B-Movie Attack (21 page)

Billy eyed the container.
 

Jessica smiled. “Don’t ask.”

Billy and Nelson began clearing the barricade, and afterward, they approached the fourth floor bracing themselves for the Intestinator or anybody else to attack.
 

Chapter Twenty-Four

Heart of Chicago Mercy Hospital was in chaos. The emergency rooms overflowed with patients while doctors were leaving their jobs to tend to their families. Random shattering of windows and cries resounded in the air. Earthquake tremors shook the foundation every now and again. Dr. Hill decided he couldn't help anybody anymore.
 

He had other matters to attend to.
 

You have to move if you’re going to get this done. This is the perfect time.

Dr. Hill was a seasoned veteran who worked in the hospital’s morgue for nearly seventeen years. He tagged victims, charted their cause of death and corresponded with the couriers from funeral homes. He saw Jane and John Does. Highway wrecks. Street pizzas, as he liked to call them. Bodies in pieces and unrecognizable from damage. In those cases, Dr. Hill took it upon himself to pilfer certain pieces of the body: an arm here, a leg there, a liver, a heart, anything he wanted. He sold the parts to science research firms like LabTech and BioFuture. If the corpses were fresh enough, he could sell the organs for a decent buck.
 

Temptation had its way with him. The morgue wing was surrounded by corpses in body bags, stretchers haphazardly strewn and shoved into each other. The line of corpses on stretchers continued into the far hall outside of his working area. Hundreds had died tonight and still counting. The most common deaths he’d seen were torn throats, stomped midsections, bodies riddled with strange holes and bags bulging with flesh and organs without bones.
 

But one corpse, the one on the gurney in front of him, was the strangest of all. Fluids leaked from the eyes, nose, mouth and ears. A woman stared back up at him, her dying moment of agony etched on her face. The bag leaked the chemical-smelling substance, dripping onto the tiles. Other bags were dripping the same contents. It had to be embalming fluid, he decided.

The three morgue attendants had high-tailed it home after the radio began to broadcast messages to stay home and lock your doors. The city was trapped within a dome, he understood. Murderers and looters rampaged the streets.
 

He didn’t care about them.
 

This is my meal ticket. I’m not going to get this many bodies in one shot ever again unless I kill them myself.
 

The woman below him was useless. The organs were ruined by the chemicals.
 

Four foam coolers were heaped with ice at his feet. He’d already taken three fresh arms, four livers, one heart and a set of legs. He used a bone saw to complete the extractions. He zipped and unzipped through the hall of body bags to locate the next good specimen.
 

“I admire what you’re doing,” a gurgling, bubbling voice called out from behind him. “I really do.”

The chemical tang blew across his back. It wafted up to his nostrils, and his eyes watered from it. “You mind your own goddamn business—”

The man was dressed in a lab coat similar to the one he was wearing. His eyes sagged an inch to show the meaty purple tissue beneath. His gums were purple and raw. His tongue white. With every word he spoke, he coughed out fluids.
 

“Stay the hell back,” Dr. Hill said. He removed a Desert Eagle pistol from his side holster. He kept it on him ever since the chaos outside broke out. “I’ll shoot you, man, whoever you are.”

The corpse raised his hands and smiled, clear fluids dribbling from his lips. “I’m only admiring you. I, too, have tried my hand in the body brokering business. I sold them all. Hearts, kidneys, arms, legs, heads…”

“You’re not going to report me?” Dr. Hill was confounded that he was talking to a walking corpse spilling embalming fluid. He sharpened his words. “Then you want a cut, is that it? You blackmailing bastard.”

“No, no, no,” the man replied. “I believe the dead don’t deserve their organs. Remove them all. Cut ‘em out, I say. The dead don’t care. What gives them the right to deny one’s life when a dying person can benefit their internal organs? The dead are hypocrites. Selfish. I’m a proponent of stealing. It’s the only way to complete the dark side of the business.”

Dr. Hill kept the gun ready.
 

If he moves, I’ll pop him one in the face. That’ll show him for grinning at me like a maniac.

“Then what do you want?”

The corpse extended his hand. “I only want to shake your hand.”

Dr. Hill hesitated. “Then you’ll leave me alone?”

“I’ll leave you to it. You’re hard at work. Up to your ears in work.”

Dr. Hill switched the gun to his left hand and put out the other to shake. “Careful, man, I know how to use this.”

“Just shake my hand, and I’ll be on my way.”

Dr. Hill shook the man's hand.
 

“Someone needs to crack a window,” Nelson whispered as they hiked up to the fourth floor. “It’s burning hot in here.”

Billy clutched his chest. With each inhalation, his lungs ached. The air was useless. “It’s that dome above the city. Our air supply is diminishing.”

He removed his button-up shirt. Beneath it was a white t-shirt with the Superman emblem on the chest.
 

“What’s with the shirt?” Nelson chided him. “Fly us to safety, Clark Kent.”

Jessica kissed Billy’s cheek. “He might as well be Superman. I feel safe with him here. Don’t you, Nelson?”

“Not safe like the real Superman would make me feel safe.” Nelson unbuttoned his shirt. He still wore the same Xbox T-shirt from yesterday. “On second thought, Billy’s probably a better protector than me. While the world’s entering apocalypse mode, I’d be playing
Halo
.”

“Or watching movies and eating beef jerky,” Billy corrected. “Or looking up porn.”

Jessica smiled for the first time today. Billy knew he would marry this woman, and what was happening in the city wouldn’t stop him.
 

“None of us are dying,” Billy said with whatever confidence he could manage. “Nobody.”

“I like what you’re saying,” Nelson said, “but according to the giant bitch outside, those people with brains with teeth, and that crazy preacher with the magnet that pulls bones out of bodies, I say it means little.” He patted Billy’s back. “No offense. You mean well.”

“None taken. And I do mean well.”

“A preacher with a magnet that can draw bones out of bodies,” Jessica repeated. Then she frowned. “And what else he said, it’s really out there? I mean, I saw the woman, but the people with the brains with teeth? I also caught something flying in the air. Wings in the dark. Red eyes.”

“Nelson is still convinced that giant woman is from a movie.”

“The woman is dressed the same as in the film. But you were thinking
Death Reject
was real just yesterday, Billy. Why are you pinning this on me?”

“Quiet,” she snipped. “You’ll give us away. The Intestinator is around here somewhere.”

Nelson whispered. “That’s sounds like a movie too. Why are you calling him that?”

“That’s what he called himself. Now shut up. My office is up those stairs.”

Jessica stayed close behind Billy. She clutched a broken leg of a chair from the dentist’s office and the jar of Novocain. Nelson also held the leg of a chair. Billy clutched a sterling silver letter opener.
 

They entered the fourth floor. Everything was silent. No survivors, Billy supposed. The door wasn’t covered in blood.
 

That’s a positive
, he thought.
 

He wondered if anybody in the entire building was still alive.
 

Unlikely.

The carpeted foyer was similar to the dentist’s office. A grouping of chairs and a coffee table full of magazines faced them. A sign in gold letters on the wall read “Crouch and Meadows”.
 

“Crouch and Fell,” Billy joked.
 

Jessica nudged him. “Now isn’t the time, Superman.”

“I’ve had a lot of lucky things happen to me when I’ve worn anything Superman related,” Billy said in a hushed voice. “I got my first blow job wearing Superman underwear—no offense, Jessica. I passed my driver’s test in Superman socks. I asked you out the day I received the Superman tattoo on my shoulder blade, and…”

“Okay, I get the point,” Jessica insisted. “It’s wonderful you’re wearing a Superman T-shirt right now.”

Nelson agreed. “Ditto.”

Jessica stepped back in repulsion at the sight of a corpse on the ground. She covered her mouth and hid her face in Billy’s chest. “Steve. It was, it was,” she stammered, “the Intestinator who did this.”

Billy hugged her. He too had trouble looking at the corpse. The well-dressed man’s head had been wrenched from the neck. Blood had soaked into the carpet in puddles. The face was hideous and etched in pain; veins thick as earthworms crossed his features. “Yes, look away. Nobody deserves to go out like that.”

“And it’s unrealistic,” Nelson said, kneeling down by the body, undeterred by the gore. “What could possibly remove his head like that? It’d take a machine. And look at his neck. It wasn’t cut by a knife. The skin is jagged, like it ripped.”

“No shit,” Jessica shot back. Her face turned a light shade of red. Anger and absolute horror marked her face. “I watched him die. The man’s—the man’s fucking guts snapped Steve’s head from his neck! I told you already.”

“Sorry,” Nelson said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just trying to understand this. There’s a dome over the city, for one. Then there’s murderers out there—no bullshit—who aren’t human. Far from it. Where did they come from? Why are they in Chicago, of all places? And why do they want us dead so much?”

An extended grunt came from the opposite room.
 

“That’s him!” Jessica wailed. “He’s been waiting for us.”

Billy caught a shadow on the carpet three doors away. He eyed the straightaway hall and the glass wall at the end. “Nelson,” he whispered, “help me grab that table.”

A double-bass voice vibrated against the walls and shook the letters of Crouch and Meadows from the wall. “MY GUTS ARE JUDGE, JURY AND EXECUTIONER.”
 

Jessica shouted, “You’re a murderer. You ripped Steve’s head off!”

The Intestinator stepped from the room, ignoring Jessica’s words. A barrel for a torso was bleeding, swelling and pulsating at his belly button. The navel puckered as if breathing. Billy failed to register anything else about the man and jumped to action.
 

“Quick, Nelson—the coffee table!”

Billy lifted one end, Nelson the other.
 

Jessica opened the Novocain and heaved it in the man’s direction. “Stay back!”

The Intestinator cowered. It bought them seconds, Billy realized. They both lifted the table. “Charge him!” Billy shouted.

They advanced, taking fast strides. The Intestinator caught onto their tactics too late. A coil of intestine exploded from his belly, but Billy and Nelson used the table as a shield. The intestine was deflected back into his belly. The table slammed into the standing bulk. Feet from the window, they forced him through the glass. The body careened toward the street outside, his form growing smaller. The Intestinator crashed onto the top of a parked Voyager Minivan. With a solid crunch of steel and spraying of glass, the top of the minivan buckled inwards, spitting shards from all sides.
 

The Intestinator lay motionless.
 

“AND STAY OUT!” Nelson shouted in victory. “Asshole.”

Billy urged him from the window. “Shut up! Who knows what else is out there?”

Nelson moved back to the sitting room. Out of breath, they stared at the broken window and the glittering fragments on the carpet. “There’s not much time,” Billy suggested. “Let’s find your office, honey, and get to the bottom of this.”

Jessica guided them through two hallways and a labyrinth of cubicles and offices with gold nameplates. Paralegal offices occupied the last hallway. Finding an open office, Billy let the other two file ahead of him, and then he shut the door and locked it. He then drew the blinds over the glass front. He wasn’t sure if he should leave them that way. Nobody could see them from outside, but they wouldn’t know if an enemy was lurking on the other end or not.
 

Fuck it. I can put my ear to the door if it comes down to it.

Jessica sat at the computer in the back of the office. Billy and Nelson were huddled at both sides of her. Jessica raised her arms up in celebration. “Thank God, the Internet is working. What should I search?”

“Go to Instant Search,” Billy suggested. “Type in ‘Chicago Emergency’.”

Jessica typed in the words. She clicked on the number one site. A web page showed a combination of pictures, essays and directions of escape for those trapped in Chicago. Billy had forgotten it was near morning by now. He checked his watch and it was five-thirty. They looked at pictures of the dome from the other side of the skull. In the sun, it glinted like the enamel of a tooth.