This Rotten World (Book 2): We All Fall Down (5 page)

Ace stood in the street, shading
his eyes from the sun. In his hand was a black, police-issue revolver. He
looked at it, pondering his course of action. His band of freed prisoners had
mostly dwindled once they escaped the police station. Some left for home, some
were put off by the weird ways of Ace himself, and some had actually died.
There had been nineteen men. Including Ace, five were left. They were mean men,
much bigger than Ace himself, but he had something they didn't have. He had
charisma. They followed him. They did what he said. It was the way it should
be.

When they broke into a Subway to
make sandwiches, they had made his first without him having to tell anyone. He
had eaten a six-inch sub piled high with lunch meat and a bag of chips that was
more salt and oil than anything else. The meal was more than enough to fuel his
130-pound frame. As he chewed, he listened to his men talk. Worthless
conversation, the mindless chit-chat that spews out of those that have empty
heads.

"Did you see that one cop?
'No! Don't hit me!'" the red-bearded man said in a mocking voice.

"Baked chips are
weird," the man with the shaved head said.

"I just want to find some
weed," said the tan man with the teardrop tattoo.

The chubby man with the
funny-looking goatee said, "I wonder if my mom is still alive."

It was all worthless chatter,
just noise to fill the silence. Noise to push the fear back. Halfway through
their meal, Ace heard the crunch of broken glass, the glass they had busted to
enter the shop. Somewhere, a silent alarm was going off, but there was no one
to watch the monitors, no one to call the cops, and no cops to come even if the
call were made.

Ace swiveled in his chair to see
a woman struggling through the light of the doorway. She wore a dress, a floral
patterned number. She was covered in blood. Her halting, herky-jerky steps were
the trademark of the dead. Ace wiped his mouth with a napkin, while the others
droned on. He wondered how long it would be before the men noticed the dead
apparition moving through the restaurant, the floral pattern somehow seeming
classy compared to the restaurant's horrid yellow and green paint-scheme. Ace
sat there, sunglasses on his face, watching.

She passed right by him, not
even sparing a glance his way, drawn towards the idle and meaningless chatter
of his escape-mates. She shuffled towards his men, his tools. The chubby man
with the funny-looking beard jumped out of his seat when her cold hands settled
around his neck. They tumbled to the ground together, and the man skittered
away from the woman as she tried to rise from the ground. The other men hopped
out of their seats. They picked up the stools they had been sitting on with
their hands and began bashing the woman with the unwieldy weapons.

Ace watched from behind his
sunglasses. He watched their faces, sick faces filled with a joy that shouldn't
have existed. They liked hitting her. They liked breaking her bones with the
stools. Madness twinkled in their eyes. They were animals, but they had their
purposes. Ace took a sip from his soda as they stripped the dress off of the
broken creature, "Just to see what she had going on," as the
red-bearded man put it.
Filthy creatures,
Ace thought. He didn't know who
was worse, the dead or the living.

The chubby man with the
funny-looking beard urinated on the woman, his little penis dangling in the florescent
light of the restaurant. Ace was done with his drink, so he dropped it on the
ground, and hopped off of the stool. He exited the restaurant, the men
following behind him like lost puppy dogs.

"Where are we going?"
the man with the teardrop tattoo asked.

"We're going to get my
coke," he told them. This set them into hooting and hollering. In their
hands, they carried weapons, blunt machines, capable of caving in skulls and
putting the dead down for good. As Ace walked through the valley of the city,
the sun rose up high, the shadows shifting, illuminating the walking dead
spread out before them. Ace had a gun, but he didn't need a weapon. He already
had four of them, living breathing weapons, ready to do what he said when he
said it.

Ace told the chubby man about
the club he had played at the night before. The man knew exactly where it was,
and he took the lead, Ace strolling casually along, his hands in the pockets of
his leather pants, the cool metal of his handgun against the small of his back.
They walked in the sunshine, feeling its June warmth spread throughout their
bodies. The echo of helicopters thundered through the city, and smoke rose into
the sky in every direction that Ace looked. The city was crumbling in front of
his very eyes.
         What a great day,
he thought.

There was no plan. He just
wanted to get high. What good was the end of the world without a little buzz?
When they passed a convenience store, his men were obviously thinking the same
thing. Though the store was obviously locked up, they found their way inside
anyway. The crunch of broken glass drew the dead towards them, circling in upon
their location as they looted through the store for beer and cigarettes.

Ace stood across the street in
the shadows, looking like nothing more than a lifelike statue clinging to the
shaded side of a tall office building. He watched them move, the dead, drawn to
the noise coming from inside the store. There were so many of them.
Where
had they all come from?
Then there was more noise. From somewhere he heard
an engine; it sounded distant, but in the dead alleys of the city, it was hard
to tell. As it turns out, it wasn't as far off as he thought. When his men came
stumbling out of the convenience store, their arms full of beer, cigarettes,
and snacks that could only barely be categorized as food, a military jeep
swerved around the corner and screeched to a halt in front of the men.

He watched as his men threw down
their purloined goods, the man with the teardrop tattoo going so far as to put
his hands on his head. A bullhorn clicked to life, and the man in the jeep
said, "Stop right there. Put your hands on your head. The city is under
martial law."

His men froze. The driver stayed
put while the other soldiers hopped out of the jeep and headed over to the men,
their guns at the ready. They made one crucial mistake. They failed to notice
Ace standing in the shadows across from the store, perhaps mistaking him for
one of the dead. He watched as the man in the jeep took aim down the street,
his focus drawn elsewhere as the dead closed in around them. There wasn't much
time.

Ace pulled the cold chunk of
metal from the back of his pants, and stalked toward the driver. He assessed
the situation, calmly, coldly. Three soldiers. Nine bullets in the handgun. It
was doable, but he would have to be fast. He kept his eyes on the man in the
driver seat of the jeep. He never even heard Ace approach. Ace pulled the
trigger, and the man slumped forward, blood splattered on the inside of the
jeep's windshield. With no hesitation, Ace turned to his right, locking in on
the soldiers, whose reactions were somewhat slower than he would have expected.
He was able to line up his second shot, and he shot the second soldier in the
shoulder. He fell to the ground, as the third soldier spun and peppered the
side of the jeep with bullets. It was too late though. Ace had already ducked
behind the jeep, smiling, his back pressed up against the cool metal.

The third soldier never had a
chance. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, the rock being Ace and
his handgun, the hard place being the four criminals behind him, brutal,
unforgiving criminals who had no intention of having their wonderland torn away
from them and sealed behind the cold iron bars of a cell. As soon as the
soldier turned his back and fired, Ace's men tackled the soldier, hauling him
to the ground, and wrestling the rifle out of his hands. They kicked him and
stomped him, just to let him know how displeased they were with the
interruption of their revels.

Ace rose from behind the jeep,
dusted off his leather jacket and walked over to the man, who was lying facedown
on the ground, the red-bearded man's knee in the soldier's back. Ace twirled
the gun in his hand and squatted down in front of the soldier.

"What do you want us to do
with him?" the red-bearded man said.

Ace smiled at the soldier on the
ground, a predatory, unfriendly smile, and said, "Take his weapons. Take
all their weapons. Put a bullet in his knee, and let him see if he can
survive."

They did what he said, just as
he had done with the cop in the police station. By the time they had thrown
their beer, snacks, and cigarettes into the back of the jeep, the soldier was
hopelessly surrounded by the dead, as were they, but they had a jeep... the
soldier merely had a limp and the breath in his lungs. They drove away,
pressing through the dead, smashing in the faces of the one's that got too
close with the butts of their stolen rifles. Over the noise of the roaring jeep
engine, they could hear the man scream.

Ace hummed a tune from his
childhood as the man with the shaved head drove them to their destination. A
helicopter flew over head and fired a rocket into the distance. There was an
explosion.
Explosions are cool,
he thought.

Lieutenant General McCutcheon
sat in the cab of a Hitachi gantry crane sitting on the edge of the Port of
Portland's Terminal 2. The terminal sat on the edge of the Willamette River,
some three and a half miles south of the St. John's Bridge, a beautiful green
steel suspension bridge that spanned the river. Of course, this was not the
direction that Lieutenant General McCutcheon was looking. He was looking
further south, at the tops of the buildings that were on fire a mile and a half
away to the south.

Below him, the bulk of an army
corps was working at fortifying the terminal, 52 acres of parking lots,
abandoned shipping containers with nowhere to go, and 30,000 men under his
command. He had not yet been promoted to a four-star general, but he could feel
the promotion coming. The body of the previous general that had been in charge
of the city's defense lay smoldering in one of the burning skyscrapers in
downtown Portland. At least he hoped that was the case. It could very well be
walking about by now. Such were the risks of working in the army.

McCutcheon cast his gaze to the
west, eyeing the opposite side of the river. He could see bodies moving.
Whether or not they were dead was of no consequence to him. Right now, his only
concern was fortifying his position and the city's deep waterways, dredged to
make the city one of the most impressive inland ports the country had. It was their
lifeline. With the port in their hands, they had access to supplies. They had
access to the Navy's resources, they had reliable runways, but most importantly
they had a means of escape.

He looked down at the binoculars
in his hands, strong hands, capable hands, and he put them to his eyes. On the
opposite side of the river, he watched as a young boy ran, shambling forms
chasing after him in the sunlight. He heard the brief pop of a rifle, and
watched as the head of one of the creature's turned into a red mist.

On top of warehouse #206, one of
the snipers under his command was doing his best to help out. Considering the
opposite side of the river must have been at least 2,500 feet away, he was
doing a heck of a job. The boy ran, his blonde bowl cut bouncing with each
awkward step. The boy tripped on a rock, the way young people do. There was
another pop from warehouse #206, and another puff of pink mist. This time one
of the dead's arms fell off. But it wasn't enough to buy the boy a reprieve.
McCutcheon lowered his binoculars and ran one of his strong, capable hands over
his face. Smooth shaven and grim, he let the binoculars dangle on the cord that
was hanging around his neck.

"Jesus. Just...
Jesus."

McCutcheon climbed down the
ladders and landings that would get him back on the ground. At the bottom, in
the long shadow of the crane, he met Colonel Tejada, a thick squatty man with
brown skin, and arms like woven steel cables. "Any word from the men that
checked out the hospital?"

Colonel Tejada saluted McCutcheon
before he spoke. "The hospital is lost, sir. They said it was overrun.
They only found two survivors, a doctor and a patient, sir."

McCutcheon scrubbed his hand
over his face. "Any casualties?"

"One injury, sir."

They walked across the black tar
of the port headed for warehouse #206, a massive building that was mostly
pillars and recently unpacked communications equipment. Cheap army desks and
tables could not fill the hollow feeling of the warehouse. They entered the
building, going over the particulars of this particular occupation, as unlikely
an occupation as Lietuenant General McCutcheon could have ever imagined. He sat
at his plain desk, its cheap, faux wood surface covered in piles of manila
folders.

"What about the
police?" McCutcheon asked. "Have we heard anything from the local
authorities?"

"Sir, we've been able to
make contact with some of the suburban police. They sound like they're holding
on by a thread. As far as Portland goes, we know the East Precinct has suffered
heavy casualties. It sounds as if they've barricaded themselves in their police
station. The North Precinct is totally lost, and we haven't heard back from the
men that we sent to the Downtown Precinct, sir."

"Well this sounds like
quite a shitstorm. Send a squad out to the downtown precinct. Maybe our men got
into some trouble. Have them look for the missing squad along the way. Send
some men to the East Precinct as well. Get those police out of there. Get them
home."

The Lieutenant General eased
himself into a deceptively comfortable chair. "How are our boys in the air
doing?"

"They've reconnoitered all
of the major highways. All major arteries into and out of the city are clogged
with stalled cars and the infected, sir."

McCutcheon didn't like the sound
of that. There was no way into or out of the city except by air, by ship, or by
foot... and you'd have a greater chance of getting your foot gnawed off than
making it out alive. He rocked back and forth in his chair. As an afterthought,
he asked, "How are the rescue stations coming along?"

"Preparations are ongoing.
The Memorial Coliseum is being fortified as we speak, sir. We've run into some
trouble at the soccer stadium."

"What kind of trouble,
Sergeant?"

"The Annies plowed through
the gates on the east end of the field. We lost quite a few men, sir."

"How many?"

"Five hundred, give or take
a hundred."

McCutcheon ran a hand over his
face. Five-hundred dead, maybe more. Missing squads all over the place. The
operation was not starting out well."

"Any refugees, yet?"

"Some are trickling in, but
there are more reports of the dead than the living, sir."

McCutcheon dismissed Sergeant
Tejada, and the stocky man walked away. He leaned back in his uncomfortable
chair and put his hands behind his head. He put his boots on the desk, thinking.

3 million people... there were
three million people within fifty miles of where he sat. How many of them had
turned into the dead? How many of them had gotten up off the ground after being
attacked, and started a quest for living flesh? McCutcheon still found it hard
to believe that this was all real. He was deployed on American soil, not to
defend it, but to exterminate the very people he had sworn to protect.

Things were bad all over. In New
York, the army was fighting a losing battle. The sickness had spread, the
infected rampaging through the streets. The army had sent a hundred-thousand
soldiers to take on the eight million inhabitants of New York... and there were
another 12 million in the metropolitan area. 3 million was a lot... 20 million,
well that was impossible, even with a hundred-thousand troops. He wondered how
long it would be. How long could they fight this war against the people they
were supposed to defend?

McCutcheon lifted a stack of
papers off of his desk. He didn't want to believe the paper on top. It was a
list of non-reported soldiers, mostly members of the National Guard and the
reserves, but there were other names on the list, names of people who had
simply gone missing. He didn't blame them. If he hadn't actively been on the
base at the time, he would have been tempted to stay in Colorado to fight for
his family.

McCutcheon cursed himself for
listening to his wife. "A home in the city," Sheila had said,
"some place to keep me busy when you're away." Now there were
potentially 700,000 thousand murderers surrounding his wife and his two
daughters... and he was stuck here in Portland, trying to figure out how many
soldiers had been sent out to Colorado. Was it less than the 30,000 he had? Was
it more? Was one of his daughters being chased down Clear Creek right now,
being chased by homicidal cannibals, that, if the eggheads were correct, were
actually reanimated corpses? Was there a sniper there, paving the way for her
escape?

The questions kept coming. He
couldn't stop them. He hadn't been able to reach his wife since last night. He
had told her to leave the city. He was still kicking himself for it. Seeing how
the roads in Portland looked, he had most likely sent Sheila to her death, but
maybe she was out there, holing up somewhere with  his daughters, Samantha and
Raina. God, he hoped she was out there.

The Lieutenant General leaned
forward and put his hands over his face, to hide the tears.
Goddamn this
warehouse,
he thought,
it doesn't even have a private place to cry.

Directly above him, he heard the
pop of another sniper rifle come from the roof of Warehouse #206.