Eric S. Brown (3 page)

“
Get us moving!” she yelled at Elijah.

He ignored her, sitting calmly behind the wheel, his attention focused solely on Michael.

“
Fine!” Michael roared, throwing his hands in the air in gesture of surrender. “Keep your secrets. Just get us out of here.”

Elijah grinned and stepped on the gas. The van hurled forward through the rotters. “Michael,” Elijah said quietly as he drove, “don’t ever imply that I am crazy again.”

Jacob breathed a sigh of relief, returning to his seat. “Well,” he said, “let’s go be heroes again,” in an attempt to ease the tension that still hung in the air.

As Elijah steered the van through the rubble of the city streets to the morgue, Jacob thought about the folks holed up at the police station and began to understand why Elijah really didn’t want to go there. If those folks were doing okay, even if just for the time being, they may not want company. To them, a new little group might appear as nothing more than more mouths to try to feed, or worse, a threat. An encounter with Jacob’s group could lead to all kinds of trouble. The police station crew could force them to stay, thinking they were doing them a favor, or try to take what they had as their own to buy themselves another day or two of being able to stand against the dead. . . And those scenarios assumed that they would be willing to talk at all. They might just try to defend their turf outright and greet them with bullets. At least the rotters didn’t shoot back at you. Those folks certainly could if it came to that.

Jacob also thought about his own family and friends. Trapped in his office’s break room, he had hoped that some of them were still alive. Having seen what the city had become with his own eyes, those hopes were gone. Jacob had always been kind of a loner and his parents were long dead from a car accident five years ago. The few friends he did have were close ones, even his ex-girlfriend. He thought about Keith at the comic shop, Kristen in her apartment, Shawn working at a construction site and hoped their deaths were easy ones, that they had all died quickly without much pain. It was unlikely but it was the best he could do for them now. He looked up to see that Michael had fallen asleep where he sat. The big man snored softly, his head hanging over his chest.

“
Got any water?” Lori asked, pulling Jacob from his thoughts.

The van was packed with all sorts of supplies and weapons. Jacob was sure he had seen a case or two of bottled water somewhere in the mess. He dug about trying to find a bottle. “I’m pretty sure we do,” he said. “Sorry. I should have offered you guys something sooner. Elijah isn’t exactly the most considerate host, eh?”

Lori smiled at him. “No worries,” she said, “Without him, we would all be dead. I think we can cut him some slack where manners are concerned.”

“
He’s listening, ya know?” Jacob teased her, cocking his head towards the front of the van. “Try not to give him any more of a hero complex than he’s already got.”

Jacob found the water and handed a bottle to Lori. She twisted the top off and drank half of it before lowering the bottle from her lips. “Thanks,” she said with a smile that made Jacob feel hot and woozy.

Jacob fought away the sparks stirring within him and tore his eyes away from her.

***

Mark was having a blast. The apocalypse had been the best thing that ever happened to him so far. He was a self-made king in this new world of hungry corpses and anarchy. The morgue’s heavy steel door kept the dead at bay and he had stockpiled the place full of everything he thought he would need, and then some, while everyone else was still refusing to believe the end had come. Heck, the morgue even had its own generator. Used carefully, his supply of gas would last weeks. By then maybe the monsters would have rotted away. Who knew? He plopped the chainsaw onto the autopsy table, filling its tank from a jug of gasoline. A loud thump sounded from inside one of the refrigerated corpse storage units in the wall.

“
Shut up!” he shouted. “I’ll deal with you later!”

Mark lifted the chainsaw and marched over to the morgue’s side door. Unlike the main entrance, it was made of wood but it was thick and tough. It led into the chapel area which was the only true insecure part of his domain. He had fortified it as best he could before the dead swarmed the area around the building. Mark carefully cracked the side door, peeping into the chapel. A chorus of moans, snarls, and grunts could be heard from within but he didn’t see any rotters that had made it inside among the pews. Scores upon scores of arms covered in green and gray decaying flesh flailed about through and in between the boards he had nailed in place over the sea of windows. Oh yeah, he thought, it’s fun time. He cranked up the chainsaw and went to work.

Ten minutes later, covered in blood and black pus, he staggered into the morgue proper again. Most of the rotters were missing their arms or, at the very least, their hands from his efforts. It lowered their chances of tearing away the boards and getting inside, or so he told himself. The things were packed so thickly outside that the ones close enough to get their arms in were actually pressed against the walls by the weight of those behind them to where they could barely move. It should be a while until the crowd of them, as brainless as the things were, shifted around enough to be a threat again.

The one thing the morgue lacked was a shower. Mark stripped away his soiled clothing, cleaning himself with pieces of a torn-up lab coat at one of the larger sinks. Then he put his clothes in it to soak for a while before he attempted to wash them. Shrugging on a long lab coat over his otherwise naked body, he grabbed a beer from one of the morgue’s large freezers and sat down at the work desk in the main room. Patting himself on the back for a job well done, he took a sip of the beer and opened the laptop in front of him. When he had moved in, he had wired several security cameras along the edges of the roof so he could keep a better eye on the building’s exterior. He watched hundreds of corpses on a laptop now, wandering about the parking lot and the streets beyond it. The sight of the things reminded him of the ones stored in the morgue when he had first arrived. Dealing with those fraggers hadn’t been fun. Unlike the ones trying to get into the chapel, they had been able to fight him. Only the devil knew how much ammo he’d wasted blowing them into twitching pieces. If he ever had to do all this again, Mark swore he would leave the creatures more intact next time. Cleaning up that mess took forever. A thump sounded from one of the roll out corpse containers in the wall again.

“
I told you to shut up!” he raged, walking over to it and pounding his fist loudly on its small, square door. “Can’t a man get a second to kick back with a beer and think?”

The noise stopped. Marked returned to his seat, still grumbling quietly under his breath. “What in the Hades?” he spat out a mouthful of his beer as he watched a black van come tearing into the morgue’s parking lot. Its side door was open and some idiot leaned out from it with the biggest machine gun Mark had ever seen, mowing down the rotters as the van drove around in circles. Mark suddenly felt very cold. For the first time in his three days of paradise, his perfect little home was truly threatened. Whoever those folks in the van were, whether they made it past the rotters or not, he wasn’t about to let them in. He realized what they were doing as he continued to watch them on the laptop’s screen. They weren’t trying to kill all the creatures, merely thin the things’ ranks enough to make for the chapel door, his door. Mark didn’t bother to put on anything else. With his lab coat open and his male parts flopping about freely, he grabbed his closest weapon and got ready to meet them just in case.

***

Michael hosed the rotters in the parking lot, keeping the M-60’s trigger squeezed tight. Hot, spent casings bounced against the side of the van and its floor. Jacob stayed near him, pistol ready in hand, trying to make sure the heavy weapon’s belt didn’t jam. Elijah sat behind them with some kind assault rifle cradled in his lap. Jacob was shocked when Elijah had asked Lori to take the wheel but he supposed she was the best choice. Jacob didn’t even have a license. With all the public transit in the city, he had never needed one. Like sports, cars just weren’t his thing.

A dead woman in a wedding dress came howling towards the van and into Michael’s stream of continuous fire. Rounds from the M-60 pulped the upper half of her body like a slab of meat being tossed into a grinder. Jacob guessed most of the dead would still be alive, for lack of a better word, when they were done but they would be so mangled it wouldn’t matter. Elijah’s plan would get them inside the morgue.

Michael swung the heavy gun at a pack of dead blocking their path to the chapel door. One of the things was cut nearly in half, intestines spewing as its body twisted from the bullets’ impact. The others around it took more rounds than Jacob could guess at, collapsing into bloodied and shattered heaps on the chapel steps.

Lori spun the van, bringing the M-60 around to face the newer rotters still emerging from the alleyways beyond the parking lot.

“
It’s not going to get any better,” Jacob heard Elijah say loudly over the roar of the van’s engine and the chatter of the gunfire. “It’s time to do this.”

Michael looked relieved. His hair was drenched with sweat and he wore a pained expression. The big man dropped the weapon. It clattered to the asphalt as Lori aimed the van at the chapel. Jacob was impressed as she went further than any of them expected.

“
Get down!” she yelled as the van plunged through the chapel’s wall. Jacob and Michael held on for dear life, the initial impact almost sending them flying. The van came to rest with its hood touching the rear row of pews. Elijah was out of the side door like lightning.

“
I’ll hold them here! Find the survivor!” he ordered them.

Despite all the weapons Elijah had for them to choose from, Michael clutched his own shotgun as he leapt from the van, his pockets were now overflowing with additional shells. Jacob stuck with the pistol Elijah had given him when they met. Lori, however, wore a pistol holstered on a belt around her waist and carried twin UZIs in her hands, all looted from Elijah’s stash.

There was a heavy wooden door to the right side of the chapel’s interior that appeared to lead into the morgue. Lori beat everyone to it as Jacob gave Elijah a final glance before following after her. Elijah’s job was made easier by the van acting as a dam against the flood of rotters; they were forced to wedge themselves around it through the small openings in the chapel’s walls by its sides.

“
It’s locked!” Lori shouted as she clubbed the door with the butt of one of her UZIs.

“
Step aside!” Jacob heard Michael order her. The big man raised his shotgun, aiming for the lock.

“
Wait!” Jacob told them as he caught up. “I got this one!”

He fished a paperclip from the pocket of his jeans.

“
You’re telling me you know how to pick a lock?” Michael said.

“
I thought you were a writer,” Lori added.

“
What can I say?” Jacob laughed as he went to work. “I got into a butt load of trouble as a lad.”

A loud click sounded and Jacob shoved the door inward. A flash erupted from the hallway beyond it as a double barreled shotgun sent death flying at him. Only a mix of Jacob being crouched at the level of the lock and his terrified state saved him. He ducked forward, rolling into the morgue as the slugs streaked over him. Michael wasn’t so lucky. Jacob heard the big man scream but had no time to check on him. The door had been booby trapped and something told Jacob whoever set it wouldn’t be happy to see them. Jacob started to get to his feet as the blade of an ax came swinging at his head. He let out a yelp, throwing himself back to the floor. The blade buried itself in the wall above him. A man wearing only a lab coat and nothing more strained to yank it free for another go at him. Lori stepped into the doorway, her UZIs chattering. The nearly naked man managed to dodge the bulk of her fire by ducking around a corner but Jacob saw him take a bullet in his arm. Blood sprayed onto white as the man vanished from sight.

“
What do we do?” Lori asked as Jacob lay at her feet.

“
Hades if I know!” he yelled. “Is Michael okay?”

“
He’s alive,” Lori said. She kept her gaze focused on the bend in the hallway where the man had disappeared.

Jacob scrambled up from the floor. “We could really use Elijah’s help here,” he commented.

“
Elijah’s kind of busy.” Lori took a couple of steps forward. “We’re gonna have to handle this ourselves.”

“
Mister!” Jacob screamed. “We’re not here to hurt you! We just want to help!”

“
Go away, you fraggers!” a voice shouted. “We don’t need your help!”

“
We?” Lori mouthed at Jacob.

“
Okay,” Jacob said, “This guy is starting to make Elijah look sane.”

“
Your trap blew a hole in my husband!” Lori yelled. “Either show yourself so we can talk or we’re coming in!”

Only silence answered her.

“
Ladies first?” Jacob said weakly. The glare Lori shot him let him know how many rungs on her ladder of respect he had just plummeted. “Fine,” he grumbled. If he was really doing this, he was doing it Elijah style. Jacob unleashed a sad joke of a battle cry and ran headlong towards the bend in the hallway. The sheer insanity of his action took everyone off guard, including the naked man in the lab coat. As Jacob rounded the corner, the man was in the process of fiddling with the shotgun he’d snatched from the trap he had set, trying to reload it. Jacob and the naked man stared at each other in wide-eyed horror. Jacob moved faster, kicking the man in the groin. The naked man grunted, bending over at the waist, then Jacob was on him. Tearing the weapon from his hands and flinging it aside, Jacob plowed into the man like a professional football player. The two of them crashed into the wall, the naked man taking the brunt of their impact before they careened over into the floor.