Hellifax (5 page)

“You’re freaking me out here,” Bowman said earnestly.

“I know, right?” An excited Tenner went on. “Just think.
One percent
. Why, that’s what, fifteen million of these psychos living amongst us with these basic…
urges
held in check just because they knew if they did anything, the law would find out and lock them away. Or worse. In theory, anyway. Something, eh?”

“It’s a hundred and fifty million.”

“Huh?”

“One percent of fifteen billion is a hundred and fifty million.”

“So it’s even more!”

“Yeah,” Bowman said, no longer smiling.

“And I can tell you, I met a few while on the road. That’s what I meant about traveling being scary. Now, the world as it is, this is… a fucking playground for people like that.”

Bowman looked uncomfortably pensive, and Tenner frowned.

“Sorry, man. You look upset. You meet anyone like that? Sorry if I dredged up anything unpleasant. Like a bad memory.”

“No,” Bowman scoffed. “No, I’m fine.”

“Well, let’s get moving. Unless you think you can’t keep up,” Tenner challenged.

Bowman snorted, glad for the change of topic. “Lead on. We’ll see who’s puffing hard around the tenth floor.”

They started climbing. Tenner took the lead, his black winter coat rendering him almost invisible in the stairwell. Bowman brought up the rear, glancing back every so often, more out of habit than caution.

As predicted, around the sixth floor, Tenner started breathing hard.

“Christ, this is harder than I thought.” The tall man stopped three stairs ahead of Bowman, hunched over and gazing upward into the concrete dark.

“You’ve been driving around in that rig of yours for too long,” Bowman said stoically, coming up and standing beside him.

“How many floors you say there were?”

“About twenty.”

“Jesus.”

They stood in the dark, the only sound Tenner gasping for breath.

“You know something,” Bowman said. “Even though they’re all gone, I expect… I expect someone to just appear out of the dark. And just at the same time, all the lights would come on. Maybe even a hum of electricity. Two years on, and I get like that sometimes.”

Tenner said nothing to that.

“You ever think that way?”

“No. Never.”

“You live in the now better than me, I guess,” Bowman said. “You ever miss things? The way they were?”

Probably it was because he was tired from climbing the stairs, or perhaps he didn’t hear the question right, or maybe he simply zoned out at that exact time. Bowman didn’t know. But he did know that Tenner’s answer was one that he didn’t expect.

“Not once,” the man replied with a chuckle.

“What?” Bowman asked, astonished.

His face partially concealed in shadow, Tenner met the other’s gaze, and Bowman saw that the man’s eyes gleamed like the tips of knives.

“Had too many unpaid parking tickets back then.” Tenner smiled.

The burst of relief Bowman felt was wonderful. A joke. All it was. The man just had a sense of humor.

“Let’s get moving,” Tenner said, changing the subject again. “I want to see this top floor.”

“Yeah. Well, it’s a great view,” Bowman confessed, still puzzling over his companion’s odd reply, despite the joke––which really only felt like a clump of dirt tossed over a potential fire. “On a sunny day, you could see for miles. Even got a gym up there.”

“Last thing I need is a gym,” Tenner said, still breathing hard. “Man. This might put a damper on my plans today.”

“Change your mind on going up?” Bowman asked.

Tenner nodded, his profile scowling in the gloom. “Yeah. That, and a few other things.”

The spinning elbow caught Bowman on the cheek, shattering it, and knocked him back into the wall. His head rebounded off the concrete with a meaty bounce. Tenner grabbed him by the shoulders, righted him, and cracked two more fists into his jaw and right eye. There wasn’t any need for those punches, as the first one had tilted Bowman’s senses enough.

He didn’t even feel it when Tenner’s last blow, a devastating uppercut, sent him rattling back down the steps.

Into oblivion.

A cold winter wind licked Bowman’s cheek, stirring him back to reality. His first thought was the wind wasn’t right. There wasn’t anywhere in the whole building to get such a breeze. He slowly came to. His head rang enough to make him grimace in agony, and he cracked opened his eyes.

Holy shit
, he thought.

While he was unconscious, the treacherous bastard must have dragged him back down over the steps and taken him outside. Probably to his truck. Tenner had then transported him to a frosty street in to some part of the city that Bowman didn’t recognize. He tried to shout, but Tenner had duct-taped his mouth shut. Bowman’s chest heaved. His panic flared. Mucus burst from his nostrils with each breath as his head whipped from side to side. He tried to move his arms, but they were outstretched and tied to a fallen utility pole in such a way that his lower body hung at a painful angle, as if he were exercising his obliques. His feet kicked air, dangling a good three feet from the pavement.
Jesus!
The sick bastard had removed his boots and socks. He could move his head enough to see that he was bound in place by extension cords and duct tape tied around his arms and upper torso. Through sheer strength, he curled his knees up into his chest, but he soon dropped them. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Holy Christ
, Bowman thought, and became still despite the agony of hanging at such an angle.

He looked around. A transport truck had rammed into the utility pole’s base, bending the whole thing over the roof of a car. His feet were no more than three feet off the ground.

“Hey, you’re awake?” Tenner’s cheerful voice rang out. After a frantic search, Bowman spotted the man across the street in a narrow alleyway. He was leaning against the wall of a green house, almost as if he’d stepped outside for a quick smoke.

“Excellent,” Tenner said, looking quite pleased.

Bowman’s heart hammered in his ears. It seemed as if every one of his senses suddenly had their dials set at the highest level.

“Sorry, man,” Tenner went on, focusing on Bowman’s bulging, pleading eyes. “It wouldn’t have worked out, y’know? I work better alone. I don’t think you’d be interested in what I have going on, anyway.”

Bowman erupted in a fit of muffled curses and kicks. He strained against his bonds while Tenner stood and watched from the alley.

“Yeah,” Tenner drew out. “I taped and tied you down pretty good. Made sure of that. Got my gun back, too, by the way. Shit, I was worried there for a moment or two. Thought maybe you might have gotten the itch. All in here, after all.” He tapped one temple with a wistful expression on his face.

“Just wanted to say thanks for showing me around, eh. And not blowing my head off when you had the chance there. Appreciated. And thanks again for the food. Hard to come by these days, but you certainly did secure the mother lode. There’re guns out there, too, somewheres. I’ll find ’em.”

Tenner leaned out around the corner and peered, unconcerned, up one street and then the other.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m doing this,” he said.

Bowman’s suppressed scream spoke of rage and terror.

“Yeah, I know,” Tenner said sweetly. “Most people figure that. Funny thing is, they figure that part out only
after
I have them alone and trussed up. You didn’t suspect a thing, which tells me my acting’s getting better. No biggie, really. Easy to act freaked out these days. Anyways, you’re probably wondering why I strung you up instead of quietly putting a hammer to your skull in your sleep. Thought of it, by the way. Last night, maybe just after midnight, I was outside your door there and actually had thought of just coming on in and putting a quick knife in you. But I couldn’t, you see. Had to make sure the grub and water was all there.”

Another outpouring of emotion came from Bowman.

“Careful, man. You might rupture something. Or worse.”

Tenner leaned out and looked around again. Then his lighthearted expression slowly morphed into a blazing smile.

“Ah.” He pointed.

Bowman felt his balls rise up and his heart freeze at the same time.

A small mob of zombies, attracted to Tenner’s voice and his own thrashings.

“Oh, look!” Tenner nodded in the opposite direction. Another pack of zombies, mewling and closing in on him. Bowman gasped as if his lower parts had just been dunked into the North Atlantic.

“You know, as often as I’ve done this to people, it still amazes me how fucking
fast
they zero in on a free meal.”

Tenner retreated back into the alley, out of the undeads’ sight.

“Gotta pull back here, man. I got a place already scoped out to watch. I won’t leave you. Think of you as a buddy now, actually. But I am interested in just… how they eat you. I’m big into games, y’know, but today, I think I’m not going to bother playing. No, today, I’m… I’m just going to watch. Save some ammunition. But I tell you what. If you really want to, I mean, if you
really
feel the need, you can pray to me. Okay? When the time is right. Pray to me. And if I hear you, and if I feel merciful,” Tenner said in a lower, doubtful voice, “I might change my mind. Might come to your rescue. Not promising anything, though. Got that?”

Bowman thrashed against his bonds.

Having nothing more to say, Tenner slunk back into the alleyway. He leaned against a wall, grinned, and stared.

Perhaps two minutes later, they arrived.

The zombies came in from either side of Bowman like a tide of molasses. Their pitiful voices gouged the air and made him struggle against his bonds all the more. He couldn’t budge them. He kicked and swung his legs from side to side, hoping to work himself loose somehow, but Tenner had done him up good and proper.

Bowman looked across the street and met the maniacal eyes of his killer.

Mr. One Percent
. Standing right over there.

He scolded himself. Swore. Should’ve been more careful, should’ve even shot him first instead of being so goddamn
accommodating
. But he couldn’t have known, and he wouldn’t have done anything to someone he’d just met. Not another survivor like himself. That just wasn’t him.

A mistake, he now knew. A terrible mistake.

That thought made him thrash once more, the pounding of his heart giving him all the energy he needed as the zombies, the
zombies
…

No more than twenty feet on either side.

Tenner had backed away into the shadows of the alley, eagerly waiting for the action to begin, for the
feeding
to begin.
Oh, Christ
, Bowman thought and writhed. Squirmed. The tape pulled painfully against his whiskers, but he kept struggling. He was about to be fucking
eaten
alive
. His grunts and muffled whistles became drawn-out whines of hopeless terror. The undead had him. He’d had nightmares of this very instance, horrible sequences broken only when the teeth bit into his flesh.

There would be no waking from this one. Nothing at all.

Ten feet. Soldiers, police officers, office workers, and children comprised the creatures creeping up on him, no doubt wondering who had delivered them such a lively gift. They smelled horrible enough to almost make him vomit. The stench of putrid rot was so rank, Bowman was reminded of someone taking a shit in a basement—
twice
.

Bowman rammed his head against the pole, trying to knock himself unconscious, but he only managed to split the flesh covering his head. Blood streamed down his face.
Sauce for the goose!
His mind squealed. He glanced up and saw Tenner across the way, still watching, eternally jovial.

A zombie in a pair of workman’s overalls reached him first. A long arm slunk out, and meaty fingers like fat sausages touched Bowman’s denim covered knee.

That gentle contact sent him over the edge, and a fresh torrent of stifled screams burst from his lips. He booted the thing away with enough force to put it on its ass. His foot ached from the contact, and Bowman looked down, terror spiking.

Jesus Christ!

More zombies crowded around him. He kicked another walking corpse away, then broke his toes when he nailed yet another right under the jaw. He barely felt the pain. He pushed others back with his feet, keeping them at bay, but a few slunk in on his vulnerable side, the side not blocked by the car, and they laid their grey-blue hands upon his winter coat.

And ripped.

The seams gave away as more hands clenched material and pulled. One zombie wrapped its arms around one of his legs. Bowman struggled, trying to free himself even as he watched the thing attempting to sink an impossibly white set of teeth into his knee. The two groups of undead converged upon his dangling form, and the zombies in the rear pushed the ones at the front into him, bunching his legs up until he could no longer kick. He felt his knees pop under the increasing pressure of bodies and screamed into the duct tape. The corpses pressed up against his feet, his thighs, his pelvis. He heard more seams rip, felt the cold air on his exposed belly, distended from a few days of self-indulgent living.

Then he saw it.

The one about to take that first, terrible bite. A man in a white shirt splashed with black. A dead blonde stood next to him, along with a couple of child zombies. One great big hungry family. The zombies rippled against him like one great, voracious wave.

Bowman wailed behind his duct tape gag. He screeched for Tenner to do something. In that black second before excruciating pain, Bowman prayed, and the words came out as gibberish.

The family man bit into the flesh covering Bowman’s lower left ribs. The pain from a dull rack of teeth gnawing into his body made him buck and shriek like a muffled whistle. Others chomped down. Something enveloped a foot and bit off a toe, then the rest of his lower digits were nipped off one by one. He felt his jeans slough off. Mouths fastened onto his calves and lower thighs. A long red sheet of flesh stretched out right before his watering eyes, and Bowman yowled hideously. More fingers crawled over him, softly at first, then with increasing urgency. The dead mewed at him, sizing him up with their lifeless eyes, mouths wide and starving. Hands pawed at his belly.