Arize (Book 1): Resurrection Read online

  As he brought the weapon to play, he eased backward one step at a time, trying to aim the light from his phone at the dim figures below. He didn’t want to risk a ricochet in the enclosed angles of the stairwell. And the thing seemed fully occupied at the moment. Jackson wasn’t a small man.

  Instead of firing, Rocky retreated to the second-floor landing and pushed open the hallway entrance. A faint fuzz of light leaked through. Over the wet sound of the zombie gorging itself, he heard the scraping of footsteps and heavy breathing on the flight above. He called to the others to join him.

  “We can lock the door and seal the deader inside here,” he called.

  But he realized the doors didn’t have locks. And if anyone came down the dark stairs, they’d be exposed to the danger. He’d have to take care of this problem right now. He propped the door open with the tip of one boot. Then he aimed at the smacking noises and unleashed a quick burst that rattled and pinged off the railing. Tracer rounds lit up the zombie and guided his aim to its head. The skull split and brains spattered on the wall.

  The two women and the boy reached the second floor and Rocky followed them inside. He could barely make out their faces from three feet away. Dim floodlights were spaced at intervals along the hallway, likely powered by an emergency generator. Sonia held her phone aloft like a lantern.

  “Did you get him?” Jacob asked Rocky.

  “I think it was a her, but it’s deadest as hell now.”

  “If one got in, then there’s probably more,” Sonia said.

  “Maybe it didn’t get in,” Meg said. “Maybe it was already here.”

  “Turned, you mean?” Rocky asked. “They were checking everybody and not letting sick people into the compound. I heard they were killing anybody who showed symptoms.”

  “No way,” Sonia said.

  “This preacher runs a tight ship, and Col. Hayes doesn’t fuck around,” Rocky said. To Jacob, he added, “Pardon my French, Little Dude.”

  “Not a fucking problem, Beeg Mon,” the boy replied, which drew a scolding nudge from his mother.

  “Since these doors don’t lock, other deaders can push their way into the stairwell,” Sonia said.

  “If they’re already inside, they might even be on this floor,” Meg said.

  They all fell silent and squinted into the surrounding gloom, listening. The muted gunfire from outside had grown more frantic. Rocky wondered if the M2 was punching holes into the crowd below, not discriminating between the living and the living dead.

  “Don’t forget, we have a chopper to catch,” Rocky said.

  “That’s one ride I don’t want to miss,” Meg said. “But I don’t want to die getting there.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  When the first scream ripped through the gymnasium, Arjun mistook it for a police siren.

  The wail was so strident and powerful that he couldn’t imagine it issuing forth from human lungs. But in its wake, murmurs of unease swept across the crowd of refugees like a tsunami, cresting in frantic exclamations and desperate cries. Arjun and Sydney stood on the bleachers where they’d been sitting and eating prefab sandwiches the church auxiliary had given out. He tried to pinpoint the source of the scream, but the gym was a haphazard maze of small tents, cots, tables, and families squatting on blankets spread along the floor of the basketball court.

  “Deader!” somebody else shouted, and the cry was repeated. Two armed guards standing at the bottom of the bleachers ran toward the commotion, swinging their elbows back and forth to make room. A couple of goons in dark suits and sunglasses, whom Arjun took to be part of the bigshot reverend’s private security team, spoke into microphones attached to tiny headsets.

  “Looks like some heavy crap’s about to go down,” Sydney said.

  “And we’re stuck in the toilet,” Arjun said.

  “We’d better get unstuck, then.”

  They were four rows up and the rows of bleachers in front of them were packed. The rows behind were more sparsely populated due to people’s natural laziness, and Arjun took advantage of the extra space to work his way up and sideways. Sydney was close behind him, tripping once and falling onto an old man who smelled of Vick’s cough drops and stale cigars. The man pushed her away with disgust, and Arjun tugged her to her feet.

  They’d crossed maybe a dozen rows when the first shot rang out. The screams swelled to a crescendo, combining in an ear-splitting whirlwind of panic that echoed off the cinder block walls. Another shot rang out, and more troops poured in from the entrance that opened onto the parking lot. Arjun noticed that night had fallen while they’d been sitting around waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

  Then night fell inside the gym as well when the lights went out. The gasps competed with the sighs, and someone bumped into Arjun, nearly sending him tumbling down the bleachers. He stooped low and shoved right back, forcing his way higher, now pushing against the human stream that instinctively headed for the main exit.

  “Keep moving!” Arjun yelled, not sure if Sydney could hear him, but then he felt her hand in his—somebody’s hand, anyway—and they threaded their way through the swarm. A scattering of flashlights swept over the cavernous space, along with dozens of winking cell phone screens, adding to the carnival of chaos.

  They reached the edge of the bleachers, but Arjun was reluctant to jump in the dark to the hard floor maybe thirty feet below. “We have to climb down,” he shouted.

  But Sydney was already past him, sliding between the two protective rails and grabbing the gridwork of the bleachers’ support system. He sensed her more than saw her, impressed by her agility. She seemed completely sober now.

  He followed, cutting his hand on a protruding bolt and banging his knee twice in the same spot. When his feet finally touched bottom, he called for Sydney. Despite the syncopated drumbeats of gunfire, it was quieter here with the screening buffer of the bleachers behind them.

  And the people. All those people absorbing bullets.

  Even though he was expecting it, he jumped when Sydney touched his face. “We got flushed,” she said. “Treated like crap.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “It started in the medic tent. Must’ve been somebody they were screening. I’m not sure if they turned, or if somebody decided not to sit still to get poked and prodded by these Victor Frankensteins.”

  “You remember the blood in the parking lot, right? I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been making selections like the Nazis at Auschwitz.”

  “Whatever’s going on, I don’t want to hang around here and wait to see who wins.” Sydney felt along his body, coming dangerously close to his belly button, before her hand caught his again. “You can see the wall when the flashlights hit it. There’s bound to be emergency exits in a place like this.”

  Sure enough, there was an exit sign powered by a back-up generator.

  “Thank God for the fire marshal,” Arjun replied as they shuffled forward in the gloom.

  “Thank God for the church,” Sydney said.

  “I’ll tell that to Reverend Ingram when I see him.”

  Other people joined them, finding crevices like cockroaches to escape the carnage. Arjun wasn’t exactly thrilled with the company, since he didn’t know which of them might be zombies waiting to happen. And although they’d all been searched upon entering the churchyard, some had likely smuggled concealed weapons into the building. The only thing more dangerous than a zombie beside you was another person thinking you were a zombie.

  The group crammed into the tight space beside the bleachers pushed forward like slam dancers storming the mosh pit at a punk concert. Arjun and Sydney were caught up in it and held onto one another until they, too, were at the door.

  “You sure about this?” Sydney asked.

  “When you get flushed, you go where the pipe sends you,” Arjun answered.

  The man and woman behind him, five hundred pounds of raving American obesity, acted like a plunger and sent him thr
ough. Arjun stepped to the side, pressing close to Sydney, and heard the unmistakable rumble of feet ascending concrete stairs. Someone at the head of the crowd said, “Got some bodies here! Wet ones!”

  An unseen person retched and the sour odor of vomit filled the cramped stairwell. Someone near the door shouted, “Keep going. They’re killing everybody back there.”

  “Yeah, asshole, but this one’s torn open, and the other might be a zombie. What if they’re in this part of the building, too?”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Asshole responded. “Better one of them than a bullet.”

  The stairwell was darker than the gym, and only the stray gleam of flashlights from the packed doorway provided any light. The eyes of the others cast a dim, strange glint that made them seem like monsters or aliens.

  “No need to go up the stairs,” another person said. “This door goes to the first floor.”

  Arjun felt the rush of cool air on his face as a draft passed between the two open doors, and instantly the crowd surged forward again, as sinuous and writhing as an animal burrowing into a hole.

  “Let them pass,” Sydney whispered, and they pressed themselves tightly against the wall until the traffic eased.

  “If they’re going that way, I’ll take the second floor,” Arjun said. “I never trust popular opinion.”

  “I’m with you,” Sydney said, which gave him an odd and inappropriate rush of pleasure. It was a little weird to get a girlfriend because of an apocalyptic disaster. But they’d both have to survive before he’d discover whether or not he was just fooling himself.

  And he planned on surviving. He led her up the stairs and they soon came to the bodies the man had mentioned. Arjun’s foot landed in something soft and sloppy, and the coppery stench of entrails was unmistakable. “Uh, stay to the right,” he said.

  “Is it a zombie?”

  Arjun dangled his fingers down, bracing for the snap of cold teeth. He touched a slick, hairy curve and realized it was a shattered skull. “If it’s a zombie, it’s definitely deadest now. And if it was a person, it’s just plain dead.”

  They continued up the stairs, staying quiet as more people passed through the doorway below. Someone had propped the two doors open so the crowd passed more or less in a straight line onto the main floor of the church, but they were so loud Arjun needn’t have worried about them following. Their numbers had decreased along with the gunfire, and Arjun could only imagine the twisted bodies and tangled limbs heaped on the gym floor and draped along the bleachers like bright red bunting.

  When they reached the second floor, Sydney said, “This one?”

  “There’s got to be a sanctuary where they hold services, and it probably takes up most of the inside of this building. We’re better off going up top.”

  “You saw those soldiers on the roof. Do you really want to take your chances with them?”

  “Good point. Let’s try this one. Maybe we can find an office or a closet to hide in.”

  The second floor offered a little more visibility than the stairwell, which caused some of Arjun’s tension to drain away. The Red Cross T-shirt he’d scored in the medic tent was soaked with sweat. He could smell the gore on his foot and knew the stench would soon become unbearable, but he didn’t dare risk removing his Adidas. He had a feeling he’d soon need to run.

  The hallway was short with a series of doors along the outside wall. From its configuration, Arjun estimated that the corridor continued all the way along the outside of the building, while the interior was taken up by the vaulted ceilings of the sanctuary. Sydney confirmed this by saying, “I’ve seen the Promiseland services on TV. The worship space has got to be a gajillion feet high.”

  Arjun didn’t want to challenge her made-up calculations. But the sanctuary was probably large enough to hold any refugee overflow from the gym. In fact, the sanctuary could’ve served as an even more comfortable shelter, but Reverend Ingram would never allow the unwashed masses to soil his sacred playground.

  They took opposite sides of the hall and tried the doors one by one, finding all of them locked. They’d been rejected maybe twenty times, and Arjun was debating trying to kick one in at the risk of breaking his foot, when Sydney yelled, “Here!”

  “Wait!” he said, wishing he had a weapon of some kind, even his skateboard.

  “It’s clear,” she said, slipping through the door. Just as Arjun joined her, a voice from inside said, “You better not be a deader.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Hannah was only a hundred feet away from Promiseland when the lights went out.

  She’d been watching and waiting, unsure of trying to enter. She’d seen several carloads of people turned away at the gates, as well as some groups on foot that the soldiers wouldn’t let pass. Others were allowed inside, and all the while, troops on top of the walls and roof of the church kept up a constant fusillade.

  One couple that had been turned away carried a child about Ramona’s size, which Hannah assumed meant he or she was too sick to walk. She surmised that the soldiers were afraid of the infection entering the shelter. She’d watched from the street-side entrance for a while, hoping to see Meg, and then rode her motorcycle in a three-block detour to a rear entrance, just as she’d done at the clinic. But armed guards were posted there as well, and although fewer people pleaded for entry, the same ratio was turned away.

  Hannah ditched the bike and helped Ramona into a nearby coffeehouse that had broken windows. Ramona had recovered enough to be coherent, although she was still weak and trembling. She could only walk with Hannah’s support, so they rested in the abandoned shop while Hannah contemplated various ways to breach the wall. Hannah was convinced Meg would try the shelter once she realized the clinic was lost to the deaders.

  As dusk settled, Ramona told her about her Easter basket and the stuffed bunny she’d gotten as a gift. Hugging her stuffed bear to her chest, she said, “Maybe Mister Grizz will marry Honey Bunny and have little fuzzy babies.”

  “Will they lay eggs first?” Hannah asked, relieved to see the girl had recovered somewhat. But part of her braced for the girl turning at any moment. Hannah wasn’t sure how she would react if that happened.

  “No eggs,” Ramona said with a gap-toothed grin. “Because my brother would eat them.”

  “Well, let’s hope we find your mother soon, because she’ll stop him.”

  “You think they’re in the church?”

  “Yeah. Your dad, too, probably. Seems like everybody around here is going to church.”

  “We go, but only on special days. But we don’t come to this church.”

  Hannah rested her shotgun in her lap as they sat near the damaged storefront. She figured they were pretty safe from zombies here. The way the troops were cutting loose, she doubted any zombies were standing within half a mile of the place. But one might come out of the bathroom, or the manager’s office, or a back door somewhere. She didn’t want to take the risk of searching.

  She’d already planned on breaching the wall when night fell, but the shutdown of the power grid compelled her to act. She could only see a vague blur of the girl’s face. If not for the distant bonfires of the burning city, they would’ve been cast in absolute blackness. The girl’s wide eyes were brimming with fear.

  “Can you climb?” she asked Ramona.

  “Kind of,” the girl replied.

  “Can you pretend to be a monkey?”

  “I guess so.”

  Hannah gave her hug. “Good. Let me take care of Mister Grizz for you, and I’ll give him back once we’re over the wall.”

  “Why don’t we just ask the soldiers if they’ll let us in?”

  “It’s a long story, but I don’t think they would like me. You’ll just have to trust me on this one. Like your mom trusted me to keep you safe.”

  Ramona nodded and gave Hannah the bear. Hannah tucked it against her belly and zipped her leather jacket halfway up to hold it in place, and then she shouldered her shotgun. She helpe
d up Ramona and said, “Stay close to me. We’re going down that line of cars along the sidewalk. When we get to the minivan, we’re going up that tree close to the wall.”

  “What if they shoot at us?”

  Hannah was tempted to lie, but instead said, “It’s too dark for them to see us. They probably won’t shoot if we don’t look like those bad things.”

  Hannah had given a brief explanation of events to Ramona, since evidently the girl had missed most of the onset of the outbreak and remembered little of their battle at the clinic. Ramona readily accepted Hannah’s rather fabulist version, in which bad people wanted to hurt good people. Hannah was careful to avoid linking the deaders with the infection for fear that Ramona would worry about turning into one herself. She needed the girl to stay positive and alert.

  When the gunfire erupted inside the compound just as the lights went out, Hannah knew it was time. The soldiers along the walls turned their attention behind them, and Hannah led the girl onto the street as they’d planned. Other shadows and forms flitted among the cars, but none of them moved with the telltale lurching and shuffling of the deaders. They probably had the same idea as Hannah, or perhaps had already been turned away.

  Or maybe they were fleeing the area while the odds of not being shot in the back were higher.

  When they reached the tree, Hannah cupped her hands and urged Ramona to put her foot there. “Like climbing onto a saddle,” Hannah whispered.

  She then boosted the girl to the lowest branches just over her head, nudging the girl higher until Ramona was secure. Hannah then grabbed the thickest branch and walked her way up, the soles of her boots slipping against the smooth bark of the maple. She tried three times before she finally wrapped her thighs around the tree trunk and levered herself up.

  “What are they shooting at?” Ramona whispered.

  Hannah was cheered the girl was aware enough to keep quiet. She was a quick learner. “Must be some bad people inside.”