Chapter 33: Cue and the Fall of the Vertical Village pt1

Cue looked down one level below at the stagnant and pungent water. Zombies writhed in the viscous muck, some barely floating above water, some standing on broken beams and floating furniture. To call the sludge that was below them water would be a disgrace to the word. The sludge was thick, dripping off the zombies like a slime, as they tirelessly searched for food. Throughout it all, rats of many sizes swam or walked easily through it all.

Cue gagged as she watched one such rat get snatched by a zombie that was cut in half, its bottom half long lost, its entrails hanging. It had been lying and floating on a piece of a door, its weak growls a sign of starving to death. It snatched the rat out of the water with all too human desperation and ripped its stomach open with one gut-turning rip of flesh. The rat screamed and clawed at the zombie's face, but it was of no use. In moments, the creature was dead, and zombies all around the scene swam closer, a frenzy of screams drowned out the thoughts in her head.

She held her mint plant closer, chewing on one of its leaves to alleviate the smell of rot below. Cue Followed behind Trigger, who followed the doctor, with Pete behind her and Gunner bringing up the rear. They skulked along the dank, wet corridors, tiptoeing and holding their breath around every corner.

The halls were damp and soft as Cue discovered when she tripped and fell through one, causing a plume of mold spores over them all. Trigger helped her up, laughing quietly, and helped her dust off.

“Are you okay?” she asked, giving her a peck on the nose after wiping it off for her.

“I’m fine,” Cue coughed once and turned to look at everyone else.

The doctor and Pete both looked impatient as they glared over at her, but Pete.

“I hear something!” Doc hissed, ducking behind an old chair for cover.

Gunner pulled Trigger and Cue into a hallway and stood in front of them, slowly taking off his helmet and arming his eye lasers.

They all went silent, hiding, waiting.

The drip, drip, drop of water in the distance slowly became so loud in the silence that it seemed to ricochet off of Cue’s mind. They waited and watched until their eyes burned and their chests hurt from breathing as little as possible.

Pete sighed irritably and slowly stood up from behind an old suitcase. He looked one way, then the other, before his eyes locked with Cue’s under Gunner’s arm. “I think they are gone,” he said quietly. “If there was anyone there at all.” He tilted his head from side to side, cracking it.

Gunner put his helmet back on and led the two women out, waiving Doctor Alex to stand behind him. She hurried to him, ducking behind Trigger and Cue.

“Is that really necessary?” Pete asked, raising his voice and waving his arms around. “There’s nobody here. Nobody followed us.” His impatience was written all over his face.

Gunner growled low in his throat, raising his rifle an inch at Pete. Gunner didn't trust him. Gunner wanted him dead, and not only for that reason. Gunner knew this motherfucker would take his women if he had half the chance. And maybe it was programming, but maybe it was who he was long ago when he got turned into this monster, but he did not like sharing what was his with another man for any reason.

Gunner used his gun to urge Pete forward, and then for the women to follow, once more bringing up the rear in case they were followed, and men needed taking down fast. He followed silently, death on two feet.

With one hand around her mint plant and the other in Trigger’s hand, Cue watched everything carefully. With humans, Trigger was the protector, but with Zombies? That’s what Cue knew. That's where she protected Trigger instead. She took a step in front of Trigger, her senses on high alert, as they approached a door that had a sign that said basement beside it with the symbol of stairs.

“This is it!” Doc announced, her whisper fierce.

Behind that door was freedom, unless they were betrayed.

She turned and glared at Pete before casting her eyes over Cue, Trigger, and Gunner. “Are you ready? It gets real after this, no more safety, no more tricking idiotic alpha men. It’s escape or die.”

Pete’s lip curled in a snarl, but they all nodded.

Doctor Alexandria opened the door onto the stairs. Her supplies were at the bottom and they were in the home stretch. Just a few more steps, a few subway tunnels, and she’d taste freedom again. She just had to open one last door.

She put her hand on the handle with a smile on her face as she looked up a the group.

“Are you ever going to sleep with me?” Pete asked suddenly, turning his face up to them.

“Fuck you,” Cue spat.

“So be it.”

Alex opened the door, turning her face toward it, right as a blast sounded on the other side. One second, Alex was standing there, and the next, she was blown apart in two pieces and splattered on the wall.

“No!” Trigger screamed.

Cue dropped her mint pot in shock, tears streaming down her face.

Gunner ripped off his helmet and poncho and weaponized his lasers, the what from them sending heatwaves into the air all around his furious face.

Pete? He walked down the stairs calmly, held out his hand, and heaved his father over the corpse of the doctor. Behind him, a dozen more men stood armed to the teeth with madness in their eyes.

“We tried to be nice,” Daniel said coldly. Now we will take out your obomination and rape  you every day for the rest of your miserable lives instead.”

Mayhem erupted.

Cue ducked instinctively as Gunner’s lasers shot off and cleaved Pete’s head off moments before the racket of gunfire took over. Gunner stepped around them, firing his automatic rifles into the crowd of them, but they just kept coming.

Cue scrambled to the bottom of the stairs, sliding through the doctor’s blood and guts, and finding her still alive. Cue took her hands in hers, tears pricking her eyes as she flinched and ducked past every blow.

“B-Belview hospital…” she gasped, squeezing Cue’s hand with all her might. “That's where I came from,” she coughed up blood, her eyes rolling crazily in her head and reflecting the blasts of gunfire around them. “They have…power… doctor, he’s…he’s…insane…” She took one last gargling breath, her eyes rolling up in their sockets. “D…go there…”

“Go there?” Cue asked, ducking when a bullet whizzed past her ear.

“D-D… go…there…” she wheezed.

“Don’t worry, Alex! We will go there!” Cue promised her, not hearing the warning in the words she couldn’t say.