Empire's End (20 page)

“All right!” Gillies snapped. “Let me talk to
them. Just let me do all the talking.”

He started up the stairs, calming himself as
he did and putting on a formal air. One last diplomatic dance. He’d
have to hit every mark perfectly this time.

As he stepped onto the plane, he was
assaulted by a four odor that made him gag: confined, concentrated
putrescence, the stench of death. It smelled like they’d come
straight from the battlefield. Didn’t anyone observe basic hygiene
anymore?

The cockpit was sealed. Parting a damp
curtain, he stepped into the passenger cabin.

Every seat was occupied. That was a—

They were all undead

Gillies staggered back, tearing down the
curtain as he fell to the floor. “My—my God! Christ Jesus! Oh no!
Oh, no!”

The cockpit opened. Two uniformed zombies
shuffled out, starving hunger in their eyes.

So, the war in Britain had been won, after
all.

“Oh no,” Gillies stammered. He tried to get
up. The pilots’ hands came down on his shoulders. Passengers were
rising from their seats, hands outstretched, eager for the taste of
American flesh. :Oh no,” the Senator wept. “No, no, NO!”

They fell upon him.
“
Nooooooooooooooo!
” he wailed, choked with sobs, and then
with the blood welling in his throat. “
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Nooooooo...”

While the pilots licked his bones clean, the
rest of the British began to deplane.

“Halstead! What’s your twenty? Is Voorhees
with you?”

It was Casey. Halstead answered into her
radio, “I’m downtown. Don’t know about Voorhees.”

“Gulager just called in from the east city
limits. He was checking out reports of gunfire... there are rotters
inside the walls. They’re on the streets, hundreds of them.”

Halstead looked up, her face pale. Tripper
and Cam shook their heads in disbelief. “It wasn’t supposed to
happen this way,” she breathed. “This wasn’t supposed to
happen.”

“All right, relax.” Tripper pressed his
fingers to his temples. “Think. Think. We gotta get to the
storehouse, get the guns. Between us and the Army we can mow these
fuckers down, right? Cam?”

She nodded, already heading for the door.
“We’ll have to leave the blind guy here.”

“And Lily?”

“She comes with us,” Cam replied. To Halstead
she said, “Find out what your S.P.O. wants.”

“What do you want me to do, sir?” Halstead
said into the radio.

“This is the military’s problem. What we need
to do is clear the streets of civilians... it’s all we
can
do. Make a quick sweep of downtown and then report back here. Watch
yourself.”

“Yeah.” She clipped the radio to her belt and
turned to the others. “Where’s the storehouse?”

“The basement of the soup kitchen,” said
Tripper. All of the weapons and ammo he’d bartered for were down
there, just waiting. He could tell Cam was itching to get her hands
on some.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

“Cullen!” the radio squawked. “This is
Briggs!”

The Senators were speeding down the road away
from the airfield. Cullen’s aide passed him the radio, and he
responded, “Major?”

“They’re pouring into Gaylen. City’s
barricades crumbled like they were nothing I’ve lost maybe a third
of my men. Where the hell is Gillies? I can’t raise him.”

“He’s dead,” Cullen said numbly.

“Dead?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Who’s the acting President?”

“I am.” Cullen fidgeted with his tie. Fuck
Gillies for doing this to him! “We need to contain the threat,
Major. Agreed?”

“Of course. I’m preparing to move my boys
into the city.”

“No,” Cullen said. “Just raze it. Burn it to
the ground.”

“What?”

“It’s the only way to prevent the spread of
infection. No one enters, no one leaves. Just burn it all.”

“Cullen! You can’t be serious!”

“I’m dead fucking serious!” the Senator
yelled. “I refuse to die like this! I may be stuck in this fucking
hellhole but I’m not going to die like this. You burn Gaylen down!
You shoot to kill if anyone tries to escape! Do you hear me,
Major?”

There was no reply.

“He won’t do it,” Cullen grumbled. “Brian,
radio the Chicago outpost. I’ll give them my orders. Tell them
Major Briggs is no longer running this operation. I am.”

“Yes sir,” his aide said. Cullen settled back
in his seat. He actually wasn’t too bad at this.

* * *

The rotters hadn’t reached downtown yet.
Tripper, Cam and Halstead—Lily on her back—ran through the empty
streets. It was seven in the morning.

A man exited one of the apartment buildings.
“Get inside!” Tripper yelled. “Rotters!” The man shook his head at
them and continued on his way.

Tripper fumbled for the keys to the soup
kitchen. Bursting inside, he ran to the basement door, affixed with
three locks. “There are others who can help us,” he was saying.
“We’ve got to track them down.”

“How much time do you think we have?”
Halstead said.

“We’ll make time,” said Cam.

They descended a dark flight of stairs into a
musty cellar. Tripper lit a lantern and opened its shutters on the
room.

High-powered rifles, automatics, and hand
cannons were stacked along the back wall. Boxes and boxes of ammo
were spread out by caliber. “We want to travel light,” Tripper
said.

Cam grabbed a machine gun and started
gathering magazines. “This’ll work. Ooh, and this.” She snatched a
Colt Python from a rack and tucked it into her waistband.

“I can’t believe this is really happening,”
Halstead said. She stood in the middle of the room and watched as
the other two stocked up. “Believe it,’ Tripper said. “Get over
here and arm yourself.”

Lily had been silent this whole time. She sat
on the stairs with a weary look. “It’s gonna be okay,” Cam
said.

“I don’t know,” Lily replied. “I wish my
friend was here. Then we’d be okay.”

A distant scream caught everyone’s attention.
It was a woman. Her screams drew nearer—then they stopped
abruptly.

“They’re here,” Halstead gasped.

“Then we go it alone,” Cam muttered.
“Ready?”

“We could stay down here, couldn’t we?”
Halstead asked.

Cam scowled at her. “What happened to the
fucking plan, Em? We’ve got to take these bastards out! Letting
everyone die isn’t the plan! Now c’mon!” She took off up the
stairs.

Halstead held her arms out to Lily. “C’mon. I
want you to get back onto my back and hold on tight. Okay?”

Cam walked out into the street to find a trio
of rotters ripping the slain woman’s skin off. The snow was stained
red; steam rose from the corpse’s spurting guts.

“Hey mates,” Cam called. The fiends looked
up.

She unleashed the machine gun. The rotters
flew back as bullets ripped through their throats and faces. Skulls
opened and vomited out foul matter. They landed on their backs,
twitching but essentially immobilized.

“On your six!” Tripper cried.

Cam turned around and cut a rotter in half.
It dropped, legless, into the snow and clawed toward her. Gunfire
scissored it into half from crown to crotch.

“Where are we going?” Lily cried, clinging to
Halstead’s neck.

“East!” Tripper said. He stepped into the
middle of the street, an Uzi in each hand, and grinned at the
oncoming dozens of undead. “Behind me, Halstead. Now watch
this.”

He unloaded into the horde. Zombies spun and
tumbled over one another. Heads exploded, leaving bodies to stagger
aimlessly and finally sink into the snow.

“We’ll burn ‘em later.”

It was a different picture to the east. The
rotters were running into tenements and knocking down door after
door, falling upon helpless families.

Some of the living ran into the street and
tried to make a break for it. They were brought down in
seconds.

A lone rotter crouched over a dead child and
pulled out handfuls of entrails, raising them to its lips.

Eviscerato brought his cane down on the
rotter’s head, sending it sprawling.

Kill them all. Then eat.

P.O. Gulager huddled behind a dumpster in an
alley and watched the carnage unfold. All he had was a fucking
baton. How was he supposed to do anything?

But he had to do something. He was a cop.

So, with his heart in his throat, running on
legs of rubber, he went into the street. A rotter leapt at him. He
smashed its teeth in and threw it to the ground. “Fuck you!” he
screamed. Another grabbed his shoulder from behind. He whirled and
bashed its skull in. “Fuck you!”

A shadow fell across his vision. He turned.
“Fuck—”

The lanky giant, with vines of bone that wove
in and out of its gray flesh, reached out with stiff arms and
hooked its fingers into Gulager’s clothing. He was lifted off the
ground, toward the thing’s gaping maw.

The Petrified Man sank his teeth into
Gulager’s face, slicing through his eyeball, splitting his cheek,
and biting right through bone into his brain.

The rotter cast Gulager to the ground and
left in search of its next victim.

Dalton kicked open the ER doors and helped
Briggs into the admitting room. “Rotters! They’re in the city!”

The nurses froze in place, transfixed with
horror. Dalton set Briggs in a chair. “His ankle’s broken. Look,
can somebody help him?”

“I’m fine,” Briggs said through gritted
teeth. “This place is going to be packed in a few minutes.” He
pulled out his radio. “Briggs to Fetters. Come in Lieutenant.”

“Fetters here sir,”e was lift

“Are the men in place?”

“Sir... you’ve been removed from command.
We’re taking orders from Senator Cullen. He’s instructed us to
secure the perimeter and—”

“I know.” Briggs dropped the radio into his
lap. “Fuck me.”

And moments later, just as he’d predicted,
people began stumbling into the hospital, most covered in blood,
all hysterical.

Dalton knelt by Briggs. “We’ve got infected
pouring in here.”

The nurses were refusing to help the wounded.
They locked themselves in the triage station. People began beating
on the doors and walls.

“Calm down! Calm the fuck down!” yelled a
block cop. “Listen to me dammit!” He saw the two soldiers and ran
over. “We gotta get the fuck outta here.”

“Got any ideas?” Dalton asked. The cop nodded
and pointed through a pair of doors to the emergency room
itself.

Dalton helped Briggs to his feet. They walked
slowly past the others—far too panicked to notice, anyway—and
through the doors.

“All right.” The cop slammed the doors and
threw the bolt, then grabbed a gurney from against the wall and
dragged it over. “Those poor bastards are already dead. We gotta
start building a barricade.”

“What’s your name, son?” Briggs asked.

“Rhodes,” the cop replied, pulling a Glock
from his jacket.

“I thought you didn’t carry,” said
Briggs.

“
I
do.” Rhodes motioned to Dalton.
“Help me out here!”

They started stacking chairs and medical
equipment in front of the doors. They heard cries from the other
side.

“Let us in!”

“We need help!”

“I’m not infected!”

“Poor bastards,” Rhodes said again.

They were throwing themselves against the
doors now. Then someone screamed.

“ROTTERS!”

Briggs, Dalton and Rhodes listened silently
to the sounds of death and mayhem. The assault on the doors ended
as people tried to escape admitting. It didn’t sound like anyone
got out.

“Hey,” someone said softly. Dalton and Rhodes
both spun, guns at the ready.

It was a doctor. Hands raised, he said, “I’m
clean. I’ve been in here the whole time.”

He extended a hand. “Name’s Zane. So it’s
finally happening.”

“It’s happening,” Briggs sighed, sweating
from the pain in his ankle.

“Listen Doctor,” Dalton asked, shaking his
hand, “you got any morphine?”

“I don’t need it,” Briggs said. “I’ve gotta
stay straight.”

“You’re in agony. You’re no good like
this.”

Zane walked over to the orderlies’ station
and rummaged around until he found a key. “I’ll be right back with
something for you.”

“We need to barricade any other exits in
here,” Rhodes said. He ran down the hall.

“We just let those people die,” Dalton
mumbled.

“Rhodes was right—they were already dead.
It’s my fault. I couldn’t keep them out of the city.”

“There were too many,” Dalton said.

“We knew this was coming.” Briggs clenched
his lower leg and moaned. “We tried to tell them, but they wouldn’t
listen. They really believed they’d be safe forever.”

There was renewed pounding on the doors. The
undead. Briggs hunched over in pain.

“Sir,” Dalton whispered.

“What is it?”

Dalton pried back the collar of Briggs’
shirt. He lowered his head and sighed.

“You’re bit.”

Briggs touched his hand to the wound and
looked at the blood on his fingers. He didn’t move or speak for
several moments. Then he sat up. “I didn’t even feel it.”

Zane returned with a syringe. “It’s not
morphine, but you’ll be floating. You want it?”

Briggs shook his head with a bitter laugh.
“No, that’s not what I need.” He looked at Dalton, who nodded and
drew his sidearm.

“I’m infected,” said the major. “I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for all of it.”

Dalton helped him to his feet and into an
observation room. He quietly shut the door.

Rhodes was on his way back when he heard the
gunshot. “What the hell was that?”

Zane cocked his head to one side, as if
listening, and replied, “That’s the Devil laughing.”