Saint Pain (Zombie Ascension Book 3) (39 page)

There was light at the top of the elevator shaft. Maybe not even the top, but above her, there was light.

Inching her way up, she listened to the tumult, to the voices, to the sound of war. This was her battlefield, after all. This is what she had wanted when she sat in the chopper with Bob and Miles right before they were dropped in.

Gunfire music interrupted her thoughts. Above her, all around her. The zombies had crashed through a barricade. Maybe they had crashed through all of the barricades. Maybe there was nothing left.

“Fight the good fight!” Sutter shouted, his voice sounding like a mockery of an 80’s rock star’s high-pitched wail.

The music. It was still there. What was Sutter thinking? Was country music supposed to pump everyone up, motivate them to lean into their guns and scream into the bowels of Hell?

Something wet dripped onto her face, striking her forehead, her cheeks. Slowly at first, and then a steady trickle. One drop upon her lips confirmed that it was blood.

A gust of wind upon the back of her neck. An open doorway; bodies spilled through the door behind her; bodies rained down into the elevator shaft. Zombies? Misshapen forms noiselessly condemning themselves to the void. No screams, no shouts. Why were they falling into the shaft so willingly?

They wanted the flesh of the living.

There was no way she could stop here. Keep going. Another floor. Keeping going up.

Bodies rained down from above, more screams following, flashes of gunfire breaking through layers of darkness. Spots danced in front of her eyes as she tried to shield her face with a forearm, her ankles wrapped tightly around the cables, which swayed back and forth. Bullets pinged off the walls.

Her ankle was caught on something.

From beneath her, a hand had snagged her boot.

The cables swayed. She held on, wrapping one arm around the cables, digging into her holster for the 9mm with her free hand.

Whoever—or whatever–had tried to grab her, was suddenly no longer interested. She tried to peer into the dark below her, and there was just enough light from open elevator doors and sporadic gunfire flashes to see that her attacker had lost their grip.

But there was another, holding tightly to the cables and peering up at her. Vega could see the lipless teeth. She could see the maggot-corrupted eye sockets, and the spaces where ears should have been had they not rotted away.

“Saw this in a movie once,” she said to herself.

Ankles secured around the cable, she inhaled deeply, then arched her body backward. The cables were unstable and unsteady; this stunt was idiotic.

Her torso stretching down into the dark while her legs and ankles locked her onto the elevator cables, her head was pointed at the bottom of the world. With both hands on the gun, she aimed at the creature beneath her. The cables swayed.

She fired twice, bright flashes blocking out the black abyss.

Twisting around in the dark, she struck the wall of the elevator shaft and her body was jarred loose from the cables. Caught by a cold rush of wind, her hand snapped out. The cables were slippery, passing through her clutching fingers.

When her body slammed hard against the ground, she waited for the darkness to close in. She waited for the sensation of death. But she had fallen and landed too quickly.

And her eyes were still open. She wasn’t unconscious. She wasn’t dead.

Sitting up, she wanted one moment of respite, one moment where she wasn’t fighting for her life. One moment of peace; she would give anything to return back to Vincent’s gun shack in the suburbs.

Vega needed the rest, and now it would come.

The dead stood around her.

Ragged clothes, torn faces, bony limbs. Skeletons dressed in the clothes of the homeless, the murdered, the lost.

She crouched there, weaponless. The gun had fallen from her hand. There was no way to defend herself, and she was not afraid. There was no way to fight back, and she did not panic. She felt nothing.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Vega said.

If she closed her eyes now, she would miss out on her own death.

Her mind was blank, as if she was already gone. As if she had already joined their ranks.

But they stood around her, wavering, encircling her. They stood around her and did not approach.

“Come on, you fuckers,” she said. “Come and get it. Come on. Come on!”

Limpid heads hung between shoulders. They regarded her, looked upon her, and did nothing. Arms hung at their sides. They did not moan. They silently watched her, playing a game with her, giving her a chance to catch her breath and make her feel like she might have a chance against them.

Vega’s rage returned, and the trauma of a heavy adrenaline crash wasn’t strong enough to keep her from clenching her fists, from wanting to kill each and every one of the zombies that seemed to be mocking her now. Taunting her with the idea of death. Playing with the last few moments of her life.

Let them fight for every piece of her flesh they could fit into their mouths. With her bare hands, she would take as many of them as she could.

They didn’t approach. They just stared at her.
Stared
at her. The country music guitar twang in the background felt like someone had turned on a soundtrack to the wrong film.

When the dead slowly stepped aside to reveal the stairway beyond their circle of rot and decay, she remembered that Mina had controlled these things. There was an intelligence behind their actions; their presence wasn’t directed by hellish energies, but rather, a cursed mind tampered by military pseudo-scientific bullshit.

Doctor Desjardins had warned her that Mina’s power was being used by another malignant power. But his explanations didn’t make sense. Mina was dead; Father Joe had destroyed her. Whatever had provoked the zombies to rouse from their sleepy state to become aggressive again wasn’t something she could understand; but whatever was going on wanted her to be part of it.

The dead wanted her for something special.

She walked past them, confident the dead were not acting upon their own cognizance. Their foul, skeletal bodies were commanded by an ethereal power.

Vega really wished she had a gun.

Could she end this? If she confronted whatever controlled these things, would she be able to destroy it and give the human race some reprieve from Armageddon?

Distantly, Sutter’s voice rang through the elevator shaft. She couldn’t make out what he was saying.

And she walked up the stairs.

The dead did not follow her.

Standing upon the threshold, she saw a person sitting in a chair in front of a small television.

The country music suddenly cut out.

The figure stood. A woman with long, red hair. Not a wig. A thin, pale woman with black eyes. In one hand she held a katana, and Vega could see the bloodstains that crusted its edge.

Who the hell would have a katana?

Vincent had a katana once, but only because it had been left at Selfridge by the woman who had tried to help Traverse. Her name had been Rose, and she ended up being skewered by her stupid weapon.

Puzzled information fell into place in Vega’s head. In seconds, too much was starting to make sense. Too much, too fast.

Even though Vega had only talked to her briefly on one occasion, she remembered someone who had the red hair. She remembered because the woman who had that hair was the same woman who was extremely important to the apocalyptic design. The same woman whose entire head disappeared when Father Joe blew it off with a shotgun at Selfridge.

“What do you think of my new outfit?” Mina said.

“Looks great on you,” Vega said, swallowing a gulp of air. Something didn’t feel right.

She stepped into the corridor and tried to circle around, slowly walking sideways, scanning the ground for anything that could be used as a weapon.

“You,” Mina said.

“Me,” Vega replied.

“Do you know who I am?”

“I know you’re supposed to be dead. I don’t know how or why you’re standing here now, but I know that dead people should stay dead.”

Mina smiled, and Vega recognized the malice in that smile. It was a smile that suggested bloodletting was on the horizon.

“Do you know what it feels like to have a sword shoved into your stomach?” Mina asked.

Vega kept moving. Mina wasn’t combat-trained, was she? Vega knew next to nothing about this woman, except the fact that she was supposed to be dead. It was one thing for someone to come back to life as a zombie, but it was another thing altogether to come back if they were missing a head—
and the head was back, too.

“I don’t know,” Vega said. “You let me come up here. You’re directing the zombies, right? So I guess you want me to know what it feels like to have a sword shoved into my stomach.”

Father Joe destroyed Mina, and he managed to convince Vega that Mina was no more. She meant them no harm. But here she was, with some kind of personal vendetta against Vega. A vendetta that involved a sword.

After all the crazy shit Vega had been through, nothing surprised her.

“I know someone who might know what it feels like to have a sword shoved into their stomach,” Vega said. “Well, I knew her, and I didn’t really know her. Not on a personal level. I knew her just enough to shove a sword into her stomach myself. A sword that looked a lot like the one you have.”

Mina’s malicious smile never faltered. She turned slowly, remaining near the chair, watching Vega walk around the room.

“You killed me once, and now I get to return the favor,” Mina said.

“I didn’t kill you,” Vega said.

Now the truth.

Say it.

“Oh yes, you did,” Mina said. “I know who killed me, and I think you should know who is about to kill you.”

“If you say so.”

Apparently, Vega had an enemy, someone who wanted her dead. God had a strange sense of humor. For all the bounty-hunting and emotional need for vengeance and closure, there had never really been anyone who went out of their way to kill her.

She really shouldn’t be surprised.

A shard of light from the outside caught the edge of the katana blade. The bright spot rendered Mina’s bold green eyes invisible for a brief moment, until she lowered the weapon. The smile shaped her maniacal face into a demonic guise.

“My blood soaked into your fingers,” Mina said. “It’s not fair that I haven’t felt yours upon my hands.”

“Get on with it,” Vega said.

“You know who I am.”

“Probably not.”

“Say it. Say my name.”

Vega knew what it felt like to allow emotions to override judgment. She knew what her enemy was going through now. She knew because she had played this same scenario in her own head several times, except she would have talking to Traverse.

Vega knew how to play this game.

“Mina, you can go fuck yourself.”

When the woman with the sword charged forward, Vega had already convinced herself that she wouldn’t mind killing Rose a second time.

BELLA

The first thing Brian did was look into his mother’s eyes. Bella looked right back. Again, that horrifying thought: she didn’t know who he was.

A herd of buffalo in a cowboy movie. That’s what the horde outside sounded like. How many could there be?

There were enough guns in the room to arm double the amount of people who carried the weapons. But that might not be enough.

Run, hide, or fight? Would they work together?

Eyes shifted throughout the room. Bella held her breath. She knew what was coming next, and if everyone else expected it to happen, nothing would change. They couldn’t stop what they were about to do.

“Oh, fuck this!” someone said.

Bella thought she heard a baby cry out. She kept her eyes on Brian. They had both seen this before in one of their sanctuaries. In one of the places they tried to survive in, spending hours listening to nothing, seeing nothing. Ever.

That’s why Brian left and why she didn’t move. She didn’t have to move. Running didn’t improve anyone’s chances. Once everyone cleared out, the place would be safer. And it would become quiet again, silent. They could sit here together and listen to nothing again.

As people scattered through the open windows and pushed each other out of the way, Brian grabbed Doctor Desjardins and pulled him into the crowd.

Brian was on the run again, and this other man meant something to him.

“Get out the way ya dumb bitch!”

“No. No! You can’t let them get me!”

“God oh God please oh oh oh God…”

“They’re already here! Get back inside! Get back get back!”

Bella saw an opening in the crowd and pushed right through, all of her movements timed perfectly to ease past. She might have been a breath of wind upon their faces or necks. They wouldn’t have seen her if they tried to look for her.

She chased her son down a flight of steps into a basement. He slammed the door shut in her face and she exploded through it, tripping over herself and tumbling into the room.

Brian quickly worked to push boxes and whatever he could find in front of the door. Doctor Desjardins helped him.

“You were going to leave me out there,” she said.

He continued moving objects in front of the door. “You should know better. You of all people should know what it takes to survive.”

Bella launched herself at Brian; he was not her son. He was not her son, but another desperate survivor who would hurt everyone and anyone to remain alive.

At first, her hands strayed to his throat.

Her son’s throat.

A long time ago, she had changed his diapers. She didn’t recognize the vacant gaze in his expression.

He didn’t fight back.

She instantly reviled herself for attacking Brian.

“Why don’t you just stop?” was all she could manage to say.

Because she choked on anything else she could have said.

Because there were tears in her eyes.

And he stared back at her, not blinking, letting her force him against the wall with her desperate emotions guiding her.

“This isn’t what he taught you,” she said. But there was more. She wanted to say more, but she felt the weight of hopelessness upon her soul. Hopelessness that dragged the words from her throat. Hopelessness, punching her in the stomach, making it difficult to form the words that could define the emotions she felt now.

Mocking her in his way, he let her hold onto him. Why couldn’t he wrap his arms around her, tell her everything would be okay?

He said nothing, did nothing.

Maybe it was better she had never seen him again. A terrible thought, but not as terrible as the false human being who was in her grasp now. A manikin, a plastic, emotionless version of the person who had been her son.

“You have to always do the right thing,” she said weakly, her body sagging, giving up.

“What’s the right thing to do?” Brian asked. “Tell me what the right thing is. Tell me, since you know how to live. Tell me, so I can be just like you.”

No more crying. All the rage and hurt stopped her breath now, when she needed it most. If she couldn’t save her son’s soul, all was lost. This was all she had left, and it was impossible to talk to this person, this stranger.

Betrayal. Desmond had been on the Ambassador Bridge and had run back into the city instead of across the bridge.

Brian had left her and had no intention of coming back.

In seconds, everything dissolved into the tears that streamed down her cheeks. The tears that dropped onto Brian’s chest.

What had Desmond said about always doing the right thing?

She had watched a man die on a rooftop, doing nothing to help him remain alive, even though she had been willing to risk her life to save complete strangers.

There was no control. Nothing was controlled. Pieces of her were everywhere. Pieces of her were in Canada, in all the different sanctuaries she and Brian had shared. More pieces of her scattered throughout Detroit. How much was left?

“You want me to die with everyone else?” Brian whispered. “Is that the right thing? That’s not what we’ve done in the past. You taught me another way.”

Her bottom lip quivered. Speak. Just speak. Tell him. Hold him.

“You were the one who told me I should let go of the person I used to be,” he said. “You were the one who told me we have to die to live in this new world. You were the one who told me we had to follow the rules of the jungle. You told me after what they made us do. Did you forget?”

Her face doused in tears, her grimy clothes sticking to her sweaty body, she sniffled. She didn’t know who to be angry with, but this wasn’t her fault. She had been a good mother. Until she met Desmond, she was a single mother who worked her hardest to instill good values in her son. He would become the man that his father wasn’t.

“Excuse me,” Doctor Desjardin cut in, “but we’re in deep shit.”

The laugh that shook her chest felt right. She let go of her son and turned her back on him.

Doctor Desjardin pushed a desk in front of the door. Bella stood back and watched the two men work to secure the door. Silly cartoon-people moving as if they were following the direction of a drunken artist who didn’t actually know what he wanted his characters to do. Brian and Doctor Desjardin tried to secure the door because it was all they could do. It was all they were capable of doing.

“Help us, God help us!” a voice shouted above them.

There were more voices, more prayers.

“You want to know the truth?” Brian asked while moving boxes full of empty bottles around the room. “You want to know what happened to Desmond? I know exactly what happened to him.”

The early evening light from the basement window illuminated concrete-colored shadows and dull shades of blue, as if the basement had been weathered by time; once bold and radiant with life, now a cold domain full of unwanted truths.

“I found two bodies,” Brian said. “I found them both. Outside of a church, in a pile of bodies that were being thrown into a truck. They were dropped into a hole. That’s where they are now.”

His words were a challenge. Standing there with his hands on his hips, lips curled into a tight grimace, jaw clenching.

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with!” Doctor Desjardins shouted at them. “If you knew, you’d actually move faster.”

Brian slung his bag over his shoulder and unzipped it.

“You want an air strike? We can have an air strike. Right here, right now.”

Doctor Desjardin made for the basement window.

“All I have to do is say, ‘current location.’ As soon as I say that, jets are going to scream in here and set all those fuckers on fire.” Brian’s eyes lit up. “It’s going to be bright. I just want to see it. One time, see hundreds of them on fire at once.”

Bella shoved him from the bag. The scientist was slipping out of the basement window, and all she wanted to do was get out alive with her son.

Angelica had mentioned that Sutter was at the Depot. If that was true, the air strike should be aimed there; Doctor Desjardins had mentioned a fight was going on there. By luring all these rotted toward the Depot, they could make a difference.

Desmond would have thought of it.

Brian grabbed his mother by her shoulders. He pushed her against a wall. Loud thuds against the basement door rattled the makeshift barricade of old, dusty liquor bottles.

“Just let us in!” a woman screamed outside the door. “Please just let us in!” she pounded frantically, rattling the door.

Brian turned his attention to the door, forgetting his sudden decision to blow everything up. The scientist had slipped away.

“We have to go,” Bella said. “Please, we can leave.”

“You just don’t fucking get it,” Brian said. He licked his lips and aimed his submachine gun at the door.

He was right. She didn’t understand the senseless bravado.

“Let’s go!” she said.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” he asked. “You want to be proud of your son, don’t you? You want to see me do something good for a change? YOU DID THIS TO ME! You made me this way, and I’m doing the right thing, right now. I’ll destroy this entire fucking city right now, RIGHT NOW!”

When a fist punched through and splintered the wood, Brian didn’t so much as flinch.

“This is silly,” Bella said. She grabbed him by the elbow, and he shot her a dark look, a look that suggested he might no longer know the difference between a zombie and a living, human being.

“You want to see silly?” Brian asked. “This nightmare is silly. The way we’ve been doing it. The way we’ve been fighting for just a few more seconds of breath. How could you be so blind? It’s like this everywhere. We were getting out of Detroit. We were going to find another place.”

“And we still can. Please.”

Brian wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the face in the door. The face that poked through the shattered wood. The terrible, malicious face. Crumbling lips split open to reveal a wall of crooked, leaning teeth. Maggots spilled out of its slow-opening mouth as a scream from the stairwell accompanied its malevolent presence. Whoever had been standing there a moment ago had been replaced by the undead fiend.

For all the guns Brian’s people had, it was strange to hear nothing but screams and shouts coming from upstairs. Why weren’t they pouring hellfire out of their guns to stop the dead in their tracks?

Because these were all survivors, and they knew fighting was pointless.

So did Brian.

She ripped the machine gun out of his hands, and he violently shoved her into the wall.

Brian stood across from her, his hands clenched into tight fists, shocked by his own reaction. When she reached out for him, he took her hand as if he had never held another hand before in his life.

“We’re leaving,” she said.

Bella knew he followed her out because she was right, and he knew better. Besides, she didn’t want to see that terrible face again. The face in the door.

Because she heard the door crack and splinter, and she knew there would be more than just one face staring through that door.

As they squirmed through the basement window, they found Doctor Desjardins waiting for them; he gestured wildly, motioning for them to follow.

***

Brian wouldn’t stop whining about the loss of the radio equipment. Would it kill him to acknowledge the loss of life, the loss of all those people who were going to follow his lead out of Detroit?

Huddled in a room on the second floor of a nearby hotel, they quietly watched the evening descend and listened for signs of life, or unlife. There might be people living in the rooms above them, but as long as they remained silent in this anonymous, dark room, nobody would find them.

From here, they could watch the street.

What next?

“They’re from Hell,” Doctor Desjardins insisted.

Bella could see their shapes mingling near the bar, but she had seen the majority of them scatter into the city, not following the trajectory of a mob as most of the zombies usually did.

“I have to sit here and listen to this shit,” Brian said. “We need to be thinking of a way to get that radio equipment and my gun. There’s going to be a lot of guns there now.”

“Some kid you raised,” Desjardins said.

“Hey, motherfucker,” Brian said. “I kept you alive because I figured you would be a hostage, that’s it. The more I think about it, the less I think you’d be worth something.”

“Right, kid. You’re good at making decisions. Lots of people dead because of you.”

“Because of me? You’re part of this. You’re part of the problem. You said that you know
something
about those things out there, and you think I want to keep
you
alive?”