Orpheus

by DeWitt, Dan

  Fuck it, he thought, and drove it into Mutt's thigh. He depressed the plunger and administered every drop within the syringe.

  Mutt's head snapped up and he yelled, “Owww! What the fuck was that for?!?”

  Orpheus couldn't do anything but laugh. When he was done he said, “This will buy you time.”

  Sam said, “Really? They developed a cure?”

  “Not a cure. But it slows the infection down. I've seen it in action. It works.”

  Mutt rubbed his thigh and winced. “Florence Nightengale you ain't, but I actually feel a little better. More like myself, anyway.”

  “Wow,” was all Tim could say.

  Orpheus called his dispatcher. “Lena!”

  “Cameron! Thank God! What the hell were you thinking? Is everyone okay?”

  “For now. But retreat isn't exactly an option. How about getting us an airlift?”

  “On it.”

  Everyone looked at Orpheus. “You guys have to understand something. We might be on our own. Trager has everything that was keeping us in business: a Jekyll and a workable serum. He doesn't need us anymore. My money says that he'll decide we're not worth the gas and he'll leave us here to die. We have to depend on his humanity, I guess.”

  The unanimous opinion in the press box was that they were screwed.

  “I didn't really have a plan beyond the first annual Zombie Dash. That was a seat-of-my-pants kinda thing.”

  The room was silent as the magnitude of their situation set in.

  Fish was the first to speak. “It's not so bad, guys. If we die here, I can at least go knowing that I witnessed the craziest goddamn stunt that ever was.”

  * * *

  While they waited, Lena raised the pilot on the radio. She tried everything short of sex to get him to make an unauthorized run, and she was about to offer that when Orpheus called her.

  "Lena? Any luck?"

  "No. Jameson apparently has better things to do. What other options do you have?"

  "I'm telling you, none."

  "Okay. I'll screw that ogre if I have to-"

  "Lena-"

  "-I'll fly it myself, if I have to, but you're getting a ride!"

  An angry Martin Trager burst into her room, towing a cowed Dr. Vincent in his wake. "Is that him? Gimme that radio!"

  "Shit," Lena muttered, and handed the radio to him.

  "Holt!"

  A mock cheery voice responded. "Oh, heeeey, Marty. How've you been?"

  "Cut the shit. Do you have any idea what you've done?"

  "To you? Nothing. We could use a ride, though."

  "Huh. After what you and your band of idiots just pulled?"

  "Stop it, Trager. You still have the Jekyll. Dr. Frankenstein already told me how easy it was to make the serum, so there's no harm done. Right?"

  Lena held her breath for Trager's answer, but he changed the subject for the moment. It was obvious that Orpheus was right, and that only made Trager angrier. "Why did you take the serum?"

  "That's a very good question, and one I intend to answer...in detail...when we get back."

  "I'm sure you will. Good luck with that." Trager handed the radio back to Lena and started to walk out of the room.

  "Come on, Trager! You're just going to leave us to die?"

  Trager stopped, but didn't turn around. "Martin," Lena said. "Please help them."

  "They got into it, they can get out of it."

  "Mutt's been bitten, for Christ's sake!" Orpheus yelled.

  Dr. Vincent, who had been part of the scenery the entire time, perked up. The gleam in his eyes told Lena that was exactly what he prayed he would hear. It gave her the chills. He whispered to Trager, and Trager put his hand out for the radio again. She gave it to him, even more reluctantly than the first time. "Are you bullshitting me?"

  "Nope."

  "Shit." Trager actually sounded sincere. "The Dr. wants to know if you gave him the serum yet."

  "About half of it. I didn't know the dosage."

  Trager looked back at Dr. Vincent, who nodded. And smiled.

  "I apologize for losing my temper, Holt. We wouldn't want to abandon an injured man, now would we?"

  "You're coming?"

  "Just hang tight. I'll send the chopper right away."

  The two men said nothing else and left Lena's room. She poked her head into the hallway and watched them disappear into the stairwell. When she was sure they wouldn't return, she keyed the radio. "Cameron, you cannot come back here.

  * * *

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

  "Guys, listen to me. Dr. Vincent was positively gleeful when you told him about Mutt. It was totally creepy. The rest of you guys are now expendable, but Mutt is his Holy Grail, for whatever reasons make sense to him. I can't imagine what he has planned. Find a way out of there, Cameron. Whatever you're facing there, it'll be worse if you give Mutt up."

  "Right, right. We'll...figure something out." He ended the call and tapped the antenna against his temple. "I just don't know, fellas."

  "I do," Mutt said. "Put a bullet in me, throw me out that window, and run your asses off while they're distracted." His idea was met with a flurry of dismissive gestures from everyone, except for Tim, who was retying his sneakers. When that was done, he stared out the window, seemingly at nothing.

  Fish noticed this. "Going somewhere, bait?"

  "Just being prepared, like you taught me."

  "How about you use that creative brain of yours to create us a way out of here?"

  Tim shrugged his shoulders and resumed looking out the window.

  "Man, this sucks," Sam said. "Orpheus, now's a good a time as any to tell you this, I guess. We got a lead on your kid. A good one."

  Orpheus tensed. "Go on."

  Sam told him. When he was done, Orpheus was stunned and speechless, but everyone pretended not to notice.

  "We're going to get you out of here, sir," Tim said. "So you can find out for yourself."

  "Oh, now you have an idea?" Fish mocked.

  "Not my idea. His." He pointed to Mutt. Heads swiveled to look at Mutt.

  "Not an option, Tim," Orpheus said as he patted Mutt's shoulder.

  Tim hopped up on the window ledge. "Right plan...wrong bait." He swung himself out on the fence.

  Fish tried to pull him back in, but Tim was well out of reach. Fish was left with nothing but angry, useless flailing. "Get the fuck back in here, Tim!"

  Tim began to catwalk along the top of the fence. He swayed a bit, but one look at the hungry throng below him was enough to make his body right itself again.

  * * *

  During Tim's first year of college, his parents made him promise that he would take up some sort of physical activity to stay out of trouble and in shape. He was terrified of the "freshman fifteen" anyway, so he readily agreed. He wasn't sure what it would be, though. He hated running and the swimming pool hours were screwy. He probably could have walked on for the basketball team, but he didn't want to put all of that time in to just sit on the bench. He was good, but he didn't have the drive to be good enough to get serious minutes. And the hacktastic pickup games on the Quad were dangerous to his health.

  A few weeks into the semester, he was walking back from the library when he saw two guys just kind of climbing up, jumping from, and vaulting over the manmade walls and railings. Some of the moves looked insane, but doable if you had the guts. He got a closer look and was intrigued. These guys were having a blast, like little kids at a playground. During a break in the action, he asked them what they were doing. The two guys (Ed and Terry) explained the concept of parkour to him, and he fell in love with it. He asked if they'd mind maybe showing him the ropes sometime, and one of them asked, "What are you doing right now?"

  Ten minutes later, Tim returned in gym clothes and sneakers. Ed and Terry started by explaining more concepts to him, then showed him the basics, such as how to land, how to jump, and how to do some of the simpler techniques. He had an aptitude for it
, so he went back the next day, and trained with them or by himself whenever he had the time. While other freshman were getting smashed at parties every other night, he was learning how to "tic-tac" up walls. As he improved, they showed him more demanding moves, until he was ready to go on his first run with them, where they proceeded to run him into the ground. He was sore for three days.

  But he was hooked, and he trained with them for the rest of the semester.

  He kept up with it after he left school to help his mother take care of his sick father. He should have had no problems getting away when the zombies showed up, and he wouldn't have, if someone in the panicked mob hadn't stepped on his ankle and damn near broken it.

  That one freak accident kept me from getting away clean. I would have been fine, and...and that couple would have never had to stop and help me. They'd be safe with us.

  But he had a chance to make up for that, if such things were possible. He had an idea of the route he'd take; there were bound to be some faster runners in the mob, but his skill and familiarity with the terrain should be the equalizer. He was sure he could lead them far enough away for Orpheus to get the rest of the team to safety. That was all that mattered to him. He'd told Orpheus on that rooftop that he just wanted to pay back that couple's sacrifice, and he would if it was the last thing he would ever do.

  He ran out of fence. He selected a bare patch of ground in between a few zombies as his landing spot. He'd need a little luck to get through there in one piece. Or, of course, his gun that he'd left in the press box.

  He twisted his body around and yelled, "Guys! Take these assholes out. As soon as I hit the ground, just go silent!"

  "Tim, get your ass back in here. That is a goddamn order." Orpheus spoke in something akin to a growl.

  "Sorry. I can't do that. I'm going, but a cleaner landing spot would be nice."

  "Tim-"

  "Please, sir. I'm doing this. "

  Orpheus pulled his pistol out and took down three zombies in quick succession. He disappeared back into the press box, as if he didn't want to watch Tim's escape. If what the others had said about Tim being a surrogate for Ethan were true, he understood why. Sam and Fish took out more zombies.

  It was time to go. Tim jumped off, hit the ground, and rolled to distribute the impact. He hadn't done anything like that for a couple of months now, but he was sure it would come back to him.

  It did, and he ran. Not all of the zombies were on his trail, but the others had a much more manageable number to deal with. Tim was pretty sure that he heard a helicopter being fired up in the distance, so they'd better get to it right away if they had any hope of escaping whatever Trager and Dr. Vincent had planned.

  Fish called me Tim. Huh.

  * * *

  Tim had been right about two things: all of his training started to come back to him, which was good, because the other thing he'd been right about was that there were a couple of speedy bastards on his tail. Although Tim had no way of knowing it, one of them had even been a track star at the high school ten years before Tim graduated. He'd lost a step or two since then, but he was still faster than Tim at a dead run. Tim's biggest ally was the terrain, and he used it to the fullest.

  The first, and closest, shave occurred just into the journey, barely two hundred feet from the press box. The track star broke away from the pack and caught up with Tim. It got close enough to brush a hand against his trailing shirt. Tim realized that he was outclassed in a sprint. By a dead guy. It was a humbling moment.

  So let's make it a steeplechase, instead. He took a hard right and flew up the first-base bleachers, taking the benches two at a time. There was three-foot fence at the top to prevent accidental falls, so Tim leapt, planted his hands, and vaulted the fence. He rolled as he hit the ground and got up running, glancing backwards as he did. Behind him, the track star made it over the fence, but much less gracefully than Tim had; it merely ran into the fence, and forward momentum brought it pinwheeling over the fence and into the ground.

  Come on, break your neck or something. Tim wasn't that lucky. As other zombies poured over the fence like lemmings, the track star got up and continued the chase. Tim thought he might prove to be a real problem. He could outrun the rest, but if he couldn't shake this thing, it would eventually run him down and bring the rest on him, as well. Tim was already fatigued from the night's events. The zombie didn't have to worry about anything like that. None of them did. And this was all assuming that he would avoid running into the many thousands of other zombies on the island, even if he did outpace this particular phalanx. For the first time, the possibility of his death started to gnaw at him.

  All I have to do is buy enough time for them to escape. My survival is just gravy.

  He really hoped that they were moving by now. Tim's stunt would only give them a temporary respite. The team had to contend not only with an island full of man-eating creatures, but now they were on the run from the only humans, as well. They were completely cut off from their transportation, food, ammunition, and they had an infected teammate in tow.

  It looked hopeless, but if anyone could get them through it, it would be Orpheus. Not because he was a larger-than-life superhero, or an an unstoppable killing machine wielding dual machine guns. He wasn't. He was a tired, depressed, physically strong but emotionally broken human being who wanted nothing more than to find his kid. That's what would keep him and his team alive.

  Tim watched a lot of basketball growing up, and he watched as many classic games from the 80's as he could. On occasion, the superstars of that era...MJ, Larry, Magic...would just completely take over and refuse to let their team lose on that particular day. It was rare, but it was something to see.

  Until he was either reunited with Ethan or laid him to rest, Orpheus simply refused to allow himself or his team to die.

  If ever Tim wanted to emulate someone else's characteristic, that was it.

  He checked behind him again. The track star was still in the lead, and two of the more fleet of foot zombies were within a few meters of it, but the rest had begun to fall farther behind. If they were that slow coming after him, they'd be even slower getting back to the press box, if they even remembered to at all, which he doubted. Tim started to think they all might actually live through this.

  I'll have to fight, he thought. His muscles were showing the first signs of real fatigue, and he had a stitch in his side that wouldn't quit. Soon.

  He needed a weapon and a place that gave him an advantage, because he would have to take that lead zombie out quickly, before the other two caught up. He ran a hand along the cargo pocket on his right thigh. He panicked for a moment when he came up empty, but then he felt the reassuring outline of the baton. He unzipped the pocket and pulled it out. He flicked it open mid-stride and looked for some high ground.

  And I'll have to go into the woods to do it. Great.

  He put on as much of a burst of speed as his legs would allow and entered the woods to his left. He moved around the branches and limbs in the most efficient ways he could think of until he felt the ground gently rising beneath his feet. He knew it would only stay gentle for a few seconds before it started to get steep, but steep was exactly what he wanted.

  The hill shot upwards, and Tim started to struggle to make progress using just his feet. He utilized his baton as a makeshift walking stick and fought for another hundred feet, until he thought he'd reached the point of maximum advantage, given his dwindling strength. He turned, made sure of his footing, and steadied himself with a hand on a tree. The track star was scrambling up the hill, disconcertingly nimble for a dead guy. The other two had just reached the bottom of the hill. Tim figured he had ten seconds, tops, to take the first one out once it had reached striking distance before he'd have to face one or both of the remaining two.

  Tim's fingers alternately tightened and relaxed around the handle of the baton, like a tennis player anxiously awaiting a serve.

  The track star was almost to him. Tim coul
dn't focus on anything but the bared teeth.

  Tighten.

  I want to smash those teeth right out of its ugly face. I'm tired of being on the run.

  Relax.

  Swing once and make it count. Controlled.

  Leaning forward as it was to account for the hill's pitch, the zombie's head was the first body part to enter Tim's strike zone. He swung, and achieved a result that satisfied both sides of his conflicted brain. The baton connected solidly with its head. Tim heard the crunch of bone and teeth. The impact knocked the zombie sideways. Its feet lost purchase on the hill, and it half-slid/half-rolled forty feet down the incline. Tim wasn't sure if he'd killed it, but he bought himself enough time to dispatch the other two in a similar manner.

  In less than thirty seconds, all three were down. One of them was motionless, but the track star and the third were slowly getting to their feet. Tim moved in to finish them off. He started with the third one, as he would have had to walk by it to get to the track star, and there was no way he was going to put himself between two of those things intentionally. He finished it off with three quick strikes of the baton, then moved to to do the same to the track star.

  It had risen to its hands and knees. The fact that it had gotten up at all enraged Tim, and he sent a wild kick at it. His foot thumped into its side. He heard some ribs crack, and it rolled a few more meters down the hill. It started to rise again, and Tim lost control. He kicked it again, then started flailing away with his baton, not caring where it hit. "Die, already! Fucking die you piece of shit!!!" He wanted to hear it scream, but, of course, it could not and would not.

  During the course of his explosion, Tim had struck a fatal, crushing blow to the zombie's head, and it lay still.

  He didn't notice for several minutes.

  He only stopped when he was physically unable to continue. His arms and shoulders screamed with pain, and he thought he might have broken a bone or two in his hand from the repeated impact of the baton. He fell to his knees next to the bloody remains of what used to be a four-year letterman at Lost Whaler High and tried to not throw up.