The Dark Trinity (Book 1): Shuffle (17 page)

They approached the cable-car-like enclosure. Ronnie climbed
through the shattered front window.

"I bet it doesn't have power," Nathan guessed.
"We're going to have to climb the tracks like a ladder."

Ronnie ignored the comment and looked down at the operator
control panel. He saw a large green button in the center of the dash. Giving a
shrug, he pushed it. The tram came to life and lurched upwards. The brakes
halted the tram from moving. Ronnie gave a toothy smile.

"You were saying?"

Nathan jumped through the open window and joined his friend
inside the car. He looked at the operator controls and saw a huge lever next to
the control panel. He jerked the lever all the way back, which released the
brakes. The tram car lurched again and began the steady climb up the face of
Mt. Washington. When they started their ascent, the tram at the top of the
mountain began to head down. At the halfway point, the two cars would pass each
other. Nathan could see the other tram come into view out the right window. The
military must have been using the tram car as a hiding spot. When the two cars
were side-by-side, four bewildered soldiers saw two zombies staring at them
from the opposite car. Ronnie waved.

The confounded soldiers disappeared below them as the trams
continued their trip. Soon the car stopped at the Mt. Washington station.
Mayhem was everywhere, as zombies and humans ran around, screaming and
screeching and eating and bleeding and dying all over the place. The dynamic
duo ignored everything and scampered up the tall apartment tower across the
street.

After reaching the top, they each took a side of the roof to
scout. Confident that they weren’t followed and that they were, in fact alone,
the two sat behind the ledge and rested. They looked out over the city and
tried to wrap their heads around the scene that still unfolded before their new
dead eyes.

The South Side was completely imbibed in flames and the
majority of downtown was a war zone. Forward air squadrons from the Air Force
baptized the skyscrapers with rockets, bombs, and napalm. Apache attack
helicopters swooped in from the west and rained bullets from their fifty caliber
Vulcan cannons into unseen enemies below.

Beyond the city, more explosions flashed up above the tree
line as the carnage spread into the suburbs. The orange light cast an eerie
glow against the dark grey clouds of the cold December night. This was the day
that it all ended. This was the day that a collective scream signaled the death
of humanity.

“My God.”

Those were the only words that Nathan Ackland could say as he
saw his city, his home, destroy itself. They sat and watched as the Army moved
in to assume control from the National Guard. Below their perch on the roof,
the zombies continued their feast on any human survivors they could find. Some
people put up a fight. Some even succeeded in killing a few of the creepers,
but that just prolonged the inevitable.

The overwhelming smell of the fresh blood below brought waves
of hunger pain to his stomach, which felt like a crushing ball of agony. He
could almost taste the delicious flesh, as if it were right next to him. Nathan
became aware that there was a strange crunching/slurping sound beside him.
Turning his head, he saw Ronnie chewing on the fingers of the Guardsman’s arm,
which he apparently carried with him the whole way from the bridge.

“Dude!”

Ronnie looked over casually. “What?”

“What the fuck, man?” Nathan asked, pointing to the mangled
arm hanging out of his friend’s mouth.

Finally realizing what he was doing, Ronnie pulled the
remains of the arm from his face and tossed it over the side of the building. “Oh
shit bro, I’m sorry. I didn’t even know I was doing that! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I
don't wanna go all stupid, man!”

“Just calm the hell down. Maybe you didn’t eat enough of it.”

Ronnie panicked. “Dude, promise me that if I go all postal
and crazy like all the others, you’ll be a brother and end me?”

“Dude, if you ghoul out on me, I’m putting you on a leash and
keeping you for a pet,” he replied, trying to hide a smile.

Ronnie paused. “Aw, man, you had me going there for a
minute...”

“Let’s try to find something to eat that’s NOT human. Maybe it
will counteract the effects."

Within minutes, they had eaten several pigeons, which were
bountiful on this rooftop. Just in time too, as the hunger and pain were almost
past the breaking point for them. The pain receded back into oblivion,
signaling another temporary reprieve from the insatiable craving.

Nathan looked over at his friend, who still had a few
feathers stuck to his blood-smeared cheek. “How ya feeling?”

“Um, I think I’m okay. I don’t feel any different. Looks like
it worked,” he replied, wiping his face with his sleeve.

“Good to hear.”

Ronnie gave a satisfied nod. Then his eyes narrowed as he
began to look at Nathan's bare chest through his unzipped jacket. “Holy shit,
bro, you're shot!”

“What? Really?” Nathan looked down and saw what had caught
Ronnie’s attention. Bullet holes riddled his chest, twelve in all. Thin trails
of thick, dark blood had run from each of the wounds, but they were no longer
bleeding. Then something strange began to happen. Little by little, the holes
began to shrink in size. They were healing.

The two zombies stood there in awe as each bullet ejected
themselves out of every hole. The mangled slugs fell to the rooftop one by one,
causing a rhythmic rain of lead on the tar paper where they stood. Tap, tap,
tap...tap, tap...tap, tap, tap, tap...tap...tap, tap.

Ronnie laughed and raised his hand, pointing at the bullets
as they fell. “Oh snap! You got tagged hardcore!” The motion of his arm had
lifted his jacket, which allowed a torrent of malformed bullet slugs to pour
from underneath his coat. “Oh, fuck!”

He immediately unzipped the down parka and lifted his shirt,
which was now well vented, and exposed his torso. There were over twice the
amount of bullet wounds from the automatic weapons fire as Nathan had. It was
clear that they sucked at evasion tactics.

A few moments later, their injuries had completely healed.
The only remaining trace of the attack on their pale skin were faint red dots,
which were continuing to fade, and the dried blood from the initial bleeding.

Strange how neither of us felt any of the shots,
Nathan thought. He figured that pain from the Hunger had been so intense, that
it masked the pain from the bullets. Or perhaps in their new physiological
make-up, they sensed pain differently. He knew that they felt pain when they
needed to feed, which meant the pain receptors in their nerves were still
intact. It didn’t matter, but it fascinated him.

Nathan shook himself back to reality and looked at the
devastated city that had shimmered so valiantly in the winter snow just hours
ago. “Okay, I think we’ve wasted enough time here. It looks like regular army
has arrived, so the military presence is going to be formidable. We need to
make tracks to the West End.”

Ronnie wore a blank expression on his face as he zoned out
for a moment. He snapped out of it and realized that Nathan was talking to him.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sounds good.”

“You alright?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”

They walked to the far side of the roof and jumped over the
alley onto the adjacent roof. They stayed up high to avoid the mess in the
streets. The less people they came into contact with—zombie or human—the
better. They reached the ledge of another building and leaped to the next,
which was significantly taller. They dug in with their claws and scaled the
wall; chunks of brick and mortar fell to the ground with each movement.

What they didn’t realize was that far below them, a lone
zombie sat in the alley feasting on the leg of a local weatherman. It glanced
at the rubble falling from above and then directed its attention up to the
source. It stared at the two zombies scaling the face of the building.
Instantly, the image of Nathan and Ronnie sparked something inside the
creeper’s brain. Faster than a blink of an eye, the image broadcast out on
unseen pathways down the mountain and across the water, until it found its
destination.

Walking steadily along a high support beam which was still
intact, the large group of undead moved perilously across the ruined Fort Pitt
Bridge. Her pupils dilated as the blurry image imprinted onto her optic nerve.
Sunshine stopped dead in her tracks, causing several her ranks to topple into
the watery abyss below

There you are...
she thought as a maniacal grin
stretched across her face.

CHAPTER 20 
  INSIDE
VOICE

For more than an hour now, the dog ran with unequaled
determination. Ignoring the pain that he felt in his shoulder, Boomer pushed
through the snow. More snow had come, and with it, loud machines that moved in
the air. They filled the sky and spit fire down on the people below, not only
killing the dead things that still moved, but the human people as well.

He had changed directions before reaching the river.
Something had told him that Master was not there; he had moved. A voice had
whispered in his head. Not a human voice though. This voice he understood
completely. It was a comforting voice. A friendly voice.

[“You must change your path, little one. Your Master is no
longer among the towers that touch the sky. It is important that you find him,
for he will need you.

Follow the water until the moon is highest. There you must
swim to the land across. Run towards the trees ahead and you will find him.

You must not stop. You must not rest.

Hurry little one. HURRY!”]

The dog sped down the highway, following the road as it
curved past the city. Fires burned everywhere. The machines in the sky floated
in the air, spitting more fire and death. He weaved around the mass of cars,
evading bodies, both alive and dead, as he pushed on.

Men in strange clothing, wearing bowls on their heads, shot
fire from the noisy sticks which they held. He heard the never-ending chorus of
screams all around him, as the men with the noise sticks killed everything that
moved. Many of these strangers died as the dead-things hunted them.

His progress slowed as the bloodbath raged around him. No one
had noticed him as he weaved throughout the labyrinth of wreckage. The road
sloped upwards, elevating over the cross streets that connected the North Shore
to downtown. The fighting was much lighter here and he was able to go faster
along the berm.

A few minutes later, he darted down an off-ramp that took him
back to ground level. Boomer sniffed the air and shifted his course towards the
scent. Before long, he could see the water. Adjusting his course a second time,
he continued on parallel to the mighty Ohio River.

An explosion knocked out a nearby transformer, plunging the
North Shore into darkness. The fires that burned provided more than enough
light to travel by. Gradually, the dead-things, soldiers, and humans became
fewer and fewer as the little dog ran. Soon he was alone; the massacre that he
had seen faded into the background.

As his little paws thrust him forward, the snow that had been
falling had tapered off to a few lingering flakes floating in the air. Boomer
looked up and saw the clouds begin to break; the full, swollen moon peeked
through with its comforting effulgence.

His muscles burned. His stomach growled. His wounded shoulder
throbbed with every stride. He thought about Lady. He worried about her.
Master
would know what to do.
He would help Master find Lady. The thought of
reuniting with his family drove the dog through the pain and the hunger.

Boomer ran, guided by the moon—and the whisper voice inside his
head.