Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet

by Simpson, David A.

  Tripwires attached to shotguns.

  Staked out zombies ready to bite a hand that reached into the darkness.

  He looked down at the disgusting, oozing pile of rotting flesh he was standing on, that his boots kept sinking into. His stomach turned a little. He’d seen worse but still, his stomach turned. He closed his eyes and tried to reach out for her. To feel her. To feel the connection between them. That magical something they shared now, maybe something like twins had. Maybe something like old married couples had who felt each other’s moods and pain. Jessie calmed and reached out and could still feel her presence. He knew it was real, not just wishful thinking. He knew she wasn’t dead. He was sure he would know if she were. He would be able to sense it somehow.

  He poked his head through the opening. No biting zombies. No grenades exploding. No shotgun blasts. He lifted the cat into the crawlspace between floors and she disappeared into the black. No sniffing around. No hesitation. She followed her nose. Or maybe her ears. Or maybe cats naturally knew shortcuts but Jessie couldn’t fit. No other human sized forms either, there was too much ductwork in the way. He pushed the other panel aside, a reinforced piece of hinged plywood. Whatever was up here, they didn’t want it falling through the floor.

  101

  Jessie

  Jessie pulled himself up to the third floor and rolled to his feet. Nefertiti had taken off towards the west in the crawlspace so he went that way, too. Someone had knocked out most of the walls, leaving only the support beams. More debris to fill the stairwells. The few windows that weren’t covered had been painted in various muted colors. Most of them had been boarded over with chunks of drywall or carpet to keep the light out. The sunlight peeked through but like the floors below, it was filtered and dim. Jessie wondered what kind of surprises awaited him because from what he’d seen so far, the people who had fortified the building were half crazy. There was no reason for them to do the things they did.

  He heard them before he saw the first one lurching out of the shadows. He didn’t know what he was seeing at first and thought it was a giant eight-foot-tall spider with too many arms and legs. It came for him, a high-pitched scream mixed with the raspy keens from dry throats. It moved fast for what it was, the undead in front pulling the ones behind. Jessie backed up, put a support beam between them and tried to understand the thing reaching for him. Someone had sewn them together. Someone had connected the undead, stitching legs and torsos and arms. It was a nightmare version of a three-legged race. He could see the wires they’d used; it ran up the legs, punched through skin and muscle tying them together. They were joined at the hips; the thin cables ran through their ribs and down the arms so ten fingered hands reached for him. Six of them were joined and sewn into a circle. Twelve legs becoming six shuffling, scrabbling undead things that came for him. He couldn’t see their heads, an enormously fat upper half of a woman was covering them, the sagging skin from her belly sewn to their shoulders. It kept coming and Jessie kept backing away. It took tiny, shuffling steps but they were quick. Almost day one zombie quick, and it covered the distance fast.

  It looked like someone had tried to create a spider demon right out of that Doom game he used to play. Or maybe a Drider from Dungeons and Dragons. The fat woman on top of the thing bobbed around grotesquely as it jerked towards him, her face a tortured mask of hunger and need. Someone had painted her withered lips blood red in a Jokers smile. He felt hands grabbing him from behind and sprang away with a jolt of fear. The monster in front of him wasn’t the only one in the room. Jessie darted behind a steel beam and brought up his guns. They found their targets, even hidden behind rolls of flesh and dangling guts, the bullets blasted holes in heads and one by one the legs crumpled. He heard faint shouts from above, human voices, angry and nearly incoherent but he heard them over the booming of his guns. Maybe Scarlet had gotten free. He needed to get up there, to find the passage through the ceiling.

  More hands grabbed at his legs and he rolled away, more of the spider creatures shuffled out of the dark. More came scuttling through the holes in the walls. He was being swarmed, all of them following the sounds of his guns. They bobbed and weaved in their ungainly gaits and their heads were hidden, sometimes by two or three upper torsos sewn together. Some of them even had their heads banded as one. A three faced monster that saw in all directions.

  A small one made from toddlers stumbled into him and tried to bite through his leathers with their rotting milk teeth. He kicked it aside and sent more bullets into another six-legged monstrosity tottering towards him. It had been created from powerfully built men, bulging muscles now sagging and flappy, but still huge and tall and hungry. Hands the size of his head reached for him as he leaped over another baby spider thing. He was missing head shots more often than he was hitting them, it wasn’t easy running and dodging and firing at stumbling targets. He couldn’t fight them with blades, too many arms reaching for him. Too many fingers ripping at his face trying to pull him close. Jessie ran for the outside wall and sent bullets through one of the painted over windows, sending a tumble of glass to the street below.

  The high-rise had balconies. Starting the next story up, where office space gave way to condo’s and apartments, they circled the building and were on every level all the way to the top. He holstered his guns, shouldered through the remaining jags of glass and jumped, hands reaching for the bottom of the railing above. He caught it and dangled, watched as the giant thing with half its bodies still reaching for him overbalanced and plunged downward to land with a ripping splat as it was impaled by a parking meter. Part of it still struggled to move, to get up and go after the tantalizing smell of fresh blood. More of them tried to get to him, hands and arms tearing at each other, battling to get to the front, to reach out and pull him back in. Jessie hung forty feet above the sidewalk and watched them in revolting fascination, seeing them clearly in the light. They groaned and grabbed at the air in front of him, arms sewn together with strong fishing line. Some faces were spray painted, some had Halloween masks stitched in place. Garish clowns or rubber faced demons. He heard gasps and shushing noises above him and focused back on why he was here, dangling from a balcony with multi limbed creatures want to rip into him.

  Scarlet.

  A chair bounced off the railing, nearly hitting him. More debris came flying at him; a heavy planter, a barstool, a tiffany lamp. It was coming from the balconies above. Dirty, grim faces contorted in rage and fear were throwing anything and everything at him, trying to dislodge him. Jessie held on with one hand, pulled a Glock with the other and sent lead at them, spraying all the balconies he could see from his angle. Screams and shouts. Some in fear and surprise, some in pain when the bullets hit home. He emptied the mag, holstered it and pulled himself up, tossing a leg over the railing and finally standing on solid ground again.

  “Give her back!” he roared up at them. “Give her back and we’ll leave! If you hurt her, I’ll kill you all!”

  “You’ll never find her. You cheated!” someone yelled back “You’ve got guns!”

  Jessie’s fingers flew as he dropped mags, reloaded and sent a single round through the floor of the balcony where he thought the voice came from. His grim snarl turned into a grim smile when he heard the smack of lead puncturing flesh and a grunt of pain. He hopped up on the railing and leaped for the next balcony some ten feet above and pulled himself up. The flying debris coming at him had stopped, the people were running back inside in a panic. No one had ever made it past the zombie spiders. No one had ever tried to jump from balcony to balcony. They weren’t prepared. He was cheating. They didn’t know what to do.

  Jessie kicked in the sliding glass door and stomped in to the apartment. He was angry before. Now he was livid. He could tell it wasn’t lived in, it had that closed up, musty smell. He ran for the door, out into the hall and saw the stairwell door swinging shut at the far end. Jessie sprinted for it and heard the clamor of a hundred feet running upwards. They were panicking, fleeing
in fear and all he had to do was follow. They would take him to their hideout. To their leader. To Scarlet. He calmed himself. All he had to do was follow, not try to kill them all. He could do that later.

  His mind raced as he darted up after them, trying to put the crazy pieces together. They thought this was a game, they had accused him of cheating. He hadn’t heard a single shot fired at him so it was probably safe to assume they didn’t have guns. They had built those Frankenzombies as a deterrent. To keep people out. The whole block had been completely surrounded by the undead, drawn to the last of the living in the city so there must be warring factions. Groups battling over limited resources. This high-rise building against one of others within the block, connected by skywalks or the below ground parking garages.

  They were splitting off, he heard doors slamming above him. Some kept going higher, some escaped to different floors. He saw a blood trail going up the stairs on the next floor and came up behind a man limping and bleeding badly. One of his bullets had found a home.

  “Where is she?” he growled as he grabbed him from behind and slammed him against the railing, bending him over it backward.

  He was dressed in a suit and tie, business attire, but had no weapons. Not even a sharp stick. They thought they were safe. He was filthy and reeked of body odor, urine, splashed on cologne and greasy hair. They had raided every apartment, had taken the finest things and the finest clothes, but it was apparent by the smell that they didn’t have water to spare. None to wash with or bathe in. Jessie’s nose caught it all and he tried to breathe through his mouth. From the scents, they must filter their urine and use it to wash. Maybe even drink. He nearly gagged from being so close and didn’t know which was worse: the smell of filth or the smell of too much after shave trying to mask it.

  The man tried to struggle but Jessies grip was iron. His fingers found the bullet hole. He slipped a thumb in and ground it against the broken bone. The scream was shrill, filled the stairwell and ended with a gasping sob.

  “Where is she?” he asked again, his jagged face inches from the mans, his mouth a snarl, his eyes penetrating and burning with rage.

  “Top floor.” The man nearly yelled. “Top floor! Please…”

  His breath was fetid and smelled of piss, too. They brushed their teeth with it. Jessie almost snapped his back and sent him tumbling over the rail but relinquished his grip. Pulled his thumb out of the hole.

  “Just go up the stairs. All the way to the top.” the man panted against the pain. “Just follow the stairs. She’s in the hub. In the Throne Room.”

  Jessie let him go and took off. It was a long way to the top, another twenty or thirty floors. He paced himself, slowing down his sprint. That would only exhaust him and once he got there, he’d still have to find her. Still have to fight his way through the mob of filthy, stinking condo dwellers. He should have asked the man about weapons. About guns. They probably had at least one or two, surely somebody in the building had a few in their apartment before the fall. He wasn’t worried, he had four pistols, two more reloads for each, his blades and knuckle dusters. It was enough to wade through this sorry lot of city dwelling freaks.

  Jessie climbed.

  The August heat was oppressive in the closed off space and the reek of dirty humans filled his nose. His leathers were hot, he was sweating and breathing hard by the time he reached the twentieth. He hadn’t caught up with anyone else, yet. He was enhanced, he was running up the stairs and he knew he was faster than them. The man he’d questioned had seemed frail and underfed. He paused to catch his breath, to slow his breathing, on the thirtieth floor landing. They had all disappeared, a few on each floor until he was alone. Cockroaches scurrying away from the light. It was darker here, they had painted over the windows for the last few floors. Maybe to keep the heat out if this was where they lived. Without air conditioning, he supposed every little bit helped.

  He made himself stop and get his head right. He wouldn’t be any good to her if he burst through the door like a raging bull that couldn’t even breathe. He willed his thumping heart to slow, his breathing to ease. He wiped at his sweat slicked forehead, pushed the dripping hair out of his eyes and looked upward. One more floor. Had the guy told him the truth? It had made sense but now he was starting to second guess. He could barely see in the gloom, dim light from below only silhouetted the dark shadows and black spaces. Jessie pulled his guns and started his uphill climb again.

  A gate slammed shut behind him and he whirled, pistols up, but there was nothing to shoot. A steel roll up door, a security shutter from one of the shops, had slid across the landing he had just left, blocking off his downward escape. He didn’t waste time grabbing and shaking it. They wouldn’t bother closing it if they didn’t have a way of locking it. He ran up the last flight, sprinted with all his speed, trying to get past the trap they were springing.

  He lowered a shoulder and slammed into the door, expecting it to be locked, and nearly lost his balance when it flew open and banged against the wall. The room was filled with light streaming through the windows that nearly blinding. The door bounced and slammed shut and he heard the steel bars of more roll up shutters slide into place behind him. He was in a large cage built from conduit and steel and before him was a large open room that had the walls knocked out in most of the areas. There was a dry swimming pool and a couple of empty hot tubs. It was the gym and recreation area for the luxury apartments. The spa and retreat for the most discerning with exquisite tastes. Or it had been at one time. Now it was a strange throne room of sorts: the hub the smelly man had called it. Jessie’s nostrils flared in disgust and anger. He should have tossed the man in the suit over the rail. Like a fool, he had run right into a trap. He still couldn’t wrap his head around what this was all about. Who the hell had time to think up all the stupid things they had done with the building? Why hadn’t they devoted all that effort into finding a way out instead of turning it into a video game with mazes and traps and monsters and boss fights?

  There were a hundred people, maybe more, staring at him from the “throne room”. They were all in suits or dresses. Neckties and necklaces. Thousand-dollar shoes on unwashed feet. White collars nearly black from grimy necks. Vests and walking sticks. Diamond studs in ears clogged with wax. They looked like well-dressed homeless or refugees from some third world war zone. He recognized a few of the faces from the balconies and they weren’t out of breath. They were here waiting on him. They hadn’t taken the stairs all the way up, they had some sort of elevator system. They were on both sides of the pool, all turned toward him and staring. At the far end, seated on a red velvet throne that looked like a modified easy chair, a clean-shaven man sat cross legged in a power suit. The pool was empty, bone dry, and at the deep end was a small cage surrounded by the hungry dead. Scarlet stood in the center of it, rotting arms stretching toward her from all sides, thrusting against the bars, dirty fingers scant millimeters away. Front, back and all sides. Filthy, gore crusted hands reached for her, for the blood trickling from her nose and down her lips.

  Dripping from her chin.

  She smiled as he approached the bars of his own cage, so close but so far away. A dirty hand found a grip on her when she moved, tried to pull her closer and she managed to twist away, to avoid the searching fingers from the other side. She centered herself in the cage again and remained out of their clutches. She watched him calmly, her eyes finding his and giving him peace.

  They thought they had her trapped.

  They thought they held all the cards.

  They didn’t know who they were dealing with.

  She could smash all of their undead heads with her bare fists. She would surprise all the watchers around the pool: she would kill the mob, spring out of the deep end and start tossing them in. All Jessie had to do was open his bars and help her. He wondered why she was waiting, none of the people were armed and she usually didn’t have much patience. Jessie holstered his guns, a little unnerved at the silence of the room
, at the quiet stares from the well dressed but unwashed group gathered for the show. There was a shift in the undead as one lunged for her again and he saw.

  He saw why she hadn’t killed everybody in the room and was sitting on the throne cleaning her nails waiting for him to arrive. Her feet were shackled to the floor. Her hands were in a prisoner’s belt, handcuffed to a thick leather strap around her waist. She couldn’t fight back. All she could do is stand stock still, barely out of their reach, barely out of their pulling and tugging grasp. Out of their hungry teeth. He could see remnants of clothes, bits of flesh and bones on the floor. Others who had stood in the cage. Others who stood in the same spot as Scarlet for hours, maybe days. They had stood until they couldn’t. Until they fell from exhaustion or leaned a little too far one way or the other. Until grasping hands finally found a grip and pulled with inhuman strength. Dead black eyes stared as blood encrusted fingernails and foul broken teeth had torn into them. Currency had changed hands to cheers or groans from the watchers of the spectacle. Winners and losers of the betting pool.

  Jessie tried to keep cool. Tried to channel some of her aloofness. He scanned the room, saw how the cage was raised and lowered with a block and tackle. How the latches holding the floor in place were already released. He saw the man standing by, the lifting chains gripped tightly in hand, ready to do as he was told. A piece of rope attached to his belt was looped through the chain so even if Jessie could kill him, the cage would be raised as he fell. He thought of a hundred different scenarios, played them all out in a flash. They all ended up with Scarlet being torn apart before he could break his way through the bars and he didn’t have enough ammo to kill everyone. In the end he closed his eyes, closed his chakras then simply stood in silence, waiting to see what they wanted.