Empire's End (25 page)

Lily kicked its hands away and got to her
feet. She climbed atop the nearest pew and leapt to the next. She
was going to have to leave. She had to get to the doors.
I’m
sorry Adam!

She leapt to the next pew—and the Dwarf rose
up right in front of her, colliding with her and sending both of
them kicking to the floor.

Lily screamed and thrashed about in the
darkness. She felt its hands on her legs. Teeth snapped. She
flailed her arms and caught one of its horns in her hand. The Dwarf
squealed. Lily slammed its head into the seat of the pew, over and
over again until she heard a wet squelch with each impact. Then she
let go and ran for her life.

The Dwarf was right on her tail. It shook
blood from its eyes and jumped at her, swiping at her ankles,
making horrible little noises as it pursued her down the center
aisle and finally snagged one of her feet. She crashed into the
doors and fell still.

The Dwarf turned her over and straddled her,
wrapping its tiny fingers around her throat. Lily murmured softly,
eyelids fluttering. The Dwarf waited for her to look up into its
pinched face.

She seized its ears in her hands and threw
the Dwarf aside, rolling over and climbing onto it and smashing its
head into the floor with a nightmarish scream. The Dwarf’s neck
snapped, skull cracking, blood and pus spewing from its splitting
skin as its head came apart and spat curdled brains across the
carpet. Lily Stood up and leapt into the ruin of the Dwarf’s face
with both feet, stomping it into oblivion. Its arms and legs
continued to wiggle; she stamped on its wrists, shattering them,
then twisted its ankles until they broke with a satisfying
snap.

The Dwarf’s torso spasmed quietly. Lily wiped
sweat from her brow and walked back to the pulpit. Her heart
pounding in her ears, she didn’t hear the footsteps at her back;
and, settling down in the shadows, her back was left to the
approaching figure as it reached out.

“
NO!
”

“It’s me, Lily!”

Adam scooped her up into his arms. “Let’s
go.”

“Did you kill them all already?”

“I can’t find the rest. It doesn’t matter—the
city’s on fire. Let’s get you out of here.”

“What about my other friends?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Cam and Tripper and Officer Voorhees. We
can’t leave them.”

“All right.” He helped Lily onto his
shoulders, and headed for the doors. “But time is short.”

As they exited the church and mounted the
horse, Nickel watched from an alleyway. He watched the way that the
young one clung to the aberration’s neck and the gentle way he bore
her onto his steed.

Rusty gears began turning in the zombie’s
head.

With Dalton leading the way, the survivors
headed into the subway system.

Lily was simply nowhere to be found and, as
Dalton had kept reminding them, they had only a brief window until
their only means of escape was cut off.

He prayed that he could count on the
sergeant. He didn’t count on the undead.

Dalton dropped to one knee and raised a fist
in the air. The others fell silent behind him. He peered through
his scope and saw a couple dozen rotters ambling through the
tunnel.

“We can take them,” Tripper whispered.

“I don’t even have a gun,” Zane complained.
Cam handed him the Colt Python. “It’s got a kick to it.”

“Stay behind me, Eugene,” Halstead said to
the old man. He nodded.

Dalton opened fire on the rotters.

Their heads jerked up at the sound of
gunfire, only to be sent snapping back as his lead found its mark.
With skulls blistered and yawning wide, the undead kept coming.

Tripper emptied his Uzis and drew a pistol.
He could barely see down here! He only hoped the others were faring
better. They didn’t have to take every rotter down, just enough for
them to get past.

Halstead’s gun clicked: empty. She pushed
Eugene against the wall and flattened herself beside him. Terror
seized her as the undead drew closer.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! Dalton shot his targets
through the spine. He only hoped the sergeant hadn’t seen any
rotters crawling around. He might blow the tunnel—

Reality’s bottom seemed to drop out for a
moment, everything blurring, a low roar building in the air. Then
the light from the explosion around the bend lit up the tunnel for
a split second—before being squelched by the collapsing
ceiling.

“
Goddammit!
” Dalton screamed. They’d
sealed the tunnel! There was no way out!

“No!” Rhodes ran at the undead and was
swallowed in a cloud of dust. Blinded, he spun in a wild panic.
Undead brushed against him. He fired into the cloud. “No! No!
Dammit no!”

Jaws closed over his shoulder. He wrenched
himself free and turned to fire. Another rotter caught him in an
icy embrace and ripped into his neck.

“Stop shooting!” Dalton was yelling. “We’ve
got zero visibility!” The dust had enveloped them all.

Logan’s chainsaw came to life. “I’ve got
it!”

Rhodes fell at his feet. He gaped at the dead
man, watching numbly as a slavering rotter pulled the man’s
intestines from his belly and stuffed them into its maw.

Cam slammed the butt of her machine gun into
the rotter’s skull. “We’ve gotta get the fuck out of here!”

“Goddamn you!” Dalton screamed into the
darkness. Had the sergeant hesitated at all before giving the
order? Had it even been his call? They’d never know. They’d never
know who had doomed them all.

A zombie grabbed the barrel of his rifle and
jerked it from his grip. Another went for his face. Dalton fell
back and yanked a combat knife from a sheath on his thigh, slicing
into the undead’s throat.

“Where is everyone?” Zane cried. He turned in
the dust and wiped grime from his eyes. “Talk to me!” The Python
was heavy in his hands. He didn’t dare use it for fear of killing
one of the others. Maybe it would be better to use it on
himself—

A teenage rotter lurched into view, grabbing
his forearm and tearing a chunk of flesh away. Zane screamed in
anguish.

He shoved the rotter back and placed the
Python’s mouth beneath his chin. “I regret nothing.”

The shot tore through the tunnel like a peal
of thunder. Shaking off a decapitated corpse, Dalton fumbled
through the dark. Someone grabbed his hand.

“It’s okay!” It was Cam. She and Tripper
hauled Dalton to his feet. “Where the hell do we go now?”

“I don’t know,” he gasped. “We’re dead. We’re
all dead.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all along.”
Logan lowered the idling saw and, through the dissipating clouds,
pointed to his right. “I think the passage we came through is off
that way.”

“Halstead!” Tripper yelled.

“Yeah!” She headed toward his voice with
Eugene in tow.

They found the entrance to the smaller
passageway and left the subway tunnel. Visibility was still
pitiful. Dalton glanced over his shoulder and asked, “Who did we
lose?”

“The two guys who were with you,” Cam
muttered.

“At least we’ve got old Eugene,” Logan
offered.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Making their way back to Meyer’s bootlegging
tunnels, the group looked for another way out. They couldn’t just
go up into the street. If anything, the fire was probably
concentrating the undead in the center of the city. And, of course,
the soldiers would be waiting beyond that point to gun down anyone
in sight.

“Ladder.” Dalton hustled forward and found
himself peering up a narrow shaft. “Must go into some
building.”

“Inside, outside, what’s the difference?”
said Logan.

“If you don’t give a damn about your safety,
you can take point,” Dalton snapped.

Logan shrugged and started up the ladder.

All was clear. The building was small, filled
with crates and miscellaneous junk. Shelves upon shelves of
tattered yellow books rested against the walls. Dalton thumbed
through them: mostly Bibles. “I think this was a library, once,” he
said.

The walls were lined with windows, but the
glass was frosted over. So no one could see in, either; just the
same, Dalton started moving shelves to block the windows. “Give me
a hand here!”

Eugene tugged on Halstead’s arm. “What is
it?” she asked.

“Have you seen him? The Reaper?”

She wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that.
She just patted his back and said, “You sit here and rest. I’m
going to help the others.”

There was thumping at the main entrance.
“Fuck. They heard us,” said Cam.

Dalton and Tripper lugged a shelf over to the
locked double doors and leaned it against them. “Get those crates,”
Tripper called to the others. “Hurry!”

More pounding. More fists.

A window in the back shattered, and undead
hands scrabbled at books.

“Cam, take care of that!” Tripper yelled.

“Let me,” Logan said. “Save your bullets for
yourselves.” Walking leisurely to the back of the room, he fired up
the saw and plunged it into the grasping fingers.

Suddenly, from outside the front of the
library came a squeal of tires; something crashed against the wall,
shaking the entire building. Then they heard shotgun blasts.

“Somebody’s got wheels!” Halstead cried. “Oh,
thank God!”

One of the front windows shattered, and a man
pulled himself in. Dalton and Tripper quickly moved a shelf to
block the hole.

The man rose. “I’ll be damned,” Dalton
said.

“Soldier.” Ian Gregory nodded curtly to him,
a twelve-gauge in each hand. “Need a lift?”

“How did you know?” Halstead exclaimed.

“I saw them congregating around this
building,” Gregory told her. “Sure sign of fresh meat.”

“How about that?” Logan wandered over. “It’s
a Hand of God reunion. Hey boss.”

“Logan.” Gregory turned toward the sound of
pounding. “I ran a few down but you’ve got another thirty or so out
there. It’s gonna be tough clearing a path to the Hummer,
especially with more on the way.”

“Tough or not, we’re doing it,” Tripper said.
“Like we have a choice.”

A series of ear-splitting booms shook the
library. For a second, Tripper thought it was all going to come
down on them. “What the fuck is that?”

“Rockets,” said Logan. “They’re using the
rockets. Jesus, this is really it. The end.”

The doors groaned as the undead continued
their assault. Then there was a clattering on the roof. Falling
debris? Running to the center of the room, Tripper peered at a
boarded-up skylight and listened to the rhythmic sound:
clop-clop-clop...

The skylight exploded. Wood and glass rained
down on him.

A man, shrouded in white but blackened and
burned underneath, dropped into the room. He held a child in his
arms—Lily!

“You’re all right!” Halstead cried. She took
a step forward, then narrowed her eyes at the man holding the girl.
“Who are—
what
are—”

“His name is Adam,” Lily said, climbing out
of the man’s arms. “He’s my friend.”

The old man, Eugene, cowered in the shadows
and stared at the hooded figure.

Ian Gregory approached Adam with a curious
expression. “You look different,” he said.

“We saw you come in here,” Adam replied. He’d
walked his steed up a crumbling wall onto the roof, not wanting to
further stir up the dead with his presence. At Lily’s request,
really... that he save the other survivors, all of them, without
incident. As if he were the old elf from winter legend who could
grant a child’s any wish.

Dalton was silent. He remembered that night,
in the badlands, when Hand of God had seen Death in the flesh. He
didn’t know what to make of the apparition—did this mean salvation
or certain death?

Logan backed up against the shelf blocking
the window through which Gregory had made his entrance. “Well, I’m
about ready to call it a night.”

Dead hands tore through the books and seized
his head. He fumbled with the chainsaw’s starter cord and bellowed,
“A little fucking help!”

Cam pried at the gray hands, but others
reached through to grab at her wrists. The flesh was peeled from
the backs of her hands. She fell to the floor in hysterics.

The saw started up. Logan, his head pulled
into the shelf, unable to see, raised the weapon toward his head.
“STOP!” Gregory yelled. “You’re gonna—”

The blade touched Logan’s throat and it
blossomed like a flower of gore. His cries turned to a gurgling
sputter as crimson showered down the front of his uniform. The saw
fell idle at his feet. The dead hands in his hair and eyes tore his
head from his shoulders and retreated with their prize.

Tripper cradled Cam, who was staring in
horror at her hands. “God—I’m infected!”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yes I do! I feel it! Oh God!”

A window burst behind Eugene. He whirled to
struggle with half a dozen rotting arms. Halstead ran to him. “I
need a gun—NOW!”

One undead hand wavered uncertainly in the
air, a shard of glass embedded in its palm. Then it swung down into
Halstead’s eye.

She wailed as the glass tore a canyon through
her cheek and into her jaw. The rotter’s fingers slipped into her
flesh and tugged her forward. The hands holding Eugene left him and
found her.

Lily grabbed Halstead’s legs. She screamed in
protest as Adam pulled her away. Together, they watched the cop’s
body slide out the window into the night.

Gregory shook Adam by the shoulder. “Can you
help us get to the vehicle outside?”

Adam nodded. He pulled the scythe from under
his cloak and strapped it on to his arm. “Where is it?”

“Out front.”

“Of course,” Adam sighed. He walked over to
the barricaded doors and started pulling crates away.