Rotter Apocalypse (21 page)

The alarm woke Windows at 5:30 AM. She crawled out of bed and opened the window to check the perimeter. It was still dark and she couldn’t see anything. Listening for a few moments, she heard nothing other than crickets and an owl hooting in the distant woods. Closing the pane, Windows got dressed, checked on Cindy and the others, and went downstairs. None of the lights were on. She stepped into the kitchen and flicked on the switch.

A knocking on the living room window caught her attention. Denning sat on the front porch, gazing in at her. He swung his horizontal hand back and forth across his neck. Windows understood. She flicked off the light, crossed the living room, and opened the front door.

“What’s going—?”

Denning raised two fingers to his lips, and then used them to motion Windows to the wooden chair beside him. When she sat down, he leaned closer and whispered.

“There’s several
rotters along the perimeter fence down by Walther’s pen.”

“How many?”

“Five or six as of two hours ago. I thought I heard moaning about two in the morning so I made a sweep of the perimeter. That’s when I found three of them. I went back at four and there were a few more.”

“Do they know we’re here?”

Denning shook his head, although Windows could barely see it in the dark.

“Any idea where they came from?”

“Not sure. I’m assuming Montreal, like Miriam and the kids.”

“That means there’ll be more of them,” Windows said, louder than she meant to.

Denning placed his fingers against his lips again. “We’ll have to prepare for that.”

“How?”

“I didn’t want to be out there alone with them in case there were more. I figured we can go take care of them at dawn.”

*  *  *

Windows had woken up Cindy and the others right before sunrise and warned them about what she and Denning intended to do. After ordering them to stay together in one of the upstairs bedrooms facing the southern side of the house, she joined Denning in the kitchen. He sat at the table sipping a cup of coffee. A machete and a hunting knife had been laid out on the counter.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“At least you’re honest.” Denning put down his mug, pushed out of the chair, and stepped over to the counter. He picked up both edged weapons and extended them to Windows. “Which do you prefer?”

She took the hunting knife and slid the sheath between her right hip and jeans. Denning ran his belt through the top loop of the scabbard and tied the bottom string around his leg. He picked up the mug, took several large gulps of coffee, and grabbed his weapon.

“Let’s get this over with.”

Exiting the back door, the two stepped to the west end of the house and peered around the corner. The sun had not yet crested the tree line. However, they had enough light to see to the end of Walther’s pen. Five rotters were bunched around the outer fence, their attention focused on the bull as he paced the pasture, oblivious to the living dead nearby. When he trudged to one end, the rotters followed. When he came back, so did they. It was almost comical to watch.

“When Walther walks away from us, we’ll go after those things,” Denning whispered. “They’re distracted, so hopefully we can sneak up on them and take down a few before the others know we’re there.”

“Why not shoot them?”

“If there are more on the road, the noise will attract them.”

Windows frowned. “Makes sense.”

They waited until Walther had reached the southern end of the pasture and turned north. The rotters shambled after him. Denning and Windows darted across the open space between the house and the perimeter fence. They crouched down, ran to the gate, and passed through to the other side. After resting a moment for Denning to catch his breath, they moved at a walking pace along the fence so as not to make noise. When they approached to within a few feet of the pack, Denning ran up behind a rotter in mechanic’s overalls and swung the machete down. The blade fractured the skull and carved into its brain. The rotter convulsed for a few seconds before going limp, still held upright due to the machete imbedded in its head. Denning twisted the blade from side to side, freeing it. The rotter dropped to the dirt with a thud.

Meanwhile, Windows had circled around to the next rotter in line, a female with long blonde hair that had become disgusting with filth and gore. Windows clutched its hair with her left hand and held the head steady, and with the right jabbed the hunting knife under the base of the skull. It snarled. Windows twisted the blade in a circle, scrambling its brains. The rotter slid off the blade and fell forward.

The commotion had attracted the attention of the remaining pack. The closest had been a cop and still wore a riot control helmet.

“Duck!” warned Denning. After Windows crouched down, he stepped forward, brandishing the machete like a baseball bat, and swung. The blade sliced through the rotter’s neck, partially severing the spine. It toppled over onto the ground, unable to move, the head still attached by a clump of skin and muscle, biting at Denning’s feet.

The fourth rotter, dressed in a white lab coat stained dark brown with dried blood, lunged at Windows where she crouched. She held up the knife in front of her and stood. The blade punctured the soft skin underneath the rotter’s jaw and continued up, cutting through the roof of its mouth and into the brain. Its mouth gaped open and it spasmed once before going limp. Windows pulled out the knife and jumped back so she wouldn’t be hit by the body as it fell to the dirt.

Denning took care of the final one. Moving in a circle around Windows, he got its attention. It maintained eye contact with him. Once the rotter had positioned itself with its back to the fence, Denning rushed forward and shoved it against the wooden slats, momentarily disorienting it. Lifting the machete, he brought it down hard, cleaving its face from the base if its nose to the top of its head. This time he had imbedded the blade so deep he could not remove it.

“Need help?” Windows asked.

“Please.”

Windows placed her hand on its shoulders and ducked her head so her face wouldn’t be splattered. Denning twisted and yanked for several seconds before the machete finally pulled free with a sickening suction noise. The rotter slid along the side of the fence and onto the ground.

“We should bury the bodies before we let the others out,” Windows suggested.

“Good idea. First, I want to check the access road leading in here and make sure there aren’t any more of these things roaming around. I don’t want us to be surprised while making our rounds.”

The two headed for the access road, all the while scanning the area for any living dead that might be lurking in the woods. Windows started to feel something was amiss. She couldn’t put a finger on it, although something definitely was not right. Then it dawned on her. The background noise was not coming from birds and insects, but from rotters. It was the incessant shuffling and moaning of the living dead, though she had no idea where it was coming from. Only when they rounded the bend and came within sight of the main road two hundred feet away did she understand.

“Get down!” Denning took Windows’ arm and pulled her into the trees where they melded into the shadows. A steady stream of the living dead headed south. Windows counted on average twenty every minute. They didn’t seem to be agitated or have a purposeful direction. Occasionally, one would glance down the access road, neither acknowledging it nor moving in its direction. It seemed like the rotters were on a road trip, which might have amused her if this exodus wasn’t taking place less than a mile from their compound.

“What’s going on?” she whispered. “Are they running from something?”

“Those things don’t run
from
anything. They’re probably chasing after survivors from Montreal.”

“Why so many?”

“It’s a pack mentality. One sees food and goes after it, and the rest follow. Like lemmings going over a cliff. They could be following someone who passed by here days ago.”

The thought dawned on Windows that if these rotters had been around when Miriam and the kids had found the barn, they would have led this horde right to them.

“What do we do now?”

“There’s nothing we
can
do. Hopefully the gate across the road will prevent any of them from wandering down here, though that won’t help if any come through the woods. Until these things pass by, we need to be as quiet as possible. We’ll keep the kids indoors to be safe. And we’ll continue standing guard at night.”

“Maybe we can get Miriam to help with that.”

“Maybe, though I’m not sure if she’s up to it.” Denning moved deeper into the woods and headed back to the farm. “Let’s get out of here before one of those things sees us.”

Windows followed, trying to blot from her mind the images of the rotter-filled road.

“Mike, wake up.”

Robson heard Roberta’s voice, though he didn’t respond and pretended to be asleep, hoping she would go away. He didn’t want to talk to anyone.

“Come on, Mike. I know you can hear me.”

Leave me alone
, he thought.

“We have to talk about last night.”

“What’s to talk about?” Robson asked without opening his eyes. “Linda threw us all under the bus. The vampires now have the advantage.”

“Only if we let them,” James said. “That’s why we need to plan how we’re going to handle the situation when they come back tonight.”

“There’s only one way we can handle the situation.” Robson opened his eyes and sat up, resting his back against the barn’s center support. “We have to stand together and refuse to join their ranks.”

“Do you think that’ll keep us alive?” Caslow asked.

Robson shook his head. “Not permanently.”

“Then why bother?”

Robson stretched and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “If the vampires think we’re vulnerable, they’ll divide us. They’ll pick off the weak, and those of us who are left won’t have the numbers to resist. Our only chance of making it out of this situation is to unite against them.”

“Maybe we’ll have a better chance if we join them,” suggested Caslow.

“Do you really want to become one of the undead?”

Caslow hesitated. “It’s…it’s better than being dead, isn’t it?”

“No,” said James.

“If we do stick together,” Yukiko said, “do you think they’ll spare us?”

“No. But it might buy us some time so I can talk to Dravko.”

“The bloodsucker who’s supposedly your friend?” Cory laughed derisively. “That means we’re all screwed.”

“Dravko isn’t like Vladimir or Tibor. He still has a touch of humanity in him. If anyone will help us escape, he will.”

“What if he doesn’t?” Magda asked.

“Then we’re all going to have some tough choices to make.

Cassandra stood at the glass door leading to the balcony, holding the blackout curtain aside with one hand so she could look out over Montreal. “They should be here soon.”

Derrick stepped from the bedroom with the backpack he had finished preparing. “Cassi, get away from the window before you draw attention to us.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore. The military is almost here.”

That’s the problem
, Derrick thought. He placed the backpack on the couch and crossed the living room to the balcony. From their tenth floor residence in one of the three apartment buildings along the west bank of the Ile de Soeurs, they had a good view of the city. From this vantage point, over the past two days they had tracked the fires as they raged through the LaSalle District and stopped when they reached the Saint Laurent River. They had also marked the path of the Canadian military as it advanced through the city. He estimated them to be around Mont Royal Park, three kilometers distant. Cassi saw that as a good thing, hoping they’d be rescued soon. Derrick viewed the approaching military as being only slightly more welcome than the hordes of zombies roaming the city.

Though others disagreed, Derrick had always thought of himself as practical. He had been arrested twice for shoplifting, although he never did any time for it. One time, a storekeeper went after him with a baseball bat, giving Derrick a nasty welt on the arm before he made it out of the store. Purse snatching didn’t fare much better. He had made a few thousand dollars over the years, giving up that venture after he had grabbed a pocketbook from some bitch waiting to meet her boyfriend, who happened to be approaching from the direction Derrick used to escape. The ass-kicking he got that afternoon put him in the hospital for two days. It wasn’t like he was using the money to buy drugs or liquor or whores. He needed the cash to live. As a high school dropout, he couldn’t get or keep a job, and needed to resort to petty theft to make ends meet. Besides, he only stole from those who had more than him, so he was merely redistributing the wealth. Christ knew those people could afford to spare some. Derrick saw himself as reasonable; the authorities viewed him as nothing more than a thug.

That was why he and Cassi had to get out of Montreal.

Everything Derrick had acquired during the past year had been commandeered. He had taken over the apartment during the first few weeks after the outbreak when all the residents had abandoned the building, and then spent a week fortifying every window and entrance on the ground floor so nothing could get in. The Harley he kept garaged in a first floor apartment had been taken from a dead biker he had found while scouting out the northern part of the island. He scrounged for supplies in other apartments or local shops. Derrick figured that in this new world disorder everybody did what they had to in order to survive, despite the fact that argument had never worked for him before the outbreak.

Derrick took the curtain from Cassi’s hand and let it fall back over the balcony door. He moved her away from the window to distract her from what was going on outside. She was still pretty after almost a year of isolation. Her blonde hair hung down past her shoulders. Sure, she looked older than twenty-three and had lost some weight. Who hadn’t these days? She smiled, which he had rarely seen her do when they moved in. Cassi would be what got him into trouble. He had come across her cowering in a public loo in one of the nearby parks and offered to give her a place to stay in exchange for sex. After all, fair was fair. If he shared his limited supplies of food and water, she should give up something in return. Besides, she’d agreed to go with him and to put out, and he never hit her, although several times she could have used a crack off the side of the head. They had a mutually agreeable relationship, and had gotten along pretty well, so there shouldn’t be any problems. Yet every experience he had with the authorities told him otherwise, and he didn’t want to have survived the apocalypse only to be put up against a wall and shot for rape or slavery or some feminist bullshit charge like that.

Derrick took Cassi’s hands in his. “We have to get out of here.”

The smile drained from her face. “The military will be here in a day or two at most.”

“That’s the problem. I… we can’t be here when they show up.”

“Why?”

For a moment, Derrick contemplated leaving her behind to be rescued. He ruled that out. Once she told them about their arrangement, they might come after him. It’d be difficult enough avoiding zombies without having to worry about the authorities trying to track him down. So he thought up a plausible lie.

“We don’t know how they’re going to treat us. Remember when the outbreak started, and the police rounded up anyone who broke curfew and tossed them into detention centers?”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone in those centers died when some of them became zombies. We’ve made it too far to die now because of some government fuck up.”

Dejection crushed what optimism Cassi had only moments before. “I guess you’re right.”

He needed to offer Cassi something to keep her spirits up. “I don’t plan on staying on the run forever. We need time to figure out how the military is treating survivors. If they’re cool, we’ll sit tight and wait for them to catch up. Deal?”

“Deal.” Cassi faked a grin, the same grin she wore every time they fucked.

Derrick headed for the front door, grabbing the backpack off the couch. “Let’s do this.”

“Right now?”

“We need to go while we still can.”

“I need time to pack.”

Derrick help up the backpack. “I got everything we need here. Now get your jacket and haul ass.”

As the two exited the apartment, Derrick grabbed the Glock 23 and extra magazines from the end table, sliding the firearm between his back and belt, and the magazines into his leather jacket pocket. Cassi took the baseball bat. They followed the stairwell to the first floor apartment where he kept the Harley. Derrick handed Cassi the backpack. She slid it on and took her place on the rear of the motorcycle, with the bat across her lap. Derrick went down to the main entrance. It was secured by three 2x4 boards stretching from jamb to jamb and held into place by L-shaped hooks bolted into the wall. He removed the boards, opened the door a few inches, and peered out. Nothing moved. Opening the door all the way, he raced back to the Harley and hopped on.

“Ready?”

“Do you think we should wait and take our chances with the military?”

Derrick ignored her. He started the engine, and then maneuvered the motorcycle into the hallway and out the exit. Normally, he’d stop so Cassi could close and secure the door. Since they’d never be coming back, he took off across the front concourse and left the building wide open. He made his way through the side streets to Boul de l’Ile des Soeurs and headed north toward Highway 20. At the first roundabout, he veered right onto Boul Rene Levesque.

“Why aren’t we taking the highway?” Cassi asked.

“Too many abandoned cars and zombies. I know another way to get to the mainland.”

Upon reaching the car dealership at the end of the road, Derrick steered onto the lot and gunned the engine, darting between the rows of dust-covered vehicles, and bumped over a grassy curb onto a back street. A few seconds later, the street merged with a narrow, two-lane bridge spanning the river. Only a few of the living dead sauntered along the span. He accelerated, maneuvering around them. After two kilometers, the bridge connected with a causeway that paralleled the east bank of the river. A bicycle trail ran the length of the causeway. Derrick maneuvered onto the trail. They traveled a few kilometers before spotting their first zombie. Derrick rushed past it. The zombie spun around and lunged at the noise, its outstretched arms barely missing Cassi. Ahead of them, two more of the living dead shambled abreast along the path. He drifted to the right side of the trail, and the zombies moved toward him. At the last second, Derrick swerved left and went around them. Thirty meters ahead, three more lumbered along the path, with another half dozen fifteen meters beyond that.

“We should go back,” Cassi whined.

“We’ve got a few more kilometers to go, so hang on.”

Though he didn’t admit to Cassi, Derrick wondered if they would make it. The farther they drove, the more zombies they encountered. There weren’t enough living dead to be able to swarm them, but he had no idea what lay ahead. Those they passed closed in behind them and gave chase, and soon there would be too many following them for him to return. Derrick considered going back now while they still had a chance.

Up ahead on the left Derrick saw Saint Catharine Island and, beyond that, Island of the Maritime Lane where a series of bridges reconnected the causeway to the mainland to the south.

“We’re going to make it!” he yelled back to Cassi, although he still had doubts.

Derrick sped up, wanting to get off the restricted causeway and back onto land where he could maneuver. The zombie presence grew denser. With some adept maneuvering he avoided being overwhelmed. A few hundred meters up ahead he could see the cement counterweights of the drawbridge leading from the causeway to the mainland, which meant the bridge was lowered and they’d be able to get across. If they made it that far. Right before the bridge, chain link fences lined either side of the trail for twenty-five meters, channeling the zombies into a more confined space. Derrick accelerated, taking the Harley up to eighty kilometers per hour, and leaned over the handlebars to present a smaller target. Cassi held on tight and cowered against his back. The Harley barreled through the pack, racing past most of them and shoving several aside. Decayed hands reached out and slapped against them, but they moved too fast for any of the living dead to get a grip. One was able to clutch Cassi’s backpack. The motorcycle’s momentum knocked it over and dragged it several meters before the zombie released its grip. If Cassi had not been holding on to him so tight, she probably would have been ripped off the back. Only a few zombies blocked the entrance to the bridge. Slowing enough not to tip over, Derrick wound his way between the living dead and, once on the bridge, throttled the engine. The Harley raced across the drawbridge onto Island of the Maritime Lane, and then across another two-lane bridge into the residential neighborhood of Saint Catherine where a handful of zombies milled around the streets, the closest over three hundred meters away. Derrick pulled over and idled.

“Why are we stopping?” Cassi asked.

“I’m trying to figure out the best way out of here.”

“Take a left.”

“Why?”

“My grandmother used to live in this area.” Cassi pointed east. “Boul des Ecluses is a kilometer that way. It runs through the city and will take us right into the countryside.”

Derrick steered left and headed in that direction. They drove for a minute, passing residential homes on the right, the Saint Laurent River on the left, and an occasional zombie. It appeared as if this part of the city had escaped the outbreak unscathed. Derrick assumed everyone here had evacuated during the first few days and died somewhere else.

They approached a street on the right blocked off by police barricades and an abandoned squad car. Cassi tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. “Turn here.”

Derrick drove around the barricades and halted. Boul des Ecluses was a two lane residential street divided down the middle by a grass median with trees planted every ten meters, lined on both sides by single family homes. He scanned ahead of him for any signs of zombies and, seeing nothing, continued. Approaching the first intersection, he understood the reason for the police roadblock. Between the connecting streets, the one off to his right and the second one fifteen meters ahead on the left, stood a two-vehicle accident. A transit bus had been making a U-turn around the break in the median when an SUV coming out of the street on the left collided with it head on, immobilizing the vehicles and blocking both lanes. There was more than enough room for them to get by. Using someone’s driveway, Derrick maneuvered onto the sidewalk and raced behind the bus.

Right into a horde of zombies.

Derrick braked the Harley so hard that the rear tire skidded and the motorcycle tipped over, spilling them both onto someone’s front lawn. He felt a jolt of pain shoot up his right leg. Fortunately, he hadn’t broken it, and the Harley’s engine was still running. He counted his blessings until he glanced up. Nearly a hundred of the living dead wandered around behind the bus, stretching from one side of the street to the other, including sidewalks and lawns, the closest only ten meters away. As one, the horde twisted toward the sound of the Harley. In a matter of seconds they would close in around him and Cassi.

Derrick used his leg to push the Harley upright. His knee throbbed and his vision blurred. Shifting his weight onto his left leg, he rebalanced himself.

“Help me!” Derrick glanced over his shoulder. Cassi stumbled to her feet, her left hand cradling her right arm. A shattered piece of her radius bone had torn through the skin. Derrick knew if he tried to save Cassi they’d both be overrun, so he accelerated and raced along the side of the bus. A girl zombie who had been no more than twelve moved into his path. He lifted his right arm and elbowed the zombie across the face as he passed, knocking it out of the way before swerving around the front end of the bus.

“Fuck you, you fucking asshole!” Cassi screamed behind him.