Charlie Huston - Already Dead - A Novel

I turn to face Horde and his unconscious daughter. The stiletto enters my back, is plunged into my liver twice before I can seize his arm, hunch forward, and toss the enforcer to a far corner of

the room.

The pain is more persistent this time. The healing tickle not such a balm. The Vyrus is fighting a losing battle against the damage I'm absorbing. I must feed.

The enforcer is on me again, charging from the corner. He crashes into me and we sprawl on the floor. He straddles my chest, pins my arms with his knees. The stiletto comes down, drives through my left forearm and sticks in the crumbling concrete below. He covers my eyes with his thumbs and starts to gouge them out of their sockets. I wrench my head to the side and catch his wrist between my teeth.

His blood is acid. It fills my mouth, scorching my tongue. I close my throat against it. The small bones of his wrist crunch between my teeth and he howls and rips himself free and off of me. I gag and spit his torn meat from my mouth and yank the stiletto from my arm. I roll to my knees. The wound in my arm stays open, streaming blood. The Vyrus is dealing with my more mortal hurts. Ignoring that which will not kill me outright. The enforcer is between me and the others again. He comes in low, in a wrestler's crouch, the blood clotting at his wrist.

I see the Enclave in my mind. Their disciplined sparring. The control they exert over the Vyrus gone berserk in their veins. It can be controlled, this power. I have seen it.

He feints at my right arm, the arm that now holds his blade. I dodge to the left, away from the feint and into the real attack he had planned for my wounded left arm.

He cranks the arm up and back and pain explodes in my shoulder as he tries to snap it before I can react. But I am already reacting, twisting to my left, bringing the stiletto around in an arc behind his legs, and drawing it back, the blade raking the tendons just above the tops of his knees. He drops, his legs folding like marionette limbs beneath him, my arm falling from his grasp. I plant the heel of my left hand beneath his jaw as he comes down and force him back, his legs powerless beneath his body. I climb onto his stomach, still shoving his head back, baring his throat, and stab him in the neck. Over and over. Blood sprays, and air whistles from a dozen holes. I shove the blade in one final time, fixing it at the far point below his jaw, and then heave it over to the other side. I leave the stiletto lodged in his twitching corpse and stand up.

The woman on the floor has freed her hands and is clumsily trying to get to her feet, but the bacteria is still finding its place and she is delirious with it. The goon is by the door, whimpering and trying to get at his weapon.

But there is blood here at my left hand.

I turn to kill Horde and his daughter, and he shoots me in the stomach.

The gun is small, the slender European automatic of the well-to-do. The pain flares and disappears in the same instant. The tingle of regeneration fills my belly. I move at Horde, knowing I can pluck the weapon from his hand before he can fire it again.

Two vicious insects latch onto the back of my neck and I am knocked to my knees by 50,000 volts.

I open my mouth and howl silently and piss myself. Two wires run from my neck to the black box in the goon's hand. I flail at the wires, yank them from my skin and scramble to my feet. The goon is screaming, banging his head against the wall, fumbling one-handed with the Taser, trying to insert another charge. I take a step toward him.

Horde shoots me again. The bullet rips through the meat of my left thigh. I stumble but don't fall, and turn to face him again. And am stung by the 50,000 once more.

Steam wisps from the holes in my arm, leg and stomach, and Horde adds a new hole, this one punched through my chest. I feel my right lung collapse and I echo it, keeling and folding to one side until I am supported by my right knee and hand, left hand clamped over the gasping hole in my chest. No tingling now, and no vibrant clarity of senses. The Vyrus has run its course. I am an empty and useless vessel that is beyond repair.

Naked and still erect, Horde steps over his daughter and comes close to me, the gun declined at my head.

He glances about the room, at his lost and struggling wife, the fear-crazed goon, the nearly decapitated enforcer, and his sleeping child. Then to me.

— I will not lie to you, Pitt; that was unexpected.

He tilts his head at the enforcer.

— And rather spectacular. Honestly, I've never seen the infected in action. I had no idea of the ferocity. Or the reserves you can call upon. Was your recovery typical? Or are you unique in your constitution?

I bleed.

— Regardless, I think it's safe to assume that you are beyond help at this point.

He thinks for a moment.

— But just to be safe.

He shoots my right arm. I sit there, helplessly listing on my one good limb.

— All this carnage may be oversetting the scene a bit, but I trust that Predo will be able to tidy things up. And I'm sure that the authorities will understand the excesses I took in avenging myself on you. You would understand as well if you were to stay present long enough to witness what you did to my daughter. But it is not to be.

He shakes his head.

— A shame. Nothing would please me more than to have you in my lab. But. He heaves a sigh.

— Predo forbids it. I can experiment all I like with the. . well, one feels comic to call it this, but with the zombie bacteria. But he will not allow me a subject of research for the Vyrus. No bother, I'll get one on my own soon enough.

— Husband.

He looks at his wife.Ê Standing in clothes askew, leaning crookedly against the wall behind her. -I think I want to eat you.

She tries to take a step and stumbles, her body, already decomposing, is arguing with the bacteria over who controls what.

Horde smiles.

— Don't worry, love. You won't have to live with that feeling for long. And who knows, perhaps I'll cut something from Amanda for you to nibble. I assure you she'd feel only the mildest pain in the state she's in. The dear won't even remember. What do you say? Something she won't miss, of course. A little finger?

He turns his eyes back to me and shrugs.

— As you can see, I have a great deal to take care of here. My family is waiting.

He presses the barrel of the gun against the top of my forehead. I watch his finger as it tightens on the trigger.

Something changes in the room.

A darkness flickers across the corner of my vision. A darkness perilously cold chills the air. A darkness passes between Horde and myself, erasing its own scent as it travels. The darkness cuts through Horde and he drops rigid to the floor. The darkness bleeds across the room, momentarily blackens the shadows in a high corner, and is gone.

And I forget about the darkness and go after what I need.

I crawl up Horde's naked body, every part as rigid as his penis now, his skin icy to the touch, and a rim of frost on his gun. I dig my fingers under his jaw and pull. His flesh tears far easier than it should. Flesh tears with a crunch like stepping on snow. I bend my head to lap his blood. And find it frozen. His torn neck filled with dead crimson slush.

I rage.

And remember the sleeping girl.

I drag my gunshot leg toward her.

— Joseph.

The woman has the whimpering snot-faced goon. She holds his hair in her hand, his head pulled far back. In her other hand, she holds the enforcer's stiletto.

— You did a good job, Joseph.

The hard wiry muscles of her arms and shoulders flex as she pushes the knife into the artery.

Blood splashes.

From across the room I crawl until my mouth is over the hole in his neck. It has been years since I have had blood from the vein. It is just as I remember. The blood floods my throat and warmth swells in my stomach and a harsh burning tingle attacks my hurts.