Текст книги "30 Minute Plan"

Автор книги: Джеральд Райс

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 3 страниц)

The other two prisoners had had to go through the same process and by the time they were done they were crying too. But Simpson couldn’t pull the trigger on the last one, he just didn’t have it in him. And the man, even though the infection hadn’t taken him yet, jumped Simpson, biting off two of his fingers before two dogs swiftly dispatched him.

“Son, you are on the thirty minute plan,” Tarver said, handing Simpson his sidearm after they’d bandaged his hand. The general turned to all of them, his voice still that same even tone. “Each of you has a responsibility to your brothers. To take care of your brother and for him to take care of you whenever either of you is unable to take care of yourself. Man can no longer afford to be an island unto himself, he is part of the greater community of humanity. We owe Ziggy our gratitude; he has reminded us of this.

“With or without honor,” he turned and looked at Simpson. “The choice is yours.” The younger man looked at the gun in his hand, looked at Tarver, looked at all of them. His eyes were great big pools, ready to flood at any moment. That was the first time Danton had heard the term ‘thirty minute plan’. He didn’t know what it meant, but he was slowly getting the idea. He’d seen men turn two hours after being bitten. He figured in a half hour a body could get himself right with the Lord if he was motivated.

But Simpson seemed unsure. Ten minutes had been used up stopping the bleeding. Tarver glanced down occasionally as they all stood around, watching the man with the gun. Danton later saw Tarver’s palm-sized pocket watch.

Twenty minutes went by. Twenty-two. Twenty-four. Simpson didn’t seem to be able to do anything more than shift from side to side and stare down at that gun like some mighty anchor holding him to the earth beneath his feet.

Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight.

Nobody else seemed to move except him and Danton. And Tarver’s head going down-up, down-up, every minute or so. Even Gibbons, the other prisoner, was still as a statue.

Twenty-nine.

Danton didn’t know why he felt unsure what to expect. Either Simpson would do it or he wouldn’t. Why was he so nervous?

“I-I can’t,” Simpson said. “Can’t we just wait to, y’know, be sure?”

Nobody answered. Danton wanted to chime in and say he’d watch over him. That he would take care of Simpson if and when he turned. But he couldn’t even open his mouth.

“That’s time, son,” General Tarver said, stepping up to Simpson and holding out his hand for the gun. Simpson was afraid. He raised the hand with the gun, holding it out limp before letting it slide from his palm. “It’s all right now.” Simpson’s arm fell back to his side.

Danton felt nervous energy pour down and out of his feet. If he’d been tired after the last three days of no sleep and constant fighting for his life now he felt like a hundred pound weight had been tied around his neck.

The gunshot jerked him erect again and he looked up to see Simpson pressed against the wall behind him, his head against a giant red Rorschach blot. His eyes were half-lidded and he was gone before his butt hit the floor.

Tarver holstered his other gun and turned back to the dogs.

“The same for every single one of you. If you cannot die with honor, you will still die with dignity. I will not abide Ziggy amongst our ranks, either former or present. Neither will you. We will approach Ziggy without animosity, without hate, but with the certainty that we will absolutely do to him what he would not hesitate to do to us.”

By the time they’d reached the base Danton was a full-fledged dog. He’d been ready to take on Ziggy but General Tarver had been cautious, negotiating them away from Ziggy as often as possible. But eventually they’d had to engage and Danton had acquitted himself well. He didn’t know if anyone else kept count, but he’d personally slaughtered seven ziggies.

The last one had been the hardest.

Danton felt his anger ease and he was able to think more clearly, though the first thought that popped into his mind was a pipe dream: killing that brain Boyle. On the one hand he felt he was doing what was the right thing in finding and destroying Cargill, but on the other he felt his hand had been forced, like he’d been manipulated into handling this all wrong.

Either way, Cargill would be destroyed. But he hoped Boyle wouldn’t be far behind.

Danton smelled something. Lemons! He ducked behind a section of sidewalk that was standing almost vertically out of the ground. Earth clung to the underside of it. The ground in a forty foot radius was deeply pitted as if it had rained fire here. A moment later and he began to hear the groans of Ziggy.

The lemon scent swelled in his nose. This was definitely them. He drew his machetes. Danton didn’t have enough ammo to put them all down and he didn’t care to anyway. He was only doing this to get to Cargill. Ziggy could be caught off guard and if he gave them the bum’s rush he could get away with his skin still intact.

They were twenty feet past, walking to his right when he spotted Cargill right in the middle, eyes straight. He estimated thirty so far. This was going to be harder than he thought, but still doable. They were in an ovular pattern and Cargill was three or four bodies in.

Danton rushed them, slicing off the first two ziggies’ heads. One of them grabbed his shoulder and he spun and sliced off its hands. Another ziggy lunged and his blade sliced through its head and eyes, blinding it. He shoulder bumped the last one between him and Cargill and was about to bring both his machetes down on his brother’s head when he saw Cargill’s eyes.

He was alive.

Considerably thinner and gaunt-looking but those were the eyes of a human being. Danton checked his dual swing and tumbled away from another ziggy that lunged at him.

Cargill blinked down at him and his mouth fell open.

“Danton?” His voice was a whisper.

“I have to get you out of here.” Danton chopped into another ziggy’s dome and his machete made it midway down its forehead before it slumped to the ground. The pack was beginning to turn on him. He had to get away.

Danton began slicing at arms and hands and mouths as they drew nearer. He kicked one center mass, pushing it back into four others and creating a small gap he might be able to squeeze through. A hand grabbed his shoulder before he could jump and he smelt cold, rancid-fruit breath as another ziggy’s mouth drew much too close.

Cargill elbowed the ziggy aside and broke the grip of the one holding him. He grabbed Danton and shoved his way through until he’d broken the pack.

Danton was ready to fight them off; he could definitely do it from outside the pack. Maybe he could take them all down. He was fast enough even though his eyes burned from the thick citrusy smell from within the pack. But they stopped where they were.

Danton didn’t get it.

“I’m their… I’m their leader,” Cargill said, his hands resting on his shoulders. “We protect each other. I don’t understand it, probably something Boyle put in those canisters. Maybe it has a symbiotic effect on living humans in relation to Ziggy.” Danton didn’t know what that one word meant, he figured it must have meant ‘calming’ or some shit like that. “But that’s why they broke in the base and took me. They sensed me—sensed I was one of them. Except I’m still alive.”

“Why aren’t they eating you?” Danton asked.

“I can control them, for the most part. It’s a low level grunting kind of thing. I warn them away from dangers and keep the pack tight. There’s another pack following us.”

“The ones that smell like burning wood?”

“Yeah, that’s them. You’ve seen them?”

“No, but I was close. Got a good whiff.”

“Good. Avoid them. When we first saw them there were only a dozen. I don’t know where their numbers are coming from, but three days ago there were twenty at least. And I think they’re all singles.”

“But singles don’t pack up,” Danton said.

“I know. There’s something else going on.”

“Boyle said there couldn’t be another group experimenting. Anyone else who could do it is too far away. Oh yeah, and if you come back to base they’ll kill you.”

Cargill nodded. “Figures. Don’t think I’d go back anyway. It’s not safe. These guys are protecting me. Hell, they even find foodfor me.”

Ziggy’s groans started getting louder.

“I don’t think you can hang around anymore. You’re still food. It’s agitating them.” Cargill dropped his hands. Danton put his machetes away.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do here. His brother hadn’t been infected. Not only that, but he seemed to be thriving. WWGTD?

Either way Danton was on his own. He figured he may as well leave Cargill be.

“Wait a minute—what’s that stink?” Cargill leaned in close and sniffed. “You smell like… like ashes.” Danton didn’t know what he was talking about. Cargill grabbed his hands, turned them over and smelled the skin at the wrist exposed between his gloves and jacket. “It’s you!”

Cargill shoved his hands away and growled. Ziggy stepped up behind him. Danton didn’t know what happened but it looked like he was going to have to put a fellow dog down after all. He threw a left hook, catching Cargill on the temple, sending the man back into two ziggies.

The other man’s eyes rolled around in his head, but he stood up, assisted by the ziggies he’d fallen on.

“So you’re one of them now.” Cargill didn’t say it like he was asking. Danton didn’t know who he was talking about but he drew his machetes again.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m one of them. And we’re gonna rip all of you lemon-scented pussies to shreds.”

“No.” Cargill shook his head. “You came alone.” He was on top of Danton in a flash, one of the machetes tumbling out of his hand. Danton tried to slice at him with the other, but Cargill had his arm pinned down. He snapped his teeth way too close, but was held at bay by Danton’s hand at his throat.

Danton felt something burning at the back of his throat and under his upper gums. It wasn’t just Cargill’s disgustingly effervescent breath, something was happening. Cargill put his weight down on his arm, bringing his face even closer and that’s when somethinghappened.

Cargill jumped off him just as fast as he’d jumped on, coughing and clutching at his throat. He disappeared into the pack and several ziggies glared at him as they began to move. Danton had no clue what had just happened. He stood and collected his other machete, watching the pack leave.

He hoped it was the last time he saw his brother.

Danton didn’t know what he was going to do, where he was going to go. He turned to head in the other direction.

And saw the little girl standing thirty feet away in a nest of remnants of burned out cars in a semi-circle.

He knew she would run so he didn’t, but he kept walking in her direction, his eyes darting left and right in case she was setting up an ambush. Whatever she was, he wanted to take her head off before whoever she was with got to him.

There was something metallic and sour on his tongue. He spat but it was still there. Danton rolled his tongue around his mouth, the distance closing between him and the girl. His gums were tender.

When they were ten feet apart the girl started walking to him. They were five feet apart when she dipped behind a twisted rusty steel door. Danton followed, gripping the handle of his machete. It was tight in the cabin of the half-crushed mini-van and he saw her slipping out of the rear window. He pushed his way to the back and saw he couldn’t exit the way she did so he kicked the passenger door with both feet until it fell off its hinges.

She skittered over the roof of another car. There wasn’t that much clearance as another car rested on top of it. No way was Danton fitting in there, but he squeezed behind the rear of the car where its bumper was melted to another. He was in a narrow corridor of skeletal automotive remains and could see her through holes in the melted, flaked metal wall separating them.

She twirled around with her hands over her head and then placed her palms on the wall where he was. She was toying with him. Was this how she killed her prey?

Danton saw a thin slit in the wall and punched his machete through. She gasped, but easily slipped around it before returning to her mock-ballet dancing. He jerked his machete back, his head feeling thick and swimmy. Maybe that poison was working on him after all.

He wanted to get away, but was unsure how to get back out. Danton supposed he could try climbing over top of the cars, but there were too many sharp edges. If he cut himself on one of them there’d be almost no way to prevent an infection.

At the end of the corridor there was a small opening. Maybe he could get through there and get to her. Danton got down on his knees and put his head and an arm through. Brief panic struck as he got stuck at his chest but he was able to wedge through without taking off his jacket.

Where had she gone? Danton scanned the enclosed area. There was a blanket on top of a bunch of old, rolled up newspapers and a pillowcase filled with something lumpy. This wasn’t a bad living arrangement. The cars kept out all the elements but rain, at least until winter, and Ziggy would have a helluva time getting in here. The only reason he’d made it inside was because she’d led him here.

Why would she bring him to her home?

His legs were weak and he leaned on a pile of tires to keep himself upright. He saw stars like he’d been sucker punched and had to concentrate on the earth beneath his feet and close his eyes as everything began spinning and he could feel the blood blasting through his veins.

She came out from where ever she’d been hiding and began pummeling him with her tiny hands and feet, making high-pitched grunting noises. Danton swung wildly with his machete, hoping in vain to catch her. The blows didn’t hurt but if he couldn’t stop her now he had no clue what she’d do next.

Danton was finally able to open his eyes and he chopped at her head. She easily leaned back and out of the way, coming back to give him a one-two combination to the groin for good measure. He staggered back, shards of pain lancing the underside of his belly. She stood and watched him, her head cocked to the side.

By the time he was able to move again the stars had cleared from his eyes. He felt odd. No, odd was the wrong word. Different. Like he’d been taken from a warm bed and dumped in the middle of a snow storm. It wasn’t a shock to his system but the change wasn’t dissimilar. Everything was the same as it was a moment ago, but the view was definitely altered.

Danton went after her again, but the energy wasn’t in his legs. He didn’t know if it was from whatever had just happened to him or if he just didn’t want to catch her. She grunted and ran around the pile of tires, slowing down to let him catch up, then speeding out of reach. He hit the tires over and over again and realized he was missing her on purpose. He started laughing.

He was enjoying this and didn’t understand why.

He began to raise his arm to cleave her head in two, but she grunted.

What was odd was he almost felt as if he’d understood it. He raised his arm again. She grunted again.

No, she was saying.

But how? She hadn’t actually said it.

She grunted again.

Come with me, it sounded like.

He should have killed her, but he followed instead.

She walked for at least a half a mile, tracking back the way he’d come by a different route until the base was within throwing distance.

“What are you doing here?” alarms in his head began going off.

She pointed to the base and whimpered. She wanted to go in there, but she wasn’t big enough.

No, that wasn’t it exactly.

She wanted the peoplein there. But she was so small… she’d never be able to get them all.

Danton didn’t think she wanted to eat them, but what?

She pointed at him and made quick grunts.

He could do it for her.

“Why would I do that?” he asked.

She smiled, but it was too much gum. He stared at her mouth, his tongue playing over where the gum line was in his own mouth. Their gums were swollen in the same way.

Had she…

It made sense now. She wasn’t some helpless child. She was another predator; one nobody had seen before. She wanted to make more like her, to make her own pack. And whatever she was, Danton was one now too.

“Oh no.”

Rage boiled up inside him, but as soon as he reached his arm back he was overwhelmed with cramps, falling to his knees. He had to hold that position for several minutes while waves of pain washed over him. His gums throbbed and pulsed until they had bulged outward.

When he looked at her again finally something was different. She wasn’t just some creature, she was like a distant relative almost. He couldn’t destroy her. He had to protect her.

They had to protect each other.

Her head darted left and right as she sniffed the air. Danton could smell it too.

Burning wood.

There was a small pile of scrap metal behind her. She turned and pushed it away. Danton’s duffel bag was there.

Despite the situation he found himself smiling. He had enough in there to take on a small army.

“Hide,” he would’ve said to her, but she was already gone. Something told him to go with her, to defend her if needed.

Well the best way to defend was to offend. Danton thought so anyway.

He slung the duffel bag over his shoulder and dug out a grenade launcher and an AK-47.

Danton could smell them. Burnt wood singed his nose as he strolled down the street. It didn’t take long. One of them came out from behind a two-story wall that was all that remained of a brick-faced building. It began throwing rocks at him. No, not rocks. Jagged chunks of concrete.

Danton dodged out of the way of one that came a little too close and spied movement to the other side of him behind some double-stacked road partitions.

He leveled off the rattler and squeezed the trigger. The partitions and everything behind them exploded into quarter-sized chunks.

The first Ziggy promptly dropped his rocks and hid behind his wall again. Danton brought it down on top of him. While the dust was still settling he walked over and put a bullet in the ziggy’s skull as he was crawling out.

Something roared ahead and Danton looked up to see three more heading his way. These were different. Still slow like Ziggy, but he could see purpose in how they moved. They had the same single-mindedness as Ziggy, but they actually thought as to how to achieve this goal.

Something Boyle said floated into Danton’s mind. He remembered the brain talking about how the virus had been constant in all the subjects he’d studied. How it had always behaved in the exact same manner up to and after death. He was convinced, even though he had no evidence, that the virus had to mutate at some point; all viruses did.

Maybe that’s what I’m looking at now, Danton thought as he peppered the three with his AK-47.

It was how any organism thrived in unsuitable conditions. Ziggy was always a danger, but over the past few years had become less and less prevalent.

Maybe something had happened to make it adapt and that’s where these guys had come from.

Danton couldn’t worry about that now. They were still coming at him and if the pack were big enough they might be trying to make him use up all his ammo. But why sacrifice themselves?

Danton had a guess. They were doing the same thing he was and it was instinctual: protecting their master. They were throwing themselves at the danger in order to protect the one that lead or created them. As soon as he’d sensed they were near he’d automatically done the same thing.

But they were zombies. He was still alive—wasn’t he?

His heart pounded in his chest and he could feel his blood surging inside him, but now that he saw the similarities between him and the dead people he was shooting at he couldn’t be sure.

Maybe the virus had adapted to mimic life.

Better leave this line of thought to the brains.

They seemed to be concentrated around a building on the corner ahead. Danton hoped they weren’t smart enough to be trying a bait-and-switch play. He launched a grenade into the crowd and they scattered.

He wasn’t sure how he would tell which one was the head ziggy, but he had a sense he’d know it when he saw it.

The building looked as though it had been shelled a few times, that it would topple like a house of cards with one good shove.

Danton loped inside, his AK leading the way. A ziggy at the top of the first flight of stairs leapt out of the way as he chased it with a trail of bullets. He was about to go up, but those stairs didn’t look right. Danton kicked at the first one and it crumbled like it was made of cardboard.

That meant that they were setting a trap.

Danton dived back out of the building as a center foundation gave. The whole thing groaned and fell into the building next to it. The ziggies nearest him became agitated, some throwing their heads back and howling, some clawing at the air, all of them converging on the remaining structure.

It groaned but stood. Danton whirled and squeezed the trigger on the grenade launcher, but it clicked on empty. He tossed it away and grabbed the AK, still slung over his shoulder. He didn’t have enough rounds in the magazine to take them all on and didn’t have enough time to reload, so he fled into the building, hoping to buy himself time and catch them in a pinch-point.

But if their master were in here, they might fight even more furiously to protect him.

He ran down the main hall and stopped at the stairs. There was no way to figure where the master would have gone, but he guessed it would have gone to high ground. Maybe the roof to see how the battle went.

Danton threw open the door and pounded up the stairs. Despite its load being significantly lightened by the absence of the grenade launcher, the duffel was still heavy. He couldn’t afford to give it up, though. Who knew if these things knew how to fire weapons?

The door pressed open behind him before it could shut and Danton turned and fired until the AK clicked on empty. He didn’t have time for headshots, but if these things had enough of an appreciation for bullets to dive out of the way when fired upon then this should buy him some time.

He tried to locate another magazine by hand while running up the stairs, but had to draw his sidearm and shoot a ziggy that opened a door at the top of the flight of stairs leading to the third floor. It fell and after he stepped over it he gave it a heave down the stairs.

They were drawing closer again when his hand closed around the 12 gauge in the duffel. Danton didn’t remember how many rounds he had, but he got down low and turned as one reached for him no more than three feet away. He squeezed the trigger and its head evaporated. The others pushed it aside and Danton racked the shotgun and fired center-mass into the next one.

It didn’t go lifeless like the first, but struggled against the blast, managing to knock two others down just behind it. He racked again and took another one’s head off before racking and turning back to the stairs.

He was almost to the fifth floor when he could feel them just behind him again. Danton turned and pumped three rounds into the surging crowd before dropping the empty shotgun.

The mob of ziggies had to climb over the litter of bodies in his wake and he fed the first two a few headshots apiece before his sidearm was empty.

He put it back in its holster out of habit, but brushed against something on his belt loop.

Aw shit, was that a grenade?

Danton pulled it free, squeezing it as if he didn’t believe it was real.

He had to use this right. They were too close.

Danton reached into his duffel and felt a trigger of something in there. He yanked it out and stared at a pissy little .22

“The hell?”

Danton had no clue how that got in there. He hated .22s. He would have to make due with it.

He pulled the pin on the grenade, spun around at the top of the stairs and began pumping itty-bitty bullets into the lower legs and knees of the ziggies nearest him. They fell but tried to keep coming. He underhanded the grenade to the bottom of the flight of stairs, hoping that in the crush of bodies they wouldn’t be able to grab it and toss it back if they understood what had just come their way.

Danton counted three! And threw himself on the next flight of stairs, clapping his hands over his ears. A moment later there was an ear-shattering THOOMand the walls shook. He prayed he hadn’t just brought down the whole building with him still in it, but that meant there was even less time to waste. Danton didn’t plan on being inside when the thing came down.

He took a moment to look back, seeing the prior flight of stairs had vanished, along with almost all the ziggies that had been on it. A few had made it to the top, but they were disoriented, stumbling their way in his direction.

He jabbed the .22 in the front one’s direction and it threw its arms out as if to block a blow, but managed to send itself over the rail and into a column of nothing. Ego. So these guys didhave weaknesses.

Danton was able to take it a little slower getting to the top. He’d need his wind to face whatever was at the top. He even reloaded the AK with one final magazine.

He swung the door open, dropping and rolling onto the roof. When he stood, something hard and sharp bounced off his forehead. Danton felt hot blood roll into his eyebrow. Any moment he’d be blind in one eye until he could get the bleeding stopped.

The stink of burning wood was almost as pungent up here as on the stairs. Prickly hairs stood up on his neck, his head swiveling from side-to-side. To Danton’s left were two big HVAC units, long silent.

Something groaned underfoot. Had to hurry.

Two ziggies grabbed him. Damn. His hearing had to have been blunted. But the first one had him by the muzzle of the AK, the other under the arms in a half nelson.

He squeezed the trigger and the first one pinwheeled back as several rounds slammed into it. Danton could grab the knife in his jacket sheath, but where could he stab a ziggy where it would count?

He hoped their vanity went deeper than he’d first seen. Danton pulled the knife out and stabbed at where he guessed the ziggy’s face was. It screamed and shoved him off. Danton turned and saw it pluck the knife out of its head at the temple. He’d gotten it in deep enough to where it had also skewered the back of its eyeball. The whole mess slid out of the socket.

It roared at Danton and he replied with two hits to the forehead with the AK-47. He did the same with the first one he’d shot.

“Rinse and repeat, bitch,” he said.

It couldn’t be this easy, he thought, not factoring the fiasco from the stairs. He headed in the direction of where the two ziggies had come from, hoping they were guarding the master and wondering why they hadn’t tried to bite him. Nothing was over here.

Danton looked across to the next building over. A full two stories higher—well, what remained of it—and much too far to jump.

He caught movement below and to his right. Danton glanced down and saw a ziggy, hisziggy, climbing down some sort of service ladder. He ran over and pointed the AK.

“Heads up!” he shouted.

It looked up at him and he could see the recognition in its eyes. It was eerie. Like the thing was alive. Its stare held all the fire of a living man who’d been cornered and knew he was about to die. It roared. Danton fired.

The floor shifted and there was a colossal crunching sound. Danton had to throw his arms out to catch his balance and keep from falling as the building had pitched to an angle. What remained of the foundations was going to give soon. Danton shouldered the AK and swung his legs down to the ladder.

It was ready to give by the time he got to the bottom. He stepped over the body of the master. There was a tremendous snap inside and rather than a collapse it looked more like the building was lying down for a nap, it moved so slowly. But all the walls folded in, trapping and crushing anything inside.

Danton could hear them moaning and mewling inside. Did they sense their master was gone? It was weird, but, he felt an odd sense of guilt.

Danton hurried back to where he’d left the girl. She was gone, but worse yet, there was blood. It didn’t smell like anything to him, but he had the feeling someone else would say it smelled like ash.

He hurried back to the maze of burned out cars and just then a ziggy came out of it. The sleeve of its tattered shirt was soaked in blood and it held the arm aloft as if it were disgusted.

Feeling a sharp pull in his stomach, Danton shot it before it saw him.

By the time he reached her she was almost gone.

Danton touched her and she twitched, opening her eyes and looking in his general direction. Her breathing was ragged. She had a fist-sized hole in her stomach.

“They drew me away from you.” He wanted to go back, dig every one of those ziggies up and shoot them all in the head, but leaving them there would be far worse. No one, human or ziggy, would ever pull them from the rubble of that building. Let that be their grave until the last one rotted.

“But I thought… you’re a zig—I thought this couldn’t—”

Danton felt a ball of ice in his throat and fire running down his cheeks. He closed his eyes as they were submerged in boiling tears.

Small fingertips touched his cheek. Danton looked and saw she’d managed a weak smile.

“Back.”

“Yes. I’m here. You just tell me what you need. Will… will you eat something? Will that make it better?”

She shook her head.

“You can’t go, you can’t! I don’t—I don’t understand any of this. You have to guide me. Stay. Pleasestay.”

Her eyes were on him now.

But he could tell she was gone.

***

By the time he made his way back to base it was dark. There was no way Barneywould be on sentry duty now; they knew the risk was too great. Danton had resharpened their will to endure, made them realize they wanted to be alive again.

But he was changed too.

Just like they craved survival, so did he. He ran his tongue over his gums where the new glands had grown in. They were tender and full.

He’d changed tremendously over the last twelve hours, but a part of him was still alive. He still felt that human-ness, could feel it flooding out of him like water out of a balloon, but it still resisted what he was thinking now.