Zombie D.O.A. (15 page)

“I tried to call,” I said, more to myself than to him.
“
I couldn’t get through.”

“Exactly, “ Joe said.
“
Now granted, they probably had their hands full with people
chowing down on each other, but what
,
no message, no please hold, no…”

“Joe…”

“…we’ll get right back to you and…”

“Joe…”

“…you gotta ask yourself…”

“Shut the fuck up!”

That knocked the wind out of his sails and his
shoulders
visibly slumped. I felt almost bad for him, but I
was just so tired of running and I wanted badly for this to be over, to be safe, for Ruby to be safe.

“Joe
,
” I said, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for us. Wasn’t for you, I’d be dead right now, probably Ruby too. But I’m heading south. I’m heading to the park and I’m getting some medical attention for my daughter. You want to head north, that‘s your choice, but we ain’t going with you.
”

I expected some protest from him but he said nothing, appeared not to even
be
listening to me. He had his head half turned and was shining his light back into the tunnel.

“You hear that?” Joe whispered.
I stood there in the darkness hearing nothing but the trickle of water and the sound of my own breathing heavy in my ears.

And then, like a plaintive note becoming recognizable as a melody I began to discern something else, far away but closing, the click-click-click of claws on concrete.

“Rats,” Joe said, “
heading this way,
a lot of them by the sound of it.
” The sound was getting louder now, the chittering of a million claws punctuated by high
-
pitch
ed
squeals. I turned to run.

“Wait!” Joe
shouted
, “We’ll never ou
trun them. There was a ladder a
ways back.”

I started to protest but he was already moving, and after a moment
’
s hesitation I followed.
We ran
towards
the approaching
mass of rodents, the sound of
squeals and scrabbling claws becoming a single wall of noise.

In the darkness, Joe overshot the ladder and by the time he looped back I had already climbed up a few rungs. Joe followed and
gave me a signal to keep climbing
.
When I didn’t move he repeated the signal, more urgently this time.

O
ver the cacophony below us
I shouted
, “They can’t get to us here, let’s just wait
it
out.”

“It’s not the rats I’m worried about,” Joe shouted back, “It’s what they’re running from.”

Just then we heard another sound among th
e fleeing
rodent
s
,
a primal roar that
echoed and bounced along
the
concrete corridors amplifying it
ten-fold.

Despite myself I shone
the flashlight into the darkness as the first of the
things
appeared. He looked up with
sunken eyes and grimaced, revealing a mouthful of jagged,
gore-stained
teeth.

The creature
flew up the ladder, grabbed Joe by the ankle and instantly sunk his teeth in. I heard the crunch
of
too
th on bone but to Joe’s credit, he didn’t scream nor even
make a sound
. 

I could feel the handgun, heavy in my waistband where I’d stashed it, but clinging to the ladder by one hand, flashlight in the other, it was useless. Instead I
climbed down a few rungs to where Joe was, lifted my foot and brought it down hard on the top of the creature
’
s skull.  There was a sickening crack as my boot made contact, and the creature lost its grip and crashed to the concrete below.

“Climb
!
” Joe screamed, slidin
g the R5 from his shoulder and he
did. Below me I heard the sharp report of the rifle as Joe got to work.

I had almost reached
the surface w
h
en the manhole c
over above me
started to shift.
Daylight
flooded into the tunnel and
a
face
appeared
. 
Momentarily b
linded by the
brightness
I was unable to make out any of its features.

Then the man lifted a finger to his lips and motioned me to keep climbing, and I realized he was wearing a military helmet.  I climbed the last few rungs and poked my head through the hole. There were six or seven soldiers encircli
ng the manhole, crouched in shoo
ting positions
, rifles
aimed
at
my head.

In the next moment I was lifted bodily from the hole
, disarmed
and frog-marched some twenty feet across the pavement. A young soldier holding a sidearm indicated for me to lie on my stomach. Lying there flat on my belly, with Ruby still strapped to my back I heard him cock his weapon and thought for a moment he was going to execute us, right there in the street. I braced myself for a shot that never came.

Joe had stopped firing and I now heard the clunk-clunk of the metal rungs as he ascended
the ladder
. The next thing I heard was the clutter of rifles and one of the soldiers shouting, “Don’t move. We got you covered.” Then I heard Joe laughing as though he’d just been told the world’s funniest joke.

After a while, Joe’s voice, still with a serious case of the giggles, “This what they teach
you
chuckleheads
in the US Army these days. You got me covered? Fucking priceless, you’re in a nice neat circle, yo
u dumb-asses. You open fire now,
you’ll end up cutting each other to pieces. Stupid fuckers.”

One of the soldiers sounding very unsure of himself said, “Lieutenant?” and the guy holding the gun on me spoke.

“We got your friend back here,” he said, “so don’t give us any trouble, you hear.” He spoke with a Southern drawl and his voice sounded as though it had just broken.

“Great,” I heard Joe say, “So now the US Army is taking civilian hostages. What th
e fuck’s this country coming to?
”

“Marines, sir,” one of the soldiers corrected him, “we’re US Marines.”

“Woop-de-fucking-doo,” Joe said.

I heard him
hustled a
cross the tarmac and made to lie
next to me. The young lieutenant was on the radio, obviously reporting back about our capture.

“Joe,” I whispered, “You okay? You were bitten.”

“ Nah”, he said, “Stupid
son-of-a-bitch
chomped down on my ankle holster. Probably broke his teeth on my .38.
“

On the radio the young lieutenant was still getting his orders. “Hold ‘em here sir, no problem sir, yes sir, thank you sir.”

“Peckerwood,” Joe muttered.

The lieutenant finished his conversation and I heard his boots crunching on the tarmac.
“Er
, gent
l
eme
n,” he said, speaking to the back of our heads.
“
I got instructions to keep you here for now till Major Ba…till the major get’s here.

“
We can fix you up some chow, make you comfortable, but we need to keep you handcuffed. So I’d be obliged if you’d place your hands behind your backs.”

“My daughter needs to be fed.” I said.

“Yes, sir,
we’ll get to that after a while
” the lieutenant said, then to someone else, “O’Neal, handcuffs.

“Now
I’m
just gonna take the little lady so as we can apply the handcuffs.
”

I felt
Ruby being lifted from my back and felt a profound emptiness
suddenly engulf me. Then the cuffs were clipped in place and I was lifted to my feet.

The lieutenant stood holding Ruby, still wrapped in the maroon coverlet. “My orders are to send the little lady down to base camp,” he said.
“They got a
hospital there and she’ll be fed and cared for.” He handed Ruby off to another soldier.

“I need to be with my daughter,” I said and made a move towards her. Two soldiers blocked my way.

“I understand sir, but my orders…”

“Fuck your orders!” I screamed. “Ruby!”

“Sir, you need to…”

I wrestled my way past the marines and
made a run for it. The soldier
holding Ruby was get
ting into a Humvee
.

Behind me I heard a shot and turned to see Joe Thursday down, clutching his leg. The lieutenant, Dangerfield was the name on his nametag, was standing over him, a pistol in his hand. “Next shot spills his brains on the street,” he said.

I looked back to see Ruby being driven away
and then for the second time in a week, I was knocked out cold
.

I came to
in what looked like a hotel kitchen. I was cuffed to a chair and as my vision came into focus I saw too armed guards and another man in military service uniform.
Next to him stood Lieutenant Dangerfield.

“Mr. Collins,” the guy in the service uniform said, “Welcome back.”
He pulled out a pack of Camels, offered me one, shrugged when I ignored him. He was a burly man, with a steel-grey crew
cut, and a nose that looked to have been broken
a few
times.
There was no nametag on his
tunic.

A marine entered and whispered something in Dangerfield’s ear. Dangerfield relayed the message to the big guy and he whispered a reply back to Dangerfield. The answer went back to the young marine, who instantly snapped to attention saluted stiffly and bellowed out, “Yes sir, Major Basher, sir!”