Saint Pain (Zombie Ascension Book 3) (26 page)

“We were going to… oh, shit.”

The wounded woman grimaced, and Bill took a step forward.

“Back off!” the caretaker turned to him sharply.

“I like that bite,” the wounded woman said. “There’s a man. Got access to an air strike.”

“What?” the caretaker asked, her disbelief clear.

“A fucking airstrike. We made a deal for it. It’s all set up. Waiting for the call. The guy who has it ain’t worth a shit. Don’t know his asshole from a hole in the wall. Name’s Vincent Hamilton.”

The idea twirled around in Bill’s mind. An airstrike. Vincent had access to an airstrike. How long did he have it? Was it true? Why did he wait to use it?

Vega might have known about it, too.

“There’s a neighborhood…” the wounded woman tried to talk through her pain.

“It’s gone,” Bill said.

The caretaker looked up at him.

The wounded woman groaned. “Don’t matter. Vincent’s got people. Asshole used to be a gangster.”

“I know who he is,” the caretaker said.

“One last thing. I want to be one of those things. I want to know. It won’t make a difference. Might as well let this body get the most out of the world.”

The caretaker was supposed to say something, but she just stared back into the wounded woman’s face. She was supposed to say no. To tell her how she couldn’t let that happen.

“I’m cold,” the wounded woman said.

“I know,” the caretaker said.

“I think it was good to take a long time. To feel it. Get the most out of it. Every breath a fight. Your husband’s probably dead, and you don’t even give a shit. I have a feeling I’ll see you in Hell, anyway.”

The caretaker pressed her hand against the wounded woman’s cheek.

Bill wanted to say something.

Some time during that long stretch of silence, Bill noticed the wounded woman’s eyes hadn’t blinked in a long time. Her chest was no longer rising.

The caretaker stood and looked around. Bill was probably invisible. She turned sharply in one direction and then the other. Seeing the city for the first time. Looking at the apocalypse with fresh eyes.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

She snapped her head to him. “What? What do you mean? I want to find my son. A man I married. If I want something that means I am somebody. I am here. I am alive.”

Another one. Another broken survivor.

He could barely string together a sentence after nearly letting a horde of dead people kill him, dead people who wanted nothing to do with him.

Her eyes looked at him again. The whites in her eyes were incredibly bright. “There’s a family here,” she said. “Two little girls, I think. I want to help them. That’s what I want. That’s what I can do right now. I heard shooting. People were fighting out here, and it has nothing to do with me. Maybe you’re a slaver. You have to be, I guess. Right? A slaver? Flesh trader. You said something about the neighborhood… said it was gone. But there’s a family here in this building. A family under our feet. I want to help them. You’re going to stay away from me.”

It was difficult to follow her train of thought, her scattered words.

He scratched his head. He wanted to ask her what her name was. The question didn’t seem right, didn’t seem appropriate.

“I’m going to find them,” the caretaker said.

Bill still didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t guess what she wanted him to say, and didn’t even know if it was important for him to know.

For some reason, Bill wanted to hold her hand.

He wanted someone to tell him the violence was over. Nobody else was going to hurt. Nobody else was going to die. He had won. He had won the right to live without so much pain.

The Champ wasn’t going to live forever. Not here on the rooftop of a building that was in the middle of a wasteland. There was peace not far from here. Peace where the darkness hadn’t squirmed its way inside. There were people still untouched by the terror. Remote places, hamlets, roadside gas stations, churches, uncluttered highways, airports, shopping malls, internet service, television, bedrooms, marriages, children, homelessness, criminals, cell phones, traffic laws, athletes, controversy, conservatism, liberalism, socialism, hatred, life, life, life.

“We’re going to let her have what she wants,” the caretaker said. “And you’re going to stay away from me.”

Bill nodded, but he wasn’t sure what he agreed with.

VINCENT

The whole damn atmosphere was hot and still. He felt like he could sweat inside of an ice cube, melt it from the inside with his presence.

“Damn nigga, I can’t carry your ass,” Suede said.

Vincent had nothing to say. Suede might be better off without him. No reason to risk his own life dragging him across the city.

Detroit’s air reminded Vincent of the Iraqi city he had been in years ago, before he tried to do the right thing and paid the price for it. It smelled like charred barbecue and ash. It smelled like the school that had been half-destroyed, the school Vincent had walked into with his squad.

Vincent and Suede ambled through the quiet wasteland, stepping through ghostly labyrinths of parked cars, their boots crunching glass, black stains on the concrete. Despite the silence, Vincent knew the dead were watching. He could feel them. What were they waiting for?

He leaned heavily into Suede several times, his shoulder socket burning, knee sore.

“Don’t know why I don’t wax you,” Suede said.

“Because you’re afraid,” Vincent said. “You don’t want to be alone. Drop the tough attitude. We’re going the same way.”

“We ain’t going the same way. I’m heading back to Sutter. I don’t need you. That was Taylor’s idea. Taylor thought you could help win this shit. Take it back. But you got nothing. I know you got nothing. No more guns left. Or you can’t get to him. You had Taylor fooled.”

Vincent leaned against a car. “Before we do this, you need to bury your grudge. You can’t do this alone, and I can’t. Pretending to be hard won’t do you no good out here. I’m going with you because there’s no place else.”

Suede pushed the cold barrel of his gun against Vincent’s temple.

It wouldn’t be difficult to disarm him and put a bullet into his face, walk away with the gun.

“I take you back, and you’re another mouth to feed,” Suede said. “What would you do? Huh? Come on, man, you know what to do. You’re a businessman. Ain’t no profit in bringing in another mouth to feed.”

“You got me figured out,” Vincent said. “If you’re done being proud of yourself, let’s stop wasting time. Pull the trigger or walk away.”

Men like Suede were common. He needed to pretend to be tough, to act like he was in control, because he wasn’t. He had probably never been in control, not once. Whatever crew he used to run with likely pushed him around. His lovers had likely cheated on him. He was skittish, and now he was pushed to the brink. Now more than ever, he was dangerous.

As Vincent watched the sweat roll down the side of the man’s jawline, he knew what would happen next.

“You ain’t worth it,” Suede said, lifting his gun from Vincent’s head.

“It takes balls sometimes,” Vincent said. “There’s more dignity in walking away. You have control over yourself. You know what you’re doing.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Suede said. “I always know. I got my shit under control. I always got my shit under control.”

“Good. I know you do. You got your shit under control. Now tell me what you want to do. I can’t do it alone. I need your help. I need someone who is in control.”

Suede nodded. “You got guns? You got the guns Taylor was talking about?”

It was the question that seemed to be on everyone’s mind, but Vincent wasn’t sure he knew how to answer.

“What if I do?” Vincent asked. “We’re going to go to war? Kill all of them? Take over the city? Is that the plan?”

Suede chewed his bottom lip, looked around the silent street uneasily. “That’s it. I’m telling you, that’s it. This is our home. We can run this shit like we used to. This used to be your town. You should want it back. You should want to run this again.”

Vincent wanted to laugh. His town? It was the same as it ever was. If he thought about this place as his, he would have to take the blame for its downfall. For a while, he thought that way, and it buried him. Ruined his chances with Vega. Ruined his chance to be with a woman who cared about him, a woman who wanted him to be the strong man he had always been.

Did Suede want the truth? Maybe the lie would comfort him, provide him a sense of direction, some kind of faith or hope that would keep him going. Men needed faith sometimes, if there was nothing tangible to hold onto.

“We’ll do whatever it takes,” Vincent said. “Just take me to Sutter.”

***

The old Depot always reminded Vincent of a lost opportunity, and sometimes when he looked at it, he thought the Depot looked like a ruined temple perched at the edge of an ancient city that had been dug up by a team of archaeologists.

The fence surrounding the towering structure was topped with barbed wire. Corpses wandered the perimeter, aimlessly walking around. More of them were walking toward the Depot as if they had been invited, or they had simply realized the Depot was a stronghold for resistance from the living.

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” Suede said.

He and Suede had stopped moving for too long already, and they could be surrounded in moments.

Vincent had no desire to move. He needed to move, but he didn’t want to.

“We have to go, got to go,” Suede said. “Get your ass moving nigga, we have got to go!”

Suede pulled him to his feet, and they darted forward. Vincent’s damaged knee was stubborn, and he felt a heavy pack full of gear on his shoulders, even though it wasn’t actually there. He was moving too slowly, the fence not getting any closer.

“Open the fucking gate!” Suede shouted. “Let us in! Let us in there!”

Vincent stopped running.

Slow shoulders, patient eyes, shuffling gait. Heads cracking, awkward, stiff bones struggling to respond to stimuli from Hell. Fingers slipped from the fence. Covered in ash, grime, dust, dirt. Wrinkled, bruised skin. Tattered clothing. No clothing.

The dead had turned to them. The dead saw them.

“We’re not opening up, get back!” someone behind the fence shouted. Vincent couldn’t see anyone moving beyond the fence. Bodies blended together. Dead people stumbled into each other.

Suede had reached the fence, and began to rattle it. “Open up mutherfuckers, open up, open up!” Suede’s voice became a desperate shriek.

Vincent didn’t move.

“Get back from the fence! Get back!”

“Open up this gate or I’m shooting my way through—”

“Get back! Get back, or we put you down!”

Why didn’t they just shoot him?

An odd thought. The only thought that surfaced in Vincent’s mind as he stood there waiting. His eyes stared at the ground beneath his feet. He couldn’t look up, but he could feel their shadows falling upon him, getting closer.

Why didn’t they shoot Suede?

Who were these people?

Who was anybody?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know what was happening. Life had become a force he didn’t understand, a force that dictated everything he did, everything he thought.

This was helplessness.

“I got Vincent Hamilton! I got Hamilton! Open up the fucking gate!”

Gunshots popped. Something slumped, sagged. Vincent looked up and saw a body lying just a few feet away from him.

Shambling toward him, a dead person, sex indistinguishable. A gunshot popped, and the top of the person’s head exploded in a burst of skull shards and dust. The bullet didn’t go through the skull. The dead person attempted to turn toward the shooter. A second shot burst through its face.

Fire touched Vincent’s knee.

His leg buckled beneath him. His body was failing him now, at last. The sky spun around his head, and he saw a legion of ruined faces swirling in a kaleidoscope collage. He wanted to vomit, but he would have to sit up, and his brain had fogged over completely. For a moment he remembered Jerome, the junkie in the crack house who had made it to the church where they had met Traverse for the first time. Vincent had never cared for drunks, but he knew what it felt like to be doped hard, hard enough to lose all desire to move.

“What’re you doing? What’re you doing?” Suede shrieked. “Hold your fire! You gotta get out here. You gotta help us out, man! You gotta help us!”

It would be so easy to give up now, but he clutched his leg, tried to roll his body with some momentum toward the fence. Mama had told him to keep fighting, to never let this world beat him down with expectations. He was supposed to just roll over and die now. Just let the dead close in and take what they had always wanted from him.

Suede had run back, was trying to lift him to his feet again. A corpse lumbered into them, bumping Suede. Vincent’s leg twisted beneath him, and the sharp pain made him cry out. His leg felt incorrect, a piece of him that didn’t quite fit.

Flies buzzed around his head. The ground was slanted, the world tilting and spilling into a colorless void. The bright haze blinded his eyes, and he lost sight of the decrepit creatures that had turned away from the fence.

There was no salvation at the Depot. Mike Taylor had sold them a bill of goods, or he had been misled.

So much for taking the city back.

Suede was clutching him tightly, as if Vincent had some secret reservoir of power he could summon now to help them both.

Vincent was helpless. He couldn’t do shit. He began to imagine what it would feel like to have their teeth ripping into his flesh; what it would feel like to be ripped into pieces. He might live through a lot of it, and maybe he should. Maybe he deserved the pain.

“Don’t start praying,” Vincent said, though his tongue felt thick, as if he were speaking around a wad of cotton. “Start fighting.”

A zombie’s emaciated hands were upon Suede’s shoulders as if attempting to pull him in for an embrace. Suede shoved his 9mm into the thing’s mouth and pulled the trigger. The bullet exited the back of the creature’s head, but it remained standing, holding him tight. Suede angled his gun upward and fired again, the bullet exiting through the crown of the skull, and it sagged, its heavy weight dragging Suede down, four legs tangling, twisting together.

Bullets fired from beyond the fence and kicked up dirt.

Vincent grunted against the pain in his leg and pushed the dead man off Suede who was screaming.

“You’re in control,” Vincent said to him. “I need you to be in control for me. Get it together, and get us through that fence.”

The 9mm was lying on the ground beside Suede, and Vincent picked it up.

He was ready.

This battle against the undead was forever. It could never end. No matter how many times he survived, they would be here, waiting for him. They would never stop. They would never relent. They would never back down. Wherever there were people, wherever there might be sanctuary, the dead would be there, too.

And he was completely surrounded by them now.

Suede and Vincent leaned heavily into each other, and Vincent swooned, feeling light-headed. Why couldn’t the bright haze go away? With the gun in his hand, he did not try to take him and fire. If he stopped, it would be over for them.

He tried to shove through enclosing limbs.

“Get outta the way!” someone shouted.

“Hamilton needs to get through!” Another shout.

Warm blood splashed Vincent in the face as if a water balloon filled with it had popped open. A man who had rushed through the fence to help had been grabbed from behind, and in front of him, a dead person’s lipless, black teeth clenched a quivering tongue, blood leaking over a jutting chin from the severed organ. The man’s mouth had become a black hole spouting blood. Vincent could hear him choking. His eyes rolling to the back of his head. Another mouth clamped down on his throat. And then another on his shoulder blade. He disappeared, dragged down like a gazelle dropping under the weight of a lion pack.

Vincent’s ears were ringing.

He had stopped.

All around him, people were fighting to free him from the converging crowd. He stood in the middle, Suede holding him tightly.

He couldn’t even hear the screams anymore or the gunshots. Suede might have been talking, and he couldn’t hear.

The 9mm was in his hand, and his hand hung at his side.

Another man had an assault rifle ripped from his hands. Fingers reached over his shoulders and grabbed his upper jaw, pulling him back. He resisted, and another set of hands entered his mouth. Hands fought for control of his head and tore his cheeks, peeling skin like a rubber mask stretched over a bloody surface.

A rush of foul air stung Vincent’s nostrils.

Suede yanked Vincent’s hand, trying to pry the gun from his fingers. Both men tumbled, fell.

“I need it!” Suede said.

Vincent could hear again. The gun was no longer in his hand. Shadows everywhere. Darkness everywhere.

Suede was suddenly wrenched off Vincent.

Vincent crawled, scrambled on his hands and knees. He could not look back. Charging forward, he broke through a barricade of legs. A body fell in front of him, and he attempted to climb over whoever, or whatever, it was. Driven to live, driven to push forward, driven to run away. He could not fight. He had wanted to fight, but he could not.