by Joe McKinney
“It’s boarded up tight,” she called to him.
“Can you get it open?”
“How?”
“Find something to pry it open.”
“With what?” she said.
“Anything, Kelly. It’s a fucking machine shop. There’s bound to be something. Stu, you guys figure it out.”
“It’s gonna take us a few minutes,” Stu said.
“Roger that,” Jacob said. “Just find a way. I’ll cover this.”
He turned back to the street. The main road ahead of him was already filling up with zombies. Too many to count, but it looked like at least a hundred of them. All of them fast movers. There were two smaller streets, more like alleys, like the one he was guarding, to his left, and three larger cross streets to his right. Most of the zombies were coming from that direction.
Jacob ejected the magazine from his gun and inspected it. It looked full. He had another magazine in his pocket that he’d loaded up back at Miriam’s lab, as well as Lester Brooks’s pistol tucked into the back of his pants. That gave him roughly two hundred and forty rounds. And there were more zombies pouring into the street with every passing second.
This was going to be tricky.
Because of the gun’s limited range, he had to wait for the zombies to get in close. With a handgun like this, long-range shots were a waste of ammunition. He wished he had his Ruger 10-22 again. With a rifle, he’d already be dropping the dead. But then, if it was as easy as wishing, he’d be back in Arbella with a couple of naked girls in his bed helping him to forget all about the rest of the world.
And of course, nothing was ever that easy.
He slapped the magazine back into the gun’s receiver, then stepped into the street and turned to face the nearest cluster of zombies.
He let two come right up on him before he fired.
Both sank to the pavement, only to make way for the ten behind them. He’d always been taught that the only way to survive an encounter with a large number of the undead was to move and shoot. Never stop moving. Stand still and you’d get overwhelmed in no time.
But Jacob didn’t have that luxury. He could fall back a little, but he couldn’t leave the natural choke point of the head of the alleyway. It was the only way to give Kelly and the others the time they needed and still keep as much control as he could over the course of the fight.
He readjusted his grip on the pistol and started firing. The head shots came easily when he was just dealing with small groups. Because he was getting the fastest zombies in the herd first, they were more spaced out, coming at him in smaller groups. He could pop one, adjust his aim on the next one, and gently squeeze off another shot. He was even able to glance over his shoulder and keep tabs on the three zombies closing in on him from the left.
Soon a berm of bodies formed around him, and the zombies closing in had to step through and over the obstacles.
That slowed them down a little, but not enough to keep up the easy pace.
Their numbers continued to swell, crowding into the street, and as the ring of broken and rotted faces closed tighter around him, his shots got sloppier.
Two zombies climbed over the mound of bodies and reached for him. Jacob landed two head shots, but a third zombie came up right behind them and closed the distance too quickly. Jacob shot her, but he only hit her left arm. The explosion severed the arm and spun her around, but it didn’t put her down, and when she came at him a second time, her face and hair were spattered with her own gore.
With her remaining arm she grabbed at his face. Jacob got the gun under her chin and fired, leaving another headless corpse.
Another zombie fell on him from the left, pulling his weapon off target just as he was about to fire. Jacob fumbled with the gun, but he was off balance, and when the zombie fell on him, arms flailing and teeth snapping, Jacob went down.
He rolled as soon as he hit the ground. The zombie came down on top of him, and as she opened her mouth to tear into him, Jacob got the fetid odor of rotting meat square in the face. He turned his head to one side and shoved the zombie, rolling in the same direction to get her off him. The zombie tumbled away and rolled into a forest of rotting legs. Jacob was still on his hands and knees, though, and had to crawl away, fighting the whole time to get back on his feet.
Turning, he found himself a few meters inside the alley. He redoubled his efforts, firing more for speed than accuracy. He burned through his last few rounds, ejected the empty magazine, and slapped in a new. He immediately went back to firing, putting as many rounds as he could into the crowd.
And then he felt hands at his back.
He let out a startled gasp and tried to spin away again, but a strong hand held him in place. “Give me the other gun,” Lester Brooks said.
Before Jacob could react, Brooks reached behind him and pulled the pistol himself. Brooks didn’t say another word. He just turned toward the street and started shooting one-handed into the crowd.
Jacob got shoulder to shoulder with Brooks, and between the two of them they managed to slow up the herd’s advance.
But they couldn’t stop it.
“How’s it going?” Jacob yelled over his shoulder.
“Almost there,” Kelly answered.
“Hurry it up!”
He checked the ammunition tracker on the side of the weapon’s receiver. Nine rounds left.
“I’m almost out,” he said to Brooks.
“Fall back then. I’ll cover you.”
Jacob took a few steps back. He went to the right side of the alleyway in order to open up a lane of fire that didn’t include Brooks and shot two more zombies.
“Go!” Brooks said. “I’m right behind you.”
From behind them, Kelly let out a cheer. “We got it, Jacob!”
“That’s the cue,” Brooks said.
Both men turned and sprinted down the alley, leaving the herd to push their way in behind them. Jacob reached the window that Kelly and the others had managed to pry open and started helping Chelsea, Miriam, and Juliette climb through. Kelly went next, then Stu. They both turned as soon as they were inside and helped Jacob get inside. Brooks got to them moments later.
Behind him, the alley was choked with the dead, and they were getting closer.
“Help me get him up here,” Jacob said.
He tossed his weapon aside and reached for Brooks. Stu got next to him, and together they grabbed Brooks and pulled him inside. The three of them landed in a heap on the floor.
“Get that board back in place!” Jacob yelled.
Kelly, Chelsea, and Juliette grabbed the handle on the inside of the plywood window covering and slid it back into its grooves on the windowsill just as the crowd reached the building.
Moans filled the air as the zombies sensed living meat just out of reach. They slapped on the walls and on the plywood covering the windows and doors, sending pounding echoes through the building.
CHAPTER 15
Jacob climbed to his feet. The ribs on his right side were screaming at him. He put a hand against them and tried to master the pain, but he felt like he was going to black out again. His vision turned soupy at the edges and he felt himself starting to drift.
But then he saw his gun on the floor at Lester Brooks’s feet and that cleared his head fast.
Brooks saw him looking at it, but said nothing.
“Give me my gun,” Jacob said.
“You’re still under arrest,” Brooks said.
“Oh my God,” Miriam said. “Are we really doing this again? Les, you can’t arrest him now. Those things are crawling all over the place out there.”
“I’m not putting a gun in his hand again. He’s a murderer.”
“I’m the murderer?” Jacob said. “You’re the one who sent those men after us in the first place.”
“I did?” Brooks said. “Mr. Carlton, I did nothing of the sort.”
“Liar.”
“You know, for a policeman, you sure throw around a l
ot of unsubstantiated accusations. That’s one of the reasons why we did away with your kind.”
“You honestly deny sending those men to kill us?” Chelsea said. “You tried to wreck my father’s reputation, and then you tried to kill me. How can you stand there and deny it?”
“I can deny it because I have never once raised a finger to hurt you, Chelsea. And, as for your father, well, he was a grown man who made his own decisions.”
“Liar!”
“Chelsea,” Miriam said. “Please. He’s right. You can’t go around saying stuff like that without proof. He’s a member of the Council.”
“That may be,” Jacob said, “but he’s not above the law. You want proof? Okay, all those techs down in the tunnel. They were gassed to death.”
“What are you talking about?” Brooks said. “Who was gassed?”
“The people down in the safe areas beneath the base,” Kelly said. “I examined several of them. None of them had any injuries, but they all showed signs of cyanosis around the mouth. They were asphyxiated by some sort of lethal gas.”
“That’s outrageous,” Brooks said. He tried to appear unflustered, but something had rattled him. “And even if that is the case, which I seriously doubt, maybe there was a gas leak somewhere. This is an old facility. A lot of things are falling apart.”
“I doubt it,” Kelly said.
“And this is proof somehow that I sent a mysterious group of mercenaries to have Chelsea killed? I don’t see how one thing connects to another, and frankly, if this is what passes for proof in your mind, Mr. Carlton, it’s little wonder you executed an innocent man.”
Jacob stiffened, but refused to take the bait. “When your men failed to kill her in Temple, you tracked us here. You knew where we’d be going, that Miriam was the only person who could help her. And at the same time, you had the people down in the tunnels gassed so that the reanimates would be waiting for us when we got off the train.”
Brooks shook his head. “I don’t even know where to begin. You’re crazy. All three of you.”
“And you, Dr. Brooks, are a fucking bastard. By the way, Dr. Sayers has read the contents of the notebooks you stole from us. What will you do with her now? Will you have her killed, or simply thrown in jail on more made-up charges?”
“That’s enough,” Miriam said. She turned to Chelsea. “Child, you and your friends are way off base here. Les didn’t kill anybody. He’s a good man.”
“He’s a monster!” Chelsea said. “Aunt Miriam, how can you defend him like this? He’s trying to ruin our family name.”
“No, child, he’s not.”
“There’s one other thing you haven’t heard yet,” Jacob said.
“I can’t wait,” Lester said.
“When we got off the train, we found the station’s defenses had been sabotaged. Key gates between the common areas and the concourse had been damaged.”
“Damaged how?”
“Nothing obvious. Gates were jammed. Locks not engaged. It was nothing that would show up later during inspections, but it was enough to allow the zombies down in the concourse to intercept us.”
Brooks scoffed at him. “These mercenaries you imagine me having at my beck and call, I suppose they were so fast and so talented that they were able to do all of this and still avoid the zombies down in the concourse. That’s a pretty impressive team of soldiers, Mr. Carlton.”
“Actually, no. They didn’t make it out without incident. While we were down there, we found five zombies that had been put down with bullets to the head.”
“That is the usual way to put down a zombie, I believe.”
“Yes, but these five were put down by bullets. I mean real bullets. Like from a rifle.”
“That’s not possible,” Miriam said. “There are no guns in Temple society.”
“Maybe not in the general population, but there are plenty onboard the aerofluyts. I know that for a fact. I’ve used them before. So, tell me, Dr. Brooks, if there are no guns here, then where did those come from?”
“I have no idea. How do I even know you’re telling the truth about any of this?”
Jacob shrugged. “If you ask me, it seems like you tried to cover all your bases. Between the zombies and the warrant you keep talking about, you probably figured Chelsea was done for. If the zombies didn’t kill her, you could always gag her with political corruption. Maybe that’s why your society got rid of cops, huh? Makes it easier to break the rules.”
“I think this has gone on long enough,” Brooks said.
Before Jacob had a chance to answer, one of the boards on the opposite side of the shop snapped. Stu ran toward the sound and gave it a quick once-over. “Okay,” he said as he ran back to the others, “we need to find that tunnel right now. That’s thing’s not gonna hold.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the plywood covering the window shattered and a tangle of bloody hands and gray arms came through the window. The noise from the street went up to a roar as more windows snapped and gave way.
“Where did you say that tunnel was again?” Kelly said to Miriam.
“This way.”
She led them to the back of the shop. The walls were all red brick on the inside, and Jacob got the sense that he was looking at a much older building, which had been built on to so many times over the years that the original structure had become merely an interior portion of the newer, larger building. It was the red brick that did it. It looked old and pocked, and the mortar between the bricks sloppily applied.
While he was examining that, the wall to his right ended. Or at least the top of it did. The bottom half continued on another ten feet or so and became part of a short maze, like he’d seen in the ruins of slaughter yards.
“What is this?” Jacob asked.
“It’s right through here,” Miriam said, leading through the maze. It ended at a flight of stairs leading down into darkness.
“The tunnel’s down there?” Jacob said.
“Yes. Is something wrong?”
“It’s smaller than I expected,” Jacob said. He swallowed a knot in his throat, thinking about being hemmed in by the walls of the tunnel.
“Seriously?” she said. “You’re claustrophobic?”
Jacob nodded toward the tunnel. “It’s okay,” he said. “That beats the zombies any day.”
“Here, get out of the way,” Brooks said.
He started down the stairs, but stopped on the third one. He touched something on his left shoulder, and an intensely bright blue light lit up the tunnel. Jacob ducked down so he could see what was ahead. The walls were caked with dust. Spiderwebs hung from the corners where the walls met the ceiling. It went on for a long ways.
“Let’s move out,” Brooks said. “Mr. Carlton, you’re out front, if you please.”
CHAPTER 16
“I don’t understand why these tunnels are here,” Kelly said as they made their way through the dusty passageway. “I mean, the mass transit system I can understand. I read in a history book about cities that had whole networks of trains underground. But what about tunnels like this?”
Jacob was sneezing from the dust and feeling almost sick to his stomach from the closeness of the walls and the low ceiling, but that got his attention. He’d been wondering the same thing, and the meager explanations that Chelsea had been able to provide had left him more curious than anything else.
Plus, listening to the answer would help to take his mind off the claustrophobia.
At least he hoped it would.
“Some of them are older than the city,” Miriam said. “Dug by Native American tribes hundreds of years ago. But the real birth of the tunnel system happened in the late eighteen hundreds, when the Chinese came here. They were hired workers for the railroad, and when the project was completed here in El Paso, and they weren’t needed anymore, the railroad fired them. After that, there were so many Chinese immigrants across the country that the U.S. government passed a law prohibiting any future Chinese
immigration. The Chinese already in the country could stay, but if they left the country for any reason, they weren’t allowed back in. And, of course, the people of El Paso being who they were, they started digging tunnels to help smuggle Chinese illegals into the country. Most of the tunnel system around the river was created for that. There’s an equally large, though not as extensively mapped or renovated, tunnel on the Ciudad Juarez side of the river.”
“That’s pretty cool,” Kelly said.
“Yeah, but that’s only part of the story,” Miriam said. “In the middle of the twentieth century, the tunnels were taken over by drug smugglers and human traffickers. Cartel drug money paid for huge renovations to the tunnels, expanding them, creating a lot of the pedestrian throughways we still use today.
“At the same time, a lot of private citizens in El Paso dug their own personal tunnels. I don’t know, I guess it was the popular thing to do. Just south of here there are a number of personal tunnels, sort of like this one, that connect homes owned by the same family, or a family’s home to the business that they owned down the street. We’ve mapped a good many of them, but few have been explored.”
“So, who built all the tunnels we’ve seen under the airport and around here? Did Temple society do that?”
“Some of it, though not nearly as much as you might think. A good part of all this was built by the U.S. military at the end of the twentieth century. Those military tunnels were big-time. Almost all of them were large enough to move heavy machinery underground, and almost all of them were professionally engineered for heavy loads. Most of our Tube system was adapted from what the military had already put in place.”
“Wow, this is just staggering,” Kelly said.
“Nothing like this in Arbella, eh?”
Kelly laughed. “We don’t even have electric lights. Or, well, sometimes we do, but that’s only when there’s fuel for the generators, and that doesn’t happen very often. Most of the time, all we have is candlelight.”
“That actually sounds kind of nice,” Miriam said. “Sometimes I think I’d like living life that way.”
“We should switch lives then.”