by J. L. Bourne
Putting my back and legs into it, I flipped the cart back over on its wheels with a thud.
The creature’s arm moved.
Despite its eyes, face, and nose being gone, some basic connection between the arm and brain still existed. I dispatched the corpse with my blade before climbing into the cart. I pressed the pedal and surprisingly it weakly rolled forward. The GARMR ran behind as I rode the cart for a couple hundred yards up the fairway until the battery died completely. It was fun while it lasted. Before getting out of the cart, I checked the scorecard. “Stephen” could apparently golf a lot better than I ever could.
I could see the roof of the clubhouse, so I decided to head in that direction. After shadowing the tree line and thinking I was about to get eaten by two imaginary alligators, I finally was in the line of sight of the clubhouse. There were half a dozen undead in hibernation around the building. A bird swooped near one of them, activating its primordial programming to hunt. This started a chain reaction, waking the others up, and they all started wandering, walking across the practice green to the fence that surrounded the large swimming pool full of the same color water that was in the lake. There’d be alligators in there too if the large fence had not closed the man-made pond off to the local fauna.
I dropped another chemlight on the fairway before ducking into the trees to skirt around the clubhouse and head north into the city. The tennis courts to my right were eerily normal with nets in place, as if a match were about to start.
After clearing the courts and the country club’s large parking lot, I came out into the concrete jungle of what was Tallahassee.
I dropped to one knee and raised my carbine, scanning the immediate area. Coffee shops and clothing stores extended in both directions, walling me off from the objective.
I sent the GARMR into the nearby alley and watched, hopeful the machine would not be greeted by several thousand undead. Decomposed bodies, piles of bones, and debris filled the alleyway. I was hitting the return button, sending the machine back to my location, when I heard the engine.
At first it was faint, but the noise picked up quickly when the vehicle turned the corner several blocks away. I ran back to the tall grass and waited on the GARMR to return.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” I said under my breath, as if that would get the machine back any faster.
The machine broke out onto the street as what looked like an armored car rapidly approached. I sent the quadruped deeper into the brush and put it in standby mode.
I could hear the engine rev up before blue rotating lights illuminated on the top of the approaching vehicle. I almost stepped out from cover to flag it down before I noticed the corpse crucified across the hood.
The vehicle slowed and came to a stop. It sat there, running for a full minute before the driver’s and passenger doors swung open and two rough-looking men stepped out. I retreated back to the GARMR and commanded it to follow me back, deeper into cover. The machine and I relocated to a position two hundred meters up the road from the armored vehicle before I poked my head back out to see what the men were up to. The rotating blue lights were still on and the vehicle still sat parked. After a few minutes, one man broke from cover within twenty meters of where I was concealed. From my position, I could easily make out the conversation.
“Tracks end here. Some sort of dog,” said a man with a red beard.
“That wasn’t no dog. It was somethin’ else,” replied a voice coming from somewhere nearby.
The second man stepped out from cover. He was tall, well over six feet, and wore a dirty Hawaiian shirt over body armor.
“I thought I saw someone else. Might have been one of those things, though,” said Red Beard.
“We need some goddamned ammo. You should have took the shot,” said the other man.
My heart began to thump, making me squeeze my carbine so hard, I thought I might crush the grip.
“Yeah, but—knowing my luck—it would just be another one of those fuckin’ pussers. Why waste more bullets.”
“I don’t give a shit—we need ammo and chances are, if someone’s out here somewhere, they have it. That, and food. Next time, you shoot. If they survive, they’ll talk.”
The men turned their back to me and began walking the two hundred meters or so back to the armored vehicle. Although I was dealing with psychopaths, I just couldn’t make myself shoot a living person in the back, not after all the death I’d seen and had to deal out. The two continued to banter until a couple dozen undead flowed out into the street between them and their vehicle.
For a moment, I thought my problem would be solved.
Just as the mob was about to close in on Red Beard and Parrot Shirt, the hatch on the armored vehicle clanged open and a third person, a woman, rose out with a machine gun, quickly mounting it to the roof. The group sprinted and jumped into the grass as the gun began to bark rounds at the mass of creatures. I got low as the shots ricocheted in my direction with a whiz, shattering storefront glass and thumping loudly into cars. One of the rounds tagged a parking meter, exploding change onto the street like confetti. The gunfire only lasted maybe fifteen seconds.
Risking a glance out into the street, I could see the bewildered men stumble toward their ride.
“Hurry the fuck up—that’s gonna bring the city on top of us!” she screamed from atop the armored car.
The two men increased the pace, dodging the remaining undead before reaching the vehicle. Two car doors slammed and they executed a three-point turn, speeding back in my direction. I remained low as they approached. As the vehicle passed by, I watched the crucified corpse on the hood swing its head from side to side and snap its jaws. Its legs were long worn to stumps by the friction from being dragged along in front of the vehicle. There could be no mistake—the driver had terror in his eyes when he sped past me down the road, back from wherever he’d come. As the vehicle escaped, the gunner again squeezed the trigger, sawing across the remaining undead at chest level, knocking them to the ground.
I had little time to prepare. A great chorus of moans now echoed through the streets.
“Checkers, follow,” I commanded before sprinting from cover to a nearby alley.
• • •
Once in the alley, with the GARMR not far behind, I risked a glance over my shoulder. The streets filled with the undead, attracted by the loud machine-gun fire from just moments ago. Glass shattered like pressure relief valves from untold hordes leaving buildings, agitated by the artificial noise. Although I’d never experienced it firsthand, I felt as if I was in a great draw in the dusty Midwest and a flash flood was nearly upon me; I just had no clue as to what direction this deluge of undead would come from.
Taking a chance, I rounded the corner and saw a vine-covered fountain ahead in the middle of a park. I ran to the fountain, ignoring the splintering doors and shattering glass all around me. To the east, not far from my target building, was a hotel. Waiting would mean suicide, so I fled toward possible safety with every burst of twitch energy I had.
Over my shoulder, a dozen undead were locked onto my movement and began their pursuit. The sight of the growing mob shot adrenaline through my system, pumping my legs faster and with more resolve. My pack and gun bounced painfully all over my front and back. My rifle’s stock struck my chin hard; I checked it with my right hand and my fingers were covered in blood. I slung the rifle over my head across my pack and just kept running, applying pressure to my chin as I did so. The closest door to the hotel was a side entrance. The undead, now numbering a couple dozen, were about a hundred meters back but closing fast. The weeds and brushes all around them shook, prompting birds to take flight in protest.
I slammed into the door and pushed the thumb latch to open.
Locked.
Without thinking, I ran to the GARMR and retrieved the drill from its saddlebag and inserted the largest bit in the set. At the door, I rammed the bit into the lock and squeezed the trigger. The drill tore through the softer metal
and began to churn up the tumbler inside.
The undead were at about fifty meters.
I overzealously drove the bit into the lock at multiple angles to be sure to tear up anything that would hold the locking mechanism in place. Using the still bit, I canted the driver, releasing the lever inside the lock, and pulled the door outward.
The undead were almost on top of me when I met the GARMR to corral it inside the hotel. The smell of decay inside was overwhelming. I shot one of the creatures in the face and kicked it back into the group behind it before slamming the door shut and heading for the nearby stair access.
The GARMR had to slow down to climb the stairs, but it handled them a lot better than I thought. Its artificial feet were loud inside the enclosed stairwell. The creatures rampaged outside the side door on the first floor, slamming their bony arms into the metal door. I didn’t think it would hold too long, not after I disintegrated the lock internals to gain access. The GARMR and I were on the second floor outside the door leading to the guest rooms. It was dark in the hallway, so I put on my NOD and peered through the vertical rectangular door window.
The door shook as a corpse smashed its face into the glass from the other side. Jesus. I checked my drawers before putting the muzzle of my suppressor up to the glass and ending the thing. The shot boomed in the stairwell; I could hear a door bang open from above and something tumble down the stairs.
I opened the door and walked over the corpse I’d just shot. The GARMR followed, stumbling over the body but quickly gaining its footing. I secured some cordage around the horizontal bar to an adjacent door handle. It would stop one or two, but not the mob outside. The hallway went on for quite a distance and broke off halfway down at the elevator access. I suspected the hotel was shaped like an H from above, based on what I saw on the outside as I approached the building. There was likely a whole other wing beyond the elevators.
I checked the locks on the first six doors as I advanced down the hallway in the direction of the elevators.
All locked.
I didn’t know how centrally controlled electronic locks worked, but I assumed that they reverted to their locked state in the absence of power. It didn’t take long to give a door the drill treatment. The guest room locks were flimsy compared to the metal door below. I was inside in less than thirty seconds. I checked the hallway once more before the GARMR and I ducked into the guest room and closed the door.
I swung the door’s steel security latch over, providing relative safety for the time being. A small sliver of light illuminated the area. Satisfied that nothing inside wanted to eat me, I led the pseudo-radioactive GARMR into the bathroom, put it in standby mode, and closed it off from the rest of the room.
Shaking from adrenaline, I stood quietly for a moment before catching sight of myself in the mirror. My chin had stopped bleeding, but the front of my shirt was splotched with blood. In the room’s low light, I resembled one of them. Looking away from the train wreck in the mirror, I diverted my attention to the dimly lit room.
Aside from the dust, the place was in pristine condition. The tightly made bed was inviting. The refrigerator was stocked with warm beer, and small bottles of alcohol sat atop the bar on a tray along with stale packages of potato chips and other snacks. I risked a glance outside the curtains and saw a hundred undead spaced almost evenly in the fountain park I’d run through on my way here. If I closed my eyes and slowed my heart rate, I could still hear the faint thumps of them trying to gain access below. But as far as I could see, the hotel was not surrounded.
While studying my situation outside, I heard another round of machine-gun fire. With my second-floor vantage, I observed the undead react like a flock of birds in formation flight. Nearly simultaneously, they changed direction and moved toward the source of the noise somewhere in the distance. It was freaky to behold. Below my window, I watched the corpses that amassed outside the side door peel off and join the horde in search of the gunfire.
I dropped my pack and collapsed on the bed, smiling at the luck brought on by the sheer stupidity of other men.
• • •
I lay in the dusty bed until after nightfall, unaware of the actual time. I don’t remember closing my eyes, and when my senses returned, they were still open. A sliver of bright moonlight shone through the curtains. I stared at the ceiling and the metallic sprinkler, barely noticing a sign below it that probably warned guests not to hang their clothes on it. My bones and muscles ached when I stood up. Without thinking, I went to the bathroom and tripped over the GARMR before lifting the lid and emptying my bladder into the dry toilet. The tank was bone-dry when I tried to flush. In the darkness of the bathroom, I could see a dim green LED status light blinking somewhere inside the GARMR.
I took the time to draw the curtains tight and lit a small candle. If those bandits had night vision, they’d pick the candlelight out from across the city through an open window. I sipped on a small can of soup concentrate and drank a bottle of water, then checked out the tall building across the way that was about to block out the moon. There were some undead outside the window, but a fraction of what was there earlier before the gunshots rang out. With the undead dispersed, I decided it was time to make my move.
I was down to only four magazines full of subsonic ammunition. Finding 300 Blackout ammo somewhere out here in the ruins would be nearly impossible. I had hundreds of rounds of scavenged .22LR remaining, but I didn’t want my survival coming down to a .22 pistol. I topped off my carbine mag and placed two precious full magazines on my belt in their Kydex holster. I put the last one in the outside pocket of my pack, hoping I’d never need to reach for it. With my pack organized, I woke up the GARMR and stood by the guest room door for a few seconds before disengaging the steel lock, slipping on my NOD, and stepping out into the hallway.
The smell of rotten flesh hit me like before; I ignored it and went back for the stairwell, stepping over the creature I’d shot, and peeked through the vertical window. I could hear something moving somewhere down the hall, perhaps trying to get by a cleaning cart.
With the stair platform clear, I slowly clicked the door bar and stepped inside the stairwell. The GARMR slowly negotiated the stairs as I made for the first floor. Nearing the bottom, I had to pull my knife to dispatch one of them coming up the stairs. I kicked it hard in the chest, throwing it backward into the wall and onto the ground. With full force, I stomped down on its orbital socket with a loud crunch. I repeated that until it stopped moving; I stood out of breath by the door leading to the first-floor hallway.
I barreled through the door, seeing three of them turn down the hall and head in my direction. It was pitch-black and they bounced off the walls like pinballs, gravitating to the noise of my escape. I held the door open for my mechanical companion and ran out the side door into the tall grass outside.
The side door closed automatically but the undead were soon upon it, pleading for it to open with their thumps and moans. I stayed low, below the grass, and crawled away nearly on hand and foot. I prayed that I wouldn’t run into the legs of one of them out there in the night. I was out of breath and sweating profusely when I looked back at the hotel. The undead were congregating around the side door, unaware that I was already long gone. Looking ahead, I realized that I stood in the long moon shadow of my objective.
The small courtyard was empty in front of the tall building, so I ran for the front revolving door. Only a bloody piece of rope outside kept the spinning door from giving entrance to the building. I gave the rope a swipe with my knife and stepped inside, pushing my way to the other side. The GARMR looked at the revolving door for a moment before stepping in as well, allowing me to turn the door so it could follow. The rope I’d cut reminded me to do the same, so I threaded two heavy-duty zip ties together and secured the door to a handrail inside.
I passed the brass door elevators on my right, wishing that they were in service. The buttons told me that the building had twenty-two floors, not counting the ba
sement levels. It was going to be a fucking beast of climb. See you at the top, Zig.
Before finding the stairwell, I nearly ran into the architectural model of the building I was currently occupying and read the brass plaque attached to the front of the case: Florida State Capitol Building.
“That figures,” I said aloud to myself.
I was actually dumb enough to pick the state capitol building as my communications relay high ground. Of all the buildings to choose, this one would have probably been the most fortified, and occupied when the dead began to walk.
The mockup in front of me was a detailed exterior model of this structure, as well as the old capitol building oriented to the building’s east. I shook my head, hoping for the best before stepping into the stairwell that hopefully would take me to the top.
The smell of rot was incredible, even worse than the hotel. I put the GARMR on standby and took the drill out of its saddlebag. Thank God for night vision. I found an old bloodstained shirt in the corner of the stairwell and covered the machine’s chassis before abandoning it for the duration of my climb. The wind was blowing in gusts outside, causing something inside the great structure to creak. I passed by the fifth floor, blown away by the number of skeletons and mostly decomposed corpses on the stairs. I had to skirt around heaping piles of bones and parts; flies and maggots still infested them, squirming under the IR illuminator from my NOD.
I made for the sixth floor and nearly fell through the steps. Someone had crudely taken out the stairs leading up to the next platform. Blast patterns on the concrete and steel indicated shaped charges. If I hadn’t been using night vision, I’d have probably broken my neck, or at best my leg, in the fall. I grabbed the metal handrail and edged across the chasm to the next available step. It checked good with some weight, so I stepped onto the metal-reinforced concrete and was on the sixth-floor stairwell.