Omega Days (An Omega Days Novel) (22 page)

Its teeth didn’t get through the thick leather of her hiking boot.

The others quickly caved its head in with crowbars and pipes, and after that, Calvin insisted she not go anywhere Evan couldn’t see her. Evan was more shaken up than Maya, and he took her by the shoulders and practically yelled her father’s instruction. Maya giggled silently and nodded, then hugged him close.

For Evan Tucker, it ceased to be a great romantic adventure just outside El Cerrito. He and Maya were motoring slowly through abandoned cars, scouting the obstacles that the tow truck would have to handle, the caravan a mile to their rear. They stopped for a few minutes and, after a careful look around to ensure there was no immediate threat, grinned at each other and started kissing, hands exploring one another, both of them wishing they had a room, a bed, something other than the seat of a Harley.

The cry came from the right, and Evan froze. Maya felt the sudden change in him and pulled back, searching his face.

It was an infant’s cry.

Ahead of them was a tangle of vehicles all facing north on the southbound lanes, those who had tried to take advantage of the less crowded side of the highway rather than sit in stopped traffic. A white uniform-service truck sat on top of a yellow Smart car, crushing it like a beer can, and behind that a beige Lincoln Navigator had apparently swerved to avoid hitting them and gone up onto a guardrail, where it became stuck. The cries were coming from there.

Evan and Maya approached slowly. Both the driver and passenger doors hung open, and as they got close there was a buzz of flies and the reek of rotting flesh. The front seats were empty, the smooth, caramel leather sticky with splashes of old blood. Flies landed there, buzzed off, and landed again. A woman’s shoe was on the floorboards of the passenger side next to a pink, overturned diaper bag with a bottle of spoiled formula poking out of it. The rear passenger window was broken, fragments glittering on the road. The cry came again from inside, high and plaintive, a squeaking wail. Then there was the sound of a rattle.

Maya shook her head as Evan moved forward, but he paid no attention, stepping up and looking inside. The infant seat was secured in the center, a plastic mobile of little rattles, mirrors, and a stuffed crocodile mounted above it. The infant screeched again, and a little hand batted at the mobile, making one of the rattles spin.

“Oh my God,” Evan whispered, yanking open the rear door and scrambling in before Maya could stop him. How could a baby still be alive after this long?

It wasn’t.

Eight months old and wearing pink pajamas covered in dried, blackened gore, the little girl had a sizable bite of meat and fabric missing from her left shoulder. Her skin was gray and covered in dark blotches, and once-brown eyes were filmy and pale. Locked in with a five-point restraint harness, the infant saw Evan and let out a tiny screech, clumsy hands grabbing and tangling with the mobile.

Evan stared at her, and she screeched again like a tiny, wounded animal. Starving, he thought. Locked in there forever and starving.

He climbed back out and turned to Maya, signing the word
baby
. She hugged him fiercely, and he buried his face in her hair and cried.
This is the world,
he thought,
back there thrashing in a car seat.
Eventually he pulled away and wiped his eyes on his sleeve, unable to look up. One of Maya’s hands gently lifted his chin so he could see her. She held his face in both hands for a moment and then touched the butt of the pistol in his shoulder holster. She nodded and turned away.

Evan stood near the Navigator’s door for a long time, the nine-millimeter in his hand, looking up at a brilliant blue September sky where mountains of white clouds drifted by at a stately, unhurried pace. Then he looked at the silent metal graveyard all around them, and back at the thing struggling in the car seat.

This is the world.

Maya didn’t jump when the pistol went off.

San Francisco—South of Market

SoMa—South of Market—was a collection of neighborhoods adjacent to the Mission District, resulting in an eclectic mixture of architecture: Victorian and early twentieth century nestled amid steel and glass. They moved through a steady rain, the sky a flat sheet of charcoal lit by flashes of lightning. Alden and Tricia had found hooded Windbreakers, and Snake wore a baseball cap, but it did little to help. They were soaked and chilled. Concrete tangles of elevated roadways loomed ahead, the point where Highway 101 from San Jose met I-80 and continued on to feed the Bay Bridge. Getting underneath and beyond would be a real mile marker on their journey.

Sneakers and boots splashed through streets strewn with trash, unmoving cars, broken glass, and the occasional motionless body. Luggage and overturned shopping carts rested near fallen bicycles and, in one case, a wheelchair lying on its side. The sight of that overturned, empty chair caused Tricia to stop and stare, frozen, until Pulaski jerked her arm and barked at her to keep moving. They saw a few cats hiding under cars, staying out of the rain, but the rats had no such concerns. Emboldened by the sudden absence of humans, they moved about in the daytime, feeding on whatever they found.

SoMa was a diverse collection of condos, nightclubs, and small parks, with galleries and trendy cafés on the same blocks as run-down residential hotels and pawnshops. For blocks they had traveled without seeing the walking dead, and it was an invitation to move into the center of the street, where they could go faster instead of creeping along sidewalks and ducking into alleys. After weeks of moving only two or three blocks a day, feeling as if they would never escape this place, finally they were making some time. It made Xavier nervous. Where were the dead?

They came within half a block of the elevated freeway, long ribbons of concrete arcing high above on thick support columns, their mass and the gloom of the day casting deep shadows on the street passing underneath. “Oh, hell yes!” said Snake, breaking away from the group and jogging toward a brick building on the left. A metal accordion security gate was pulled across the front window, but the door stood open and unprotected. An image on the window depicted a skateboard, the words
HOOD RATZ
beneath it in red lettering.

“Snake, careful . . .” Xavier called.

He wasn’t.

The twelve-year-old, still carrying his baseball bat, trotted inside the skate shop without checking first, and the screaming began at once. Xavier and Pulaski started running toward the shop as half a dozen of the walking dead staggered out through the door and onto the sidewalk. A few had fresh blood on their faces and hands, and one was chewing something red.

Xavier’s AK-47 and Pulaski’s shotgun came up at the same time, the two men side by side as the corpses dragged toward them through the rain. Both fired, hitting chests and arms and faces, the quiet street suddenly a shooting range. Alden ran to Tricia and held on to her, his pistol in one hand as he nervously scanned the surrounding buildings.

Then it was over, the dead facedown on the wet asphalt, the last echo of gunfire fading. In its place, an odd humming sound came from above. Eyes turned upward to the shapes appearing at the edge of the elevated freeway. Five, ten, two dozen, more and more corpses gathering at the concrete guardrail, looking down at the people in the street, their collective moans gathering as a low hum. Fifty, a hundred, strung out in a line in both directions, more behind them as the dead packed the edge of the freeway, arms reaching out and down. Still more crowded in, and then they began climbing over.

Two corpses fell a hundred feet and smacked onto the road. Another dropped, then five more in succession, hitting with dull cracks.

“Run,” said Xavier, dropping his empty magazine and shoving in a new one.

“We have to get Snake,” Tricia said.

“He’s dead,” said Pulaski, trotting toward the freeway and feeding fresh shells into the shotgun. Alden tugged at Tricia’s Windbreaker, but she wouldn’t move.

“We can’t leave him!”

“He’s dead. Run!” Xavier ran toward the bodies still thumping onto the road. A couple split open when they hit, the rest crumpled as their bones fractured, but only one landed on its head and didn’t move. The others pulled themselves up, limping and broken. Ten fell at once, making a rippling sound like a drumroll. The four survivors ran to the right to avoid them, and a falling body nearly landed on Alden, hitting the ground only a few feet away with a sickening crack. Tricia screamed, and the schoolteacher gripped her Windbreaker and hauled her along.

They were under the freeway, in the shadows and running. Shapes emerged from behind concrete pillars, but they were hardly worth noticing. Behind them the dropping bodies turned into a waterfall of flesh, hundreds of corpses pouring over the side of the highway above, hitting so fast their impact sounded like bursting popcorn. Hundreds more dropped, and Xavier risked a backward glance to see an unending curtain of free-falling bodies, hitting and getting back up. How many were up there? Why were they up there? Were they trying to cross the bridge and got distracted by the gunfire?

The questions didn’t matter, because as soon as they emerged from the darkness of the underpass, corpses began raining down from the near side of the freeway as well, spilling over the side like a pot of water filled past its rim. The street behind them was soon filled with the ravenous dead; there were thousands, and more falling every second. Bodies appeared ahead and to the sides, walking out of parking lots and open loading bays, emerging from alleys and behind parked trucks. Xavier stopped, braced the rifle, and fired at the closest ones, Pulaski doing the same. Behind them Alden’s pistol went off.

“Keep moving,” Xavier shouted, leading them through gaps in the dead cleared by the gunfire. Pulaski was behind him, his shotgun going off when something got too close, and Alden pulled Tricia along at the back. They passed warehouses that had been turned into lofts and design studios, bars and workshops, fenced-off truck depots and auto repair yards where corpses stood growling and shaking the chain link. A tangle of ghouls stumbled out the door of a city bus ahead of them, and Xavier slid to a stop to unload his assault rifle at them, shell casings rattling through puddles, the crack of the rifle filling the street.

They kept running.

At Sixteenth Street Xavier led them east. A half mile away, the elevated span of I-280 stretched over the neighborhood, and if they stayed on Sixteenth they would have to pass beneath it. Another waterfall of the dead? Xavier couldn’t think about that. In order to reach the water they would have to get past it, and that distance looked like forever.

“Father!” Tricia yelled.

Xavier stopped and turned, seeing Alden and Tricia farther back than he’d thought they were. Alden was bent over, his hands on his knees. Tricia was tugging at him, looking around, uncertain whether she should stay or run.

“Let’s go!” Pulaski shouted, not stopping. Tricia let go of Alden and started running, passing Xavier as he headed back to the schoolteacher. Beyond, only blocks back, the priest saw the street filling with a mass of the dead packed curb to curb.

“Alden, we have to go,” Xavier said, resting a hand on the teacher’s back, feeling the thud of the man’s heart. “Do you have any nitro tablets?”

The man shook his head, his voice coming in gasps. “Never . . . found any. I’ll be . . . okay . . . just . . . rest . . .”

“We can’t rest here.” Xavier switched his AK to his left hand and hooked an arm around the teacher’s waist, helping him straighten up. Alden put both hands to his chest. He had dropped his pistol somewhere.

“Just . . . a minute . . . more . . .” His face was the color of paper, the rain pasting his hair to his forehead.

“We’ll go slowly,” the priest said, getting him moving. Alden started walking, shuffling like the dead around them. Pulaski and Tricia were half a block ahead of them already and not slowing. Xavier was able to move a hundred feet before he stopped to bring his rifle up, dropping a moaning vagrant that had lurched into their path. A woman dressed like a prostitute walked behind him, staggering on one broken high heel, her graying skin covered in bites. Xavier sighted on her head and pulled the trigger.

Click.
The magazine was empty.

He ejected the clip and reached for another, but the pocket he carried them in was also empty. He had lost count and used the last magazine without realizing it. Xavier dropped the now-useless rifle and tore the crowbar from where it hung beside his pack, taking two steps forward and smashing the prostitute’s head. The creature made a hoarse wheezing sound and crumpled.

He turned back to see Alden on his hands and knees, gasping for air. A trio of corpses closed in on him from the sidewalks, two on the left and one on the right, moving faster as they neared their prey. Xavier pulled the .44 Bulldog from his back waistband, waiting a heartbeat until they got closer. The high-caliber revolver went off like a cannon; at ten feet it blew most of a corpse’s head off. The one beside it didn’t hesitate and lunged. Xavier sidestepped and ducked a swinging arm, shoved it with the crowbar to make it stumble past, and then stepped in to press the Bulldog against the back of its skull.

An explosion of red and gray chunks blew across the road.

The third one was on Alden before Xavier could turn, and the teacher fought back weakly at the snarling, snapping thing. The priest leaped to them, dropped the crowbar, and grabbed the creature by the hair, jerking its head back and shoving the Bulldog in one ear. The blast left him holding a clump of scalp with a fragment of skull clinging to it.

“Get on your feet, Alden. Get up now,” Xavier demanded.

The teacher nodded and slowly climbed to his hands and knees, sucking air like a goldfish out of its bowl, eyes clenched shut. The priest recovered his crowbar and helped him the rest of the way up, taking him around the waist again and getting them moving. Only four blocks to the expressway. Pulaski and Tricia were nowhere in sight.

The two men stopped moving only long enough for Xavier to reload the .44 and then moved a block, another, and soon they were at the raised mass of I-280. Thunder rumbled above and the rain kept on, a cold rain that smelled of the sea. Fortunately there was no cascade of corpses spilling over the high guardrail, and Xavier figured that if the dead had been up there, Pulaski and Tricia would have triggered them when they came this way. Assuming they did come this way. The priest moved them into the shadows under the span, Alden limping and gasping beside him, hands still clamped to his chest. The priest scanned the darkness, watching for the movement that would signal an attack. Nothing came at them, and again Xavier was struck by how surreal it was to be able to move for blocks at a time, after so many days spent creeping and hiding, making no progress.

Then they were back into the rain, still moving east on Sixteenth, Xavier watching the highway back over his shoulder, expecting to see corpses tumbling off this side. Blocks behind them, the ranks of the dead were swelling, filling the street, an army moving forward at much the same speed as the priest and the struggling teacher. Only they didn’t need to stop and rest and just kept coming.

“We’re going to be okay,” Xavier told his companion. “We just need to go on a little farther. Stay with me, Alden.”

The teacher nodded and made a grunting noise.

They passed a sprawling furniture showroom and a long warehouse that had been converted to a technology company, the streets eerily devoid of the dead. Xavier wondered again why that was but accepted it as a gift. Other than the five rounds loaded in his Bulldog, his pocket held only one squat, heavy bullet.

At the intersection where Owens Street came in at an angle to join Sixteenth, a major traffic accident jammed the road. Xavier saw that a Loomis armored truck had tipped over onto a silver BMW convertible and flattened it. A pair of taxis was piled against the back of the armored truck and had been crushed by a red-and-black Boar’s Head delivery truck. A minivan had come in from the right, smashing into what was left by the taxis, and a cement mixer had somehow ended up on top of them all. The rear wheel of a motorcycle, folded nearly in half, poked out from the bottom of the pile. The whole mess was blackened by fire, and a charred corpse dangled from the rear window of one of the taxis.

Two figures crouched behind the armored truck, the bigger one peering around the side at what lay beyond. Xavier helped Alden limp up behind them, and Tricia began crying when she saw the teacher. Alden sat on the pavement and leaned back against the truck, eyes closed and breathing hard, hands pressed to his heart as if it might jump right out of his chest.

Xavier crouched beside Pulaski, who glanced at him and curled his lip. “Thought you were dead.”

“We almost were.”

“Still plenty of time left in the day,” the pipe fitter said. His shotgun was gone, and he was holding the remaining automatic.

“Why didn’t you just keep going?” Xavier asked.

“We would have.” He gestured with the pistol. “But that’s UCSF over there.”

The priest looked out at a graduate college campus studded with buildings, open greens, and trees. Just like UC Berkeley weeks ago, the Mission Bay campus of the University of California, San Francisco, had been in its final days before classes started, the grounds crowded with students and faculty. One end of the campus was occupied by a large hospital, and now the place crawled with not only dead students and professors but corpses in hospital gowns and scrubs as well. There were thousands.

“If they spot us, we’re fucked.”

Alden’s voice, soft and shaking, came from behind them. “Fucked . . . anyway.”

Pulaski and Xavier turned as the schoolteacher pulled aside his Windbreaker and lifted his shirt, wincing at the movement as he exposed the flesh just above his hip.

He had been bitten.