Game-Plan
Westlake hit the floor. A shotgun roared, and Sal jerked back – more in shock than pain, he suspected. The monster reeled, squalling like a startled cat. It spun and smashed through the doors leading to the next corridor over, leaving a trail of ichor in its wake. He heard its screams of frustration even as it vanished from sight.
Panting, he looked up at Ramirez, who stood over him protectively. “Took you long enough. Another second, he’d have been chewing on my femur.”
Ramirez stared in the direction Sal had gone, her eyes wide. She looked at the weapon in her hand as if it had betrayed her. “The gun didn’t even slow it down.”
“Yeah, noticed that, did you?” Westlake stood and glanced up the stairs. The walkers at the top hadn’t yet figured out how to make their way down, but from the sound of it, others were on their way, drawn by the gunfire. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Over here,” Ptolemy called, from one of the rooms. Westlake and Ramirez went inside, and Ptolemy slammed the door after them. Calavera shoved a chair beneath the handle. It was a guest room, with a bed, a television, and an en suite.
“Did you injure it?” Calavera asked.
“I don’t think so,” Ramirez said. “Startled it, though. Your pal Vinnie was right. That damn thing’s bulletproof.”
Westlake shook his head and sat down on the bed. “It’s not bulletproof, it’s just too tough to be bothered by getting shot.” He ran his hands over his head. He was wrung out from the run, adrenaline fading. He needed to think.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have gone off alone,” Ramirez said, looking down at him. Her voice was calmer than he’d expected. She didn’t look angry so much as disappointed. She used the barrel of the shotgun to open his jacket. She reached inside and took out a wad of cash. “Was this what you were after?”
He reached for it. She stepped back and swung the shotgun up. He sank back. “That’s mine,” he said. “I earned it.”
“Milwaukee job,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
He nodded anyway. “Sal owed me. I came to collect.”
She looked down at him, her expression unreadable. “Really.” That wasn’t a question either. He decided to answer it.
“It was the principle of the thing. Sal owed me. He tried to kill me rather than paying, so I came to get it.”
Hutch stared at him. He was sitting by the window, another shotgun across his lap. “You… came all this way for some cash? What are you going to spend it on?” He looked around. “Does this sound insane to anyone else?”
“No,” Calavera said.
Westlake looked at the big man. Calavera adjusted his mask. “A man must stand by his principles, even unto the end of the world. I understand this.” He nodded to Westlake, and Westlake could not help but return the gesture. It was good to know that someone understood – even if it was the lunatic in the mask.
Ramirez wasn’t so easy or so ready to forgive. She lifted the shotgun and set it across her shoulder, but her eyes hadn’t left him. “All of this was about the money. From the beginning.” She waved the cash brick for emphasis.
“What else would it have been about?”
“Were you planning on telling us?” she asked, still speaking in that same low tone.
“Why would I?” He looked around. “What does it matter? I held up my end of the deal – I’m still holding it up.” He pointed at the money in her hand. “But that? That’s mine. That’s all that’s kept me moving since I saw a dead woman take a bite out of Tommy Waingro. It’s all I have left.” His voice cracked again, as it had when he saw Sal.
The horrors of that night suddenly flooded back and hit him like a fist. He swallowed a rush of bile and looked down at his hands. They were steady. “I just wanted my money. I don’t care about this place. You can have it. I’ll help you take it. But I want my money.” He rose to his feet, and she stepped back, a frown on her face.
Then, with a sigh, she slid the brick of cash into her jacket. “You can have it. When we’re done.” She looked at him again with such disappointment. “Afterwards, you can take it and go wherever the hell you want. Just so long as I don’t have to see you again.”
He was silent for a moment, but now that he’d completed one task, he had to focus on the next: surviving. He forced a smile. “I was right. You are learning to think like a thief.” He pointed to the weapon in her hand. “Find anything other than the shotgun?”
“Slim pickings,” Hutch said. “Found another Glock. Two shotguns, and what was left of an AR-15. Everything else is either out of ammo, or broken.”
“It’s a start,” Westlake said, but it didn’t feel like it. He looked up as something thumped against the door. It wasn’t Sal. If it had been, he would have burst through the door. “How many on this floor?”
“We weren’t exactly keeping count,” Hutch said, his eyes on the door. More thumping sounded, and the big man clutched his shotgun more tightly. “Ten, maybe fifteen. Not good odds. Worse odds with that big one running around.”
Westlake looked at Ramirez. “Speaking of which, did you see his eyes? There’s something going on in there.”
“You’re saying he’s intelligent?” Ramirez asked, incredulously.
Westlake shook his head. “Think about what Kahwihta said. Walkers aren’t dumb, they’re just… focused. They don’t have a lot going on, but there’s something there, otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to eat us. Sal is like that – he’s not stupid. He’s just…”
“An animal,” Ptolemy finished for him. “He is an animal.”
“Right.” Westlake snapped his fingers. “A big animal. Which means this ain’t going to be like taking down walkers, or even runners. We have to hunt him. Since I don’t feel like creeping through this death-trap looking for him with a couple of shotguns between us, we need another way.”
“Bait,” Ptolemy said. Westlake looked up at him. “We need bait.” He gestured. “Something to draw it out. One of us.”
“And then what?” Hutch asked. “Because we only got a pretty pathetic handful of guns, or have you forgotten?” Another thump against the door. Hutch wasn’t the only one to flinch this time. “And there’s a lot more of them than us.”
Calavera grunted. “We do not need guns. We need something more potent. An explosive of some variety. Something we can shove down the beast’s gullet.”
Ramirez shook her head, her eyes straying to the door. The chair blocking it shifted as something pressed against the other side, but at least it seemed some of the zombies were losing interest as the thumping decreased. “Whatever we do, it’ll pull in the walkers as well. We can’t handle both. Not without more firepower.”
Ptolemy looked at Hutch. “The kitchens.”
Hutch frowned. “What about them?”
“Alcohol.”
Westlake smiled as he got what Ptolemy was driving at. “Molotov cocktails. We might not be able to shoot him, but we can certainly burn him.”
Hutch nodded, a grin spreading across his face. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Good. You and Ptolemy head down to the kitchens. Get what you need. The rest of us will make some noise and get all the guests moving in the right direction.”
Ramirez looked at him. “Got any ideas as to which direction that might be?”
Westlake scratched his chin. “According to the plans Vinnie mentioned, there’s got to be a sound system in the ballroom. You know, for birthday parties and weddings and such.”
“So?”
Ptolemy nodded. “Sound. Sound draws them. If we can turn on the sound system – if it’s working – it might draw most of them in. Even Sal.”
“Means somebody has to go in there and turn the shit on,” Hutch said, dubiously.
“I can do it,” Westlake said.
“I will go with him,” Calavera said.
Ramirez nodded. “Good enough.” She looked at Hutch. “Whatever you do, don’t screw this up. We’re going to need that stuff, and we’re going to need it quick.”
“When have I ever screwed anything up?”
“I point you to your entire life up to this moment,” Ramirez said.
Hutch paused. “Fair enough. I won’t screw up.” He looked at Ptolemy. “Me and you.”
Ptolemy frowned and adjusted his glasses. “After you,” he said, and Hutch stared at him.
Calavera pulled the chair aside and opened the door. A walker lurched through. Before it could so much as groan, Calavera caught it and rammed its head into the doorknob. Its skull crumpled and the zombie slumped. “Time to go, I think.”
“Lead the way,” Westlake said.
Calavera stepped into the hall, taking out three more zombies with his bare hands, and motioned for the rest of them to follow. Westlake was next, his revolver out and ready. No sign of Sal, but he knew the monster was close. He glanced up at the camera watching the hall. He wondered what Vinnie was thinking right now. He flipped the camera the bird and fell back towards the wall. Ptolemy and Ramirez came next. Hutch was the last one out.
None of them saw the walker. It came out of a blind corner, moving quicker than any of them would have expected. It had been a woman, once – old, withered. Dressed to the nines, with hands chewed to the bone, missing lips exposing its teeth, yet its elegant hairdo was still in place. It sprang onto Hutch’s back, riding him to the floor. He bellowed in shock and tried to hurl it off, but it held tight, fingers digging into his chest as it tried to gnaw at his neck. Westlake dove to help him, but was immediately distracted by the walker’s companions. They came down the hall in a crowd seven or eight strong. He used one of the revolver’s three shots and took down one in a custodial uniform.
Ptolemy got behind the one clawing at Hutch, grabbed a handful of its hair, and drove the butt of his Glock down between its eyes. Bone crunched, and the thing released Hutch, but not before taking a bite out of his neck. The zombie fell back, making a thin, squealing sound. The other walkers closed in.
Something – a noise, a smell, he wasn’t sure what – made Westlake look up. He saw one of the holes he’d noticed before in the ceiling – and then a long, muscled limb shot down towards him. He leapt back at the last second, accidently crashing into Ramirez, knocking them both to the floor. Sal glared down at him from above and began to squeeze its abnormal bulk through the hole, like some deranged lizard. Westlake stared up at it in shock, unable to believe what he was seeing. “Shoot it!” he bawled.
Ramirez rolled onto her back, raised the shotgun, and fired. Sal vanished with a screech. “Trap,” he breathed, as Ramirez hauled him to his feet. “He set a damn trap for us.”
“Worry about it later – move!” She turned. “Ptolemy…!”
Ptolemy, Hutch’s shotgun in hand, had the bloodied, groaning Hutch on his feet, and half-carried the biker towards the doors, as the walkers approached down the hall. “I have him! Go, go!”
Calavera was already at the doors, holding them open. He tensed, and Westlake thought he was planning to go after Sal. “Calavera,” he said, snapping the big man out of it. “Later,” he added, when he caught Calavera’s attention.
Calavera nodded tersely. “Later,” he said.
They managed to get Hutch out onto the landing where he collapsed, and Westlake slammed the doors. “We need something to keep this closed,” he said, as dead fists began to pound on the other side. Calavera stripped off his coat, twirled it tight and looped it through the handles. Together, they managed to tie it into a sufficiently robust knot.
“It won’t hold for long,” Calavera said.
“Long enough for us to get downstairs, at least.” Westlake stepped to the edge of the landing and looked up. There were still walkers milling about above. Eventually, one of them would figure out how the steps worked, and the rest would follow or fall down. But until then they were no threat. They weren’t like the zombies outside, who seemed experienced at climbing anything to get to their prey. He wondered what Kahwihta would make of it. He’d have to be sure to ask her, if they survived. The thought made him glance at Hutch. “How are you?”
“How you think I am?” Hutch croaked, one hand pressed to his neck. “She took a chunk out of me.” He leaned against the rail, breathing heavily. “Gonna start craving finger sandwiches made out of real fingers any minute now.”
Ramirez crouched beside him. “Can you stand?”
“Yeah.” Hutch winced and flailed at Ptolemy. “Help me up.”
“Not yet. Sit still.” Ptolemy had pulled a small first aid kit out of his tactical belt. While Carl’s people had taken all his weapons, they’d left him everything else. “It is a good thing you are overweight. Otherwise it might have torn out your jugular.” He started to apply a bandage to the side of Hutch’s neck. Hutch hissed in pain.
“Wish it had.” He looked at Ramirez. “I need you to shoot me.” He grabbed the barrel of her shotgun and brought it to his head. “Do me a solid and put me out of my misery before I do something I’ll regret.”
Ramirez pulled the weapon out of his grip and stepped back. “You’re not out of the game yet,” she said, flatly. “And you might not be, if your luck holds. Not everyone turns.” Despite her words, Westlake could hear the pain in her voice. First Labrand, now Hutch. He felt a stir of regret himself. He liked Hutch. “Get on your feet,” she commanded.
Hutch groaned as Ptolemy helped him up.
“I’ll come with you to the kitchens,” Ramirez said to Ptolemy, even as she glanced at Westlake. “Think you two can handle the rest?”
“Give me one of those shotguns and we’ll see,” Westlake said, holding out his hand. She hesitated, then slapped the weapon into his waiting palm. She pulled a handful of shells out of her pocket and offered them over as well.
“Make them count,” she said.
“Do my best. Let’s go.” Westlake started down, shotgun ready. Calavera brought up the rear, as Ramirez and Ptolemy helped Hutch make the descent.
Down at the bottom of the steps, they found that the walker at the glass-paneled door had been joined by three others. Calavera stretched slowly, rotating his shoulders, readying himself. Westlake hefted his shotgun and looked at Ramirez. “We’ll give you a few minutes to get to the elevator before we open these doors and head for the ballroom. After that, it’s up to you.”
“Yeah.” Ramirez shook her head. “I hope Kahwihta is having more fun.”