by Jake Bible
“We’ll have to get to the roof,” Moore says to Santiago. “Tell the other Mates. We’re going to get the weakest up top first. The slow ones that’ll just get in the way.”
“And the rest?” Santiago asks.
“We stay down here and see if we can ride this out,” Moore says. “Double our efforts to get the barricades secure. Maybe we can buy some time.”
Santiago starts to reply then shakes his head and takes off running. Moore watches him go before she turns her attention back to the bay doors. For now they hold, staying in their tracks, only bending instead of breaking. But Moore has no illusions as to the doors holding forever.
***
His attention drawn to Mate Price as the man begins tapping people on the shoulders and leaning in to whisper, Goss walks away from the stack of boxes he’s helping to erect in front of his bay doors, and stomps up to the Team Mate.
“What the hell are you doing, Price?” Goss snaps. A couple of the people Price had been whispering to turn and hurry away. “Where the hell are they going?”
“TL wants to get some of your weaker crew members up to the roof,” Price says quietly. “We might be able to give them a chance to survive until a different Team gets here.”
“A different Team? Is that what she said?” Goss asks.
“No, not exactly,” Price replies. “But why else would she want people on the roof if she doesn’t think they’ll get rescued?”
“You really think another Team is coming?” Goss chuckles. “Have you been up top? Have you seen what is out there?”
Price shakes his head.
“Well, I have, Mate,” Goss says. “If those Zs get through the bay doors then being on the roof won’t make a damn bit of difference except to hold off the inevitable. This warehouse gets breached and we are all goners, Price.”
“Jesus, Goss,” Price says, looking around at the faces of the people that have started to take notice of their conversation. “Shut the hell up.”
“I don’t need some snot telling me what to do,” Goss says. “And I don’t need you trying to sugar coat the fact your TL has already given up.”
“What? I didn’t say she—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Goss says. “Moore is wrong once again. If she’s sending people up onto the roof then it should be the strongest, the ones that can hold out and maybe, just fucking maybe, wait long enough for this herd to pass by.”
Price shakes his head. “What good will that do?”
“It means a few of us can live,” Goss says. “Then we slip away from the herd and get the hell out of Denver.”
“And go where?” Price asks. “Are you just going to run around the wasteland?”
“Maybe,” Goss says and shrugs. “Better than being trapped in here.” Goss turns around and looks at a few of the crew. “You, you, you and you. With me. Spread the word to our best and tell them we’re retreating to the roof.”
“Hold the fuck up!” Price shouts, his M-4 at his shoulder. “No one is doing anything even close to that! TL Moore has given orders for the weaker of you to go up top! That’s all! No one deviates from their duties until she says otherwise!”
“Or what?” Goss asks. “You start shooting? Is that it, Price? You going to shoot us? All of us?”
“Yes. I mean, no,” Price stutters. “I don’t fucking know!”
The carbine shakes in his hands as he aims at the crew members that have started to line up behind Goss. He tries to look them in the eyes and all he sees is anger and fear. And hatred. Hatred directed at him.
“Back off! You need to listen to me! You need to listen to TL Moore!” Price shouts. “DTB2 is here to help you! It’s our job! If you listen then maybe we can all—”
A man lunges past Goss and tries to go for Price’s carbine. The M-4 barks and the man falls backwards, a hole in his chest, wide open and bleeding.
“Oh, shit,” Price whispers. “I didn’t mean to!”
It’s too late. The crew members, led by Goss, rush the Mate and are on him. He goes down under a pile of angry faces, enraged fists pummeling him before he can even get his hands up to defend himself.
“Stop!” he cries out. “What are you doing?”
His words are cut short as a boot slams into his mouth, shattering his teeth. His M-4 is pried from his grip and there isn’t a thing he can do about it. The world is nothing but crazed faces and pain. Price tries to curl up into a ball, protect himself from the attack, but someone grabs his legs and pulls them straight as someone else kicks him in the gut over and over.
“We take the roof for ourselves!” Goss yells, holding Price’s M-4 over his head like a hard won trophy. “We can survive up there and we don’t need this damn Team’s permission!”
There are several shouts of agreement, but more shouts of just rage as Price is beaten to death before everyone’s eyes. Eyes that are filled with pure hate mixed with delirious panic.
“Come on!” Goss shouts as he starts running to the far wall of the warehouse and the doorway he’s already been through once this evening.
***
“Where is everyone going?” Moore yells over at Billy. “What the hell is happening?”
Billy reaches out and snags the arm of an older man, yanking him to a full stop. The older man’s eyes are wild and swim in his head.
“What’s going on?” Billy asks. “Was there a breach on the other side?”
“We’re getting to safety,” the man growls. “Gonna hide on the roof until we can get away. Nothing but death down in here.”
“What?” Moore yells. “No! You can’t survive up there! Not everyone!”
“That right?” the older man snarls. “Not everyone? Who then? DTB2? Is that it? Goss was right! You were gonna take the roof and save yourselves!”
“Goss was what?” Moore snaps. “Jesus. That stupid asshole.”
The older man breaks free of Billy’s grip and runs away towards the crush of the mob heading to the stairwell. Billy starts to go after him, but Moore waves him off.
“Let him go,” Moore says. “It doesn’t matter if they are on the roof or down here. It’s all over now.”
“What? Why?” Billy asks. “We can fight this out, TL. We’re DTB2! We can do this!”
“We could have before,” Moore says. “Maybe. But not now. Come on. We go find the others and we get gone. This mission is a failure and there’s nothing we can do about it. Time for self-preservation.”
“TL, you can’t mean that,” Billy says as he watches the crew members rushing by him. “These people…”
“Are already dead,” Moore says. “You want to join them?”
“No,” Billy replies.
“Then we find the others and get out,” Moore says. “I have an idea of how. Meet me by the northwest corner ASAP. We have one shot and one shot only.”
Moore waits for Billy to acknowledge her, which he does slowly like his head doesn’t know how to nod anymore.
“Go,” Moore says.
“But, sir,” Billy responds. “Everyone counts…”
“And we always remember,” Moore says. “But only if someone is left to do the remembering.”
Billy’s nod gathers strength and he gives a brief salute. “Yes, sir.”
Moore watches him run off and then looks towards the northwest corner of the warehouse. She has to go through the whole mob to get there. And from the angry looks shot her way, she’s not sure how easy that will be.
***
Goss slides to a stop as he sees Moore shoving people out of her way.
“Where’s she going?” he says to himself, the M-4 gripped in his sweat-slicked hands.
He looks over his shoulder at the doorway to the stairwell, and the cluster fuck it has become as dozens of people try to shove through at the same time. Fists start flying and the scene devolves into an angry brawl in the amount of time it takes Goss to blink twice.
“Fuck,” he mutters then zeroes back in on Moore. She’s reached th
e edge of the mob and turns left, her eyes not even glancing back towards the stairwell. “Someone has a better plan.”
***
The bay doors by the loading dock where Spence took her own life, bend, bend, then buckle completely, their edges tearing right out of the floor to ceiling tracks. Zs, hundreds of them, push around the warped and twisted doors, shoving their way into the warehouse like the crew members trying to shove their way through the doorway to the stairs.
Except the Zs don’t have a stairwell to bottle neck them. They have a wide open warehouse with plenty of space to spread out in. And spread out they do. The hundreds shamble, stumble, lurch, and even run, towards the sounds of the panicked mob that is so busy trying to get to the roof that they have forgotten why they are fleeing in the first place.
But, as the Zs reach the back of the mob, the crew members are quickly and painfully reminded.
Screams fill the warehouse as Zs tear into flesh, ripping at throats, clawing at arms and legs, biting down on any exposed skin they can find. Blood begins to spray everywhere, splattering against the rest of the mob, turning their angry panic into one of complete and total insanity. That insanity is matched by the Zs as the smell of fresh meat and blood sends them into a frenzy that becomes a scene of total horror.
Men and women are torn apart as the Zs push into the mob. Limbs are ripped off, faces shredded. Geysers of blood shoot up and out as veins and arteries are opened. The brave try to fight back, the desperate push on. None of them succeed as all fall under the overwhelming number of Zs that continue to stream through the open bay doors.
***
Moore reaches an office door and grabs the knob. But before she can turn it, the wind is knocked out of her as she is tackled to the ground. Her M-4 clatters away, skidding across the concrete, just out of reach. She starts to scramble for it, ready to fight off the Z that has taken her down. Until she looks to the side and realizes the body that rammed her isn’t one of the undead.
“Goss! You fucker!” Moore yells as she kicks at the man, trying to get some space between them so she can retrieve her M-4.
But it’s his M-4, the one he stole from Price, that she encounters first as the butt slams into her forehead, knocking her briefly senseless.
Goss picks himself up and turns to the office door. He grabs the knob and twists it, throwing the door open to reveal a good-sized administrative office. And a set of boarded over windows on the far wall.
“You sneaky bitch,” Goss mutters as he hurries into the office and over to the boards. He sets the M-4 aside and works his fingers under one of the boards, pulling at it, testing to see how secure it is. “You double crossing, sneaky bitch.”
He gets a good grasp and pulls, popping a couple of old, rusty nails. The boards must have been put up a long, long time ago for the nails to snap as easy as they do. Maybe somebody had thought the warehouse would be a good refuge early on when the Zs first started to rise. Goss becomes paranoid and spins around, looking for signs that maybe someone is still in the office with him.
But no one is there. Not even a trace that people had ever used the office as a place to hide.
He goes back to working at the boards, pulling, tugging, bracing a foot against the wall so he can get some leverage on the old plywood. It takes him a minute, but he gets one board off and stands there and stares at what he sees outside.
“No,” he whispers.
Then he feels the cool steel of a 9mm muzzle against his temple.
“You are one of the dumbest people I have ever met,” Moore says, her finger on the trigger, her thumb cocking back the hammer. “The plan was to stay down, stay quiet, and hole up in here until it was clear enough to get away. But you had to ruin that by yanking at a board. How’d that work out?”
Goss’s eyes turn to look at Moore, but he doesn’t answer. She nods.
“Exactly, asshole,” Moore says.
Her own eyes move towards the exposed window and the thousands of Zs that swarm around the backside of the warehouse. So far none of them have directed their attention at the office and the two people standing in plain sight, but Moore knows it’s only a matter of seconds.
She decides to hurry that process along.
“You get to be one of the lucky ones, Goss,” Moore states. “Even though you don’t deserve it.”
“Lucky ones? What does that mean?” Goss asks just as Moore pulls the trigger, sending his brains flying across the office to splatter on the far wall.
The sound of the gunshot instantly draws the attention of the closest Zs outside the window and dozens and dozens of undead heads swivel to meet Moore’s gaze. She holsters her 9mm and picks up the M-4 that Goss had set down. She puts it to her shoulder, takes aim, and opens fire.
Z heads burst open as each round finds its mark. Moore doesn’t stop until the magazine is empty. She is busy pulling a fresh one from a pocket on her vest when the rest of DTB2 hurry into the office. They all glance at Goss’s corpse then at the shattered window.
And the Zs struggling to work their way in through the frame.
“TL?” Billy asks.
“Time to go out with honor, Mates,” Moore says. “Take as many down as you can.”
“We can go this way!” Santiago says. “The Zs are distracted!”
Moore opens fire again, obliterating the skulls of the Zs squeezing past the window frame. Their corpses clog the hole and the wall begins to groan from the pressure of the thousands behind them.
“TL!” Santiago shouts. “We can get out!”
Moore looks at the man then at Billy. The other Mate nods and gestures for her to follow. She hesitates for a second and then sprints from the window as the wood around begins to splinter and crack.
Outside the office, Moore sees how the Zs have become distracted.
Thousands pour into the warehouse, all following a direct line of their undead brothers and sisters to the doorway and the stairwell leading to the roof. Moore says a quick prayer for the people lost, but is also silently thankful that their sacrifice means her escape.
Everyone counts, especially a Team Mate that can live to fight another day.
The three Mates stay close to the far wall, keeping the rows of shelving between them and the stairwell door. They make it halfway down the wall before their way is completely blocked.
“The other bay doors,” Moore says. “They’ve already breached them.”
“Come on,” Santiago hisses. “There’s a side door this way.”
He pulls on Moore’s arm as Billy leads the way down an aisle and then suddenly cuts left into a gap between two sets of shelving. Moore nearly kicks herself for not knowing about the single door emergency exit that is tucked away out of sight. It is bad leadership on her part for her Team not to have found it earlier.
She removes Santiago’s hand from her arm and sets her M-4 against her shoulder.
“Okay, once we are out we run,” Moore says. “We don’t look back, we don’t try to stay together, we don’t do anything except run and stay alive. Head to the Stronghold and warn everyone. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Billy and Santiago say.
“Good,” Moore nods. She puts a hand on the door handle, a long bar in the middle of the metal surface, and smiles at her Mates. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Billy says, M-4 up.
“Ready,” Santiago echoes, his M-4 up as well.
Moore shoves against the handle and the door starts to swing open then sticks. She puts her shoulder against it and shoves. It flies open, spilling her onto the cold concrete outside. A few thousand Zs all turn and look at her.
“Go!” Moore yells as she gets into a crouch and starts firing, aiming for the legs of the Zs closest to her. “Now!”
Billy and Santiago sprint from the warehouse, their carbines barking fire along with Moore’s. They take off to the side of the warehouse and keep running as Moore gets to her feet. A line of Zs starts to break off and head their direction, but Moore stops
them with several well-placed shots and some deliberate words.
“HEY!” she screams. “HEY! COME GET ME MOTHERFUCKERS!”
The Zs switch their focus back to Moore and she waves her hand over her head while firing her M-4 one handed, blindly sending bullets into the massive herd of Zs.
“COME ON!” she screams and backs towards the open door. “OVER HERE!”
The herd comes for her, rushing as fast as the shambling monsters can move. Moore empties her magazine, loads another, empties that, loads another and empties that one before she is out. Hundreds of Zs litter the concrete, creating obstacle piles for the herd. They trip and stumble, adding to the blockade of undead flesh and Moore smiles.
“That’s right, assholes,” she says. “That’s what a Mate can do.”
Then several figures crawl quickly over the pile and jump to the ground, landing not quite gracefully, but with enough stability not to topple over.
“Oh, shit,” Moore says as the fast Zs sprint at her.
She rushes back inside and pulls the door closed just as the Zs reach the warehouse. Bodies slam against the metal, the sound ringing out around her. Moore keeps backing up until she is up against the shelving directly across from the exit, her eyes locked onto the door that shakes and rattles with the impacts of the angry Zs.
Moans from her right get her attention and she pulls her 9mm, spinning about to see at least twenty Zs coming her way. More moans from her left cause her to spin that way and she sees double the number heading right for her.
Cut off, Moore places the muzzle to her temple, laughing at the irony of it all. She closes her eyes and pulls the trigger.
The gun clicks empty.
“What? No!” she yells and is answered by the moans of the Zs that have her boxed in.
But above their moans is another sound. A loud groaning. Not the groaning of Zs, but the groaning of stressed struts and trusses.
Moore looks up just as the ceiling gives way and thousands of undead bodies, mingled with several recently alive bodies, collapse down on her. She gives one last scream before the tons of materials crush her, killing her instantly.