The Rabid: Fall (20 page)

“Grenade out!” Tomas calls as he lobs a frag over the side of the building. I can’t see where it lands, but four seconds later, a loud concussion splits the air.

My gun clicks empty.

I’m out of ammo belts.

I pick up an AR from the pile behind me and begin going to work with it. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”

Katia doesn’t say anything.

“We’re going to be fine, Tim. Just keep doing what you know to do.” Momma is firing slow, but sure; picking her shots and making them count.

The pack still extends back as far as I can see, like fanatical worshippers on some sacred pilgrimage, trampling one another, eager to throw their bodies upon our altar. But how much more weight can it take before it crumbles beneath the horrid offerings and buries us in its rubble?

***

The force becomes more than we can take. We move back away from the ledge, taking them on as they emerge in packs of two’s and three’s.

Katia drops her gun and takes up her swords. She stays back between me and Momma, ready to go hands on if we need her to.

“You guys okay?”

“Tim, we’re fine and so are you, just chill.” Katia is bouncing back and forth on the balls of her feet, breathing in steady through her nose and out through her mouth.

“We’re almost out of ammo!” Eric announces the bad news.

“But we’re not out of ammo, so shut up and keep firing!” Norton is standing with us, pistol outstretched, picking them off like an expert marksman; one shot, one kill.

The words I’ve been dreading begin making their way down the line

“Out of ammo!”

“Me too! I’m out!”

“All dry!”

“Then go to knives, or pistol-whip the bastards if you like, just keep them away from that satellite!” Norton has not been swayed by our situation, his ferocity has only intensified.

My gun clicks empty. I drop it and pull my tactical knife.

A couple of the guys to the left of me have already started to go hands on, swinging and slamming the butts of their rifles through the soft skulls of the ghastly trespassers. 

“Let’s go, Tim. I’ve got your back.” Katia charges in. She twirls around like a windmill as she meets her first opponent and takes its head right off its shoulders.

I pull up next to her as she’s dismembering her next victim from the feet up. The first Rabid that charges me is young—despite the extensive decay they’ve somehow maintained a spark of youth, maybe it’s the skinny jeans and the high-top Converse—I go low and dodge their hungry claws. I swing back up and rake my blade across their belly, opening them up and spilling their organs at my feet. I kick it in the back of the right knee, knocking it down low enough to sink my blade into its skull.

Momma is on the ground next to me, flattening some monstrous old lady’s head with the butt of her rifle. She doesn’t see the two other Rabid that have just appeared over the wall, now charging towards her.

“Momma!” I throw my body at the duo, hitting the first one and knocking it into the second, taking them both down at the same time. I’m overwhelmed immediately. I manage to slide my blade into the temple of the first Rabid, but its friend has gotten a grip on my arms and has managed to roll on top of me. I’m pinned and can’t get the blade up to its head. I’ve got a hand wrapped around its throat and am just able to keep it from sinking its teeth into me. My other hand holds the knife, which I’m using to stab it in the side over and over, with all the vim and vigor of a prison shanking. The skin around its throat begins to slip and tear beneath my fingers as the Rabid presses downward, desperate to taste me.

It’s so close.

I can see the rotten flesh stuck between its teeth.

I can smell its fetid breath.

The beast is close enough for me to kiss.

My hand tears through the veins and vocal chords and gets a grip on the spine at the base of the skull. I leave my knife jammed in its side and bring my other hand around, bracing it against its forehead. In one swift motion, I push its head back with one hand and yank forward with the other. It’s like pulling a giant chord out of the wall. Its eyes close and it slumps forward, drenching me with a torrent of black blood.

I get Momma to her feet and we stand beside Katia.

“Are you okay?” Katia asks as she dislodges her sword from a skull.

“Yeah. It’s not my blood. Momma?”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“That’s not gonna happen.”

“Just stay beside me. Call your kills,” Katia says as two more come at us. “I’ve got the one on the right.”

We fight like hell, every man swinging and grunting, smashing heads and severing limbs.

Norton is using the butt of his pistol and his blade to great effect, hammering and slashing, moving like a man half his age. He bats a pair of hungry claws away with the pistol, knees the owner in the stomach, and buries his knife in the base of their skull.

Tomas cries out as two Rabid sink their teeth into his arms. Eric pulls them off, crushes their skulls, and sends them spiraling over the edge of the building, but the damage is done; Tomas is a dead man walking.

Tomas throws down his rifle, pulls the pin on a grenade, and charges three Rabid near the edge of the building, screaming, bloody arms extended. “Come to Daddy, you vicious bastards!” He wraps them up in a bear hug and vanishes over the side, an explosion following soon after.

“That’s how you go out! Like a soldier! For Tomas!” Norton roars as the butt of his pistol shatters the skull of another Rabid; a juvenile female that appears to be no older than ten.

“Tomas!” the voices boom in unison.

The sacrifice seems to spur the men onward.

The chaos swirls around us.

I keep my back to Momma and Katia. We work as a single unit, turning slow circles, repelling whatever comes our way. I pay more attention to Momma, taking up whatever slack she leaves behind. I trust Katia’s ability. Momma is much less seasoned, much less capable.

Men begin to fall and the siege begins to spiral out of our control. Soldiers on either side of us scream for help, for mercy, for a quick death; we are unable to grant them any of their wishes, too caught up with trying to keep our own skin intact.

“Fall back!” Norton orders. “Protect the satellite!”

We join Norton and the few remaining soldiers on the back, north corner of the rooftop, forming a semi-circle around the humming satellite dish. The Rabid quickly fill out the remaining sections of rooftop. There’s nowhere to go but down.

“Katia, Momma, I love you both.”

“Don’t do that!” Katia snaps.

“Do what?”

“Talk like we’re gonna die!”

“She’s right, honey. We’ve got to be positive.”

“Are you two serious right now?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been an honor to fight beside you.” Norton twirls his blade, tongue cocked to one side of his mouth.

“See! I’m not the only one!”

“It’s not over till it’s over.” Katia gets low and raises her swords. Her courage shines brighter than everyone else around us. Some of the men are visibly shaking, unable to cope with the looming threat of getting eaten alive.

All at once the Rabid charge, claws first, eyes bulging, bloody teeth clacking, their guttural roars assembling, sounding the final cannibalistic dinner bell for the ones still waiting below.

This is it.

The moment for me to protect the ones I love with everything I have; even if it means my life.

The Rabid are only twenty feet away.

I’ll meet the bastards halfway!

I sound the charge and take off, my boots sliding out from beneath me a few times before I’m able to get any real traction.

These things definitely weren’t built for running.

“Tim! No!” Momma cries.

“What the hell are you doing?” Katia reaches for me and fumbles.

I close my eyes and extend the knife.

I don’t want the Rabid to be the last thing that I see.

I can smell their breath.

Hear the utterance of their hunger pangs swelling in my ears.

Any minute now…

My foot snags on something and I go down hard. I don’t land on pavement. I land on something squishy. I open my eyes and find myself in hell, lying in a field of Rabid bodies. I roll over and sit up on my butt, unable to find my knife.

I’m still on the roof.

Momma and Katia are still here.

The soldiers and Norton are still here.

But the Rabid…all of them lie motionless around me.

“It worked.” It almost sounds like a question at first. A smile slowly breaks across Norton’s face. “Holy shit! It worked!”

The soldiers begin to hoot and holler, throwing their weapons away and wrapping each other up in big bear hugs.

I stand with the legs of a toddler and turn my head slowly to the parking lot, gasping at the wilderness of fallen Rabid now blanketing the earth.

Momma’s hands come up to her mouth and she collapses to her knees. 

Katia tosses the katanas and starts fighting to get to me, bunny hopping the fallen Rabid, all while alternating between laughing and sobbing.

I’m desperate to meet her. I trip and fall, scraping my hands against the shingles. The pain doesn’t register as I clamber back to my feet. “Katia!”

“Tim!”

I pick her up and she coils her legs around my waist.

“It’s over. I can’t believe it’s over.” She cinches her arms around my neck, laughing as her tears drench my shirt.

32

“So that’s it.” Norton is propped up against a streetlamp, watching us with a smile that hasn’t left his face since the Rabid fell.

“That’s it,” I confirm.

Katia loads the last of our bags into the back of a Chevy truck we took from the parking garage. “That’s all of it.”

“Thanks for everything, General.” Momma extends her hand through the passenger window and Norton steps forward to shake it.

“It’s been my pleasure ma’am.”

“Take care of yourself.” Katia hugs him and gives him a brief kiss on the cheek.

“You take it easy on Tim.”

“Yeah, whatever. He’s a big boy.” She hops into the back of the pickup and pulls the door shut.

“So what’s the next step?”

Norton shrugs like he hasn’t thought that far ahead. “Rebuild, I guess. There are plenty of other survivors out there. Plenty of other shelters like this. It’s just a matter of making contact.”

“Well, if there was ever a man for the job, you’re it.”

“We could use the extra hands, if you feel like sticking around.”

I look back at Momma and Katia and shake my head. “Nah. I think I’m gonna bow out while I’m ahead.”

“Not all of us were built for war.”

“You’re right, but we’ve all got one to fight.”

“Looks like yours has come to an end. Where will you go?”

“Home, I think.”

“What’s waiting for you back there?”

I shrug. I haven’t thought that far ahead. “I guess we’ll see.”

***

The truck rocks gently as I turn onto the familiar gravel driveway. Tall trees surround us on either side. Fifty yards up, there’s a gentle bend, bathed in sunlight. As I make the turn, our little, yellow house appears. The bodies of the Rabid…of Bo…have rotted away beneath the heavy hand of weather and time. The yard looks a bit like an upturned graveyard.

I stop the truck just short of the front porch and we all hop out. “Looks like home.”

“That it does,” Momma says.

“So this is it?” Katia scoots up behind me and wraps her arms around my waist.

“This is it.”

“It’s peaceful out here, aside from all the skulls and bones.”

“Yeah, we had to shoot our way out when we left.”

I take Katia by the hand and lead her up the wooden steps, kicking the bones away and standing with her in the middle of the porch.

“What are you doing?” she asks, her face turning a light shade of pink.

“Hey, Momma,” I call down.

“Look at you two, so cute.” Momma is leaning against the hood, arms crossed.

“Sing us a ditty.”

“A what?” Katia tilts her head at me.

“What do you want to hear?” Momma asks.

“Over the Rainbow.”

Katia giggles. “What is this?”

I put one hand behind my back and offer her the other. “May I have this dance?”

The End

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One Final Word

We’ve arrived, folks. It’s the end of the Rabid Trilogy. What a ride. I honestly never saw myself reaching this point. When I started writing the first book, I never thought it’d take off like it did. I never thought it’d get picked up by the kind people over at Severed Press.

But, somehow, the stars aligned. As Timmy’s mom might say, the Universe wanted me to write this series. The response to it has been more than I could have ever imagined and I can’t thank all of you enough for your support.

I didn’t know where this story was going to go after the first book. I like to keep the possibilities open and give the characters an opportunity to speak to me and guide me; that’s what happened here. The Rabid started as a big picture apocalypse story. But now that the dust is settled and the Rabid are no more, I see that it became so much more than that. It became a story about a boy (Timmy) finding out who he truly is in the worst situation imaginable. Before the apocalypse, he was the outcast, the oddball, with no friends (let alone a girlfriend); all he had was his family.

But then came the fire.

The pressure.

And Timmy evolved. He found love. He found courage. He transformed from a boy, into a man.

They say diamonds are made under pressure. I think that’s what this story is really about; transforming from a lump of coal, into a brilliant diamond. It’s the story of us. Of me and you. We all go through hard times. How will we allow the hard times to define us? Will they make us bitter or better?

I hope you’ve enjoyed the Rabid trilogy. Until next time, keep your head up.

J.V.