The wind rippling calmly through her hair, Courtney carefully balanced her feet on the grating that spanned across the alley between the two buildings. It was wobbly and made all kinds of noises under her weight, but she knew it had to be what Dane used to get to where he was. If the bridge supported his weight, then she knew it could support hers.
Several zombies had flocked to the area below. Some were ascending the fire escape she and Leon had used to access the rooftop, but she knew it would take them a long time to reach the summit. When they did, they would then have to negotiate the ladder extending from the top floor to the rooftop. Zombies weren’t known for their outstanding coordination, but they were known for their persistence. They would be able to climb the ladder, but it would take even more time than climbing up the stairs on the fire escape.
She wasn’t too worried about them, even as their moans and groans echoed up the alley and haunted her ears.
She finished crossing the bridge and hopped down on the adjacent rooftop. She took her rifle off her shoulder and slid the bolt lever back then forward again to load a bullet into the firing chamber. She hurried across the rooftop, heading to where Dane was hiding. Luckily there were no more alleys to cross. Every building between her and her target was flush.
As she stepped over to the next rooftop, she found a fully clothed human skeleton in a sitting position against the wall. Its biker-style leather attire suggested it was male. A large hole erupted out of the top of its head. A rusty discolored shotgun was positioned vertically across the chest, the barrel situated below the jaw and the butt planted between the corpse’s legs. A bony index finger was still stuck in the trigger guard.
Unlike the corpse she had seen dangling from the noose over
This corpse, however, was a likely candidate to have been the one to place the metal grating over the alleyway. She wondered if the person ever considered that someone else would be using the makeshift bridge all these years later.
She passed the corpse and continued across the rooftop.
There were only three buildings separating her and her target now; a distance of about fifty yards.
She figured this was close enough.
She lifted her rifle and took aim.
Dane’s silhouette had changed somewhat. Now instead of the shadow of the remote control in his hands, there was a shadow of a revolver—probably the same one he had had pressed to her head on the cruiseliner.
She squinted her left eye and peered through the scope with her right eye. She took a few moments to judge where his head might be on the other side of the greenhouse, then situated the crosshairs in that area.
She steadied her shoulder and pulled the trigger.
These .22 Hornets didn’t give off much noise when fired and since they were for distance shooting, silencers weren’t necessary. The unmuffled sound of the gun was quite satisfying for Courtney, especially when the fired bullet burst through the panes of the greenhouse and sent shards of glass crashing to the rooftop in a fantastic display of lights and colors.
Dane’s silhouette was moving sporadically, showing panic. She could see some of the area on the other side of the greenhouse through the broken glass, but none of Dane’s body was visible. She waited for a moment, hoping he might come out of hiding, but he didn’t.
She cocked the rifle and took aim again, situating the crosshairs in the area where Dane’s head might be.
She pulled the trigger.
Another satisfying firing sound came from the rifle and an even more satisfying crashing sound of glass breaking followed. The entire frame of the greenhouse was beginning to crumble now, losing stability due to the missing panes that used to help support it. As more and more of the structure fell, more of the area beyond was becoming visible. Soon she saw a most promising sight:
Blood.
It was sprayed against the glass on the far side the greenhouse. She knew now that she had hit her mark—hopefully fatally.
She saw the revolver fall and clatter to the rooftop, then Dane emerged from behind the greenhouse, blood spilling from the shoulder where his familiar satchel bag dangled. He appeared to be heading to the stairway shack on the other side.
Courtney quickly fired her rifle again, missing. She cocked it and took aim once more, trying to keep up with the moving target.
Her next shot sent a bullet into Dane’s arm, spilling more blood across the rooftop. However, he appeared unfazed and hardly lost his stride. When he reached the door to the stairway, Courtney cocked the rifle and put a bullet into the door.
This was enough to finally deter Dane. Instead of opening the door and running inside, he dashed around the shack and hid on the other side.
All of her rifle ammunition depleted, Courtney laid it down and pulled the Socom from its holster. She knew she had expended most of the magazine shooting zombies on the street, so she dropped it and loaded a new one.
She held the handgun at ready as she hurried across the rooftops to get closer to Dane. She cast occasional glances at the revolver he had dropped, making sure he didn’t try to retrieve it.
As she got near she heard him yell, “You shot me!”
“Well, duh, asshole!” she replied. “Does it hurt?!”
“Of course not!” he called back. “It’s just annoying! You should have stayed locked up on the ship! Now I’m going to catch you and I’m going to eat you!”
Courtney didn’t return a taunt. She slowed down as she stepped over the short wall separating the rooftops and then sidestepped around the shack Dane hid behind, staying far away so he couldn’t get a jump on her. She kept the red dot from the laser sight at the approximate height of his head, waiting for him to appear so he could eat a bullet.
“I bet you’ll be soft and tender!” Dane shouted from the other side of the shack, laughing maniacally. “You’ll taste good with ketchup!”
From the direction of his voice, she realized he was circling around the shack the opposite way, keeping the obstruction between them. She fired three shots into the rotting wood in one-foot intervals, hoping maybe they would go all the way through and hit him.
None appeared to. Dane was still laughing like the whole thing was a joke. If he had been shot again he certainly didn’t care.
Courtney continued sidestepping, then dashed back the way she came, hoping to cut him off. However, Dane predicted her movement and stayed away.
Frustrated, Courtney shouted, “C’mon, Dane! I’m tired of playing ring around the rosey! Come out and I’ll make it quick!”
“But I can keep this up forever!” he retorted. “I’m immortal, stupid girl.”
“I’m twenty-two, dumbass!”
“And you could have been twenty-two forever if you’d have used the syringe I left for you! Now you’re going to be naked on a platter with an apple shoved in your mouth!” Then, in singsong, he added, “I’m-gonna-eat-you-uuuuup!”
Having enough of this game, Courtney sprayed the shack with bullets from her Socom, keeping them all at head level and sending splints of wood flying through the air.
Dane simply laughed during the entire onslaught. When it was over, she could see one of his eyes peeking at her through one of the many holes the bullets left in their wake. She dropped the magazine from her gun and quickly locked in a new one. If she had to bring down the whole shack to get to him, then so be it.
However, just as soon as she locked the new magazine into the butt of her gun, Dane seized the opportunity and dashed from around the shack and lunged at her. She hurriedly lifted her gun and fired two rounds, one hitting him in the shoulder and the other missing entirely.
She didn’t get a chance to fire again.
He was already on her, latching on to the barrel of the gun with both hands and aiming it away from his body. She tried forcing the silencer towards his head, but he was too strong.
They went to the ground, both struggling for control of the gun. Courtney instinctively went to her back and used her legs to form a Jiu-Jitsu guard, preventing him from gaining leverage by keeping her feet planted on the insides of his hips. While he wasn’t able to move up on her, he was able to slip a finger into the trigger guard of the Socom and force her own finger to squeeze off the remaining rounds in the magazine.
Every bullet flew into the air unanswered until there were no more bullets left and the gun made only a clicking sound when the trigger was pulled. Both Courtney and Dane gave up on the gun and allowed it to fall to the rooftop.
He tried punching her, but his fists swung like uncoordinated sledgehammers and he was grunting before each one to add extra impact. He may as well have been sending a telegraph to announce their arrival.
She ducked her head left and right and dodged them all. The closest one got was barely nicking her ear.
He then reached forward with both hands, spreading his fingers, making it obvious he was going to attempt to choke her.
She elevated her legs and rolled onto her shoulders to prevent him from grabbing hold. She then shifted her hips, putting her body perpendicular under his, and swung one leg around to try trapping his right arm so she could lock it between her legs and break it with a thrust of her pelvis, but he was too strong and he easily pulled his arm free.
She seriously doubted he knew Jiu-Jitsu—much less the maneuvers she was attempting—but despite his sissy temperament the pansy was actually pretty tough.
None of her tricks were working.
As she struggled beneath his weight, she could hear another .22 Hornet being fired in the distance. It meant that
There were three shots, then silence.
“You know what that was?” Courtney gritted, staring up at Dane and catching her breath. “That was the sound of your army being put down. How’s it feel to be a loser?”
Dane snarled and reached out to try to choke her again.
Courtney trapped his arms against her chest and grabbed his sweater with both hands, feeling the chainmail underneath, then pulled him forward as she kicked his knees out from under him, causing him to lose his balance. She swept him off and quickly stood up.
She drew her wakizashi.
Dane scurried away on his hands and knees to the remains of the greenhouse about twenty feet away. He picked up a long shard of glass and then stood up and pointed it at her in a threatening manner.
His crude weapon didn’t stack up too well when compared to her sword. Courtney could tell Dane understood this. She could see the fear growing in his eyes.
“You know it’s not just me you’d be killing,” Dane uttered, almost stuttering. “You’d be killing evolution itself.”
“What happened to the world wasn’t evolution, you psycho,” Courtney replied.
“It is evolution!” Dane shouted, throwing his arms in the air and waving the shard of glass like a baton. “You know how I know? Because zombies attack and feed only on warm flesh! They don’t kill each other! Before the dead began to rise, all we humans did was make war and rape and pillage and plunder like a bunch of goddamn pirates! Zombies are beyond that! They’re above humans! Can’t you see it?!”
Courtney raised the wakizashi and started to step forward.
“Wait! Just wait!” Dane shouted. He removed the satchel bag from his shoulder and displayed it to her. It was covered with blood from the many times he had been shot. He said, “Don’t kill me. I’m going to get something out of this bag. It’s not a gun or anything. Just let me show you.”
Before Courtney could reply, he slowly opened the bag and reached into it. When he pulled his hand out—slowly—he had another syringe gripped in his fingers. This one had pinkish liquid swishing around inside and the capped needle was almost six inches long.
It wasn’t another tranquilizer and it wasn’t the green gunk he left with her on the bridge of the cruiseliner. It was something else entirely.
He whispered, “Do you know what this is?”
She answered, “Should I care?”
Dane rolled his eyes and said, “Use your head.”
“What?”
“Your head! It’s that useless lump three feet above your ass!”
Having quite enough of this standoff, Courtney readied her wakizashi and stepped forward again. However, she stopped in her tracks when Dane casually tossed the syringe at her feet.
It laid there on the rooftop, shining under the setting sun. She gazed down at it , then back up at Dane.
He informed her, “That’s the Cure—The one and only. I saw your boyfriend in the humvee when you drove into town. He’s infected, isn’t he?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Courtney solemnly replied. “But yes, thanks to you, he’s infected.”
“Then take that syringe and leave me alone. Stop interfering with evolution and the natural order of things. Take him and find an island somewhere and spend the rest of your lives making wild, passionate love. Just leave me alone.”
Courtney could admit that Dane’s somewhat romantic French-Canadian mannerisms almost made him sound convincing. He probably would have made a very good spokesman for some expensive brand of cologne.
Then again, she knew there was no such thing as a Cure.
“I’m not stupid, Dane,” she said. “Why would a freak like you carry a cure around when you just want to kill every last living human?”
“The reasons should be obvious,” Dane replied. “I locked you up and left you a serum so you could be immortal like me, but I knew there was a chance you wouldn’t use it. If I found another attractive lady after the attack on Eastpointe, I could save her if she had been bitten and bring her back to you. If you used the serum, we could dine together. If you didn’t, the other lady surely would and we would dine on you.”
Courtney gulped and gazed down at the syringe once more. No matter how creepy his explanation was, it made sense in its own diabolical little way.
She knelt down to pick up the syringe, keeping her wakizashi pointed toward Dane.
As she did this, Dane tucked the shard of glass under his arm and pulled a very familiar lighter out of his pocket. He then took something else from the satchel bag—a cylindrical aluminum pipe about five inches wide and a foot and a half long. It was capped at both ends.
Courtney stood up once more, syringe in hand.
Dane was smiling as he put the lighter to the end of the pipe where a fuse was sticking out. He held this position, threatening to ignite it as he calmly explained, “I never lied about finding a Cure. I never lied about using a pipe bomb to destroy Eastpointe’s walls either. It would be a shame to use it here and now, but I will if I have to. I’ll blow us both to smithereens. Leave.”
Courtney tucked the syringe into her belt where extra rifle ammunition used to be stored. It fit nice and snug. She then gripped the hilt of the wakizashi with both hands, getting a firm hold.
She reeled back the blade and stepped forward.
“You don’t have time to fight me!” Dane shouted, hurriedly lighting the fuse. “This’ll go boom in thirty seconds!”
Courtney replied, “Thirty seconds? I only need one.”
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