This Rotten World (Book 2): We All Fall Down (6 page)

165 miles east of Portland,
Colin Murphy, affectionately known as Murph to the other staff at the Boardman
Power Plant, was having his lunch and listening to the radio. He pulled a
hard-boiled egg wrapped in a paper towel from the paper bag sitting on the
console. If the Chief saw his lunch sitting on the console, he would have his
ass, or at least he would have had it in the past. Now things were different.

Over the radio, Murph listened
to the stories. It sounded like the end of the world out there. At first, Murph
had thought it was one of those hoaxes like that old War of the Worlds story
that people always told, the one about how some residents heard the story on
the radio and mistook fact for fiction, hopping in their trucks with shotguns
to fight off the alien menace.

Murph tapped the egg against the
edge of the console, breaking the hard shell. He laid his napkin flat over the
buttons in front of him and began the process of peeling the egg.

Things were bad all over, but
not in Boardman. Boardman was a small town, out of the way, populated mostly by
people employed at the power plant. There had been little of the "mass
hysteria" that was being portrayed over the radio. Maybe it was another
one of those Y2K situations, a non-issue being blown all out of proportion by
the media for ratings. Murph wouldn't put it past them. First Y2K, then that
SARS shit, and now the dead coming back to life.

Murph pulled half the shell off
the egg in one go. It was an omen, a good one. The egg, was part of his daily
ritual, one that he had developed over the last year of working in the control
room of the power plant. He could tell how his day was going to go simply by
peeling his hard-boiled egg at the beginning of every shift. Today was going to
be a good day. He leaned back in the chair and brought the cold, pungent egg up
to his lips and took a bite. On the monitors, everything was golden. It usually
was.

Working at the Boardman Power
Plant wasn't for most people. For one thing, the town that they all lived in
was out in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing but a few farms, a general
store, and a bowling alley that seemed out of place among all of the power
plant workers and their families. Half the time the lanes stood empty, the only
noise issuing forth from the bar, where power plant workers, bathed in the neon
light of beer signs, swilled beer and traded stories of their glorious pasts,
stories about loves won and loves lost. They were mostly bullshit, but that
suited Murph fine. He had experienced enough adventure as a youth, winding up
on the wrong side of life, skinny, broke, and in jail. No, his new life suited
him just dandy. He had a book in his bag, some monitors and lights to watch,
and a simple lunch. He was stress free and without temptation in the ass-end of
the Oregon high desert, just the way he liked it.

Murph set the remaining half of
the egg down on the paper towel, then he pulled a couple of small plastic
containers labeled "P" and "S" from the paper bag on the
console. He upended them over the egg, watching the salt and pepper dot the
yellow yolk. It was about as much excitement as he could stand.

He was chewing on the second half
of the egg when his radio squawked to life. "Murph. Get your ass down
here."

With a mouthful of egg, he
reached for the radio, depressed the button, and said, "Down where,
Chief?"

"Down to the
cafeteria," the reply came. Murph swallowed the egg, bundled up the napkin
with its discarded shell and dumped it in the trashcan for the custodial staff
to deal with. This was serious. The Chief was a stickler for the rules. For him
to even use a radio and not use the customary "over" call at the end
of his message was enough to tell him that. The fact that he was actually
having him leave his post during his shift was a further indication.

Murph looked into his brown
paper bag with one last forlorn look, and then grabbed out a small Ziploc
baggie of nuclear orange Doritos.

****

The tables in the cafeteria were
white, and looked like they had been purchased from a high school. They were
the types of tables that had benches attached, and if extra space were needed
in the cafeteria, they could be folded up and rolled into the corner. But no
extra space was needed that day. The Chief stood between all of the tables.
Murph sat on one, wondering what exactly was going on.

"I suppose you all been
listening to the news," he started.

Murph smiled. "You mean all
that bullshit they been talkin' 'bout the dead coming to life?"

The Chief looked at him, dark
brown eyes burning into Murph's green eyes. Murph swiped at an imaginary itch
on the back of his neck, blissfully breaking eye contact with the Chief. The
stocky brown foreman spoke again, "I know. I know. It all sounds made up.
It sounds like it ain't real. Well, I got some news for you. It is real."

The other workers laughed
nervously. Skinny Tom, covered in coal dust and grease, said, "C'mon,
Chief. Stop pulling our legs."

Murph knew it was real. As soon
as he said it, Murph knew that the Chief was speaking the truth. The Chief
didn't have time for bullshit. He didn't play jokes. The next time he laughed
would be the first.

"We got word from town.
Things are going down. Things like what the radio says is happening. I called
you guys in here because we have a decision to make." The Chief looked
around the room, his eyes boring into each one of the men and women who were
assembled.

Murph's mind wandered. He had
never been very good at staying focused on someone talking. Murph imagined an
army of coal marching down a conveyor belt, rough-edged raw chunks of coal,
marching right into a burning inferno to be burnt at a thousand degrees. There
was a connection there... something deep. Something smart, but he couldn't
quite grasp it.

"You there? Murph?"

Murph was jolted out of his own
mind by the Chief's deep voice. "Huh?"

"Jesus," Skinny Tom
spat. "Pay attention, Murph. We ain't on no holiday."

The Chief continued where he
left off, but Murph was lost now. He paid attention to his words, hoping that
he would be able to glean the gist of what he had missed when he was spacing
out. "Now, I know some of you got families back in the town. I can't ask
you to stay here and keep the fire going for people in Portland while your own
families are at risk. But I can't have all of you go. We got a job to do, and
we got to do it."

Skinny Tom and a few of the
other men stood up. "What are you asking us?" Skinny Tom said, a
suspicious look on his face.

The Chief wiped his hands across
his face. "This is hard. I know it is. And I want you to know that I am
asking; I'm not telling. I need volunteers to keep the fire lit."

Skinny Tom's jaw dropped open,
and to Murph he looked like one of those ventriloquist dummies without a
ventriloquist at the helm. "You want us to stay here while our families
are fighting for their lives? I got a daughter and a wife, man. I ain't sittin'
in no power plant to keep the beer cold in Portland while my family is out
there. You got a lot of nerve."

"I'll stay," Murph
said. It was as if the entire room had been a balloon filled to bursting with
tension, but with Murph's words, it all seemed to leak out.

The Chief walked over to him,
and patted him on the shoulder with his broad hand. "Thank you,
Murph."

Murph didn't know why The Chief
seemed so emotional. It wasn't even the end of his shift, and he had nowhere to
be anyway. Murph looked down and pulled open the Ziploc bag full of Doritos. He
crunched away as the men and women around him argued over whether they should
stay or not. In the end, they all decided to leave. It was only Murph and the
Chief, and Murph would have left too if he had any place else to be.

Skinny Tom and the others
grabbed their coats and rushed out the door, promises on their lips to return
once their families were safe. Murph watched as they disappeared, keys jingling
in their hands, and wondered if he would ever see them again.

Two blocks into their flight,
Rudy knew he wasn't going to be able to keep up the pace. His weight was too
much; even walking exerted a massive strain on the frame of his body. Usually,
when he moved about, he walked at a leisurely pace, one that would keep him
from wheezing and sweating too much. He would always sweat. Three-hundred pound
men sweat when they rolled over in bed.

Chloe set the pace while Amanda
clung to his side. If it wasn't for the adrenaline coursing through his veins
and the hungry eyes that were locked onto him, he would have sat down on the
curb to cry. But he could feel the eyes and see the dead honing in on him. He
didn't want to be eaten. It was a shocking thing to think. If he had told the
idea casually to someone a few days ago, they would have looked at him like he
was crazy. But that was his situation, he either needed to move his bulk and
carry it through the city, or he could sit on the ground and be eaten. So he
lengthened his stride and swallowed his pride, panting heavily to keep up with
Chloe.

At least the view was nice.
Chloe was dressed in a nice pair of form-fitting jeans, her platinum blonde
hair catching the sunlight underneath the trees. They walked through the Park Blocks,
a strip of blocks situated between 9th and 8th Ave, or SW Park Ave as some
clever planner had decided to call the streets. Why that person couldn't figure
out two different names to call the streets was a mystery for the ages. The Park
Blocks were a twelve-block stretch through the city. So far they had traversed
three of them.

The dead were everywhere, which
was alarming. Rudy looked longingly at the buildings around them, any one of
them perfect for hiding out in, but Chloe walked, as if driven, her rear end
jiggling slightly with each step. Sweat dripped into Rudy's eye.

"Where are we going?"
he asked.

Without even looking over her
shoulder, "We need to find help. We need to find others, and we're not
going to find them here."

"Shouldn't we get a car or
something?"

Chloe laughed, throwing her head
back. "Didn't you guys listen to the radio?"

"I don't listen to the
radio. It's just hipster crap and forgettable pop songs," Amanda said.

"Well, you should try it
sometime. If you had listened to the radio, you would know that all of the
roads out of here are fucked."

Rudy wheezed as he spoke, trying
to alternate breathing with speaking, "What do you mean?"

"While we were hiding in
our apartments, people were trying to get out of the city. They created a
traffic jam that locked up the highways... apparently the highways are worse
than the actual city," Chloe said.

Rudy took this knowledge in. No
way out, no escape. A helicopter roared overhead. Rudy looked up and watched it
fly through the air. The sound of a minigun firing hit his ears.
"Yeah!" he yelled. "Kick some ass!"

His voice echoed through the
Park Blocks as the helicopter moved out of sight behind some tall buildings.
Rudy wheezed and pulled his asthma inhaler from his pocket. He put it to his
lips and pressed down on the canister, but nothing happened. He pressed it down
one more time, but again, nothing happened. Panic welled inside his chest.

"It's not working," he
whined, his chest tightening with each breath.

The creatures around them seemed
closer than ever. Amanda steadied him as his face turned red. Chloe looked at
Rudy with annoyance on her face.

"Come on, there's a
Walgreen's a few blocks down," she said.

Rudy walked with Amanda
supporting him as he struggled for breath. Fear danced around the edge of his
mind. He didn't want to be eaten. The thought ran through his head over and
over. The blocks, which were half the size of your average city block thanks to
the ingenious planning of the city's founders, seemed to go on for miles.
Rudy's throat was getting tighter and tighter, and he could barely walk.

His vision became spotty, and at
one point Chloe walked back to him and snatched the sword from his hand. The
dead were gaining ground on them. Their pace was no longer quick enough to
avoid them.

"Hurry up or I'm going to
leave your ass," Chloe spat.

Amanda whispered into his ear,
her breath hot and comforting, "I really hate that, bitch."

Rudy didn't have the breath to
respond. He focused on Chloe's backside, following it as the vision around the
edge of his eyes darkened and spots swam in front of him. He watched, gasping
for air, as Chloe swung the blade at a limping man, his stomach torn apart and
guts trailing between his legs. His head rolled off, and the body slumped to
the ground.

Amanda and Rudy had to skirt around
it, as Rudy no longer had the strength to lift his legs more than an inch or two
off the ground. Then they were there, in front of a plain storefront, plastered
in the white and red logo of Walgreen's. Rudy focused on the swooping script.
The glass to the front of the store was already busted, and they shuffled
inside, well aware that they had gathered a crowd of followers.

Chloe ran through the store,
jumping over displays that had been knocked to the ground. Rudy and Amanda followed
at a slower pace, losing sight of Chloe's bobbing platinum hair. They heard
Chloe banging on something, and then there was a gunshot, followed quickly by
another gunshot.

"Oh shit," Amanda
said. Rudy would have agreed with her if he could speak, but his face was red
and it felt like a sumo wrestler was sitting on his chest, preventing him from
grabbing a full breath. Even sliding his feet along was too much for him. They
heard the broken glass being crunched and kicked by shambling feet behind them.
Rudy forced his body to move, and they emerged into the back of the store where
the pharmacy was.

Chloe was behind the counter,
rummaging around, picking up boxes, reading them, and tossing them on the
ground. "I can't find it. What am I looking for?"

"Ass..." he gasped,
unable to form the words. "Asthalin." Rudy collapsed onto the ground
behind the busted door of the pharmacy. Amanda stepped over his body and began
searching the pharmacy shelves, looking for something that said Asthalin. Chloe
shoved the door closed and sat Rudy against the door.

"Don't let anyone in,"
she said, a serious look on her face.

From his spot on the floor, Rudy
could see through the wire meshed windows of the pharmacy's counter. Underneath
the noise created by Chloe and Amanda's discarding of boxes, he could hear
their moans and their shuffling footsteps as they got closer. Even if they
managed to find his medication, they would be trapped in the pharmacy. He had
likely gotten everyone killed. They could have easily left him behind. He
wouldn't have blamed them. He was dead weight. Worse, he was dead weight with
an asthma problem and a top speed of three miles per hour, which he could only
sustain for half an hour.

Amanda was there, pulling
something out of a white box. Asthalin. She held the inhaler to his mouth, and
he wrapped his thick lips around the light blue inhaler, thanking Amanda with
his eyes. He inhaled the medicine, and he felt the change immediately. He sat
on the floor, gasping and sucking up as much air as he could as an unseen force
behind him tried to push the door open. Rudy wedged his feet against the
counter, and used all of his weight to keep the door closed.

His back vibrated with the
banging of the dead upon the door. From his spot on the floor, he could see
more of the dead banging on the glass of the pharmacy. Death was here, looking
for a way to get in.

"Shit," Chloe said.
"I knew I should have ditched you guys when I had the chance."

"I'm glad you didn't,"
Rudy said, sincerity feeling weird on the tip of his usually acid tongue.

Chloe just glared at him and
began looking around the pharmacy. Amanda knelt next to Rudy. "We're going
to be alright, don't worry about her. They have to get tired sometime
right?"

Rudy said nothing. He
concentrated on breathing, deep, even breaths. Chloe kicked the boxes on the
floor as she stalked back and forth, looking out through the wire-mesh windows.
She was furious. Rudy could see the rage rising in her. Her beauty melted away,
replaced by an ugly creature, a hateful, spiteful thing full of anger. Suddenly,
he could not see the beauty in her. Who was this woman? Who was this raging
entity that stalked through the pharmacy, swearing, shouting, and knocking
medications onto the floor?

When she pulled her gun from the
back of her jeans, Rudy instinctively put his hands to his ears. Amanda did the
same. Chloe fired through the wire-meshed window. On the other side, a man with
no shirt on stopped banging on the glass. A hole in the glass lined up with the
hole in his head, and his face squeaked as it slid down the glass.

Chloe didn't stop there. She
fired again and again, emptying her gun into the mass on the other side of the
window. When she was done, there were nine holes in the window, and several of
the creatures were on the floor. But still there were more of them. Rudy
removed his hands from his ears and asked, "Are you satisfied?"

Chloe shot him a murderous
glare, but before she could answer, more shots rang throughout the store, but
they weren't from Chloe's gun. It hung limp at her side. "Get down!"
Rudy yelled, but Chloe stood there, looking like the world's most beautiful
mannequin. Shots ripped through the windows, and blood plastered the glass,
making it hard to see. Amanda fell into Rudy's arms, and he squeezed her tight,
jamming his legs against the counter of the pharmacy to help keep the door
closed, while their ears rang from all the gunfire. It seemed to last an
eternity.

When it was done, Chloe began to
yell, "In here!"

Over the ringing in his head,
Rudy could hear bootsteps and shouting voices. As Amanda unfurled herself from
his arms, Rudy couldn't help but wish that the people outside would go away.

"You alright in
there?" a male voice asked.

"Yeah. We're okay, now that
you guys are here," Chloe replied.

Amanda helped Rudy to his feet,
grunting at the strain. His hand lingered in hers for a second, and then it was
gone, the softness still hanging on his fingertips. The door slid open behind
them, and several corpses sprawled onto the floor, the non-animated kind of
corpses. They were Rudy's favorite.

They shambled out of the
pharmacy, Amanda handing him a couple more boxes of his Asthalin. He shoved
them in his bag as the men outside told them to line up against the wall. Rudy
did as he was told, along with Amanda and Chloe.

One of the men came over and
took Chloe's gun from her. "Look what we've got here," the man said to
another soldier.

"Search 'em," the man
said. He was clearly the one in charge.

Rudy saw the soldier who had
taken Chloe's gun run his hands over his body, lingering in the places that
Rudy wanted to linger in. Jealousy rose in him before it was followed by a
softer anger. It was a strange cocktail. When the soldier was finished, he
patted down Rudy, and then Amanda. His hands lingered on her as well, and for
some reason, Rudy found himself equally enraged, if not more so.

"They're clean," the
soldier announced, smiling slyly at the other soldiers.

The man in charge spoke with a
plain voice. "Don't you know you people are supposed to stay inside?"

"Our building was going to
burn down around us," Rudy started before the man in charge cut him off.

"Looting is a capital
offense during martial law." He squatted on the ground and picked up
Rudy's backpack. He unzipped it and pulled out the plain white boxes that
contained his medications. He held the offending items up.

"I was going to die,"
he complained. "The glass was already broken."

The soldier put the medicine
back in the bag, zipped it up, and tossed it at his feet. "Yeah, desperate
times and all that. The fact is, you're lucky we found you. You can relax.
We're not going to arrest you. In fact, you're saved."

They stopped leaning on the wall
and turned around to look at their saviors. "What do you mean?" Chloe
asked.

"We're setting up a rescue center.
We'll take you there."

Rudy felt his heart leap in his
chest. A rescue center! Some place guarded by soldiers. They were saved. No
more running. No more fearing for their lives.

The soldiers surrounded them. The
man in charge said, "Let's get them to the trucks," and then they
made for the exits. Rudy watched as the soldiers pocketed items from the store,
so Rudy did the same, grabbing a bag of chips, some exotic flavor of Cheetos.
Amanda grabbed a warm six-pack of beer off of a shelf, and stuffed it into her
backpack. One of the soldiers looked at her, disapproval in his eyes.

"What? I'm in
college," she said, as if that would explain it all.

"Can I get my gun
back?" Chloe asked as they approached the broken glass that now served as
the Walgreen's main entrance.

The man in charge spun around,
walking backwards, and said, "You won't need it where you're going." As
he stepped out into the sun, ashy brown hands clamped around his throat, and
the ghastly face of one of the dead appeared, snaking a bite out of the man's
cheek before anyone could do anything.

The soldiers were slow to react,
their rifle straps catching on their soldiers, panic in their movements. The
man in charge attempted to push away the creature that bit him, but another
appeared, sinking its teeth into the meat of his arm. He screamed, and gunshots
rang out in the hot air of the day. The first creature went down in a heap, and
the man in charge pushed the second one to the ground, cursing under his
breath. It was a little girl, her dress covered in blood that had dried brown.
She looked up at the man in charge, and she snarled at him, bits of his flesh
caught in her braces.