Stage 3: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (16 page)

Frantic now, he climbed bodily onto the window ledge, leaning perilously out and grabbing as far down the line as he could. This new position gave him more leverage, and by putting all of his weight into the effort, he soon had the doctor swinging way out over the swarm and arcing back far enough that he was starting to creep over the edge of the Secret Garden. A few dozen swings later, Walker was well clear of the fence and Mason called down to him,

"Now, Doc! Pull the knot!
Now!"

Walker either didn't hear Mason or was purposely ignoring him.

"Goddam it, Doc! Get ready!" He gauged the pendulum and counted down, "Three….two…one….
Now
, Doc!"

Again, nothing. Walker was too preoccupied in keeping himself from hitting the wall to free up a hand to pull the knot. Or maybe it was the eight foot drop to the ground that was staying his hand. Whatever the cause, Mason watched him pass up chance after chance to jump clear. The door behind him would give way at any moment, and here was the good doctor perfectly willing to let another man die to avoid scraping a knee. Mason suddenly let loose a blue streak of the foulest curses he could imagine, all aimed at Walker. He called him every vile name he could think of and came up with a few new ones that surprised even himself with their crudeness. When Walker failed to react, he even went so far as to tell himself that if he'd had a knife, he'd cut through the sheet-line and let Walker drop. He would be condemning himself at the same time, but at least he'd live long enough to see this useless human torn apart by the swarm.

Every time Walker passed up an opportunity to jump clear, Mason's fury only increased. At last, he got to the point where he was fully prepared to climb down the line despite the danger and personally kick Walker free. But then he looked to Mackenzie and held himself in check. Her lips were moving, and she was pointing and gesticulating wildly. He couldn't hear what she was saying over the maddening crowd, but she was clearly shouting, and not to Mason. She was  trying to help by calling out to Walker. Good for her, Mason acknowledged, but the man shouldn't have to be instructed by a little girl. If he'd just grow some balls and pull the knot when the time was right, he'd be free and clear, and all three of them would be away from this hell.

But the good doctor
couldn't
figure it out, could he? He was so determined not to hit the wall again that all of his attention was focused on that endeavor. Somehow, Mason had to get the man's eyes back to where they belonged and get him to release the knot. If only he could… ..
Aha!
  Of course! Mackenzie! That little girl with the hypersensitive bionic Vulcan ears! She could undoubtedly hear Mason from way up here, even over the roar of the swarm. Maybe both of them working together could get the job done.

"Mack!" Mason called down. The girl's lips stopped moving, and she gazed blindly upward. She
could
hear him! He hollered down, "I'm going to count down from five, Mack! You count with me! Tell Doc to pull the knot when it gets to zero! Tell him that I know he's scared, but make him understand that if he doesn't let go this time, I'm going to cut the rope and let him fall on the other side of the fence!"

Mackenzie hesitated for only a moment, then she nodded, and her lips began moving. Walker's demeanor didn't change, but he was close enough to the girl that he had to be able to hear her. Mason waited for one more arc back and forth, then he shouted down to Mackenzie.

"Five!…"

Mackenzie's lips began moving in concert with his own, so Mason knew she was counting right along with him.

"Four!….."

Walker reached the far end of the arc and began the return swing. Mason was timing the countdown right, so if Walker released the knot when he was supposed to, he'd sail well clear of the fence.

"Three!….."

But what if he didn't let go? What if he was utterly frozen with fear? Mason's threat had been an empty one, after all. He had no knife, so there would be no cutting of the rope.

"Two!….."

Damn it! 
Well, there was broken glass all over the floor. He'd grab one of those shards and hack his way through the line, and if that didn't work, he'd damn well
chew
through the fucking thing!

"One!….."

The doctor sailed over the fence and hovered above Mackenzie's head. Mason saw the girl's mouth move in concert with his own and saw the doctor's hand reach down.

"Zero!
Now! Now! Now!"

At the very apex of his final swing, Walker tugged at the slipknot and finally released himself. His body arced up and over Mackenzie's head, then he dropped hard and landed awkwardly. It looked to Mason as if he may have hurt himself on the landing, but he could have landed squarely on top of his head and Mason couldn't have cared less.

It just so happened that at that precise moment, the door gave way. The rebar clanged to the floor, and a rush of bodies flooded through the opening like Mongols through the gates of Baghdad. Already perched on the windowsill, Mason grabbed hold of the sheet-line and let himself drop several yards before gripping the line tight to stop the slide. But no sooner had he come to a stop when he felt something slam into his shoulder hard enough to make him nearly lose his grip. He slid down another foot and heard something
whoosh
past him on the other side. In another world, he would have thought that castle defenders were throwing down boulders to dislodge him from the wall, but then he remembered the bodies splashed across the pavement outside of his own apartment building and knew exactly what was happening. He looked up just as a woman appeared at the open window, and sure enough, she canted forward, hovered there for several seconds, then slowly pitched forward and fell.

Mason kicked himself away from the wall and sprung to the side, avoiding the falling woman by mere inches. He looked up just in time to see another creature begin to fall, and deftly launched himself in the other direction. Quickly, he clambered down the sheet-rope even as two more creatures fell, one to either side. At last, he brought up his legs, used them like springs, and began to set up his pendulum swing. He all but ran horizontally across the face of the building, back and forth, allowing his momentum to build with each pass. He dodged two more falling bodies with nary a stumble, and was soon arcing far over the Secret Garden. When the moment was exactly right, he released his grip on the sheet-line, sailed a few feet past Mackenzie, effected a perfect tuck-and-roll as he his the ground, and bounced back up on his feet.

Walker was still on the ground, holding his ankle, and writhing in pain, but Mason ignored him and ran to Mackenzie. The swarm beyond the fence had been worked into a virtual frenzy with all of the activity, but he ignored them, too. He scooped Mackenzie into his arms and hugged her tight, and she put her slender arms around his shoulders and tucked her face into the crook of his neck.

"It's okay, Mack," he cooed, stroking her generous mop of hair, "I got you, babygirl. We're okay."

She lifted her head back enough to plant a gentle kiss on Mason's cheek, then tucked her face back into his neck.

"I knew you'd make it, Mace," she said sweetly, "I just knew it……"

He turned just enough to where he could see Walker over the girl's head. The man was still on the ground, clutching at his ankle and grimacing in pain, and Mason glared at him without bothering to hide his utter contempt. Here was the man whose ineptitude had very nearly cost him his life. And more importantly, what would have happened to Mackenzie if Mason had been killed? Would the good doctor have taken her under his wing? Hell, the weakling couldn't even take care of his own ass! Chances are, Walker would have enacted his so-called
advanced triage
, decided that Mackenzie's blindness made her a lost cause, and left her behind as he skulked quietly away.

The more he regarded the weak little man huddled on the ground, mewling over his poor twisted ankle as though he'd suffered the injury of a lifetime, the more his animosity grew. When he contemplated what might have been, for two cents he'd pick Walker bodily off of the ground and hurl him over the fence. He fingered the empty pistol in his waistband and pondered what he would do in the rashness of the moment if there was but a single bullet in the gun.

As his thoughts turned darker and darker, Mackenzie put her lips to his ear and asked sweetly, "Can we go now?"

"Absolutely, babygirl," Mason gave her a big hug, then his eyes fell again on the hunched form of the doctor. "But the real question is, what are we going to do about
him?"

CHAPTER XX

Walker made no attempt to stand as Mason approached. Only when Mason was hovering directly over him did he bother to look up, and when he did, Mason gasped.

Apparently, a sore ankle and a crack over the eye weren't the only damage the man had suffered during the escape. His skin had turned the color of old parchment, his half-lidded eyes were dilated and bloodshot, and his clothes were soaked through from the sweat virtually pouring from his body.

Mason knew what fear could do to a body. He'd seen it, and he'd lived through it. But what was happening to Walker was more than fear. His mouth hung open, he was breathing in rapid little gulps of air, and his entire body was visibly shaking. The man was damned close to catatonic shock and a complete shutdown. His eyes were staring up at Mason, but there was little discernible behind them. 

"He's sick," Mackenzie whispered in Mason's ear. 

Mason scowled down at the doctor and shook his head roughly. "He's just scared."

"We're
all
scared," Mackenzie reminded him.

Mason set the girl on the ground and knelt before Walker. The man's eyes followed his, and at last he was able to see the faintest spark of light behind them. He reached out and touched the man's hand and found his flesh as cold as ice.

"Doc?" He didn't try to hide his contempt, but seeing the man in such a deplorable state sparked just a trace of pity left in his heart. He spoke again, but this time he did so in a gentler tone. "Doc? Can you walk?"

A trickle of blood was pooling in Walker's eye, but the man made no move to wipe it away.  He was shutting down, alright. Mason knew that once someone reached that stage, there was little that could be done. Just as he had almost convinced himself that it would be in everyone's  best interest to leave the man behind, Mackenzie reached out blindly and rested her hand on the doctor's knee.

"Doctor Walker, we need to go," she hushed.

The doctor's eyes flitted back and forth between Mason and the girl, and finally there was something perceptible behind them. He gaped at the girl's pretty face for some seconds, then he released his grip on his sore ankle and patted Mackenzie's hand gently. She smiled at him, and he began to come slowly back to life.

"Yes," he said. He put a hand to the goose-egg on his head and winced. "Yes, we need to go."

Mackenzie took his hand, Mason sighed beleagueredly and grabbed hold of an elbow, and together they helped Walker to his feet. He stood shakily, but at least he stood. 

The fence was creaking and groaning all along the front of the Secret Garden. The swarm had been whipped into a frenzy, and now hundreds upon hundreds of bodies were pressing against it, claws raking, fingers reaching through and teeth gnashing against the metal links. Mason knew that the fence was never built for that kind of stress. It wouldn't hold much longer. Already, it was bulging in the middle and beginning to buckle.

Christ! Out of the frying pan and into the fire.……

Mackenzie was right. They needed to go.

Mason would just as soon leave the good doctor behind, but Mack would never allow it. As well, he had to admit that his infuriatingly persistent sense of morality remained, however precariously and however fractured. Yes, Walker was afraid, but as Mackenzie had pointed out so astutely, they
all
were. There was something else besides cowardice working away at the man's insides. Beyond the fear, beyond the rapidly swelling eye and beyond the injured ankle, something infinitely darker was chewing away at the man's soul, and it didn't take a genius to figure it out. Mass euthanasia was just a start. Factor in the utterly preposterous reanimation of those very same corpses and voilà…….Meltdown.

A horrible
crack!
resounded across the Secret Garden. The fence girding the space was solid enough, but even the strongest of structures has a weak point. In the case of the fence, it was the base. The metal posts had been set in concrete a foot or two below ground level, but around that solid concrete was regular soil. The tons of mass straining at the fence was literally ripping the posts from the ground. Even as Mason watched, one of the legs closest to them tore from the ground, and the top of the fence canted inward be ten degrees. 

"Come on, Mack!" he barked, and took Mackenzie by the hand.

Quickly, he took her to the open manhole. She kept hold of Walker with her other hand and hauled him along like a pull toy, then once at the opening, she released the doctor and Mason helped her find the first step of the ladder.

"I got it, Mace," she said, then she paused, looked blindly up at him and asked in a  hush, "You're not leaving him, right?"

It wasn't a question. It was a statement. Even if he had decided the other way, one look at the expression on the girl's face would have changed things.

"We're right behind you," Mason assured her, "
Both
of us."

Barely had Mackenzie entered the hole when all hell broke loose. When the fence finally collapsed, it collapsed quickly. Once one leg was free of its moorings, more strain was put on those on either side, and when those started to fail, it was game over. One moment, the fence was bowed but still standing. The next, it was canted at such an angle that those in the front of the swarm could scramble onto it. Once they did that,  their combined weight flattened it completely. And as if a dam had burst, the swarm gushed through the breach in a wave and flooded into the Secret Garden.

"Go, Mack, go!" Mason called down the hole, then he grabbed Walker rudely by the shoulders and shoved him in after her. "Coming down fast, Mack! Get out of the way!"

The vanguard of the swarm were all big men. They were the ones who'd had the mass and strength to shove their way through the crush of bodies to be at the front of the line, and the sheer power to survive the collapse of the fence and ensuing flood. Now they raced toward Mason with hundreds more at their heels. Mason waited as long as he dared to let the others get clear, but it was counted in fractions of a second. When the closest snarling creature was mere yards away, he finally threw himself into the hole and dropped like a stone.

Fortunately, the way was clear, but his slide down the ladder barely ahead of the raking claws and gnashing teeth came at a cost. There had been no time to pull the manhole cover back across the opening, so a gaping hole was left above. Even now, bloody hands clawed through the opening, and a confusion of snarling faces and hulking bodies blocked all but a few shreds of light.

As long as the swarm all crushed in together, the hole would remain plugged, but such a state wouldn't last forever. Sooner or later, someone would squeeze through or be shoved through by the weight of bodies behind. Quickly then, Mason untied the backpack from where he'd left it, flicked on his phone for light, and began herding Mackenzie and the doctor back toward the main sewer line.

This time, there was no singing and no playing with echoes. Mason held Mackenzie's hand tightly and hurried her along, and Walker was left to keep up as best he could. Mason certainly wasn't going to carry the man, so he was on his own. If he couldn't keep pace, Mason would sleep quite comfortably knowing that his moral contract had been fulfilled. But the decision wasn't his alone. Every time Mackenzie heard the doctor falling too far behind, she would haul back on Mason's hand to bring him to a halt and let the doctor catch up, and all Mason could do was grunt his dissent and implore the man to hurry.

In truth, Walker looked to be fading fast. Mason had reckoned that the farther they got from the hospital, the more spirited the man would become, but the opposite seemed to be happening. Whether it was the stench of the sewer or the narrowness of their escape or simply the doctor dwelling on dark thoughts, Mason had no idea. Soon enough, he even began to suspect that the issue might have a physical cause as well as a psychological one. Maybe the smack on the head was worse than it looked. Maybe the man had suffered a concussion, or maybe there was some kind of internal bleeding. Unfortunately, the only one who might make such a diagnosis was the patient himself, and it was all Walker could do just to hobble along while offering meek, breathless apologies.

Once they reached the main line, Mason herded them south, but no sooner had they made the turn than Mackenzie reeled back on Mason's hand, bringing them once again to a sudden halt.

"Mace," she whispered, "They're coming. Behind us."

Damn!
The hole was unplugged.

"How many?" Walker panted.

"Does it matter?" Mason chided him, "One or ten, I can't fight them off bare-handed."

"The echoes might confuse them," Walker tried again, but he was too weak to offer the words with any real conviction.

Mason allowed the idea a full half-second's consideration. "It might slow them down for a bit, but there aren't too many paths to follow down here. They'll be like rats scurrying through a maze, and we're the big fat hunks of cheese at the end."

"There's three, I think," Mackenzie had her ears pricked up, "It's hard to tell. Four, maybe."

There might be three or four now, but more were sure to come. Now that the human presence was gone from the hospital grounds, the swarm would slowly disperse, and with no crowd left to plug the hole, one blind creature after another would blunder in.

"Let's move,….." Mason hushed to the group, "Quickly and quietly……"

They didn't run, but even a brisk walk through the inch or two of muck created too much noise for Mason's liking. He knew that they couldn't outrun the creatures on their tail, nor could they elude them within a closed system. What they needed was a hasty exit. They'd passed a ladder a minute ago, but there was no going back. All they could do was go on and hope they reached the next manhole before the swarm caught up to them.

As they hurried along, Mackenzie squeezed Mason's hand and whispered a desperate, "They're getting close."

She needn't have bothered. Mason could hear them by now. Heavy footfalls echoing from behind. Growling. Snarling. Running. Sloshing. No hesitation. With no obstructions to trip them up or block their path, the creatures came at flank speed. Mason grabbed Mackenzie in his arms and dashed headlong away from the sounds, leaving Walker to keep up as best he could.

Mackenzie heard the doctor's footfalls falling behind and hushed into Mason's ear, "He's not as fast as you, Mace! We have to slow down!"

"We can't!" Mason huffed between breaths.

"We
have
to!" The girl remained adamant.

Damn it!

Mason told himself that if it were just he and Walker down here with no Mackenzie to take care of, he would have stopped of his own accord to help the man. Whether or not he actually
would
was another story, but the point was moot. Even with his commitment to keep the girl safe, that curly-headed conscience riding along on his shoulder was calling the shots. He stopped dead in his tracks, turned to see Walker a good fifty feet behind, and held up his phone light to guide the man.

"Hurry up, for
chrissakes!"
he hushed, waving the light frantically, "C'mon, Doc!
Move!"

The light wasn't much, but it was enough to throw a dim glow far down the pipe. And what it illuminated was horrifying. Along with the rising crescendo of footfalls, snarls and growls, there was now a blur of movement closing in behind the doctor.

Time was up. There was nothing more he could do for Walker. Despite Mackenzie's protests, he turned on his heels and ran as fast as he could away from the swarm. He couldn't hope to outrun the creatures, but in some grim part of his mind, he considered that having Walker along might ultimately prove useful after all. To paraphrase the old joke, he didn't have to run faster than the swarm, he just had to run faster than Walker. If the swarm stalled for even a few seconds to
attend
to the doctor, he might actually have a chance to get Mackenzie clear.

And then he saw it. A ladder, just ahead. He made directly for it and arrived panting and nearly out of breath. He lifted Mackenzie as high as he could and told her, "There's a ladder, Mack! Grab on and climb as high as you can!"

Her hand found a rung and she took hold, then she found a place for her feet and turned back to Mason, "Where's Doctor Walker?"

"Dunno!" Mason told her honestly.

He started up the ladder, pushing Mackenzie higher with every rung he ascended. At last, they were at the top, and the girl was all but crushed against the manhole cover above. The footfalls were close now. Too close. So many feet, pounding and sloshing at a manic run. In the close confines, it sounded like a hundred ravening beasts on the chase, every one of them growling and snapping their jaws in anticipation of the kill.

In the few seconds he had before the swarm was upon them, Mason did the math. He might be able to throw back the manhole cover and shove Mackenzie through in time, but he couldn't do it quietly, and the bigger swarm filling the streets would make quick work of them. But the ladder was high, so he and Mackenzie were a good seven feet above the sewer floor. He made his decision quickly.

"Shush, Mack…." he whispered, squeezing himself another few inches higher up the ladder. They were now as high up as they could go, so he drew in a deep breath, held it, and froze.