"He needs help!" he yelled to the soldiers.They either didn't hear him or didn't care.
"Put him down," they yelled, "andstrip!" As soon as the family was ushered away to a more private location,Mort helped the barely conscious Blake sit on the ground, and he did as he wastold. His dirty body gleamed in the spotlights, and he twirled around so theycould see that he wasn't bitten.
One soldier stepped up close to him, pointed to the cutson Mort's forehead, and asked, "How did that happen?"
I used my head to bash through the window of a copcar, he thought. "I jumped through a window."
"None of those things got you?" the soldierasked.
"Wouldn't be here if they did," Mort said.
The soldier looked at Blake on the ground. "Whatabout him? What's his story?"
"He got his bell rung by an explosion. He needs adoctor."
"He bit?" the soldier asked.
"He wouldn't be here if he was, would he?"
The soldier looked at Mort, and then made up his mind,pointing in a general direction. "There's a triage center backthere."
"Thanks," Mort said as he lifted Blake off theground. Mort limped in the direction of the Coliseum, his throbbing knee oflittle concern.
"Where are we?" Blake managed to mutter, beforehis head drooped to his chest.
Mort surveyed his surroundings. He didn't like what hesaw. Pale fingers, the flesh rubbed and scratched off of them, curled throughthe tiny diamonds of the chain-link fence surrounding the Coliseum. Facesdevoid of color, with the exception of crimson blood, pressed against thefence, as if they could simply push their way through. There were too many forMort to count. A clock started ticking in his head. His survival instinctskicked in, and he knew that it would only be a matter of time until the fencescame down. He had to get Blake looked at before it was too late to check out.
Chapter 22: The Last Show on Earth
Sunlight poured into the back of the Turtle through theturret above. They were all calling it the Turtle now. Ace and his threesurviving men threaded their way through the city in the Turtle. Their numbershad swelled somewhat after they had destroyed the helicopter. A handful ofsurvivors had run out to them, waving guns in the air. They were not the sortof folk that appreciated such things as "martial law."
Beer flowed in the back of the vehicle as Ace strummedhis electric guitar. He had liberated it from Beelzebub's after the crash, alongwith his amplifier. The Turtle was too confined for him to plug it in, andplaying the guitar without massive amounts of distortion was something of aturnoff.
The others talked while Ace strummed, waiting for thenext opportunity for chaos. Slutty Rivets drove the vehicle, with Spider in thefront passenger seat. Pudge was in the back with Ace, making nice with theirnew passengers. He seemed relieved not to be stuck with only Ace to talk to.Ace listened to their conversation in the back of his mind while he played hisfavorite song "Death and Gasoline" on his guitar.
"So you guys were just hiding in your apartmentbuilding the whole time?" Pudge asked, goofy disbelief in his words.
A man with a thick gray beard nodded his head and said,"Yeah. We didn't know what we were going to do. I guess we thought aboutjust sticking it out and hoping the military would handle it. When we saw youguys take out that helicopter, we knew the military wasn't going to be able todo shit."
"Have you guys heard anything about other parts ofthe country?" Pudge asked.
The man reached down and pulled a can of beer out of abag. He popped the top and took a sip, drops of beer falling from his mustacheto hang in his gray beard. "Ain't you guys seen the news?"
Pudge shook his head. "We were locked up lastnight."
The man with the gray beard just shook his head as if hecouldn't believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. "It's allover, man. They got this shit in D.C., New York. Hell, they even got it over inJapan."
Ace missed his fingering. Whether it was because of whatthe man said or because Slutty Rivets had just run over a bump in the road, hecouldn't say. He wouldn't say. Not even to himself.
"It's happening everywhere?"
The bearded man shook his head. "Ain't no placesafe, not in town, not outside of town. The only place that is safe would bethe Coliseum. There's a station on the radio been broadcasting some nonsenseabout a rescue camp, but it's all nonsense, just government hooey to get us allto come out of our homes and get ourselves killed."
"Why would they do that?" Pudge asked.
The bearded man took a sip from his beer and smiled."Overpopulation, my friend. There's just too many damn people, not enoughjobs, not enough space. Hell, you think the government didn't know about thisshit? You think they didn't know that there was a virus out there that couldturn people into the living dead? They probably invented it! They probably havethe cure out there right now, and they're holding onto it until enough of ushave died. By then, there won't be enough of us to do anything about it. And ifthey do decide to save us, even after all of this mess, the people willprobably still thank them."
Ace smiled down at his guitar. He could see the beardedman's words seep into the other passengers' brains, burrowing deeper, like theroots of a tree, threatening to crack their brains apart as the rootsthickened and the ideas gained more and more credence. They wanted answers,and a bearded man drinking a beer was giving them one. Though the answers wereridiculous and worthy of derision, they
