Death Springs Eternal: The Rift Book III (12 page)

After getting the bulkhead open and arguing about who would take the lead, Dennis and Luis ended up lugging Hector’s limp, shuddering body down the basement steps. His arms and legs were tied, his eyes were closed, and he muttered incomprehensibly. Horace, Corky, and Larry followed closely behind, their lips thin lines of anxiety. Doug entered last, rifle clutched tightly, unsure of what he should be feeling.

“Where do you want him?” he asked.

Horace clicked on the light, looked around, cleared his throat, and said, “Larry, lay out one of the spare mattresses. Over there in the corner.”

The basement was unusually huge, the largest Doug had ever seen. With a nine-foot-tall ceiling, the space ran for the whole length of the structure above, with a series of support poles standing in three evenly spaced rows. Luis clicked on the lights, given life by the massive generator at the far end of the basement. The lights were dim, giving the place the eerie feel of a dungeon. The generator itself was powered by a series of metal drums containing gasoline—there had to be close to forty of them
—
sitting on either side of the machine. Doug wondered how many of those drums were still full. As far as he could recall, the only person besides Steinberg to perform the duty of changing the barrels had been Luis. He made a mental checkmark to ask later.

While Larry rushed off to perform the duty Horace had given him, Doug took the opportunity to stroll in the opposite direction, where a massive beast of a contraption awaited. It was the furnace that heated the
Clinton
, and it was
huge
—at least five feet wide at the base and seven feet tall. Thirteen gauges, like eyes, protruded from its upper front half. Cooper piping roped around the thing, forming a maze of red and green tubes. At the bottom was the grate—the size of a beach ball and steaming—and above that a series of three motorized pumps. The machine clicked on and flames licked out of the grate.
Someone’s running hot water
, he thought. The air in the cellar grew warm.

“Uh, guys, is this thing safe?” Doug asked.

No one answered.

He stood in front of the thing and went from gauge to gauge. All the dials were in the middle or left-of-middle, which Doug took to mean that everything was operating as it should. With his flesh becoming increasingly irritated by the searing gasses the furnace gave off as it rumbled, he walked past it to a gigantic oil drum that was oval in shape and just as tall as the furnace. He slapped his palm against the drum’s metal hide. The echo was hard to hear over the furnace’s thunder, but he guessed it to be a little less than a third full. When he glanced up and saw the gauge at the top, its red line sitting just where he thought it would be, he chuckled to himself.

“Yo, kid, get over here.”

Doug turned to see the others facing him. They stared with pleading eyes and locked expressions, as if none wanted to risk looking at the man lying on the floor.

“What?”

“Um,” said Corky, “you think you could…um…”

A hand fell on Doug’s shoulder. He turned to see Horace there, his face a vision of concern. “I think what our large friend is trying to say,” the old man said, “is that we need your help to tie Hector to the pole.”

“Okay.”

Doug propped his rifle against one of the support beams and went to work. He undid the ropes that bound Hector’s wrists and pulled a longer one from his belt loop. As quickly as he could, Doug alternated between the prone man’s wrists and the beam, weaving in and out five times before tying it into a constricting knot. He used a heavy chain and the electrical wire he’d tied up Steinberg with so long ago to wrap Hector in a cocoon. Hector moaned, and Doug’s free hand brushed against his pocked flesh. It scorched with fever. He withdrew with a start and watched as Hector breathed in and out with hoarse, grinding expulsions of air. The image of the pudgy little man sitting at the bar, playfully slapping his back while he stammered on in his mixture of Spanish and English popped into his head, and Doug hitched. He stumbled backward, striking the back of his head against a pile of old furniture.

“He’s not going to get better, is he?” Doug asked.

Horace, standing over their friend, simply shook his head.

“What should we do?” asked Dennis. His voice was low and respectful, lacking its usual braggadocio.

“I don’t know,” replied Horace. “We wait and watch.”

Larry added, “Should we just kill him?”

“Fuck you,
compadre
,” Luis shot back.

Horace held out his arms as the two men approached each other. “Let’s not have this,” he said. “There’s no need for in-fighting.”

Doug cleared his throat, ignored Luis’s glare, and asked the only question he could think to ask. “But why are we keeping him down here? He’s gonna get worse, and then he’ll try to kill us.
Right?”

Horace nodded.
“Probably.
But I don’t know how this happened. I don’t know why he suddenly sprouted symptoms. I thought the disease was gone. It doesn’t make any sense. I have to find out
why.
Or at least see if the things outside,” he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, “have brought it back.”

Everyone fell silent at that. Even Luis retreated a bit.

After a few quiet moments, Doug and Dennis set up a dish of water and some spare food beside Hector, and the group prepared to leave the basement confines. Before they could, Hector choked out a cough and muttered. Luis ran up to him, as did Doug. Luis leaned over his friend.

“What’s that?” he asked. “What’re you saying?”

“
El cielo…es
negro
,” Doug heard Hector say in a gruff, weak tone.

Luis shuddered, but didn’t reply.

Hector went on. “
Cielo…negro…y el mundo…todo muerto…
”

Luis leaned back and stared at Doug. There were tears in the man’s eyes, tears that dribbled over his brown, shuddering cheeks. No one else said a word or even breathed.

“What did he say?” Doug asked.

“That the sky’s black,” replied Luis, “and the world’s all dead.”

Doug nodded and closed his eyes.
Tell me something we don’t already know.

*
  
*
  
*

After some bickering in regards to how humane it was to leave their sick friend alone and in the dark, Horace eventually intervened. They left behind a battery-powered lamp and promised that twice each day two people would go check on him, give him food and water. It was decided that Doug would be present each time, seeing as they needed someone confident with a gun in his hands, just in case. Corky couldn’t help but feel sorry for the kid. He already appeared unsure and dejected. He didn’t think seeing Hector devolve each day would help that any.

As they sealed the bulkhead, Corky wandered away from the group, heading around the building to the front gate. There were more walking corpses out there. He could hear them, stumbling and moaning. When he rounded the corner he saw there were only two, one standing with its hands wrapped around the bars, the other pacing behind it like a robot with faulty programming.

He approached the gate and stopped, staring with hands on hips. The one holding the bars looked up at him. It was female, with folds of flesh drooping on the right side of its skull and fingers shredded to the bone. Its one good eye lit up at the sight of him, and it snapped its jaws. Corky sighed and closed his eyes. Their tight-knit family had already lost one member, and now they were most certainly going to lose another. Things were falling apart, and falling apart fast.

Why’s this happening?

He had no answer.

Corky felt a presence beside him and turned his head to find Horace standing there with him, watching the beasts on the other side of the gate, wearing an expression he could only describe as sympathetic. The old man coughed slightly, wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, and then stuffed it into his pocket. Corky couldn’t believe how tired the old timer appeared. The bags under his eyes had grown and his posture sagged. If Corky hadn’t seen the man in this state before, he would’ve thought Horace was sick, as well.

“So where’s the kid?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“He went to be alone for a while. I don’t think he is handling this very well right now.”

Corky uttered a humorless chuckle. “Hell, none of us are.”

“Very true.”

They stood there in the quiet as the sun
rose
high in the sky. The two beasts outside the gate soon became three, then four. They stumbled and mumbled as usual, acting like mindless drunks, but Corky thought they appeared even more sluggish than usual. Then one of them—the woman who’d been holding the bars—suddenly leaned to the side. She kept leaning and leaning, until she eventually fell over. She then just lay there, not moving at all. Insects gathered and landed on the corpse. The one who’d been pacing the whole time then did the same. The remaining two, the newcomers, crouched over the fallen bodies and began picking at the remains. Corky and Horace exchanged a confused look.

“What the hell was that?” asked Corky, his stomach churning in disgust.

“I don’t know, Charles,” replied Horace. He arched his eyebrows. “Go get Doug. Tell him to bring his rifle.”

CHAPTER 4

HERE COMES THE CAVALRY

Sergeant Cody Jackson stared out the window of the jeep in awe. All around him, the walking dead were either stumbling around, ready to collapse, or had already done so. The highway was littered with their lifeless, unmoving forms. It baffled him to no end. Only a week before they were strong as ever—so strong, in fact, that when the SNF first entered Richmond, Virginia, General Bathgate seemed uncertain they would have the manpower to pull off a full cleansing. They’d lost more than five hundred able-bodied men in the process, men Cody had been commissioned to replace.
And now look at them
, he thought with a frown.
If we’d only waited a week, no one would’ve died, and I wouldn’t be here…

Here
was a cluttered stretch of highway in northern
West Virginia
, traveling from town to town with seven trusted men, former members of the People’s Militia just like him, searching for survivors to add to the ranks of the SNF. He’d been on the road for two days, and had had very little luck. The few pockets of living, breathing people he’d come across were either too weak to contribute or the wrong color and therefore left behind (
Jackson
didn’t waste any ammo on them like the general would), or aggressive and untrusting, which had already led to three small firefights. Luckily there was a sturdy 20MM cannon propped on the back of his jeep, which meant all of the skirmishes ended quickly and he got to put his Polaroid camera to good use. But he still found it frustrating. He wondered if this was the reason Captain Hawthorne, the man Bathgate sent south over a month ago with the only other tank in their arsenal, the Bradley, hadn’t arrived back yet.
Probably.
The Captain was most likely dead or in a shit storm of trouble, which now left them without a very valuable piece of equipment. Cody cursed the situation. He would’ve loved to have a tank at his disposal, too, just in case, but the general didn’t want to let the Peacemaker, his last bit of military superiority, out of his sight. Cody understood the decision, but it didn’t mean he had to like it.

The jeep bounced along, running over corpses and swerving around the many smaller wrecks littering the highway. The other two vehicles, an armored personnel carrier and an ancient Dodge van, did the same. The environment seemed strange, even for a world where the undead roamed. The bare ground on either side of the road was a glimmering shade of brown. Water congregated in deep pools on the sides of the highway. Everything—from the interior of the few cars they stopped to investigate to the mall parking lots—was soaked.

The stores.
That was the other strange thing. He thought about their treks to the different townships on their way to
Richmond
and how
barren
everything seemed. Shops had been ransacked, leaving virtually nothing of use behind. Yet once they crossed the
Virginia
border, everything changed. While they were in a state of disrepair, with leaking roofs and crumbling siding, most shops and businesses still contained valuables. Sure, there were signs of looting—smashed front windows, cans and debris scattered across the floor, messages scrawled on the walls—but the sheer volume of what remained was astounding. Even the gun sellers
—
always the first to empty out
—
were filled to the brim with weapons. It baffled him.

“Why’s all this shit still here?” Cody asked Herb Crane, who rode with him in the jeep. “And why’s everything all wet?”

“No clue, Jacks,” the older man replied. Crane had been with him for a long time, from the Army all the way up to the People’s Militia, and was one of the few people allowed to call him that name.

“It’s weird,” said Cody.

Herb nodded. “Sure is. But I guess it’s not
that
weird. Hell, it was raining like the dickens down in
Macon
all winter. You remember?”

“Of course.
What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well, what woulda happened if that was snow instead? I
mean,
whaddaya think we got, forty inches or so?”

“Sounds right.
Maybe more.”

“Think about it. Oh wait, that’s right, you grew up in
Florida
. You probably
never been
up north, eh?”

“Nope.
Florida
,
Texas
,
Afghanistan
,
Kentucky
,
Georgia
.
Shit, I never even
seen
snow before.”

“Think of it this way, Jacks. Remember the sandstorms that used to hit us out in the Afghan desert? Remember how the sand piled up and we had to camp,
then
dig our vehicles out when it ended?”

“Yeah.”

“Imagine that same experience, only
it’s
fucking cold and the shit keeps falling, and falling, and falling. I reckon folks wouldn’t be moving around much.”

Cody shrugged. “Guess not.”

Herb winked. “Think we just answered the question then, eh?”

“Guess so.
Hey Herb?”

“Yeah?”

“Quit being a dumbass and get my things. I think I see a town up ahead.”

That town, just like most others, was a waste of time. The group of eight had already gathered more weapons and provisions than they could fit into their vehicles, so the ample inventory did them no good. What they needed,
of
course, were
people
…and just like everywhere else on their journey, those seemed to be in sparse supply.

West Virginia
ended and they kept following I-79 north into
Pennsylvania
. The ho-dunk little towns they ran across there were a little more helpful than those they’d come to previously, but not by much. There was one building, a rundown motel just off the highway, which showed signs of life. The folks in there had bolstered the place with rotting boards and beams from dismantled beds and chairs. A lot of them were sick and dying. They eyed the new arrivals with suspicion and weren’t very cooperative. Only when Cody gunned down the old woman everyone in the place labeled as the
one in charge
did he make any headway. After a few more snaps with his Polaroid, they rounded up three teenage boys, the oldest being eighteen, and loaded them in the APC, leaving the rest to rot.

From there it was a steady drive north. Until that point, remembering the hazards they’d faced in
Richmond
, they avoided the urban areas. But now, as Cody looked around and saw just a few staggering zombies while the rest lay prone and unmoving, he decided it was worth the risk and turned to the west, heading for
Pittsburgh
. It wasn’t like suburbia had been a bounty of riches.

That risk paid off.

Cody stood on a bridge overlooking the
Monongahela River
with his hands on his hips and stared at the expansive, wrecked city. Herb strolled up beside him.

“Whaddayou see, Jacks?”

Cody pointed his finger off in the distance. “Look over there,” he said.

Herb squinted. “Is something flashing?”

“Sure is,” Cody replied with a grin. He felt the blood pump through his body as excitement took over.

“What’s it mean?”

Cody cuffed his old friend on the back of the head. “Think about it, you stupid fuck. It’s a goddamn signal! It’s a fucking distress call. And who would leave a distress call?”

“Um…people?”

“Exactly.
It’s not like the dead fuckers exactly want our help.”

With that, Cody hopped back into the jeep, gunned the engine, and sped down the bridge. The flickering light kept going the whole time, consistent as clockwork.

*
  
*
  
*

When Marcy Caron was fourteen years old, her friend Lindsey Cooper’s father was in a horrible car accident. He’d been flown by helicopter to the nearest hospital, where it took two weeks of surgery—and more than a few days of panic by Lindsey and her mother—to repair his fractured cranium, broken arm, pelvis, and leg, and numerous internal injuries. The doctors weren’t sure, even after the procedures were finished, whether he’d ever live a normal life again.

Marcy consoled her friend, who was kept out of school for the duration of her father’s hospital stay, the only way she knew how. She spent virtually every night at the Cooper house, dining with them and keeping Lindsey informed of all the “important” school-based developments;
who
Johnny Marsh was dating, whether Paige Roberts had given Todd Klute a blow job, expressing concern over the fact that April Gagnon had begun cutting herself again. Lindsey listened to her rattle on and on, hanging on every word as if this giant soap opera was necessary for her continued existence. She didn’t talk much about her father, the accident, or her concerns about how much different he might be once he came home. It seemed that she had simply accepted the fate handed down to her, deciding life must go on. She even said as much on one occasion.

And yet Lindsey was always heading to the hospital to visit her dad, and whenever that happened she revealed her true mind-set—the sadness, the despair, the fear of the future. Marcy felt sorry for her, but relieved at the same time—relieved because it wasn’t
her
father in that bed, it wasn’t
her
father that might come back a different person.

In time, the superficial wounds Lindsey’s father had suffered healed, and he was sent home. Marcy joined Lindsey in celebrating the news. Both girls were confident that life would go back to normal, that everything would be good again.

It wasn’t.

Mr. Cooper’s road to recovery was marked by wounds that no instrument would ever be able to find. His brain carried with it the memory of the accident, of the death of the other driver and her child. Though it had been
her
that hit
him
, he was still thrown into a deep depression. He shut himself off from Lindsey, from his wife, from everyone. Lindsey told Marcy that the psychiatrist said these things just took time, and everything would be okay in the end.

Once more, it wasn’t.

One the two-year anniversary of his accident, Lenny Cooper killed himself, swallowing every bottle of prescription medicine in the house. Lindsey was obviously devastated, which caused a rift to form between her and Marcy. She didn’t laugh with as much bluster afterward, didn’t take the time to pen the flowery poetry she so loved, lost interest in gossip and boys. In many ways she became like her father—passive, melancholy, and detached.

Marcy distanced herself after that. She didn’t understand Lindsey’s pain, but most of all she didn’t understand how Mr. Cooper could kill himself after he’d struggled so hard to reclaim his life.

Not, that is, until she experienced the same thing.