Degeneration (40 page)

             
Richard drew his pistol and followed him, inadvertently twitching.

The ramp was splattered with splotches of blood and bits of bullet-torn flesh. Bullets had chipped away the surface of the concrete and riddled the support pillars next to the ramp with holes. Countless corpses were piled atop each other at the bottom of the ramp, eviscerated by gunfire.

Mathis walked the forward position down the ramp scanning the area cautiously with his rifle, Richard followed. They made their way through the pile of dead strewn across the bottom of the ramp.

The air was pungent and stale with the stench of rot. Flies were thick and hovered over the countless dead. Feral cats, busy feasting on the numerous deceased, hissed and scampered off in every direction as Mathis and Richard clamored through the pile of corpses.

The entire level was pitch-black with no moonlight to
succor
.

Richard’s foot crushed the face of an older man and it made a sickening sound as the man’s skull cracked underneath his boot.

Richard, startled, blindly stumbled his way across the rest of the pile of corpses and collapsed against one of the bullet-riddled support pillars, dropping his pistol. He fell onto his hands and knees and vomited. The smell of defecation and rot made him vomit a second and a third time. It was a cruel chain-reaction.

             
Mathis, unaffected by the smell that permeated all around thanks to the unique stench inside his closed environment, turned his suit’s LED shoulder lamp on and turned towards Richard, rifle ready.

             
“Hold it together,” he ordered, barely above a whisper. He walked over to Richard and helped him back onto his feet, handing him the pistol off of the ground. “Stay focused! Let’s make our way across and get inside the mall… quietly.”

             
Richard nodded, gasping for breath, trying to suppress another round of vomiting.

             
Mathis scanned his shoulder light’s beam across the dark parkade, trying to pierce the veil of darkness that swallowed them.

             
The beam glistened off of the abandoned cars and emergency vehicles that were peppered across the entire parking deck. The sandbag-barricaded walkway leading to the mall’s second-floor entrance was revealed at the far side of the deck.

             
Below, they heard an army of infected sprinting through the lower level towards the second-story access ramp, attracted by the gleam of Mathis’ flashlight.

             
“Fuck,” Mathis said, “Just run!”

             
Mathis took off running towards the barricaded walkway while Richard followed close behind. Their footfalls echoed throughout the dark deck and reverberated off the cars.

             
The snarls of the infected grew closer and echoed in from all around them.

             
Mathis leapt over the pile of sandbags that blocked off the walkway and grabbed the steel security grille covering the shattered glass doors.

             
He shook the grille violently, but it was secured by a padlock from the outside.

             
Richard stumbled up behind Mathis and turned towards the dark parkade, blindly aiming his pistol into the shadows. Multiple car alarms activated as the approaching horde grew closer, louder.

             
Richard started to panic and the gun shook in his hands as his eyes jerked from side-to-side, scanning the dark.

             
Mathis raised the rifle, aimed it at the lock at the bottom of the grille, and fired a burst of automatic gunfire.

             
The padlock shattered in a shower of sparks and fell to the ground.

             
Mathis grabbed hold of the security grille and rolled it up. He kept his weapon aimed a moment longer and then slowly walked through one of the shattered sliding glass doors and entered the mall.

Richard lowered his gun and hurried into the mall after him, almost tripping in his panicked haste.

Mathis rolled the steel security grille shut behind them and turned off his shoulder light.

Immediately, the clamor coming from the parkade ebbed and the snarls turned into listless moans as the infected blindly searched for their prey.

Mathis and Richard stood motionless in the darkness, breathing heavily.

             
As their eyes slowly adjusted to the limited light afforded by the moonlight shining through the mall’s skylights, they saw that they were standing in a large open area encircled by multiple fast food restaurants. The food court tables had been removed and replaced by a toppled maze of aluminum crowd control barriers. The barrier’s paths zigzagged throughout the food court and were divided into three distinct paths with red, blue, or green colored tape running down the middle of each path. A staircase situated in the center of the food court led down to the first-floor level below. The red and blue paths led to the staircase and down the steps. Access down the stairs was impossible since it had been barricaded by a high stack of toppled tables, sandbags, and debris. The green path branched deeper into the mall along the second level. A large sign adorned with the FEMA logo was suspended above the barricaded food court staircase:

RED PATH – SYMPTOMATIC OR HANDICAPPED

BLUE PATH – CHILDREN UNDER 12 AND SENIORS OVER 75

GREEN PATH – ALL OTHERS

A few corpses were strung out among the toppled aluminum barriers and were aerated by multiple bullet holes.

The air was deafly still and reeked of death.

             
The haunting moans of the infected echoed up from the lower level of the mall.

             
Mathis took a cautious step forward and scanned the food court with his rifle, unable to see farther than a few yards.

             
“The command nexus for all of the FEMA centers are somewhere along the green pathways, so follow me,” Mathis whispered.

             
“How do you know?!” Richard asked, creeping behind Mathis with his pistol drawn. “What if they did things different here? What if it is on the red path or the blue path?! So much for this place being secure! I hear those things down
there
. What if the command center–”

             
Mathis shushed him, interrupting him mid-rant.

             
“All of the FEMA evacuation centers were designed the same way. There is no deviation. The red and blue paths always go to the holding pins. In this particular center, those pins look like they’re downstairs.” He paused, listening to the ghastly moans from below. “We don’t want to go downstairs now, do we?”

             
Richard shook his head ‘no’ like a scolded child.

             
“Exactly. Green path,” Mathis said, “Shut up. Follow me.”

             
He’s leading us into a tomb! If you don’t do something, I will!

             
Richard startled at the sound of Andy’s voice. It no longer sounded like the voice was confined in his head. Instead, it sounded like Andy was standing right next to him.

             
Sporadic bursts of automatic gunfire echoed in the distance, making both of them flinch and crouch low to the ground.

The moans of the infected intensified in response to the gunfire.

             
Mathis led the way across the food court, following the green path.

             
A man wearing a blood-matted polo shirt and tattered trousers lurched out from the shattered remnants of a video game store near the edge of the food court. The store had been ransacked and empty game cases littered the floor.

             
The infected man snarled and lunged towards Mathis, knocking over one of the aluminum crowd control barriers.

             
Richard froze.

             
Mathis quickly raised his weapon and fired a three-round burst into the infected man’s face.

             
The man’s head ruptured like a rotted watermelon and he collapsed backwards, sprawled out on the floor.

             
The gunfire in the distance stopped and human voices could be distinguished, rising above the moans of the infected.

             
“You hear
d
that one?! That
one
definitely
came from inside,”
a voice exclaimed in the distance.

             
Mathis stopped walking and motioned for Richard to do the same
.

             
Richard stood behind Mathis. His fingers twitched as he loosely gripped the pistol with his clammy hands.

             
“No, idiot, that came from outside again. Probably
someone from Reggie’s group who got cornered
,”
a voice responded.

             
“We told ‘em not to go outside
. That’s what they get for playing Rambo,”
a third voice said. “We done told them that the helicopters were gone. No sense in getting bit going on some wild goose chase.”

             
The shooting resumed and the voices quelled.

             
Mathis relaxed, let out a deep breath, and slowly started walking along the green path again.

             
Richard felt his trembling hands steady and felt his grip tighten around the pistol. He looked down at the gun in his grasp, confounded.

             
Andy’s hands were holding the pistol.

             
We can shoot him here in the dark mall.

             
Richard looked up at Mathis, staring at the back of the man’s white-suit.

             
He’d never see it coming.

             
Just as Andy started to raise the pistol, Mathis stepped out of the food court and into the mall’s main atrium.

             
“Oh my God,” Mathis muttered as he stepped towards the brass railing and peered down at the lower level.

             
Richard lowered his pistol and walked towards Mathis, curious.

             
Both men were enthralled by the horrors below.

             
The lower level of the mall was swarming with shuffling moaning corpses, numbering in the thousands. They mindlessly trampled over each other and everything else caught in their path. Every first-floor shop was full of them, as were the kiosks lined along the center of the atrium. Their numbers were so great that the floor below their feet wasn’t even visible from above.

             
The dead masses were reaching up towards the sky, moaning loudly.

             
At first, Mathis thought that they were reaching up towards him, but then he noticed the gas-masked soldiers standing on the opposite side of the upper-level tier, directly across from him.

             
The soldiers had their weapons pointed over the edge of the brass railing and fired randomly into the vast sea of infected. A CDC white-suit cowered behind the soldiers, armed with a pistol. The whole group was standing in front of a shuttered Apple store. They looked weak and frail; their bulky body armor did nothing to hide the air of desperation that pervaded all around them.

             
One of the soldiers looked up and quickly pointed his rifle at Mathis and Richard.

             
“Tangos on the upper tier!” the soldier shouted, startling the others into action.

             
“Wait! Stop!” Mathis shouted, lowering his own weapon.

             
The other soldiers hesitated and looked at each other.

             
“Which detail were you assigned?” one of the soldiers asked.

             
“I’m Colonel Mathis, 161
st
Bioterrorism Response Regiment!”

             
The soldiers murmured amongst themselves, shaking their heads.

             
“So, Colonel, you’re here to rescue us, sir?” one of them asked, sarcastically.

             
“Yes,” he lied, “but I need to contact the outside and let them know we need a pick-up. I just need to use your secure DSN terminal.”

             
One of soldiers scoffed and threw his arms out at his side.

             
“Good luck with that! The operations center was overrun hours ago. We got out, but we…” the soldier trailed off and looked down.

             
“What’s your name, soldier?” Mathis asked.