After the End (23 page)

"I don't think we have a choice, Marsh," Ari said. "We're going to have to take a break."

"Fine. We'll get some food as long as we're stopping."

Their new leader directed them to a convenience store. Ari went inside to check out the interior and returned more blood-spattered than when he'd gone in. He announced it was now clear. He'd taken care of a lone revenant snacking on old body parts. "The thing was pretty weak and easy to kill. I think you're right about them needing fresh meat to survive," he said to Carl.

The group went inside to ransack the store, while Ari, Streeter and Marsh kept watch. Lila had to admit it felt safer having them there. Not that some of the rest of them couldn't handle the job, but these men seemed at ease with their weapons and a bit more lethal in their bearing.

Gloria changed Ian's diaper and sat with him in a corner to nurse. Lila brought her something to drink and petted the top of Ian's soft head. "Everything better now, buddy? You got what you wanted?"

His mother looked up at Lila. "Those men are going to cut us loose. I can feel it. Don't let them do it. Promise me, you'll stick up for me."

Lila crouched beside her, frowning. "No. I'm sure they wouldn't. Besides, none of us would let them."

"Oh wouldn't they?" Mrs. Patton spoke bitterly, shooting a hard look at the rest of their company moving around the store. "They'd gladly be rid of the trouble Ian and I cause, his crying and my dead weight, but they could salve their consciences by laying the blame on the new guys."

"That's not true. Stop thinking like that." The woman was growing paranoid. Coupled with her misery over the loss of her husband it was an ugly combination.

"We'll see," Gloria muttered, moving Ian to her shoulder to burp him.

Soon they were on their way again, moving quickly in the shadows of the tall buildings. Lila walked with Ronnie, holding her hand and cajoling her to be strong and walk just a little further. They were within sight of their destination, when a cadre of the undead burst from the bar they were passing.

A jumble of sensations hit Lila all at once: the door banging open, the creatures' running feet, Sondra's piercing scream, Ronnie's little fingers gripping her hand, shouts, shots, the sharp odor of gunpowder. Lila scooped Ronnie off the ground to carry her, but the child was too heavy to run with and Lila couldn't defend herself with the girl in her arms. She glanced over her shoulder to find Joe intercepting one of the zombies, hacking at it with his hunting knife, then she faced forward and concentrated on hurrying as fast as she could

After firing an initial salvo of bullets into their attackers, Marsh and Streeter didn't stop to help anyone. They raced toward the Sanilac building, leaving the slower members of the herd to the wolves.

Lila caught a glimpse of Ari fighting hand to hand with a zombie that had gotten a grip on Gloria. Lila wished she could help, but her arms were full of Ronnie. She had her own mission. Her feet thudded on the pavement, heavy from the extra weight of her burden. Far ahead, Marsh and Streeter were already entering the door of the building with Sondra racing right behind them, her ankle remarkably, completely healed.

Derrick ran up beside Lila and reached out for his sister. Lila passed her off like a baton in a relay without slowing her pace. Ronnie wrapped her arms around her brother and he darted away with her.

Lila whirled around, drawing the handgun she carried, and assessed the deteriorating situation. Ari still grappled with the zombie that had attacked Gloria, while Gloria staggered away. Joe was down on the ground beneath two zombies, his arms and legs flailing as he tried to fight them off.

Carl, too, fought for his life against one of the creatures, a young boy, who'd latched onto his arm with ferocious teeth that threatened to tear through his jacket sleeve. Deb slashed at the back of the boy's neck with her knife. Just as Lila went to help, Deb hit the spot and the zombie went limp. Carl threw him off with a grunt, the boy's body landing in a crumpled heap on the ground. He picked up the precious bag containing the hard drive and ran with it.

Julie had taken Ian from Gloria, and was encouraging the stout woman to run faster. Deb and Carl joined them. Deb urged all of them toward the building then turned to shoot at several zombies on their tail.

Lila went to help Joe. She moved behind the two creatures which were crouched over him, ripping at him like a pair of hungry dogs with a steak, completely oblivious to her approach. She shot first one then the other directly in the back of the neck. Both zombies fell still. Lila dragged their corpses off of Joe, straining at the effort of hauling their limp weight. But one look at the doctor's mangled body told her it was too late. At least one of the things had gone for his throat and torn a huge chunk out of it. Joe's blue eyes were staring, fogged over, dead. She could see it without checking his pulse, but she checked anyway. And then, without hesitation, Lila shot him directly through his throat to make certain he wouldn't rise again.

"Come on." Ari was beside her, tugging on her arm, dragging her with him as he ran. She looked up and saw the others had nearly reached the building. Only she and Ari were left…with a few zombies chasing them. She forced her leaden legs to move faster, every breath like knives in her chest.

Deb had gotten the others inside before turning to fire at their pursuers until her clip was empty. The shots echoed in the canyon between the buildings. She held the door open for Lila and Ari and they bolted through it. Derrick locked the door behind them.

Streeter and Marsh moved a desk in front of the door as a barricade. They wrestled it into place while the creatures outside continued to beat against the glass like desperate birds trying to escape a house.

Lila bent over, hands on her knees, gasping for breath. Nausea overtook her and she wretched and spat bile onto the floor.

Beside her, Ari recovered much quicker. He straightened and strode toward Marsh and Streeter. "What the fuck? You left us out there!"

"Back off." Streeter stepped toward Ari, challenging him with a glare and threatening him with his height. "Back the hell off. We all ran."

"Yeah, but you ran first. You didn't fight or help anyone."

"Survival of the fittest. If someone can't keep up, they go down."

Ari's fists were clenched, his body quivering with tension. Lila was sure he was about to throw a punch. "We never should've come with you."

Marsh moved in beside Streeter. "The same thing might've happened if you'd gone your own way. You still would've been on your own."

"Bullshit," Deb exploded. "The difference is we wouldn't have been expecting your help. You only brought us along to use as canon fodder, like you probably did with those school kids."

Lila was as enraged as the others, but the growing altercation wasn't helping anyone and meanwhile, zombies were still pounding on the glass, trying to get in. She moved to insert herself into the argument, holding up her hands and shouting, "Hey! Let's all calm down. This isn't the time to fight. There are those things out there," she pointed at the door, "and for all we know, more inside the building. So get it together and save your arguments for later."

Everyone still bristled like angry cats poised to attack, but her words got them moving. Marsh and Streeter fortified the door with more office furniture. Ari, Deb and Derrick swept the immediate area to make sure they weren't barricading themselves in with more of the undead.

Julie held Ronnie, who cried hysterically, hiccupping sobs that shook her body. Carl checked to see that the hard drive was undamaged. Sondra found a water cooler and carried cups of water to Marsh and Streeter.

Lila moved in a dreamlike haze to Gloria to make sure she was unharmed. She wrapped an arm around the woman's shoulders and hugged her. "We're almost there. Only a few hundred stairs between us and freedom."

Gloria stared at her. "There is no way out. You know that. The world out there is just as bad. There's no place to go."

Lila clenched her jaw, suppressing the urge to shake her. "But we have to believe in something. We have to set some kind of course and follow it, or give up and die. Hope is the only thing that will keep us sane right now."

Gloria laughed harshly. "Too late."

Lila took her arm away, done soothing and supporting. "If you can't pull it together for yourself, do it for your son. He deserves a mother who at least pretends to believe in a future."

She rose and went to put a fresh clip in her weapon, trying not to think about how it had felt to fire the gun and see the two zombies' necks explode in a shower of blood and flesh. What bothered her wasn't that she'd done it, but how satisfied, almost gleeful, she'd felt ending their existences. She'd wanted to shoot them until her clip was empty. That wasn't the person she wanted to be, taking joy in destruction.

And she
really
didn't want to think about Joe right now. There'd be time enough later to process her feelings about that shooting, and maybe even a little time to think about last night with Ari and what it had meant to her. But right now was the time for action.

"Okay, guys," she addressed the others. "We've got a long haul ahead of us. Let's gear up and be ready for it, 'cause clearly these guys," she gestured at Streeter and Marsh, "aren't going to wait for anyone to keep up."

The advance team returned to declare the area, zombie-free. Everyone jettisoned most of the contents of their backpacks to make them as light as possible and they started for the stairs.

Lila prayed with all her heart for a helicopter to be waiting on the roof of the building when they arrived.

* * * * *

Chapter Sixteen

Ari was in better shape than he'd been in his whole life. He was used to running miles with a heavy weight on his back, scaling walls and climbing obstacles. But even so, his calves ached after a half dozen floors. He could only imagine how difficult this climb was for some of the others like Gloria Patton.

He dropped back to help the stragglers along. Surprisingly, little Ronnie wasn't one of them. She seemed intent on reaching her helicopter ride and darted up the stairs like a girl on a mission—her tears turned off for the time being.

Meanwhile, Gloria, red-faced and panting, brought up the rear, along with Lila, who was carrying Ian, and Carl.

The scientist cursed a steady stream under his breath as he gripped the handrail and laboriously climbed the steps. "I've been meaning to join a damn gym," he said. "I spend way to much time sitting on my butt. Guess this is a good argument for taking better care of your health."

Lila laughed. "If we'd known zombies were coming, I think we all would've kept fitter. Not to mention taking combat training."

"I've got to rest," Gloria wheezed as she leaned against the wall on the next landing.

The footsteps of the rest of the group clattered up the stairs ahead of them. "Hey," Ari called, "Take a break."

"No," Marsh's voice echoed down the stairwell. That was it. No explanation or embellishment. Just "no".

Ari agreed with Deb. The only reason these guys had brought them along was to throw them under the bus if they were attacked—a distraction to give Marsh and Streeter time to get away. And he also thought she was right about the men using the school kids as fodder to aid their escape. Something about the way Streeter had said "They didn't make it" before switching his story to say they'd left them with faculty at the school.

But they were committed to this route now. Only another dozen or so floors and they'd be at the top of the building. Ari didn't like Marsh, but doubted the man would make such a climb if he wasn't almost a hundred percent sure he'd find a helicopter on the roof as he expected.

Gloria slid down the wall to sit with her head lowered as she breathed in and out.

Ari crouched beside her. "You feel like you're going to faint?"

Lila passed the baby to Carl, who awkwardly accepted the struggling bundle. Ian, who was already fussing, began to cry in earnest, his wails ringing through the stairwell.

Lila knelt on Mrs. Patton's other side and offered her a nearly empty bottle of water. "Don't give up. You can do this."

The flushed woman looked at her and nodded. "I will. I heard what you said earlier and I'm not giving up. I just need a breather."

Ari glanced back and forth between them, understanding they were resuming an earlier conversation. He left them to it and went over to Carl. "How about you? Are you going to be all right? Wouldn't want to lose our ace in the hole."

Carl waved him away, jiggling the baby awkwardly. "I'm good."

Gloria climbed to her feet, leaning on Lila, grasped the banister and started up the next flight of stairs, a look of grim determination on her face.

Lila and Ari exchanged a silent look. Ari was glad the woman was finally motivated, but worried about having her collapse. Gloria looked about a floor or two away from a heart attack.

"I'll carry the kid now." Ari took Ian from Carl. He hadn't held the baby yet and was surprised to find the little guy felt like he weighed more than Ronnie. While the girl was all spindly arms and legs like a spider monkey, Ian was solid flesh. "Kid, you're going to be a linebacker some day," Ari told him.

Distracted from crying for a moment, Ian stared at him with big, goggly eyes, reached for Ari's dog tags and stuck them in his mouth. Happy to have the baby occupied, Ari hefted him onto one hip and resumed the climb.

Step after step, floor by floor, they made their way to the top of the building. By the time they reached the last landing, everyone was drenched in sweat and the rest of the group had already disappeared through the door leading to the roof.

Carl opened the door and the sunlight nearly blinded them. Ari shielded his eyes as he emerged from the dark stairwell. Across the roof, the corporate helicopter was parked on its pad as Marsh had promised. His heart soared as if he was already flying away, but it quickly landed with a thud as he realized the copter didn't look big enough to carry them all. He passed the baby to Lila and strode toward the group clustered near the helicopter.