Enduring Armageddon (24 page)

We didn’t have any luck getting the thing to expose itself so I finally called a halt to the search. “This isn’t working, Jesse,” I said. “I’m gonna go out there and take care of it on the ground.”

Jesse placed his hands on his hips and said, “Like hell you are. I haven’t saved your ass time and again to let you get it bit off by some super-smart zombie. We’ll go together.”

I sighed and nodded my head. “Alright, buddy,” I said as I clapped him lightly on the back. “Let’s do this and get back inside.”

* * *

Rebecca kissed me lightly on the cheek. “I know this isn’t a big deal to you, but every time you go outside, I have to prepare myself that you’re not going to come back,” she said through thin-pressed lips. “Go kill that thing and come back to me.”

“I don’t know what the big deal is,” Mark mumbled from his usual seat behind the concierge desk. “We’ll just lay low and it’ll wander off.”

“I don’t think so, Mark,” I countered. “There was definitely something different about this one. It looked at me and figured out what we were doing, and then it went and hid from us. That means it can still think coherently to some degree and the longer it stays out there, it might figure out a way inside.”

“I don’t like it,” Jasper stated. “This is our hotel. It should be one of us going out there.”

“Well, Rick and I aren’t gonna go out there,” Mark said. “I’m confident that it will leave on its own if we stay quiet.”

Rick nodded enthusiastically. “Mark’s right. There’s no reason to go out there and end up like Chris Hayden and tore up into a million pieces.”

“Bah, you’re both chicken-shit,” the old man said, while he waved dismissively at them. “Give me your bat, Chuck. I’ll go out there with you.”

“I appreciate it, Jasper, but these things can move pretty fast. Jesse and I will take care of it.”

I wasn’t entirely comfortable with Mark sitting at the desk aiming his M-4 rifle at my back as Jesse and I opened the doors to go outside, but it turned out alright. As soon as we were clear and the doors closed, I heard Rick lock them and then he started to re-stack furniture in front of the doors.

Jesse gestured to the right and we both swung wide of the building. We’d discussed inside that if the creature was using the bushes and the roof’s overhang for cover, then we wanted to have several feet between us and the building to allow for the maximum reaction time. We began to slowly stalk forward towards the last place where we thought we’d seen the creature.

Jesse had his length of rebar resting on his shoulder like a baseball bat and I held my tomahawk low so I could sweep it up and deliver a devastating blow that would also keep the creature from closing with me. I gripped the leather handle tightly and despite the cold, my hands began to sweat inside my gloves. I hoped that when the time came, they wouldn’t be too sweaty to hold onto the weapon.

After what seemed like hours, but in reality was only a few minutes, we finally made it to the interior corner where we thought the creature was hiding. There were scuff marks in the snow where the creature had shuffled back and forth in its efforts to hide from us on the roof. I peered into the darker shadows behind the bushes and could barely make out the shape of a person.

I tapped Jesse on the arm and pointed towards where it was crouched. He acknowledged that he saw it by nodding his head. I wasn’t about to step up into the alcove and get tangled up in the bushes, but I didn’t know how to draw it out and it appeared that it was intent on staying hidden. I tapped the handle of the tomahawk softly against the metal handle of my KA-BAR. Even though we were trying to get this one’s attention, there was no need to bring any more of them from the wood line by making
too
much noise.

It didn’t move a muscle in response to my tapping, so Jesse threw a hastily made snowball into the bushes at it. I swear that the thing flinched and ducked deeper into the shadows. What the fuck?

“I don’t think that thing is infected. What if it’s a man,” I asked Jesse in a low whisper.

“How would he have been with the others?” Jesse wondered aloud.

I picked up another handful of snow and packed it as tight as I could get it. I reared back and threw it with everything I had. Splat! right against the thing’s back, not too bad for a High-School JV pitcher. We didn’t get a response from it that time.

I’d had enough of this shit. Clearly it wasn’t one of the crazy infected people, so I walked a few feet forward. “We know you’re there, man. Come on out,” I called just loudly enough to be heard, but not so loud that my voice would carry on the breeze.

“Leave me alone,” a gravelly voice replied.

“I knew it!” I said. “Jesse, it’s just some dude. Let’s pull him out.”

Jesse nodded and pushed his way through the bushes and picked up the squirming man in a full-nelson. His massive body dwarfed the man, who dangled like a rag doll from his grip.

“Leave me alone. I just want to be left alone!” he wailed.

“Hey, man, what the fuck gives?” I asked. “How were you with those…” I paused in shock after I pulled his hood back. “…Things?”

I was staring at a zombie. But it had talked to me. My belief system of how our new world operated came crashing down around me.

I stared at the creature that hung from Jesse’s grip. He seemed just like the others. His skin sagged from extreme weight loss, his face was a mass of burn marks, torn skin and his eyes were a mix of red and brown splotches where every capillary had burst from the pressure of the explosions. And that’s just what I could see on his face. What the hell was I looking at?

“If my big friend puts you down, do you promise to not try anything? We’ve killed a lot of your kind and I wouldn’t blink an eye to do you too,” I lied.

“What the hell is this, junior high?” he croaked. From our silence he got the idea that we weren’t joking. “Okay, I won’t attack you or anything. Promise.”

I readjusted my tomahawk so the spike end was facing out and nodded to Jesse, who let him down cautiously and then leapt away out of the creature’s reach. He slowly circled wide until he stood beside me. “Now, what the fuck are you?” I asked.

“What the fuck are
you
?” he countered with a voice that sounded like something from a horror movie. “I’m a goddamned human being and I’m hungry. Do you have any food?”

“Sit down,” Jesse commanded. After a moment of consideration, he did as he was told.

I crouched about ten feet in front of him. “You look like one of these infected madmen that keep attacking us and you were traveling with them. Why shouldn’t we kill you right away?”

“Because I’m not like them!” he blurted out. “I can talk. Most of them are so fucked in the head that they don’t understand anything.”

“What do you mean ‘most of them’? Are there more like you?” I asked in a near panic. I had no problem killing these things and I’d also done my fair share of killing people in battle, but I didn’t want to learn that I may have killed innocent people just because they looked like zombies.

“Yeah. I’ve met one other. A girl,” he rasped. “We traveled together for a while and she tried to go to a group of normal people for help while I hid in the woods. They butchered her. Didn’t even give her a chance to ask for help, to let them know that we were different from the others.”

“How long have you been like this?” I asked.

“I lived in Dallas when we got nuked. My whole family was burned alive in an instant,” he moaned. “I was rearranging the storage closet under the stairs and that’s what saved me. I wish I’d have died though.”

“Do anything stupid and you’ll get your wish,” Jesse said beside me.

“Stop threatening me. I’ve been traveling with that group for months and have seen some really fucked up shit. Either do it or let’s move on. I’m starving.”

“Why were you with them if you’re not like them?” Jesse asked.

“Because they’re the only ones who’d accept me,” he said. “I watched my friend get hacked into a million pieces by people who thought she was trying to attack them just by walking out of the woods. After she died, I wandered around for a while by myself and found this group. I stayed with them because they have…had, a knack for finding food, and that’s pretty scarce these days.”

I regarded his thin, ragged clothing and partially burned off hair. “Are you cold?” I asked.

“No. I can’t feel much external stuff like hot or cold. I barely realize when I touch something if I’m not looking at it. I guess the fire or the radiation burned away most of my nerve endings,” he said. “I can feel internal pain like hunger and when I need to go to the bathroom. I used to get these horrible headaches, but that doesn’t happen anymore.”

“Wow. This is so weird—sorry, I don’t mean that you’re weird,” I corrected myself. “It’s just the fact that you have the same physical characteristics as the others, but… Well, look at you. You’re just like us.”

“I’m Mexican. Does that mean we’re just alike? Look man, if you’ve got nothing for me, thanks for not killing me, but I need to eat,” he said. “The last time I found a working scale I’d already lost forty-five pounds and I’m sure I’ve lost more since then.”

He started to get up, but Jesse sprang from his crouch and pointed a finger at our new companion. “I haven’t made up my mind if you’re dangerous yet,” he said. “I’ve got a wife and some very close traveling companions inside. Sit down.”

The man sighed in disgust and sat down cross-legged. “I’m not going to hurt your family. I haven’t hurt anyone, ever.”

“Okay,” I said as I held up my hand. “What’s your name?”

“Alejandro,” he replied sullenly.

“Listen, Alejandro, we don’t want to hurt you either,” I said. “We’re just trying to get some answers about what’s out there. Up until five minutes ago, everyone like you was considered an enemy. Now that we know that’s not the case, we just have a lot to think about.”

“Yeah, I guess, man,” Alejandro said. “Geez, it feels weird talking to people. The others hit me if I talked, they didn’t like the noise.”

“Is that why they attack, because of sensitivity to noise?” Jesse asked.

“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I know they’re bat-shit crazy and will eat literally any type of meat.” He shuddered and crossed his arms over his chest. It still seemed weird to me that this guy looked just like the others, but showed human emotions and traits that they didn’t.

“It’s alright man. You’ve been through some crazy shit,” I said in an attempt to soothe his unease. “Look, we don’t know anything about you, so why can’t you be like you say? Hell, we didn’t even know people like you existed.”

“Get your view of the sideshow attraction before the carnival moves on to the next town,” he muttered sarcastically.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I countered.

“I got it, man. Do you guys have any food or are you just going to keep me here forever?”

I glanced at Jesse, who shrugged. “Okay, hold on. Jesse’s going to keep you company while I get something to eat for you,” I said.

I patted Jesse on the shoulder and jogged back towards the front doors. After rapping “Shave and a Haircut” on the glass, the pillows at the top of the pile were pulled aside and Sam’s face appeared. I gave her a thumbs-up and she nodded and disappeared from view. The pile of furniture began to slowly shrink as they pulled stuff away from the glass. After a few minutes, there was enough removed for me to push my way inside.

I hadn’t even stomped off my boots before Trisha asked me, “Where’s Jesse?”

“He’s fine,” I said. “He’s at the side of the building with a friend. The creature we went out to find actually turned out to be a person who was hiding. He’s hungry and really needs some food.”

“Well, why doesn’t he just come inside?” Jasper asked.

“He’s afraid,” I said.

“Of what?” Mark blurted out from his seat.

“Of people like us,” I said. “He watched us systematically kill several of those creatures and he’s not sure if he trusts us.”

“Didn’t you say this guy was with the creatures that attacked the hotel?” Jasper asked.
Goddamn it, Jasper!
I thought.

“We thought he was. But he wasn’t,” I said. Technically, it wasn’t a lie. “Turns out he was just looking for food.”

“What aren’t you telling us,” Jasper asked as he glanced between me and the glass doors.

“Alejandro—that’s his name—is… Well, he’s different. He was in Dallas when it got nuked and he’s got some horrible burns and scars,” I paused a moment to let that sink in. “Okay, you’ve got to trust me on this. He looks like one of them, the zombies, but he can talk and he says that he hasn’t ever harmed anyone.”

“And you left Jesse outside with it?” Trisha asked.

“It’s alright, Trisha, Jesse is a big boy and can handle himself against one person,” I said in an effort to calm her down. “Alejandro isn’t like the others. He’s harmless.”

“Like hell,” Mark said as he stood up and began pulling on his coat.

“What the hell are you doing, Mark?” Jasper asked while I unconsciously took a step in front of the door to further block the former soldier’s exit.

“These two are out there cavorting with one of those things. You remember Chris?” he asked rhetorically. “I sure do. I was the one covered in his blood, not you old man. You didn’t spend an hour trying to get it all out from under your fingernails and the creases in your skin. I did. Those things are worse than animals.”

“I thought the same thing, Mark, but this guy is different,” I said. “Sure, he looks like one of those things, but he seems to be as docile as a puppy.”

“How many puppies have you seen around here?” Mark snorted. “None. You know why? Because those bastards have eaten them all.”

“Look, I’m not in love with those things any more than you are. I’ve killed more of those things by hand than you’ve even seen, so don’t you dare try to tell me that I don’t know about the horror of what they are.”

That shut him up so I continued, “All I’m saying is that this is just a normal guy like you or me who’s been burned so badly that he resembles one of them. Hell, we don’t even know what they are, other than insane. I’ve also run into my fair share of ‘normal’ people who were filled with pure evil and have done far worse things than these things have. Maybe there are people out there like Alejandro who were mentally strong enough to not go crazy when the shit hit the fan and their bodies were mutilated.”