100 A.Z. (Book 2): Tenochtitlan

by Nelson, Patrick T.

  “Well, tick tock, time waits for no one,” Tock said.

  “Don’t start,” Carla groaned.

  The other three fighters to join the group were named Jamed, Lee and Cecil. They looked fresh, too fresh in Tock and Carla’s eyes. They weren’t fighters, it was obvious. Tock didn’t mind putting them in front as a meat shield, though.

  Cecil was a big man and Jamed the youngest. Tock noted Lee looked kind of strong but nothing like the amazing, fantastic and wonderful Carla. The guards passed out their shotguns, shells, and some light provisions.

  “Man, one of these guns sucks!” Tock announced.

  “What do you mean?” John asked.

  “It only holds two rounds.”

  “Stop complaining, I’ll take it,” John grumbled.

  Lee, Cecil, and Jamed fumbled with the shells as they tried to figure out how to load them. After Tock, Carla, and John staring them over a few moments without saying anything Lee blurted out, “What?”

  “You don’t know how to shoot a gun…” John noted.

  “We aren’t fighters. We don’t get off on this. We were just the healthiest of the prisoners in our group,” she shot back.

  “‘Martyrs’ is right,” Carla mumbled.

  “What is a martyr?” Jamed asked.

  “Someone who dies,” John said.

  “Beard, I liked you better quiet,” Tock snapped.

  They finished loading their guns. The experienced helped the inexperienced. Everyone had a bag the size of a melon with extra shotgun shells. It had a single strap to put over their shoulder. Tock stared blankly at Jamed, as the young man struggled to adjust it. No matter what he did, it kept sliding off.

  “Over the neck and under the arm, killer,” Tock offered.

  “I know, I know. I’m just trying it out different ways,” Jamed snapped back.

  “You trying it stupid ways, son. Over the neck…”

  “I heard you old man.”

  “Old man!?”

  “Hey now,” John interrupted.

  “This scrapper called me old!”

  “Comparatively speaking, you are, Tock. Our life expectancy has gone way down the last couple of days,” Carla said.

  “I’ll be ‘comparatively speaking’ on you, next, Carla!”

  The team dynamic was going well.

  Cats had gathered on the roof and were taking an interest in the visitors. They crept up to the group and dashed away when anyone made a sudden movement.

  “They don’t seem too worried about us,” Jamed said.

  “They shouldn’t be worried about you, little man,” Tock said.

  “Hey, we’re in this together, so quit acting like it’s all you. He’s just a kid,” Lee said to Tock.

  “Fair enough. But I got one rule, you watch my back, and I watch yours. Failure to watch mine means I don’t watch yours,” Tock said.

  “Everybody is watching everybody’s back,” John said.

  “Deal,” they all said, minus Tock. A cat howled at them and they heard a responding groan from the floor underneath them.

  “Well, shall we?” Carla asked as she triple-checked the machete on her belt.

  “Yeah, let’s start the show,” Tock answered.

  They all marched over to the opening in the roof on the south side and peered down into the building. It was the only way into the top floor. The guards stood on the opposite side of the building, observing. It was a little before noon, and the sun shone down onto the floor below. There wasn’t much to see. Rubble, concrete, more rubble. The skyscraper was about the same height as the one they’d climbed up, so they figured they had about thirty floors to reach the water. Once, and if, they got to the bottom they had no idea what to do.

  Tock volunteered to go in first. He grabbed the edge of the hole and dropped onto the ground and did a quick reconnaissance for any biters. He didn’t see any, but some cats trotted away at his presence. He was in a long hallway with doors to the guest rooms on either side. He tried one; the lock had long since stopped working. All the furniture, carpet, and other furnishings were long gone. It felt more like a tomb than a hotel. He wished they’d made the hotel true to the period, too, complete with bedding, televisions, coffee makers, toilet paper…He’d seen pictures. Instead, the interior of the building smelled foul, and Tock guessed it was probably because this was one big cat toilet.

  “Is it clear?” Cecil asked down the hole.

  “Nope. Been bitten ten, maybe fifteen times. Turn back. Tell Carla I love her,” Tock responded.

  “Sorry to hear it,” Lee said to Carla in a sarcastic tone.

  “No. We aren’t together,” Carla corrected.

  Tock kept watch as the other five came down through the hole. The building was completely gutted except for the cement walls and floors. Some metal doors remained but many were missing. A jagged crack in the wall let some light in. Plants were growing up all over the floor in the patches of soil that had somehow accumulated over the last century. Rodents scurried about in fear of the cats. The humans wished cats were the worst of their problems.

  “Come on,” Tock said.

  “Who put you in charge?” Cecil said. Cecil was a big man, not as big as Tock, but he tried to make himself look taller in the dull light.

  “You want to lead? Be my guest, big man,” Tock said, motioning for Cecil to take point.

  Cecil backed down a little. “I’m not saying I wanna lead, I just think we need a plan.”

  “Plan on, fearless leader,” Tock said.

  “We have to find the emergency stairwell; it should take us all the way to the bottom floor. That’s how they made these things. People needed to be able to walk all the way to the bottom really fast,” Cecil said.

  “I can’t see people before zombies being in a hurry to do anything, really,” Carla said.

  Lee sighed. “They had to hurry to all their feasts.”

  “All right, fearless leader, we’ll find the stairs. Thanks for the leading. I’m gonna call you Leader McLeaderson from now on,” Tock said, smacking Cecil on the shoulder.

  Cecil glared at tock.

  “What? I’m being serious!” Tock exclaimed in defense.

  They walked slowly down the hallway, trying to avoid tripping over the vegetation in the dull light. The stench was strong, and they all wondered how many walkers Polo had put in the building. Ten, a hundred, a thousand? They heard a groan ahead.

  Tock pulled his machete out of his belt and motioned for everyone to be still. Pressing up against the wall, he edged over to the corner and cautiously peered around. There was a single zombie impaled through the ribs by some rebar sticking out of the floor. It had fallen on it. A dozen cats lounged on the ground in front of it. The felines seemed to be enjoying the attention they were getting from the biter. Tock shook his head.

  “Now that is freaking weird,” he muttered. The whole tableau looked up at Tock. One of the cats yowled.

  “Shut it,” Tock commanded quietly as he strode forward and hacked off the zombie’s head. The cats took off at the disturbance, sprinting down the hall with their tails twitching. “This whole place is weird.”

  He went back around the corner and motioned for the group to join him. They moved silently up the hallway and caught up with him.

  “Cats,” Tock said.

  The group nodded.

  A shrill screech echoed around the next turn in the hallway as three cats came hurtling back around the corner toward them. A chorus of groans followed.

  “I hate cats,” Lee said.

  They waited in battle formation for the undead to come, but they never arrived. The groans sounded like they were stuck directly below them. There were narrow crevices in the concrete floor, and they realized the sound was coming up through there.

  Tock crouched and looked through a particularly large crack. He caught a glimpse of a group of walkers shuffling toward the stairwell. He stood up and adjusted his awkward bag full of shotgun shells as he explained what w
as below. They heard a loud flare-up of laughter from one of the surrounding buildings, and the walkers below changed course and went back toward it.

  “You know why they gave us shotguns?” Tock snorted. “Short range. So we can’t shoot those people.”

  The rest of the group chuckled, but Tock shushed them angrily. He hadn’t been joking.

  He led them to the end of the corridor and poked his head around. Empty. He could see a heavy metal door at the end. They were on the southeast corner of the building. They crept forward, stopping right in front of it. They all levelled their guns at the door, as if it might suddenly burst open and spew hordes of zombies in on them.

  “All right, who wants to open it? Jamed?” Tock asked, looking at the young man.

  “I’ll do it,” John said.

  “All right, Beard, pull it open and get out of the way if we need to blast. Jamed, Cecil, Lee, don’t shoot me in the head,” Tock said.

  “So big it’s hard to miss,” Carla said.

  John reached for the handle and took a deep breath. He counted quietly, “One, two, three,” and pulled. The handle popped right off and nearly crumbled in his hand. Everyone stared dumbly at it for a second.

  Then Tock cleared his throat. “Beard is really, really, strong.”

  John dropped the rusted metal and stuck his machete between the door and jamb to pry it open. He got it open enough to fit his hands in the gap. Tock chomped his teeth menacingly. John pulled as hard as he could on the rusted hinges and the door broke off and almost landed on him. The crash echoed down the stairwell. A mass of scraggly cats ran through the door past the group, howling as they disappeared into the weeds behind them.

  “Beard, that sucked,” Tock informed John.

  “Sorry,” John shrugged.

  The echo of groans came up from the stairwell.

  “Welcome,” Tock said with a smile.

  Motioning to Carla, he leveled his shotgun at the gaping opening. Carla joined him, and side by side they quickly and quietly descended into the darkness. After a brief, agonizing pause John and the rest of the crew also took to the crumbling stairs. Suddenly the stairwell below exploded with gunfire. Ten rounds and then quiet. A second later, Tock and Carla came sprinting up the stairs.

  “Go!” Tock shouted, wide-eyed. He was temporarily deaf. He frantically gestured at them to go back through the doorway. They all turned and ran with him, chased by the multiple groans of undead struggling up the stairs.

  “A hundred of them!” Carla yelled. “Shut the door!” she screamed, forgetting the door was on the floor.

  They frantically scrambled through the doorway. John hastily directed Cecil and Jamed to kneel in the doorframe. Lee and John stood behind them. “You two reload!” he yelled and mimed to Tock and Carla.

  “What do I do?!” Jamed yelled, his shaking hands pointing the shotgun down the stairs.

  “Shoot!”

  The first walker passed around the corner, and Cecil let off a shot that hit the concrete above its head. Jamed shot and hit it in the chest, sending it reeling against the wall before it resumed climbing the stairs. More came around the turn. John emptied his two shots into them, as the full horde lurched around the corner. John’s hands felt clumsy as he tried to stuff shells into the gun. He half-regretted volunteering to take the lone shotgun that held only two shells.

  Tock pulled John back and took his place as Lee unloaded her gun into the oncoming pack. Cecil and Jamed shot haplessly into the mass of walking corpses and frantically fell back to reload.

  They fired round after round until they’d formed a decent-sized berm of destroyed undead. This bought them some breathing room, as the rest of the zombies now had to climb over it.

  “Stop shooting!” Tock yelled. “Machetes!” He directed them all to the wall of piled-up corpses to hack at the heads of walkers peering over. After a few minutes of hacking, the berm was too thick and high for the walkers to get over.

  “Well, we stopped them, but now how do we get down?” Lee asked, breathing heavy from all the hacking. She was a small woman but seemed to be a natural at swinging a machete at bloodthirsty zombies.

  “We go over,” Tock said.

  “Wait, this hotel might have another stairwell,” Cecil said.

  “Another stairwell?” Tock exclaimed.

  “Yeah, sometimes they have more than one,” Cecil said.

  “Sometimes have more than one. Listen to this guy. We ain’t gonna just go stroll over and walk down another stairwell. This is the only way down, that’s why all the zombies are in it!” Tock said.

  “There might be zombies in the other one,” Cecil said.

  “Might be zombies in the other one…No. There ain’t no walkers in the other one. You know why? Because there ain’t another one!” Tock said, exasperated. “We gotta go over and hack our way through all those deadies on the other side. That’s how you get out of these things!”

  “Ok,” Cecil yielded.

  “Now let’s climb.”

  The group gingerly mounted the pile. They made sure of where they put their hands in case some weren’t all the way dead. Tock was reminded of a trick Polo used to pull, sticking his hand in a biter’s mouth before it shut.

  They looked over the other side of the berm. There were dozens and dozens of walkers staring at them.

  “All right, well, I think we need a new plan,” Tock said.

  ***

  “Pull!” Cecil yelled. Jamed yanked the rope. They’d looped it through a piece of exposed rebar in the ceiling. The other end was attached to one of their shotgun shell bags. In the bag were some of the pieces of dried meat they’d been given at the outset of the event. As Jamed yanked the rope, it snapped the opening of the bag shut and hoisted it into the air. They’d caught three cats.

  “Got ‘em!” he exclaimed, proud. The bag twisted around as the cats tried in vain to fight their way out.

  “You sure we can’t just eat them?” Cecil said.

  “You want out of this building? Then we can’t eat them,” Tock said.

  “Why can’t we just shoot those biters on the other side?” Cecil argued, staring at the cat bag.

  “We need to save ammo,” John explained.

  Cecil grudgingly nodded, lamenting the waste of a meal.

  They went back to the stairwell and Cecil climbed up onto the pile of dead walkers. John took another inventory of their remaining shells. They had twenty two left.

  “We got enough?” Tock asked.

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “How many we have to use.”

  Tock snorted and turned to Carla. “Seems like a stupid event they’ve got us in. The crowd can’t even see what we’re doing in here. They’re all off in those other buildings. Can’t even see the action.”

  “Are you missing out on some good publicity?” Carla asked.

  “If I’m going to be like Polo, I’ll need it.”

  Cecil tossed the cat bag into the middle of the enraged zombies. The bag hit the ground, and the three cats sprang out, grabbing the amassed biters’ attention. The cats tore off down the stairs through the legs of the undead. The zombies turned their attention from the berm and began to follow them. A minute later, the stairwell was empty.

  “Meow,” Tock whispered.

  They climbed over the berm and reclaimed their shotgun shell bag. It had been Jamed’s. John poured the young man’s shells back into the bag from his own. Jamed kept nervously looking down the stairs as the sounds of the cat chasers echoed up.

  “Hey,” John said to Jamed, whose eyes were glued to the stairwell. “Stay focused, shoot straight, we’ll look out for you,” John assured him.

  “Wrong. It’s ‘watch my back and I’ll watch yours,’” Tock said.

  “Then I’ll watch his back and you watch your own,” John said angrily.

  “Listen, Beard–”

  “Shut up and let’s get moving,” Carla said while making sure she was fully loa
ded.

  “Man, Beard is getting too big for his britches.”

  The group descended five flights of stairs without seeing any more zombies. The stairs were thankfully in good condition and the intermittent rusted and decomposing metal bars on the walls let in needed light. They still had to watch their step, as there was debris from the crumbling walls.

  “Why did people put in stairs if they had those elevator things? I don’t get it.” Jamed asked.

  “In a different building, I saw a sign that said to use the stairs if there’s a fire,” Cecil said.

  “What?! How did they heat the building if they didn’t have fires?!” Tock exclaimed in disbelief.

  “Wait, so you thought they had fires inside the buildings?” Carla asked.

  “How else do you make heat?” Tock asked, matter-of-fact.

  “Shush,” Lee cut in.

  “Woman…” Tock started.

  “No, I heard something.”

  They all went silent. There was nothing.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Cecil said. “Oh wait, there it is.”

  Then they saw what was making the noise. It was the three cats they’d caught. They were now running back up the stairs. They passed the group and continued on up.

  “That’s not good,” Cecil said.

  Chapter 17

  “Stand firm!” Bowen screamed at his men. They were losing ground. The herd was pressing in hard against the geldings, and if Bowen’s men couldn’t hold their position they would eventually be driven back into the lake. The herd had grown excited again, and was undulating in unpredictable directions. Right now, that direction was toward the entrenched Academy Army. They had successfully capped the entrance to their “path” with the still-harnessed geldings, but the herd was not moving on. It was as if the walkers were drawn to Tenochtitlan. The city itself was quiet.

  “They’re coming through the buried walkers!” Someone shouted from their flank. Bowen ordered some troops to reinforce their flanks. He hardly had any to spare. He ran over to inspect. Some biters were filtering through the buried ones. Bowen saw a man get bit as he tried to wrest off three of the new intruders.