Orpheus (17 page)

He gave the truck some gas and began to push his way through the mass of bodies. He wasn't worried about hitting innocents anymore, because nothing could possibly still be alive within that mess. The way these thing swarmed over flesh, and even his truck, which contained more flesh...
They're like human-sized locusts. Or piranha.

He accelerated some more and pulled his wheel from side to side to shake off his unwanted passengers. They didn't seem all that bright, thank God. They didn't make any even rudimentary attempts to hold on. They just clawed at the glass on the way down, before getting up and pursuing again.

Once the windshield was clear, he could see the hospital in front of him. It seemed to be clear of zombies, and he soon saw why. The local police force (what there was of it, anyway) had formed something resembling a cordon around the hospital's entrance, utilizing their own patrol vehicles as well as several other civilian vehicles. Holt supposed that they were either donated to the cause by the owners, or, more likely, the police had found them abandoned but still running and utilized them.

The uniformed officers, all ten of them, seemed to be augmented by off-duty cops as well. From what Holt could see, they were holding their own, but every time one of them had to stop to reload, which was often, given the numbers of targets, they lost slightly more ground. Holt checked his gas gauge and saw that it was below an eighth of a tank. He decided that the area was so congested that, once he ditched his truck, it would be useless to him, so he was determined to make it count for a few minutes.

Now if I can only do it without getting shot.

He started honking his horn and gunned his engine, aiming for the center of the mob. He roughly followed the shape of the cordon, throwing some zombies aside and crushing a lot more underneath his big tires. When he got to the other side of the cordon, he reversed direction and did the same thing. He was just stalling the inevitable, really, but the cheers he heard from the police with each pass were worth it. He'd bought them some more time, and because of that, a few more survivors made it through the gaps they'd jointly created.

He was done fishing, and it was time to cut bait.

One more time and I'm done.

The "one more time" turned out to be, as it often did, pushing his luck too far. Midway through his last pass, his felt a jolt underneath him and his truck stopped moving forward. He pressed the pedal; the engine revved, and he felt that the truck wanted to move forward, but it just made a hellacious noise and stayed still. And the smell...

I think I have zombies jammed in my wheel wells. You've got to be kidding me.

The creatures began to close around his truck again, and he had no time to think. He pulled the handle and kicked the door open. The door smashed the nearest zombie in the face, and he heard something crunch. Holt wanted to make a run for it, but the path from his truck to relative safety was closed. Seeing no other options, he dropped to the ground and rolled beneath the truck. He got dead center and made himself as small as possible, which wasn't all that small, considering his frame.

It was only a matter of seconds before he was accosted from all sides by flailing arms. The zombies hadn't yet figured out that they could easily overwhelm him if they got down on their bellies and slid under the truck. That was a blessing. However, he caught glimpses of the faces of the more enterprising ones who still remembered how to hunch way down, and he kept having to fight out of their clutches. His legs, his arms, his head...he was getting it from everywhere, often at the same time.

What horrified him more than anything was that he'd been correct about his truck stalling because of zombies in the wheel wells. Each of the front wheels had a misshapen lump of bloody flesh shoehorned into them. The one on the passenger side probably could have been mistaken for a load of gory laundry by someone who didn't know any better.

But the one on the driver's side...

...it was still alive.

Its left arm was gone; the rest of it was mashed together like several lumps of molding clay, but its head and connecting tissue was intact enough to keep trying to bite him. It was, without a doubt, the most gruesome thing that Holt had ever witnessed.

The amount of punishment these things can take is ungodly. There wouldn't be enough ammo on this island to bring them all down even if they were standing still.

The sound of bullets piercing the metal body of his truck and only protection interrupted his thoughts. He heard a voice amplified by a megaphone: "Driver! Get ready! On three move your ass and stay low!" The man behind the voice started a slow count. "One!"

Pause.

"Two!" Another volley of gunfire, and Holt saw several zombies drop to the ground in front of him. They were in his way, but they were also, mercifully, dead. He could push his way through them if he had to, and he definitely had to. He planted one foot on the pavement and another on the undercarriage of the truck. He also put his arms ahead of him, ready to shove with everything he had.

"Th-"

Holt was moving before the word was complete. He pistoned his legs forward and shot between two of the dead zombies. The effort cost him some skin off of his forearms, but he was out and up quick enough to run. Not that he had anywhere to run, because the zombies seemed to be against that.

The man said to stay low.
Trusting his new unseen friend, Holt went into a running crouch just before he heard, "Fire!" More zombies dropped to the ground, dead from good head shots. Others weren't instantly killed, but were knocked off of their feet by sheer firepower. Holt stayed crouched and moved forward as fast as he could. There was another volley, and he saw real daylight. Believing that speed was superior to stealth, he sprinted towards the cordon and dove across the hood of the nearest vehicle. He hit the ground and rolled as best he could. His head hit someone's steel-toed boot, and it dazed him for a few moments. He felt hands on his shoulders, and he let himself be guided into the hospital.

He was surrounded by other survivors. He scanned the crowd for his family. He yelled out, "Jackie! Jackie Holt! Ethan Holt!" He got no answer, nor did he expect one. Neither one of them was anywhere near the hospital the last he knew. As his head cleared, he only began to understand the magnitude of the situation they were all in. Those thoughts were fleeting.

Now that he was no longer fighting for his own survival and had found some semblance of safety, he grew angry. A bit with himself, but mostly at what deserved it: the monsters that were, even now, conspiring to take his family from him. He had no idea if they had any motivation beyond death. He didn't care. The only thing that mattered to him was that they, for whatever reason, wanted a fight, and he had nothing better to do than give it to them.

He looked around for a weapon. He knew that at least one hospital security personnel was armed at all times, just in case a really volatile situation broke out. He also knew that they had an armory around somewhere, and he was going to get in there. His eyes settled on a security guard in the far corner. He was busy breaking up a scuffle, so Holt walked directly to him. He got close enough to read his nametag before taking Officer Salmon's gun and pointing it in his face.

He'd apologize later.

Chapter 14: Ethan and Rachel's Excellent Adventure

Jumping between rooftops was nothing like in the movies.

It was much, much easier.

Ethan insisted on making the first jump, visions of Rachel coming up just short dancing in his head. He was compelled to be there to catch her just as she was about to plummet three stories to the alley below, where she would be fortunate just to die from the impact instead of at the hands of a ravenous zombie horde.

As it turned out, Ethan overjumped and nearly broke his leg on a loose piece of heavy pipe. Rachel made it with ease, landing lightly on her feet and rolling with it. They made the next dozen jumps in whichever order presented itself.

Less than ten minutes had passed from the time they'd said goodbye to JD to them standing on the roof of the dry cleaners, gauging their chance of success in getting to the car. There were about a dozen zombies patrolling the parking lot, and about twice that number of truly dead residents of and visitors to the island. The lot itself had a few empty spaces. It had been packed by the time Ethan had locked his pickup and started his walk to meet Rachel, but, presumably, a few people had made it to their cars. Whether or not they'd made it to safety or ended up as one of the scores of cars left driverless on the roads, he'd probably never know.

The zombies were slowly weaving in and out of the spaces between the cars, but they weren't the biggest problem. Ethan figured he could run across the car hoods and jump into his ride through the moon roof. It was closed, but he could smash it with the crowbar.

No, the biggest problem was getting safely to the ground. There was a fire escape on the alley-side wall, but there was no chance that he'd be able to get all the way down unnoticed. When, not if, he was spotted, not only would he be trapped on the fire escape, but he would have shown them something they had yet to figure out on their own, and that was how to get to the roof. No, thank you. this was all assuming that the rickety fire escape wouldn't just detach from the wall on its own and bring him screaming to the ground.
That'd be a hilarious way to go,
he thought grimly.

Aside from the fire escape or a three-story drop, he couldn't see any exterior way to get to the ground.

That meant his route had to go through the interior of the dry cleaners.

Ethan shuddered involuntarily at the thought of what may be waiting inside, but he didn't see much of a choice. They had to get to his car if they were to have any hope of getting to his mother. The top two floors of the building were available rental space, and the laundromat itself usually only had a skeleton crew of two or three, anyway.

"What do we do?" Rachel asked.

"I'm going through the building. This time 'we' don't do anything. Please, please, please stay here. Promise me."

"I don't like the thought of you in there alone. I don't much like the thought of me up here alone, either."

"It'll only take a few minutes. I'll pull up to the fire escape and you can hop in. Be quick." He kissed her. "I love you."

"You already said that."

"Just making up for lost time."

"Just be safe, okay?"

He nodded, held up the Fubar and the flashlight as weapons, and moved to the door. The door was locked, as he thought it might be, but the door's wood was old and he figured that one good whack would take care of it. He raised the tool to break it off, but Rachel said, "Wait a sec," and pulled off her sneaker. She slipped it over the doorknob. "Noise."

"Good thinking. Watch the parking lot." She got down low and peered over the edge again. He brought the Fubar down on the knob. It tore free from the wood with relative ease, and he had to admit that it made a lot less noise than he would have feared. He never would have thought of it. He looked to Rachel who, after a few seconds, gave him a thumbs-up signal to let him know they hadn't been noticed.

He opened the door and clicked the flashlight on. He'd taken two stairs before he saw a light switch on the wall. He flipped it and two bright pockets of light burst forth from dual 100-watt bulbs. "I won't be needing this," he said, and handed the flashlight to his girlfriend. This comforted him, in a way. He felt like complete heel for leaving her defenseless on the roof; now, she at least had something capable of crushing a skull, if it came down to that.

Ethan took a deep breath, inhaled, and made his way down the stairwell to the third floor. The floor was, as he suspected, completely abandoned, and had been for some time. A veil of dust was starting to accumulate on the floor. It was thick enough to show any footprints which, mercifully, weren't there. He hadn't expected them to be, but the confirmation made him feel a lot better.

He didn't bother searching the rooms, because he knew that the chances of finding anything useful on the abandoned floor were remote, at best. Any possible gains that he might make would cost him time, and that was a trade he was unwilling to make. He moved quickly down the stairwell to the second floor, which was identical in both layout and condition.

He approached the stairwell to the first floor. He readjusted his grip on the Fubar as he willed himself to become even more aware. If he was going to run into real trouble, it would most likely descend upon him within a few seconds of him opening this next door. He tried the door, but it was locked from the inside. He was about to curse when he realized that he had a crowbar in his hand. He wedged it between the door and the jamb. He took a breath and applied steady pressure. Again, the wood gave before the hardware did. It was unavoidably loud, and he waited a few seconds before opening the door fully.

The hinges creaked, of course, but the stairwell was clear. So was the landing. And the back room with all the machinery. And the front area. It was as empty as the floors above it. The fading summer light spilled through the big plate glass windows. There was more than enough light for him to see that he was alone in the laundromat. He made his way towards the front desk when a barely audible sound made him jump. He raised the Fubar to strike, but it was only the sheer plastic bags that covered the newly cleaned and pressed clothes. The slight breeze caused by his passing the carousel had made them rustle.