I could probably cut them all down if I wanted to, but for some reason I just stand there, watching them tramp by me like rush hour office-dwellers on their way to work.
I begin to tell myself to stay cool, to not panic, but then the realization comes over me. I’m no longer afraid of them.
I have no idea why, but after blinking to clear my vision I nod at the Dubs gathered before me and they seem to nod back.
A few spot the markings on my cheek which appear to have some sort of significance to them because they scent me, but don’t attack. Gus clucks his tongue and they respond and peer at the ground which is speckled red. Gus always said the old fierce pull of blood was strong and he was right. The Dubs follow the faint blood-trail, tracking after Matthais, vanishing into the din.
And then it’s just me and Gus again.
“I came back for you,” I say to him. “I want you to – they tried to kill me, but I came back for you.”
His eyes blink and he mouths something that I can’t understand.
“I let the dogs go and I think they made it out. I’ve got Zeus down the hall,” I say, pointing, “he’s with Brixton and Del Frisco and Naia and … you can come … I’ll talk to the others and you – if you want you can come with us.”
A tear rolls down Gus’s cheek and he stares at his blood-smeared scalp and I know it’s impossible. As much as I wish it were otherwise, there’s no way Gus will ever leave this building again. In the distance I can hear Naia shouting for me.
“He’s still up there, Gus,” I say, ignoring her voice, angling a thumb at the ceiling. “Odin is directing things and trying to hold onto power. He wanted to bring the building down.”
Gus’s jaw tightens, his black-painted teeth rubbing together. I can hear his joints crack as he grips his scalp. Something passes between us and I know that Gus is exactly where he needs to be. He’s been blamed, mocked, cast out, and murdered. And now, newly resurrected, the lamb has returned as a lion to set things right.
His hand finds mine and the flesh is surprisingly warm. He squeezes my fingers and I nod and then there’s a soft patter as Zeus emerges out of the smoke. The dog is covered in dust and stops, looking between me and Gus. And then Zeus trots up and sniffs Gus and I kid you not, his tail starts wagging. I can’t be sure but I think I see what might be a smile tug back the corner’s of Gus’s mouth and then he lumbers off, looking somehow battle hardened as he melts into the smoke, following his new comrades to the upper floors.
Turning from this, I look at the ground and notice Dad’s old flip-style cellphone on the ground. It must have fallen there when Gus ripped Matthais’s hip belt off. I grab the phone and walk with Zeus at my side, the two of us picking our through the debris and dust and after several moments, the barrel of a gun held by Brixton points at me. The fact that I’m bleeding in several places causes Brixton to eye me warily.
“You get punctured?”
I shake my head.
“Where’d you get the boom-stick from?” he says, gesturing to the gun in my right hand.
“I took it from Matthais.”
Brixton smiles.
“In your dreams, Jumper.”
He lowers his gun and I follow around several corners and through an alcove to see Naia, Del Frisco, and the others. They’re fronting the open doors on the rear freight elevator.
“Hope you brought your climbing shoes, Wy,” Del Frisco says.
The back-up lights provide just enough illumination for me to see the thick cable running down the middle of the elevator shaft—the only one that wasn’t pried out to make a tendril for The Dream Catcher.
I look into the hoistway and balk because it’s so far down, but there’s no other way. I jump and grab hold of the cable which is thankfully knurled every eight inches or so which allows me to maintain my grip while planting my feet.
“Will it hold?” Brixton asks.
“It better,” I reply, before looking at Del Frisco and Naia. “You guys okay?”
They both nod.
“Just keep your arms pressed to your sides and you’ll be good to go,” Del Frisco says.
I feel for solid ground with my feet and sensing nothing, keep hold of the metal rope and start the slow process of climbing down over the drive system.
My lat muscles burn, but I manage to take the pressure off by resting my feet on the metal knurls and then the rails, the metal tracks that would normally be guiding the “car,” the elevator box that people used to ride up and down in.
The farther down we go, the colder the cable grows. It’s icy and frayed so that the jagged metal slices and dices my hands, blood mixing with the cable’s oil to form a greasy residue that I warn the others about. I gape up to see them, eerily silhouetted above me against the red light. Brixton’s holding onto the cable while simultaneously clutching Zeus who’s whining and panting.
We can hear the sounds of the battle raging through the walls.
Screams, mostly from the Dubs, followed by errant gunshots and explosions.
“Do you think they got Odin?” I ask.
“Don’t ever count that bastard out,” Brixton replies.
At that moment, Odin’s voice rings out of some unseen speaker. There’s desolation in his words as he rambles and shouts nonsensical things about empowering people and thinking outside of boxes and finding core competencies.
“All civilization is centralization!” he says. “All centralization is economy!”
I peer through a section of grating on the far wall, looking over stretch of hallway that is littered with trash and mummified Dub bodies. I instantly recognize it as a corridor in the old building, one of the floors below the Keep down on ten.
“We’re close,” I say.
I swing out and kick the grating in and then worm my way in through the opening, hopping over the bodies of the long-dead Dubs.
I lean against a stairwell door and ease it open and read the neon lettering spray-painted on a bare wall. We’re on the sixth floor.
“We’ve got to go down one more floor,” I whisper, the others tensing.
We slip down the stairwell, covering our mouths, the air a stomach-churning combination of mold and decaying flesh from the dead Dubs who lie where they fell on the cement steps.
I’m a few feet from the door at the bottom landing when Del Frisco calls out:
“Hey, Wyatt?”
“Yeah?”
“Who’s got the keys, man?” he says.
Everyone stops on a dime and I slowly look back.
“Come again?”
“It’s a motor vehicle of some kind we’re after, right?”
I nod.
“So I’m guessing it probably needs keys to run.”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“So … who’s got ‘em?”
I shake my head and cast a glance at Brixton who sports the same look as me. Neither of us thought about this.
“I’ve got the keys right here, boys,” Naia says, holding up her hands. “Just get me in the thing and I’ll get it started.”
We share a smile and then I pivot back and push open the door and—
—A hail of gunfire nearly rips my head off!
I drop to the ground as the door is punctured by a flurry of well-placed shots. Brixton snake-crawls past the others and then fights to peer around the corner before more gunfire rings out.
“Two, maybe three shooters,” he says.
“Can we take them?”
“Lots of open ground out there,” he says.
Someone whistles and our eyes pan over to see Asian Phil holding one of the dead Dubs up. The thing’s head flops to one side and its blue and black-bloated belly sags like a deflated balloon, oozing through a tear in the pants it was wearing when it crossed over.
“What the hell are you doing?” Brixton says.
Asian Phil studies the Dub and smirks.
“Repurposing,” he says.
Brixton and Donkey examine the Dub bodies and
grab two of the biggest, widest specimens as I’m handed a machine-pistol.
“You’re overwatch now,” Asian Phil says.
The three move forward and crouch near the open door. We can hear the muted voices of the men down the hall, waiting patiently for us to make a move.
Brixton closes his eyes and soundlessly counts to three and then—
He’s out into the hall, twirling around, the Dub held up like a shield as the corridor rattles with automatic weapons fire.
Bullets blow ragged holes in the Dub flesh, most rounds miraculously deadened by bone and dried tissue, a few exiting to thwack off the nearby walls.
The three men advance as I lean out and catch sight of the two men crouching at the other end of the hallway, shooting at us.
“Give us some cover, Wyatt, yeah?” Brixton says as I rise up and spray the hallway, moving my weapon side-to-side, the recoil stronger than I anticipated.
I don’t hit a single thing, but my shots cause enough confusion that the men turn and run.
Brixton shoots one of the fleeing men in the hamstring and down he goes. The rest of us roll up to the door with the biometric scanner as Brixton grabs the wounded man and drags him over.
“Put your hand up there,” he says to the wounded man, “put it on that pad before I hack it off and do the deed myself.”
The wounded man complies, his hand pressed to the pad on the door. A red light flashes green and a buzzer sounds and Donkey kicks the door down.
On the other side of the door lies the oversized bay and the immense machine that’s still positioned at the top of a ramp, facing the roll-up door.
“Look at that mother,” Del Frisco says, whistling, grinning as the wounded man gimps off.
We move as one down the ramp and then do a circuit of the mighty machine, admiring its bells and whistles.
Of course it’s locked which is why Brixton points at his machine-pistol (which I still hold) and says:
“Hand me my key.”
I toss the gun to him and he bashes a hole in the driver’s side window, reaches in and unlocks the door.
The interior looks industrial, lots of stainless steel and ruggedized, hand-formed plastic. The windshield appears to be at least an inch thick, the dashboard a long piece of chrome, five-point harnesses around each seat, and several gun-ports on either side through which weapons can be fired.
“That is one bad-ass, piece of vehicular divinity,” Del Frisco whispers.
Naia slithers across the driver’s seat and leans down and begins stripping wire and portions of the metal and plastic column that supports the metal wheel that is used to steer the machine.
Her hands move like someone dealing out cards, her fingers able to twirl certain colored-coded wires together, pinch small electrical boards apart.
She finishes by twisting two strands of copper wire together and then she taps a black floor pedal as the engine rumbles and races to life.
“How many little horses you think we got in this puppy?” Asian Phil asks.
“Enough to piss out us out of this fuckin’ city and more,” Brixton replies.
He motions to Naia.
“Step aside please.”
“Why is it that a man always feels the need to be behind the wheel? Is it a control thing?” Naia asks.
“Now is not the time to—”
“It’s a pretty simple question.”
“Me driving gives us the best chance of success.”
“How many passable roads are there out of the city?”
“Many.”
She makes a buzzer sound.
“You’re wrong. There’s one. Only one.”
“How do you know?”
“How do you think I got here?”
Naia taps her index finger against the machine’s exterior.
“I’m the only one who’s come in from the outside after the world ended. I’m the only one who knows the way across the freeway. I’m the only one who knows where most of the friggin’ mines are.”
“So what are you saying, little lady?”
“I’m saying it’s time to step aside, big man.”
A beat and then Brixton grins.
“Fine, yeah, but I’m definitely riding shotgun.”
We clamber in, me in the back next to Del Frisco and Asian Phil. We listen to the purr of the engine as Donkey stands outside near a weather-proof controller we hope will power the roll-up door.
“We ready?” Brixton says, leaning back from the front seat. “Because we’re in a bad patch here and once we bag out there’s no coming back.”
“Ain’t nothin’ to come back to, brother,” Del Frisco says. “Whatever was here once is dead.”
I nod and so do the others and then Brixton whistles to Donkey who slaps the controller (before climbing back into the rig) and up goes the roll-up door.
There’s several dozen Dubs milling around outside and we wait for Donkey to rejoin us and then Naia stands down on the gas and drives right at the Dubs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The machine pulps through the Dubs who fall under the tires in bunches. We grind over the dead and down a ramp, speeding through the bottom floors of VC1.
Packs of Dubs are visible up ahead, dropping out of the ceiling, appearing out of mechanical side doors.
Those that we don’t drive over are shot through the gun ports, the machine taking a turn, the reinforced front bumper swatting catching a handful of Dubs and smearing them against the sides of the building.
We drop straight down, headed toward a final roll-up door at the bottom of the ramp, the space here overrun by the Dubs.
Naia honks the horn and flashes her lights and the Dubs turn and squeal and she drives right into them.
We slam into the Dubs and blast out through the door, taking a hard right and then we speed over a median and onto the city’s main thoroughfare.
I glance back and see that some of the Dubs have opened the doors on the lower levels of VC1 to let their comrades in. The Dub invaders appear in a crazed state, sensing victory, rushing like a tide from every direction into the mother building, barnstorming in and heading (I hope) up to share in some terrible communion with Odin and his killers.
We’re forced to outrun the Dubs for three city blocks and then coast to a stop in a deserted section of the city. Donkey exits the machine, Raven drone and controller in hand, and runs a short distance before flinging the device into the air.
He synchs his controller and then re-enters our ride. Once inside he throws open his rucksack to reveal a small portable screen that he hooks to the controller by a thin, black cable. I look over Donkey’s shoulder as he powers the screen up to reveal black-and-white footage shot by the drone.
Naia drives off as me and Del Frisco watch, mesmerized by the images beamed back by the drone. We watch as the machine does a leisurely lap around various city blocks, flying over streets and alley-ways and between buildings we’ve climbed down and over and through before. It moves higher with every pass until the images are of the tops of the buildings.
Soon the summit of the Vertical City is visible, smoke pouring out of it. There are figures scrambling out of doors and flashes from weapons can be seen. There appears to be a last stand of some kind being waged on the roof.
The drone dips down and Odin is clearly visible on the wide plaza of cement that adorns the top of the building.
He has his finest clothes on, his hands outstretched, ordering his loyal guards and the Prowlers that remain to fire at the approaching Dubs.
Odin’s forces shoot down several rows of the ghouls and are then overwhelmed by the advancing horde of the undead.
Odin doesn’t fight back, choosing instead to flee toward a pole where the city’s flag still flutters.
He’s grabbed halfway there and pulled to the ground by one of the Dubs.
The drone drops low a final time until its flight path appears to be only a few feet over the heads of those gathered on the top of VC1
.
Gus and Odin and the others seem almost close enough to touch. Gus wraps his arms around Odin who punches and kicks at him.
Gus lifts Odin up, peering at the former leader as if he was a specimen in a science experiment.
I plan to look away when Gus tears into Odin’s flesh and then something unexpected happens. Gus holds Odin tight to his chest in a kind of embrace. And then he moves haltingly through the rows of Dubs that step aside, giving him a wide berth to the edge of the building.
Odin bucks and flails his arms and then Gus holds Odin up for the other Dubs to see. The man who ruled everything for as long as most of us can remember stares right into the drone’s lens and if he’s astonished by what’s happening, he doesn’t show it. His face has gone blank as Gus lifts him a final time. Lifts him like a sacrificial offering and hurls him off the building’s roof.
Del Frisco and I share a look, we can’t really believe what we’ve seen, and then we turn back to watch Gus trudge over to the flag pole. He grabs the rope that holds the flag and pulls it down and turns, the flag fluttering in his hands. And then he holds the flag up to the other Dubs and they seem to cheer as one as the drone flies behind another building and footage flickers and turns to snow.
“It’s over,” I say to myself softly. “Jesus, it’s … it’s really over.”
Del Frisco nods and says, “VC1 got itself a new ruler now.”
My eyes drag over to catch Naia’s in the rearview mirror and I manage a smile as a sensation, some subtle vibration in the air, hits me.
I can feel the bullet before it impacts and then—
BOOM!
The rear windshield explodes in a hail of glass.
“THEY’RE COMING!” Naia screams and I duck and look back to see a collection of motorcycles pursuing us, the drivers leaning out and firing.
“Matthais!” Del Frisco shouts, “the sonofabitch ain’t crossed over yet!”
Naia drives evasively, swinging the wheel, gunning the machine down a sidestreet as Brixton tilts out of his window and fires back at the warpack, shouting:
“Keep your claws out and sharp!”
Naia floors the machine, driving through an area peppered with construction equipment, swerving through a small forest of abandoned road-building equipment as the motorcycles chase.
Vertical City (Book 4) Page 12