Running With The Horde (Book 2): Delusions of Monsters (35 page)

              He was dozing when they came. At first he assumed it was to beat him as that had been one of their favorite ways to pass the time. But then he realized this time was different. It wasn’t three soldiers, it was six. Then Vicki came strutting into the cell in a ridiculous blue chiffon cocktail dress with a big grin on her face. He wondered if he could reach his waste bucket and add his own mark to that dress before the guards stopped him, but some sounds from the hallway beyond his vision kept him still. It sounded like an animal being held at bay with chains. He thought he could hear children crying. This was odd.

              “Hello,
Vick
i
,” Bill said. That at least took the smile off her face.

              “Hello,
Bil
l
,” she replied. “I’ve brought you a playmate. Bring it in boys,” she called over her shoulder before moving out of the way.

              Four more soldiers entered the room and with them came one of the most pitiful creatures Bill had ever seen. It had been man once, nothing more than a teenage boy. But it was a person no more. Dressed in rags, its hands were chained behind its back and its feet were chained together like a death-row prisoner. One of the four soldiers was a stocky man with a buzz cut. He held the raging creature at bay with long pole looped around its neck.

              “Take his shirt off and hold his arms out,” Vicki barked.

              Before Bill could do anything the soldiers pinned him to the ground and ripped his shirt off. They yanked him to his feet. One man had him in a choke hold while two others held his feet in place and two more pulled his arms apart. He tried bucking them off but it was no use. He was too weak from the lack of food and dehydration.

              “Vicki, what in the hell are you doing?” Bill wheezed. “Can’t you just put a bullet in my head, you inhuman bitch?”

              “What fun would that be, Bill? Besides, George’s friends inadvertently revealed a cool way for me to pass him a message. Unfortunately, that’s bad news for you. Okay, Captain Morgan, enough foreplay, do it already.”

              The stocky man handed the pole to another soldier. The he stepped in behind the beast and gripped it by its patchy scalp. When he had its head firmly under his control he steered the face toward Bill’s exposed arm. The creature didn’t need much encouragement as it snarled then lurched in and took a good sized chunk of Bill’s flesh.

              Bill screamed and wrenched his arm away. The soldier who had been holding his arm outstretched lost his grip and gave the zombie a new target. Bill briefly fainted from the pain and sagged into the arms of the man holding him up. He came to a second later to the sound of gunfire and people screaming. The man Vicki had called Captain Morgan had killed the zombie and the other soldier it had bitten. Once again Bill thought he heard children crying.

              The guard shoved him to the floor and he wriggled backwards until he was supported by the wall. He couldn’t feel anything below his shoulder and figured he was going into shock. From the sweat sheeting down his face he concluded something far worse than a nasty arm wound was going on as well.

              “Okay, all but you four clear out to make room for our guests. I want to get this over with. It stinks in here. You three,” Vicki commanded, “take these bodies out and bring the others in.”

              Captain Morgan moved to the door as the soldiers cleared out the dead bodies. He flashed a signal and a new set of people filed into the room under gunpoint. Two women, three young boys and three weary-looking men bunched up in a tight group in the middle of the room looking confused and scared. Vicki jumped into action and started placing people in front of Bill like she was arranging them for a family portrait and he was the cameraman. All the while Captain Morgan and three of his goons stood to the side with their guns out, ready to shoot anyone who wouldn’t cooperate.

              When Vicki finally had everyone arranged the way she wanted she stepped in front and put an arm around the pregnant woman.

              “Okay people,” she said, “Everyone take a deep breath and settle in. This will be over before you know it and we’ll be out of here.

She turned her attention to Bill with a big smile. “George McCloud, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Harrie, though your father refuses to call me anything except Vicki. Which makes sense, I guess, that’s the name I used when we met,” she giggled.

              Bill was so confused. What in the hell was she playing at? He couldn’t dwell on it for very long, his head was starting to hurt like nothing he’d ever felt before.

              “In any case, George, I’ve wasted a lot of time waiting for you to come rescue your girlfriend. That’s Daisy here, right? I am guessing so. She doesn’t talk much but the mean one doesn’t have a baby bump. Anyway, I am through waiting. Your good friend Mark shared with me your neat gift with zombie memories so that’s why we are here. I really want you to get this message. Why don’t you go ahead and wave, Mark?”

              The man she called Mark did a weak wave before putting his hand back down at his side. The man looked so miserable Bill felt sorry for him in spite of his own predicament.

              “I’m tired of waiting, George. I’m tired of losing soldiers to that maniac, Derrick. So I am leaving and I am taking your girlfriend and all these fine people with me. We are relocating south of the city to the following address where we can be safe. I have helicopters and Derrick doesn’t! Ha-Ha!”

              She read an address off of a piece of paper. Bill vaguely recognized it from a conversation he’d had with Shipman months ago.

              “So, George McCloud, if you ever want to see Daisy again I suggest you come alone and come quickly because I won’t wait forever. Listen now, George, because this is important. I will be watching so you better come alone. If you don’t come alone I will kill every person here. That is a promise. Don’t believe me? Just ask your friend Steven next time you see him. Oh wait, you can’t. He’s dead.”

              Vicki withdrew her arm from around Daisy’s neck and clapped her hands. “Okay, people we are done here. Captain Morgan, how long do you think Bill has?”

              “From the look of him I don’t think very long,” Morgan replied.

              “Okay, let’s get him into the control room and secure him to a chair. Make sure you leave this on his body exactly the way I requested. I wouldn’t want George coming all this way to miss the entire point.” She handed the captain a piece of paper but Bill couldn’t read it. He also found he no longer cared. 

“Everyone else get ready to leave, we are wheels up in fifteen minutes,” Vicki said before storming out of the room.

              Bill’s thoughts were becoming more disjointed. Intense waves of heat kept washing his mind blank like the tide. He hardly felt it when they tied him to the chair and nailed the paper to his chest. In flashing moments of lucidity he realized he was dying. He knew he should be angry or sad but he wasn’t. Moments with his wife and son popped into his mind and he was happy until those were washed away. He thought about Vicki and the entire production he had just witnessed. As he felt himself fading something clicked in his mind about what she’d said and he understood what she’d done. He pushed his final thought to the forefront of his mind and held it there as long as he could before finally surrendering to the abyss. It was a simple message
;
I love you, George. Always and forever.

…

              I popped out of my father’s memories so sad and angry I couldn’t move for the longest time. I could only stare at his ruined face. I imagined a thousand terrible things I would do to this Harrie woman when I got my hands on her. A million ways I would make her suffer for what she’d done to my father. I didn’t want to do it but I went back to my father’s memories and learned everything I could about her and the Syndicate. I learned a bit about Richard as well. None of it was good. I don’t know how long I was under but it was definitely a few hours. I woke up to Derrick gently shaking my shoulder.

              “Dude, you okay? You been staring at him like that this whole time?” he asked.

              “Something like that,” I said as I got up and stretched.

              “So what now? What does the sign on his chest mean?”

              “Derrick,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder, “Its sounds nuts, I know, but my dad had a message for me. I was able to get it. Do you believe me?”

              “Sure, kid, why not? So what was the message?”

              “I am going to Shipman’s place, you know, the fortress? I’m going to confront her there and end this. It’s the only way I can save Daisy and my friends.”

              “So I’ll go with you. We’ll kill Vicki and every one of those motherfuckers she’s got working for her.”

              “No, please, I need you to stay here. Gather as many people in the city as you can in case we need an armed resistance to deal with the Syndicate. Dick and Harrie are only a small part of it and they could come back here anytime. Besides with all the undead beyond the city walls there is no way I could keep you safe. Can you please do this for me? For my dad?”

              He paused a long moment before responding. I couldn’t tell if he was deciding to trust me or bonk me on the head because he thought I was crazy. I felt bad about lying to him. I could’ve protected him against the zombies but I knew in my heart this was something I had to do without him. “Okay, George, we’ll play it your way but if you’re not back in two weeks I going down there, zombies or not.”

              “Fair enough,” I said. A lot could happen in two weeks. “Don’t let Andrew kill Richard. He’s pretty slippery but could be a valuable source of information.”

              Derrick grunted and said, “What are we gonna do about Bill, I mean, your father? We can’t leave him like this.”

              I turned to my father and closed my eyes a third time. I saw that blue light dancing in front of me and pictured him as the enigmatic pillar of strength he had always been. “Goodbye, dad, I love you too, always and forever,” I said and turned off his light. When I opened my eyes his head sagged and his body was slumped in the chair. He was gone.

              Derrick glanced from my father to me with a look of awe on his face, “I guess that shot he gave you really worked,” he said.

              “What you saw isn’t even the half of it,” I said as I headed for the door and grabbed my tommy-gun off the floor.

              “That’s all you’re bringing with you?” he asked.

              “I’m also bringing an army of the undead. We’re gonna rock that fortress like the Foreign Legion on ladies night.

              “What the fuck does that mean, George?” I didn’t answer. I was on a mission.

The Present

Farmington was a rural town about 30 miles south of the cities as the crow flies. My destination was a few miles south of that in Eureka, Township. It took me longer than I thought to get there. I had no trouble getting out of the city. It was navigating south on the interstate that proved the most time consuming. I thought I would hop in a car and drive south in an hour or so but I was idiot. Nothing comes easy in a zombie apocalypse.

Derrick had insisted on sending an escort team with me to at least make sure I was able to successfully get out of downtown. We expected some resistance from the remaining soldiers that were in the city but that never transpired. The walls and guard posts had all been abandoned without Harrie’s Syndicate elite doing their regular check-ins. The groups of people we did encounter were mostly citizens scavenging for food. They were thrilled to still be alive and safe within the city gates. We directed them to the Crystal Court to check in with Parker and the others. They seemed more than happy to comply.

              When we got to the southeastern edge of downtown Derrick’s men lowered me over the wall with ropes and sent my supplies down after me in a military style backpack. Against Derrick’s wishes I kept the tommy-gun but I did allow them to fill my pack with a few grenades and rations for the road. I had a new 9 millimeter pistol strapped to my hip as well. If the men were put off by lowering me into a waiting horde of the undead they didn’t say anything. They really hadn’t spoken to me at all during our journey through the city. I understood, I was no longer like other people.

Finding a vehicle was the easy part as there were thousands to choose from. It was finding a vehicle that would start in the cold after so many months that was the challenge. But I was determined and at last got lucky with one of the dozens of abandoned military vehicles positioned just outside the wall as part of a blockade. It was a Humvee with a full tank of gas and no occupants.

With a boundless number of undead to use as a road crew I started to make slow progress south on Interstate 35. The zombies would clear a path through the road by sheer force and I would drive through it until I got stuck again. It was a two-pronged system. Some had vehicle duty while others had snow removal duty being that the roads hadn’t been plowed since winter started. The first day I made seven miles and slept in the Humvee. It was slower than I could’ve walked but that would have been through the wind and snow and I had no interest in that. My sleep was restless because I couldn’t stop thinking about the zombies and how I knew there was a little spark of humanity trapped in each undead person. I wanted to put them out of their misery but for the time being I couldn’t.

The second day I made 17 miles and again slept the night in my vehicle eating canned tuna and drinking Pepsi so cold it was partially slushy. By the end of the third day I was sufficiently south of the city and the traffic jam on the road wasn’t nearly as bad. With my undead army numbering in the thousands I was able to get all the way south of Farmington to my exit on Highway 29. Here I was again slowed by mountainous snow drifts. Still I got through it by throwing as many zombies at the problem as the road allowed.

I endured one more sleepless night in the Humvee but then on the fourth day I arrived at Shipman’s Fortress. It was much like the Flowers Compound had been in terms of size and shape, almost like they used the same contractors. But the countryside setting made the Shipman Fortress breathtaking and stark against the endless winter background. It was in the middle of nowhere. A giant industrial looking house surrounded by a great wall.

With nothing but farm fields and the occasional tree for miles I imagined Harrie and her people had been watching me approach for a while. It had to have been intimidating to see an army of the undead slow-marching toward their position led by a single vehicle. I, of course, couldn’t see anything as far as people or activity but I was on the outside and I didn’t expect them to reveal themselves until I breached the gates of the fortress.

              When the snow in front of the gate had been cleared I drove as close to it as I could then got out of the car and approached on foot. The zombies around me were silent and waiting in the cold of the winter day. “Hello, the gate!” I called, my voice echoing across the plains.

              Nobody answered.

              “Haaaaarrie, I’m hooooome!” I tried again, doing my best Ricky impersonation.

              Still nothing.

              I had the zombies create a human ladder and started sending them over the wall until I had a couple hundred of them on the other side digging out the snow in front of the gate. I hijacked one of them while I waited in the car so I could look around the yard. This one had been a soldier and he was still wearing his uniform.

              There was no sign anyone had ever been in the yard. The snow was unmolested all the way up to the door. I marched him up to the building itself but there were no windows to look through on the ground floor just solid walls of wood and steel. By this time the snow was cleared from the gate all the way to the garage bays. I set the zombies to the task of opening the gate as I popped back into my body and prepared to enter the grounds.

              A few minutes later the gates swung inward and I was able to drive inside. I drove along the makeshift driveway the zombies had created and parked right outside the first of four double garage doors.

              I hopped out of the vehicle, secured my pack on my back, grabbed my tommy-gun and walked back into the yard and up to the large wooden door. Meanwhile, zombies by the score followed me into the grounds and surrounded the entire building until I could no longer see any of the snow-covered grounds. Harrie had told me to come alone. I had honored that request at least in part because I was the only living being in the yard. She hadn’t said anything at all about the undead. That was her fault for not being more specific.

              The door had a heavy steel knocker at about shoulder height. I gave it three solid clacks and waited. Nobody came to answer. I knocked again and put my ear to the think oak door but heard nothing. On a lark I tried turning the large knob and was surprised to find it was open.

              I took a tighter grip on the tommy-gun, pushed the door open and stepped inside. Cleverly situated windows on the second floor allowed a little daylight to penetrate the great room I was in, but otherwise it was dark. “Hello,” I called.

              The only sound was me stomping my feet on the front rug to get the snow off my shoes. I stepped deeper into the lavishly appointed room. It was more like a long hall with vaulted ceilings and four different clusters of couches and easy chairs arranged around the space. In one corner was a grand piano tucked under a spiral staircase with a gleaming brass railing leading up to a second level. A light flickered from a room up there. Someone was watching television.

              There was no reason for me to keep calling out. Harrie wanted to play games with me. That was fine. I had a few thousand games waiting for her in the yard. I walked back to the door and shut it most of the way but I left it open a crack in case I needed the zombies to enter in a hurry. Then I headed to the staircase and made my way up.

              When I reached the top of the stairs I moved through a small anteroom and entered an open door. A closet was on my right and I advanced into another family room. It was a cozier version of the room below it. A 70 inch television was mounted on the far wall broadcasting some kind of live feed from another room. On the screen I recognized Harrie. She was sitting on a stool flicking playing cards at Jacob who was sitting on the floor in front of her. He looked very unhappy as the cards bounced off the back of his head.

“What the hell is this?” I shouted at the screen.

              “Ah, George! You made it,” Harrie said with a smile. She reached down and fluffed Jacob’s hair. “Isn’t he the cutest? I must say, George, it’s great to finally put a face to your name. I mean aside from that flier.”

              “I’m here,” I shouted. “I did what you wanted. Why don’t you come out and face me?”

              “That’s the thing, George, you didn’t do what I wanted.”

              “What are you talking about? I’m here. I came alone.”

              She laughed, “You didn’t bring anybody with you? Or I guess I should say bodies, right? You didn’t bring any bodies with you?”

              “No I didn’t bring any bodies with me? What the hell kind of question is that?”

              “Oh for your sake, George, I hope you didn’t. As to your earlier question I can’t come out and face you because I’m not there. Facing you was never part of the plan. Stopping you was.”

              “What are you talking about?” I asked.

              “We have Daisy and the fetus. Between her and Dr. Reynolds the Syndicate believes we have more than enough to put an end to this zombie business. Until then we will bide our time within the safe confines of Galveston Island. The only wild card was you but that problem will be solved in three-two-one.”

              Something stung me in the neck. I was startled as I put my hand on the wound and it came away bloody. Already I could feel something was definitely wrong with my body. Somebody shuffled by me but I was having trouble with my vision. I thought maybe one of the zombies had followed me up the stairs until the person spoke.

              “I’m sorry, George,” he mumbled like he was in a trance. “She killed Sam in front of me. She said she would do the same to Jacob if I didn’t do what she wanted.”

              “Mark?” I whispered. My voice was suddenly hoarse and my body started to tremble. Mark continued moving past me until he was standing in front of the television.

              “I did what you said,” he continued in that same bland tone, “Let Jacob go now.”

              “Let him go? What would you have me do, Mark? Put him on a boat to the mainland? No I think I will keep him. The little bugger has kind of grown on me. He’ll make a fine addition to the Syndicate family one day.”

Mark started weeping and crumpled to the floor.

“You should be happy! At least I’m not going to kill him. He is going have a much better life than you could have given him. I’ll be his new mommy!”

              I heard a loud crash and what sounded like a discount box-store on Black Friday coming from the main floor. My zombies responding to the stress my body was under. “What did you do to me?” I said in a weak shout as I fell to my knees but suddenly I knew. It was the failsafe Andrew Penrod and John Reynolds had created in case the wrong person received the control dose of the Simon Virus. Harrie must have taken it from Rosie. My special connection with the undead had just been severed. I closed my eyes to access the grid but it was gone.

              “Sounds like you’ve got quite a crowd downstairs, George. Good luck with that, boys! See ya never!” She smiled and waved as the screen went dark.

              The commotion from the main floor suddenly took on a whole new meaning and I was filled with fear. “Mark!” I screamed, “We’ve got to shut the door! They’re coming!”

              If Mark said anything I couldn’t hear him over the sound of the zombies racing up the spiral staircase. I could hardly see and barely move but I had to get to that door or we were both dead. I crawled back the way I came as my tremors changed to violent convulsions. With every last bit of strength I could muster from my failing body, I launched myself at the door and slapped it as hard as I could. It swung shut with a thunderous clap as the first of the horde crashed into it from the other side. It was built to hold but it wouldn’t last forever. I rolled to my belly and spotted the couch just a few short feet away. If I could push it in front of the door it might buy us a little more time.

              I got to my feet and took a few stumbling steps until I reached the couch. The zombies raged at the door making it shake in its frame. Mark was in the fetal position on the floor in front of the television. I looked down at the sofa afraid I might vomit. Instead of moving it I felt myself drop onto it. My eyes grew heavy and I thought I could just close them for a minute and then I would move the couch. The next thing I knew I was dreaming of Daisy and a little brown-haired girl.

              From there my dreams twisted into a bizarre kaleidoscope of pleasant things and nightmares culminating in a vision during which I was trapped in a pit full of sadistic drummers who would never stop pounding their instruments.

              I awoke with a shout, still on the couch and soaked in sweat. The hammering was right above my head. The couch had been moved in front of the door while I slept. Mark was dozing on the other end of the sofa with the tommy-gun across his lap. I gave him a nudge with my foot. He glanced over at me with a concerned frown.

              “I’m sorry, George. You want to kill me, I would understand,” he said.

              “I’m pissed, Mark, but not at you. You did what you had to do to save Jake,” I said weakly.

              “How do you feel?” Mark asked.

              “Like I got hit by a truck but I feel much better than I did before. How long was I out?”

              “About an hour I guess.”

              We sat there listening to the zombies hammering on the door in an awkward silence, lost in thought and bitter memories. “I’m sorry about Sam,” I said after a while. “He was a great kid.”