Craig Dilouie - The Killing Floor

“Come on, now,” he says. “I ain’t the Second Coming.”

A massive vehicle rumbles past the motel. Ray freezes, watching it roll past. It is shaped like a school bus, painted in a camouflage pattern, with a large snowplow fitted onto its front, stained the color of rust, and metal slats welded over its windows and doors.

“Wow, what a great rig,” Ray says.

The bus stops with a squeak, idling before it reverses, stops again, and executes a slow turn into the parking lot.

Ray watches it turn with mounting terror until it faces him, giving him a clear view of the giant blond-haired driver, a skinny man with glasses hunched over a machine gun, and a woman standing next to him, pointing at Ray and shouting.

“You,” he gasps.

Even from this distance, he can see Anne Leary’s face shining with fierce excitement at catching her prey.

Of course it would be her.

He flashes back to sitting on the bridge, trying to hold onto a happy thought while she stood over him with a very large gun pointed at the back of his head.

Protect , Ray tells his cops.

The Unit 12 officers raise their weapons and fire as the machine gun opens up, it rounds hacking through the crowd and plowing into the Infected around Ray.

The firing stops. The dying Infected thrash and howl in their own blood. Someone screams on the bus. The air smells like smoke.

Ray emerges from his daze gasping for breath. He pats his body, amazed he got through the exchange without a scratch.

Lola.

She lies on the ground, her brains splashed across the pavement among old cigarette butts. Behind her, Cook crawls on his hands and knees, vomiting blood, his tattered shirt smoking.

Lola!

“Oh, honey.”

Oddly, she seems to be smiling.

There goes your second chance, bro.

As his rage mounts, the Infected around him tremble, shaking their fists and weapons, jaws snapping like animals.

Ray turns to the bus, where Anne is struggling to right the machine gun.

“Kill them!” he commands.

KILL KILL KILL KILL

The Infected howl as one and charge, surging toward the bus in a human flood. The driver puts the vehicle into reverse, inching away slowly, too slowly, making Ray laugh harshly.

Oh no, you don’t. You’re not going anywhere, Anne Leary. You’re going to stay right here and get what’s coming to you.

“Kill them all!”

The air fills with the pop of weapons as the Infected clamber onto the snowplow and force their way into the bus.

“Whatever you think is best, Ray!” he screams. “Whatever you think is best!”

Anne

The bus slowly reverses while Anne tries to pull the machine gun from under Evan’s legs. The Infected shot him. The man shakes violently, bleeding out, his eyes glassy and unseeing. Behind him, Gary sits with his back against the pole, wincing and licking blood from his lips.

“I can feel it in my lung,” he says. He sounds like he is being strangled. “The bullet. It went through Evan and popped into my chest.”

“I’m sorry,” she tells him.

Thrashing in his final death throes, Evan knees Anne in the face and pain flares through the lines of her scars. Above her, Ramona screams and fires her automatic rifle on full auto at the Infected clambering onto the hood of the vehicle.

Anne frees the gun with a final jerk.

“This is your fault,” Gary says. “It’s all your fault.”

She looks up in time to see Ramona fire her last round and slam the butt of her rifle into a man’s face before the hands reach in and pull her out into the mob, which tears her apart. Blood splashes onto Marcus but he ignores it, gritting his teeth, firing a massive handgun into the snarling faces with one hand while steering with the other.

“I’m scared,” Gary says.

This is what you wanted , Anne’s mind whispers.

Your murdered your own children through your stupidity and arrogance and you can never be happy so you kill and kill and kill the Infected in the hopes one day your luck will run out and they will tear you to shreds and eat you like you deserve.

That day has finally come.

“It’s going to be okay,” she says.

Gary does not hear her. He stares into oblivion, his eyes blank, his face pale, his final expression one of pure terror.

Anne glances down at the machine gun in her hands and realizes she could just drop it. Dying would be that simple. She has already gotten enough people killed. Let Ray kill the world. What does she care?

Not yet. Soon, but not just yet.

They can have me, but only after a fight. They have to prove they are stronger. They have to earn it.

The will to survive floods her body with energy. She stands and levels the heavy weapon, putting her back against the pole for support and firing from the waist, holding the ammo belt with her other hand. The barrel lights up with muzzle flashes that fill the air with hot metal.

Anne screams with something like joy. This is how she wants to die.

The hot metal slugs punch through skulls and torsos, spraying brains and guts back into the crowd. Soon she can no longer see individuals, just torn and charred flesh and muscle and clothing, shattered bone, ripped organs and blood.

Then she no longer sees even this, struck by a vision of a single face, watching her without expression, as if lobotomized, a human face with an alien mind.

A human face constructed entirely of seething maggots.

No, not maggots. Monsters.

The face snarls with recognition and hatred before it explodes into millions of howling things hurtling into the void.

“ I am Life,” it tells her. “I am Life and you are the enemy of life. You are Death.”

Empty shell casings clatter across the floor. She grunts, sweat pouring down her face. Her arm trembles with exhaustion from the constant recoil.

The bus continues to gain speed. The Infected fall behind, howling and waving their weapons and shooting their guns. Anne lunges and slams the M240 down onto hood, hugging the stock and resuming fire.

The Infected collapse in waves under the withering fire of the machine gun.

“Come on,” she screams, her body jerking from the recoil. “Come and get it!”

The bus steadily puts more distance between them and the Infected. The tracers arc and drop among the crowd, punching more bodies to the ground. The ammo belt runs out.

Marcus stops the bus, turns and finds another way out of town.

Ray fled during the attack. The pursuit is back on. And Anne has survived again.

As with every other time, she is almost disappointed.

Cool Rod

Sitting in the shade of the Stryker, Rod watches his squad tear the plastic wrapping off their MREs and sink their hands into the yellow pouches, producing brown packets containing entrees and seasonings and HOOAH! energy bars. They compare meals and barter like Wall Street traders. Sosa trades a cigarette for Lynch’s hot sauce. Tanner puts his chicken fajitas on the market, but gets no takers. He takes a long pull on a stray bottle of water they liberated from the Walmart’s shelves and passes it on. Lynch suggests lighting some C4 to cook their meals properly, but the air is so hot the others do not seem interested. Sosa, constipated from the steady diet of MREs, calls his a meal ready for enema , making them laugh.

Rod joins in the laughter, enjoying the banter during this rare calm while Davis stands twenty meters away with his rifle providing security and Arnold monitors the recon equipment on the Walmart roof. He tears open his own MRE and inspects his beef brisket with mild disdain. It is not his favorite, but he needs the twelve hundred calories.