This Rotten World | Book 2 | Let It Burn

by Morris, Jacy

  She felt the stairs through her shoes, beat-up sneakers that were neither sexy nor all that practical. They offered little protection, but that wasn't important now. Breathing was important. She slid her hand along the railing of the stairs, feeling the burn of her thighs and calves as they ascended upwards, moving with the silence that comes from fear.

  Her heartbeat slowed in her ears, and she heard the rustle of fabric as they moved upwards and the heavy breathing of the people around her. What were they? Friends? Family? They felt like neither, and suddenly a feeling of loneliness swept over her. Her breathing exercise and calmness fluttered away from her like a startled butterfly, and there she was again, her heart-rate rising, the blood pulsing in her ears, and the thoughts of her impending doom dancing in her head.

  She was alone. No one here cared about her. Everyone that cared about her was probably dead. For the thousandth time since the world ended, she cursed herself for moving so far from home to go to college. But she had wanted to escape the dullness of her hometown, a small and forgettable berg. Her hometown was like a Venus flytrap, closing its tendrils around the humans that lived there, slowly digesting them until they were bitter old people who knew nothing of the real world. Her parents were two such people. They had given birth to her at an advanced age. By the time she could talk, her father was in his sixties and her mother was pushing forty-five.

  They loved her, but the connection never seemed to be there. They knew nothing of the world she grew up in. The internet was a mystery to them. They were content to sit on their porch every evening after a long day of working on the farm. Amanda knew that they secretly hoped she would come back to them when college was over, but her first taste of city life had been so freeing, so new. Once she had been in Portland for a week, she knew that she was never going back. How true that thought had been, she mused.

  She tried to imagine what things would be like back home on the farm. Was her father sitting there on the porch, his old hunting shotgun in his hands. Was he watching the corn, waiting to hear the tell-tale rustle of the dead as they moved through the green and brown stalks? Was he on that porch waiting for her to come home? What about her mother? What would she be doing? Was she dusting her room, waiting for the day when Amanda would appear, walking up the dusty, gravel road? Had her mom washed her sheets by hand, using the old water pump in the backyard when the electricity went away?

  Sadness. She felt empty. She felt like a fool. She loved them, and now she would never see them, never be able to tell them how much she loved them and how stupid she had been for leaving. Maybe just thinking it was ok. Maybe just thinking the words would be alright. If there were an afterworld, a place where good, hardworking people went when they died, perhaps they could hear the sentiment as she thought it.

  And then she imagined her father and mother lost and walking through the corn, their bodies rotting, flies buzzing around them as they looked for something to eat... something human. She wanted to fall down on the stairs. She wanted to sob and cry, but she continued climbing upwards, her eyes sliding away from Rudy's underwear as he hiked up his pants again.

  They reached the fourth floor of the building. The dead milled about, turning in circles. Then they noticed the group of survivors, weapons clenched in their hands standing in the stairwell. There was a pause, almost comical, and then the dead flowed forward, as if they were all of one mind. Mort was there with his hammer, working in the small corridor. The metal head of Mort's hammer made a clonking sound as it bounced off of the skulls of the dead. Mort was powerful, and she admired the way he took down the dead, grunting and sweating in the stairwell.

  Katie and Chloe stood with their guns in their hands, ready to fire if the situation got out of control. Rudy stepped forward, gripping his sword, sweat pouring down his round face, his pants sagging dangerously low. Andy, the quiet boy they had saved from the movie theater, stood off to the side, his arm pulled back, the broken mop handle in his hand ready to be used like a spear, its wooden point still stained with blood from when they had escaped the movie theater. The rest of the survivors stood back, as there was little room to maneuver in the stairwell.

  The fight was quick, and then it was quiet but for the labored breathing of Rudy and Mort, their weapons dripping blood onto the stairwell. Rudy turned to her and smiled. She smiled back. She had one friend at least.

  They stood at the door to the fourth floor, wondering what was on the other side. Was it something they could use? Was it just another office? Or was it their death that was waiting for them?

  Those with guns, arranged themselves around the doorway. Mort crept forward, beads of sweat hanging in his gnarled black and gray beard. His hand reached out and touched the door handle, pressing the lever downwards. The door latch clicked and then popped open. Mort eased the door wider.

  No hands flew through the opening. No decayed fingers pressed around the edge of the doorway. Mort leaned his head around the side of the door and peered into the darkness of the fourth floor.

  He pulled his head back and held up three fingers. He leaned back inside, and with his hammer, he banged on the wall creating a dull clang. Amanda heard the groans from within, the sloppy gurgle of mindless creatures, and then they heard their footsteps, the jarring, jerky clomp of shoes upon the carpeted floor.

  The first one rounded a corner, a pathetic creature, its lower jaw missing and shattered upper teeth hanging there. It wore a plain white dress, the front stained in blood. Its copper red hair was matted to the side of its face with more blood. Its arms raised like Frankenstein's monster as it lurched toward Mort. He stepped to the side, and the creature's own momentum sent it walking face first into the brutal swing of Mort's hammer. Its remaining teeth exploded in a shower of enamel, and the force of the blow sent the creature crashing into the wall of the stairwell. Mort was quick to finish it off, smashing its skull into the wall with another blow from his hammer. Old, rotten blood smeared the wall as the creature slid to the ground.

  A janitor appeared in the doorway, his keys jangling on his belt. Rudy stepped in to protect Mort who had his back to the doorway as he stood over the dead woman in the white dress. The janitor moved forward, faster than the woman, but still with those dreadful Frankenstein arms. Rudy aimed his sword upwards, and the creature impaled itself, the tip of the sword sliding up underneath the man's jaw and into the soft area of his throat. The janitor's head was forced upward and Rudy pushed the unfortunate man backwards. As the janitor backed into the wall, Rudy gave one last shove and the sword slid upwards, breaking through the bone of his palette and piercing the creature's brain. It jittered at the end of the sword and then fell to the ground, pulling the sword free from Rudy's hands just as a third member of the dead appeared, a miniature version of the woman in the white dress, the same red hair matted to the side of the little girl's skull.

  Rudy backed away, unable to pull his sword free. They all watched as the little girl clomped her way towards them, her lips drawn back in a snarl, her rope-thin arms held out in front of her. Braces gleamed on her yellow teeth, and no one made a move to stop her.

  Amanda, haunted by the facial features of the child stepped forward, her nightstick gripped in her hands. What she really wanted to do was wrap her arms around the dead girl and sob into her copper hair. Instead, she brought the nightstick crashing down onto the little girl's head as the specter of tears coalesced in her eyes. The girl's body crumpled to the ground, her arms going limp and hanging at her side.

  The rest of the group disappeared for Amanda, and she bent down and scooped up the little girl in her arms, barely registering the clammy skin and the smell of decomposing flesh that wafted up at her. She carried the body over to the mother and set it down in front of her. She arranged the mother's arms, wrapping them around the now-still body of her daughter and then the tears fell.

  How awful, she thought. This is all just so awful. Would someone do the same for her parents? Or would they leave them lying on the floor,
a sword point through their throat, their eyes staring unendingly at the ceiling of an office building for eternity.

  She felt Rudy's meaty paws on her shoulders. "Come on," he said. "We don't have time for this. They're alright now."

  She let him pull her to her feet, and then they stepped through the doorway that led to the fourth floor. The carpet ended ten feet in, and the floor turned into bright hardwood, lacquered to a deep amber shine. Down the hallway, light poured in from unseen windows, reflecting off of the polished floors. They moved forward, sliding their feet across the carpet, stepping as silently as they could. Mort, his hammer still dripping gore, rounded the corner first where the carpet ended.

  They saw him relax, his hammer fell to his side, and his back straightened from the tense crouch as he surveyed the fourth floor. The wood floors went on forever, only broken by the shadows of archaic looking machinery. They walked among them, crude bits of metal filled with conveyer belts, buttons, and foul smelling inks.

  "What is this place?"

  Chloe picked up a book bound in a red cover off of a table. Printed in gold foil lettering were the words, "How to Survive the Apocalypse." She waved it around and dropped it back onto the table. "It looks like some sort of printing press."

  "Great," Katie said. "Real useful."

  They wandered through the fourth floor, spreading out and looking for something to use. Amanda followed Mort to the opposite end of the fourth floor, their guard dropped. If anyone had been on the fourth floor, they would have seen them lurking among the machinery, for it was a mostly open space with a few waist-high desks scattered about.

  The windows on this floor were whole, and the sun streamed in through them, turning the entire floor into a sweltering hell. The air reeked of the dead.

  At the opposite end of the floor, Mort and Amanda approached the door to the other stairwell. Amanda could hear them moving about on the other side, the dead, restless in their never-ending search for food. A set of keys hung from the handle to the stairwell. The handle jiggled up and down.

  "Looks like it's locked," Mort said.

  "Good," Amanda said.

  From behind them, a voice said, "Look what I have over here." It was Chloe. She was squatting over a pile of goods hidden behind one of the desks. Blood spattered the side of a white canvas bag, and Chloe sent a broken jawbone skittering across the floor with her shoe.

  Amanda stood next to Chloe and watched as she rifled through the haul. They were clearly the supplies the mother and father had been holding onto. What made them hide out here in this building? What was so special about this place? Had they simply gotten stuck as they had? And what of the janitor? Did they know him? Was he related to them? There were too many unanswered questions. In the end, all that mattered was that they were dead, all of them, and they had left behind a pile of food and water.

  They divvied up the pile and then stood there.

  "Should we check out the top floor?" Katie asked.

  No one seemed too thrilled about the idea.

  "Don't you think we've pushed our luck too much already?" Chloe asked.

  The banging on the stairwell door intensified, the blue-grey door rattling in the jamb. Not for the first time, Amanda wished they had sought refuge in a modern building. Where a modern building would have a solid metal door, this building's landings were sealed by wooden doors decorated with stylish panels. They were thick but not indestructible.

  Outside, there was a growing noise. It was the sound of distant machinery. But there was no time to ponder the source, as on the far end of the fourth floor, the door to the unlocked stairwell squeaked open, accompanied by the insistent moans of the dead.

  "They're coming in from the other stairwell," Katie yelled as the first one appeared. Then another, and then another. The dead seemed to have honed in on their position. From outside the locked stairwell door behind them, the banging became more intense, the wood shuddering in its frame. Amanda and the survivors backed into the middle of the room, their eyes locked on the dead that were shambling towards them. Another had appeared, they must be coming from above.

  Above them, faint motes of dust drifted down from the ceiling, backlit by the sun pouring in the windows. The floor above them creaked with footsteps and the stress of a large amount of weight.

  "I think we woke something up!" Amanda yelled.

  "This is no good! This is no good!" Rudy shot back at her.

  Behind her, she heard the cracking of wood. When she spun around, she saw that the wood around the door handle to the locked stairwell was splintering.

  In that moment, she knew. She knew it was all over. Trapped between the dead, they would die on the fourth floor of an office building among the obsolete hulks of printing press machinery. She gripped the nightstick in her hand as the dead approached. Their faces were many, each different in its own way, each comprised of rotting skin, gnashing teeth, and marred by the scars they had acquired during the fall of mankind.

  She swung at the nearest one, her arms still aching from their flight from the movie theater. How long ago had that been? A lifetime she supposed. Lives were shorter now, she thought as she crushed the skull of the dead thing in front of her. Each moment was special. Where before, sitting through an hour-long lecture at college could feel like an eternity, now every second was precious, a barrage of information from the smells of the dead to the clomp of their feet on the wooden floor. She swung again, only barely aware that the door behind her had splintered open, and the dead were now tumbling inside from there as well.

  Instead, her attention was focused on the sound of a horn blasting in the street outside the building.

  "Do you hear that?" she yelled over the sound of gunshots and crushed skulls?

  "What is it?" Mort said.

  Chloe, covered in sweat, edged to the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked over the street. "It's a truck!" she yelled, triumph and hope edging into her voice. She leveled her pistol at the window and blasted out the glass without a second thought. The survivors worked their way towards the window, the dead following closely. As Amanda neared the window, she saw what Chloe was talking about.

  Below them was a truck, with a trailer pulled up snug against the building. On the passenger's side of the cab, she saw the familiar shine of Lou's bald head. He hung out the window and yelled at them, one hand making a C next to his mouth to project his voice. She only need to hear it once, and then she was tumbling out the window as the mob of the dead closed in on her. "Jump" he had said... and she had done it.

  She flew through the air, her arms pinwheeling as if she could swim down to the truck. Her mind spun as the air rushed past her face, fresh air, untainted by the stench of the dead. She saw the shock on Lou's face, and he yelled again. She couldn't make out the words, she didn't want to. All she wanted was to land on top of the semi-truck without breaking something.

  The top of the semi-truck's trailer rushed up at her, and her stomach felt as if it were in her throat. Then it was there, cold metal. It was forgiving, and it dented as she landed upon it, almost cradling her. It still hurt, and she sat up on the roof and watched as the others came tumbling down.

  Chloe landed next to her almost immediately, landing so gracefully that Amanda couldn't help but hate her for it. Then came Katie and Mort, landing almost on top of each other. Their grunts and groans spoke of pain, perhaps more. The others followed, each managing to land on the trailer against all odds.

  The last person left was Rudy, sword in his hands, backing up and looking over his shoulder. From below, she could see the fear in his eyes, his mouth pulled back as if even the very skin of his face refused to jump. Rudy turned and looked at the dead, and Amanda thought he meant to die in the office building. When he dropped his sword, she knew differently.

  Her turned and jumped out the window, and she saw that he had his eyes squeezed shut. Without looking, he flew through the air performing the world's most ill-fated belly flop. He was going to land ri
ght on her from twenty feet above. Then she felt arms under her shoulders dragging her out of the way.

  The clang of Rudy's body hitting the roof sent echoes throughout the truck. She vaguely heard Lou, yelling "Go! Go! Go!" to someone as Rudy's body plummeted through the roof of the semi-truck's trailer and into the dark interior, and then they tumbled in after him as the roof buckled and turned into a giant slide. She slid down the tilted roof and landed on something soft, and then the others piled on top of her. Her mind was dazed, and she scramble around in the darkness of the semi-truck flailing about her with her fists as she tried to get to her feet.

  Eventually someone grabbed her in a bear hug, and when she felt no pain from the clamping jaws of the dead thing that held her, she calmed down enough to let her mind register the situation. Mort was behind her, clinging to her, and whispering that into her ear. "Everything was ok." She let her eyes adjust to the darkness of the trailer, and then she looked up. The ceiling of the semi-truck had been caved in by Rudy's descent. At the front of the trailer, the roof was still attached, but the back had been undone by Rudy's swan dive so that the rest of the roof had acted like a slide at a playground, depositing the rest of them in the hold of the trailer in an uncomfortable pile of limbs.

  Inside the trailer, there were boxes of unknown goods, but these were secondary to Amanda. The boxes were a then problem. The people around her were a now problem. She saw Rudy lying on his back, his great belly pointing up at the sky. His eyes were closed and Joan and Clara knelt next to him, trying to wake him up. She saw a thin stream of blood running from his nose. Others were hurt as well, but she didn't care. At that point in time, she only cared about Rudy.

  She walked over to his body and knelt down. She placed his hand in hers. It was still warm. Blood still pulsed through it. Amanda began to cry.