Zombie Bitches From Hell (21 page)

Dawkins fires at the zombie, missing her as
she ducks to gnaw on Fizer’s spine. One more shot lands in Fizer’s
thigh by mistake, but the boy barely moves. His face is ashen and
pale, eyes vacant, already gone but for the routine of his gasping
heartbeat.

Dawkins fires once more, this time hitting
Fizer square in the forehead, splattering his brains across the
pitted metal landing. One bitch licks up the brains, giving Dawkins
a clear shot as he chambers another shell full of pellet and blows
her head off with a straight, clean shot from less than five feet
away.

The shrieking continues,
louder now as the zombies smell blood. We retreat, scrambling up
the stairs until the hollow sound of Ed’s laughter fills the
nearest stairwell and bullets from his security guards’ guns
ricochet off the stairwell. Tim and Dawkins find an open door just
below them on the 19
^th
Floor and shove through.

Molly and I follow, joined
quickly by the two remaining rookies, out of breath and bare arms
slick with sweat as they jostle against us to find room. We all
hoist our backs against the door, keeping it shut as the horde of
ravenous bitches bang against it. Their nails are sharp and scrape
loudly on the other side, sending nasty vibrations right through
the hollow steel door
.

They shove and we buckle,
but don’t bend. Suddenly shots ring out, the shrieks intensify and
the zombies clatter and crawl up the stairwell just outside. We can
hear Ed and his crew shouting, shooting in a flurry of bullets that
carom everywhere, even against the outside of our door, more
screaming, and then the unmistakable sound of teeth on flesh and
bone as the bitches find the 20
^th
Floor vulnerable and
full of live flesh.

The screaming stops as the feasting
begins.

“Now,” hisses Dawkins, looking to Tim and me
for approval. “While they’re occupied with your friends from
upstairs.”

I shake my head, then nod reluctantly as we
lean away from the door, yank it open and leap into the stairwell,
tumbling down two steps at a time and risking life and limb as we
turn on every landing to see if the horde is following us.

They are not.

We fly from the
17
^th
floor to the 16
^th
, the
15
^th
,
zoom past the 12
^th
, straight past the
10
^th
,
catch our breath on the 8
^th
Floor, no bitches and
we are nearly to the 6
^th
floor before the shrieking cries begin once
again.

The raspy screams are one thing, the claws
are another; they slither and scrape against every stair, scurrying
across each landing, long and hard as steel and sharp as meat
hooks, scuttling like giant crabs lurching forward inexorably,
hungrily.

The 5
^th
and
4
^th
floor are a blur, the thundering of a dozen zombie feet
echoing high above. Molly stays close, Tim angling for the rear
with Molly’s machete now, held high in one hand, the other
clutching the railing as we hurtle toward the ground floor. Dawkins
reaches it first, scrambling for the basement level and the fuel
tank that hopefully awaits.

The basement is vast and ruled by great,
giant condensers covered in shimmering metal foil. They stand six
to a row, and each one is a perfect undead hiding place.

We search behind each one, the basement door
barricaded by two huge computer clusters that take all of us to
slide across the door and wedge tight. It holds against the first
barrage of bitch bodies, but even while filling the gas tanks at
the giant fuel reservoir in the depths of the basement proper, we
can hear the linoleum floor being gouged by the bottoms of the
computer towers as they give just an inch; then one inch more.

As I fill the last gas canister, I finger
the nozzle shut, then watch as the door bows in a little more with
every assault.

“Tim,” I urge. “Give me your lighter.”

“No,” he barks back, even as he begins
fumbling for it. “It’s too dangerous.
“Yeah,” says Molly, aiming her pistol at the clattering door. “As
opposed to a half-dozen zombies trying to yank our brains out of
our skulls any second now?”

“She’s got a point,” barks Dawkins as he
turns to face the door.

“You and you,” I say to Dawkins and Tim as I
purge the fuel tank, sending a steady stream of liquid propane onto
the floor at my feet. “Hide between the condensers on the right.
Molly, you and I will take the left.”

“Let’s pray they break in before we’re knee
deep in—”

The door bursts open and from behind the
condensers we can see four, five, six, then seven bitches slither
in, all bony joints and rubber limbs, faces white from lack of
sunlight and blood flow, eyes milky and blank.

They would normally sniff us out immediately,
but the gas has us all in tears, and their senses – such as they
are – in shambles. The splashing of the fuel from the gushing tank
draws them in even as we begin inching from the room, first
Dawkins, then Tim, then Molly, then myself.

We sneak back toward the door, routing
through the condensers, staying low in the shadows. At the open
doorway I gulp in fresh air from the stairwell, turn and flick the
lighter; it flicks dry, with only a few sparks. The sound draws the
interest of the zombies, who turn, still confused until they see me
in the doorway, frantically flicking the lighter.

Their bare, hideous feet splash in the fuel,
sending ripples my way as at last the lighter flickers to life and
I drop it to the floor, sending a blue ripple of flame straight
toward their clamoring limbs.

The fuel engulfs them, the
fumes singeing them above the waist, the fire burning at their
feet. The sound is horrendous as their screams fill the stairwell
beneath as we spring upward toward the 5
^th
, 6
^th
and
7
^th
floors, the smell even worse as burning flesh follows us
toward the 9
^th
and 10
^th
. My shoulders ache
form carrying the tanks up so many flights.

But it’s more than just smoke wafting from
the basement; the zombies, half of them anyway, are still in
pursuit, slithering up the steps in slow motion even as the flesh
falls from their bodies.

“God,” Molly spits, out of breath and lagging
behind. “Won’t they ever stop?”

“They’ll stop,” barks
Dawkins, panting rapidly as we crouch on the 18
^th
floor. He takes one
knee, a pistol from his shoulder holster, aims into the darkness
below. “When we pick them off one by one.”

I crouch next to him, inspired by the idea.
He shoos me away, grabbing Tim instead.

“You get to your ride,” he instructs, “and
I’ll keep pretty boy here as insurance.”

Tim smirks and takes to one knee.

Molly and I turn hurriedly as I look over my
shoulder, watching the flames follow the last remaining zombies up
the stairwell as bullets begin to fly from Dawkins’ and Tim’s
guns.

The 19
^th
floor is full of
corpses, both human and undead. Bullets riddle the walls while a
zombie lies on the floor, cut in half and still crawling toward
Ed’s lifeless, gnawed on legs.

I silence her with a bullet to the back of
the head as we crouch toward the outer stairwell. Molly grabs my
arm and yanks me forward, dodging broken, bullet-ridden bodies
until we are poised at the bottom of the stairwell on the exterior
of the building.

“You first,” I tell Molly, none too eager for
her to be exposed at the bottom of the stairs should any flaming
zombies make it through Dawkins and Tim.

“Can’t we go together?” she asks, even as she
grips the bottom rung with trembling hands.

“I don’t think the laws of physics would
allow it,” I quip, inching up closely behind her just in case
there’s a bitch somehow waiting for us at the top.

Her skin is warm as I brush up against her
calves while we pass the midway point up the ladder.

Her voice is trembling as she says, “God,
I’m scared.”

“Almost there,” I urge, the gas canisters
weighing me down as I lose a little steam.

She bridges the distance, moving forward as
I struggle to keep up.

Behind me I hear tearing and look down to
see a zombie, fresh and hungry, slicing at my calf. Her face
animated and beautiful, her eyes empty and cold. I grip the rung
with the crook of my elbow, none too eager to be yanked off the
stairs and falling 20 floors only to be devoured by the hungry mob
on the ground.

The zombie screams, dead blonde hair blowing
in the wind. Her mouth is open and already full of gore, none of it
mine. I imagine Tim and Dawkins already gone, but hear gunfire
erupting from the stairwell inside and know that can’t be the case.
She must have been hiding on the next floor down.

Molly screams, and I tell her to “go on” but
when I look up, that’s not why she’s screaming. I hear the chewing
and feel fresh blood on my throat as a zombie stands, Molly in
hand, chewing on her arm until it separates at the shoulder. Her
body sails past me, face panicked as she screams the whole way
down.

I kick violently, face drenched in blood,
until the zombie’s nose breaks, until the zombie’s fingers break,
until it too follows Molly into the gnarling, gathering mob on the
street.

I scream, “no!” but there is nothing I can
do. If Molly was any sort of hope for humanity at all, then
humanity is well and truly screwed. But there is not time for
remorse now, I have to keep going.

I inch forward, reaching for my gun until
I’m just shy of the awaiting bitch, already licking her chops.
Three rungs from the roof I aim and silence her with three bullets
under her chin; she slumps, mostly headless, to the rooftop floor
as I climb over her lifeless body and quickly pile both gas
canisters into the balloon.

I head for the tangled lines and begin
carefully working at them. The wind actually helps as it makes the
balloon lurch backward and forward, alternately tightening and
loosening the lines. I run to the gondola and uncoil a mooring
line, grappling it to a drainpipe before completely untethering the
gondola.

I jump in the gondola and fire up the
burner. Hadley is curled up in a corner as if asleep. I chide
myself for bringing her on this trip and leaving her alone, but she
is still alive, and that is what matters. MG, looks up from where
his head in on her lap and gives me a woof of recognition.

Thank God, I think. I stare at the roof door
awaiting Tim’s face, looking for movement, pistol aimed should the
random bitch come flying at me.

Dawkins emerges first, turning quickly after
a brief smile to reach for Tim’s hand as he helps my partner up
onto the roof. They sprint toward me, two bitches hot on their
heels.

I aim for them as Tim reaches the gondola
and tosses his full gas tanks on board. Dawkins turns to silence
the zombies, riddling them with bullets until his pistol is empty.
As he’s reaching for the knife in his boot they reach him instead,
my bullets splattering into their bodies but doing little to stop
the carnage on the tarmac as they angrily devour Dawkins from the
skull down.

Tim shakes his head, regret pooling beneath
his pale blue eyes, and wedges himself next to me, unhooking the
mooring rope. The zombies stand, Dawkins’ gore hanging from their
lips as they advance on the balloon.

I jam the burner to full and the balloon
lurches up as if a giant hand has grabbed it and us. The bitches
leap for the gondola. One is hanging on and using her talon-like
nails to easily climb the basket, the tips of her claws penetrating
the weave. The balloon rises at a furious pace. Tim turns his rifle
around and swings the butt of it like it’s a baseball bat just as
the bitch’s head clears the rim of the gondola. She looks at me and
rasps, sounds like she says, “waiting for you,” though I’m sure
it’s just gurgled nonsense, then Tim bashes her skull and she falls
almost in slow motion as we watch downward, her flailing doll-like
body hitting the ledge of a skyscraper and dropping into the dark
void between buildings.

CHAPTER 20

“I’m going to try the radio,” said Tim.

“I don’t think you should. It’s a long shot
that anyone is going to be listening and it may be one of those
jerk-off military groups. They see this rig we’re in and they’ll
take it. Maybe kill us, make us slaves. Who knows? It’s not worth
it, Tim, not worth it,” I said.

Tim was in no mood for my same old, same old.
Couldn’t blame him. Maybe he was finally believing what I’d been
thinking since Denver: it’s all a dead end. Why drag it out? Is
life so important that we should hold on even if it’s a living
torture?

“Fuck it all,” I said. “Use it. I don’t give
a shit any more than you do.”

“You’re lying,” he said. “But maybe it’s a
gamble we can’t not take. Nothing to lose…nothing to lose.”

He pressed the transmit button and said,
“Mayday, Mayday,” just like in the movies. I looked over the
gondola side; Hadley was standing next to me. She held my hand.
Maybe I was supposed to care for her. Maybe she was my
responsibility now and I couldn’t decide just for me or let Tim
decide just for him. But what was her future? If we landed even in
a safe haven—something we didn’t even know existed—she could still
turn. Maybe Jen had a vaccine. Maybe it was bullshit and she only
thought she had one.