by Andrew Lauck
“They already took her. She’s not in her room. Dawes plans to use her to get you to join the town. Today in the store was a test, and you passed.” He sounded almost sorry that I did.
“Then we’ll go get her. Where did they take her?” I set the butt of my rifle against the inside of my elbow and awaited his answer.
“It’s not that simple, sir. The whole town is there.” My ex-wife had figured out early in our relationship that once my mind was set on something there was no reasoning with me. Maybe that led to the divorce, but I couldn’t help myself. Matt would have figured that out soon enough.
“Look, kid, just take me there so I can get her, and then we can all get the hell out of dodge.” I leaned forward and gave one of those, “What the hell are we waiting for?” looks.
Matthew sighed, but realized I wouldn’t budge and led the way down the hall and outside. The street was empty, to no surprise. So far, Dawes had pulled every creepy cliché in the horror movie handbook with the town, the people in it, and his behavior. It didn’t seem out of place for the street to be empty during a cult gathering.
Dawes’ manor was the only one with any lights on, but no guards. It was like a big neon sign flashing “Here she is! Come and get her!” Of course, I was the dumbass hero that had to come and get her. I pushed past Matthew, not caring if he followed or not. I took a moment to ready myself before kicking in the door and sweeping the interior with my rifle. Four men with guns stood, weapons trained on me. At this range, it wouldn’t be a firefight so much as a rain of lead.
Dawes appeared at the top of the stairs, bringing his arms up in a greeting gesture.
“I see you finally joined us.”
Chapter 15
“Don’t bullshit me, Dawes. Where is she?” Dawes let out a mocking laugh.
“Ah, you poor man. I remember when I found my first companion, got to know her, cared about her…and eventually had to kill her.” His lips became a thin line before that smug grin returned. “I see you’re still in that caring stage.”
“Look, asshole, just bring her to me, and we’ll leave you and your bunch of sideshow freaks to whatever it is that you do.”
“I think at some point you hallucinated yourself having something I need in exchange. I don’t wish to let her go since she’s perfect for helping to repopulate this town, and I don’t plan to let you leave either. You proved yourself to be quite the combat specialist this afternoon, and I could use that kind of experience here.” Was he seriously making me an offer?
“Let me put it another way, you sick fuck. I won’t join you, I won’t let you keep her, and if I find out you touched her in any way, I will kill you in a way your worst nightmares couldn’t prepare you for, and then I will burn this town to the ground.” I think I finally got through, because his Dracula act popped on, and he descended the stairs with purpose. Sadly, he seemed to lack something in the menace department.
“Then I suppose you pose no use to me.” He motioned with his hand, and I got hit in the back of the head, falling forward. I flipped over slowly, my head dizzy. Matthew stood over me with Kat’s Sig in hand, and I assumed he had cold-cocked me. His eyes were filled with silence as I felt a guard’s footsteps near me through the floorboards, and the last thing I saw was a boot coming down on my face.
I was really starting to get tired of that.
Chapter 16
Unknown time and place
I woke up slowly, rubbing the back of my head, and examining my surroundings. To be honest, I was surprised I was even alive, but I wasn’t complaining. It was a small, boxed room with the only light coming from a small window set inside what I assumed was the door. Something glinted on the floor in front of me, and I crawled toward it, still trying to gather my senses enough to stand. As soon as I moved, I sensed I wasn’t alone and heard chains rattle across the room from me.
“Kat?” I whispered, hope rising inside me. Nothing but silence filled the air for a moment before a soft sound emanated from the darkness. It started as a low growl and turned into a gurgling moan. Now knowing I was in an enclosed space with a hostile enemy, my prerogatives changed. I crawled forward despite the spine-chilling moaning, and my hand found something metallic. I held it closer, feeling along it with my finger until I could tell it was a small knife. “What the hell is going on?” I asked myself. As if in response, a panel slid open in the door, and Bill’s unshaven face appeared.
“Well, mister, you sure have caused us a heap of trouble. For a minute we thought we’d lost you at the fort, but there you were just walking down the road a ways.” He laughed a low chuckle that made me want to rip his throat out. Given the opportunity, I thought I might do just that. “Mister Dawes said we should take you in; see how things played out. Then when you handed it to those two in the store, that was something to see. Of course, none of that comes close to you telling Mister Dawes off like you did. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that angry.” He whistled and laughed again.
“Glad you enjoyed it,” I growled, edging slowly toward the door. “Where are we?”
“You remember that gas station up the road I was telling you about in the car? Well, you were supposed to be taken here before, but you escaped. It’s kind of ironic that you ended up here anyway.” He laughed. “Matthew convinced Mister Dawes to stay your execution and have you play our game instead for our entertainment. I must say, I’m pretty excited to see how far you get.”
Game? The word clicked into place like a pachinko slot-machine. The fort, Bill’s car just happening to drive down the road we were on, the town, Dawes. It was all just one big trap. I cursed out loud.
“I’ll assume that means you finally figured it out. Now you understand why we couldn’t let you leave. It’s nothing personal, of course.” He sounded like he actually believed that, but to me it was completely personal. These people had killed an unknown number of survivors just trying to make it in this hellish world, and then they had eaten them…they had basically become zombies themselves. And now they had taken the only person I truly had in my life anymore.
“Where’s Katherine?” I moved too quickly in my excitement, and he noticed, stepping backward at the last second to avoid my hand gripping his throat.
“Easy there, wouldn’t want to get Joe over there riled up.” He flashed me an angry look before that smug laugh returned. “Once I leave, the game starts. You’d better get ready.” He started to leave, but turned back. “If you ask me, I hope you don’t get past the first test.” He closed the panel and walked away. I could hear him whistling in the distance as his footsteps carried him away. I needed to get out and find Kat.
A sudden clatter of chains on concrete resounded through the room and brought my attention back to Joe. A bright light illuminated the chamber in an instant, and I had to blink several times to adjust my eyes. I regained focus just in time to dodge a massive hand swiping at my face. Joe was a lot bigger than I expected, flailing his limbs around with his whole body in an attempt to knock me down while constantly biting at me. His teeth gnawed and grated on each other with each snap, causing some of his teeth to wrench from the gums in a grotesque image.
I was busy thinking up a strategy with this piece-of-shit knife when I got caught in the shoulder and slung into the wall. I slid down in a heap and lashed out defensively with my boot, connecting with Joe’s kneecap. I heard something snap, and Joe was a foot shorter, pushing himself along with his arms and gnashing his teeth together sickeningly. I forgot how decomposing flesh and bone is much weaker and more susceptible to physical brutality.
I rolled past him, and before he had time to turn himself around, I jumped on his back. I brought the knife up and dug it deep into the back of his neck, pulling my shirt collar up over my mouth and nose. Not only did rotting flesh smell horrible, but I didn’t want to risk any blood splattering back and infecting me.
I hacked away with the knife, slashing and cutting into his neck and working the small blade against the pulpy bone. Aft
er a while, I had cut enough away that his head lolled to the side at a disturbing angle, his guttural moans now coming up through a blood-soaked esophagus. Gore covered my hand and half my forearm by the time his head rolled onto the floor and left his body motionless under me, but I was still standing.
To my side, I heard a lock disengage and looked over to see the door creak open slightly. I stood from the corpse and readied my knife, checking the hallway beyond for Bill or another zombie. Nothing jumped out, so I stripped off a piece of my shirt that was clean and tied it around the lower-half of my face like a bandanna before stepping out into the hall and walking in the direction I saw Bill turn.
A door past the next corner unlocked as I neared it, and I looked around, knowing there had to be a way they knew I was close by. A camera was perched high at the end of the hall and was aimed directly at me. I walked over to it and looked into the lens, sending whoever was watching my favorite one-finger salute before plunging the knife into the camera.
“Play that back, asshole,” I muttered before opening the next door. I didn’t want to play the crazies’ game, but if I wanted to get out and find Kat I had to, at least for now. Until I found my opening.
Chapter 17
Gas station
Covered in blood, I progressed forward and found a ladder going up into a small, circular shaft. Tucking the knife into my back pocket, I climbed it slowly, not knowing what was at the top. At one point, my hand slipped from the rung, and I almost fell. I reached down and wiped my hand down my pants, leaving a huge bloody smear on the dark blue jeans, and the climbing got easier.
As I neared the last rung, I heard something moving in my direction and looked up to see a body vaulted off the top of the shaft and flying toward me. I let go of the rung with one hand, swinging outward and barely avoiding being clipped and knocked down by the zombie. Its moans echoed down the shaft until a wet smack resounded, and I saw blood splash at the bottom of the ladder. I hadn’t realized how high up I was, but I now knew to watch my footing.
“Eric, you should totally get in the car with that crazy old guy! It’ll be fun. You can get in a fight with two guys, get knocked out from behind, and oh yeah, wake up in some asshole’s idea of a game,” I mocked aloud. “Last time I listen to her.” I brought my knee up and pulled myself over the top of the ladder with a grunt. I wasn’t exactly old or out of shape by any means, but the past week had been pretty exhausting between lack of sleep and physical exertion.
Looking forward, I was left speechless. A conveyor belt lined most of a thin corridor and ended ten feet before a large door with a chain hanging ominously in the middle. Did I forget to mention the mixture of boxes, zombies, and assorted things I’d rather not describe coming down the belt toward me?
I took a step forward and was almost propelled down the shaft to the same fate as the zombie I had recently been acquainted with, but I steadied myself and pushed into a jog. The belt was moving relatively quick, so I was forced to sprint down the narrow corridor while trying to dodge around and over objects. All I have to say is that keeping your balance while trying to push aside a zombie coming at you quickly graduates from difficult to fucking ridiculous when a conveyor belt is introduced.
I briefly wondered where the hell I was that there was a conveyor belt, but I had to keep my mind focused to avoid joining the zombies as just another splash of new paint at the bottom of a shaft. My mind also wondered how awkward I looked jumping around and dodging things. Kat would have found it hilarious.
The thought of her brought me back to the situation at hand. I was almost at the end of the conveyor belt, but something in the back of my head told me this room was not done with me. I pushed my legs to their limit and tore off of the belt, just before the floor opened up below me. At my speed, I had no choice but to make a leap for the chain dangling from the ceiling.
I reached out my arms, willing my fingers to extend and latch onto the chains before I plummeted to my death. Did I bother looking down to find this out? Hell no. I just assumed that, like everything in that forsaken place, it would not be good for my well-being. Just once I wish the bottom of a pit was filled with stuffed bunnies or something to break the cliché.
As I fell outstretched, my fingers touched along the side of the chain, and I clamped down for dear life until my knuckles turned white. The chain scraped up my palms, but I swung my legs in and wrapped them around it as well, locking the sides of my boots in to halt my descent. I looked up and discovered I had fallen a lot further than I realized, but there was no time to pause as I felt a ripple in the chain.
I squinted at the top of the chain, and as if on cue, something snapped, and it slid down another few feet. I held on, but the chain wouldn’t hold forever. Despite my skin being torn and a discomfort in my shoulders from that fight in the store, I pulled myself along. Gritting my teeth to dull the pain and cursing aloud every few feet, I found the thought that would get me to the top: Katherine. Those sick bastards had her alone, doing God-knew-what to her, and I was the only one who could stop them at this point.
A fire ignited deep inside me, and I suddenly felt nothing. The world seemed to pull away, and it was just me and a chain that I needed to climb. It fell every now and then, but I didn’t care. I reached the top and decided the door was still too far out. I only had one shot to get it right, so I swung my legs out and back in like I was still in third grade on the playground swing. The chain rippled and gave me that now-or-never hint, so I released just as the chain fell. My hands found purchase on the thin floor just in front of the door, and I managed to pull myself up.
Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself for what was ahead and reminded myself that I had to make it out alive.
Chapter 18
Opening the door and expecting to be attacked, I slowly pushed it in with my free hand while holding my knife at the ready back along my forearm. Of course, nothing immediately swarmed me, and I felt pretty stupid. A bright light barraged my eyes, and I had to cover them with my arm until they adjusted to the sunlight again. I was inside a giant room with a massive glass roof, and I stood on a platform overlooking a cluttered area. Wooden panels, some painted, had been set up in a way that resembled a maze along the floor, but I was more cautious of the catwalks that lined the top of the maze. I eyed them cautiously for any signs of movement, but I seemed to be alone.
Walking forward and jumping down to enter the maze, I almost let down my guard. Luckily for me, almost didn’t apply here. A gunshot echoed above me somewhere, and a piece of the wall near my head exploded as I ducked, showering me with splinters. I rolled forward and glanced over my shoulder to see the ground where I just stood blow up in a cloud of dust as a heavy-caliber bullet struck. I had no choice but to run deeper into the maze, feeling the ground vibrate with missed shots as I moved.
As I ran, I was able to catch an upward glance and identify three shooters jogging around the makeshift catwalks, firing as they went. That explained the badly placed shots as they weren’t taking the time to aim correctly. If they had been, I’d probably be a dead man.
I turned a corner and smacked into a zombie, my momentum throwing us both to the ground in a jumble of limbs. Cursing loudly, I grabbed wildly for its throat and held it back as it snapped its jaws hungrily inches from my face. Saliva foamed around its mouth as it tried to scratch through my clothing.
You know, most of Hollywood failed to take into account that zombies are a lot deadlier than just biting a person. Infections in this place can prove just as fatal since you can’t just go to your local hospital and get the antibiotics in a couple days. Not to mention the possibility of saliva accidentally getting into an open wound and infecting you just the same as one of the bastards treating you like a Thanksgiving turkey.
I slid my knee up under its chest and kicked out, pushing it off of me long enough to get up. There was no time to run as I caught the sun glinting off a scope above me, so I grabbed the zombie from behind and pulled it up just as a shot ec
hoed. I felt the impact of the bullet through the zombie’s body, but the round luckily didn’t penetrate the sternum. It’s a good thing this zombie was fresher than the one from earlier, because Joe’s chest wouldn’t have stopped shit.
Pushing the zombie forward once more, I turned on one heel and sprinted. I figured the rifles being used were bolt-action based on the time between shots, but I still didn’t want to linger and give them any more opening to put a bullet in my ass. I dodged the walls at full speed, weaving in and out of turns as I tried to navigate my way through this confusing place. In Special Forces, I was trained to map out an area on the fly in the event I went off-grid which was coming in handy here.
Dozens of thoughts were rushing through my mind as I ran, the most prominent obviously being the threat of being shot. I knew if that happened I was done for, and more importantly, so was Kat. Still, running around without a plan wasn’t going to get me anywhere except dead, so I located a deep corner in the walls and knelt down, closing my eyes and managing to focus.
The layout of the maze was relatively simple with a catwalk running the outer length and meeting across the middle in two places. With the walls made out of wood, if I could find a thinner panel the knife might be able to go through. Basically, there were a lot of “ifs” in my rushed plan, but it was all I had to work with. Ninety-nine percent of it would come down to improvisation and luck, anyway.
I watched the opposite catwalk until I saw the first guard and started making my way over there, methodically changing my route to prevent being seen for as long as possible. Stealth was my best friend in that situation, and I would abuse the hell out of it. I avoided the one zombie I had encountered while backtracking, but I made a mental note of where it was just in case.