LZR-1143: Evolution (8 page)

Beyond the body, carnage reigned supreme; bodies could be seen littered near the doorway, and into the hall.

We moved across the room slowly, my eyes still searching for a weapon. As we passed the plates near the bench press rack, Kate’s leg brushed against a pile of metal weights. They toppled loudly against one another, the metal on metal clang resounding against the walls of the room and into the hallway. From behind us, there was an almost instant response. Hands beat hungrily against the steel door, the dead, metallic vibrations of their incessant tempo echoing in the room.

Kate cursed as Hartliss sprinted for the door, moving, perhaps, to close the hatch in front of us. But he was too late.

From behind the open door, several blue uniforms appeared. Bloodshot eyes and gray, pallid skin was pulled tightly over their frames, blood decorating their clothes. One man wore the bright yellow vest of someone who worked above-decks, and still wore his visor and ear protection. A large chunk was missing from his thigh, and he dragged his bad leg behind him, smearing fresh blood in a trail.

I froze in the middle of the room as Hartliss raised his pistol and fired. Two shots scored home, taking the first two in their heads, causing both to snap backward as blood and bone exploded into the air. Two more shots went wild, hitting the torso and arm of the last creature in the orange vest.

Hartliss moved back as two more appeared from the hallway. They moved forward, shuffling. Their arms extended out, fingers grasping compulsively.

I backed up, hand grasping around, searching for anything to use as a weapon. My hand found metal, and as Hartliss backed into Kate, I realized it was a long bar. Barely mindful of what I was doing, I brought my other hand across my body for a better grip, and cocked the bar back over my shoulder, bringing it around again with as much force as I could muster.

My head pounded briefly as my blood raced through my veins. The bar whistled through the air, shivering slightly as it made contact with a skull. The target exploded in a shower of discolored bone and gore. The momentum carried the swing through, taking the other zombie in the chest at an awkward angle, forcing it to crumple to the floor.

It staggered back as I moved forward, pressing my advantage. Shifting my grip, I pulled the bar back around my shoulder, and swung hard at the head. The creature groaned once as it reached out for me from the floor, and then the bar made impact. I looked back over my shoulder, motioning with my head toward the hatch.

“Come on. If we close that door we’re trapped in here.”

I dropped the bar, realizing it was too long for use in the hallways, and it fell heavily against the floor. Kate and Hartliss looked at me warily as they moved past, Kate’s mouth turned down in a slight frown. I glanced down as we moved toward the exit, and did a double take.

The metal bar I had been swinging like a broomstick was a forty-five pound bench press bar.

Jesus Christ.

“Mike! Let’s go!”

Must have been the adrenalin, I thought, moving toward the door.

I shivered reflexively and walked into the hallway.

Chapter 9

The hallway outside the gym was not empty.

It was full of bodies and gore.

There was no other way to describe it. It was simply hell.

A haphazardly scrawled sign that read “Inoculations” hung by one strand of thin chain from above a small doorway. An annex infirmary, according to the welded name plate next to the door. It was merely feet from the gym, and Hartliss cursed silently under his breath, realizing now that this was probably
not
a better way to the flight deck. From behind us, the steady, insistent pounding on the hatchway from the prior stairwell prodded us forward.

Bodies littered the hallway, all in some state of disrepair or disemboweling. I shuddered as I stepped over a young sailor whose stomach was simply gone, the bloody walls of his torso exposed to the air. His face bore the terror I know that it had expressed merely hours ago, eyes wide. A silent scream was etched into his frightened face. His dark blue uniform was black from the waist down with blood, shreds of cloth littering the floor in front of him, as if he had been torn into by wild animals.

Hartliss was stepping gingerly between bodies, gun trained on the corpses and I mimicked his cautious approach. In a world where the dead rise up at a moment’s notice, a hallway of dead bodies becomes a danger zone.

Every foot of the hallway was covered in bodies or body parts. It had been a hell storm of death in this space, and I was anxious to find shelter. I leaned forward to Kate, who was holding her hand in front of her mouth and nose as she skirted forward slowly, trying not to step in the blood and gore. It was an impossible task.

My feet sloshed through innards and I felt the wet compressions as my boots crushed other pieces and parts beneath the soles.

“Think we can move a little quicker? I can tell by the scenery that the natives are most assuredly fucking restless.” I glanced down at the particularly gruesome case of a Marine whose face had been ripped raggedly from his skull. Two white, bulging eyes stared unblinkingly from the bloodied ruin. To his credit, and that of the Corps, he held his sidearm in his cold, dead hand. The slide was locked back, ammunition exhausted.

Semper Fi, my friend. In a world that is Semper Fucked, you took it to the max.

Behind him was a row of corpses, all seemingly shoved to the side of the floor against the wall in a frenzy of feeding; all in various states of revolting disrepair. Clothing had been torn from the bodies along with flesh, blood stained the gray steel walls and floor, pooling in the corners of bulkhead sections.

“Hartliss,” Kate whispered, “Fucking move, man. We’ve got less to worry about here than if more of the walking sort come dragging down the hallway and cut us off.”

Her voice was anxious, and I wondered vaguely if she was claustrophobic.

“I’m bloody moving as fast as I bloody can, thank you,” his voice was scared, now. He knew full well that any of these bodies could spring to life at a moment’s notice.

Well, not life, I guess. But animation, at least.

Bitey, painful animation.

His hand dropped briefly into a pocket, withdrawing a small map of the ship torn from one of many stations on the stairwells.

“Last doorway on the right is the stairwell, we go up one flight to the officer’s quarters, then up two flights to the flight deck.”

He spoke softly, turning his head slightly as he stepped gingerly over an outstretched arm, fingers resting in a pool of congealed blood. Far ahead in the dim recesses of the distant hallway, a creature appeared from a side passage, eyes shifting slowing in our direction. Slowly, silently, it turned the corner, placidly moving forward, toward us. Another followed closely behind, both clad in blue uniforms, dripping blood from badly mangled arms.

Suddenly, the fluorescent lights strung in neat rows above our heads flickered. From further down the hall, a robotic voice shot from the black speakers recessed in the hallway ceiling.

“Power failure imminent on this deck. Please proceed to designated stations.”

I had time to murmur softly to myself.

“Son of a —”

From the corner of my eye, I thought I detected movement on the floor. Behind us, a door clanged against the wall and I whipped my head around, looking for the danger.

Before I could locate anything, the hallway was plunged into darkness.

Kate cursed loudly.

From ahead, where Hartliss had been stepping lightly, a loud crash and a screamed “Fuck!”

I reached out for Kate’s arm, but she must have moved forward and my hand brushed air. Behind us, I could definitely hear movement. No light escaped any of the adjoining rooms, no emergency lights were active.

The hallway was pitch black.

And something was moving behind us.

I whispered softly, “Kate, Hartliss, don’t move for a second. Something’s back there.”

Kate muttered almost imperceptibly, sarcasm laid thick, “Well that’s a good reason to sit still. You know there’s definitely a couple things in front of us!”

A slow shuffling of feet, sounding as if they were kicking through jello as they moved through blood and gore,
indicated we had company and that they were close. The pitch black was oppressive and disorienting and as I moved my left foot slightly to adjust my weight, I jerked, feeling the touch of another moving body part.

From far behind, another sound of a body moving against the floor echoed against the metal walls. In my mind, it was the faceless Marine, pulling himself to his feet, his mangled face and bulging eyes searching for us in the dark, hands raised, mouth opening in a soundless grin.

“Okay, point made! Let’s go!”

I raised my voice, acknowledging that they could hear the whispers as easily as the shouts in the small space. From ahead of me, I could hear Hartliss pushing himself up.

“Bloody hell, this is disgusting,” he said, and I could hear him moving in liquid as he fought for a grip.

I moved forward, stepping cautiously but quickly, feet searching for safe footing. In front of me, Kate was doing the same. I heard her feet sliding along the ground, slowly and carefully searching for obstructions, shoes sloshing in the dark, kicking matter onto the walls as she shuffled forward.

I could feel the blood and effluent soaking through my shoes. I imagined the air moving behind me as a zombie thrusted forward for my leg, felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck as I imagined a floor-bound creature reaching up for my thigh.

From my left, I heard the sound of sudden and slow movement, as if a body was sliding along the floor or the wall, moving closer. My breathing quickened, my pulse rapid. In the dark, the sound of my breath was loud, the telltale mark of moving food.

I turned, not able to help myself. My eyes narrowed as I searched in vain for any glimmer of light or movement. Absently, I remembered my third grade teacher telling us all about how blind people’s hearing was so much better than ours because they couldn’t see. I wondered how long that process took.

Probably wasn’t going to happen in two minutes.

Ahead of me, I heard a metallic creak as Hartliss turned the latch quickly and pulled the door open. I heard his heavy footfalls as he stumbled through the opening, whispering for us to follow. I could hear Kate breathing heavily in the pitch black. I imagined her stepping forward as I heard her foot fall on the other side of the open doorway.

The movements behind us were many. The very steel seemed to be moving in the darkness, the air alive with the sound of the dead.

I reached forward, hand searching for the edge of the doorway to steady myself and guide my steps. I found a cold ledge of painted steel and stepped forward to follow Kate, but my right leg was caught. I struggled quickly, mind turning through the scenarios I had imagined; the darkness held, and it was holding me back. Making me wait for them.

Turning, I reached down, hand trembling, hoping that my shoe was caught in a protruding bulkhead. My heart rate skyrocketed as I heard the closer, more urgent movement of bodies in the slush of gore behind us.

From my right, I knew that it was a matter of seconds before the shambling crewmen from around the corner made their way to the open doorway.

My hand inched down slowly, cautiously. I shivered in anticipation, expecting gnashing teeth to bite into my calf at any time. A hand grabbed my other foot and I bit off a high-pitched shriek. Suddenly, the emergency lights flickered, bathing the hallway in a sickly, blood-red glow. The carnage of the enclosed space was redoubled in the harsh red light.

From behind me, Kate whispered loudly, “Come on, let’s go.”

“Just a second, I ...”

Then I made the mistake of looking down.

My eyes met the cold, dead stare of a one-armed crew member, his buzzcut head missing half of its skin. Pale, young skin ended abruptly in blood smeared over bone. His red-rimmed eyes were unblinking as he moved his head forward toward my leg, which he held in his right hand. Behind him, the red-bathed hallway was alive with the slow, hungry movement of the undead. They uncoiled from the walls and slid through the bloody floor, arms and legs twitching violently. From the other end of the hallway, the ambulatory few were within feet of me.

I cursed loudly and jerked the leg, breaking it free. Instinctively, I lashed out with my foot, kicking buzzcut in the face as hard as I could. The head snapped back against the steel wall, hard. The eyes continued to stare, but the arm dropped, dead again.

As I backed into the doorway, movement from all sides hastened my pace. Damaged corpses were pulling themselves up, using the walls and floor, and sometimes each other, for leverage. Mangled limbs thrashed in the air as dead eyes all locked on me.

From my right, a hand appeared, grabbing the edge of the door as I attempted to pull it shut. I cursed, and jumped through the doorway into the stairwell. With as much strength as I could muster, I slammed the door shut behind me. Four tiny little zombie fingertips, neatly severed at the first knuckle, dropped to the floor in front of my bloody boots.

Kate was there, concerned, her footfalls heavy in the narrow passageway.

“You done screwing around back there?”

She was whispering, voice anxious.

From above, I could hear Hartliss walking on the metal landing.

In my haste and impatience, I rolled my eyes and made the asshole hand gesture for “hurry up, wench,” holding my hands palm down and waving my fingers forward.

She glared at me and turned.

I sighed slightly, knowing I’d pay for the moment of pique later.

The stairwell was empty, and we flooded into the officers’ quarters with relief. A narrow hallway, this one paneled in cheap wood and highlighted with brass, stretched in front of us. Doors with small name plates lined the passage. All were thankfully closed.

I sighed in relief as we began to move forward. Hartliss was moving faster now, sensing that we were close to the end. From behind one closed door, I heard the sound of movement as I walked by, as if a body were leaning heavily against a doorway.