Season of Rot (6 page)

He shut off the music and tried to tune in
the radio, but remembered he’d just taken it apart. The light had
to be a glitch, but something told him to check anyway. He opened
the channel and smiled as static crackled on the airwaves. He
reached again for his coffee, laughing at himself for being so
foolish.

“You are ours,” said a voice on the radio, a
single voice that sounded like a billion souls speaking at once.
“We are coming.”

Daniel spilt his stale coffee on his lap and
cursed. He had to be imagining this. The radio wasn’t
working—
couldn’t
be working.

“We are coming,” the voice said again. “Your
flesh is ours.”

Static crackled loudly as the channel closed
itself.

Daniel leaned into his chair, wide-eyed and
shaking, wondering if he had gone mad.

Three

Laura stood by the window as Vince and Martin
watched her. “Something is certainly going on down there. I’ve
never seen the dead just stop like this.”

“Really?” Vince asked sarcastically.

“I don’t understand it,” Laura said. “It goes
against everything we know about their behavior.”

“What the hell do we do about it?” Vince
asked. “And I swear to God, if you say some shit like ‘let’s just
enjoy the silence,’ I’m going to throw you out that window.”

“It’s got to have something to do with the
virus. It’s changed, mutated somehow.”

“How could it do that?” Martin wondered.

“Oh my lord,” Laura blurted. “It’s you. You
and your helicopter.”

Vince stepped away from Martin, aiming his
.38 at the man.

“I did nothing,” Martin said, completely
unafraid of Vince and the weapon pointed at him.

“You didn’t have to. You brought the airborne
strain of the virus with you. It does exist, and you’re not only a
carrier of it, you’ve spread it all over the city when you flew in.
The airborne strain must have altered when it encountered the
original, altered itself in some way where it affects the dead
rather than the living, changing them into something completely
new.”

Martin nodded. “Please understand there is no
way I could have known my presence here would cause this. I am
sorry.”

“Laura?” Vince asked, keeping his gun trained
on Martin.

“Put the gun down, Vince. What’s done is
done. The only question is what’s happening to the dead. They’re
changing, that’s clear, but into what?”

“We’ve got to get out of here, Laura. Staying
around to find out is just asking to get our butts gnawed off.”

“Agreed, but Martin’s helicopter is the only
way out. It’s not going to carry everyone.”

“I know that, damn it! Let’s just grab who
and what we can and go. Right now.”

“I’m not leaving,” Martin informed them.
“Your Daniel is also a pilot, I believe. Have him fly you out of
here. There’s a map to the base inside the helicopter. My purpose
is to save as many as I can, and I will make sure the hospital
doesn’t fall until Daniel can come back for a second group of your
people.”

Laura tried to argue, but Martin cut her off.
“We must prepare. There is a storm coming, and even I cannot fight
so many alone.”

***

Jack paced back and forth in the waiting
room. Most of his crew slept on the couches, but Mitchell was still
awake and staring out the window.

“What are you looking at?” Jack asked.

“The dead. They’re bringing ladders and rope
into the building. Fucking ladders and rope.”

Jack laughed. “You’re shitting me.”

Mitchell was pale as he looked up at Jack. “I
wish I were.”

The door to the waiting room opened. Martin
stood in the doorway. “You may kill me now, or you can help save
all those who may be saved. The choice is yours.” He tossed a
shotgun into Jack’s hands and raised his arms to the sides,
presenting his chest.

Jack stared at him, gritting his teeth. “You
brought this, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Martin answered painfully.

“Fuck you.” Jack pumped a round into the
shotgun’s chamber. “Let’s go kick some dead ass.”

Martin grinned, and twin auto-pistols like
something out of science fiction appeared in his hands.

***

The door to the stairwell opened as the first
stream of the undead poured into the halls. Martin, Jack, and
Jack’s men stood in the hallway like old-fashioned minutemen. They
hadn’t had time to build any sort of barricade.

As the dead raced towards them, Jack screamed
the order to fire. The hallway echoed with gunshots and howls as
the men tore the first wave of the dead to shreds. The hospital’s
defenders held their ground for a few seconds until they were
forced to reload. Martin, in an effort to buy time, charged into
the ranks of the dead. His guns blazed, each shot perfect,
splattering rotting brain matter everywhere.

Jack and the others held their fire as Martin
tossed aside his empty weapons and dove deeper into the midst of
the enemy. He bent his hands downward at the wrists, and blades
shot out from beneath the sleeves of his uniform. He sliced the
closest creature’s skull open with a single swipe and plunged the
other blade into another monster’s face. He yanked the blade free
as the thing leaked blood from between its eyes and collapsed.

Martin gave Jack the signal and dropped to
the floor, rolling away from the mob. Jack’s shotgun thundered, and
Mitchell opened with his AK-47 on full auto; the other men hit the
dead with everything they had. The bodies piled up throughout the
hallway as Martin rejoined them, but more of the dead raced to take
the place of the creatures who had fallen.

“We can’t hold them forever like this!” Jack
shouted. “Our ammo isn’t going to last forever.

“Fall back,” Martin ordered. “Fall back and
reload.”

Not all of the dead followed them as they
retreated. Many chose the easier route and headed off down the hall
in the other direction.

***

Daniel locked himself in the communications
room when the gunshots started. He frantically searched around in
his pockets. “Oh God, where is it?”

He finally grasped the butt of the cigarette
buried in his coat pocket and pulled it out. It was his last one,
the last one he was aware of in the whole hospital. He’d been
saving it for a special time, for when he really needed it. He ran
it under his nose, inhaling the scent of unlit tobacco, the scent
of heaven.

He dug out his lighter and flicked it, but it
didn’t ignite. He flicked it again and again, pausing only to bang
it against the wall desperately.

Disgusted, he threw it down along with the
cigarette and slumped against the wall. Tears slid down his cheeks.
His sobs were quiet at first, but soon he wept openly, alone in the
darkness as he listened to the howls of the dead and the gunfire on
the floor below.

***

Vince held tightly to Laura’s hand, almost
dragging her with him as she tried to keep pace. He had already
sent someone to find Daniel and get him up on the roof, but Laura
insisted they find Chris and Natalie before they headed up to the
helicopter. Vince had no choice but to go along with her; she
wouldn’t leave without the child, and wherever they managed to
escape to, they would need Laura’s skills for as long as she could
fight off the cancer. Besides, given time and the proper tools
Laura might one day put an end to the dead virus once and for
all.

Vince wondered if she’d be able to make it
the rest of the way to Chris’s quarters, but ever the fighter,
Laura gasped for air and pushed on. Her strength amazed him and
gave him hope.

They found Chris’s door barred. Laura
struggled vainly with the knob.

“Move!” Vince screamed, and she stepped aside
as he kicked open the entrance.

Chris glanced up at them as they made their
way inside. He sat rocking Natalie, hugging her tightly to his
chest. “Save her,” he said, crying. “Someone’s got to. She doesn’t
deserve to die like this.”

“Okay, Chris. Okay.” Vince helped him to his
feet. “We’re certainly going to try.”

***

Daniel selected a heavy wrench from his tools
and tested its weight. It would have to do. Like an idiot, he had
dropped his gun in the stairwell.

He cranked up the stereo, and Michael Stipe’s
voice blared; the room rattled to the tune of “The Great Beyond.”
It was one of Daniel’s favorite songs, and somehow it seemed to
fit. The music covered the noise of the dead as they tore the door
off its hinges.

Daniel adjusted his glasses and stood his
ground. Two dead things rushed into the room. He swung the wrench
and clobbered the first one in the head. It lurched sideways and
fell with a crash into one of Daniel’s worktables. Its left eye
dangled from its socket as the thing thrashed about on the
floor.

The second intruder came at him too fast, and
he couldn’t get a good swing at it. It grabbed him, strained
against him, tried to sink its teeth into his flesh.

Daniel threw the thing off and darted for the
door. He nearly collided with a third creature in the hall. He gave
a quick hard kick to one of its knees, then fled, not bothering to
look back as the creature toppled to the floor.

As he rounded the bend in the corridor, a
voice cried out. “Daniel!” One of the hospital’s defenders, a man
whose name he couldn’t remember, was running after him. Daniel
skidded to a halt as the man caught up.

“We need to get you up to the roof!” the
guard said. “You need to fly the helicopter!”

Shit
, Daniel thought.

Vince, Harold, Laura, and any other survivors
were all counting on him. Counting on him to fly a type of
helicopter he’d never even sat in until today. He remembered the
time he’d spent going over its controls and knew he could do it,
even if just barely. It would be enough.

The guard shoved a rifle into his hands as
they raced toward the roof. The weapon brought Daniel no comfort.
If they encountered a large pack of the dead on their way, it
wouldn’t make any difference whether or not they sent a few of the
creatures back to hell. They’d be overwhelmed and that was
that.

They rounded another corner and jerked open
the door to the stairs that led to the roof. A decaying woman in a
bloodstained wedding gown leapt out at them, slashing the guard’s
throat with her long decorated nails. Blood spurted from the wound
with every beat of his heart.

Daniel didn’t have time to take a shot at
her, so he barreled into her, pushing her back inside the stairwell
and over the railing. She hissed, still groping for him as she fell
into the darkness below.

Daniel glanced back at the guard’s corpse,
wishing he could remember the poor guy’s name. Then he shut the
door to the stairs and sprinted up to the roof.

***

Most of the hospital’s defenders were dead
and had switched sides in the battle. Mitchell had disappeared in
the fray, leaving only Martin and Jack to hold back the dead long
enough for Vince and Laura to escape.

The dead had them cornered now two floors
below the roof, backed into a waiting room with no way out. Martin
was fighting the creatures hand-to–hand, holding them at the door
while Jack tried to reload. A purple blood-like substance oozed
from numerous wounds and bites covering his body. He punched one of
the things in the head, which flew off and landed on the floor to
be trampled under countless feet.

Jack raised his gun and shot a creature that
had made it past Martin. The blast hit it in the chest, knocking it
to the other side of the room.

“It’s no use Jack!” Martin wailed as a
wounded dead thing, its lower spine shattered, sank its teeth into
his thigh.

“I know,” Jack whispered, letting his shotgun
clatter to the floor. He pulled a bandolier of grenades from his
backpack, which he had swiped from a fallen friend, and without
hesitation he popped the string’s pin and ran into the swarm of
undead. “See you in hell, Martin!”

The waiting room burst into a ball of flames,
showering the street below with shards of glass and chunks of
debris.

***

The building seemed to shake as Vince bounded
up the last steps to the roof. He lost his footing and would have
fallen over the railing had Chris not grabbed him.

“What the hell was that?” Laura asked.

“Jack,” Vince answered curtly as he shoved
her ahead of him. “There isn’t going to be a trip back, Laura. I’m
sure Martin did all he could, but I think we’re it. We’re the only
ones who are going to make it out of here alive.”

Laura nodded sadly as they opened the door to
the roof and came face to face with the barrel of a massive,
cannon-like gun. Mitchell lowered it and grinned. “It’s about time
someone made it up here.”

Daniel stood with him, waving at them with a
trembling hand. Laura embraced him, happy to see their pilot
alive.

Chris cradled Natalie in his arms and headed
straight for the helicopter. “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here
before the dead catch up with us!”

Vince met Mitchell with a knowing look.
“You’re not going, are you?”

Mitchell shook his head. “There’s no place
for someone like me left in this world.”

“I wonder if there’s a place left for any of
us,” Vince agreed. He laid a hand on Mitchell’s shoulder for a
moment, then darted to join the others.

Mitchell watched as the helicopter whirled to
life and lifted off from the hospital’s roof, streaking away into
the sky. He swiveled the machine gun on its tripod until it pointed
toward the stairs, and he waited for the dead to come.

The Queen

The air stunk of filth and human waste. The
summer heat heightened the smell, but Scott had long grown
accustomed to the stench. Sweat glistened on his sunburned chest
and shoulders. He reached up, running his fingers through his short
brown hair. They came away wet and covered in grime. He couldn’t
remember for the life of him when he’d last been allowed to bathe.
There was a large tub of water in the center of the pen where the
prisoners were kept. Scott eyed it, not yet thirsty enough to
expose himself to the germs and bacteria it contained.