Empire (23 page)

    She handed the other rag to him. Steadying himself on his elbow, he found her in the dark. Feeling her through the cold cloth, seeing nothing, hearing only his own labored breath - despite it all he somehow felt closer to her than he'd felt to anyone.

    She sucked in a deep breath. "Are you crying?" He asked.

    "Is it okay if I am?"

    "It's okay."

    He drew her onto the cot, Jenna carefully straddling his legs, easing herself down. He felt her bare breasts brushing his shirt and he unbuttoned it. Their lips met in a single sigh as their flesh met.

    "Oh God."

    "You don't have to hold back," she breathed.

    "No, it's not that." He pressed his mouth over hers, tasted her, moaned again. She moved slowly and twinges of pain, of anxiety, gave way to warmth. Outside the room, in the light, in the world, were the dead and the almost-dead. She felt alive, so fucking alive that the tears streamed down her cheeks onto his. He kissed them away and her fingers travelled the rough contours of his face. Getting close, she buried her face in the crook of his neck and instinct drove her rhythm. He pushed his face against hers, groaned in release.

    Feeling erupted through her and she pushed herself back, arching her body to feel the waves in her back, her toes, her fingertips.

    Wary of his thigh, she slipped off of him and found her clothes.

    "Jenna?"

    "Mark, don't."

    He touched her shoulder and plied her back to the cot. "Just stay. Just a while."

    "I want to, but..."

    "Then stay."

    She touched his face again. It was the face of a stranger. Jenna fought back the tears this time.

    Down the hall Voorhees stood outside his office. The others were inside; he knew Jenna had stayed in the room with Duncan, so there was only one explanation for the soft footfalls coming from downstairs.

    He crept out of the hall and panned the lobby with the shotgun. "Come on up. I've got something for you. All of you. Come get it."

    "Don't shoot...?"

    A man in a soiled dress shirt and slacks poked his bearded head over the bannister.

    "I'm Thom. I work for the city?"

    "I thought that tunnel was sealed off." Voorhees muttered into his fist. "What tunnel?" Palmer asked, studying Thom's ragged form.

    "There's a security tunnel running from the PD to City Hall. Few people outside the mayor's office knew about it. Of course, that was before the mayor jumped." Turning to Thom, Voorhees asked him, "I've never seen anyone going in or out of that building. Every door's barricaded to the max. How many people are over there?"

    "Oh, it's just me." The man's voice was timid, quiet. He was used to speaking in whispers, or perhaps not at all. His hands trembled excitedly as he described his situation. "There were other staff staying there, but some left...and others..."

    "Others what?"

    "They just didn't make it. There's no food, not much water except what leaks in when it storms like it is now - do you have any food?"

    "Not much, but we'll get you something." Voorhees replied. The man, hugging his emaciated frame, smiled gratefully. "I was a clerk in the mayor's office. The mayor was writing a biography, you know. I've spent the last few months proofreading the manuscript."

    This guy was just a little mad. Palmer offered him a cigarette, and he refused it with a wary look. "Terrible for you. Can't fight or run with emphysema. Some of my colleagues were heavy smokers. That's what got them in the end. It eats you from the inside out. Cancer, I mean. It's like a rotter growing inside you. Makes you ashy." Thom grimaced.

    "How did you know we were in here, Thom?" The reverend asked.

    "I saw you going in. They saw you too, I think. That's why I came over, through the tunnel - thought you ought to come with me to City Hall."

    "Wait, who's 'they'?"

    Thom gestured toward the lobby entrance. Hefting the shotgun in his arms, Voorhees climbed onto the barricade and peered through a paper-thin slit, through the damaged doors.

    "Christ Jesus."

    Jenna clambered up beside him. He directed her to another crack looking out onto the city plaza.

    Dozens of rotters were pouring out of the suburbs that lay beyond Greeley Park. They must have broken through the east gates. But why so many at once - why a horde? She could see why they were congregating around the plaza: if some of them had seen the survivors going into the PD, the rest would follow that group's frenzied activity. Still that didn't explain why they'd entered the city in such numbers to begin with. The undead population was said to be sparse around the Harbor...

    She thought back to the radio broadcast she'd heard, the senator claiming that zombies were migrating to coastal cities as the military withdrew their forces. It didn't make any sense. This many rotters had no way of knowing that military support was gone; it wasn't like they were camped out in the badlands, watching the city. Even if they were picking up federal radio frequencies in their fucking fillings, they couldn't understand the transmissions.

    Could they?

    Mark was beside her, making an effort to prop himself up. "How many?"

    "Too many."

    "It's the smoke." He slumped down on the barricade. "I've seen mobs of them drawn to fires before. Burning trash or bodies always requires extra security...those explosions all over town caught us off-guard and they saw it for miles around."

    Grabbing Jenna's hand suddenly, Mark sat up. "What were you going to say back in the construction yard? About the fires?"

    "You mean before you cut me off? Told me I was grasping at straws?"

    "Yes, before that."

    "Don't start this that again." Voorhees yelled. "It doesn't matter right now, we just need to get the hell out of here. Thom, you're sure that City Hall is clear?"

    "Absolutely, Officer."

    "Lead the way."

    They went to the rear of the lobby, to a small room adjacent to the defunct elevators. Thom opened a hatch set into the floor and started down the ladder there. "Be careful, it's pitch black in here."

    "Great." Lauren pressed herself against Jenna, who embraced her. "We'll go together."

    Thom was telling the truth; the tunnel was absolutely dark. His voice echoed off the damp walls. "Just walk straight ahead, keep your arms out - there's some crud on the floor so be sure of your footing. Easy to slip. Plus it smells."

    "We noticed." Voorhees grumbled. He was bringing up the rear. Shutting the hatch and securing it as best he could, he dropped into the passage. "Everyone all right?"

    "I felt something! On my leg!" Cheryl cried. "There's nothing down here but us," Thom assured her, but his frenetic tone didn't help to calm anybody.

    There was a dull thudding overhead. "What's that?" Lauren asked. They group stopped moving.

    "I think they're in the PD." Voorhees said softly.

    "We've almost reached the end of the line." Thom called. "We can seal the hatch once we're out, keep 'em from following us. Just have to keep moving. It's not like they even know--"

    A shaft of light appeared at the PD end of the tunnel.

    "RUN!!" Voorhees dropped into a crouch, facing the PD, and the others rushed toward City Hall. Screams bounced off the walls and into Voorhees' head, rattling him, but not as much as the silhouettes interrupting the shaft of light.

    The undead began coming down.

    He fired a shotgun blast straight down the tunnel, briefly illuminating the gray-and-green forms of the rotters. It did nothing to slow them down. Voorhees turned and ran.

    Thom threw open the City Hall hatch and pulled himself up into a room almost as dark as the tunnel itself. He knelt to assist Cheryl, and they in turn each took one of Palmer's arms. "HURRY!!" Lauren cried from below.

    They were dropping into the tunnel at a horrifying rate until the light was no longer visible. Voorhees fired another shot. A rotter scant yards from him was caught and thrown back into the horde; they swallowed him and kept coming. Voorhees pumped and fired again, this time at an upward angle. Curdled brains sprayed the tunnel ceiling.

    He lunged for the ladder and the others yanked him up, nearly tearing his arms from their sockets. The hatch clanged down and Thom dragged a shelf over it. "We need more!!" The rotters beat on the underside of the hatch. Locked as it was, it still jostled in its frame.

    Opening the door that led out of the room, Jenna found herself in a narrow hallway with offices on either side. She seized a file cabinet just inside one of the offices and wrestled it down the hall. Voorhees helped her throw it atop the shelf. "More!"

    They grabbed a second file cabinet and a desk, shoving as much furniture as they could into the tiny room. Then Thom locked the door and they began to pile more things in front of it. "Follow me to the fire stairs." Thom said when they had run out of barricading materials.

    "The top floor's the most secure," he said breathlessly, taking three steps at a time. The others could barely keep up. "The other floors are bad. People died there, I haven't been able to get 'em out with the windows all boarded up. You'll notice the smell." It was like a guided tour of Hell.

    The fourth-floor corridor was lit by candles. "Not a safe idea," Voorhees commented. "Oh, I hardly ever leave. I just had to get you guys." Reaching the end of the hallway, Thom moved a shelf away from a window, and they were able to look out over the plaza. "See, this is how I spotted you. I just sit here most days." He gathered a pile of papers and shoved them into a box. "That's the mayor's book."

    "What sort of supplies do you have here?" Voorhees peered down and watched the rotters cram themselves through the doors of the police department. Pieces of the barricade spilled down the stairs and were stomped to bits.