The Complex (19 page)

Both men nod.

“I hope fat boy is up there,” Shaggy says.

“I don’t,” Sam replies. “For all of our sakes.”

Shaggy puffs out his chest. “If he is, you just leave that fucker to me.”

Sam begins guiding them forward again, creeping toward the corner of the complex. The smoke isn’t as bad here, but the heat radiating off the walls is definitely noticeable. Shaggy follows close behind, with Mendez, Terri, Caleb, and Stephanie clustered in between. Grady brings up the rear, his pistol at the ready.

As they reach the corner of the building, Sam holds up one finger, indicating silence. He glances back to make sure they all understand. Each of them meet his gaze, and at that moment, Sam feels prouder than he’s ever been about anything in life. The look they give him is trusting, and the emotions it stirs up inside him are better than any amount of awards or good reviews. Smiling, he wipes his sweaty palms on his pants and readjusts his grip on the Taurus. Then he slinks around the corner.

Something punches him in the chest.

Stunned, Sam looks down and sees a length of rebar sticking out of him. The other end is in the hands of a naked man. Judging by the attacker’s physique, he was a bodybuilder before he became a raving maniac. The weightlifter grins, and shoves the rebar deeper into Sam. Sam tries to speak, tries to warn the others, but his throat seems full of something. He raises his head, and sees two dozen more crazies creeping along the side of the building. Behind them, smiling broadly, is Tick Tock. The giant spreads his arms as if to say, ‘
What took you so long?’

“Hey, fat boy!”

Suddenly, Shaggy is standing beside Sam, firing his Kimber. The first bullet hits a woman in the neck. She staggers, takes a few steps forward, and then slumps against the wall, spraying it with blood. The second round strikes Tick Tock in the stomach. The big man grunts, pauses, and then continues plodding toward them. Shaggy pulls the trigger again and again, but he doesn’t seem to realize the gun is empty. Sam tries to explain this to him, but when he opens his mouth, he vomits blood.

“Motherfucker!” Shaggy stares at the weapon in disbelief.

Sam is aware of Terri and Stephanie screaming his name, but he can’t turn his head to see them. He raises the pistol slowly, hand trembling, and shoots his opponent in the face, pulverizing much of the man’s lower jaw. The bodybuilder doesn’t seem to realize he is shot, at first. His tongue lolls out of his mouth, dangling into the gore where his chin and teeth used to be. Sam drops the pistol, grabs the rebar, and shoves forward, knocking the man over.

“Come on,” Mendez yells. “Shaggy, there’s too many! You’ll get another chance.”

“But Sam,” Terri protests.

“There’s no time! Run!”

Sam tries to raise his arm and wave at them, reassuring them that he’s okay, but his body doesn’t want to cooperate. Despite the heat baking off the burning complex, he suddenly feels very cold.

The rest of the mob race past him in pursuit of the others. Sam wishes he could stick out his leg and trip them. He wonders where his pistol has gone. Didn’t he just have it a second ago? There should be three bullets left.

Tick Tock strides up to him and grabs the rebar. He grins as Sam’s blood runs down onto his hands.

“You…stink…” Sam spits more blood, hocking a big wad of it on the fat man’s tattoo. Sam watches as it trickles downward. It looks like Hello Kitty is crying blood. Then, he glances back up at his opponent.

Tick Tock’s smile vanishes. His knuckles pop as he grips the rebar tighter. Then, with one savage motion, he yanks it free. Sam topples over onto his side.

He wonders if he left his computer on.

He wonders if he remembered to save the story he was working on. If so, it should be in his Dropbox account when he wakes up again.

He wants to call for Sergio, but he can’t breathe.

Then, a shadow covers him. Sam’s eyes dart upward, and he sees Tick Tock looming over him. The behemoth has the rebar raised over his head like a spear.

Then it comes rushing down toward Sam’s face.

Sam’s last thought before dying is,
‘But I wanted to live…’

Nineteen - Grady, Stephanie, Terri, Caleb, Shaggy, and The Exit: Cranbrook Road

They’ve made it across the yard—dodging the flames and smoke, and staying ahead of their pursuers—and onto Country Club Road when Grady’s chest pains return. The spasms are stronger this time, as if Tick Tock himself has grabbed hold of Grady’s heart in one meaty fist and is squeezing it tight. Since he’s got the only weapon, Grady has been bringing up the rear, picking off the crazies when he gets a shot. Now, he stumbles on his bad ankle, wheezing for breath.

“Dude.” Shaggy falls back, running alongside him. “Give me the gun.”

“Hell no,” Grady pants. “I’m not…giving you…”

“Your face is turning gray and you look like you’re about to keel the fuck over. Give me the fucking gun and let me get them off our ass. I’m out of bullets.”

Grady is in too much pain to argue. He slows down enough to surrender his weapon, and then Shaggy spins around, takes aim, and drops two targets.

“Here,” Grady gasps, reaching in his pocket for more bullets.

Shaggy holds out one hand. Grady nearly drops the ammunition as he places it in the younger man’s palm. Shaggy hurriedly reloads.

“Get going, Mr. Hicks. I got this.”

Nodding, Grady jogs after the others. It is an effort just to keep his legs moving. His feet feel like they’re bags of cement, and his wounded ankle is throbbing again, despite Mendez’s earlier triage. The pain in his chest begins to radiate, spiraling throughout the rest of him.

Mendez is at the front of the procession, leading them up a hill. Grady is surprised to see that he’s carrying the young boy—Caleb—on his shoulders. For a moment, Grady wonders if his odd-duck neighbor is starting to soften. The he realizes Mendez is probably only doing this to either keep the boy quiet or to ensure that he doesn’t slow them down. The boy is hunched over, clinging tight to Mendez’s head. Caleb’s mother is right behind them, along with the pretty girl from upstairs. She introduced herself before, but Grady can’t remember her name. Stephanie, maybe? Yes, he thinks that’s it. Their feet echo on the sidewalk, a counterpoint to the jeers and snarls of the mob chasing after them.

The Pine Village Apartment Complex is on their left as they run up the hill. Grady is stunned to see that their building isn’t the only one on fire. Both the A and C buildings are also engulfed in flames. Despite the pain coursing through him, he feels a sudden emotional loss, as well. He thinks about all the things he can’t replace—photographs from his childhood and the war, and of his daughter growing up. Gone now, and he will never get them back. Grady has renter’s insurance, but some things are irreplaceable.

To their right is a suburban housing development—rows and rows of identical ranch-style homes, right across Cranbrook Road from the Pine Village Apartment Complex, yet financially unreachable. Many times Grady has sat outside his apartment of an evening, smoking a cheap cigar and watching the sun go down and listening to his aluminum lawn chair squeak, and he has stared at those houses. They were always a reminder that, despite his best efforts in life, they were something he would never be able to achieve or obtain. He imagines many of his neighbors felt the same way.

The homes in the development are occupied by white and black families, all upper middle-class, mostly white collar; the majority of them two-parent households with two or three kids and a dog. And despite the fact that their houses are located in Red Lion, none of them live in town. Not really. In the morning, the parents commute off to work—most to either Baltimore, Harrisburg, or Lancaster, a few as far afield as Washington D.C. or Philadelphia—while their children go off to private schools. They are only home at night. Weekends are spent commuting back to those same cities they work in, to shop at an Amish Market or go to a museum or to attend an Orioles game. The only time people like Grady see them is if they’re outside, washing their BMW in the driveway, or once a year when they host a community yard sale, or maybe during the Fourth of July fireworks display over the high school’s football field. They aren’t part of the community. They aren’t neighbors. They’re just drones.

And now, they’re prey. Grady notices that many of the houses have broken windows and battered down doors. A few of them are on fire. There are overturned cars in driveways and on the streets. Blood stains a sidewalk. A pile of still-steaming intestines slowly slops off a curb, dripping down into a sewer grating. He hears screams deeper in the development, down a side road. Then he starts to see the bodies. It’s only two or three at first, lying dead in their yards or driveways, but as they reach the top of the hill and Mendez leads them deeper into the development, the corpses begin to multiply.

Tick Tock and his legions have already been here.

Grady has a sudden, intense vision of naked homicidal maniacs going door to door, shouting Trick or Treat and singing Christmas Carols while they shoot and stab and bludgeon the neighborhood.

Six shots ring out in quick succession behind him. A moment later, Shaggy is trotting beside him, fingers deftly reloading the pistol as they run.

“You gonna be okay?”

Grady nods. His mouth is too dry to speak.

“Don’t be having a fucking heart attack,” Shaggy warns. “I ain’t carrying your ass.”

Grady points behind them, indicating to the younger man that he should watch their backs.

“Don’t sweat it,” Shaggy says. “Ain’t no more of them back there, dude. I guess fat boy couldn’t keep up. He was fucking shot. Maybe that slowed him down. Some of the others split off. And I popped the rest.”

Grady risks a glance over his shoulder and is surprised to see that Shaggy is telling the truth. He swoons, and stumbles, and his vision starts to narrow. Despite his protestations to the contrary, Shaggy reaches out and grabs Grady’s arm, supporting him.

“Yo, Mr. Mendez! Wait up. Grady’s hurting.”

Mendez stops, turns around, and puts a finger to his lips, hushing Shaggy. Then, after glancing around to make sure the coast is clear, he hurries back to them. Caleb bounces atop his shoulders. Terri and Stephanie gather round Grady, as well. Grady is crouched over, gripping his knees. He’s worried that if Shaggy lets go of him, he might fall over, but he doesn’t want the others to worry.

“I’m…okay,” he insists. “Just…out…of breath.”

“There’s a swimming pool over there.” Mendez points. “We can hide in it for a bit. Let’s hurry, though. The power’s out and the streetlights are dark. I don’t see any of them around, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there, hiding in the shadows. I find it hard to believe they would have given up on us so easily.”

“Easily?” Shaggy laughs. “Shit, wasn’t nothing easy about it. We’ve been outsmarting them all fucking night.”

Ignoring him, Mendez clasps Grady’s hand and squeezes. “Can you make it that far?”

Grady is momentarily taken aback, touched by the concern he hears in his neighbor’s voice. Swallowing hard, he nods.

“I can…make it.”

“Okay, then.” Mendez lets go of Grady and straightens up. “We’ll head for the pool. Everyone keep an eye out. Be ready to run if we encounter any of them between here and there.”

“And where do we go if that happens?” Terri asks.

“Whichever way is the clearest. Shaggy, how is your ammunition?”

“Running low.”

Nodding, Mendez hurries toward the house with the swimming pool. The others rush along behind him. Terri and Stephanie support each of Grady’s arms. Both women smell heavily like smoke. Grady supposes that he does, as well. He feels grimy, covered in dirt and sweat and other people’s blood. Feeling self-conscious, he tries to remember if he put deodorant on today. He supposes most men his age would be embarrassed by this, but Grady is grateful. Stephanie reminds him a little bit of his daughter—she has that same spunk and spirit. Heart, is what the young people call it. She has heart. He’s glad for that. Heart is what will help them make it through this night.

As they sneak through the yard, Grady spots a dead dog, split down the middle so severely that the carcass is almost cut in half. The poor beast’s innards are scattered throughout the grass.

“Careful,” Grady warns. “Watch your step.”

The pool is an above ground construct, encircled with a deck fashioned out of oak planks. A chain link security fence surrounds it. Mendez quietly lifts the latch on the gate, and glances around one more time.

“I’m going to put you down now, Caleb,” Mendez tells the boy.

Caleb doesn’t protest, and takes his mother’s hand. Mendez leads them inside, and Shaggy closes the gate behind them. Then, crouching down, they creep across the deck. The planks creak beneath their feet, and Grady stiffens, expecting a naked person to burst out of the darkness. Instead, they reach the edge of the water without incident. Although, judging by the far-off sounds of gunshots, shouts, and screams in the distance, the crazies are hard at work throughout the rest of the town.

“So, what now?” Stephanie asks.

Mendez pulls his wallet from his pocket, drops it on the deck, and then slips into the pool. The water level comes up to his chest.