***
Max wakes with a jolt, his body still in fight mode. He is flat on his back and staring hazily up at the spider’s web of pipes obscuring the ceiling. ‘What the hell just happened?’ the last thing he can remember is turning around and coming face to face with the oversized and underestimated hulk. He blinks and feels something sticky matting his lashes. He sits bolt upright and gathers a fistful of his shirt to wipe it away. When he pulls his shirt back from his face to investigate the tacky substance, he finds a copious smear of blood. Out of fear of infection, he performs a hurried inspection of his face as well as the rest of his body. He releases a sigh of relief with the realization that he is still fully intact and –aside from a splitting headache and possibly bruised rib- uninjured.
With his eye free of obstruction and his self-diagnosis complete, Max allows his view to widen and eyes to adjust to the dim glow dripping into the shop through panes of jagged broken glass. The abstract shards throw translucent shadows of mountains across the room. Max scans the range and to his dreadful amazement discovers it populated with the bloody remains of his fellow captives. The head of the thin forlorn father from his neighborhood lie severed with eyes open and still wet from tears. His expression almost seemed to be that of a man who has found peace at long last. Max turns his face away from the spectacle only to be met by far worse. The remnants of the hulk are folded at Max’s feet like an offering of fresh towels in the morning. His body is bent unnaturally backward at the waist and his twisted lower jaw lay upon his chest. The top half of the man’s head is a dimpled mass with two eyes staring off in the opposite direction away from their body. They appear either unwilling or unable to take in the visage of their own bloody ruin.
Max scoots backward and away from the broken gift and scrambles to his feet –headache be damned. He does a three-sixty to verify that no danger is immanent and then takes a moment to drink-in the carnage of the room. Every single person lies dead –most dismembered- throughout the room, except for him. If the biters had broken through and lay waste to the other occupants, why had he been spared? He catches another glimpse of the big man and the way he had been presented at his unconscious feet like a sacrifice of sorts. Then he pans around the room again and takes note of the contrast. Every other victim is no longer complete. One piece or another has been amputated from every single victim in the room. Realization does a queasy back-flip in Max’s stomach, ‘The freeway-man’.
***
Brooke enters the small black hole of space and clears the doorway for the others that it sucks in behind her. The room is already occupied by shelves lined up in rows running from front to back that are filled from floor to ceiling with shoeboxes of various colors and stamped with a variety of logos. The room fills quickly and Brooke knows if an outlet isn’t found or created posthaste then the room will truly live up to its black hole moniker, as they will be crushed under the stampede of panic.
With only sporadic light flickering through the open door during rare breaks in the flow or refugees, Brooke is finding it difficult to maneuver through the room. The shelves loom in the darkness like tall spires stretching into the heavens and surveying every move she makes. Brooke feels along the walls immediately on either side of the door for a light switch. In her frantic search, she snags a nail in the wall bracket of a fire extinguisher. She has always kept her nails relatively short to facilitate easy cleanup after tending to her beloved houseplants. In this case however, the lack of nail length made for a more severe mishap than she would have suffered otherwise. The short nail of her right index finger is broken and dangling by a thin remainder of cuticle. She winces from the pain but dares not cry out for fear of attracting the wrong sort, the sort that rather feed upon the small trickle of blood that now oozes from her fingertip instead of bandaging it.
Despite her pain she continues to cascade her hands up and down the wall until finally, “Got it!” she exclaims and flips the switch upward.
The room is instantly bathed in a cool yellow haze of incandescent salvation. She takes a quick inventory of her surroundings and does her best to memorize a route free of obstacles that will lead her to the rear door of the area. The room continues to crowd with panicky aliens as they continue to cross the border from the ballistic badlands to the greener grass of trample hill. The narrow center aisle quickly fills beyond capacity causing some of the women to retreat vertically. Some climb the shelves while others rush the hallway access door like an angry mob. Two ladies that were clinging to each other for both emotional and physical support are knocked sideways and wind up under the feet of the frenzied mob. The two ladies scream for their lives and an uncaring heel to the abdomen causing a temporary shortness of breath periodically interrupts their cries.
Brooke sees the two women being slowly stomped to death and tries to weave her way to their rescue. More and more women rush up the shelves of the center aisle in an attempt to avoid the same fate. They push closer and closer to the top as likeminded newcomers replace their lower positions. Brooke pushes her way through and is just about in reach of the first of the downed women when the sound of rumbling fades in from below.
A slight jolt is felt just before a female voice cries, “Aftershock!”
The room explodes into a cacophony of flying boxes and ladies’ shoes. The metallic creak of twisting metal, like a bridge on the verge of collapse, induces an exodus from the surrounding area like so many rats from a drowning ship. The shelf that was designed only to support the relatively light weight of ladies’ shoes is buckling under the thousands of pounds of strain that was thrust upon it and compounded by the wrenching affects of the after shock. The temblor knocks many off of their feet. Brooke only has time for a backward lean before the racks of shoes and unsuspecting women alike come crashing down on the heads of the captive mob, shattering the single ceiling fixture and bathing the room in midnight.
The lucky ones are pelted by shoes and cardboard that’s comparatively softer than the free falling females, disconnected metal braces and splintered plywood that strike, break, crush, impale and lacerate most. With the exceptions of painful groans and the settling of debris, the room goes deadly silent as a cascading shock takes hold. In this brief gap in sound, the approaching screams of the newly infected rise to a fever pitch. Pandemonium erupts once more in the small room that now promises to serve as a crypt for its occupants. Helpless yelps join hopeless screams as a new mob scrambles across the interwoven mix of women, shelves, steel and blood in a mad dash for the rear door.
***
After tucking and holding for the mid-size aftershock, Vinny searches the large maintenance room for a makeshift weapon, anything to stave off the attacker outside the door. The room is fitted with shelves that are filled with buckets and bottles of various chemicals. ‘If Max was here he could probably make a bomb out of this stuff.’ He quickly moves beyond the shelves and locates an alcove with multiple rolling buckets and mops. Although disappointed that the maintenance men in the mall have apparently had no need for assault rifles he decides that a mop handle is better than nothing. He picks the sturdiest of the bunch and unscrews it from its base. During this entire process, he has been listening for the biter from the hall, in expectation that it would appear at any moment. He is guiltily pleased that the biter is taking its time with the unlucky soldier and affording him some much-needed time to gather himself.
Weapon in hand, Vinny heads to the forward door of the maintenance room. He doesn’t dare another trip through the back halls that are now occupied by at least one infected and in a short while possibly two. The space was too confined for flight from an attacker and the sheer number of locked doors reminded Vinny of the absolute death of a roach motel, ‘we check-in but we don’t checkout’. He reaches the door and notices that the knob has a key lock on the inside –probably a precaution to keep the youngish crowd that frequented the mall from locking themselves in and doing what comes naturally. Vinny switches the mop handle to his left hand,
and reaches out with his right to give the doorknob a gentle wiggle. If the wrong sort were to see or hear the moving handle from the other side of the door then this would truly be the last knob he cranked. This double entendre causes Vinny to laugh aloud and he immediately slaps his right hand over his mouth while cursing his good sense of humor. He reaches for the knob again –this time intending to crack the door slightly and take a quick peek. Just as his hand grabs hold, the door launches inward causing him to stumble backward and off of his feet. The long, inadequate, wooden pole -his sole means of defense- is flung from his left hand as he lands hard on his rear and it skids across the floor. The backlighting from the mall silhouettes three civilians, shoeless and in tattered clothing, standing silhouetted in the doorway. Their yellow eyes burn like beacons, reaching out into the darkness of the storage room and piercing Vinny down to his very marrow.
***
Max gingerly works his way to the back door of the room while doing his best to not step in anything that was once attached to someone. He finds the door smeared and hand printed with a mix of blood and what smelled like vomit. It looks as though the few that made it to the back of the store had tried in desperation to beat the steel door down with their hands. At least one of them had purged himself here, whether out of fear of disembowelment or the putrid smell of the same Max does not know. The door is not only locked but a beefy deadbolt inserts neatly into a metal frame. The room is barren save the scattered and heaped body parts throughout. Unless he intends to ram the door down with a bloodied femur, or pick the lock with a dried length of tendon, he will have to leave via the front door. Venturing out into the open mall with no promise of cover or escape seems to Max like a death-march, ‘Dead man walking,’ springs into his mind as he reluctantly takes a step in that direction.
As he winds his way back through the obstacle course of the recently dismembered, a cold understanding washes over him like skinny dipping in a frozen lake, ‘no one turned.’ Not one of his cellmates had turned into one of the blood-drinkers, and that was exactly what the freeway-man had intended. Initially Max had thought the rampage to be an act of a crazed maniac, merely playing out its most carnal animalistic desires. He now recognizes the cold calculating move for what it is. With one foot, Max nudges a disenfranchised torso –no arms or legs and only a piece of lower jaw remained- just enough to roll it onto its back. He studies the neck and nods when he verifies what he expected to find. The neck has been ravaged by a wolf-like bite mark but the amount of blood inside the bite is negligible. This man was dead prior to being bitten. His limbs were torn from him while he still had breath enough to scream out in horror at their subtraction. Max hasn’t the stomach to check additional trunks for similar signs and satisfies himself with the evidence he has already found. For the first time, Max understands that it will not be enough to survive the hordes of vampiric infected, he now must also contend with an adversary of unbelievable strength, quickness and cunning that kills not just to satisfy a voracious appetite but merely for the sport of it. “Johnny Buckets,” Max speaks the name out loud as the image of the freeway-man’s face clears in his mind.
Max has been an avid follower and practitioner of mixed martial arts since a very young age, his father had insisted upon it since he expected Max to follow in his footsteps and become his muscle as he got older. Aside from constant training, Max was encouraged to watch matches both live and televised. Jonathon Brentley -a.k.a. Johnny Buckets- was given that moniker due to the number of buckets required to clean up the matt after he had brutalized one of his opponents. Unlike most fighters, who were constantly looking for the quick knockout or submission, Johnny Buckets would draw his fights out to the last possible second of the final round before finishing his opponents. He would beat them mercilessly but never enough at once to cause the referee to intervene and call a stop to the bout, and never so much that the other fighter was no longer able to at least give the appearance that he could continue. He fought not for titles –though he won many- but for the pain and punishment that he inflicted on others. His method of drawing out all of his fights was quite unpopular with fans and detractors of the sport alike -the former calling for him to be banned from competition and the latter using him as a poster child for why the entire sport should be banned altogether. Eventually, the fans won but not before Johnny Buckets ended the careers of several veterans and a score of promising up-and-comers in the sport.
A man like Jonathon Brentley -who was already a soulless sadistic destroyer of those who are widely considered the most formidable men on the planet- given the unbridled abilities of the infection, is more dangerous and deadly than any horde of common infected. He is a well-trained highly motivated reaper of men. This night is his latest bout, and Max his newest opponent, he would draw out his demise until Max could take no more and finish him with a flourish and cheers from the crowd.
Max’s cellmates were dismembered first and drained second specifically to retard the spread of the virus to someone who might victimize Max while he lay unconscious. Johnny Buckets apparently preferred Max in his current state –whole and uninfected. The giant neatly folded at Max’s waking feet was not only a gift but also a demonstration of how easily Johnny dealt with a man with whom Max had been unable to defeat. It was a challenge to Max that said, ‘Time to pick up your game or next time I’ll make you into origami.’ He had already failed his mother and now Big Mama; Max would not allow this sadist’s fascination with him to further jeopardize those few loved ones that remain around him. If once more given the opportunity he had on the overpass, he will not let go, he will ride him all the way down to the pavement and let his own shattering two-hundred pound frame drive through that of the freeway-man finishing him once and for all.
With new vigilance of purpose, Max hurries to the front door and kneels next to the pallid corpse of Cpl Steward. After a brief pause and reflection, he liberates him of his M16A1 rifle, 9mm sidearm, extra ammunition and boots. He doubts that leaving them was an oversight by the freeway-man. It was more than likely an attempt to give Max the tools necessary to win his freedom from the roving infected inside the mall. Max’s father frequently told him, ‘Never look a gift horse in the mouth,’ as a child Max misunderstood the meaning of the idiom to be; when unsolicited good fortune finds you, don’t ask where it came from. Max -now an adult- grasps not only the correct intended meaning but also the literal meaning of the statement. Literally, if someone gifts you a horse then you shouldn’t open its mouth to check its dental condition or age. Just say, thank you and accept the gift graciously. Figuratively the statement meant simply to be gracious in life. Either way, Max will take the weapons and he will be sure to thank Johnny Buckets later, both thoroughly and in person.
***
For the freeway-man’s updated plan to succeed he knew he would have to aid in the escape and temporary survival of his prey. He considers it unfortunate that the best opposition he can find is in need of his assistance merely to survive until their main event, but until more worthy entertainment comes along, he will allow them to play their parts in his game. And then there was that sweet aroma that stained his memory with the delectable promise of sensual liquor to consider as well. He couldn’t very well let another of his breed harvest the pollen of Brooke’s flower that was meant for only him. As he had previously promised, he would consume her life in the light while Max watched impotently from the shadows. He would break him, but allow him enough life force to keep his hope intact, and then he would ravage Brooke in every sense of the word. He would rob her of her virtue as well as her confidence and spirit before he took her life… or turned her. Once Max had relinquished the modicum of hope allowed to him and begged for his own death to the freeway-man’s satisfaction, he would accept Max’s white flag of surrender as he imbibed his strength, force of will, and the very essence of what makes Max the man that he is. Max would offer his throat to him while his carotid artery bulged from a heart that hammered with a harried mix of fear
and anguish. The crimson solution that spurts from his neck will give the freeway-man more power than any man, whether they be the un-evolved masses or a demigod such as he.
He can sense that Brooke is close now, nearly close enough to taste. The main hall of the mall outside of Brooke’s holding room is awash with the bodies of soldiers and infected alike. Though the number of infected is less than that of the soldiers the battle still rages throughout the mall. However, the freeway-man’s minions are doing exactly as had hoped –keeping the guardsmen busy while he executes his plan. The infected may be small in number but they are quickly turning that around. As they fight, maim and feed, they leave most bodies intact enough to turn in short order and swell their rising ranks. Minute by minute another fresh warrior for the infected rises to join the fight. The familiar and once friendly faces of the turncoats have the added advantage of demoralizing those they prey upon and sapping their will to press onward. It can be quite difficult to fight the good fight when the comrade that only minutes ago fought by your side is now ripping a chunk out of it instead.
The freeway-man detours around the fight and through a locked door that gains him access to one of the interior alleys that encircle the shops of the mall. The lock on the door is light and insignificant since the hidden hallway itself guards nothing of value. Every individual shop that accesses the hall has its own secured door to protect its valuables within.
As soon as he is out of the main hall and into the relative hush of the back corridor, familiar sounds of helplessness can be heard quite clearly. The freeway-man follows the high-pitched screams of suffering and shouts of despair to a solid door that trembles in its frame as a multitude of hands beat desperately upon it from the other side. He presses his left cheek to the door and listens. The room beyond the door is positively pressurized with the fragrance of fear. The scent -as well as the sounds from within- intoxicates him near ecstasy.
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