Apocalyptica (Book 3): Ran Read online

  “Besides,” I said, “it’s not like we don’t have other shit to worry about.”

  That seemed to strike a chord, because no one had anything to say.

  In a way, it was fortunate that none of us had family nearby. If anything, I was the odd man out, because I hadn’t been part of Jem’s circle of friends before. Part of the reason they were friends in the first place was because they didn’t have close ties with anyone locally. Which afforded them time to spend on shared interests, mostly gaming.

  We avoided zombies as much as possible on our way to Benson’s. In a vehicle it wasn’t that hard; even the fastest runners in human history couldn’t surpass a Jeep with a driver barely touching the gas. Oh, we saw them. Even drove around a crowd of them. But the only real danger they posed was when we were on foot or careless, and we were learning to never be careless.

  A half mile from Benson’s, we stopped. There were zombies following us, attracted like iron filings to a magnet. Rather than drag the gathering herd in our wake and interrupt our shopping experience, we decided to distract them. So I leaned out the window and dumped the contents of a small cooler on the ground.

  “That’s so nasty,” Tony said.

  “It was the deer or us,” I replied. I hated to waste good venison, forty pounds of which I had in my freezer, but it was for a good cause. Also, if the power went out, it was unlikely we’d be able to eat all of it.

  Several pounds of Bambi lighter, we zoomed off.

  Benson’s was deserted. A handful of cars sat abandoned in the lot, but otherwise there was no sign of people. Not terribly surprising, since the place sat on the edge of town on a huge tract of land the owners resolutely refused to split up and sell. The heavy machinery yard seemed untouched, the rugged yellow hulks standing sentinel over the empty business.

  We drifted across the lot, the Jeep’s wheels gliding silently on the blacktop. The closer we came, the clearer it was that Benson’s was left almost untouched. There was no damage to the windows, just some dark splashes I didn’t want to think about very hard. The doors were shut, no bodies in sight. We parked on the curb in front of the entrance.

  Tony drummed his fingers on the wheel. “Do we want to check this out? I mean, looks pretty clear but we could open those doors and find like a hundred zombies taking a nap.”

  That was another thing we’d discovered; zombies slept. Not curled up with a pillow under their heads or anything. It was a sort of standing sleep, like machines in standby. Jem found out the hard way by bumping into one the day before. It took a solid ten seconds for the thing to wake up, by which time we were running our asses off.

  I looked back at Jem. “What do you think? You and I could go in and take a look around, couldn’t we? Leave Tony here with the engine running so we can get away?”

  “I’m right here,” Tony said. “And I’d like to go in, see if anyone’s made off with stuff. If not, I can start putting together a list of what I’d like to haul back to your place. I started on some plans last night.”

  “Okay,” Jem said. “But let me step inside the door and take a look first. If there’s a crowd, it’ll be easier for one person to run out than three.”

  We agreed and waited as Jem went to the main entrance, which was unlocked, and cracked it open just wide enough to slip inside. He didn’t even go all the way in, leaving his right heel wedged in place to prop the door open.

  He leaned back outside and waved us in.

  The overhead fluorescents were still on, casting harsh light on the cavernous interior. We entered looking down the extra wide lumber aisle, which didn’t look disturbed. The racks were full, nothing was crashed onto the floor or otherwise out of place. Benson’s was huge, though, and I felt the tension in my chest ratchet up a few notches. We could only see the ends of the other aisles, which could have hidden anything.

  “Prioritize,” I said, waving a hand at Tony. “Most important to least.”

  “Well, I can see we’re okay on lumber so long as no one comes here after us. Need to look for concrete mix, fencing…”

  I nodded impatiently. “You know the place better. Lead the way, find what you’re looking for, and Jem and I will be right at your back.”

  I left the Springfield holstered as we navigated. Guns were effective, sure, but the last thing I wanted to do was attract an unknown number of zombies in an enclosed space, regardless of its size. Instead I slipped my hand through a lanyard attached to the handle of a combat tomahawk sheathed across my lower back, and pulled it free. I could always let it dangle and grab the pistol, which presumed me going apeshit with an axe wasn’t enough to seal the deal.

  Tony muttered to himself as we moved, checking off a mental list.

  “Maybe keep your voice a bit lower,” Jem said in a low whisper.

  Tony gave a distracted nod. “Sorry.”

  Though I could only see the edges of it, I started to get an idea what Tony was going for. He wanted as much concrete as possible, all the metal and wood posts he could lay hands on, and when we opened the door to the storage area in the back and found roll after roll of chain link fence, he grew excited. There were other things, from heavy plywood which I assumed was meant to reinforce the house, to odd assortments of tools he swore we’d be thankful to have down the road.

  Tony wanted to build a fence and make it impossible for zombies to knock down. I couldn’t imagine the project would be quick, but I found myself a little excited, too. We would have all the time we needed once the materials were safely stored at my place.

  Back on the main floor of the store proper, we made our way toward the side entrance leading out to the lot holding most of the heavy machinery. I’d been there enough times to know some of the smaller equipment sat inside, more susceptible to weather damage. I had no idea what he was hoping to find.

  And just then, I didn’t get to find out. We rounded a corner and almost tripped over a sleeping herd of zombies. They stood less than five feet away, seven or eight, and the one in front must have heard us coming because he raised his head groggily to stare right at me.

  “Shit!” Tony shouted, the word sending a ripple of movement through the rest of the herd as they flinched in sleepy reaction.

  “Get behind me!” I said, raising my tomahawk. “Jem has your back!”

  Then I threw myself into the fray.

  16

  The zombie managed to get an arm up, but that didn’t work out well for him. The blade of my axe slammed into his wrist. Thus distracted, it was caught entirely off guard when my left hand looped around and impacted the side of its head. The sound was that of a snapping branch, sharp and sudden, and the zombie fell away immediately.

  The side of his head was dented.

  It wasn’t as impressive as it looked. Brass knuckles—well, steel anyway—gleamed wetly where they wrapped around my fingers. I’d done a little work to them with my welding rig, added some extra material to the strike face. What had once been relatively flat and gentle curves now resembled nothing so much as a squat pyramid. All told it was an extra twenty ounces of steel. Heavy but goddamned effective.

  I kicked at the falling body and took a small jump backward. As predicted, the lurching zombies trying to get at me couldn’t react fast enough. Two of them tripped, and I bolted forward and chopped into their heads with two fast swings.

  Fear dropped away. I’d killed three zombies in a handful of seconds without taking a scratch. The flutter in my chest was replaced with a thrill of adrenaline, a rush of confidence that these shambling fuckers, however strong, couldn’t stop me.

  I jumped over the bodies and went completely berserk.

  I lashed out with my axe, saw it cut a terrible arc from eye socked through jaw, which it ripped in two. As I pulled the blade free, the momentum of my yank spun my body and I followed up with the same combination I’d used on the first zombie. My blow landed on the front edge of its temple, crumpling the bone there.

  “Come on, bitches!” I shouted, my v
oice hoarse.

  Things grew blurry for a little while. Flashes stand out, like fingers breaking as they tangled in the chest plate of my body armor as I twisted away. Kneeing a zombie in the hip and, when it bent double from the sudden shift in center of gravity, putting the spike on the back of the tomahawk through its neck.

  When my head began to clear, I was surrounded by bodies. A couple of them twitched, random firings from creatures too stubborn to understand they were twice dead, but no threats remained. I uncurled myself from the crouch I was in and began to feel the pain. My fingers were wrapped in death grips around the haft of the axe and the sweep of my metal knuckles. My forearms felt tight as drum heads.

  When I stood and turned to look for the others, I saw fear in Jem’s eyes. It wasn’t subtle, either; he was holding a gun on me. Tony looked like he didn’t know whether to be terrified, in awe, or aroused. All three were valid reactions.

  “R-ran?” Jem said uncertainly. “You okay?”

  I cocked my head at him. “Yeah, I’m fine. Got a little carried away.” My stomach rumbled, sudden and fierce. “Man, I kind of forgot how long ago breakfast was. I’m starving.”

  Jem lowered the gun slowly. “We should go, I think.”

  I shook my head. “Tony needs to finish looking around, doesn’t he?”

  “I can come back,” Tony said. Jem frowned.

  “Actually, you go home,” Jem said. “That probably wore you out. You’ll be sore.”

  “What about you two?”

  Tony smiled nervously. “They have a delivery truck here. We’ll load it up and drive that back. Even if it’s out of gas, I know the owners keep a big drum of fuel and a hand pump. All those diesel engines in the yard might need it, after all.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, giving in to my protesting stomach. “If you guys are sure.”

  Tony nodded, perhaps a touch more enthusiastically than was warranted. Jem put a hand on his shoulder and motioned for him to stay where he was. Then he stepped toward me and gently guided me a short distance away. Our boots made sucking sounds as they sloshed through the gore.

  “Ran, look,” Jem began, but couldn’t seem to find the words.

  No longer riding high on the wonder drugs produced by my glands, I felt a little guilty. “I know, I went a bit nuts back there. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you guys out.”

  Jem grimaced. “It’s not that. Well, a bit, maybe. You destroying a bunch of zombies doesn’t bother me, though I don’t think Tony has ever seen anything like it. He’s a pretty chill guy. It’s not what you did, it’s what I saw while you did it. Tony saw it too.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, bewildered.

  “You’ll want to take a look in the mirror when you get in the Jeep,” Jem said. “The back of your neck and the base of your throat have these faint black lines going up them.”

  The bottom fell out of my entire universe.

  I expected Carla, who had after all heard every word I’d said about my captors, to react with terror. Instead she spent a few seconds examining my neck, then sat me down and poured each of us a few fingers of bourbon.

  “You’re scared,” she said gesturing with her glass toward mine.

  I laughed darkly. “You’re goddamn right I’m scared. There’s so much we don’t know. Does this mean I’m going to turn into a zombie? I mean, the first wave was all people with injuries of some kind, then the people they attacked. Now this.”

  Carla chewed her lip thoughtfully. “You nailed it. We don’t know. Do you want to bite my face off?”

  She said it with a straight face, and while my first reaction was to give her shit for making the joke, I realized it was an absolutely valid question. “No. I don’t. I felt different while I was fighting, I guess. Sort of high. But once I came down I just got hungry. I don’t feel any weird urges or anything.”

  Carla sipped her bourbon, and watching her reminded me of an episode of Mad Men. She did it with the casual professionalism of someone used to working out complex problems while slugging back booze. “Okay. So you don’t have irrational, uncontrollable rage like the guy who tied you to that chair.”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “Yes! Exactly!” Carla replied, leaning forward. “You don’t have it yet, and you may not ever develop other symptoms. We don’t know enough about this plague or whatever it is to make assumptions. Why did it kill people with injuries? Why did others get sick later? Do your symptoms mean you’re going to turn into a zombie, and if so why hasn’t it already happened? We know the first wave turned within minutes.”

  I frowned. “You’re not filling me with confidence, here.”

  Carla smiled thinly. “Yeah, I know that. But diseases are such a wide spectrum that you never know what symptoms or outcomes you’re going to get. We just don’t have enough information.”

  The ambiguous nature of my infection did have that silver lining. That I hadn’t turned into an undead cannibal was encouraging, though the fact that not rising from the dead to eat other people was the bar set for good news was enough to depress me.

  Carla walked over to the emergency radio sitting on the counter. I’d pulled it out of storage before leaving the house. She turned the volume knob up and a stilted, almost robotic voice repeated a short message over and over.

  “Stay tuned to this station for future updates. Repeat: this is an emergency broadcast from the Centers for Disease Control and the US military. This message is being sent through emergency alert system overrides. We have researchers in a secure location and will update with any new information about the pathogen, which we are referring to as the Nero virus.”

  Carla turned the volume back down to an almost inaudible hum. “That’s been going on since yesterday, apparently. Most of the TV channels are down, but when I clicked it on earlier, the frequency for this was on the emergency broadcast screen.”

  I sat back in my chair and felt a wave of something that wasn't quite relief, but related to it, roll over me. Someone was out there trying to figure this out. “Why the Nero virus? Did you hear anything about that?”

  Carla nodded. “Yeah. Once an hour they send out a longer prerecorded message. Apparently it’s an acronym for Nervous, Endocrine, and Respiratory Override. Which seems like someone in their lab needed to come up with a reasonable-sounding name, to me. I mean, there’s nothing in there about people rising from the dead and being able to keep on walking after their hearts take gunshot wounds, right?”

  “Doesn’t seem so much like and override as just ignoring them altogether,” I agreed. “Nothing else?”

  “No, I’m sorry,” Carla said with a sad smile. “But at least they’re working on it. I guess they don’t want to give anyone false hope by saying the wrong thing before they know more.”

  Nik padded into the kitchen and stopped next to me, nudging my hand in his usual sign that he was hungry. I responded automatically, putting my hand over his snoot and shaking it gently. He snorted and sank to the tile, looking up at me with huge brown eyes.

  “The dog thinks you’re okay,” Carla said. “That has to be a good thing.”

  I fed Nik and took care of a few routine things around the house. I told myself I wasn’t just keeping myself busy to take my mind off whatever the virus was doing to me. I reminded myself that I’d experienced enough terrible shit in my life to make this something I could handle.

  But that was a lie, if for no other reason than the sheer biological power of the Nero in my system. If it was going to kill me, I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I was terrified of the possibility, and an hour after my conversation with Carla I stood in the master bathroom looking at myself in the mirror.

  The threads climbing my neck were no darker, had grown no further. I stripped off my shirt and stood there in the tank top I wore beneath it. The lines of infection—so different from any infection I’d ever seen—radiated from just over my heart. I knew intellectually it was stupid to think of it that way. The deep
vessels feeding to and moving from my heart couldn’t be seen on the surface skin of my chest.

  But the image was powerful, even so.

  “You okay?”

  I hadn’t heard Carla approach, and I jumped. My chest thumped so hard it seemed like my rib cage should be rattling.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I was getting a little worried.”

  “It’s fine,” I assured her. I turned back to the mirror, prodded one of the black lines with my finger. “Do you think the rage comes on gradually, or all at once? What if it happens when I’m asleep. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  The words slipped out more easily than I could have imagined. There it was, laid out. I didn’t want to die. I’d spent years and a ludicrous sum of money turning myself into someone who could survive anything. That was how strong my instinct to live was. But almost as much, I didn’t want to become one of those things. I didn’t want to devolve into whatever my captor, Len, had turned into.

  “Telling you not to worry about it would be pointless, insensitive, and stupid,” Carla said. “Not to mention kind of patronizing. You’re going to worry, and I think you’re enough a realist to know you should. So we’ll tackle it that way. We’ll sleep down in the bunker, you stay up here. We’ll be armed just in case.”

  The tone of voice was matter of fact, and I was sure many criminals had their circumstances laid out for them in that very same way. I was weirdly put at ease. Knowing the others, or at least Carla, who would enforce her ideas if it came to that, were willing to take precautions eased my mind.

  I smiled into the mirror. “Yeah. That sounds good. You guys should lock the entrances from the inside, too.”

  I waited all through the evening for the other shoe to drop. Like an idiot, I fell asleep with a flicker of hope.

  17

  I woke up in the middle of the night to veins that felt like a pyromaniac had filled them with his own personal mix of fiery death and lit a match.