Empire's End

Thirty-Six / Man’s Charity

Becks crouched behind a vegetable bin as the Geek crept into her market stall.

She’d heard the cries, seen the carnage unfolding blocks away, and come straight here. She was about to do herself, knife pressed to her jugular, when she heard the rotter and lost her nerve. She didn’t want to be food for these things. Even without Blake, she couldn’t bear to go through with it.

The rotter had three or four arms, all misshapen and swaying as it walked among the bins. Becks crawled toward the back. There was an exit there. She could race down the alley and to the amphitheater. There were places to hide there.

The Geek overturned the bin right behind her and roared.

She sprinted toward the exit, slamming into the door with teeth-rattling force — and burst through, stumbling headlong into the alley but never slowing down, running for dear life.

At the mouth of the alley, she made a hard right, and hands caught her by both arms in a vise-like grip. She screamed.

“It’s me, girl!” Finn Meyer hissed. “They’re all over. Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“Amphitheater,” she gasped. He nodded and tugged her along.

They stumbled down the bleachers and onto the stage where Becks had performed so many roles — most poorly written by that hack Cullen, but she had always loved the stage no matter what. Still… she couldn’t make this her last stand.

The Geek clambered over the gate and onto the bleachers. “Jesus!” Meyer breathed.

He pulled Becks against him. “Sorry,” he whispered, then she heard the gunshot. Then she felt the wetness spreading over her abdomen.

She fell on her back, sobbing in horror and disbelief, looking up at Meyer, who regarded her coolly before making his exit. He’d left her behind to stall the rotter.

She rolled over and dragged herself across the stage, pain spreading like a wildfire through her stomach and chest. She pulled herself to her feet and glanced back. The Geek was halfway down the bleachers. She had time. And she knew where she was going.

She ran with strength she didn’t know she had, strength that should have been ebbing from the wound in her belly, where she had once thought she would carry Blake’s child. She ran to the shore of Lake Michigan and dove into the icy water.

She swam out a hundred yards and stopped. The rotter wasn’t on the shore. Perhaps it had found new quarry.

She could tread water for a while, until the cold overtook her, and then she’d just drift downward, into blackness. It would be painless.

The Geek erupted from behind her and threw its malformed limbs around her.

Voorhees pushed himself across the floor on his back. He’d gotten out of the bedroom, and was now in search of something with which to cut the ropes binding him. The widowmaker was right there, pressing into the flesh of his back, but he just couldn’t work it free.

Dammit, he wasn’t going to find anything feeling around on the floor. He’d have to get up and start knocking into things. There had to be at least a sharp corner where he could start working on the ropes.

Getting up onto his knees, he shuffled along until he struck the door. He knew they’d locked it when they left. At least they did that much for him. He could hardly imagine what must be unfolding outside.

He heard someone running down the hall, trying doorknobs. Pounding. It was someone living. “Hey!” he shouted. “You out there! Over here!”

The doorknob jiggled. “Wait a second,” Voorhees grunted. He pressed his face to the door and grabbed the lock in his teeth. If he could just turn it ninety degrees, he’d have someone to cut him loose…

He did it! “It’s unlocked!”

The door opened. There was a laugh, and it was the most awful sound he’d ever heard in his life.

“Morning, Officer Voorhees. Looks like your luck just keeps getting worse.”

Meyer kicked Voorhees over and entered the apartment, quietly closing the door behind him.

The cop sat up and swung his head, the only way he could defend himself. Meyer laughed again, softly; then it grew silent. Where was he? Voorhees listened intently.

“Over here,” came a whisper. He turned to catch a fist in the face. Voorhees collapsed once more.

Meyer grabbed his hair and dragged him over to a chair. “I’ve had a real bastard of a day too, friend. But I get to take it out on you.”

Ernie lay under Casey’s desk with his hands over his mouth and listened. The Dwarf’s scrabbling had stopped. How long would he have to wait this out before the Army came through? Would he have any way of knowing when it was over? His radio didn’t pick up military frequencies. Stupid, he thought.

He heard the door being unlocked, then the creak as it swung open.

How…? He remained under the desk, which still blocked the doorway, and listened.

Keys jingled. He heard a sound like someone shifting about. Then something thumped on top of the desk. Something heavy.

Dear God, was Casey still alive?

Ernie stuck his head out from under the desk. He could see nothing from his vantage point. “Sir?” he whispered.

Four bloody fingers crept over the edge of the desk and curled to grip it.

Casey’s face slid into view. Or rather, the absence of it — a black, dripping void.

His other hand came over the desk’s edge, holding the keys, and he dropped them on the floor beside Ernie’s head.

Casey rolled off the desk and onto the floor. Blood splattered on the walls. He pulled his crippled body toward Ernie, one eye rolling crazily in his crimson skull; and finally Ernie found his voice and screamed, but only for a second before Casey was upon him, and they rolled beneath the desk in their struggle and then a sea of blood washed across the floor.