6th Horseman, Extremist Edge Series: Part 1 (18 page)

I nest my assault riffle in my shoulder and
pump a few rounds into the puppet in front of me. It doesn’t go
down. This has gotta be a joke. Maybe I’m seeing shit. I flip the
rifle’s automatic switch and pull the trigger hard. I unload the
entire clip into the crowd stumbling toward me, but they keep
comin’. Puppets stream onto the street from alleys, buildings, and
cars.

I click the safety on and sling the rifle
over my shoulder. I grip my Beater Stick with both hands. It’s time
to get some aggression out. I run at the group of puppet people,
swingin’. I land my Beater on the head of some dopey lookin’ woman.
Then I jab the next sucker in the throat. My Beater easily pushes
through the soft tissue and gets stuck. I pull it free and spin to
strike the headless fool across his knees. That takes him down.

It feels good. My muscles vibrate like guitar
strings. I turn and punch puppet flesh with everything I got. The
air fills with screams weirder than anything I’ve ever heard
before. The background blurs as I spin and fight. The blood is
blue, not red, and it splashes on me. I taste bitterness on my
tongue. I stab and bash. I’m on fire. I feel a burn in my muscles
that makes me feel strong, stronger than any man, and stronger than
these puppets. I dominate the fight. I’m different than most. I’m a
warrior.

When the headless guy comes at me again I
realize these bastards aren’t stayin’ down. One of the bodies I’d
taken down grabs my ankle. I try to pull free, but fall. The hand
squeezes my ankle, breaking the skin. My stick catches something.
Then my right arm is grabbed and torn into. I scream. Another hand
grabs at my upper leg and tries to tear my jeans. Something grabs
my hair. Shit, shit, shit.

I’m held. Time dilates as I notice a white
worm-like creature as big as my middle finger slink up my arm. It’s
tacky and leaves a slimy trail. I look up and a worm slithers out
of the nose of some lady. It lands on my shirt and starts moving up
to my face.

That’s when I hear a motor fire up. It sounds
like a small chainsaw. My vision blurs from rain or that blue shit
they’re bleeding. I struggle, but can’t get free. More worms fall
on me. They’re trying to get inside me!

The motor sound revs and idles, then revs up
again. I feel liquid splash all over me. Finally, I get one hand
free. The Beater is mine again. I jab and swing. I can’t see with
all the blood and blue stuff in my eyes. I blink furiously. I get
my left hand back, finally. The chainsaw revs again. My leg is
free. I slip away from the puppets and crawl.

I wipe my face until I can see. Then I
furiously slap away the worms that were crawling on me. Shivers
assault me. The things were trying to climb into my body through
any available opening. UGH!

When I’m sure I’m worm free I see my savior.
He’s a thin boy with a white medical mask covering his nose and
mouth. He is chopping at one of the puppets with a small electric
chainsaw. He has thick, curly, dark brown hair and thick glasses.
He turns to me and extends his hand.

I grab his hand and stand up. He’s taller
than me, but scrawny. He looks like the typical gamer dork who
plays video games until the sun comes up. He sports a Ghostbusters
shirt and very tight jeans. I don’t care if he’s a dork. He just
saved my life.

He holds on to my hand and helps me run. Pain
tears through my ankle, my arm, and waist. As I run I feel more
cuts and bruises. Those bastards almost tore me limb from limb. I
stop and notice one last worm crawling on me. I slap at it until
it’s gone.

“See any more white things?! The fuck if any
of those things are gonna bore into my skin.”

“Or crawl into your ear hole.” The guy looks
me over. “I don’t see any more.”

I don’t scare easily, but that freaked me
out. “They looked smart. Tapeworms with brains.”

“Didn’t have eyes but they could see. They’ve
completely taken over their host bodies.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. It was
obvious the people were totally gone. My mind is having a hard time
accepting the whole walking dead crap. It’s like trying to fit a
metric wrench on a standard inch bolt; it doesn’t work. Fuckin’
things are more like an alien invasion or something. Body
snatchers.

More puppets emerge from the buildings, cars,
and alleyways. They’re slow, which makes me feel better. I hobble
along, forcing my brain to ignore my injuries.

“You’re welcome. My name is Josh,” he says
quietly.

“I had it covered,” I snarl at the boy. He
looks away.

“Where are you headed?” Josh asks.

I shrug, “What’s it to you?”

“I can help you get out of the city,” he says
shyly. He’s obviously looking for company.

“I don’t need help.” I’m reluctant to let him
tag along, but then I look at my ankle. There are two large
sections of skin that were ripped off, exposing my muscle. “Fine,
you can shadow me, but I move fast.” I sit on the bottom step of an
apartment building then tear a piece of cloth from my shirt. I wrap
it around my ankle and cinch it tight.

Josh points at my ankle. “Even with
that?”

“Just watch me.”

We start walking. Pain tears up my leg with
every step, but I’m good at ignoring pain. It isn’t too hard; you
just have to focus on something else. You have to close off the
pain, lock it up and move on. I pick up speed. Josh keeps up. We
rush past more and more puppets, and around the next block I look
behind me. They’re following us.
Damn
.

Josh slows. I can tell he’s out of shape.
He’s also whiter than white. He either doesn’t get outside much or
his pigment has high-tailed it out of his skin. After a few blocks
I have to slow even more. A shot of pain bursts out of my calf
muscle. I reach out and grab Josh’s shoulder for support. He
doesn’t seem to mind.

“So, you didn’t get sick?” he asks me.

“Neither did you,” I snip back.

“I’ve got a condition,” he starts. He still
has his medical mask on.

“You don’t say.”

“I’m afraid of germs. When it became obvious
people were dying from infection I sealed my apartment with tape
and plastic,” he says. “But then people started coming alive. I
knew I couldn’t stay locked in my apartment anymore. I saw you
needed help.”

He’s so proud of himself it makes me ill.
“Told you, I don’t need help.”

“Yeah, okay. I just wanted to help. I haven’t
seen anyone in days. Well, besides some gangsters. And I did see a
tank or something come through with a handful of mean-looking
guys.”

“Yeah, I saw those fools too.” Josh reminds
me of a guy I was with in Iraq. He was smaller though, but he had
the same look on his face. Smart, but not too smart. Anyway, Josh
isn’t all macho or always starin’ at my tits so I’m okay with
him.

We move quickly down Seventh Street like
we’re late for a court date. It’s raining hard, but I like it. It
washes all the blue shit off me and out of my hair. I know we’ll
get to the river soon, but I have no idea what I’m going to do
after that.

W
e’re in North
Harlem and I’m getting tired of walking. Hana agreed we need
shelter, and she’s running around looking for a safe place. Most
everyone locked their doors when the shit started going down.
Finally, she returns and leads me down a side street to a half-open
roll-up door. We duck underneath.

It’s a metal workshop where they make gates,
balconies, and security bars for windows. The building is quiet and
there are no dead bodies around. She tries to close the roll-up
door, but it’s jammed. “This is out of the way. So I think we’ll be
safe here.”

We pass a large open floor space with
worktables and racks and racks of gates and metal bars. She goes to
a lobby door. It’s open. “I just need to make sure the front door
is secure.”

I follow her. Windows run the length of the
front wall and there’s a glass door, all of which are covered with
decorative security bars. Looks pretty secure to me.

I stop next to a gumball machine and stare
out the window into the gloomy day. Normally, there’d be people
walking by or the sound of horns or garbage trucks. Nothing. There
are a dozen cars on the street, bumper to bumper and as still as
stones. Some of the cars have dead people inside, and bodies litter
the sidewalk as close to each other as stepping-stones.

“I miss the sound of cars,” I say. “The sound
of a normal day.”

Hana stands next to me. “I don’t. I kind of
like the quiet. The sounds that I like are long gone.”

“What sounds are those?”

“I like the sound of old trains; the hiss of
their steam engines. I also miss the sounds at a cafe, or the
clinks of china at a fancy meal, where everyone is so engrossed in
what they’re eating they’ve forgotten how to speak. I haven’t heard
any of those sounds in a while.”

“You’re not eighty years old. Since when did
you hear old trains?”

She breathes deep and closes her eyes. I can
tell she’s going far away, back into the younger parts of her
brain. “My new parents used to take me on upstate train tours. The
trains were classic steam engines. They’d take us into Canada and
back, through some of the most beautiful forests. I’d never been so
happy.”

I turn from the window, not wanting to see
outside anymore. Constantly seeing dead bodies keeps my chest tight
and my stomach sour.

The roll-up door we’d entered through rattles
loudly. Someone enters our hideout. I fall to my knees and crawl to
the cover of the front counter. Hana pulls her gun and heads for
the lobby door. She’s too late. The door crashes inward and people
funnel inside. Hana’s caught out in the open!

“Fuck, man. We got’s us a little lady hidden
in here!” I can’t see them from behind the counter, and they can’t
see me either.

“Drop your weapons, guys. Tell me what you
want. I don’t have anything here, but what I found is yours. Let me
show you where my stuff is.” Hana tips up her gun’s muzzle and
opens her fingers. She moves toward the men. I can’t see her
anymore. My chest tightens further and every breath feels like
breathing through a straw.

I hear her yelp and the lobby door slams
shut. I listen, but their voices are muffled. There’s no way I’m
standing by while they attack her! Staying crouched, I move around
the counter and to the factory door. It’s metal, but has a small
window in the center. I peek.

Three men stand in front of her, holding
National Guard issued rifles, but they’re not Guard. Hana is on her
knees with her fingers laced around her head. I see her glance
toward me. One guy dumps my backpack out on the floor and kicks my
shit around. Bastard!

“You said you got something for us.”

“She’s got somethin’ for each of us, that’s
for sure.” The guy touches his long goatee like he was stroking a
cat’s tail.

“No way, man. Look at her pants, her belt,
her shoes. She a cop! We gotta get gone,” says a man with a
baseball hat.

The short one moves to the roll-up door that
leads outside. “Yeah, let’s go.”

“Look around! There ain’t a cop for a hundred
miles. No soldiers either. They blew the bridges and the subway
tunnels. They left us here to die. They left her, too.”

The man in the hat joins the short one at the
exit. “This is fucked up. I ain’t staying.” The two duck out and
are gone. The remaining guy steps closer to Hana. He’s got her gun
trained on her. “So you’re the po-po? I guess this is my lucky
day,” he says, and his hand goes for his belt. “Get on your
back.”

Hana lies down.

I can’t watch this. I have to do something.
My asthma kicks in and I choke. My inhaler is in my bag! I fall to
my hands and knees. How can I help? I’m just a kid, a nerd! My
vision gets dark at the edges like I’m looking into a spyglass.