World of Zombies Page 4

  She turned back, but knew who she'd see. Ilia stood there licking his lips, like he enjoying killing as much as those monsters below. He’d shot the police so she couldn’t escape him. She was sure as could be on that point. The only explanation was that he'd gone insane.

  With nowhere to go and no one to help her, she could only watch in silence as she rode the ungainly vehicle. Ilia paced beside her on the roof above like a caged lion, though there wasn’t much roof left for him to walk. The entry to the courtyard separating the rows of buildings was too wide to jump.

  Please don’t kill me.

  She couldn’t look away from his menacing gun. It was visible just above the top lip of the wall. It wasn’t as long as the rifles the police used, but it wasn’t a short handgun, either. It was sort of in between.

  She jumped in surprise when Ilia dropped to a knee. Pieces of the concrete wall shattered below him. It took her a couple of seconds to readjust herself so she could look down. One of the police crouched on top of the support truck and fired his rifle. Some others were prone on top with him.

  I might get away!

  The moment she finished thinking it, Ilia popped up and let loose with a volley back at the threat. Not a solid chain of pops like Pavel’s or the policeman who missed her, but a continuous cycle of pop, wait, pop, wait.

  He wasn’t firing in a careless spray like the police. He picked his targets and tapped them out, like he fired his gun every day of the week. Like a professional soldier.

  She looked up at Ilia and back down to the police over and over, like watching a tennis match. It didn’t take long before all the remaining police fell from the truck, or were silenced. Eventually, there was just Ilia. At the last moment he seemed to shift his tactics by letting off a faster rattle of shots. She peered down and saw spiderwebs of breaks on the windshield of the transporter. The driver sat low in his seat, but appeared unharmed.

  Ilia finally ran out of roof and lost the angle to the big rig. She thought he was going to try jumping to her, but he couldn’t do that without either running or at least standing on the edge. Instead, he looked down to the people running everywhere, then to her.

  The wall bounced and jerked. She held onto one of the poles for the handrail, sure it was enough to keep her from falling over the side. But the hatred on Ilia’s face made her aware of her exposure.

  He pointed his weapon at her as the distance grew. She drew back into herself, willing him not to pull the trigger. She might as well have been on a fashion runway. There was absolutely nowhere to hide.

  Twenty feet passed without a shot.

  Thirty feet.

  Gathering her wits and scraping up some courage she looked his way.

  He dropped his aim, just a little.

  “Don’t get lost, sweetie. Pav and I will be along to collect you.” He’d spoken without any hesitance or fear and just loud enough she could hear him.

  Then he brought the gun back up and fired one round at her.

  10

  A spray of blood soaked her white camisole and upper body. Ilia’s shot collapsed the head of a badly burned young man who had been holding on to the front of the wall. He’d almost gotten all the way to the main deck—and to her.

  “No. I don’t owe you,” she cried out, after a suitable time to process what he’d just done.

  He tapped his brow, in a mock salute, then ran from the edge, out of her view.

  But she did owe him. More than she wanted to admit to herself or anyone. As much as it shocked her to see the police get shot, Ilia also took out the dead rioter trying to kill her.

  The blood sickened her, but after a few attempts at wiping it, she gave up. At best she spread it around to a paste on her arms and upper chest. There was nothing to wipe it off except her cami. She pulled the bottom of the shirt up to her face and did the best she could. The fabric fell back down with a blotchy red stain.

  The driver of the support truck kept the wall moving along the edge of the next row of buildings and toward the next intersection. From the top of it, she got a great view of everything around her. The police on the ground had faded to nothing, or gone to hiding in the buildings around her. Though many of the original rioters walked in the wake of the wall, there were only a few of those people in front of it. But the next cross street was a steady stream of them, like a soccer match had just ended. Some turned to meet the giant vehicle, but most kept walking toward the edge of the city.

  They’re all moving the same way.

  She tried to get the attention of the man behind the wheel, but he seemed not to notice. It was hard to tell behind the spiderwebs of broken glass, but if he did see her he refused to acknowledge her.

  She studied the layout of the specialized machine. The wall on which she rode was bowed slightly so the two ends stuck out farther than the middle. It was a very shallow “C” to someone looking from above. The railing ran on both the front and back sides, so the officers wouldn’t fall off the three-foot wide top when it moved. That rail kept her from falling over as the vehicle bounced along.

  A ladder connected a small platform on the front of the support truck with the bulky wall. If she had the gumption, she could go down the ladder and talk to the driver almost face to face.

  A quick glance down the inner face of the wall convinced her not to try it. The flood of the new crowd started arriving and swirled like eddies around her. Soon there’d be just as many people behind the wall as there were in front of it. The truck seemed pretty powerful, but it was carrying a heavy wall. She wondered if it was bound to get stuck like the Rover if there were too many people to crunch through.

  She crawled along the wall. One hand held the wire rope between support poles, while the other was on the platform base. When she made it to the middle she realized there was a small call box next to the flame gun.

  “Yes!”

  She pushed the dirty green button, but nothing happened. The second time she tried holding it while she talked.

  “Hello? Are you down there?” Her voice broke. “Please. Help me.”

  A man leaned forward in the cockpit of the truck. It wasn’t the driver, but another officer who must have been hiding. “I don’t know who you are, but I’ll shoot you myself when we stop.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” she said in a dejected voice. She might have told them about Ilia, but guessed it wouldn’t mean anything. Though every one of them had certainly served in the Russian Army in their youth, they weren’t knights in shining armor today. Damsel in distress or not, she got all those men killed.

  “I’m Yuri Saratov’s wife,” she added, knowing how it must sound. “Please. I need your help.”

  The two faces in the windshield talked to each other, though she couldn’t hear what they said. She leaned in to the small speaker but couldn’t hear a thing over the rising crowd noise. As more of rioters gathered and saw her and the drivers—the only things alive on the vehicle—they became more animated and noisy. She prayed the officers would make a decision favorable to her before the threat from below started to get out of hand.

  Hurry!

  The extra man held up a pair of binoculars and pointed them right at her. She smiled weakly, aware of his intentions. Countless security and police commanders had done the same thing over the years. Yuri’s team operated above the law. Money was its own boss in New Russia, and it brought hubris and power beyond her understanding. That’s why, time and again, Ilia and his security people walked right through checkpoints with barely a wave of credentials. Once through, the hapless state police would follow and try to identify her and her fellow travelers. She’d heard Ilia and Pavel laugh at the process through the years.

  She held on and remained fixed on the two orbs of the binoculars.

  The glasses came down, but still two officers didn’t reply. They continued to talk in the cabin, but not to her.

  The vehicle stopped a few car-lengths from the next intersection, as if checking for traffic. The crowd was p
acked edge-to-edge on the new street. Many turned, attracted by the wall. It wouldn’t take much for them to overrun the whole truck, including her airborne perch. Then it would be lights out for Liza.

  “Please hurry,” she mouthed down to them, not using the speaker.

  The response was immediate. “Where’s your team, ma’am?”

  She was ready to tell them, but “her team” had just committed an atrocity before their eyes.

  “Dead,” she said without emotion.

  The crowd swarmed. Several of the citizens of Moscow scurried up the sides and front of the truck. It blocked her view through the front window. The ladder seemed to call out to them.

  “Hey, all, run up this ladder for one more treat!”

  She willed it to shut up. But a young hooligan in a yellow sweatshirt heard the ladder's call.

  He looked right at her.

  11

  Her stomach fluttered as the sweatshirt-wearing man hopped over some of his mates and grabbed onto the ladder. While she gazed down, he looked up. Their eyes might have met—had his been normal.

  Blood had pooled under each eyeball, and the whites of his eyes were a deep red. One side of his blonde head was matted down with blood. A rip in his neck had sent streams of crimson down the side of his body.

  She keyed the communications button, desperate for the police to do something. “H-help? I need help.”

  “We’re trying to confirm your identity,” the man said in a hurried voice. He keyed off the microphone a half-second too soon.

  The people below swarmed over the cab; they used each other as human ladders. Then they tore at each other, and pounded on the strong glass of the truck.

  Sweatshirt man wasn’t able to grasp the ladder properly. One of his hands was wet with blood, and that seemed to slow him down. However, his other hand was fine. Despite his wounds he managed to get up a few rungs before she had time to consider what she was going to do in her ever-shrinking bubble of safety.

  Hating herself, she looked back to the roof from which she jumped. Ilia was gone.

  Looking around, there was absolutely nothing of any use on the top of the wall. A few shiny brass-looking things rolled around with the bouncing of the vehicle. They were far too small to be considered weapons.

  Emotion welled up from her insides. She choked back the tears but couldn’t stem the fear.

  She keyed the microphone again. “Can you shoot this man?” She pointed toward the ladder.

  The driver of the truck backed the whole assembly into the next intersection and began a turn, but stopped before he completed it. There were too many on the new street; the incoming horde rolled itself right up against the wall.

  Oh, God. This is it.

  As the mass of quivering bodies piled up, she was overcome with a sickly smell that was a mix of maple syrup and bad breath. She inhaled and a bout of lightheadedness snuck up on her. In a moment she was on her knees with her arms hung out over the crowd.

  What happened?

  It appeared as if she’d blacked out, fell, but got caught in the security railing.

  The frenzied horde was almost up to her feet.

  She got up and staggered back a couple steps on the walkway.

  The crowd on the new street was endless. She could see all the way back to the Kremlin up the avenue. The distant route was packed with the same sad-looking people that were right in front of her. Some broke windows. Some fought. Some climbed the facades of the buildings along the street. A few ran on top of those buildings. Others fell off.

  The sound of gunfire spun her around.

  Sweatshirt man was holding both sides of the ladder, only a step below the level of the platform. A bullet had torn through his shoulder. Blood seeped out the horrible wound.

  The shot repeated and the climber lost another wedge of his shoulder. She took a step back, bouncing between the front and back railing like a pinball.

  The police officer in the cab aimed his rifle through a fist-sized hole in the glass.

  The next blast went into a woman who crawled right in front of the window. Three more ripped through the woman before she was sent flying by the force. One of the bullets passed through the lady and pinged off the edge of the wall, just below Liza’s feet.

  “I can’t die like this,” she said to the wind. Far too long after the bullet struck, she decided it would be smart to crouch down.

  The man on the ladder made it to the top. He stumbled for a moment, then stood up. His right arm seemed to hang like a soaked rag over his shoulder, but his legs worked just fine. His good arm reached for her as he lurched her way.

  The officer below shot several more times before landing a hit. Sweatshirt man’s jaw was there one second, then it was gone. His tongue hung out of his bloody mouth below the top row of teeth, like a grotesque imitation of a child's jelly-filled grin.

  “Please. No.” She begged of the man, sure he wasn't going to listen. A part of her thought of fighting, but that seemed hopeless. Instead, she bent down and wrapped her arms around herself.

  More bullets cut through the air, but she wasn’t about to look.

  In a moment she felt something kick her head, signaling the beginning of her violent end.

  Goodbye, dear Yuri, was the only thought that came to her mind. Then, in an emotional rush, she wondered why she felt anything for him. He'd left her to die.

  She held her breath while the seconds ticked by, but the follow-up blow never landed. She lifted her head. The man had fallen; his bright yellow sweatshirt floated on top of the wave of people below the wall.

  Her eyes were awash in tears.

  She heard her name coming from the call box.

  “Hello? Are you—”

  The cacophony of rage below her perch on the platform made it impossible to hear the message, but she knew what she had to do.

  “Get up, Yelizaveta,” she ordered herself.

  “I’m here. I’m here.” The exhaustion was already upon her. She hadn’t been much for jogging or cardio, lately. Not when she had to suffer under the twisted eyes of Ilia and his team of thugs. Wearing training bras or doing yoga in front of them was impossible. It took one run with Ilia always ten feet behind before she realized her mistake. That time she faked a hurt ankle so she could get picked up by the support Rover.

  “You have to come down here. We’re going to detach.” The sounds of the rioters banging on the truck was loud through the speaker.

  She balanced between the frothing waves of hands on both sides of the wall.

  To the left, the pool of death had risen so high people could reach up and touch the very floor on which she stood. To the right, the crowd wasn’t as deep, but the people swarmed around and over the truck. Another couple held on to the apparatus almost where it met the ladder.

  Again she choked on the crying jag she so badly wanted to indulge. It would go nicely with her final moments when the red tide crested over the platform. There were minutes left, at most.

  “I’ll—” she surveyed the chaos all around her. “I'll try.”

  12

  She almost fell when the wall dropped to the street.

  The crew in the support vehicle set it down and made good on their plan to detach. Cables and beams popped from the back and the truck reversed a few feet. The driver craned over his wheel to see that he’d been successful, though his face cringed as rioters filled the space between him and the barricade.

  “Don’t leave,” she begged.

  The speaker remained silent.

  The driver used the front bumper of the truck to push at the crowd and get back to her.

  “Thank you,” she said to the speaker, not sure if it was working. She waved at the driver to be sure.

  He may have waved back, but it was hard to tell with the hands reaching up from those standing in the street and an unhealthy number hanging from various parts of the truck.

  The big machine appeared to struggle. The motor revved and the rear tires spun
on wetness below. The number of rioters swelled between the truck and the wall, and the big rig couldn’t close the last ten feet or so.

  The driver backed the truck twenty or thirty feet; he gunned the engine and raced toward her. She gripped the railing, worried a bump was coming.

  But that proved premature. Again the sheer mass of bodies made it impossible to get right up next to her. She dared herself to look at the front of the wall—several hands were now at her level. The tide of the crowd had accumulated on the front side, just as the truck remorselessly packed bodies on the rear. Dropping the wall into the crowd effectively made it six feet shorter.

  When the truck could go no further, the man put it into neutral and rolled his window down a few inches. “I can’t get any closer. You have to jump for it,” he shouted.

  “You’ve got to get closer,” she yelled back. The packed bodies below had become another scene of horror. They were smashed and ruined. Some fell to one side or the other, though there was little room for anyone to move with the continued influx. Almost everyone between her and the truck was drenched in blood, now.

  The engine roared as the blue Omon truck drove itself up against the clog of diseased rioters, but it was still eight or ten feet from her. It was as close as it was going to get.

  “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” She backed up, intent to get those two extra steps. Fingertips rubbed her ankle; she screamed from the bottom of her lungs. The wave was upon her.

  She aimed for the hood of the truck far below. Much like her earlier jump, the problem was one of momentum: she doubted she'd find enough of it.

  “You can do this, Liza. You can,” she insisted. Deep down she didn’t believe it. If the jump didn’t doom her, the hands reaching up would. Or the raging people hanging on over there. Or Ilia blowing her head off, just because she’d found help.

  A deep breath packed all that luggage in overhead. She clapped her hands a few times in nervous anticipation, took three steps, and launched off the wall. She’d picked the spot by the ladder because there was no railing.