Plague World (Ashley Parker Novel) (13 page)

By this point in the disaster, most people had either fled, holed up as best they could, or died. I could still hear the occasional screams and shouts—and maybe more of JT’s war whoops off in the distance—but the last two days had changed San Francisco from a city in chaos to an apocalyptic landscape of blood, smoke, and death.

I looked up at a two-story house on my right just in time to see a curtain twitch shut as if someone had been looking out, but didn’t want to be seen. The front door of the house stood behind a sturdy wrought-iron gate and fence, the yard bordered by a high cement wall. Maybe whoever was inside would be safe, at least for a while.

I wished whoever was in there a silent good thought and kept jogging after Nathan and Tony, who quickly outpaced me with their longer legs. We wove around the occasional vehicle left askew across the sidewalk or plowed into a fence, fenders and front ends crumpled beyond repair. We cut over a few blocks early onto Vicente, where we encountered another Muni train that had collided with a PG&E repair truck, making the street more or less impassible.

The smell of anti-freeze and gasoline mingled with the scent of necrosis. I would have been a happy camper if I’d never had occasion to become so damned intimate with that particular odor.

There still were plenty of zombies wandering the streets, but they were pretty spread out, so we ran past them with as little contact as possible. A good shove took less time than a sword thrust or a headshot.

Others scratched and pounded for entrance at various houses, peeling off and honing in on us as we ran by, more accessible prey catching their single-minded attention. Good. It might keep whoever cowered inside safe for that much longer—long enough to shore up their defenses.

I didn’t want to think about their long-term survival odds—or anyone else’s, if we couldn’t stop this contagion. For the umpteenth time I swore to myself that I was going to kick Dr. Albert’s ass from here to eternity after we rescued him and he finished perfecting the cure.

Ayako stopped texting and took another obsessive look at the bite on her forearm. Beneath her ruined lace sleeve, the jagged semi-circle of punctures on her skin was an angry red, tinged with black. The wound throbbed, and the heat from it had been steadily spreading like a lava flow. Her whole body was wracked with fever, and her head ached as if her brain was a desperate trapped rat trying to claw its way out of her skull.

It hurt even to text, so she gave up on her uncooperative cell phone, got up off the boutique floor, and walked over to the window where Natsuki stood gazing down from the deserted fashion boutique that was their temporary refuge and prison.

Ayako laid her head on her friend’s shoulder, looking like an orphaned waif in her innocent Girly Girl outfit—frilly dress, lace jacket, white stockings, and glossy black shoes. Natsuki sported a more adventurous look, one part steampunk and two parts Napoleonic wars, with a black, brass-buttoned military long coat, belted tunic, breeches, and knee-high boots.

“Anything?” Natsuki asked, still staring down on Takeshita Street.

Ayako shook her head, instantly regretting it as the movement sent daggers of pain through her skull.

“No luck. I have bars, but no one’s answering.” She sighed. “Do you think it’s… you don’t think…” She trailed off and bit her lip, afraid to finish her thought.

Natsuki answered anyway.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It might be happening all over.” Her voice quavered as she continued. “Look at them all—it’s everybody.”

In the street below, the usual Takenoko-zoku menagerie paraded under festive arches sporting happy Miyazaki cartoon characters, past the shops and galleries and fast-food eateries toward Harajuku Station. There were dark-eyed Goth-Loli girls wearing black patent leather, twee Tim Burton stripes, and cobweb lacework with wild, candy-colored decoras, their artfully mismatched outfits garlanded with little dolls and toys. They moved alongside too-cool-for-school crews of ’50s Rockers, Hip-Hoppers, CyberPunks, and angelic, rustic Mori Girls dressed in simple earthy homespun like children of the forest.

There went the Noir Chic Kimono set, here came Sugar Hearts, Pastel Goths, and Glitter Courtesans. Spiky haired, angular Cosplay Heroes and spunky spritely Animaidens, and even the Kawakowaii Girls—a.k.a. the Scary Cutes, dressed up in school uniforms, adorable except for their habitual vampire or demon or zombie makeup.

Now
everyone
was a Scary Cute.

Ayako and Natsuki recognized most of them. These were their friends, rivals, idols and followers. The two girls had no idea what kind of disaster had taken place, or how the two of them had managed to escape, when all the rest had turned into a crowd of corpses, ambling with halting, spasmodic steps. Some had bloodstained mouths, and many showed nasty open wounds or were missing fingers, limbs, or pieces of their faces.

Ayako stared, hypnotized by the gruesome spectacle. Colors and shapes shifted, melted into one another as her fever continued to spike. Overwhelmed by terror, she bolted from the window with a wordless cry, falling onto her makeshift pallet of piled coats and woolen shawls, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably.

Somewhere off in the distance, sirens howled. Unseen helicopters pounded the air, and occasionally there was the muffled boom of an explosion that rattled the windows.

Ayako lay trembling and moaning in an increasingly inarticulate delirium. Her friend knelt by her side, gently singing a lullaby and shepherding damp strands of hair away from her fevered forehead.

“S-s-so cold.”

Natsuki took off her coat and covered Ayako with it.

* * *

After what felt like hours, the quivering incoherent muttering subsided, and Ayako lay deathly still. Natsuki watched her intently for a long, drawn-out minute. She bit her lip, hesitated, then gingerly reached out to touch her friend’s neck.

“Ayako-chan? Are you awake?”

No response.

She felt for a pulse.

There was nothing.

But wait… was that a faint, fluttering heartbeat, or were her hopeful fingertips just being fooled? She leaned in closer and listened carefully for sounds of Ayako’s breathing, gasping in relief when she felt the faint, wet ghost of an exhalation.

* * *

Natsuki maintained her watch as the sky outside began slowly bronzing toward evening. Periodically she would try calling or texting someone… anyone. But her cell phone was useless.

They were alone.

* * *

Clang!

Natsuki jumped, startled, when she heard the noise—a sharp, deliberate-sounding impact from downstairs. Was it rescue? Or…

She looked toward the stairs. It was dark in the shop. She held her breath, straining to hear more. There was a sound that might have been a footstep, then maybe another. Then a series of mysterious metallic clacks. She leaned in close and whispered in her friend’s ear.

“Ayako-chan, I think there’s someone here. Stay quiet and I’ll go check it out.”

If the younger girl heard her, she gave no trace of it. Natsuki risked one last whisper.

“I’ll be right back.”

She stood, pins and needles in her legs, and looked around for something she could use to defend herself. Nothing. So she fished the keychain flashlight out of her purse, took a moment to compose herself and then, with a small, determined nod, crept down the stairs using the small beam to guide her.

At the base of the stairs Natsuki paused, brow furrowed. She heard odd, unpleasant chalkboard-scratching sounds, and it was even darker than she had expected. The power was still out, but surely there should be light from the floor-length windows that faced the street.

She took a cautious step away from the stairs, pointing her little flashlight toward the window… and found herself face-to-face with a crowd of the dead, clawing at the glass with ruined fingers, leaving dark smears in their wake.

Natsuki recoiled at the sight, and stumbled backward. But even as part of her wanted to run screaming back upstairs, the rational part of her mind realized that the store windows were holding. The monsters were kept outside, at least for the time being.

A sharp metallic noise sounded from inside the room.

She froze, and slowly turned, side-to-side, her heart beating so fast that her chest ached. In the half-light the clothing racks, display tables, and mannequins formed a maze. She made her way as quietly as she could toward the source of the noise, somewhere at the front of the store. The sound of the clawing grew more frantic as she approached.

But there was another sound, too, like ragged breathing.

She drew closer, and cautiously peered around a clothing rack. Someone was there, near the entrance, kneeling on the floor. It was a boy about Ayako’s age, wearing a replica of the CyberSamurai armor from the series
RoboMech Paladins
. On the floor at his side lay an actual katana. The blade gleamed bright, except for the dark streaks of blood.

Natsuki recognized him.

“Tet-T-Tetsuo?”

The boy raised his head and turned to look up at her. His face was haunted, his eyes lost in a distant stare. Then they focused.

“Natsuki-san?” he said. “You’re… alive?”

The breath she’d been holding expelled in a relieved rush.

“Tetsuo! I’m so glad to see you!”

“Stay back!” he barked, thrusting his head up as she started toward him.

She flinched and stopped. Tetsuo dropped his head again.

“It’s the American disease,” he said, his voice softer. “It’s called Walker’s. It changes us into… them. They can’t be killed, Natsuki. I tried… I cut two of them in half, but they kept coming after me. They’re everywhere now. There’s nothing we can do. It’s… it’s the end of the world.”

“Tetsuo?”

“I won’t let them get me,” he continued. “I won’t be one of those things. I’m going to stay human… stay… human…” He leaned forward and his entire body clenched, a horrible rattling sound emanating from his throat.

Natsuki took a step in stunned silence, and another until she stood in front of him.

“Tetsuo?” Her eyes widened in shock.

His hands were locked around the hilt of a smaller wakizashi blade. He had thrust it just below his armored cuirass, burying it deep into his own stomach, and was striving to pull it across his abdomen. His face screwed up in a rictus of agony and the veins in his neck rose taut like steel cables as he dragged the blade a few jerky, brutal inches at a time, and then gave one final thrust upward.

Natsuki realized she was standing in an expanding pool of his blood and lurched back, slamming against the glass wall, oblivious to the scraping, moaning pack on the other side. Her strength broke down at last, and she sank down to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.

We crossed the eight blocks to the Great Highway with almost suspicious ease, proving I’d been living in a combination horror-and-spy movie that made it impossible to accept anything going right. Not without expecting a really big other shoe to drop as soon as I started to relax.

Fine. Then I won’t relax.

A loud cry caught my ears.

“Do you hear that?” I asked as the three of us reached the strip of grass, pickleweed, and bike path that separated the neighborhood from the Great Highway and Ocean Beach.

“Probably peacocks from the zoo,” Nathan shrugged. “It’s only a few blocks away.”

The whoop sounded again, this time closer. I shielded my eyes from the glare of the fog-diffused sun and scanned the surrounding terrain and houses back across the street. Then I grinned.

“It’s a peacock alright. But not from the zoo.” I pointed to where JT waved from atop one of the houses facing 48th, the last street before the bike path and the Great Highway. He looked as manically cheerful as ever, and as relaxed as if he were out for a Sunday stroll.

Taking a running start, JT leaped from the roof of the three-story house he was on to the next roof over, moving quickly to the red-brick building at the end of the block. There he dropped down onto a balcony and propelled himself without hesitation onto a very tall lamppost planted next to the building. He slid down it like a fireman on a pole, making it look as easy as a kid on a jungle gym as he landed feet first on the ground.

I snuck a sideways glance at Nathan, who wore one of his rare grins as he watched JT do his stuff. He shook his head.

“He’s either gonna get himself killed, or outlast us all,” he muttered.

Even Tony wore an expression of unwilling admiration. He wasn’t predisposed to like JT, who he thought was too cocky, too much… well, too much like Kai in a way. Kai’s death was way too fresh for Tony to be able to feel anything but resentment. But to a kid of Tony’s age and with his pop-culture worship, seeing someone make like Spider-Man had to be cool.

It was impossible not to admire him.

A few houses down there were several zombies in wetsuits, looking as if sharks with very small bite radiuses had attacked them. They saw JT land and immediately headed in his direction. Diehard surfers, so to speak, their boards trailed after them, still attached to their ankles by leashes.

Another zombie in a bike helmet and ripped nylon shorts headed toward him from the other end of the block. He ignored them all, leaping onto the nearest car, bounding across it to the next, and then onto an ancient RV parked right next to the bike path. Finally he dropped onto the pickleweed a mere ten feet away, then jogged up to us, barely even winded after his rooftop journey.

He looked very pleased with himself.

“Main pack of them is over by the zoo,” he said nonchalantly. “Most of them didn’t see me head back this way and I saw another bunch heading after the ’copter.”