Mutated - 04 (35 page)
Authors: Joe McKinney
He staggered toward Nate, a gurgle in his throat as he pawed at the space between them.
Nate tripped on the stairs and landed on his butt.
Then his eyes caught a flash of something protruding from the holster on Ben’s hip.
His pistol!
The next few moments were a blur.
Nate reached for the gun and pulled it.
His gaze fell on Ben’s dead eyes and he said, “I’m so sorry, Ben. You deserved so much better than me.”
The shot.
Ben’s head snapping back.
A spray of blood and bone and bits of hair flying out behind Ben’s head, covering the zombies behind him.
Ben’s body flying backward, knocking the zombies there down like bowling pins.
The echo of the shot rolling over the open field, drowning out the moans.
Then Nate looked down at the gun in his hand and for the first time in his life he knew without a doubt what he had to do. He turned and headed up the stairs. Avery was huddled against the railing in the far corner. The Red Man was standing in the middle of the platform, staring at him.
“Put the weapon down or they will kill you,” the Red Man said.
Nate didn’t answer. He stepped forward and raised the pistol.
“Stop. You’re a dead man if you do this.”
Nate smiled.
“You’re wrong. I just started living.”
He fired twice, hitting the Red Man in the chest and sending him backward, his arms pinwheeling madly.
The Red Man landed with his back on the railing, his bloodshot eyes staring up into the rain, his mouth opening and closing, opening and closing, as though he were trying to speak but couldn’t get the air in his lungs to do it.
Nate closed the gap between them and fired again, this time hitting the Red Man in the crease between his nose and upper lip.
The Red Man’s head snapped back just as Ben’s had and he died, curled backward over the top railing, body slack, his arms spread wide and hanging into the open air, rainwater dripping from his fingertips.
Nate stared at him, fascinated.
The whole world seemed frozen around this moment, and for a long time Nate had the feeling he was floating through a forest in Pennsylvania, a patch of daylight at the edge of the trees looming ever closer, his lungs bellowing in his ears, the feel of daylight on his skin and its warmth welcoming, like it would pull out of all this death and propel into a world that finally made sense.
A moaning from behind him shook him from the reverie.
“Nate!” Avery said.
He looked at her, and then followed her gaze toward the stairs.
Sylvia, bloody and vacant-eyed, was standing there.
“Back away,” the man said. He waved Niki toward the port side with the barrel of his pistol. “Over there.”
Niki glanced over her shoulder, where the zombies were wading into the river. There wasn’t going to be much time, and she was only going to get one chance to do this right. But his gun hand was just out of reach. Maybe a kick, she thought, then dismissed that idea. The man’s eyes were hard and calculating. He looked ready for something like that, almost like he was hoping she’d do it. He had orders to get her to the Red Man, she was certain of that, but a part of her couldn’t help but wonder if he really cared about orders. Was he just looking for a reason to put a bullet in her?
She thought so.
And she was not going to die that way.
“Move it!” he said.
“Okay, okay,” she said, and stepped where he wanted her to go.
He got the AR-15 from the captain’s chair and laid it down in the puddle of blood on the deck.
He was smart about that, at any rate. Only an amateur would try to use a rifle in the close confines of the boat.
But then she looked at his face again, at the blood crusting in his beard. At the pink rivulets of bloodstained rainwater dripping from his chin.
“You don’t care about the Red Man,” she said.
She could hear the moaning over her shoulder. The zombies were getting close now. The man didn’t look at them, though. Instead, he smiled at Niki, playing the game with her. He wasn’t going to betray his fear by looking at the zombies, gauging the distance. He went on smiling, and the look seemed to say,
Fine, you want to play chicken. Let’s play.
Fine, you want to play chicken. Let’s play.
“You don’t serve him because you care about what happens here,” Niki said. “You do it because you’re scared. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re scared.”
The smile slid away from his face.
She took a quick glance to her right. The first three zombies were less than ten feet away now.
“That is it. You’re scared. That’s why you played dead, isn’t it? You weren’t trying to trick me. You were hoping to slink away like a coward. I thought I saw the killer in your eyes, but that isn’t you, is it? You’re just a coward.”
“Bitch, you’re gonna get a bullet in your head.”
“Then do it!” she snapped. “Come on, coward. Do it!”
The rain fell.
They stared at one another, and for a moment, she thought she had him. But then the smile came back, sinister and cruel.
“No,” he said. “Not yet.” He flicked the barrel toward the captain’s chair. “Over there. You’re gonna drive us over to the platform.”
“Just like that? You don’t want to play anymore?”
“Nobody’s playing any games here.” He motioned to the chair again. “Move.”
She shrugged, then walked over to the chair, but didn’t sit down. She focused on the sound of the rain pattering against his coat, gauging his location. He was behind her, just a little to her left.
Just about perfect.
Suddenly she rocked forward, simultaneously throwing a mule kick in his direction.
But something was wrong. Her aim was true. She had gauged the distance right. She should have connected. Only the man wasn’t there. He had side-stepped her at the last second and now he was right up on her, one hand balled in her hair, the other jamming the barrel of the gun into her broken ribs.
She screamed from the pain, unable to control it.
Her pulled her away from the captain’s chair and threw her onto the gunwale so that she was bent over the side, her face right above the weeds poking out of the water.
“You want to play games with me, bitch? Huh? That what you want?” He pulled back on her hair so she could watch the zombies closing on the boat. “How’s this? Let’s see how you like this.”
She tried to kick and buck him off her, but he jabbed the barrel into her ribs again and her legs turned to water.
But she had to act.
The zombies were almost on them, closing in.
She bent her knees slightly, just enough to get some leverage against the floor. He was leaning over her, using his weight to pin her over the gunwale. As soon as she felt the gun pull away from her ribs, she jumped up and forward, carrying him on her back over the side of the boat.
He let out a grunt of confused panic as he splashed into the water and weeds.
He came up spluttering.
But Niki didn’t give him a chance to react. She swatted the gun from his hand and then grabbed the sides of his head and jammed her thumbs into his eyes, digging into the oozing jelly with everything she had.
He screamed and grabbed her wrists, but there was no strength in his hands. His whole body seemed to tense, and then sag into itself.
Niki shook his hands loose from her wrists and pushed him into the approaching zombies. His screams started anew as she backed away. He was still screaming when they pulled him down into the weeds, a dark red shadow spreading out from the huddle.
She stood there, trying to catch her breath, eyes tearing up from the pain in her side.
A shot echoed across the river, and Niki turned sharply toward the platform.
It was followed by two more, and then a fourth.
“Avery,” she said, and jumped into the captain’s chair.
Sylvia pulled herself up the stairs. She could barely stand and had to lean on the railing for support, but she kept coming, wobbly legs shaking beneath her. Her moaning was a choppy, breathy gurgling, like there was fluid in her throat. There was unmistakable hunger in her eyes, though.
Behind her, the stairs were crowded with zombies. The entire field was closing on the platform now.
Nate raised the pistol and sighted it on Sylvia’s forehead.
“Nate, no!” Avery shouted.
“That’s not Sylvia,” he said.
“Don’t.”
She shook her head, pleading with him.
He lowered his pistol and pulled her to the back of the platform, next to the Red Man’s corpse, his eyes still open and staring up into the rain. Far out on the river Nate could see the Red Man’s fleet coming back to the hotel docks. He looked down at the water two stories below and shook his head. With the way his head was swimming, he doubted he could clear the short stretch of grass between the platform and the water.
“Avery, we’re gonna have to jump.”
She looked over the railing, her face stricken.
“I can’t.”
“You’re gonna have to. We can’t go anywhere else.”
Sylvia tripped on the last step and fell to her hands and knees on the platform. She looked up at them and groaned, then slowly climbed to her feet.
Nate turned to Avery. He gestured with the gun.
“She wouldn’t want to be left like that.”
“Don’t,” Avery said again. “Please, don’t. I couldn’t bear that.”
“Alright then. Climb over the railing. I’ll cover you.”
Avery was climbing the railing when Sylvia let out a long, stuttering moan. Both Nate and Avery turned toward her just as a shot rang out and Sylvia’s head snapped back.
She folded to the ground.
“Sylvia!” Avery screamed.
Avery tried to reach out for the dead woman but Nate grabbed her by the hips and pulled her back. More zombies were already mounting to the top of the stairs.
They were running out of time.
He turned toward the river. Niki was down there, looking up at them over the sights of a rifle. Her face looked twisted, and he could read the pain there, even through the rain.
“Jump!” she yelled. “Avery, you have to jump right now.”
Nate put a hand on her butt to help her over. “Come on, Avery, you got it.”
To his surprise, she didn’t need much coaxing. She went over, hung on the railing for just a moment, and then jumped for the water.
She landed hard, but the next instant she was up.
Two more shots rang out, and Nate turned to see two more dead zombies at the top of the stairs.
He looked back to the water where Niki was lowering her rifle.
“Come on,” she hollered. “Your turn.”
Niki rushed into the water and grabbed Avery’s hand.
“Baby, you okay?”
The girl’s eyes were red from tears. “Sylvia’s dead,” she said.
“I know, baby. Come with me, please. We don’t have much time.”
Slowly, too slowly, Avery took her hand. Niki pulled her into the river, the water rapidly climbing up to their waists. Out on the river, the Red Man’s fleet was coming closer. The boats were big, and the crews well armed, but they were slow. There was no way they’d catch the little speedboat. All they had to do was get a small head start.
They reached the boat and Niki helped Avery climb in.
“You got it?”
“Yeah,” Avery said. Her voice was a strained grunt as she tumbled over the gunwale.
Niki turned back to the platform. She could see the Red Man dead on the railing, and she thought she should be glad for that, but the cost had been so damn high.
She choked back her tears for Sylvia and climbed into the boat. With a little extra height she could see over the platform’s railing. Nate was backing away from a growing crowd of zombies. Even from the water she could see the cuts and bites all over him and she marveled that he was still on his feet. Clearly he was made of stronger stuff than she’d given him credit for.
“Nate,” she yelled, “you have to jump!”
He fired the pistol, but the shot went wide of the mark, hitting one of the zombies in the shoulder and spinning it around, but not dropping it.
Zombies closed in around him.
Niki looked back toward the river and saw the black shirt fleet closing in. The head start she’d been hoping for was rapidly disappearing. Another thirty seconds and they’d have the little speedboat surrounded.
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