Undead Fleshcrave: The Zombie Trigger (50 page)

And the further they went, the more fruitless Seth began to think the expedition was. He was already envisioning how this futile hunt was going to turn out, he could already foretell many more long hours of travel across the countryside, seeking to unearth Undead Fleshcrave ghosts once more, this time without anything solid, or in fact, anything at all to go on. The death metal supremoes may have been temporarily stunned and buffeted by the black metal musical arsenal unleashed by his own Plaguewielder, but Global Death had a backup plan already set in motion. If Nate was right, and sadly, Seth was beginning to think he was, the quintet were already ensconced somewhere in their safe house, with lackeys appointed to collect their various touring vehicles, or possibly, less conspicuous ones to continue the apocalypse creation.

On top of that, Seth had completely lost his bearings. He didn’t have the foggiest where he was, only knowing that it was somewhere leading back into the city, leaving the slaughterground of Blackwater Park behind in the distance. He assumed by now they were somewhere under the main built up area of the city, perhaps right in the core of it; he didn’t think they’d yet come far enough to have traversed the entire thing, as much as it might have felt like it. His arms felt like lead weights with the bulk of Mother North dragging them down further, his entire body ached. He was covered and caked with drying blood and it itched him incessantly, leading him to frequently switch Black’s guitarweapon from hand to hand as he scratched uselessly at different parts when the itch of the tacky gore on him became too much to bear, and inevitably, when one itch started somewhere, it then proceeded to crawl all around his body, tormenting him persistently.

Right about now was when he was wishing Black insisted on taking his lethal beauty back, leaving Seth armed with the shotgun from the service station, or a handgun, shit, even just his damn knife would have been preferable, so he could store it for as long as it took to get both his hands clawing with scrabbling fingers at the infernal blood-itches.

Then, of course, up ahead some infected soul, not yet turned would pick that moment to go full zombie, manage to break through the ranks of the trio at the fore of the procession and lunge with gnashing teeth and talon fingers at one distracted Seth Tanner…

Abruptly, Nate called a halt to the procession, slowing Tempest and Dax down to first a slow querying walk, then complete standstill.

Trailing up behind them, Seth and Scarlett ceased their movements as well, puzzled expressions negotiating both of their visages, and Seth could see that bewilderment mirrored on the face of Tempest too, with the Subversions sticksman obviously not privy to this unexpected halt in forward motion.

“What gives?” Dax was first to speak, also not in the know.

The whole congregation, spread out only due to necessity, the fact that the tunnels only allowed three abreast to walk comfortably, all gradually came to a standstill. Black’s voice rang out from the very rear, where he and Blizzard bookended the crew, keeping the less adept folk in the centre.

“What’s the hold up?” The sound resonated down the narrow confines of the tunnels, reverberating off the walls, startling a handful of the more nervous people in the collective. “More undead, or something else in the way?”

Raising a big hand, Nate waved in a gesture indicating for Black to approach the head of the party.

“Since you’re the boss of this here shindig, best mosey on up here.”

As Black complied, making his way through the entourage, with people stepping as far to the wall as they could to allow him room, Seth and Scarlett exchanged bemused looks. Tempest and Dax did likewise, also in the dark. The way ahead was as clear as could be here, there were no other lurkers, people or otherwise, in the tunnels immediately before them, nor were there even any signs that there had been. No blood splatter decorated the walls and floor, no corpses, or pieces of them, were in evidence either.

Finally Black made it to where Nate stood, holding up the entire posse, with Tempest standing impatiently, a dark scowl on his features.

“What’s the deal?” Black asked brusquely.

“I been mulling over where your pack of zombiefuck mad scientist death heads might be scarpering off to, and I reckon I might know just the spot they’d be picking to hole up in. There’s a few places in town where they could be figuring to lay low, or have tee’d up with whoever is their inside mole, but there aren’t too many that can be immediately accessible via these here tunnels.”

“Is that so?” Black raised his typical dark eyebrow of intrigue, attention aroused.

“Yup,” Nate moved to the side a footstep or two, and Seth could see behind him, on the right hand side of the tunnel wall, another of those ladders ascending up to ground level.

“Right here?” He asked, feeling a little stupid for asking the obvious. Nate wouldn’t have halted the whole march right alongside this exit point if it was somewhere else, would he?

“Exactly here. Leads pretty promptly to a place they can be safely ensconced, hidden away, what have you, whereas anywhere else in town I’ve debated they mighta been planning on scooting for, isn’t exactly right outside the tunnel door, if you get my point.”

“How the hell would you even know that here’s the spot?” Seth continued his query, certain this question wasn’t entirely as ridiculous as his previous one. “I don’t even know where the fuck we are, I haven’t a clue how anybody would know where anything was down here.”

“In case you haven’t been paying too much attention, and judging from that question, you haven’t,” Nate said wryly. “There are signs on the walls near every third or fourth ladder indicating where it leads, what intersecting streets are nearest, that kinda thing. There may be a few dumbasses on the council in this city, but at least they managed to get that bit right. Building a whole underground tunnel complex without any sort of clue as to what was where would be a little bit of a fuck up, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, shit…” Seth flushed bright crimson, a hot rash of embarrassment scorching his visage and he was thankful the light was remarkably dim down here, particularly right where he stood at the moment, out of the glare of the nearest overhead lamp. Now he did feel stupid, as stupid as fuck, in fact. That should have been damn obvious, but in all honesty, he hadn’t been paying absolute attention, not to the walls of the tunnel, in any case. After witnessing so much blood splash embellishing them in varying sections on the travel between the place MetallicaZombie assaulted the hapless quartet and here, Seth avoided looking too intently at them. He’d been more concerned with keeping his attention on what may loom up before them as they journeyed, with the odd thought creeping in to be aware of somebody—or something―maybe descending down the ladders from above.

A couple of snickers, albeit nervous ones, trickled through from members in the congregation behind him as Nate reached up and rapped on a metal plate with a street name imprinted on it, next to the handrails of the ladder, and Dax let out a scornful snort of derision.

“Yeah, Seth, fuck, why aren’t you paying attention? Guess I was on the money taking your place up here on the frontline.”

Seth was slightly perplexed by how Dax had reverted back to his animosity and deliberate needling of him, but supposed he really shouldn’t have been. After all, there wasn’t any immediate threat down here, to an extent they were all relatively safe not being out in the dead centre of danger and bloody battle with bullets raining upon them, or hordes of hungry humanivores seeking to rip their flesh from their bones. They weren’t all black metal brothers and sisters onstage, uniting to deal out musical weaponry to stall and confound the Zombie Trigger, and therefore, the old jealousy and tension reared its ugly head again.

Any chance to lay the boot into Seth looked to be a good one for Dax. He might be ready to step in to save Seth from the teeth and claws of marauding undead monsters if the need arose, but other than that, he was going right back to that new malevolent Dax, the one who considered himself on a par with the supreme zombie killers of this bunch.

And on second thoughts, Seth wasn’t quite sure now whether Dax
would
actually come to his rescue if something were to happen where he might be required to. His trust in his friend was definitely waning, faltering with the knowledge of the axe Dax had to grind with him- all over Scarlett.

If it was just him and Dax in a perilous situation, with no other witnesses around…

Seth shook off those uneasy notions as Heather’s voice cut in sharply, surprisingly speaking up in a roundabout defence of him, with his inattentive eye for detail.

“I didn’t notice any signs either,” She said, from back in the cluster. “Or I wasn’t really looking for any. I was too concerned with the idea that more people up there might be turning and coming back to attack. So I wasn’t real clear on where we were either.”

There were a few other quiet murmurs from some of the folk who saw the opportunity to put forward that they too thought it was a case of the blind leading the blind, though most of the locals in the crew seemed to have had the prior knowledge that the tunnels were in some way marked with directions or signs to mark whereabouts things were.

“Never mind all that,” Nate interrupted, before it broke out into a full scale melee as Dax looked to add a few further jibes. “Most of you aren’t even local so it doesn’t matter. Point is, I reckon if these fuckers were looking to instantly go into hiding, just on the off chance you too were clued up about the tunnels, right here is where they would have picked to exit. Too bad there isn’t anyone around to ask whether they saw anything, but most folks are going to be too shit scared to pay attention to what people look like, whether they appeared to be a band or anything like that.”

“This just a hunch of yours, or you fairly certain they’d be liable to head up here?” Tempest didn’t look sold on the idea, nor did some of the others, though those expressions were probably more attributable to the fact that people were not looking forward to poking their heads above ground again.

“It is a hunch,” Nate conceded. “But a fucking strong one. A real strong one. I will bet both my nuts and my pecker too, that they’ve gone to the lodgings located up on that street there. I’d reckon sure as shit, they wouldn’t have wanted to hang around down here too long. You reckon these pricks are cunning sly motherfuckers, well getting out here and getting hidden is a cunning ass move to make.”

“Your nuts and your pecker?” Tempest echoed, the note in his voice suggesting if there was any way Nate was steering them wrong, he’d have no problem ensuring those disposable words became a gruesome reality.

“Look, if I’m wrong about this, then rest assured I know every other likely place in town these motherfuckers could head to lay low and we can hit them all one by one until we flush them out…”

“Unless they happen to have already skipped town,” somebody else back there murmured—Seth thought it may have been Mark, but he wasn’t one hundred per cent certain, shit he wasn’t sure of anything at the moment, just sure that he would actually much rather be above ground than down in these reeking death filled tunnels, regardless of what horrors might be waiting for them up there.

“That’s the deal,” Nate finished, ignoring the interjection. “I know the fucking Park, like the back of my hand, this city here is the Masters’ stomping ground and we know every little nook and cranny where lowlifes might be wanting to keep their heads down and go to beat the heat, if you know what I mean.”

“Deal,” Black nodded shortly, and Seth realised the Subversion boss really didn’t have too much more of an option or a lead, nothing more to go on. It was either the option presented by the Renegade Master kingpin, or continue on through the narrow stretch of the tunnel hoping to stumble across some form of indisputable proof that Undead were still navigating the passageways or hadn’t evacuated here at the street identified by the sign near the ladder as Orlando, but elected to take some other exit, perhaps aiming for another one of these places of sanctuary mentioned by Nate.

“Lead the way, big man,” Black told Nate. “Give us a yell if there’s any meatseekers prowling up there, we all want to be ready if there are.”

“You got it,” Nate nodded back and then holstered his pistol, moving swiftly to the ladder and placing his meaty hands on the rungs. Fortunately, this exit point featured a still fully functioning light to shine some illumination on the situation, or Seth wouldn’t have fancied crawling up that thing to whatever may have been on the ground level. Especially considering the need to use both hands to make the ascendancy.

He slung Mother North over his back, the aching muscles there protesting as he did, though the ones in his arms felt surges of relief flood through them as the weight was shifted off them. He, and the rest of the collective, watched the big biker climb steadily, step by step, up the rungs until he reached the circular door covering the tunnel, then the top half of him vanished as his head and shoulders cleared the hole.

“No zombie fucks up here yet,” he called back a progress report, and then hauled his entire figure out, disappearing completely from sight.

His shaggy, bearded face momentarily reappeared in the circle of moderate light from up there and he jerked a big thumb up.

“All clear,” he announced, and Tempest immediately moved into position at the foot of the ladder, and then started to climb up as well.

“All right everybody,” Black addressed the remainder, some of them huddling closer to be next on the ladder, hearing the safe words from Nate proclaiming nothing presented any danger up there, others still hanging back somewhat. “Line up. In an orderly fashion, no pushing and shoving, I’m sure you all know the drill. It’s not fucking rocket science, so no fucking around. Blizzard and I will leave last.”