eaten up with those yawning ulcers.
They had all worked themselves up into some kill-happy rapture, some deranged and bloodthirsty mania. It was just unbelievable. They were crawling on their hands and knees, running around in circles, jumping up and down on the hoods of cars in one of the lots. Some were hopping in frantic circles like monkeys. Others fornicating. Some dry humping each others legs. But they all had one thing in common: they were watching us.
And they were gradually moving in our direction.
Janie and I ran down the sidewalk and I heard the thunder of dozens of bare feet following in pursuit. I came to one locked door after another, rounded a corner and a Scab jumped out at me. He knocked Janie to the pavement and I brought the butt of the Beretta down on the crown of his skull. He went to his knees and I kicked him in the head, gathered up Janie, and off we went.
We lucked out and found an old department store. It was open, the plate glass door shattered. We ducked in there. It had been broken up into countless trendy little shops selling everything from gourmet dog foods to golf clubs to designer fashions. We hopped behind the counter of a leather goods shop and held onto each other, not daring to so much as breathe.
Right away, one of them sought us out.
I didn’t have to hear or see them: the fetid stink was enough.
As we crouched under the counter, I saw the reflection of a large fleshy man in a diamond-cut mirror. He was breathing heavily with a clotted, gurgling sound like his lungs were filled with some semi-viscous fluid. Under his breath he kept talking, muttering mostly unintelligible things, but I heard this: “Oh, oh, oh, oh. Here? Not here. Over here? Not over here. Somewhere. Oh, oh, oh.” He passed on by, stumbling into some mannequins and stomping on them. A plastic arm went sailing over the counter.
More of them now.
From the footfalls, I was guessing a dozen or more. Now was the time for Carl to come bursting in with his AK on full auto, but I knew that wouldn’t happen. We were on our own. We either thought our way out of this, fought our way out, or we died. That’s all there was to it. I had thirteen rounds left in the clip for my Beretta. I was mentally counting them as I always did. And in the back of my mind, I knew I was saving a bullet for Janie. I would not admit it even to myself, but I knew, I knew. I wouldn’t let them get their diseased paws on her.
More of them were in the building now, grunting and puffing and making those gurgling noises. I heard the slapping of skin against skin, heard some obscene female moaning and I knew a few of them were fucking. Because that’s all they liked to do: kill and fuck.
We could only stay hidden so long.
Then I saw the reflection of a man in the mirror again. He was paused right in front of the counter, cocking his head to the side like he was listening. There was some kind of phlegmy snot all over his mouth. He slapped his hands on the counter and brought his head over to look behind it.
He saw us, grinned.
I splashed his face right off the bone with two rounds. Janie and I broke from cover and I shot two more. Ten rounds left. We rushed through the store, dashing around displays and hopping over tables. The Scabs were converging from every direction. I kicked one out of the way and shot another and then another. Eight bullets. A set of stairs led upwards but more Scabs were coming down. They were in no hurry. Like afternoon shoppers sluggish with the day, they came down the steps in twos and threes, holding hands, ulcerated faces grinning. It was insane.
Another door. A fire door. Reinforced steel with a tiny square of glass you couldn’t have squeezed a greased puppy through. It was open and we went in. It opened outwards and I saw a set of steps leading below. The idea of going into a cellar was not too appealing, but we had no choice. I slammed the door shut, but there was no lock on the other side. But there was a hydraulic door closer up near the top, the sort that store the pressure of the opening door and then release it to seal the door shut. All fire doors have them. Handing Janie my gun, I jumped up, grabbed hold of the arm with both fists and yanked down with all my weight and strength. I succeeded in bending it and then bending it again until its crook nearly touched the door. It was mangled good.
Then the scabs hit the other side of the door.
They got it open maybe an inch, but the bent opener would move no more. It would keep them at bay for awhile. I took my gun back and took Janie by the hand. Her hand was limp. She could have cared less whether we lived or died. But I didn’t have time for that. I led us below and it was pitch black. We came to another door and on the other side…light. There was a modular sky light above. It was nearly buried in filth, debris, and fallen leaves but there was plenty of daylight to see by. We must have been along the back of the building, some sort of atrium that had been designed to enhance the natural lighting.
“We’re going to make it,” I told Janie.
She barely lifted an eyebrow.
We went through another door and into some kind of long, narrow storeroom with stacked skids of boxes piled along one wall and crates of bulging file folders along the other. There was light because we had a few panels of the skylight. I breathed a sigh of relief because there was a lock on the door. I had almost exhaled that breath when I realized we weren’t alone.
4
There was a boy standing there.
He couldn’t have been much more than ten or eleven, but the last year had been real hell on him. His skin was bleached white, pocked with sores and mats of fungal growth, his eyes a shining translucent yellow. Ulcers had eaten great infected holes in him that oozed a green bile that almost looked fluorescent against his greasy, pallid flesh. I saw him. I saw the death he brought. But he was fast. He charged out and went after my eyes with hooked fingers. I backed away, terrified of coming into contact with any of the infectious, evil germs that had colonized him.
I fell over a box and promptly went on my ass. The gun fell from my fingers and he could have had me right there. But he didn’t want me. He wanted Janie. So when I pitched on my ass he quickly lost interest. He targeted Janie and went right after her. She ran towards the door and he tackled her, brought her down like a lion with a tasty gazelle.
As I scrambled to my feet and grabbed my gun, he had Janie face down. She fought and squirmed, but he was on her, dry humping her ass, sliding his erect penis between her legs.
I ran over there and kicked him in the head twice before he fell off her.
Then Janie was up and behind me and the Scab boy got to his feet. The side of his head was damaged-it looked fucking dented, to tell you the truth, like it was an aluminum can-and smashed-in from my steel-toed boot. Green puss and a pink tracery of blood ran from the wound.
He made a growling, snapping sound and went right after me.
I put two bullets into him. I tried to get him in the head, but my hand was shaking so badly they both went right into his throat, tearing it open in a jetting splash of arterial blood. It was like slitting a high pressure hose. He danced around in wild, drunken circles, gnashing his teeth, making choked gargling sounds, blood pissing from his neck. It probably only went on for a couple seconds, but that grisly dance macabre was forever imprinted in my mind.
He went down and that’s when the most horrible thing happened.
“Rick!” Janie said.
I heard a scream…a series of screams…but none of them were from Janie and they sure as hell weren’t screams of terror, but screams of delight. Of ecstasy. Three women came rushing out from behind the stacked boxes where they’d been hiding. They brought a high, sharp smell of rotting fruit with them. Scabs. They came bounding out, bald, corpse-faced, graying, flesh hanging in discolored folds. They didn’t come after us; they went after the dying boy.
They rushed in with a frenzied hunger, fighting for the blood that pumped from his neck. They drank it, licked it from their hands, bathed in it. While Janie and I watched in amazement and horror, they crowded the boy, slurping and sucking, pressing in like piglets at their mother’s teats. It was appalling. The sight of it. The sound of
