Last Man Standing (Book 2): Cordyceps (10 page)

Boy, they'd be proud of him when he got this sweet little piece of ass back to the community.

I open my eyes slowly, and immediately look around in the darkness for the cat that took a shit in my mouth.

The headache hits me right away. After a month without a drink and nothing lining my stomach but a candy bar the liquor coursed through my blood like poison, and now it's mounting a full frontal assault directly behind my left eye. It feels like my brain swelled two sizes in my sleep, and it's trying to escape through the socket.

By the window Warren lies asleep, resting against the sill, his arm draped over the stock of his rifle. On the floor beside him the bottle of Lagavulin has fallen on its side, and Warren's olive green duffel now rests in the middle of a patch of sticky carpet. I kick my jacket from my body, climb shakily to my feet and grab the bag, searching through it until I find a bottle of water and a blister pack of paracetamol. Thank God for the well-prepared.

My bladder starts calling out to me as soon as I finish the water, and in the dim blue pre-dawn glow I clumsily make my way out of the room to the bathroom at the far end of the hallway. It's pitch black inside, so I grab a trash can and prop open the door before stumbling to the urinal, fumbling with my pants and releasing a pungent, worryingly dark stream of piss. I make a mental note to drink as much water as I can find today. They only gave us a small glass with each meal at the camp, so Bishop and I are probably both pretty severely dehydrated.

I'm shaking off when I hear the moan, and I freeze instantly. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and I realize how stupid it was to leave the Beretta in my jacket pocket by the window. I'm standing in a room with only one exit, cock out, unarmed and hungover. The moan comes again, closer this time, along with the sound of wet, rasping breath. I zip up and scan the room for a weapon, but the only thing that isn't screwed down is the flimsy plastic trash can. I tiptoe to the door and grab it anyway. Maybe I can wedge it over the head of anyone who enters, blinding them long enough to get past and run back to my gun.

The moan is just outside the door now, a few steps down the hall. I flip the trash can, and I'm ready to pounce when the moan turns to soft weeping.
What the fuck?
I risk a quick peek around the door.

"Bishop, what the hell happened?" The big guy is leaning with one hand against the wall, clutching his nose and crying with pain. Tears stream down his face, and his swollen nose is a mess of blood and bubbling mucus. "Jesus, come here. Let's get you cleaned up."

Bishop nods and lets me guide him to the washbasin. I turn the faucet and wait, and it takes a moment of creaking and bubbling from the pipes before I remember the water isn't running any more. All that escapes from the faucet is a thin trickle of brackish brown liquid, so I pull Bishop over to a stall and sit him down while I lift the lid from the cistern.

He winces and moans as I wash the blood from his face, trying to squirm out of the way as I splash him. "Hold still, Bishop," I order, but still he twists away from me like a kid.

"It hurts too bad," he cries, digging his chin into his armpit so I can't reach his nose.

"OK, no more water. Lemme just get a look at your nose, man." He shakes his head and tucks it deeper. "Just lemme look at it, and I'll get you some painkillers."

After a moment's thought he finally untucks his chin and turns towards me, looking down with crossed eyes at his bloody nose. "It's real bad, Tom. I think it's broken."

"Yeah, no shit." There's a large bulge sticking out of the right side, and the tip is curved about a quarter inch to the left. I can tell by his voice and the blood and mucus bubbling from one nostril that the other is completely blocked. I know what I have to do. I've reset my own nose twice before, and I know he'll thank me in about ten minutes when the pain begins to fade.

Before Bishop figures out what I'm doing I reach out, press both thumbs firmly into the sides of his nose and pull down. With a dull, wet click the bones and cartilage shift straight, and Bishop jerks back against the cistern with a snorting cough that sends a massive amount of blood spraying across both of us.

"
Fuck!
" he yells, blowing a strand of phlegmy blood onto his shirt. "What the hell did you do that for?"

I reach behind him and rinse my hands in the cistern, then rush to the towel dispenser and grab enough paper to wipe myself down. "I fixed it," I gasp, trying to hold back the puke climbing my throat at the sight of the wet, gooey red phlegm dripping from my shirt. I grab another wad of towels and pass them to him. "Now stop whining and tell me what happened."

Bishop wipes his face and sniffs away the tears. "I thought it was a bad dream, Tom. I just thought I was imagining it, then I woke up with this," he says, pointing at his swollen face.

"What do you mean? How did it happen?"

He sniffs again. "A man came in, sometime in the night. I just woke up and he was right there in front of me with his gun. I thought he was gonna shoot me but he just turned it around and hit me in the nose and I fell down. Then he hit me on top of my head." He tilts his head towards me and gingerly pushes aside his hair. There's an angry purple lump just above his hairline. "I must have passed out, because next thing I knew it was starting to get light out in the hallway and Vee was gone."

It takes a few moments for this to sink in. "Vee's gone?"

Bishop nods mournfully. "Uh huh. Her bag's still here, but she took her gun with her."

I lean down and grab him by the shoulders. "Bishop, the man. Did he take Vee?"

He shrugs, and the tears begin again as he rubs the lump on his head. "I don't know, Tom. He knocked me out, you know?"

"OK, just... just don't do anything. I'm going to get Warren."

My hangover is completely forgotten as I rush back down the hallway, poking my head into Bishop and Vee's small room as I go. Bishop was right. Her gun is nowhere to be seen, but her bag is right where she left it by the wall.

I continue on until I reach the front of the building, where Warren is clutching his head and popping painkillers from the blister pack I left on the floor. "Man, that stuff's brutal." He nods towards the spilled Lagavulin in the floor. "I'm sticking to beer from now on, even if I can't find a cold one." He looks up at me with bloodshot eyes. "Jesus, what happened?"

I look down at my bloody shirt and wave it away. "Doesn't matter. Vee's been taken. Some guy came in the night and knocked Bishop out. She's gone, but her stuff's still here."

Warren's face turns gray as I speak, and his eyes flit guiltily to the empty bottle on the floor. "Jesus, I should have been awake."

"We can blame ourselves later," I say, grabbing my jacket and checking the gun is still there. "For now let's just concentrate on getting her back."

Warren nods, hefts his rifle from the windowsill and scoops his stuff into his duffel bag before following me out the door. Along the way we find Bishop moping in the hallway, and after grabbing Vee's bag the three of us move quietly down through the building, checking along the way that we're alone.

It's only when we reach the ground floor that we realize how fucked we really are. Through the propped open glass door I see a dozen infected milling in the street... and one of them is standing in the empty spot where we parked the car.

"I don't suppose you have a spare vehicle in that duffel, Warren?" I nod out the door to the empty space.

Warren looks out, and when he turns back I can see he's smiling. "No, I don't," he says, rooting through Vee's bag, "but I do have a homing beacon." He pulls out a chunky black device that looks like an iPhone and a walkie talkie had a kid. "Sat phone," he says, clicking the thick, stumpy rubber antenna into place. "My battery died last week, but Vee still has a bit of charge. Aaaaaaand..." He taps the screen a couple times, frowning. "Yep, here it is. Big mistake, you dumb bastard. Karl's phone was still in the trunk with the rest of his stuff." He flips the phone around, and I can see a blue dot flashing on the screen against a faint map. It's moving west along what looks like Highway 78.

"OK, shut it down." I point to the red battery warning in the corner. "Save the power. We can power it back up when we have a car. Speaking of which, any idea how we're gonna get past these guys outside?"

Warren shrugs the rifle off his shoulder. "How do you think? You know how to turn your safety off?"

I slip the Beretta from my jacket pocket and flip the catch with my thumb. "Got it. Bishop, get ready to hold this door when we shout, OK? Warren, I'll give you backup from here. Try to keep it quiet."

Bishop nods, and Warren sees what I'm getting at. He takes a knee by the door and checks his gun while I take up position just behind him. "Good thinking, kid. We'll make a soldier of you yet."

Six of the dozen are on the ground before the first of them notices us. Warren's rifle reports echo through the street and the infected swing around wildly, hunting for the source of the sound as their brothers drop to the deck. Once one of them notices us, though, it only takes a few seconds for the rest to pick it up and come charging in.

It's been almost a decade since I last fired a gun. I'd forgotten how the noise fills your entire world when the gun is only at arm's length, but I don't flinch. I hold it steady and squeeze off rounds until the magazine runs empty and the slide springs back, and by the time I'm squeezing the trigger on air there are four more infected down.

The final two are just a few yards away now. I'm empty and Warren can't seem to slide the bolt forward on his M40. I barely hear him yell above the ringing in my ears, but Bishop barrels forward from behind us and wedges himself against the door at the very moment the two crash into it. The door rattles in its frame and a spiderweb appears in the toughened glass, but it doesn't shatter.

"Hold the door!" I yell, releasing my magazine to the ground before I slot the fresh one in. I feel the click as it seats, pull back the slide and step forward, nodding at Bishop to move aside. He wedges his foot against the door, relaxes his shoulder a little and gives me a couple inches space. The sound of the Beretta firing through the gap in the door is deafening. Bishop flinches and steps away, allowing it to swing open, but the two infected are already down.

My hands are shaking and I feel lightheaded, looking down at the dozen bodies lying in the street before us. Most of them look like they've been infected a while. They're thin and sinewy, their clothes ragged and dirty, but the final two - the two I shot at close range - look like they only turned recently. One of them looks to be a teenage boy, maybe sixteen or so.

I'm still staring down at the kid when Warren takes the Beretta from my hand, pulls back the slide to check the chamber, and calmly puts a bullet in his head. "You only winged him," he says. "Gotta watch out for that. Other than that, pretty solid performance for your first time." He looks around at the carnage and nods with approval. "OK, let's start checking cars. Every infected for a mile heard that racket, and I don't wanna be around when they come for a look see."

Roy winces in the driver's seat, shifting uncomfortably and choking back panicked tears. Just an hour ago he felt like he was on the verge of his greatest triumph. He'd have a hot piece of ass tied up in the back of his new car, he'd be on the way back to safety at the community, and if the mood struck he'd pull over and break in that cute Latino bitch before sharing her around.

All that happened as planned, but if he could go back and do it again he'd walk back to his shitty wreck of a car, gun the engine and get the hell out of there. No piece of ass is worth this much pain. Even the safety of the community isn't worth what's happening in his pants.

The bitch kicked him. Hard. She woke at the sound of Roy's gun clocking out the big guy, and she kicked out before he even realized she had her eyes open. The thick, heavy heel of her dumbass army boots crushed his left testicle against his pelvic bone - he was probably imagining it, but he'd swear he heard it burst - and then she dragged her foot down his thigh and did all sorts of damage to his cock.

He looks down at his open pants and starts gibbering frantically. It's... it's just a fucking mess. His left ball is swollen up like a hard boiled egg. His scrotum is stretched tight as a drum, and he can't even hold his legs closed for fear that the lightest brush against his skin will result in fresh waves of agony. As for his cock... Jesus, it looks like someone took a belt sander to it. A roll of torn skin hangs loose, and the blood gushing from the wound has glued it like a Post-It note to his right thigh.

He doesn't dare touch anything. The pain didn't kick in until after he'd knocked her out with the butt of the gun, but as soon as the message from his groin reached his brain he almost puked from the agony. It was all he could do to drag her down to the car without passing out. He'd almost killed her there and then, but just before he gave in to his rage and put his last two bullets in her skull he had a rare attack of common sense. He realized he'd need a doctor if he was ever going to be able to fuck again, and the only doc he knew lived at the community. Fighting the strongest urge to slaughter the bitch he tied her up, bundled her into the trunk of the Toyota and painfully eased into the driver's seat.

Roy looks down again and begins to weep as he sees a trickle of blood pour from his pee hole. He's no doctor, but he knows that ain't good. Blood from there means he's all torn up inside. This isn't a wound that'll be right as rain after just a few stitches. This means surgery. Anesthesia. Pain drugs. Bed rest. He's pretty sure they'll let him back in with the girl, but will one piece of pussy be enough to earn him a month of the doc's time? It's touch and go.

By the time he sees the sign for Harrisburg he feels cold and weak, and in the rear view mirror his face looks drawn and pale. He can't tell how much blood he's already lost, but the seat beneath his ass is soaking wet and ice cold. He glances down and starts to shake when he sees the torn skin on his cock looks dusky, and his swollen left nut has started to turn a terrifying shade of purple. He doesn't even want to guess what that means, but an unpleasant word has been rattling around his mind for the last forty miles: amputation.

The end of the world didn't faze Roy at all. He'd never had anything to begin with, so he had nothing to lose. All the collapse of society had done was drag everyone back down to his level, and Roy counted that as a win. Roy, 1. World, 0. This, though... this thing between his legs, it's the one thing that didn't cost anything. The one thing the government couldn't tax, the one thing that brought him joy, and that bitch in the trunk tried to take it away from him.

As soon as he recovers he'll make her pay for every bit of the pain she's caused, punch by punch. Once he's done with her she'll beg him to kill her, but he won't give her the relief. He'll ruin her, and then he'll shove her broken body out into the street for the infected to play with.

Finally he reaches the Harrisburg exit, and he almost smiles as he pulls the car into the city and heads down the familiar streets towards the community. The pain has begun to radiate down his left leg, and he can tell he won't last much longer without medical attention. The doc had better be awake and sober.

A road flare spins a few times in the air before landing on the street about fifty yards ahead of him, spitting out a stream of red sparks. He slows, approaching the blockade carefully. He knows they don't have any problem opening fire on strangers, but he knows they usually wait until they establish whether a new arrival is a threat before taking aim. He drops his speed to a crawl and flashes his lights, waving slowly out the window. He almost weeps with relief when they wave him in closer, and then his blood runs cold when he sees the guard's expression harden as he recognizes Roy. He turns the car around and carefully backs up as close as he dares, just in case they decide to start shooting.

"Hell no. Head right back the way you came, Roy. You know you're not welcome here." The guard hikes up his rifle and points it down from his perch on top of the blockade.

"
Woah, woah, woah
, it ain't like before," Roy pleads, pushing open the door. "I brought a... a, a peace offering for you guys. Trust me, you're gonna love it." He climbs out of the car, remembering too late that his pants are still unzipped and the mess of his crotch is on display. The guard turns away in disgust. "Never mind that. I just had a bit of trouble on the way, the doc'll fix me right up. Now look what I brought you guys." He limps slowly to the back of the car and pops the trunk, and the guard breaks into a cautious smile when he sees what's inside.

Vee lies on her side, her legs tightly bound at the knees and feet, her arms strapped painfully behind her back. Her mouth is bound with Roy's jean jacket, one of the arms pushed between her lips and tied around the back of her head. She bucks and struggles, but Roy knows how to tie a solid knot. It'd take days for her to work her way free, and she only woke up a half hour ago.

Roy looks up at the guard and nods towards the rusted yellow school bus blocking the blockade entrance. "So... you think we might be able to deal?"

The guard doesn't speak. He just looks behind him, waves a hand and vanishes from sight. Moments later the school bus begins to silently move, dragged backwards by some unseen pulley system until there's just enough room for the Toyota to pull through the gap. Several armed men pour like soldier ants through the opening, taking up defensive positions as Roy carefully climbs back into the car and reverses through the gap. They stay vigilant, watching for infected until the car is safely through, then as one they withdraw to safety, training their weapons on the opening until the moment the bus returns to block the way.

Nothing breaches the walls of the community. In the old days it was the most exclusive hotel in the city. $200 would buy you a night in one of its cheapest beds. Today, though, the price is much higher. If you want to live within the secure walls of the Harrisburg Hilton you'll need to pledge your life to the Chief.