Genesis (12 page)

They ran to the street first, heading in the same direction they had before
Dorcas
spotted the bees.  Ken led the way this time.  He suspected they only had a few minutes of peace before the zombies came out of their trances and resumed attacking anything that moved.  So he ran as fast as he could, given his injuries and the exhaustion that was starting to creep in like a dark smudge at the edges of his vision.

But as fast as he wanted to move, he was compelled to slow down when they came to the three lumps in the middle of the street.

“Bees,” was all
Dorcas
said.  Then she was past, gesturing for him to come on.

Ken nodded, sparing one more glance at the three things in the road.  They were only recognizable as people because of the clothing that wrapped their bodies like too-tight sausage skins.  The rest was a bloated, swollen mass.  Thousands of stings covering every inch of exposed skin.  He shuddered to think how close he had come to looking like this.

Day’s still young
.

He ran.  Caught up to
Dorcas
.  He didn’t know if she was slowing down due to age or exhaustion, if she was simply letting him keep up, or if he was getting some extra charge from the fear for his family that kept nipping at his heels.  No matter which it was, he was soon in the lead.

He didn’t know how long they had to run.  He had been in the high school ceiling last time this happened.  Had it been seconds?  Minutes?  Time and panic had bled any sense of time from his mind.

They ran toward the Wells Fargo Center.  Bearing east.

One block.  It took forever, moving around the shattered remnants of cars and debris fields that looked like they belonged in warzones and not in
middle
America.

Two blocks.  Ken tried not to count the bodies he saw.  It was a lot.

They passed a clot of about fifty zombies in the street.  Some of them held pieces of a recently torn-apart person in their hands.  All stared at the sky.  Breathing in unison.

Three blocks.

Two more zombies in the street.

Ken ran past.

And
Dorcas
screamed.

They were awake.  The zombies were awake.

One looked like it had reached out for
Dorcas
as she passed and now it had a tight grip on her arm.  She couldn’t swing her lug wrench, either, because the zombie – a fat, middle-aged man wearing board shorts and no shirt – had grabbed her on the side where she held her weapon.  She couldn’t get a swing.

The other zombie was another man.  Younger, with tattoos running up and down thickly muscled arms.  He was reaching for her from behind as
Dorcas
struggled to keep away from the fat man in front of her.

Ken moved without thinking.  He ran to
Dorcas
, grabbing her wrench.  She resisted for a fraction of an instant before realizing that it was him grabbing, then let it loose and used her now free hand to keep the fat man at bay.

Ken didn’t have time to swing the wrench at the younger of the monsters.  He just flipped it sharp end up and jabbed.  The flat end of the lug wrench slammed right through the zombie’s head, going up through the base of its nose and then out the back of its skull.

Pink ooze flowed down the length of the lug wrench.  Ken wanted to drop the thing, but forced himself to keep hold.  Even when the goo ran down onto his fingers and arms, feeling like a thick, warm, melted milkshake.  He
had
to hang on.  Because the zombie – or whatever it was – didn’t die.

The wound was mortal.  There was no way for something to survive a hit like that.  But the strong young man didn’t fall.  Didn’t die.  He started shrieking, screaming, snarling, and gnashing his teeth.

He grabbed Ken’s hands, effectively pinning them to the lug wrench.  And started pulling himself down along the length of the iron haft.  The flat end of the wrench seemed to grow like an iron plant out of the back of his head.  His jittering teeth came closer and closer to Ken’s hands.

And
Dorcas
was still screaming.  A good thing, he supposed.  It meant she was alive; that she hadn’t been bitten.  Hadn’t turned.

The
tattoed
zombie was still sliding itself down the lug wrench.  More and more of that pink goo welled from the zombie’s wound, and the more that dripped across Ken’s hands and arms, the more the thing seemed to go completely insane.  Its body spasmed, its head tried to whip back and forth even though pinned in place by the bar.

Ken grunted.  Inches from a bite.

He threw a quick look over his shoulder. 
Dorcas
was on the ground, the fat man on top of her.  One arm was twisted strangely at her side.  The other was pressed flat against the fat man’s forehead, trying to push his teeth away from her face and throat.  And failing, an inch at a time.

Ken grunted.  Stepped back and tried to play the world’s deadliest game of Crack
The
Whip as he spun the zombie around in a tight arc.  At the same time, he fell to his side.

The move jerked the lug wrench free with a snap and a spray of blood and sludge.  It also tore the zombie’s head sideways, pulling off a good amount of skin.

There was no way Ken was going to get his feet under him in time to counter any further attack.

But that was the risk he had taken.  Hoping that this zombie, like the others he had seen who had suffered major head trauma, would lose whatever sense guided it to attack only humans.

And it worked.  The thing’s face swiveled as the wrench pulled out of it.  Its gaze fell on the fat zombie that was only an inch from chewing through
Dorcas
’ cheek.

The younger monster, still oozing puddles of viscous pink slime, fell on the back of the fat man with a scream.  Began beating at it with fists, biting the back of its neck.

Ken got to his feet and ran at them both.  He body checked the fat man, pushing the squirming mass of madness partway off
Dorcas
.  Then he yanked her the rest of the way out.  She screamed when he pulled her by her broken arm.  He ignored it.  No time to be gentle.

The young zombie and the fat one were biting at one another.  Screaming.  Blood and flesh started to flow as they pulled each other apart, one piece at a time.

“Come on,” said Ken to
Dorcas
.  He pulled her to her feet.  She almost fell, her knees wobbly from fear or shock or pain.  “Come
on
,” he said again, giving her a quick shake.

He leaned down and scooped the lug wrench off the ground, then stood and put
Dorcas
’ good arm over his shoulder.  He didn’t know if she needed it or not, but he wasn’t going to chance his only friend in the Apocalypse falling over and dying of shock.

Not when there are so many more
exciting
ways to die.

“Ken,” she said.

“If you’re about to say, ‘Just leave me,’ forget it.”

She snorted.  “I was going to say, don’t you
dare
leave me.  Not after I saved your ass.”

He almost laughed.

But didn’t.  He had to save his breath.  Because he heard something that sounded like thunder.  Only there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

They were on South Americana Boulevard, crossing West River Street.  A few blocks ahead of them, the massive footings of the I-84 freeway dropped to earth.  The freeway curved and dropped down a ramp and converted gradually to city streets.

The thunder sound was coming from in front of them.  From the rear.  From all sides.

“What is that?”
Dorcas
panted.

Ken just shook his head.  He had no idea.  But knew it couldn’t be anything good.

Ahead, the darkness where South Americana crossed under the freeway ramp seemed to roil.  It billowed in on itself, then exploded.

Dorcas
cursed, the word spitting out of her like a bullet.

It was like the bees again.  Only this time it was a mass of things that had once been human.  He couldn’t make out any details, couldn’t see the eyes or the madly gaping mouths.  But he didn’t have to.  There was something tremendously unnatural in the way they were running.  Pounding along the blacktop at bullet speeds, but not in any way he associated with a panic riot.

They were running as a
unit
.  Coordinated.  No unnecessary bumping or shoving.  Together in a way that was almost as disconcerting as the mayhem he felt rolling off them in waves.

He skidded to a stop.  Turned.

Saw another dark mass of death speeding at them from the other end of the street.

He broke right, running to the closest building with windows: a homeless shelter.  He hadn’t even known the place existed, and felt a strange pang of shame at that.  Boise was one of those places where no one seemed to
be
homeless.  People had money problems – he was one of them – but they always seemed to be in the “pain in the ass but manageable” category.

The place looked like a warehouse, mostly brick and concrete.  But the front was a series of windows.  Which made Ken very uncomfortable.  He remembered the cop, beating against the windows of the car.

How long will those windows hold up if the zombies try to get in?

Beggars can’t be choosers, Ken.

He pulled
Dorcas
toward the place.  She resisted long enough to pull her arm from around his shoulders, then she was running under her own steam.

The thunder was deafening.  A thousand, maybe ten thousand,
pairs
of feet hitting the pavement in a cadence that was somehow both chaotic and unified.  Each running at his or her own pace, but all with one purpose: to rend and kill and
change
.

They got to the front door of the shelter.  Glass, just like the ten-foot windows that fronted the place.  Most of the windows had smears of blood across them, inside and out.

Ken hit the door with his shoulder.  A sign across it said, “We are open for
YOU
!”

The door shuddered in its frame, but didn’t open.

Locked.

Ken looked inside the shelter.  He didn’t think he and
Dorcas
had time to go somewhere else.  But he also didn’t want to just break the glass – what would be the point of hiding somewhere with a wide open door?

He saw what looked like a soup kitchen setup: long tables, benches.  Hot food setup in the back.

Everything was in disarray.  Tables upended, benches overturned.  A folding metal chair hung from a sparking bank of fluorescent tubes.

Lots of bodies.  Lots of blood.

Nothing moving, though.  Whatever happened here had remained here.  Had stayed contained.

Not like the now-deafening thunder.

“We gotta get inside,” said
Dorcas
.

Ken nodded.  He rattled the door once more, as though hoping it might have magically unlocked in the last second.  Then he raised the lug wrench to smash through.

And a man appeared in the wreckage beyond the door.

He looked terrified, worry and grime and blood caking his face and making it difficult to see how old or young he was.  But he had dark hair and a bristly-looking goatee.

“Let us in!” shouted Ken.

He could hear individual footsteps in the thunder, now.  The shelter was slightly recessed from the street, but he had no doubt that the mass of monsters was only maybe a hundred feet away.  Less.

The man in the shelter just shook his head.

“Let us in!” Ken screamed, fear cracking his voice into sharp jags.

Dorcas
pounded her good fist against the window beside the door.  “Please, we’ll die!” she screamed.

The man pointed beside him.

There was a little boy there.  Holding the man’s hand.

Ken cursed.  “We can help you!” he screamed.  “We don’t have to do this alone!”

The man shook his head.

Ken raised his lug wrench to smash through the window.

“What about the boy?” said
Dorcas
.

“I have a family, too,” said Ken.  He looked at
Dorcas
.  She seemed to be considering his words.  “We’re better off together,” he said.  He brought the lug wrench down.

And stopped it in mid-air.

The man in the shelter had drawn a black, snub-nosed revolver and was pointing it right at Ken’s chest.

Ken looked at the man’s eyes.  Had no doubt the man would shoot him if he continued his swing.

He nodded.

“Come on.”

They would have to outrun the thunder.

He turned.

And saw the first creature come into view past the corner of the building closest to them.