Zombie Ascension (Book 1): Necropolis Now (22 page)

It had been so easy to kill, but he couldn't kill the man who stole Mina from him.

Sitting there on the curb, he watched the dead walk toward him while the Magnum hung from one fist, the phone in the other.

The lawyer. He was hardly a friend, but at least he knew about the video. Whatever had happened, Griggs wanted to know that it wasn't true—the video didn't have anything to do with what happened.

"You want to see something funny?" Griggs spoke to the corpses that were only a few feet away. "I'm going to tell my lawyer that I'm the one who caused all this. ME! I DID IT! With a little help from my lovely actress, I ended the world with a porn video!"

Much to his surprise, he heard another phone ring nearby when he pressed the "Call" button. He stood up and dragged his feet sleepily along the pavement that had been soaked in a tide of blood.

The cell phone was real, and it waited for him to pick it up. His lawyer, Desmond Hunter, had been here, near the church.

Griggs picked up the phone and understood at last that the world had ended.

VEGA

She knew that Shanna was a little girl and she needed to be saved. It was all she needed.

Vincent led her through the shattered neighborhood, his arms hanging dejectedly with all the resolve of wet clothes hanging from a line. He was already disconnected from the show, but Vega didn't need him for anything other than the girl, whoever she was, wherever she was.

Bob was certainly disappointed in her because she betrayed him, but he would get over it. She only hoped he found what he was looking for in Traverse, but their paths were fated to diverge. She understood this as His will. All her life, she'd been waiting for this moment, this test of her faith. She tortured herself and committed her body to a struggle that could never be won, yet, Detroit finally offered her the chance to desire selfless action.

She wasn't about to take any chances with Vincent. "Keep walking ahead of me," she said with Crater's M16 in her hands, "or beside me."

Vincent smirked. "I know what this is about. Truth is, a few hours ago I would have been thinking about it. I might already have you on the ground by this point. Way I figure it, the game has changed." He shook his head and laughed at something only he understood. "I always lived by my own rules, but the ones I never followed before seem to matter more than they ever did."

Vega didn't have time for his epiphany. "That's nice. That doesn't mean I trust you."

Vincent shrugged. "You believed what I told you. I could have been making it up."

"You didn't."

"No."

Vega sighed. Her head still pounded, and her patience was growing thin. She didn't want to admit that she made a mistake, but Shanna meant everything to her. "I believe you were allowed to live for a reason. This is what I have to do. Do you understand?"

The thug smirked again. "It don't matter what you believe, as long as you have something to believe in."

"Whatever you say. I need to know where Shanna might be."

"Don't know where she is," Vincent finally said, shaking his head. He stopped walking and they stood on the corner of a main street that had become a maze of smoking cars and lingering shadows. The breeze had already disappeared, succumbing to a heat that might suffocate the last remaining life out of the domestic animals that fled the madness of their dying owners.

Vega bit her lip. "Is this a bunch of bullshit?" her finger was poised over the trigger of Crater's M16. She had been too eager to look for the girl, but Vincent might have wanted the same thing Crater wanted, only he might have a crew waiting for the time to strike.

Vincent spoke lazily, his forehead shining with sweat. "Look, I ain't playing games. You shoulda just left me back there. I did everything I could to find her."

"No you didn't. You gave up, or else we wouldn't have found you."

"Fuck it. What could I do with her? How could I help her? I ain't no good, you know. Don’t know the first thing about kids. I know money, and dope. I know the streets. That's it."

"And you thought maybe you could pull a
Scarface
and kill as many as you could until they brought you down, but you were left standing. How'd you do it? A group of well-trained commandos couldn't do what you could do by yourself."

"Maybe because I knew I was going to die," Vincent replied.

"Help me find her."

"Yeah. Huh. She came this way. She's out here, somewhere. This is where I lost her."

She put a hand on his shoulder and forced his eyes to look into hers. "If you see her, no matter what… you tell me. You tell me and let me take care of it."

Vincent licked his bottom lip and looked away. He waved at the wreckage with his AR-15. "You might as well just call out for her. She ran beneath a car, and just kept going. She's got her own reasons for giving up on the whole idea of being saved."

Vega didn't waste another second. "Shanna!" she called. "SHANNA!"

Vincent laughed. "Seen this shit on TV before, know what I'm saying?"

She ignored him and walked down the road. She refused to see the lurking creatures that seemed extremely interested in both her and Vincent.

"Hey," Vincent said.

"I know," Vega said. "SHANNA!"

"You ain't paying attention…"

"I said I know!" she growled at him. "SHANNA! I'm here to save you!"

Her heart raced as the dead approached. They bounced against one another, a sliding, oozing mass of bloody limbs and exposed bone. Time was running out. Hundreds of them poured out of windows and stepped out of cars. They emerged from the doorways of abandoned houses as if they'd just awoken from a long, dreary nightmare. They were killers without conscience or ethics.

"We're about to do this," Vincent's voice shook.

"Not yet," Vega said while the thug followed her along the river of burning concrete beneath the boiling hot sky.

All around them, the dead awoke.

"You got a death wish," Vincent said.

"She's alive," Vega believed it in her bones. No matter how many of the creatures surrounded her, she wouldn't relent. In the light of day, their faces were more horrific, their unreality all the more profound. She could smell their blood and their rot, their feces and their sweat. They had been murdered in desperation, their mouths full of the screams they were doomed to swallow.

"I'll kill every last one of them," she said.

"I know you will," Vincent said.

He surprised her. Why didn't he run away? Why didn't he give up, or at least try to hurt her? Vincent was nothing like any other man she'd seen. He was more of a soldier than he might realize.

Before these last few hours had passed, she never felt incredibly mortal. Not in Afghanistan, when Miles had saved her life. In the streets of Detroit and in front of Eloise Fields with Bob, she knew she might die.

"SHANNA!"

"One more time around," Vincent said. "I'll do this dance until I collapse. I'm ready."

"Hold your fire," she said. "You said you lost her out here?"

"That's what I said."

"You're sure?"

He mumbled, "I'm high as shit. Ain't sure about anything. Ain't afraid of no dead people. I do what I do."

"Answer the question!"

Vincent positioned his rifle against his shoulder and swept it over targets as they began to close in. "No. I'm not sure of anything. Except these bullets."

The weapon rattled as he poured firepower into the fearless mob. Several bodies collapsed against one another, and a few made it to the pavement, but the crowd didn't stop. As one slithering organism, the dead, whose faces were still full of the color only the living could betray, pushed each other out of the way and climbed over cars.

"Hold your fire!" Vega shouted at him. "SHANNA!"

Vincent was impressive with his AR-15. He moved and reloaded like a professional, and she could tell by his posture that he likely had some military experience. He was adept at keeping the gun level while he took slow steps backward, his jeans sagging below his hips to reveal his plaid boxer shorts.

She began to recite the Lord’s Prayer while Vincent rained death upon the city's population. Heedlessly, more and more of them emerged; they encircled the infamous gangster while he reloaded and moved, though he was a step too slow.

There were no more grenades. No more second chances. She had ammo for the M16, and a little bit for the MP25. It was time to lay all the cards on the table.

Vega unloaded on several creatures that were standing on the hoods of cars surrounding Vincent. They were in a junkyard of smoldering vehicles, her aching, booted feet crunching on glass as she took another deep breath and inhaled smoke.

She stepped in a puddle of blood and kept firing.

Vincent jerked backward and seemed to realize what was at stake. He charged out of the fray and still managed to slap a fresh clip into his weapon. Neither he nor Vega saw the hand reach out over the top of the car and seize the rolls of hair on the top of his head. He slipped and fell hard on his back, and Vega made short work of the corpse, exploding its face all over the car with a short burst from the M16. Eye-viscera and flesh melted onto the cement. To his credit, Vincent immediately rolled to his stomach and resumed firing over the tops of his sneakers.

Vega picked him up from the cement and whipped her head around in time to see the little shape jump out of a car and run into the smoky corridor ahead.

"Shanna!" Vega's heart leapt into her throat. She knew it had to be the little girl from the newscast, the girl whose smile haunted her through the rain of tears, blood, and bullets, a maelstrom of torment. Shanna would release her from that pain.

"This way!" she pulled on Vincent's shirt. "I see her! SHANNA! Stop! Please stop!"

She didn't know if he followed her. She kept her eyes focused ahead on the wide street of shattered businesses. Once again, Vega could taste the ash upon her lips, and she struggled to keep her eyes open through the wafting smoke and dust that fogged the thoroughfare. She lost the little girl through the riotous haze.

"SHANNA!"

The bright morning sky was obscured through the dark, and she half-wondered if she was still stumbling through the streets with Bob—did they ever leave the burning city? She glanced over her shoulder and found Vincent following closely behind, his face and shirt soaked in sweat. She felt like she would be running through the labyrinth of violence forever, chasing some goal that would somehow determine the fate of nations.

But there were no more countries. There was only Shanna, a little girl who needed her.

"Can't see," Vincent stated the obvious.

"Stay close to me," she said. "We have to find her."

He coughed several times. "We're surrounded. I can see them."

"Just keep walking! Take shallow breaths."

Her advice sounded foolish to her ears, as both of them struggled to keep their breath after narrowly escaping the dead only a moment ago. And still, they kept coming. Nothing would ever stop them. They would not retreat, no matter how many were destroyed. Their will was predicated on the relentless pursuit of flesh.

Footsteps beat against the pavement, and Vega thought she could see a tiny girl rushing toward a tear in the fabric of smoke that wove its way around the street—Shanna raced for the light.

Vega chased after her, but another one of Vincent's screams stopped her. Four corpses had emerged out of the smoke to surround him once again. He frantically pushed them away, but he was shoved to his back while heavy fists pounded on him from all sides.

There was no hesitation in her step. She didn't know the man, but he fought beside her. The choice was an easy one to make while she dropped to one knee and took careful aim at the creatures, but rolling smoke obscured her view. Cursing, she shot back to her feet and ran into the melee.

She tackled a wet bag of flesh and tumbled along the concrete. Her first thought was her head; she might still be suffering the lingering effects of a concussion.

There seemed to be so damn many of them surrounding her and beneath her, she could see only the red, rheumy eyes and the snapping jaw. Her M16 was ripped out of her hands, and she was pushed forward onto the concrete, her face scraping against scorched paper that had floated through the miasma of debris and ruination. Her head was slammed against the ground twice.

No. She was so close.

Her fingers found her sidearm and she struggled to draw it as sudden weight collapsed upon her back. She grunted as pain flared up her spine, and a round of gunfire spelled the end of several corpses. Vincent was still alive, and he was already pushing one of the dead off of her.

He helped her up, and said into her ear, "I ain't no busta. I been here before. Stay on your feet and keep moving."

Forward through the war. Blood trickled into one of her eyes, and her worst fear seemed grounded in the reality that threatened to drag her down into the pit with all the souls she had sent there herself. She felt for the MP25 that still dangled around her shoulder while she weakly gripped the Beretta. Her feet dragged along the pavement.

"Shanna…"

"It's under control," Vincent said. "We'll find her or we'll die trying. I promise. Stay awake. Keep your eyes open."

For such a thin man, he was incredibly strong, and in his voice, there was no false bravado, nor the hint of a promise he would break. Gone was the thuggish mentality that he seemed to use as his self-defense mechanism against the world which had likely bred in him the disposition of a killer.

She tore herself away from him. Nothing was going to slow her down.

The light of the empty sky blinded her momentarily, and she looked out across an abandoned parking lot that was overgrown with weeds. A lone, rusted, wire shopping cart lay overturned without its wheels, and the shopping center sat dormant, untouched by the madness, though the graffiti on its walls and the tree limbs which reached through the windows had marked it as a building that had died long before the living dead awoke. Just beyond was a row of trees that seemed to mark the edge of the world.