B-Movie Attack (19 page)

She was afraid to move even slightly, the fear thickening the blood in her veins. The Intestinator could return at any moment. The giant woman outside could bash through the walls and level the building. The flying, red-eyed creatures might burst through the window and finish her off. The screams outside continued, louder. It wasn’t only the monsters she’d already seen that frightened her, but the ones she had yet to encounter that could be on their way.

Jessica prayed Billy was safe.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ben O’Malley loved Wrigley Field so much he wanted to die on the lush green of the field, and considering the way things had been going today, it was a strong possibility. He stood at home base, looking out at the empty bleachers. Being the greens keeper, he had full access to the field. A crew of two dozen tended the field on normal working shifts, but tonight, the home of the Cubs was his own. He pictured a crowded stadium in place of the empty dark blue seats. It wasn’t so much the players, the commentators, or even the fans as much as it was the field itself. Hundreds of thousands had eyed his hard work, what for him was the source of blisters, a stooped back and menial wages. Whether they thought of him while watching Sammy Sosa crank one to center left or not, they knew his work, and that was enough to satisfy him.

“Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,” Ben sang. He stood at home plate, dusting the diamond with his foot. He clutched the wooden bat; the pitching machine was winding its pitch. “…root, root, root for the home team, and if they don’t win it’s a shame—because they won’t renew my contract, they’ll test me for steroids, and my endorsement deal with Gatorade will go tits up.”

He swung.
 

Strike.
 

Damn.

“O’Malley swings and misses,” Ben announced. “He’s warning up. Working out the kinks. And up comes the next pitch.”

Strike two.

“Money and women and booze and fame have slowed me down,” Ben joked. He let another pitch pass him by without trying. His arthritis was acting up. He rubbed his wrists. His shoulder blades jolted him with a sharp cutting pain. “I’m too old for this fast pitch bullshit.”

Ben positioned his feet for the pitch. “Make this one count. The crowd still loves you.”

Crack.

The grounder was sent between first and second base. “Base hit. I love it. I love this field so fucking much, I could die here.” He leaned down, picked up his whiskey bottle, and took another swig. “My final resting place.”

A boisterous voice shouted out to him, “You’ll get your wish, fella!”

Ben turned around. The field was empty. The air was ominously quiet ever since the dome turned Chicago into a dark city and screams and violence were rampant. He was shocked nobody took cover at Wrigley Field. Maybe nobody else was alive who liked baseball.
 

“Hey, where you are you? Show yourself. You want to take a swing too? I’ll pitch.”

Ba-bam!

Ben’s legs went out from under him. He landed on his back, his lower body twisting and crunching with broken bones. Seconds later, the agony finally arrived. Both his kneecaps were shot to pieces, the legs down to his feet ugly pulp. The rough stumps continued to cough out blood. The stadium lights blinded him.
 

Don’t look at your legs
.

“Call an ambulance—don’t leave me like this!”

Yeah, the son-of-a-bitch who shot you will call for help
.
 

Ben wept. He couldn’t shift without triggering agony in his lower body. He averted his eyes to the left and inadvertently caught his left leg. The reality set in; he was going to bleed to death at Wrigley Field.

I’ll be seeing you soon, Harry Caray
.

The roar of a diesel engine reverberated on the ground. He was so dizzy, he wasn’t sure what direction the noise was coming from. Ben pivoted his upper body to search the field. The stadium was still empty. And then a panel of the left field wall was battered down and flattened. A yellow rig came steaming through the field.
 

Holy shit, it’s a steamroller!

The roller was pure steel, glinting as if recently polished. The rig closed in on him. The driver wore an orange hardhat, orange reflective vest, white T-shirt, and blue jeans. His face was corpse-black. Cheekbones sunken. Yellow eyes. One hand shifted the gears, steam pumping out of the top and coughing black exhaust into the air. Ben choked on the acrid cloud. The rig was yards out from him now and closing in. Ben noticed the double-barreled shotgun propped beside his seat.
 

“Don’t do it, please!” Ben pleaded. “Haven’t you done enough to me? This isn’t necessary. I’ll die. I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to smash me!”

The driver didn’t say a word. He was dead in the truest sense; despite the blackened mold growing on his face and the sunken desiccated flesh that blurred his features, he was callous and unyielding to the harm he was about to enact.
 

The roller pressed down on Ben’s feet, and quickly, the pop and crack of bones sent him to unconsciousness. Death followed once it crunched over his torso. Flattened into the earth, Ben O’Malley received his wish to die at Wrigley Field.
 

Then the steamroller broke through the walls of the stadium and continued into the city.
 

A. J. Myers, a resident in Ted Fuller’s apartment building, dared to open his door after hearing the soft muted plea, “
Please help me. I’ll bleed to death if you don’t help me. They left me here to die
.”

He was shocked to find every door on the first floor had been smashed to pieces except for his. A.J. couldn’t force himself to peer inside any of the empty rooms. He simply followed the voice that had spoken for the past five minutes in a soft mewl. The voice was familiar, the main reason he unlocked his door and ventured through the hall. Stephanie Minor was speaking, he believed. She was the resident at the last room on the first floor, and he had a crush on her ever since she moved in. She didn’t give him the time of day, since he was a handyman for the building and she was an aspiring ballet dancer. She performed at the fine arts theatre, and he’d seen her dressed in her pink tutu and imagined doing certain things to her. A.J. had fixed her leaking faucet three times; he kept it rigged to bust in a week’s time so he could visit her again. That cunning mindset failed to arrive in this moment of panic. Screams jolted the air from outside. Unholy things were happening out there. Unexplainable things.

He clasped his Luger pistol.
 

Any sign of trouble, he’d aim and fire.

Aim and fire.
 

It’s that simple.

“Please help me,” Stephanie cried again. “There’s so much blood. They hurt me…they hurt me so bad.”

A.J. kept his mouth shut. He refused to trust in anything after blood spattered his window like a dozen paintballs breaking against it until he couldn’t see through the pane. The police had a message playing instead of a dispatcher. Each friend or relative he phoned didn’t respond. The phones of a few, including his dad, were off the hook or out of service.
 

“Is someone there?” Stephanie cried out. “I can’t hold on much longer. I feel so weak. I don’t want to die. Not in the dark, not like this. I don’t want to be alone.”

A.J. arrived at Stephanie’s door. It was wide open. The living room was ransacked, every piece of furniture overturned and strewn on the floor. Claw marks marred the walls. A trail of blood soaked into the carpet. He followed it down the short hall to a bedroom. A silk net surrounded the bed. Stephanie’s shape he made out through the fabric.
 

“Oh, it’s you.” She sounded relieved. “Come here, A.J.”

A.J. obeyed. He parted the curtain. Stephanie was in a white nightgown. Her milky thighs were splayed open for him to relish. He studied her body, typing it into a mental registry. She smelled of lilac perfume, and A.J. absorbed it.
 

He recoiled at the wounds on her belly. Two slashes she kept covered with her hands. Blood stained the blankets and mattress beneath her.
 

“Oh my God,” A.J. gasped. “You’re bleeding. Let me take you out of here. My truck’s out back. We’ll haul ass to the hospital. You’re going to be fine.”

“Come closer,” she beckoned. “Please, A.J.”

A.J. lowered so he was face-to-face with Stephanie.
 

Close enough to kiss.
 

Stephanie put her hand around the back of his head and brought him down so she could speak into his ear. “I want you to lick my wounds.”

Stephanie’s jaw snapped from her face, falling into his hands. “Fuck me, A.J. Drill me. Stick it in every hole.” His crotch was squeezed by a hand tearing through the mattress. “Fuck me every which way with your three-inch pecker!”

A.J. flopped backward onto the floor. Before he landed, he saw fingers slip out of the back of Stephanie’s skull. Somebody had manipulated her like a puppet. A naked woman was underneath the bed. Both arms had torn up through the mattress board to contort Stephanie’s body. In two seconds, that woman was after him. He cowered as the vision of Stephanie’s face breaking into pieces repeated in his mind.
 

“What’s the matter? Are you going limp?”
 

The woman’s flesh clicked as it changed from smooth white flesh to black reptilian plates. Eyes brightened to red strobes so bright A.J. was blinded. He crawled blindly out of the room. He made it two more crab steps backward before his head was wrenched from the neck in one mean pull. A set of teeth bit at the artery jutting up from the stump like a bird ripping a worm from the earth.
 

A.J. was the last person to die in Ted Fuller’s apartment building.
 

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Billy, are you with me?”

Gray acrid smoke clogged the sky.
 

“
Uhnnnn
.”

“Billy, shit man, wake up. WAKE UP!”

Blood streamed down the side of Billy’s head, staining his brow and crossing his lips. With each waking second, the red warmth accelerated into a cutting lance.
 

“You want what?” Billy mumbled. “What do you want, man? What are you asking me?”

He was wedged between two upturned train seats, his body forced into an awkward position. His head, hands and torso were lying on a bed of shattered glass. Billy twisted and struggled to rise to his feet. He wobbled. The car had smashed into the road below the track. Folds of steel were mashed and bent into wicked claws. Nelson came into view, his eyes intense, though it was impossible to see him clearly through the fog of settling debris.
 

“We have to move,” Nelson insisted. “They’re out there waiting.”

“Who’s waiting? Who's out there?”

“Don’t you remember them? The weirdos.”

Billy couldn’t grasp a single thought. He touched his hand to his head. A slit deep enough to require stitches went from his eyebrow to the top of his skull. He couldn’t walk forward or backward, the roof facing him, his perspective distorted.
 

Nelson peered out a window. “They’re out there in the shadows, hiding in the alleys. We can’t stay here. I say we make a run for it. Isn’t Corporate Tower a few blocks from here?”

Details registered again, albeit gradually. Jessica was in Corporate Tower, Billy remembered. They were going to meet her there. But why?
 

THAM-THAM-THAM-THAM!

Earthquake shudders rang throughout the street. The end of the subway car was seized by a giant. Billy caught a patch of flesh from the window.
 

“What in Christ is that?” Billy shouted. “SHIT!”

“Hold on!” Nelson shouted. “YOU HOLD ON TIGHT!”

The car was lifted in the air and shaken back and forth. Billy grasped onto the high bar but couldn’t keep hold. He flew backwards and sailed out the back exit. Nelson slipped and sailed right behind him. They tumbled onto the street. The car was lifted many stories higher. Billy froze, eyes locked onto the woman who towered above them six or seven stories tall. She frantically shook the car.
 

She hadn't seen them fall.
 

Nelson had already taken off through the alley. Billy followed behind him, weak and already out of breath. Pure adrenaline shot him from the road and between two skyscrapers. A utility truck cruised down the street. A man was at the helm, crazed and driving sixty miles an hour. It was a living corpse, his skin wet with drops of clear liquid oozing through every pore on his face. Fifteen corpses were tied by the wrists and ankles to the open trunk bulging with bodies. They too glistened like the driver, their flesh blue. The stink of embalming fluid was a cutting tang as they passed. The undead driver pulled over and tackled a woman running from a car that had been stepped on, the trunk mashed into the ground, as if someone had dropped a piano on it from on high. The driver touched her arm once, and her femoral and jugular veins spat out blood with fire-hydrant pressure. Then the man’s fingers shot out a fluid that entered her arteries. Soon, her skin oozed the same embalming fluid as the other victims did. Dead, she was tied to the truck and added to the collection.