Run: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (14 page)

15

“Give me your hand! Reach dammit!”

Ali jumped, but missed Billy’s outstretched arm for the third time.

“I’m trying, you’re too high!”

The moans and cries of the undead were beginning to reach a deafening level as Ali continued to try to gain access to a rusty, sagging fire escape.

“REACH! They’re in the alley and coming! Half the city is behind you! Jump or you die!”

Ali jumped one more time and Billy grabbed her by the wrist. She was heavy, and he wasn’t Hercules.

“Climb up! Grab my head, anything!”

She frantically grabbed his arm with her other hand and yanked herself higher. She felt fingers brush her hospital bootie, and screamed, redoubling her efforts. Billy pulled too, and together they managed to get her on to the cage-like metal bars of the fire escape landing, sans bootie. There were hundreds of frustrated dead reaching for them not ten feet below. She was lying on her back, panting when Billy started pulling her up.

“C’mon, they’re hungry and riled, let’s get inside.”

Ali got to her feet as Billy started looking for a way indoors. The first window he tried was unlocked, and he climbed through before reaching back out to help Ali over the sill. The place was spacious, and even had a fireplace. There was also an elderly zombie dressed in a blood drenched nightgown staggering toward them from the kitchen, growling. She looked pregnant, but had easily been in her seventies when she died.

“Shit!” Ali yelled pointing.

Billy rolled left coming up with a fireplace poker. It was one of the short types, barely fifteen inches long. He charged the dead granny and struck the left side of her head with the poker. She didn’t even stagger, but came on even stronger, eager at his proximity.

Billy started yelling and repeatedly smacking the thing in the head until it collapsed. As it struggled to get back up, he picked up an end table and brought it down on the creature’s neck. He switched back to the poker and finished the job, but not before thumping started somewhere in the apartment.

“Not
one second
to catch our breath? Let’s check out the apartment. She doesn’t have any bites on her that I can see, so she may have been in here alone and just died.” He indicated the dead woman with a nod from his chin.

Ali nodded and stood up. The thuds continued.

“Do you think we should find out where that’s coming from first?” she asked.

“Yeah, no more surprises. See if you can find anything to defend ourselves with, and I’ll check the noise.”

“No friggin way! We’re sticking together. Sorry, but you’re stuck with me for the duration.”

Billy smiled. “Well, you
can
handle yourself, but you sucked with the gun…”

Immediately upon leaving the hospital, the two had been set upon by a growing horde of undead. They took off running, the creatures in pursuit. Within a half a mile, Ali had fired the pistol until the chamber clicked empty without scoring a single head shot.

She had lost the pistol somewhere as she had been running. For a half hour, they had run through the streets, dodging the dead who had accumulated in small groups. A large group of more than fifty appeared suddenly in their path, and they had to think fast. The open doorway of a convenience store beckoned, and they ran in, slamming the wire-reinforced door behind them. By the look of the place, there had been a fight to the death in the store.

Overturned shelves, crushed packages, and bullet casings littered the floor. There was a great deal of blood, but no bodies.

During their search of the place, the dead had reached the store, and started banging on the wire-covered glass in the windows and door. Grabbing a quick snack of soda and candy bars, Billy and Ali stuffed what canned and preserved foods they could fit into two blue cloth shopping bags.

The front window shattered as the dead pulled on the mesh. All were fresh, most with terrible wounds, their tattered clothing drenched with infected blood.

Billy and Ali hurriedly explored the rest of the tiny store, and found a back door and a small hatch in the ceiling. The door had a peep hole, and when Billy checked, he shook his head in a definite no, and they looked for another way out. The access led to the roof, and Ali dragged a step ladder over, the two climbing up and through quickly. As she was shutting the trapdoor, the front window mesh gave way, and the dead poured in.

The roof somehow seemed smaller than the store below. Billy peered over one side and looked down into an alley. There were dozens of moaning corpses milling about below. There was an apartment building about fifteen feet away, but the building’s fire escape occupied part of the gap. It was still a long jump, and if they missed and fell, they were done. There was no coming back from that.

Billy took a running jump and made it easily. Ali tossed her sack of supplies across the gap to Billy, then made the jump herself. She only had hospital booties on, and she was travelling across a gravel roof. She made it, but just. They climbed the metal structure gaining entrance through a broken window on the third floor. They entered a hall, and could see immediately that their fortunes had improved only slightly. Several of the doors had been broken down, and familiar brown and red stains coated the walls and floor in many places.

Moans seemed to come from all directions inside the building, so the two took the stairs to the lobby. The street in front of the building was relatively clear, as most of the dead in the area were congregated around the store they had just come from.

Their brief pause to scout out their next move was disturbed by a series of thuds coming down the stairs behind them. They burst out the front doors and ran left, skirting dead, reaching claws as they did so.

Less than half a minute down the street and it became clear that there was nowhere to go, as the dead were crowded so thickly in most directions. They dodged down an open-ended alley trying to escape. Before they were able to negotiate the narrow path, the other end filled with dead, and they were trapped.

Yet another fire escape loomed overhead, but the down-ladder was gone. Billy took a big running leap and missed. He dropped his bag of goodies and tried again, this time managing to grab the edge of the metal platform. He pulled himself up, then stretched one arm down toward the ground while he held on to the iron frame with the other.

“REACH!” he yelled to Ali.

A thorough search of the apartment yielded little in the way of weapons, save for the already bloodied fireplace poker, and one of the legs from the smashed end table. There was pawing behind one of the closed doors, and an argument ensued about what to do about it.

“If the smallest scratch is enough to kill you, then it’s stupid to open that door!” hissed Ali. “We’ve been incredibly lucky this far!”

“Yeah, but it’s right there, this might be our best chance to smoke it! If we do end up staying here, I don’t want to sleep with the thing scratching at the door! And how do you know the ‘smallest scratch’ is enough?”

“Because I was only a level two! They let us watch TV in the common room! This is the same shit that’s killed the east coast. It was a miracle it took as long as it did to get here. It was already overseas before it reached the west coast.” Ali looked quizzical for a moment, brows furrowed. “Stay here? The whole area is infested with those things. They’ll eventually get in here and tear us to pieces.”

“Key word being
eventually
. We need to kill this one now,” he pointed the poker at the door, “cuz it’s making all kinds of noise! It’s gonna attract every dead person in a half mile radius! If we keep quiet, maybe they’ll all take a hike! Then we can at least rest for a bit.”

“Fine. Just like at Morningside then. I’ll open the door, and you beat the shit out of whatever comes out.”

Billy looked at his poker, then at the table leg Ali was holding. He offered her the poker, and pointed to her weapon. Ali sighed, and they traded. Billy held up three fingers and Ali nodded. She put her hand on the door knob, and Billy counted down using his fingers.
Three, two, one
, and Ali yanked the door open as Billy brought up his table leg in a Barry Bonds stance. The doorway was empty. There was so much blood in the room, it was difficult to tell what the original color had been. The bed, the end tables, the rocking chair in the corner and the walls were all covered in gore. Even the ceiling was dripping with arterial spray patterns. The light from a blood-covered lampshade threw an eerie red glow throughout the already crimson room.

The toe of a beige slipper stuck out from the far side of the bed near the red-spattered window. The shoe moved ever so slightly, but that was it. The scratching they had heard inside the apartment had come from over there, and not near the door as they had originally thought. Billy cautiously entered the room, stepping in the few small spots where there was no blood on the carpet. He looked at the thing attached to the slipper and was mildly impressed.

“Wow, she really did a number on him.”

There was little left of the person in front of him. The entire chest and abdominal cavities were gone. Ribs were strewn across the floor along with the right radius and ulna. The meat of the right bicep was mostly gone, and the left forearm sported a random pattern of semicircle bites. The neck, face, and scalp were torn away, and a single, scarlet eye tracked Billy as he moved. The scratching resumed as the thing grabbed the wooden bed frame with bloody, broken fingernails. Deep scratches were dug in the wood of the bed. The creature was too mangled to get up, but the scratching was unbelievably loud. As Billy stepped near it, it reached for him with its chewed right forearm and nub of left humerus. Billy beat it until it stopped moving.

There was muted hammering someplace else in the building, but the immediate threat of discovery seemed to have been averted. Billy looked out the stained window to see that the dead outside the building seemed to be meandering off. Ali came in and looked at the dead thing, immediately wishing she hadn’t. 

“Jesus, I thought the old lady was pregnant!”

“Nope, that’s him in her belly.”

The two of them dragged the dead woman from the living area into the bloodstained bedroom, closing the door behind them.

Billy grabbed a couple of cans of diet orange soda from the fridge. He moved to the living room, sat on the couch, and put a soda can to his head.

“Better,” he said, and held a can up in the air for Ali to grab.

She took it and sat in a chair across from him. “What now?”

“We drink these, and eat something. Pack as much stuff as we can in whatever we can find, and keep as quiet as possible. We’ll leave as soon as it clears a little outside.

“Terrific.”

“Oh? Had other plans didja?”

“No, but now that I’ve had a few seconds to be less terrified, I’ve been thinking.”

“And?”

“And… I’m locked in a room with a sociopath, and that’s the good news.”

Billy smiled. “Lest we forget, I rescued you from a locked room surrounded by the living dead and escorted you to a safe place at great personal expense. You didn’t even mention the worst thing, scarier even than the zombies.”

She looked at him incredulously, “What could possibly be worse than an army of ravenous dead?”

Billy pulled the can off his forehead, popped the top and guzzled half the contents before answering.

“Cyrus.”

16

Rick stared at the giant black cylinder anchored two hundred yards off of the northern end of Alcatraz. It truly was a marvel. A massive tube of metal that could dive beneath the waves, and sneak up on unsuspecting targets to unleash a rain of nuclear fire.

After quick introductions (and thanks) via the radio, two small transport boats were approaching Alcatraz from the sub. There were eight people aboard, seven of which had weapons pointed in the general direction of the small knot of people nervously waiting at the dock.

Meara’s radio buzzed: “Eight on board sir, seven heavy hitters, and management. I see three MP-5s, three M-4s, and…holy shit sir, an AA-12. Looks to be two snipers on the conn of that sub too sir, both with M-24s.”

“Martinez, I’m a cop not a commando. Stop throwing weapon numbers at me.”

“Sorry sir, but if they turn out unfriendly, we’re in big trouble.”

“Then we should be on our best behavior. Everyone, weapons on the dock, these should be the good guys, but I don’t want to piss anybody off. Their trigger fingers are probably as itchy as ours, and they did just save our collective asses, so they get a pass for now.”

The black inflatable crafts came to a halt at the dock. Chris Rawding and Anna Hargis stepped forward, to catch and secure lines tossed up by some of the crew of the inflatables. All of the crew from the sub were wearing black camouflage and tactical webbing. Weapons from the new comers were pointed low, but not at the ground, fingers on trigger guards.

Two men from the first boat jumped out and one helped out a third. This third man put a white hat with a black visor housing an eagle over a shield on his head as he walked forward. “Thank you,” he said to Anna and Chris. “Where is Captain Meara?”

Meara and Rick stepped forward.

“I’m Meara.”

The man stuck out his hand, which Meara immediately took.

“Captain, I am Commander McInerney, Captain of the USS Florida. We aren’t here to hurt you, take anything that is yours, or conscript anyone, you have my word. This having been said, we are in need of information, and have some to give as well.”

“Commander, you are most welcome here. Thank you for taking care of our little problem earlier. I don’t think we would have been able to hold out too long against those thugs with the few weapons and personnel we have. Please, come with us up to our command center and we can talk at your leisure.”

“I’d love to. May I bring some of my men?”

“Yes, of course, this is my second, Detective Rick Barnes. Forgive me Commander, but we have a sniper on you - I would like to call him off, if that’s OK.”

“Unnecessary Captain. If you would take a look behind you?”

The captain’s face was impassive as Meara and Rick turned around to see Martinez, with his hands behind his head, being escorted to the dock by two unknown men. The men were dressed in black and had automatic weapons at the ready. One of the men had Martinez’s SR25 slung over his shoulder.

The commander looked back to one of the boats. “Lieutenant commander, if you would please call off the dogs?”

A man nodded, and stepped out onto the dock. “Sir! Hammer Platoon, stand down! Repeat stand down! Assemble on the dock at my twenty!”

Two men came from the brush to the left, two in wet-suits climbed over different sides of the dock, and another sprung up from absolutely nowhere, covered in dust and dirt. All were armed to the teeth.

As Martinez and his captors reached the dock, the lieutenant commander instructed the men to return Martinez’s rifle.

“Well, they’ve come prepared,” Rick said under his breath.

“Doesn’t always help, Detective Barnes.” The Commander looked back at his sub with regret, “Not always.”

They made the quick walk up to Meara’s command room, with small talk along the way. The residents of Alcatraz learned that the crew of the Florida had suffered their own outbreak during the past two days. Fourteen crew members had been killed, including one who had taken his own life, and two that had been euthanized after being bitten. The real talking started once Meara and Commander McInerney were seated at a rusty metal table, the pleasant aroma from multiple cups of coffee flooding the large room.

“I guess we need to know two things, Commander. Number one, we would like news of what’s happening throughout the United States. We really don’t know anything other than the east coast was in as much trouble as we are. Can you give us any information?”

McInerney took a long draught from his ceramic 49ers coffee mug and set it down. He considered his words carefully, and spoke concisely in his authoritative voice.

“There is no more United States. Near as we can tell, every major city is overrun. The US military has suffered approximately eighty percent casualties, not counting desertion, and the casualty rate isn’t higher only because about thirty percent of the navy was at sea. The president and the Joint Chiefs were supposed to go to Barro Colorado, which is an island inside the Panama Canal, because NORAD fell from the inside. I don’t know if they made it. We also haven’t had any word from COMPAC, the US Pacific Command, in almost thirty hours, but the last thing we heard was that there was serious consideration about detonating a high yield nuclear device over New York City.”

“Jesus Christ…” breathed Barnes. “What about our forces in other countries, can’t they be called back?”

“There have been outbreaks in every country around the world, there’s no place immune. Our boys on foreign soil are in no less of a fight than we are here. Europe and Australia are in a desperate battle against the undead, and China went nuclear on Bejing this past Saturday.”

The room was dead silent as the commander took another sip from his coffee.

“Gentlemen, our country, our
planet
has been taken over by a hostile enemy. An enemy that is incredibly difficult to defeat. The most sinister aspect of this war is that we aren’t fighting a foreign country, or a radical government, or even terrorists. We’re battling grandma, and your sister, and the kid with the tricycle on the corner. And we’re losing.”

“What can we do?” Barnes demanded.

“We fight back God damn it!” shouted Martinez. ”We organize, and gain strength and firepower, then we smash them back to the Hell they came from!”

Commander McInerney smiled. “I like your enthusiasm son, I do. What you’re suggesting is the plan too, at least my plan. The problem is, as a military, we’re scattered. We need people and weapons, but more importantly, we need to know what we’re fighting. We all know the who, but we don’t know the how or the why. How and why the dead come back to life, why they’re hostile. What means we can use to destroy them.”

He let the Alcatraz folks digest this information before he continued.

“What was your second question?”

“What do you want with us?” Meara asked immediately.

“I need a port of harbor for my boat. All the major US ports are infected, abandoned, or destroyed. We have an operational functionality of about ten years, not including crew rotation, but we still need food, and a place to effect major repairs should the need arise. I would ask that we could use Alcatraz as a base of operations. I would, of course, provide a military force as security to be controlled by Detective Meara, surveillance of San Francisco to scout, and manpower to assist on foray missions into the city if you would agree to us sharing your island. We would also be willing to share our resources and engage in mutual support.”

Martinez and Wizneski spoke up at the same time:

“Sold!”

“Deal!”

“This is a no-brainer, Mike,” Barnes added.

“Well Commander, I believe you should meet the rest of our group. Alcatraz is police controlled, but I would still like to see what the civilians have to say about a military presence here.” Meara snorted, “I can think of one who might take issue…”

“Fair enough, Captain. Shall we?”