Zombie Bitches From Hell (20 page)

“The guards had most of it, the rest was…
personal.”

When I arch one eyebrow Molly shrugs and
says, “Hey, it’s New York.”

We fit her with a better gun belt, a bigger
pistol and a machete; she doesn’t flinch. I think to myself, who
the hell had a machete on Wall Street? Talk about a cut throat
broker firm.

“You’re good with this?” I ask, sliding the
last of the two security guards into the break room and locking the
door behind us once we’ve gathered up as much weaponry as we can
carry.

She looks around at a few flickering solar
lanterns, grimaces at the sound of her former co-workers snoring
and says, “I’d almost rather join the zombie horde than have to
spend another night in this place.”

Tim says, “You may have to before we’re all
through.”

We tiptoe back across the office floor until
we’re at the entrance to the roof. At the helicopter, we’re
assaulted with the violent sounds of the horde on the ground below,
their constant, collective mewling and gnashing of teeth audible
even twenty stories off the ground. At least we think so.

“They’re most active at night,” Molly
explains. “Before we barricaded the door, a few of us used to come
up here and watch them at night; just to feel safe, I guess. It
finally got too spooky.”

Tim hands down the four five-gallon propane
tanks from the balloon and we strap two each to our backs with
bungee cords.

“Now, where is this side entrance you’ve been
squawking about all night?” Tim asks skeptically.

“It’s for the maintenance workers,” she
explains, leading us behind the small metal tower that houses the
barricaded door and the back of the roof. “Once we’re two stories
down, there’s a small ledge, then… it’s just a matter of getting
the cops to let us inside and we can gain access to the basement
through one of the stairwells.”

“Oh, great,” Tim says, testing the strength
of the exterior stairwell and finding it sturdy enough to hold him.
“We’re depending on the two dozen cops you’ve shut out for two
months to let us in?” She does not respond.

Molly looks uncomfortable as I set her on the
top rung. At first I think it’s just the fact that her butt is
hanging out over a few hundred zombies down on the ground, but then
she gives me a kind of apologetic look and I imagine it to be
something else.

With all three of us risking our lives
umpteen hundred feet up, the moment is quickly lost.

The rungs are rusty and coated with early
morning dew, making the climb all the more treacherous. The weapons
and awkward canisters don’t help matters much, but I remain focused
on getting Molly down safely and it manages to take my mind off the
unbearable height, not to mention the hungry zombie horde down on
the ground.

You’d think the balloon trip would cure a
fear of heights. But here in the real world, it’s another
experience altogether. Tim stands on the narrow landing, squeezing
against the rusty skin of a metal alcove to make room first for
Molly, then me.

She looks relieved so I refrain from telling
her that was the easy part. There is a single door and Tim makes
short work of it with his crowbar. Inside, a silent hallway marked
by metal frames and hanging wires; we don’t smell the acrid aroma
of human sweat and waste until about halfway in.

A second door shows weld spots around the
frame, though the knob itself has been punched out. Inside the
fist-sized hole that remains, a flame flickers, and I see
movement.

I knock heavily on the door, a pistol in each
hand. Still watching through the hole, the movement suddenly stops.
Tim leans in next to me and I give him a good view while standing
up and sliding Molly toward the farthest corner.

I hear a shotgun shell being racked into
place, just before a hollow knock sounds on the other side of the
door. Tim knocks back, and a gruff voice inside bellows, “Who goes
there?”
Tim bellows back, “Two civilians, we’ve just landed on your rooftop
and need assistance finding fuel.”

“Good luck,” the voice inside says back, a
little softer now. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

“Let us in,” says Tim. “Maybe we can
help.”

Suddenly an eyeball fills the hole and
bellows, “Stand back so I can see you. Hey, who’s the chick? Are
you nuts?
“She’s from upstairs,” I explain warily. “She’s the one that told
us about you.”

Empty laughter oozes from the hole. “Yeah,
did she tell you she left us stranded with a dozen zombie broads
trying to do us in?”

“Yes,” Tim barks. “She’d like to apologize;
in person.”

“Nobody’s coming in until you promise us safe
passage out of this building.”

“Promised,” says Tim. “Hurry up.”

There are scratching feet sounds on the other
side of the door, whispering, cursing, and the slamming of bolts
being driven out of place. When the door at last slides open, it
does so to the side; they’d literally bolted it in place after
yanking it off its old hinges.

A burly man in a yellowed undershirt stands
at the forefront, while several thinner, younger men linger at his
back, clamoring for a look at the newcomers.

The stench from inside is foul; like stepping
into a dumpster that’s been forgotten for a year. I see scattered
cans and long-emptied water bottles. The men look hungry and
battered, and eye Molly as if it’s her personal fault.

I offer several protein bars yanked from the
food supply as bribes, and while all the guys reach for it, the
burly cop takes them and doles them out, saving the extra bar in
his pants pocket for himself.

They eat hungrily, shamelessly, several men
sitting down and savoring the calorie- and energy-rich meal
bars.

“I’m Sergeant Dawkins,” says the big man
after he swallows the last of his bar. “These are my men.”

“What?” I ask. “All of them?”

Molly says disappointedly, “But I thought
there were more of you..”

Dawkins looks at her with pure rage in his
eyes. “Well, honey, after you and your fat cat friends upstairs
blocked off the stairways, we were stuck down here on this utility
floor, facing a mob of angry zombie bitches. One by one, they
picked us off and fed on us as we’ve gone around looking for food
these last few months. There might be more of us still alive if
you’d let us in when we asked.”

I shake my head. Tim looks worried. “I
dunno,” he says. “I was counting on at least two dozen men for
help.”

“Help for what?” barks Dawkins.

Tim yanks off the canisters and tosses them
at Dawkins. “No one gets a free ride off this building, pal.”

***

Dawkins’ official police uniform is sooty and
torn off at the sleeves, revealing his massive, tattooed arms as he
loads his double-barrel shotgun and explains the hazards of the
mission.

“The only way down is the east corridor
stairwell,” he says, sliding cartridges into the underside of his
gun. “The west one we were planning on using it as an escape route
a few months back, and started dropping bags of waste into to lure
the horde in that direction. They patrol it daily now.”

“Patrol it?” I ask.

“I’m telling you, Kent, this horde is
militant. Whole mess of female zombies who act like some kind of
modern army. They can’t talk, yet, but they sure communicate.
Somehow. You see ’em, it’s like they’re reading each other’s minds.
They work in teams, and by now they’ve probably figured out our
little trick and are patrolling the east entrance as well.”

“That’s a risk we’ll have to take if we want
to get out of this building,” I say.

He nods, a little suspiciously, like maybe I
have no intention of flying him and his men anywhere. I nod back;
nothing I can do to prove that until he’s on the roof and I’ve got
the fuel.

He leads us across a vast wasteland of empty
cans and snack wrappers, overturned desks and broken chairs. Broken
glass crunches underfoot and the rank smell of human urine comes
from several overturned water cooler jugs near the broken open
windows.

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” Tim
cracks as Dawkins gives him a scarred scowl in reply.

Molly hangs close, none too eager to fall
behind and blend in with the cops, taking up the rear with their
empty bellies and hungry eyes.

I can see remnants of the old sports
company’s logo on the walls, emblazoned on sports drinks and
protein bars. I also notice empty bottles and sample wrappers on
the floor.

“Is that how you survived?” I ask Dawkins as
we near the barricaded door to the east stairwell.

He follows my finger to the wall poster of a
young boy eating a protein bar at a soccer game and says, “Thank
God the company had a store room full of samples or we’d never have
made it this long.”

He gives Molly a scathing look as we cluster
near the dented metal door.

“Here’s how it’s going to work,” he says as
his men quickly go to work sliding the bolts from the hinges. “This
door’s going to open, and we’re going to run down the stairs
without stopping. I don’t care what those zombie bitches do, or who
they get. If you can’t keep up, you ain’t makin’ it. If you can’t
make it, we ain’t slowin’ down to help you. Got it?”

We all nod except Molly who, in pure pep
rally mode, says “Got it” out loud.

She blushes as the last of the bolts clatters
to the floor.

I hand Molly one of my pistols as we brace
ourselves. Dawkins listens at the door, his face intent, the bald
spot on the back of his graying head glistening with sweat.

Tim and I lean slightly forward, shoulders
almost touching, Molly slightly at our back. She whispers, “Listen”
and I do, but the sound isn’t coming from the stairwell in front of
us; it’s coming from behind.

Suddenly a shot rings out, a slug burying
itself in one of the nameless rookie’s shoulders as blood splatters
most of the group, including us. He goes down with a gush of air
and a dull grunt as Dawkins rushes to his aid.

I turn just in time to see Ed barreling
forth, firing away. Behind him are his two enforcers, plus the
security guards we’d bound and gagged an hour earlier, as well as
an assortment of stragglers from the brokerage office upstairs. All
are armed with whatever we’d left behind, mostly a handful of small
pistols and one rifle.

Tim and I crouch down to avoid the gunfire,
dragging Molly behind a nearby pillar as drywall erupts in puffy
white clouds just above our heads. Dawkins returns fire as well, as
do his men, while the office dwellers from above advance with only
minor injuries.

The floor is alive with the sounds of
gunfire, the smell of cordite and gun smoke. Glass shatters,
drywall crumbles showering plaster dust on everyone, giving us the
look of frantic ghosts. Feet scrape and angry wounds sigh openly as
blood spills onto the dry fancy carpeted floor.

The office dwellers are scattered now, as
are the cops. Desks become barricades, chairs are tossed at
vulnerable legs hiding behind bullet-riddled columns. It all
happens in seconds before stretching into minutes.

“We’ve got to get down those stairs,” Tim
grunts impatiently, angling for a better look at the open
stairwell.

“Ed will never follow us if we go now,” Molly
says, pistol raised.

“Well, that’s good enough for me,” I grunt,
and run for the doorway, finding Dawkins pinned down behind an
overturned metal desk.

“I can’t believe we didn’t seal that door
after letting you assholes in!” he barks, tying off one of his
officer’s arms.

“Let’s leave ’em in our dust,” I say,
handing him a flashlight.

He gets a gleam in his eye and smiles for the
first time.

“Why didn’t I think of that?”

Two of his men are still able-bodied and he
shoves them toward the door, whether they’re ready or not. Bullets
still fly behind us as the first cop plunges through the doorway.
Our flashlight beams fill the area with shadow and light.

The stairwell looks empty and, for the
moment, safe. We cluster on the landing, hearing curses flood from
the open doorway of the sports company’s floor. A bullet rings out,
ricocheting off one of the metal guardrails.

We curse and trample two flights down to
avoid the erratic gunfire, huddling and out of breath.

“How many flights to the basement?” I ask,
spying the number 17 stenciled onto the nearest wall.

“Didn’t do too well in reading, eh?” says
Dawkins as he hovers close to his point man, a young kid whose
nametag reads FIZER. He has lean arms and a shaved head, with the
nicks to prove he’s been doing it himself since the outbreak.

His hands look steady on either side of his
pistol as he crouches around the corner of the next landing; then
we hear the first shriek.

It’s hideous, and all the more so because
it’s trapped in this stairwell, rippling off the concrete walls and
bouncing off the metal steps. It’s impossible to tell how near or
far the zombie is, or if she has friends.

“Stand your ground,” Dawkins barks, inching
toward Fizer as the shrieking intensifies.

I feel pressure on my forearm and turn to
find Molly’s eyes wide with fear. Tim crouches in, looking high and
low, his pistol at the ready. I swing my flashlight in Fizer’s
direction, we all do, just in time to catch a bitch yanking him
straight down to the next landing.

Dawkins fires into the air, but the bitch
shrieks back and begins gorging on Fizer’s arm. She is voracious
and violent, yanking out tendons like spaghetti and ignoring the
young man’s screams. Another wildly goes for his dick and balls,
tearing through his pants like they are tissue paper. I wonder if
my dream in the barn was a way of someone telling me something,
that the bitches need the testosterone to survive.

The zombie’s face has a wry smile on it as
her teeth chatter and she dips her head into Fizer’s belly and
yanks out some inner organ with her broken, yellow teeth. It’s his
stomach and food, half-digested and yellowish, spills on the stairs
and drips downward.