Setting Things Right, Part 4: Grumpy collects - escape attempt - disinfecting the house - the colonel's pet (564 hits)
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Submitted by X54 (View user info) at 2008-10-15 00:30:47 EDT
Part 1: http://www.ubersite.com/m/118878 I meet Colonel Barnes - a standoff - their mission and mine
Part 2: http://www.ubersite.com/m/119080 I depart with the convoy - a burned down house - waiting for Mr. Robbins - reflections on surviving the pandemic
Part 3: http://www.ubersite.com/m/119174 meet the Robbins family - kids in the attic - a hero - an impromptu cesarean - thin ice
Part 4:
Grumpy started off down the hall, feet squish squishing in the blood-drenched carpet. He stopped short, came back for Junior's severed head. "I'm sure the kids'll want to meet their new little brother," he said.
I smiled at that. He hadn't impressed me much at first, but ever since the Robbinses had come down from the attic I'd begun to feel the way you do when you're in the presence of someone clearly in a position of authority over you by virtue of their superior experience. Carrying a flashlight in one hand and his submachinegun in the other, he cradled the fetus-baby's head in the crook of his firing arm.
I pulled the attic trapdoor down by its cord handle. The steps unfolded. Grumpy cautiously ascended until he could peek over the attic floor, then shone the flashlight around. "Hey kids," he said in a voice just like Barney the purple dinosaur's. "Mommy needs help naming the baby, yuck yuck!" He shined the flashlight on Junior's bloody little face.
I chuckled as I squished back over to where Eric Robbins lay slumped against the wall. Dragging him feet first through the blood puddle, I dropped him on dry carpet and zip-tied his wrists tightly behind his back. The children screamed overhead, more loudly than before. Then came the tssplat tssplat of Grumpy's MP5SD and the impacting bullets. Then more screams and scampering footsteps.
I wondered how many were up there. Leaving Eric Robbins, I approached Mommy, half propped against a table leg, blood still seeping from her cesarean wound. "How many kids do you have, Mommy?"
She just sat there, head lolled back, eyes dripping silent tears, staring at the ceiling. Even when I waved my hand right in front of her face. If I hadn't known better I might have thought she was rapturous. That's when I noticed how pleasantly plump she was. Women have more body fat than men. We learned that at the mass cremations we always had to perform on quarantine missions during the peak of the pandemic. We stacked the women on the bottom so their fat could fuel the fire. It struck me then that the tastiest steaks are often marbled with extra fat. Mommy had two plump rolls of flesh sagging from her naked back.
A sound drew my attention to Eric Robbins. Hands still fastened behind him, he struggled to his feet and lurched toward the stairs. I scrambled after him, slipping on the blood slicked carpet. "Mr. Robbins," I shouted. "Stop."
He looked back without slowing and plunged headlong off the stairs. I heard each bone crunching bounce as he tumbled down. The stairs were wide and grew wider toward the bottom. A pair of elaborate, symmetrical iron railings bounded the edges. The house's main entrance, at the base of the stairs, suddenly burst open. I raised my shotgun and took a knee on the balcony as Eric Robbins rolled to a stop on the tile floor below. To my surprise, Colonel Barnes poked his head inside and looked at the man of the house lying motionless before him. Then he raised his head and saw me pointing the shotgun.
"Swanson," he said. "What the fuck is going on? Where's Grumpy?"
At that moment the kids screamed again. The sound of running feet from the ceiling. Tssplat tssplat. A muffled, collapsing series of thuds.
The colonel raced upstairs, saw the bodies down the end of the hall, the pool of gore and the headless fetus-baby on the desktop. "Jesus Christ. How many people were here?"
"Seven I think, Sir."
"You think?"
"Four adults and an unknown number of children, probably three. Or four," I said, remembering Junior.
He hollered up the attic steps, "Grumpy!"
"Yes Sir," said Grumpy's voice.
"Hurry up."
"Yes Sir. Just finishing up now."
The weapon sounded twice more. There were no more screams, just a faint little whimper that descended in a perfectly continuous glissando to a moan and then faded from hearing.
Someone shouted from downstairs, "Colonel Barnes."
"Watson," said Barnes. "Stay back. This building is quarantined, effective immediately. Have the men prepare for disinfection."
"They have gasoline out back," I said, recalling Eric Robbins's laundry list of valuables. I suddenly realized several things at once. I knew, of course, that survivors were immune to the virus and couldn't carry it. The one thing you always knew for sure about a survivor was that he couldn't kill you that way. Not only did Colonel Barnes know that Grumpy and I were survivors, he was apparently one himself. A survivor in charge of a paramilitary platoon. The other men must also have known. It made me wonder what sort of outfit I'd fallen in with.
As we waited for Grumpy to come down, the colonel lit a cigarette, blew smoke at the Robbins family remnants. "They all dead?"
"Two dead," I said. "One wounded and one fainted. And Mr. Robbins downstairs."
"Finish them off. Be quick about it."
My heart leapt as I drew my machete, but he stopped me. "Not that way! Use your pistol."
Mommy's back straps tempting me to the verge of insubordination, I reluctantly finished the two women off with my Glock. They never even saw it coming.
Grumpy and Colonel Barnes stood watching as I topped off my magazine and holstered the pistol. "You fucking survivors," said the colonel. "You're as bad as a bunch of Rwandans. Don't let me see that machete again." He turned and took the steps down two at a time and went out the front door.
The smell of gasoline wafted up as the men prepared to disinfect the building. I turned to Grumpy. "Isn't he a survivor too?"
Grumpy shook his head. "The men think he's immune somehow. There's a rumor he's a survivor. But I know for a fact he isn't."
Someone shouted, "Clear the building."
We started down. "Don't you wonder why he's looking out for us?" said Grumpy.
"Why?"
"He's psycho. He gets a hardon thinking about having a whole squad of us. Or a platoon. Of nothing but survivors."
We stepped over Eric Robbins and exited his castle. The men torched the gasoline soaked structure. Giant, roaring flames lit the night. A million brilliant sparks raced skyward like the souls of the pandemic's countless victims striving for heaven's black void. The burning house radiated so much heat we had to pull back to the street. Eric Robbins screamed from inside, a heartrending dénouement to the sudden end of his genealogical incursion into the species of man. Or maybe it was just the pain of burning alive.
Colonel Barnes stood at the hood of his Suburban updating his paperwork. Grumpy leaned against the vehicle, arms folded, watching the fire. The wrought iron gate lay twisted on the ground. The other four men stood around Watson's Escalade. When the second floor of the house collapsed, the colonel put his papers away and said, "Swanson! Get your gear. You and Grumpy ride with me. Watson! Stay here with everyone else. Keep an eye on things until the fire burns down. Then head straight back to the refinery."
Grumpy and Colonel Barnes boarded the Suburban. I approached the Escalade. Watson opened the back. As I hefted my rucksack, he said, "Was the house really infected?"
I considered my response. He and the others stared at me. "We were all inside," said Watson.
I nodded. "I wouldn't worry about it. I think the colonel was just being careful."
"Yeah. Better safe than sorry, huh?"
As I loaded my ruck into the Suburban, one of them laughed harshly. "Looks like the colonel recruited himself another zombie."
In case you missed part two, "survivor" was explained as follows:
"They say most of the people who lived through the pandemic survived by avoiding contact with anyone sick. But a few of us--one in a thousand, if that--contracted the virus and recovered. We're the real survivors... They say the virus did something to our minds, those of us who survived it. Supposedly we see the world through some sort of lens that distorts our perception of things. But frankly, things never looked more clear to me than they have since I woke from my coma. Everything before the pandemic seems like a weird dream. I can't make sense of it. Though I have to be careful who I tell this to, I like things better now than the way they were before. A lot better."
User Reviews
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2008-10-16 08:36:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I agree with jack. You need some kind of back story here. Just saying the virus "did something to their minds" doesn't really cut it. It's pretty vague and doesn't come close to explaining their rather extreme actions.
Also, the "kill all the lawyers" concept is pretty lame. It's even worse since you've not offered any real reason why they would want to kill/brutalize lawyers and their families.
And you're setting up that General as someone who was unaffected by the pandemic, so you really need to explain where he's coming from at some point.
I'm rating based on the assumption that you'll fill in the blanks in future installments.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2008-10-16 00:43:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i havent read this yet but i intend to read the full series all the way through.
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2008-10-15 15:39:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 posted on my birthday... I bet it rocks.
Submitted by whiskey_jack (user info) at 2008-10-15 02:04:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I still don't get why the main character goes from just trying to survive to suddenly wanting to join a squad of maruaders who want to murder lawyers(which is just is a dumb premise), then to be absolutely batshit nuts and enjoy killing more than Ted Bundy. It's well written but I'm just not getting the plot.