This Rotten World (Book 2): We All Fall Down (8 page)

"Clear!" Zeke yelled,
and Lou fell back so that Zeke could do the heavy lifting again. He was much
more accurate, and they had a lot more ammunition for the machine gun. They
were almost to the sunshine, when a fresh wave of the dead fell over the side
of the bridge above them. Zeke went full auto with the machine gun, ripping
through the bodies in front of them. "Run!" he yelled, and they did.

They sprinted as if the entire
world was on their heels. The dock was within sight. All that stood between
them was five-hundred feet of rocky river shore. "Fuck yeah!" Lou yelled
between deep ragged breaths. The dock was there, right in front of him. He kept
his eyes on the sails of the ships, willing himself to keep moving, though his
legs burned, his knees ached, and his shoes felt like he was lugging hollowed
out walrus carcasses on his feet. He tripped once, and tumbled to the jagged
rocks where the river water lapped at their cold grey forms. He bounded to his
feet, using the last reserves of his energy, and they approached the river
dock. He clambered up the side of it, Zeke ahead of him. His boots rang out on
the aluminum ramp that lead from the shore, then they thumped on the wooden
planks of the dock.

Lou turned around, and behind
him he saw his worst nightmare. Their flight through the city had created a
roiling, stumbling mass. Good luck to anyone who ran afoul of that group. Lou
focused back on the task at hand, "What boat are we gonna take?"

"Anyone we can. You know
how to hotwire a boat?"

Lou looked at Zeke like he was
crazy. Then a voice rang out over the docks. "Over here!" a man
yelled. Zeke and Lou turned to see who was yelling at them. It was the
red-bearded man and his family.

Zeke patted Lou on the chest and
said, "Looks like being a hero pays off."

Lou could not explain the
feeling that he felt then. It was a warmth that started somewhere in his heart
and radiated throughout his body. But it was more than that. It was as if some
long dead part of him had come back to life, some part that he had tried to
destroy throughout his entire life, a life marred by mistake after stupid
mistake. It was pride, something he hadn't felt in a lifetime.

His boots clunked on the wooden
dock, feeling lighter than a heart full of pride. He hopped onto the boat and
sat heavily. The boat was all white. A canopy covered the pilot's seat, but
there was room for seven or eight people in the boat if they crammed in tight
enough. The man with the red beard tried to start the boat up, but it wouldn't
turn over.

"Untie the boat would,
ya?" he said. Zeke hopped out of the boat, and undid the rope that secured
the boat to the dock. The buzz of a thousand corpses got closer, but still the
boat wouldn't start, the engine making a sickly choking noise.

"Is this thing going to
start or what?" Lou said. The man's wife and children huddled in the back
of the boat, a hopeful look on their face.

"It'll start. It's just
been a while," the bearded-man shot back, concern creeping into his voice.

Zeke hopped back into the boat
and began reloading the magazines for the machine gun. Lou took his cue from him
and did the same. "Dammit!" the bearded-man yelled, before slamming
on the steering wheel as Lou slid another 9mm bullet into the magazine in his
hand. The clomp of the dead reverberated off the wooden boards of the dock.

"You better get that thing
going, man. We don't got all day," Lou yelled before turning to the
children and their mother. "You guys might want to move up front, and
cover your ears." They moved dutifully, the mother prodding the children
protectively. They sat in the front seat, right on top of each other, their
hands over their ears.

"You ready to do
this?" Lou asked Zeke.

"Whether I'm ready or not,
it's the way it has to be." Zeke held his fist out to Lou, and Lou pounded
it with his own fist. They took aim at the heads of the nearest of the undead
column that tromped across the wooden boards.

They surged along the dock, as
if they knew that their prey had nowhere to go. Their arms were held straight
out before them, hands formed into claws as if they could tear their flesh
apart from ten feet away. The engine gagged again, choking and grinding. No
luck. The girls began screaming, and Lou fired off his first shot. The lead
corpse fell into the water where it floated. Zeke put another one down, but
they were moving faster now, like a snowball on its way downhill, gaining
momentum the closer it got to the bottom. Lou didn't have time to think
anymore. He didn't have time to measure his shots. For every two shots he
fired, one of them dropped, and then they were at the edge of the dock trying
to get onto the boat. His gun clicked empty, and he began swinging the pistol
like a hammer, bashing the grip of the gun into the matted bloody hair of the
dead. They pushed, flowing at them like an unbreakable wave, and then he heard
the happiest sound of his life.

The engine sputtered to life,
black smoke spurting out of the exhaust of the boat. The boat lurched forward
away from the dock, and Lou threw the dead woman he was struggling with into
the water. Even as she flew away from him, her arms grasped and clawed at him.
When she hit the water, she sank like a rock, her arms reaching up for him. Lou
vowed to never swim in the water again.

Then they were away from the
dock. The line of the dead stretched down the wooden planks and the riverside
for a couple hundred feet. Lou collapsed onto the hard fiberglass bench on the
rear of the boat and let the river wind glide across his bald head. He closed
his eyes and soaked it all up. He had never been on a boat before.

It was quiet on the boat, except
for the gurgling of the engine, which sounded like nothing compared to the
ear-shattering noise of gunfire in the city. Everyone was silent, as if
speaking would wake them up from the dream of escaping. Lou opened his eyes.
The children clung to their mother, tears leaking from their eyes. Zeke sat
across from him in the back of the boat, loading bullets into his empty
magazines. Lou decided it would be prudent to do the same, so he exhaled
slowly, pushed the peace aside, pulled the clip out of his handgun, and reached
in his pocket for ammunition.

"Thanks for getting us out
of there," Lou said.

The bearded man said, "No.
Thank you. If you hadn't fired that gun, they would have overrun us."

The boat bounced over the water,
and Lou looked at the city passing by. He had never seen it from this angle
before. The river banks were lined with shambling forms. "Where are we
headed?" he asked.

"Away from here," the
bearded man said. "My name is Brian. This is my wife Sarah, and my
daughters Ruby and Jane. Pleased to meet you."

"I'm Lou, and this quiet
guy over here is Zeke."

The wife nodded at him. Her
dress was covered in blood, and a thought struck Lou. The blood, the bites,
they had to be sure. "Was anyone bitten?"

The wife looked at Lou with fear
in her eyes. Lou got the feeling that she was hiding something, but he didn't
know about how to go about getting her to admit it. The world was dying, and
here he was worrying about upsetting anyone; meanwhile, the woman across from him
could be turning into one of those things in front of his very eyes, ready to
eat her own children at a moment's notice.

They sped underneath a bridge,
and there were a few splashes in their wake as the dead fell into the water.

"You think they'll
drown?" Lou asked Zeke.

"I don't see how. They're not
breathing."

Sarah spoke up then, "So
you think they're actually dead?"

Zeke turned to the lady and
flashed a toothy grin. "Lady, I know they're dead. As soon as you guys get
that into your head, you can get about the business of dealing with it. No, they're
not sick. No, they're not alive. No, they won't respond to reason. All they
respond to is a bullet to the head. You reshape your reality with those
parameters, and you'll be just fine."

It was a harsh wake-up call, but
it was a necessary one as Lou saw it. The children clung tighter to their
mother, their father glancing back at them from the corner of his eye. They
cruised under another bridge, and more splashes followed them. The boat was not
fast, but it moved fast enough. The dead were not masters of timing, otherwise
they would have been covered in a deluge of the dead every time they passed
underneath a bridge. The boat forged north, splitting the Willamette's murky
waters, the sun in the sky, and the banks of the city lined with the dead.
Helicopters flew above, thundering through the valley. He saw one in the
distance, lighting up a stretch of freeway that hung suspended in the air.
Spent shells glittered in the sun like fairy dust, and Lou imagined that he
could hear them hitting the road beneath.

"You think your boys can
stop this?" he asked Zeke.

"They're not my boys. Not
anymore."

"Hey, guys. We've got a
problem," Brian said. In front of them, boats sped toward them. Not your
average coast guard boat or port authority rig. These were military class
ships. Lou could see the guns on the decks. They were locked into a course that
would directly impede their own progress. "Should I turn around?"
Brian asked.

Zeke laughed slightly. The noise
sounded like a cat learning how to speak English. "You'd never escape
those. They can go about thirty five knots an hour. How fast can this thing go?
Seven?"

"Eight if I push it,"
Brian said with a faint ring of hope.

"Yeah, well, push it or
not, we won't be escaping these guys. Let's just see what they want."

Brian kept the boat on the same
course. When they were about a hundred yards out, one of the ships activated
their bullhorn, "Turn off the engine and prepare to be boarded."
Brian did as he was told. The boat slowed immediately, bobbing on the river.
Lou slid his gun into the waistband of his jeans, but there was nowhere for
Zeke to put his gun, so he left it on the ground.

The boats cruised up to them, one
on either side. The navy ships towered over the boat that they were in, their
decks easily above the highest point of their own vehicle. Lou looked up to see
guns trained on them, serious men with serious faces doing serious work.

"Are any of you
bitten?" a soldier asked them. They shook their heads.

"No one is bitten,"
Brian yelled up to the soldier.

"Stand back," the
soldier yelled as a ladder was lowered from the side of their boat onto their
deck. There wasn't much room to maneuver, as the boat was packed tight with the
six people that were already on it. A soldier, black hair peeking out from
underneath his cap, climbed down the ladder, landing on the deck of the boat
with a hefty thump. His boots were dark and heavy, as was the gun in his hand.
He searched them wordlessly. He spotted the submachine gun on the deck of the
boat, and he bent down, picked it up, and tossed it up to a soldier waiting on
the deck.

When he was done patting down
Zeke, he yelled, "Clean!" loud enough for the soldiers on the boats
to hear him. Lou was next. The anti-authority part of him wanted to punch the
man in the face for putting his hands on him, but he understood it. He pushed
the feeling down inside, and let it burn. The soldier pulled the gun from the
waistband of Lou's jeans, and tucked it into his own pants. With his gun aimed
at Lou, the soldier turned to Brian and said, "Are you guys alright? Is
this man holding you hostage?"

Lou couldn't believe what he was
hearing. His smoldering sense of anti-authoritarianism clawed up his ribcage. Even
at the end of the world, a black man couldn't catch a break.
"Motherfucker, I ought to..." he started before Brian jumped in.

"No, as a matter of fact,
he saved us."

Lou was still outraged, and he
stared the soldier down, until he turned his head away. If this was the street,
he wouldn't have had to turn his head because he would already be face down on
the concrete, doubled over, with Lou's boots planted firmly in his ribs. But
this wasn't the street, and the man had a gun.

"Easy, Lou," Zeke
said. Lou fumed inside, but he composed himself as the soldier searched Brian.

"Clean!" the soldier
yelled. He then turned to Sarah, her daughters still clinging to her. "Sorry,
ma'am, but I've got to."

He reached towards Ruby to pull
her away from her mother, but Sarah flinched back yelling, "You keep your
hands off my babies!"

She was frantic, wild-eyed. Her
voice sent shivers through Lou. It was a primal voice.

"Ma'am. I just need to see
if she's bit."

"She's not bit!" Sarah
yelled.

"Sarah, calm down. Just let
him see. There's nothing to worry about, right?" Brian asked the soldier.

The soldier looked at him,
appreciative of Brian's help. "It's just a precaution. Nothing is going to
happen."

Sarah clutched Ruby tighter to
her chest.

"C'mon, baby. Just let them
see," Brian said. Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, and then she set her
daughter on the ground.

"We've got a bite!"
the soldier yelled. When Sarah had set Ruby on the ground, they could see the
blood, even through the loud floral pattern of Sarah's dress. On her stomach,
there was a round stain, not large, but enough to cause the soldier to back
away, his rifle ready. "Ma'am, were you bit?"

Tears came to Sarah's eyes.
"It was just a little scratch, when we were running." Her hands went
to the fabric of her dress, covering the hole in the dress as if to hide the
wound. Brian's face drooped.

"You and you," the
soldier said pointing to Zeke and Lou, "get up that ladder. Take those
kids with you." The girls began screaming right away. Lou picked up the
littlest girl, while Zeke dragged the other one to the ladder. They fought and
they kicked, but Lou knew what was going to happen next. Lou raised the little
girl up, and a soldier grabbed her arms, lifting her roughly onto the deck of
the navy boat. Together, Zeke and Lou hoisted the older daughter into the air,
her legs kicking back and forth. Lou caught a sneaker in the lip for his
trouble as she was pulled onto the deck, screaming at the top of her lungs.