City of the Dead (29 page)

Beaming, he offered his free hand. The other hand tightened on the pistol grip.

Beside him, Frankie grunted again. "Ungh umnh!"

"No chance," Jim said, and stood his ground.

"Then you leave me no choice." Ramsey pointed the gun at his chest. "You are standing between us and the elevator to the roof. Get out of our way, Mr. Thurmond, or I can guarantee that you and your son will join the undead."

"Fuck this, Mr. Ramsey," DiMassi grunted. "Let's just use the stairwell on the other end of the hallway."

Jim clenched his fists and whispered, "Danny, run back to the elevators and get help."

Instead, Danny stepped forward, his own small hands balled into fists like his father's.

"You leave my Daddy alone, and let Frankie go!"

Ramsey laughed. "That is exactly the kind of spirit the next generation of humanity will need to survive. You will definitely be an asset, young man. You may come with us."

Danny darted forward and kicked Ramsey in the shin. Before Jim could move, DiMassi seized Danny. He twisted the boy's arm behind his back, and used Danny as a shield. Danny cried out.

"Don't move, Thurmond," Ramsey shouted. "Do as I say, and I give you my word that your son will live. Disobey me, and I will kill you all, starting with him."

"That will be the last thing you ever do, you son of a bitch. Leave him alone."

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"This is not the time for bravado, Mr. Thurmond. I know your story. You traveled hundreds of miles to save your son. You won't let him die now."

Jim bit his lip. Blood filled his mouth.

Ramsey motioned with the pistol. "Get down on the floor, now."

Jim hesitated. He saw his own fear reflected in Danny and Frankie's eyes. Then, reluctantly, he sagged to his knees.

Ramsey grabbed Danny's ear and twisted it between his fingers.

"Let me go!"

"Quiet, you ungrateful little brat. You will do as I say, or I will kill your father."

Frankie struggled against her bonds.

Ramsey pinched Danny's ear harder. "Lay down on the floor, Thurmond, and put your hands over your head. DiMassi, bring the woman. We're leaving."

"The only way you're getting out of here with my son," Jim said, "is to go through me."

"Indeed?"

"Over my dead body." Jim drew himself up, ready to spring.

Ramsey cocked his head and smiled.

"Very well then. If you insist."

The gunshot echoed through the corridor.

The zombies swarmed onto the second floor, pouring from the stairwells and spilling out of the elevator shafts. The men and women defending the entrances had no time to scream, let alone impede their progress. Like a tidal wave, the zombies washed over them, slaughtering everything in their path.

Nurse Kelli was on the third floor, on her way back to

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the medical wing to watch over Frankie and the quarantined family with tuberculosis, when the explosion occurred. The force of the blast knocked her off her feet, and ceiling tiles and insulation rained down on her. She lay there breathless, waiting to see if it would occur again.

She'd been assigned a small .22 semi-automatic pistol, which she knew how to use. Kelli's father and brothers had been avid target shooters and she'd received a marksman rating from the National Rifle Association years before. She'd been able to shoot a grouping of three tight enough to cover them with a quarter. Nailing a zombie in the head would be easy enough.

Picking herself back up and retrieving the pistol, Kelli ran for the stairwell. The gun made her feel safer. She wondered where Dr. Stern was, and hoped that he was okay.

Two men and a woman stood by the elevator doors, repeatedly jabbing the buttons.

"Don't take the elevators," Kelli cautioned. "That was an explosion."

"Are you sure?" one of the men asked. The others stared at her blankly.

"I think so, yes."

"Bates didn't say anything about explosions. What should we do?"

"Fight back."

"How?" one of the women asked. "There's nothing here to fight. They're all outside."

The man nodded. His voice was frantic, pleading. "Mr. Ramsey said they couldn't get in. He promised."

"Mr. Ramsey was full of shit," Kelli said.

The woman gasped. "You shouldn't talk like that! Mr. Ramsey saved us all."

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Not bothering to respond, Kelli hurried on. She rounded the corner, and spotted an exit sign at the end of the hall. Just as she reached for the door, it slammed into her, shoved from the other side.

Zombies swarmed through the doorway and opened fire.

The first bullet caught her in the stomach. The second punched the breath and blood from her lungs in midscream. Kelli had time to see a butcher knife flashing downward and then her severed artery squirted blood into her eyes, blinding her. She slipped to the floor, crushed beneath their stomping feet.

She thought, I never got to fire the pistol ...

Then a zombie was kneeling over her.

"You're still alive," it rasped. "Good. I will show you horror, wench."

She remembered her nightmare.

The zombie slid a razor blade across her breast, parting both cloth and flesh.

The fire alarm began to wail, drowning out her screams.

The first round of artillery explosions rolled across the city, sounding like thunder. The building shook. Lights swayed back and forth and furniture collapsed. Screams and gunfire echoed through the corridors. Above it all, the fire alarms shrieked.

Steve and Bates ran down the hall and ducked behind some sandbags.

"Is it an earthquake?" Steve shouted.

"No," Bates yelled. "They're shelling us!"

"But-but that doesn't make sense. They use us for food; possess us when they're done. They can't do either of those things if they blow us up."

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"They aren't trying to blow us up," Bates grunted. "This is calculated. Think about it. In order to kill us, they have to get inside. The artillery barrage is creating entrances for them."

A second wave of explosions shook the skyscraper. Suddenly, the lights went out and the fire alarm faded. The emergency lights came on, but their illumination was faint.

"Shit." Bates grabbed for his radio. "They've knocked out the power."

The radio squawked. Forrest sounded frantic.

"We've lost contact with the lobby," he shouted. "I think they used a truck bomb, Bates. A fucking truck bomb! We've got zombies on the second and third floors. Two and three are breached. We're holding them off on four, but we need reinforcements."

Another voice broke in on the channel. "Sir, we've got birds on six and seven! They're coming in through the windows! We opened them to shoot at- They-"

The report was interrupted by one long, wailing scream. It went on and on, turning into a high-pitched shriek before finally tapering off.

"Forrest?"

"I'm here!" The sounds of gunfire erupted in the background. "Hard to see from all this smoke. They won't stop coming. There's just more and more of them!"

"Forrest, get your people out of there," Bates ordered. "You've got hostiles above and below your location. You've got to fight your way to the basement!"

The response was more gunfire, and muffled screams.

"Forrest, do you copy?"

Silence.

"Forrest?"

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The channel went dead.

"The basement?" Steve checked his weapon. "What's in the basement?"

"A way out of here," Bates said. "It might be our only chance."

"But if they blew up the lobby, won't that have taken out the basement levels too?"

"I hope not. If the sprinkler system is still functioning, it should have been activated down there by now. That will help curtail the fires, along with the fireproofing between the floors. And the building's design features should keep the concussion damage confined to the lobby itself."

"What if you're wrong, Bates?"

"Then I'm wrong and we're dead. But to tell you the truth, Steve, we're probably dead anyway."

"But your speech-"

"Was designed to give these people false hope," Bates lowered his voice. "Look at the odds. Look at what we're facing. We can't win this fight, Steve. But I'll be damned if I'm sending these people to their deaths without seeing them put up a fight. It's how I was trained."

"So why the charade? Why not just tell everybody about this escape route?"

"Because there are too many of us. Believe me, I'd like to save everybody, but we can't. The more we take, the better the chance that we attract attention. Then we all die."

Steve was quiet for a moment. Another scream drifted from the radio, and then it went silent again. The hallway slowly filled with smoke.

"That's harsh, Bates-but I guess that's the kind of thinking that will enable us to survive. So what's the plan?"

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"You're going to fly us out of here."

"What?"

"Pigpen says there's a tunnel that goes under the river and leads to the airport. You can still fly a jet, can't you?"

"I've flown commercial and experimental aircraft all of my life. I can fly anything. But that's not the point. You're trusting Pigpen? Come on, man. He thinks his cat is God, for crying out loud. How do we know JFK is safe? Even if we can find a plane, we've got to fuel it and-"

Bates held up his hand.

"Let's just worry about getting out of here first. Quinn and some of the others are busy looking for Mr. Ramsey. I'm going to tell them to cancel the search and meet us downstairs."

"Do I have time to go to my room?"

"For what?"

"I'd like to get the picture of my son."

"I'm sorry, Steve." Bates shook his head. "I really am. But there's no time, and I need you to stay with me. You're too important to lose."

He tried reaching Quinn on the radio, but there was no answer. The building shook again, and somewhere on their floor, people began to scream.

Bates sniffed the air. The stench of rotting flesh overpowered the smoke.

"They're here."

Frankie and Danny stared in horror, the gunshot still ringing in their ears. Blood splattered across Jim's face, chest and arms, bright against his pale skin.

Darren Ramsey's blood.

The pistol clattered onto the floor, and Ramsey followed it. He clawed at the hole in his chest, his face a mask of confusion.

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"I don't understand ..." he gasped.

Three men ran down the corridor behind Frankie, Danny, and DiMassi. Jim recognized one of them as Quinn, the helicopter pilot that had rescued them. He didn't know the other two.

DiMassi whirled, keeping Danny in front of him and a knife at the boy's throat.

Quinn and the other two soldiers slid to a halt, their machine guns raised.

"Let the kid go, DiMassi," Quinn shouted. "It's over!"

"Hey man," DiMassi protested. "I ain't involved with this."

"Bullshit," one of the younger soldiers said. "We heard you when we came down the stairwell, you fat fuck. Heard everything you and the old man were saying."

"Fuck you, Carson. Ramsey had me at gunpoint! What was I supposed to do?"

A radio clipped to Quinn's belt emitted a burst of static. Jim heard Bates's voice calling the pilot.

Quinn ignored it, his eyes not moving from DiMassi's.

"Come on, man, let the kid go. Hasn't he been through enough? Haven't we all?"

"And let you shoot me, the way you did Mr. Ramsey? I don't think so, Quinn."

On the floor, Ramsey groaned. Something gray and wet slipped from his belly. He tried to stuff it back in, but it flopped back out again.

With DiMassi's attention distracted, Jim inched toward Danny and Frankie.

The other young soldier spoke up. "DiMassi, the zombies are inside the fucking building. It's only a matter of time before they make it up here. Let's figure this shit out together. Let the kid go. He hasn't done anything to you."

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"You're lying, Branson," DiMassi said, but sounded uncertain. "If they were in the building already, we'd be dead."

"We will be soon, you idiot," Quinn snapped. "Jesus-can't you smell the smoke? Hear those fire alarms going off?"

"The building's fireproofed. It can't spread between floors."

"Didn't you hear the fucking explosions or feel the building sway? They're shelling us, you asshole! Fires are breaking out all over."

At that moment, the lights in the hallway flickered, and then vanished. The emergency lighting kicked in, casting an eerie red glow.

Jim took another step toward DiMassi.

Shoulders sagging, DiMassi let go of the boy. Carson and Quinn covered him with their rifles.

Danny ran to his father. Jim hugged him tight and made sure he was unharmed.

"Looks like you've saved us twice now, Quinn. Thanks."

"Thank me later, Jim. We've still got to get out of this building."

"Is it really as bad as you said?" Jim asked, removing Frankie's gag.

"Probably worse," Branson quipped.

Quinn nodded at Ramsey's unmoving body. "Check him out, Branson. I got him in the gut. Finish him off."

Jim undid Frankie's bonds. "You okay? Your nose is bleeding."

"Fat bastard kneed me in it when I was going for his balls, but yeah, I'm okay."

"Thank God. I was worried we'd lost you, just like Martin."

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At the mention of his name, Frankie started to tell Jim about her dreams. But before she could, he turned to DiMassi.

"You think you're a big man, beating up on women and children?"

"Hey," Frankie protested, "he sucker punched me, or else I could have taken him myself."

"I was just following orders," DiMassi defended himself. "That's all."

Jim's voice was like ice. "Following orders? We've seen what happens when men like you follow orders. You shouldn't have touched my boy, you son of a bitch."

Quinn slid between them. "Jim, let me handle this. And Branson, hurry up with Ramsey, before he gets back up."

Branson prodded Ramsey with the barrel of his rifle. When there was no response, he cautiously knelt down beside him. The old man's eyes stared sightlessly.