Dead Earth

by Demers, Matt

  Bondy and Thrasher headed for their designated floor. They reached the stairwell by the time Moberly returned on the intercom.

  “Attention clean-up crew. First Sargent Figaro is awaiting medevac for third degree burns from an intravenous formulation of erlotinib.”

  The speaker crackled from a barrage of curses in the background. It sounded like the CO. “For those of you who don’t know what intravenous formulation is — or erlotinib for that matter — it’s that shit in those IV bags you saw in the infusion room — liquid chemo. But, how you say? Good question.

  “Maliciously poured through an air vent, relieving Sargent Figaro of his scalp. The culprit — Dr. Orsol, ex-military turned hippie doctor who had scurried into a vent during Alpha’s initial assault. Shoot at anything adorned in tie-dye and a white coat. The Airborne ain’t used to straining anyone’s neck but the enemy, I know. Just this once, do like them — keep your eyes pointed up. Over and out.”

  There was silence for a while before Moberly returned to remind them not to worry, that Dr. Orsol was only trained in the Navy.

  Bondy and Thrasher reached their assigned floor. A plaque beside the door read: “Christian-Morrison Hospice”

  They entered.

  More bodies — at least ten — lay strewn along the wall.

  “They were terminal anyway,” Thrasher reasoned.

  Bondy eyed the nurse uniforms, but didn’t argue. They grabbed a hospital bed from a private room and wheeled it to a bald women hooked to an oxygen tank, contorted into a Yoga pose. Bondy snatched the tube from her nose and they heaved her body onto the bed. Rigor mortis maintained her contortion and Bondy grimaced. After stacking a few more, they headed for the elevator.

  Bondy couldn’t hold it in. “Can you believe it? No one knows a fucking thing. Why are they so damn adamant on securing this building while the rest of the world goes to shit?”

  “Civil unrest, bud. Those cancer patients want what Hopkins can’t give them.”

  “OK, fine. But why staff? Why’d they get pumped full of lead?”

  Thrasher changed the subject. “What floor did Moberly say?”

  “Two.”

  Bondy punched the down arrow and the elevator propped open. They wheeled the bed in, hit their floor number, and listened to digital readout ding as soft rock music mocked them.

  Thrasher eyed the speaker box. “I like the sax. Is that Kenny G?”

  The doors retracted. They wheeled the bed out and followed a red line on the floor that read “refectory.” The hallways zigzagged mazelike. Stains marked areas where bodies had been removed.

  They walked through a set of open double doors and into the cafeteria. Three privates sat at the end of a long table eating sandwiches, their cell phones glowing on the table beside their food. Bondy recognized a few, but couldn’t place their names. One of them looked up.

  “Hear about Mendes? Locked himself in the chapel,” the soldier said stoically. With one closed fist, he mimed the action of pulling a pin with his free hand. “Boom. Don’t worry though, his squad mopped him before you got here.”

  Bondy felt a poke on the shoulder. “We got a live one,” Thrasher pointed.

  Beyond the east windows sat the hospital’s front courtyard. A long staircase descended from the main entrance to a three-way intersection. The traffic lights blinked red above a chain of front-end, back-end pileups. Smoke billowed from some of them, but Bondy spotted no movement.

  “See it?” Thrasher added. Finally, Bondy did.

  Straight ahead, a black SUV raced toward the intersection. Its tires shrieked as it fishtailed into tiny openings between wrecks. The driver side clipped the length of a city bus. Sparks flew as the SUV left a gash along the road-safety ad emblazoned along the side of the bus. The ad read:

  What’s the rush?! Drive safe, not sorry.

  Bondy took a step a forward. “He is not slowin’.”

  The SUV accelerated toward the courtyard. Bondy turned to warn the others, but one of the privates was already looking. He returned to his food without comment.

  The SUV jumped the curb, bottomed out, but kept speed. It raced along the sidewalk until the front bumper slammed the ascending steps. It kept going. Tires flapped against each stair as the driver jerked the wheel. A black man of about middle aged with long straight hair, his eyes bulging behind a split windshield, tugs of his hair bouncing in tempo with the vehicle’s frame.

  Bondy ran to the window to get a better view of the entrance doors.

  “It’s tempered glass,” one of the soldiers alleged with a shrug.

  The SUV climbed the last stair when it decided to become a hovercraft. It rose through the air until the front wheels finally slammed the walkway. It sped onward.

  “Shit,” Bondy palmed the window, wincing.

  The SUV slammed into the glass doors. The front end crunched like an accordion and blew the windshield to salt. Glass sprinkled the contracted hood. The horn rang continuously. Coolant ran from beneath the vehicle, spreading along in perfect lines along the gap between concrete squares. The door had held.

  “I can’t see him.” Bondy ran for a better angle. He smelled the burnt rubber and leaking gas even through the glass. He spotted the top of the man’s skull over the dashboard, face-first in the steering wheel, the airbag hadn’t popped. Bondy assumed the worst.

  The horn finally stopped. A few seconds late, the driver’s door opened. The man staggered out with a hand held against the bridge of his nose. Blood streaked down his face and divided his lips.

  Bondy felt his eyes widen. “Lucky son of a …”

  He reached in the SUV, folded the driver backrest down and grabbed something in the backseat. He pulled out a small child, dark-skinned, frail, bald, and wrapped in a Power Ranger blanket. The man glanced at the highway quickly, then made for the doors. He checked the locks frantically and smacked the glass with his fists. He looked at the highway again.

  “I can’t take this shit,” Bondy admitted. He squinted at the intersection.

  Shadows darted between the car wrecks. Bondy pounded the glass to warn him, but the man didn’t look up.

  “Take it easy,” one of the privates insisted.

  Bondy took a step back and booted the glass. It shook. He gave it another kick. The man looked up.

  “Turn around!” Bondy pointed at the street. Now three or four of them sprinted toward the hospital, indeed rabid by the way they hunched and gritted their teeth.

  The man turned back to the entrance and gave it a pam strike. He looked up. Bondy read his lips: Let me in!

  Bondy wouldn’t fuck a civilian over a second time. He ran from the window and accelerated toward the cafeteria exit.

  “You can’t!” Thrasher yelled, but Bondy was now sprinting down the hall. He dashed through the stairwell door, took two steps down and jumped the last eight steps of the flight. He jogged right and pushed through the ground floor’s door. It led to a long hall with a receptionist’s desk at the end. Bondy rounded the corner.

  The lobby held a long double-row of glass doors chained and padlocked. A man stood behind the second row of glass, the door latches also chained and padlocked. The front-end of the vehicle had caused a cobwebbing of a cracks to spread across the glass. The metal framework was undamaged.

  The man still clutched the kid in one arm. He glanced back and forth, uselessly pounding with the heel of his empty hand. Now seven of them had come, sprinting to the foot of the steps, yellow eyes glued to their prey.

  Bondy unslung his rifle and wound up. He butted the padlock, but it only shook the chain.

  The Tweaks were halfway up the steps now. Bondy heard the man’s screams. A memory flashed — the dad in Greenville, screaming for his son on the hood of his convertible. He thought of Thrasher pleading for them to leave because it was “no use anyway.”

  “It’s no use,” Thrasher told him again, now panting behind Bondy. Thrasher stared out at the civilians emptily.

  “Go fuck yourself
,” Bondy exclaimed. He brought his rifle up and aimed down the sights. One of them had reached the top step. Bondy fired. The padlock shattered. The round ricocheted and hit a pot light. The glass sprayed down on Thrasher. He crouched and covered his head with his arms.

  Bondy opened the door and rushed to the second row of glass. The civilian had put the kid down and was standing with fists balled, ready to defend his son without a chance in hell.

  Tracer rounds blasted the walkway. They came from a hospital floor above, but the ceiling above Bondy blocked the exact source. The rounds pulverized the concrete in a line, sending chunks upward as it went. Bullets punctured the lead Tweak as it ran. The Tweak split across the waist, sending its upper half spiraling through the air. Its spinal cord dangled like a tail beneath.

  The remaining ones sprinted toward the man, but now the walkway rained with flares. Red mist sprayed and limbs tore. Chunks of flesh gushed over concrete, rolled and splattered against the glass. Bondy aimed and fired. The padlock pinged loudly and the round danced against the two rows of glass as Bondy tucked his head in his arms.

  “Shit,” Bondy muttered. More of them came from the streets, at least ten. There was still time. The man turned to the glass now, his eyes wide, pleading and hopeful.

  “They’ll shoot him, his son, and you along with them!” Thrasher warned.

  James blasted the padlock again with a three-round burst. The lock shattered and the chain slipped through the door latch to the floor. As the man grabbed for the handle, another burst of tracers hailed down. One moment the man and the boy were there, the next, blood and flesh smeared against the glass. The impact smacked the panes so hard that the entire row of doors shook.

  “Someone’s coming down the elevator!” Thrasher stood by the front desk, looking down the hall at the readout. Even if A Company hadn’t heard his rifle, there were sure to be cameras in the lobby.

  Okay, now what?

  The Tweaks slammed against the glass and smeared the carnage. Bondy thought of tearing through the horde and gunning it toward the downtown core, but if Alpha still had their weapons zeroed in on the front entrance —

  They can get in, Bondy realized. The entrance was no longer locked. He wrapped the chain around the latch, before they could grab the outside handle. It would hold for now, at least. Bondy darted across the lobby for the stairs.

  Thrasher yelled something just before Bondy charged through the stairwell entrance. As the door closed, he caught a glimpse of Thrasher stabbing at the elevator button with his fist. If Alpha spotted Thrash there was a chance they’d take him out. Guilty by association.

  Bondy climbed to floor six before heading for the elevator. A buddy team from Charlie wheeled a bed of bodies toward him, their eyebrows furrowed.

  “Fucking A Comp,” Bondy gasped and they respond in agreement with grumbled cusses.

  He chose the inactive elevator and tapped the button.

  What am I gonna do? Where am I going?

  He waited. The door finally opened. He ran in and pushed 24, the second highest floor. HQ was on the 25th. He held the “close door” as the elevator ascended, a trick he learned in Urban and Special Tactics to force an elevator to ignore other stops.

  The door finally opened on the 24th. Thrasher stood facing him. “You think I don’t know you from — ”

  The side of Bondy’s rifle slammed against Thrasher’s jawline before Thrasher could finish. His body went rigid and fell back. His back thudded against the tile and his rifle slid along the floor until clanking to a stop against a metal waste bin. It rang like a fight bell.

  “And he’s out for the count,” Bondy said aloud as he jumped over Thrasher’s legs with a hint of regret. Bondy made it to the stairwell and climbed to the roof escape. He pushed through the door.

  “Lieutenant Colonel,” Bondy said. The CO sat on the curb of the helipad by himself, a cell phone face-up beside him, his unlit cigar pinched between his fingers. Bondy felt guilt swell, surprising himself.

  “Used to think I did this to serve my country,” The CO said. He threw his cigar and sighed. “Now I know it was all for one thing — family. That’s it.” He eyed his cell phone’s screen and shook his head.

  “You goin’ AWOL?” The Lieutenant Colonel added. “Ask me if I give a flying fuck. Cause I don’t.” The CO grabbed his cell and took another look. He sighed and pointed at the fire escape. “All of us are thinkin’ what none of us will say — our wives and children won’t text or answer back because they’ve wound up like 99% of the globe’s population — dead...If they’re lucky.”

  #

  CHAPTER 9:

  R & R

  Bondy lifted the coffee pot from the burner and offered a refill to James, but James shook his head so Bondy poured the last of it into his own paper cup. He turned and leaned on the counter.

  “I made it to an alley and started looking for a car with keys in the ignition. Set off a car alarm and the Tweaks started comin’ out of the woodwork. If a Hiram Walker’s van didn’t stop and pick me up, I’d be dead.

  “James, I don’t know what John Hopkins is like now. Whether it’s been overrun, or reinforced, the phones stopped getting a signal the following night.”

  The staffroom door opened and a boyish man pranced in. He had one of those punchable faces — smug, young, and overly prepped. The kid’s cocksure smirk matched his offensively gelled hair — a rare form of self-preservation in the Brave New World. The purposeful bed head style seemed to say — I don’t try too hard, even though the youngster most definitely did to make it seem that way.

  “This is Haley Wilcott,” Bondy said with an introductory palm. James saw the glob of white gum along his molars as Wilcott chewed.

  “Howdy,” Wilcott said through gum smacks. He put his fist out to bump. James pretended not to notice.

  “Wilcott leads the production line and plans shipments. We have Phyllis and Dan deliver it. He’s the one that picked me up.”

  Wilcott tipped an imaginary hat at James. “They’s eight of us all together. Things are good here, but we’re runnin’ low on high-grade rye. Resortin’ to animal feed these days. Gives the whiskey a burnt, ashy taste.” Wilcott opened his fist for James to shake it. James did.

  “Whoa,” Wilcott said. “Gotta work on that dead-fish handshake, bro.”

  James eyed him stone-faced. “The only thing worse than a bad handshake is a man who says you gotta bad handshake,” James returned.

  The kid mimed a hat tip again, turned and slammed the door behind him. The stack of Styrofoam cups fell from the counter and separated.

  Kovac said, “Not sure what you’re trying to accomplish by antagonizing your hosts,” she said.

  James shrugged. Jade leaned against his arm, making him grind his teeth. “Do you have someplace we can rest?” James asked.

  Bondy grabbed a clipboard from the shelf and headed down the hall toward receiving. James and Jade followed Kovac in the opposite direction. Kovac pushed the hallway exit door’s touchbar and lead them into the heart of the distillery — the production room floor.

  What sounded like a forklift, beeped from somewhere out of view. A red-haired pot-belly man in overalls echoed instructions on the catwalk. Massive vats and cookers lined the aisles. Oak barrels sat row on row, ready for shipment, or at least, ready to be filled.

  “It’s prohibition all over again,” Kovac said. Pro-hab-esh-in. “Demand exceeds supply. We can get a good trade for a few measly kegs.”

  Something dropped from behind one of the giant vats. It sounded like a pallet splintering beneath something very heavy.

  “Buffoons,” Kovac said under her breath.

  “What can you get for a few kegs?” James looked behind to confirm Jade still followed close behind. She looked moderately interested in the vats, which shined with a copper colored gloss.

  “A full pallet of Campbell’s soup, half-skid of chocolate. Like that. A fair bit, but it becomes less and less as Monroe runs low on food. We will
change strategies soon.”

  “Where do they find entire pallets of food let alone chocolate?”

  “Costco. Wholesale. Where else? You don’t need a membership. Just have something they want.”

  “Who wants?”

  “The US Army. But if you want to get technical, they’re civilians with military equipment seeing as how they were discharged and ready to go home a day before all this happened.”

  James thought of the army logistic trucks and the soldier throwing her dog tags out Riverside Drive.

  “A platoon of them control everything that goes in and out of that warehouse. They’ve got other shops locked down too, scattered around the city. Some shops wired with booby-traps. But Costco is their main focus. It’s stacked with food, medicine, camping gear, generators. The parking lot holds a fuel pump.”

  Kovac led them past another two more workers — a woman and man, both thirty-somethings. The man frowned.

  “We don’t have food for two more!” He shouted at Kovac through a black, unkempt beard. The woman put a hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him, but her expression suggested she felt the same.

  Kovac didn’t bat an eye. She led James and Jade past them and through a double-door exit.

  “We are about to enter the heritage site — our living space now.” They entered another set of engraved double-doors, the kind of engraving that carried far too much expense for anything made since the invention of trade unions. A plaque on the sidewall read: Built 1892-97.

  The hinges welcomed them with a screech that echoed through the atrium. The place looked more suited for Catholic priests than booze — vaulted ceilings, red carpeting, stained glass windows. They walked past a souvenir shop and a long row of glass cases adorned with whiskey bottles.

  “As you can see,” Kovac began, “the bottles in the prohibition era were slim and curved. It made it easier for runners to hide whiskey by strapping it to the top of their boots. Hence the term — bootlegger.”