him. He had a name; he had a face and a voice and a family and existed. Existed beyond the endless race through the maze, away from it, from what he had become. Rage. A double occupancy that ate away at his consciousness.
Remember.
The word was splashed on the wall, bend after bend. "Remember." But remember what? There was only darkness now. Blind stumbling and fumbling, hoping to remember. But why? Who? Remember. Remember. Remember.
Demoreo.
The name came on in waves, like a low, throbbing pain. A scar, leftover from a past injury. A sunset from days long past that once meant so much, but was now just a facsimile of what it once was. Demoreo. Demoreo wasn't there anymore, but Demoreo once was. Demoreo. That was his name, wasn't it? His name. Remember it. The woman told him to remember; she wrote it all down, wrote it all down to remember. He must remember, he must fight the darkness and the rage.
Demoreo. That was his name. He was Demoreo.
"Dad," the voice echoed through his halls, bouncing from room-to-room and into his mind. "Dad! You gotta get up!" His eyes darted open, the sun-bleached everything in sight, his mouth was dried up and the words could form but barely escape.
"T-Tyler," he reached out for his son's hand; it was warm, clammy to the touch compared to his. There was a wound festering on his leg, the maggots had already set up shop, and the stench of death had followed them throughout the wasteland. "Let me go," he mumbled. "Just go."
"We can't leave you, not yet," he was a good boy, older than he had any right to be, that the world had any right to expect of him. He should've been worried about starting high school. Instead he was dragging his father towards an oasis in the middle of the nothing while Shar silently followed. "It's so close now, just look," the boy held Demoreo's head up, the gaudy "BRANCH" sign in bold, red letters sat atop the last standing monument to Las Vegas.
"Go on without me, you gotta," he said.
"I can't."
"Yes, you can. We've come so far, just a little bit further."
"Not without you."
"Shar, please," Demoreo called out to his wife. She had suffered enough trauma that she had more-or-less shut down. Just like the dead they had encountered, she was a husk of a person.
"I don't know," she mumbled.
"Just think of Marie, Shar. Please, we've come this far. I know that we lost our baby, but Tyler needs you, we've come so far."
"What does it matter, anyway?" She asked, not expecting an answer. "We're all doomed."
"Tyler," Demoreo reached out for his son's face, Tyler grabbing a hold of his hand in his own. "Just please, get your ma to safety, get her to the tower. You'll be safe there, I just know it."
"We're a family," Tyler said. "Didn't you say that? Isn't that why we're here? We're a family."
With a mighty push of all of his collected strength, Demoreo sat up, pushing back against the remnants of a roadside barrier that was propping him up. The skeletal remains of the Las Vegas highway system hung overhead, pylons without roads to support reaching out to the sky, twisted and bent like a withered, dying tree. The fallen ash had all blended together with the crumbled rock and steel from the buildings to create a solid sheen of grit beneath them. The dressing on his leg was soaked through with blood, it being more ornamental than functional.
As much as it pained him to admit, he was dying. The sun beat down on them from above unobstructed, but he felt a chill coursing through his body. Each breath was labored, taking more and more out of him. Tyler's eyes were red and swollen, tears stained his cheeks and his shirt was barely holding onto his body. He was a strong boy; he had done well, but he couldn't forget about Marie and that dumb mistake of letting her go into that old pawn shop to look around on her own. Fuck anyone who said the undead weren't motherfuckers, because they tore into his baby and he had to finish it before she turned. He had to look her in those big, brown eyes, hair matted to her forehead while she begged him to not let her become a monster.
"Dad? Dad?" The boy shook him, tearing him from his reverie.
"Ya," he said, fighting to remain conscious, "I'm here."
"We gotta go, it's getting dark, and it's just a ways down the road, see?" He pointed.
"I'll take your word for it."
"Ma ain't gonna make it without us, dad..."
"I know," he said, trying to pull himself up and stumbling. "I know."
"Here," Tyler pulled Demoreo's arm up and wrapped it over his shoulder. He was still just a boy, but he was strong, strong enough to make it in that hellscape and strong enough to remind Demoreo to keep pushing. But this wasn't what he wanted for him, not by a longshot. Tyler was an artist. He was a sensitive boy who didn't care much for sports like his old man did. But he was strong. With a heft he made it to his feet, leaning heavily on Tyler's lythe frame. "C'mon, ma."
"Oh, okay," she said, following while Demoreo limped alongside his
son.
The wound was from one of those zombies; it had ambushed them when they were crossing the Hoover Dam, catching him by surprise and latching onto his thigh. Fucker took a huge chunk outta him, too. It bled like a bastard. Tyler told him he was lucky it didn't hit some sort of artery nearby, but it still bled. Shar had worked at an old folks' home back in Flagstaff, so she was able to wrap him up and dress it, but it wasn't like they had much to work with. Now it was infected. He didn't like to look at it much and the pain was a constant, so it wasn't like he'd ever forget.
They were making their way down South Las Vegas Blvd, formerly known as "The Strip," lined with overbearing edifices that were the casino resorts that the city was known for. Now it all had been demolished, smoothed over by the blast, the fall, the ash and the winds. The street bore a closer resemblance to a barren desert with the occasional hunk of man-made splendor fighting its way through the desolation. Branch Tower beamed out through the hazy dusk sky, a lone beacon calling to them on the horizon.
"Sure looks weird," Tyler commented, "just sitting there like nothing happened and all."
"Sure does," Demoreo groaned.
"You really think we'll be okay there?"
"I dunno," he said, "but we gotta hope, right?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Who was this guy, again? Some sort of scientist?"
"The guy," Demoreo said while they trudged forward, doing his best to push forward through the pain.
"He's the guy who fucked it all up," Shar interjected. "Some big, fancy white asshole that felt that he knew better. Well, he knew better, alright."
"Oh," Tyler fell silent.
Jordan Branch felt like an illusion more than anything else, a character from a TV show that had nothing to do with the Johnson family down in Arizona. There were stories—a lot of them—about whatever role he may have played, but out in the wasteland he was a legend, working on a cure for the undead in his tower that survived the fall of society. It had all sounded too good to be true, yet there it was, closer with each pained step.
"We're almost there," Demoreo broke the silence with. He needed to remain strong, to keep pushing forward. They just had to make it to the building, then he could rest, then he'd know that his family was safe.
"Where ya headed?" Tyler dropped his father at the sound of a voice, Demoreo craning his neck to see an older man emerge from the rubble of a broken down building, the bottom floor looking partially intact. His skin was pallid and devoid of any color, while his skin looking like someone had peeled it off, dried out in the sun and then stretched over a pile of bones. The old man was eyeballing them, either amazed to see another set of living beings or that he had seen no one of color in years.
"To Branch Tower, sir," Tyler responded, clearly scared.
"Branch Tower, eh?" The old man approached, Demoreo summoning what little of his strength remained to reach for the shotgun that was slung over his shoulder. "Just a short ways now for ya, then."
"Yes, sir."
"That yer dad there?"
"Yes, sir."
"Looks mighty hurt, ya think he'll even make it that far?"
"I'll... I'll make it," Demoreo groaned.
"Strong one, this one. You got yourself a strong pa, boy."
Demoreo's hand was on the gun, but it felt heavy, just like everything else around him was. Tyler was somehow keeping him up and keeping it together. That boy was gonna be something someday.
"Ya really think that Branch'll care for 'em? Lookit us, just poor lepers left out here to rot in the wasteland while he's up there sipping brandy and fuckin' whores—no offense m'am," he looked at Shar and licked his lips.
"We've really gotta be going," Tyler said, reaching down for his father's arm and hoisting him back up.
"I see, I see," the man's beady eyes were burning a hole through them. "Boy," he reached out and tugged onto Tyler's shoulder, the boy jerking to the side and Demoreo falling to the ground in a heap. "I'm trying to help you, here."
"We don't need your help."
"But you do! Your father will be torn limb-from-limb by Branch's sentinels. Don't you s'pose if Branch took any ole' wastelander we'd be up there, sippin' martinis and fucking broads dry? Not out here, not in the forsaken wastes scavenging for every last scrap of food? Don't be a fool, boy."
"The boy says we're good," Demoreo said.
"Aren't you the brave one, old man? Your boy, your woman and you, all headin' for the green grass of Branch Tower. Gonna frolick in dem irradiated hills, too? It's all a fuckin' lie."
"Just let us go," Demoreo summoned the strength to raise the gun towards the man, who recoiled before a wry smile unfolded across his pale skin.
"So brave," he said, "so tough."
"Back off."
"Dad..." Tyler leaned in to pick him up, Demoreo swatting him away.
"Tyler, I've got this."
"Dad, no, let's just go..."
"Your boy is quite brave as well," the man said, "but he's wrong, you can't go. I was giving you a chance before, a chance to join us, but now..."
"You back the fuck off!" Demoreo shouted, finger trembling by the trigger while he was barely able to hold himself up.
"Oh come now, you can barely keep yourself up, big poppa," he said, approaching with his hand extended. "Your boy has seen enough horrors, hasn't he?"
"Just leave us be and nobody gets hurt," Demoreo said, trying to control his breathing.
"You don't have the --"
Boom. The shell shredded his skull, sending blood and gore flying, splattering all over Demoreo and Tyler, who stood in shock while the body fell to the ground in a pool of blood. Tyler fell to his knees, aghast in horror. Demoreo had killed before, but Tyler had never had to see it. He had always helped his mom away before anything happened, but this time was different. There wasn't a choice.
"Tyler," he said, hands trembling from the shot and ears ringing, looking at his awestruck son. "Son, please, get your mom and let's get out of here."
The boy stayed there, frozen in place while the body twitched on the ground.
"Tyler!" he shouted. "There might be more, c'mon."
Tyler was reaching down for him, but Demoreo knew that he couldn't keep going and that he'd just drag them both down. Imagine that, just steps away from salvation, from the tower, then Demoreo Johnson goes and ruins the whole damned thing by being a goddamned bump on a log. Demoreo brushed his son's hand away, Tyler reaching again and Demoreo slapping it away with whatever might he had left.
"Dad, no..."
"I told you to leave me, now leave me, damnit!" The tears were blurring his vision beyond what it already was, his glasses lost on one of their first days out in the wastes; dropped, smashed, forgotten.
"No, daddy, please," the boy plead, "We need you."
"Goddamnit, Tyler," Demoreo tried to prop himself up against a chunk of concrete from a fallen building, but he slipped and was on his back again. "Just go, now," his words were starting to slur, the world dimming.
"He don't look so good," Shar muttered, "c'mon, boy, let your father rest. We'll find help, okay, sweetie?" Her words were meant to be comforting, but the tone of her voice was that of resignation. She knew, he thought, of course she knew this was it.
"We can't!" He pulled away from her. "We can't just leave him to die! Not after all of this!"
The boy's hands were on him again, Demoreo doing his best to sweep the boy away, but he was strong, stronger than whatever was left inside of Demoreo. That boy would make something of himself yet, even in this fucked up world, he'd be something. Of all the things that could be final thoughts, that one was a soothing one; Tyler would be alright, he'd survive.
"Dad, c'mon," the boy shook him again, Demoreo summoning every last ounce of strength and pulling the shotgun up and pointing it at Shar.
"Go now, boy, don't make me do it."
Tyler froze in place, his body trembling. Demoreo could feel the boy's heart break, but there would always be more. Shotgun blasts weren
't subtle and dragging him along was just a liability. They needed to get the hell outta there, and fast. He had gotten them this far.
"But..."
"I got you this far, just go, finish it."
"I can't, I..."
"Go," he pointed the gun at his son, his heart breaking into a million pieces. His last memory wouldn't be of his strong son moving out to save himself and his mother, but the look on his face at his father pointing a gun at him.
"C'mon, baby," Shar tugged Tyler by the shirt, "it's just up ahead, we'll get help."
"Why?" Tyler asked, fighting through the tears. "Why?"
Branch's coliseum was grandiose, as magnificent as anything could be in a world that was overrun by the walking dead and ground to ashes from nuclear weapons could be. Demoreo stood in the arena that first time, feeling as naked and vulnerable as he truly was, only a stranger in his own skin. The crowd gasped, gawked, and marveled at Demoreo, at what he had become through Branch's experiments. He was unlike anything that they had ever seen; a true ghast among a cornucopia of horrors.
Fear. Was this what he had become? Loathing.
Demoreo was special, Branch had made that abundantly clear to him. Branch's other projects had been failures, insults not worthy of a god. Branch believed himself to be a hair away from learning the key to immortality, to being superhuman, and Demoreo was the missing link. Before it was either death or death and reanimation, but never sustained life, added strength or abilities. That all changed with Demoreo, Branch's great breakthrough, or, as he was introduced to the arena spectators, the Crusher. The changes gripped him more with each passing day, his body alien, uncomfortable and his mind foggy. His mind was slipping, details that came naturally were slipping from his grasp until they were gone, forcing him to repeat his name to himself ad nauseam, just so he wouldn't forget.
The carefully constructed images in his head of Shar, Tyler and Marie were fading with each passing day, which made him weep every night when the guards had all stopped paying attention. He stood out in the sunlight again, after what felt an eternity in darkness, or barricaded away in the depths of Branch's laboratory being tested on night and day without pause. The sunlight pierced through him like millions of tiny needles. The once-familiar sight was now alien and painful where it was once soothing and invigorating. The crowd was hungry, bloodthirsty and impatient. Rage. There it was, bubbling up and slowly creeping through his subconsciousness. He had been fighting, remembering, which only made the rage come on harder. He glanced around, hoping to glance Shar and Tyler's faces in the crowd, but there were so many faces, all of them unfamiliar and distorted, crying for violence.
The Tower Page 2