Zombie Ascension (Book 1): Necropolis Now (18 page)

A car alarm suddenly exploded into life outside, and the former detective's heart skipped a beat. He stopped against the wall for a moment to recover his wits.

Flame from a burning car cast shadows through an open doorway, creating a wild dance of light along the corridor. The steps beneath the banister were visible. He was close.

He could feel a presence in the dark, and he stopped. He bit his lip and waited.

"Come on, motherfucker," he whispered in the dark.

Hands dropped upon his shoulders and he whirled around with one hand on the banister. The smell of warm vomit mixed with spilled blood nearly made him choke, and he fought down the remnants of a Little Caesar’s pizza he ate for lunch. He blindly shoved his gun forward, and pulled the trigger. Something wet and sticky splashed him in the face.

As soon as he lost his footing and felt the air beneath his back, he realized how stupid he was to fire a Desert Eagle one-handed while on the stairs.

His fall was short-lived, and he landed on something soft and wet. He knew exactly where he was, and he wrestled through the reaching arms with a panicked yelp, careful not to drop his gun. The blood-slick bodies beneath him wrapped their fingers around his ankles and his wrists. He could feel himself sinking.

"Fuck you!" he shouted and fired his gun at something underneath him, as more blood splashed across his clothes.

He disentangled himself and stumbled back to the stoop outside, where Frank still sat dejectedly, the gory hammer in his fist. The corpse beneath him continued to twitch, with feet that rubbed against each other like a frustrated captive.

Breathing heavily, his nerves afire, Griggs stood beside Frank and planted his hands against his thighs. The woman on the lawn who'd tried to escape her husband had become an open carcass, a large herd animal brought down by a pack of savage beasts; four corpses were sitting around her bleeding body Indian-style, casually stuffing pieces of the dead woman into their mouths. The husband chewed noisily, his mullet smeared with his wife's blood.

"What a night," Griggs said.

"Dude," Frank said simply. "If you're going out, could you bring me back some Taco Bell? I'm starving. I feel like I'm the only one not eating. Can't take it, man…"

"You got cash on you?" Griggs replied absently, hardly understanding why he responded at all.

Frank reached into his pocket and withdrew a few wrinkled bills. "Surprise me. I ain't picky. Just get whatever."

Griggs took the money and folded the bills into a pocket on his blood-stained sport coat. "Sure. Whatever. Your wife want anything?"

"Nah."

"See you in a bit," Griggs walked away and headed back to his dented truck.

When he slid into the driver's seat, he set the gun down beside him instead of placing it in the holster. Deep down, he understood that he was in total and complete shock. He was covered in blood, and was afraid whatever was happening might be a virus that was easily transmitted through bodily fluids.

The stains all over his clothes were going to be difficult to get out.

His fingers paused over the keys in the ignition. For a moment, he thought about his ex-wife and the two kids she'd taken from him, children who were disgusted by him; they were embarrassed to carry his name. They wanted more from him. More money.

But he was doing it all for Mina. She was the only one who still cared. The only one who understood him.

Just as he turned the key and checked his rearview mirror, he caught a glimpse of Frank running toward the truck, waving his arms so Griggs would wait for him. Griggs put a hand on the magnum and slid the transmission into reverse, but he kept his foot on the brake and waited.

Frank, out of breath, looked into the truck with wide eyes. "Hey, man, you can get whatever. It doesn't have to be Taco Bell. Did I give you enough to get a drink, too? Orange pop would be great."

Griggs removed his hand from the Magnum. "Sure, Frank. You'll be taken care of. Smoke one for me while I'm out, will you?"

Frank flashed a yellow-toothed grin. "You know it, man. Hey, be safe, alright? Lots of crazy people on the road this time of night."

VEGA

Vega still wasn't comfortable—Nick Crater was a slime ball. His eyes kept looking her over, and she began to grow impatient. What were they waiting around for? Jim Traverse wasn't just going to come to them.

The six surviving members of Crater's team had already blocked the exits with desks, tables, and chairs, but the windows were another matter. Thankfully, there weren't many, considering that Eloise Fields was a hospital for the deranged. They closed off the few offices that had windows and hunkered down in the lobby near the front doors. Most of the lights had been turned off, and the halls were slick with blood and corpses.

Their meager fortification wasn't going to hold for long if the dead came in force. Most of the ghouls outside were uninterested and simply stood in the silence outside with hundreds of dead lying on the cement. The flames from burning cars flickered weakly while the horizon pulsed from the ethereal glow of a burning city. The edges of the sky were starting to turn blue.

Dawn was approaching.

But she didn't want to wait around all night. It was time to go. Shanna might still be out there. It didn't occur to her that in all that chaos, the little girl might not have survived. Vega couldn't think that way.

"They’re not interested if we don't draw attention to us," Crater whispered while rubbing the top of his baldhead thoughtfully.

They wait, and watched, but nobody knew what or why. The soldiers spoke to each other in hushed tones and passed cigarettes. A couple of them wiped down their guns. One man cried.

What would the daylight reveal? These men had watched their fellows die, and they could only guess when their time would be next. Were their families safe? Would they ever get out alive to protect them?

Bob and Vega had a chance to wash some of the blood off their faces. They visited Traverse's old cell, but it was nothing more than a curiosity; it was confirmation that the man they chased did in fact exist.

While sitting in the lobby, Crater continued to lament their situation.

"This should have been a full-scale op," he said. "They didn't take Traverse seriously. They still think this thing outside is biological." He looked up at Bob as if his old partner might be able to validate his complaints.

"Can’t do anything about it now," Bob pointed out. "Nobody believed Traverse, and now, we're here. Did
you
believe him at first?"

Crater laughed. "Who would? What kind of question is that? Our mission was to find him and bring him in. The story was shit."

"So what're you crying about?" Bob asked. "Picking up Traverse again is a desperation move. They only sent us in because they didn't know what else to do, no matter how ridiculous the whole thing seems. The suits in Washington will still operate as if they can cure it, or reverse it somehow."

Vega was lost. "So it's not biological?"

"We don't know," Bob stroked his beard.

"Bullshit," she said. "You have some idea what’s going on, or you wouldn't be talking about it."

"You going to put a muzzle on her?" Crater asked Bob. "You let her run her mouth like that? A woman's mouth is good for only one thing. I don't want to hear her speak."

Vega immediately got right in his face. She was taller than he by almost a foot, and his eyes were staring right into her chest.

"What's my mouth good for, Crater?" she dared him. "Why don’t you tell me?"

The soldier smiled. "You're going to show me, little girlie."

"Enough!" Bob shouted. "Sit your asses down."

They separated, and Crater began to address all of them.

"If you die, you become one of them," Crater explained, using broad hand gestures to accompany his words. "This isn't exclusive to Detroit. We have to assume everybody and everything is cut off. Not even the military servers are up and running, so we can't access the internet. It's every man, woman, and child for themselves. "

Crater's words didn't seem real, or possible. His eyes flashed to her, and she stared him down until he looked away and refocused.

"We're spread thinly," he continued. "You think there's enough manpower to fight this battle all over the country?"

Bob cleared his throat. "So the big question, then."

"Yeah, the big question: Why Traverse? Nobody knows Eloise Fields was run by the military, with military doctors. But Traverse knew."

Bob sighed. "Thought he was full of shit when we found him that first time. When he said, he wanted to be committed at Eloise Fields. That's why we he took us all the way to Michigan."

Crater shook his head. "This man was a ghost. Bob and I are the best damn trackers in the business. Traverse… was one of the greatest soldiers to have ever lived. The man almost didn't need to be trained. In most exercises, no matter what it was, he was a master. So they sent him on impossible missions. He couldn't be killed. He was black ops all the way. People wondered if he was part of some government project to design the best soldier, like something out of a movie. But that wasn't the case. This guy was Jason Bourne and James Bond on steroids."

"How did the bird fall from the sky?" Vega pointed to the smoking rubble that used to be a helicopter, its pieces scattered all over the parking lot outside.

Crater rubbed his forehead and aggressively chewed his bottom lip. "We think it was him. But we don't know that for sure."

Vega smirked. "Yeah, right. You're telling me he brought a chopper down? With what?"

Crater chuckled. "You don't know what you're dealing with."

Bob shook his head. "And we still have to bring him back alive."

One of the other soldiers asked, "But how do you know this shit's spreading? How do we know all those dead things are going to be all over the place? I'm not buying it!"

Crater spat. "Not going to argue the point. You've seen what I've seen. You die, you come back. How can that be exclusive to our location? But those damn things should be easy to take out. That's not the worst of it. They didn't bring it down to this level. No. I never thought it could happen like this. That
we
would do it."

"Just needed an excuse this whole time," Bob remarked.

"This is supposed to happen," Vega added, though she wasn't interested in sparking a philosophical or theological debate about fate and God.

For a long time, nobody spoke. Crater's chin rested on his chest while he wallowed in self-pity.

"So we're just going to sit around?" Vega asked. "Take a coffee break?"

"You haven't been listening…" Crater started.

"No, I think I've heard enough, actually. Traverse is supposed to be the key to this whole thing, so why don't we do something about it?"

Someone said, "I ain't going back out in that shit. Count me out."

Crater didn't answer. Instead, Bob stood up and approached Vega. In a lowered voice, he tried to calm her. "He's fried, and this outfit's fucked. Crater's a good soldier, but I don't feel like waiting around, either. We might be alone on this."

"There's a chance someone else got to Traverse," Vega said. "He might even be dead."

Bob shrugged. "Who cares? We're going to do this, with or without Crater's people. They've lost more than we have. Put it into perspective. Miles could still be with us."

Vega looked away.

"No," Bob said. "Look at me, Amparo. You know I'm right. These men are trained commandos and most of their squad was wiped out. They're stranded here, just like us."

"I don't feel like sitting around and feeling sorry for myself. I've done that already. I'm done with these people."

Bob turned away from her and addressed Crater. "We’re leaving. We came here to do a job. Traverse might already be dead or captured. Either way, we've got firepower, training, and balls. If you want to sit here and rot, go right ahead."

"Fucking rousing speech there, Grandpa," Crater stared at the fiery cityscape outside. "You're inspirational, to say the least."

"We don't have a trail," another soldier pointed out.

Bob said. "Traverse is having the time of his life out there. It's like a meat buffet to him. This hospital's close enough to the suburbs—if I wanted to try and blend in with people and kill them later, that's what I would do. Hang out in the ghetto. Chop people up. Besides, he wants to be found. He wants to gloat."

Crater eyed him for a moment. "This man left a trail of dead bodies across the country, and he was only caught because he wanted it."

"He's an addict," Bob said. "Just like us. We're action junkies. We love our violence, and he's not much different. He's right at home with all the monsters. I don't suspect he would be a nice guy if he managed to escape from the hospital alive. We keep this thing simple. He likes to kill people, right? He wouldn't suddenly have a conscience in the middle of the apocalypse."

Vega was sick of waiting. She didn't need anyone's cooperation. She would be able to kick just as much ass by herself. She stood up and looked through a window at the shuffling horde of undead.

"Let's take the Stryker and get this guy!" one of the soldiers announced.

"How stupid would that be?" Bob asked. "You don't think he'll see us coming? You don't think we'll attract thousands of those things to the tank while we roll through? We're just going to push right through all the abandoned cars?"

The other soldiers began to chime in, and an argument ensued. Vega tuned them out and began to think about Shanna's chances out there in the wilderness of pain and horror.

Crater was pressed against Vega. His eyes lingered on her for a long time.

"Fuck's your problem?" she asked him, suddenly aware of all the tears in her uniform and the MP5 which hung from its strap around her shoulder.

"You're my problem," Crater said. "You gotta wonder how it'll be for women now, you know? No rules, nobody to protect them. We've already seen it, you know. Rape. All over. Everywhere. And why not? When the armies of ancient civilizations conquered cities, rape was their reward. But there's no reward waiting for us. Until you showed up."

Vega's hands balled into tight fists. She wanted him to keep talking. It would feel so much better to knock him out when he was done.

He leaned in and spoke into her ear. "You think it's not on everyone's mind, right now? We might never get a piece of pussy again, but you're the perfect little ass. You think Bob's going to help you? He might even want in on the action."

Crater was pressed up against her thigh enough for her to feel him harden. He pressed closer, and his warm breath brushed against his ear.

It dawned on her then what he was talking about. He indicated a terrifying truth, and while she wasn't ready to accept that Detroit was simply a microcosm for a great disaster that was already spreading across the country, she knew he was right about a woman's chances.

His hand slowly eased its way along the length of her thigh. Her bloodlust was at an all-time high, and she had no qualms about blowing Crater or any of his people away, but she if she started a firefight, Traverse might never be found. She could only hope that Bob turned around to look at her.

His fingers spread along the inside of her thigh.

"You son of a bitch," she said, her hand shaking with rage.

"But you want it, don't you? You want to be conquered by a
real
man."

She wanted to surrender to her rage. She closed her eyes, and she saw Miles smiling at her from beneath her, his hands on her hips. She'd been with him only hours ago.

When she opened her eyes, Bob and the others continued to argue. Crater had his hand on her, and on a day when nothing made much sense, she questioned what she saw rumbling through the wrecked parking lot outside.

A large pickup truck crushed several corpses, and a small group of them had crowded into the truck's bed, their arms flailing like tree branches waving madly in the middle of a hurricane. The truck's engine roared.

She caught a glimpse of the Ford logo on the large truck's grill as it accelerated.

"Look out!" Vega shouted. "Get away from the doors!"

It was too late.

***

A storm of shattering glass and groaning steel overwhelmed Vega's senses. The truck's bright lights seared her eyes, and several of the corpses that had been along for the ride were broken into pieces, their limbs lacerated by a thousand sharp edges. A tide of blood and limbs washed over Vega's entire field of vision when she turned away from the light. Blood and flesh rained from everywhere.

"Firing positions!" Crater tried to organize his men, though they were already firing on the crowd that ambled toward the hospital.

"Get to the Stryker!" someone shouted.

Vega ran outside with the rest of the fragmented squad, their boots crunching on glass, some of them slipping on the bloody shards beneath their feet. They scrambled over the poor footing and picked each other up along the way. Corpses slipped out of the truck's bed and landed with a crash upon the floor.

Her combat boots slipped over the river of glass and wood. A cloud of dust threatened further harm to her damaged lungs. The outside air offered little relief, as smoke from smoldering cars rolled over the parking lot.