The Death Agreement by Kristopher Mallory

  Every step was deliberate, careful. I did not know why I was so frightened, but fear is immune to logic, so I walked slowly toward the faint red glow of the exit sign at the end of the hall. I sensed the doors to my sides as I went, and my jaw tightened in anticipation of them bursting open. Absolute silence would be my only protection from what may lie ahead, sneak up from behind, or attack from either side.

  I stared at the glowing sign and watched it grow larger with every small step. It felt like a lifetime, maybe even longer, but I finally made it to the door and let out a relieved sigh as I pressed on the latch and pushed. The door creaked open, and I stepped out onto the fire escape, looked up at the starless night sky, and took in deep breaths of the cool March air.

  Light from the fingernail moon reflected off of the fog, creating a broken halo effect. The parking lot below the fire escape was mostly empty, and at the far end, the seemingly black leaves of the maple trees swayed, beckoning me forward.

  I descended the rusted staircase, scanning for signs of movement. The campus was supposed to have a couple dozen people stationed, and soldiers were always outside regardless of the hour…yet everything was eerily still.

  I kept looking back down to the parking lot, then my attention fell on a car and I couldn't pull my gaze away. There was something about it.

  I racked my mind trying to find a reason why that car seemed so familiar, then a memory flashed: Me standing on the fire escape, calling out to Mary, letting her know to come up that way to avoid the soldier at the front desk.

  The car belonged to her.

  I quickened my pace. Once off the steps, I ran through the parking lot, hoping I had been mistaken. As I approached the front of the car, a figure standing in the grass at the edge of the parking lot darted into the shadow of the building. "Mary?" I called out and heard footsteps running on pavement, drawing closer.

  I rounded the corner of the car and had a fraction of a second to register the butt end of a rifle before it slammed into my face.

  ***

  I opened my eyes and my vision cleared on a pair of loafers standing on the pavement. A hand came down and slapped my cheek, then one of the shoes kicked me in the ribs, rolling me onto my back. I heard the unmistakable chi-chink of a pump-action shotgun, then a barrel appeared inches from my eyes.

  The gun moved aside. Yang stood over me, eyes wide and bloodshot, jaw clenched and trembling. "I thought you were one of them," he said, hold out his hand.

  I stared at it, but didn't move.

  "Get up, Jon," he insisted. I gripped his hand, and he pulled me to my feet. "You all right?"

  I spit out a mouthful of blood. "Think I swallowed a tooth," I said, rubbing the side of my face.

  Yang smiled. "You're lucky I didn't blow your head off."

  "How do I know you're not?" I held my hands up, spreading my fingers. "You helped a mass murderer steal evidence, and you're a fugitive. And what the hell do you mean you 'thought I was one of them?'"

  "We need to go somewhere safe to talk."

  "We can go up to my room. We'll call someone to sort this out."

  Yang rested the shotgun on his shoulder and shook his head. "It isn't safe there. Come on." He turned and began walking away.

  "Wait!" I yelled. "This car belongs to a friend of mine. I can't leave until I find her."

  Yang stopped and looked back. "Trust me, you don't want to."

  ***

  Yang peeked into the window of the headquarters building, the room was cast in a dull red glow from the emergency lighting system.

  "Did you kill the power?" I asked.

  "No. Most of it had already been cut by the time I got here. Transformers have been going off all over the base."

  "I heard three go."

  Yang nodded. "The whole place is dark now." He looked through another window. "Okay," he said. "It still looks safe. Let's go see the base commander."

  I followed Yang around to the back entrance. The door hung open, broken from the frame.

  "Inside, move," Yang ordered.

  I stepped into the building, sure that he intended to blow a hole through my back. When the shot didn't come, I said, "Colonel Litwell wouldn't be here this late."

  "He's…." Yang sighed. "He's not. Jon, I'll tell you everything, but you won't believe me unless you see with your own eyes, all right? We just need to get to his office."

  I nodded and led the way to Litwell's door, finding that it had been ripped from the hinge and lay on the hallway floor.

  "What the hell happened here?"

  The commander's office had been destroyed. Glass and broken furniture covered the floor. Sitting behind the battered desk, bathed in red light, Colonel Litwell lay with his head down on top of his folded arms.

  "Sir?" I took a step forward.

  Litwell did not move. I stepped closer.

  "Sir? It's Lieutenant Randon," I said, reaching out to shake his arm. I touched him and pulled my hand away from his ice cold skin. "Oh, god."

  "He got to him before I could," Yang said, walking up beside me. "I knew he'd come back here, and I wanted to warn the colonel to lock the base down. Couldn't risk calling." He grabbed Litwell by the shoulders and slid back his chair. "I think he came here for the station list to find out who else would be on base and where they would be." He pointed to a crumpled sheet of paper clutched in Litwell's fist.

  Yang swung the chair around so that I could see Litwell's whole body. Only Litwell didn't have a whole body. The bottom half of him was missing, entrails and thick, black gore spilling out onto the floor, terror etched on his dead face, frozen in a final scream. The blood-red light illuminating what was left of his corpse perfectly conveyed the agony that he must had felt.

  I turned away and threw up. "We have to call for help," I said, wiping away the spittle hanging from my still-sore lip. "We have to go to the MP station."

  Yang shook his head. "I found the guards at the front gate dead when I arrived. Went to the station next. They're all dead, too. It's a bloodbath. I came across several other bodies while making my way to your room. All of them butchered, parts missing. Some were still alive…I shot them."

  "What—"

  Yang held up a hand. "I had to. They were helping him."

  I had been stepping away from Yang without realizing it. My back hit the wall, and I said, "You're telling me you killed wounded men?"

  Yang nodded. "That's why we're not calling for help. Not yet."

  "Just let me go. I won't tell anyone I saw you." I lowered myself to the floor, noticing all the broken picture frames, each containing a photo of Litwell smiling and shaking hands with politicians. I tried to reconcile the man in the photo with the mass of butchered dead flesh in the chair.

  Yang walked over and sat down next to me. He leaned the shotgun against the wall in the space between us. I thought about grabbing for it, but Yang's expression told me he knew what I was thinking.

  After a moment of silence, he began his tale in a slow and even tone:

  "Howard Taylor's residence…I knew the bastard we've been after was nearby. He'd been staying in that house, hiding, planning, whatever.

  "Once the Feds took over the scene, I left the house to head home. Keys in hand, I approached my car, but I sensed someone watching me. I noticed my trunk lid bent then saw a streak of blood on the handle, so I pulled my gun. 'Come out with your hands up,' I shouted, then glanced toward the house, hoping someone could back me up. The trunk flew open, catching me off guard. I fired…once, twice, three times. I had to have hit him, but he was fast. Somehow managed to knock my gun away and grab me by the throat."

  "Was it Alan Goodtime?"

  Yang shook his head and laughed. "Goodtime! Oh, the good time will come for me, but not yet. Not yet."

  I stared at him, furrowing my brow. Yang had lost his mind. Trying my best to remain calm, I asked, "What happened next?"

  Yang closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. "I tried to fight…. Hooded, l
ong grey jacket. Military issue, but old. I couldn't see his face. He was strong. Then I wake up in the rear seat of my car, hands tied behind my back. We're parked outside of my apartment. He's going through my wallet and holds up a picture of Lin and Brandon. He tells me what he wants, and he tells me what he's going to do to them if I don't help him get what he wants."

  "Your brother's wife and nephew?"

  Yang nodded. "I agreed to help. I took him inside the station, and he walked behind me, pressing the gun against my spine. When we got to the evidence locker, instead of killing me, he only knocked me out. I don't know how he managed to get away, but what choice did I have, Jon? What choice?"

  "You needed to protect your family, but why did you run? The other cops would have understood that you were being forced."

  "No. They wouldn't have listened."

  "Why not? Now they think you're guilty."

  Yang turned toward me, his eyes wide and wild. "They would have asked if I saw the man's face and I wouldn't have been able to lie."

  I met his stare. "Why would that make you think you needed to run? Who was it, Yang?"

  He opened his mouth to speak, lips trembling, and then he answered both of my questions with a name: "Jesse Taylor."

  SECTION VIII - VISIT THE DEAD

  A window shattered in the next room. Yang held his finger to his lips then whispered, "It's one of them. We have to move."

  I nodded, got to my feet, and stepped back slowly. Glass shards from broken picture frames crackled like popcorn between the sole of my shoe and the hardwood floor. The sound seemed to amplify in the quiet command building.

  Even though I struggled to process the absurdity of what Yang had told me, I still trusted him. Jesse was dead. Jesse's body had been cremated. What Yang had said was impossible…. Whoever had helped Taylor kill his family, whoever had threatened Yang, was somewhere on the base. If it wasn't Alan Goodtime, it was someone that knew Taylor well enough to impersonate him, someone who knew him as if he were family.

  Yang held the shotgun against his shoulder. He stepped into the hall. "This way."

  Blood dotted the hallway in a series of splatters leading toward a room two doors down. I tore off a large shard of wood from the broken frame. "I noticed a blood trail like that outside my room."

  "Then everyone in there is dead," Yang said and walked slowly down the hall.

  I followed him with the makeshift stake trembling in my sweaty palm.

  We passed two more dead in the next room. Both bodies had been stripped naked. One of them looked like the young desk guard from my building. His neck had been slashed, and his hands were missing, severed at the forearm. A woman lay next to him with the top half of her head hacked off. Her brains spread across on the floor like someone had dropped a bowl of oatmeal.

  For a moment, I thought she was Mary, then I noticed the dog tags around her neck and let out a relieved sigh.

  A scream came from the next room. Yang followed the blood and approached the closed door cautiously. I waved him back, tried the knob, and shook my head.

  "Go in after me," I said. Yang nodded, and I slammed my shoulder into the door. As it flew open, I fell to the right, and Yang rushed forward, sweeping the room. A man slumped on the floor, facing a shattered window. At first, I thought it was another corpse and before my mind could register what was happening, the man reached for the window ledge and tried to pull himself to his feet. Halfway standing, he screamed and slid back down, fingernails tearing free from the sill.

  Yang turned and aimed his shotgun at the back of the man's trembling head.

  "Don't!" I screamed, and tried to stand, but the strap for my prosthetic had loosened, so I quickly crawled forward and grabbed at Yang's part leg. "Don't!"

  Yang, with the barrel pressed against the man's skull, kicked my hand away. "Get back. You're too close."

  "Don't shoot! I know him!"

  Though I had only seen the figure from behind, the curly white hair and dark business suit had made me nearly sure that it was Agent Rossenkants. The sleeves of his jacket and shirt had been torn off, and his arms were much darker than that of the face I remembered.

  "No, Jon," Yang said. He kicked the person in the ribs so hard that I heard them crack as the man flipped over.

  Rossenkants wasn't himself. Or wasn't all himself. Instead of a pale, white grandfatherly face, I found myself staring at the dark brown face of Agent Porter. From the hairline to the top jaw, black blood dripped from the transplantation lines where Rossenkants' face had been hacked off and replaced with Porter's.

  "Jesus Chr—"

  Porter's eyes snapped open and her lips pulled back in a snarl. Arms shot forward, grabbing at my chest with bloodied fingertips. I clawed backward, stabbing it in the face with the shard of wood, but the Rossenkants/Porter thing had a strong grip and pulled itself on top of me.

  There was a loud bang, and the back half of its head exploded into gory confetti. The rest of it fell on top of me, followed by a light rain of atomized blood. The dark arms twitched one final time before becoming still. I realized they were the same shade of brown as Porter's face.

  "This can't be happening, Yang."

  Yang held out his hand. "Now do you see?"

  "Yeah." I pulled myself to my feet, looked Yang in the eye, and added, "I fucking saw."

  "Where do you think it was trying to go?"

  I ripped open Rossenkants's suit jacket and reached for the holster. "Guess we need to find out," I said, then grabbed the Glock and checked to make sure the clip was full.

  Yang stared out the window. I used the gun to break away the remaining shards that were still stuck in the frame. Once the glass was cleared away, I swung my legs over the edge and dropped to the flower bed below.

  "That's my car," Yang said, pointing to a dim light up the street. I squinted at the white Crown Victoria parked half in the grass and half on the sidewalk, the driver's side door wide open and the interior light on. "Jesse Taylor used it to escape the police station."

  "Yang, it can't be Taylor. Even if he had been one of those…things…his body is gone, cremated. I was there."

  "Did you see it happen?"

  "No," I admitted.

  Yang climbed out of the window and hopped down. "I saw his face. I'm not sure how this is possible, but I know it's him."

  "Listen, none of it matters right now. We won't be able to explain any of this without them locking us both away for life."

  Yang said, "Let's just find the bastard son-of-a-bitch. Then we'll call for help and deal with the rest of the shit storm. How does that sound?"

  I nodded, then followed Yang toward his car, aiming the pistol at every dark shadow along the way. We crept closer, Yang taking the passenger side door while I went to the driver's side. Though I didn't expect we'd find anyone in the car, I inched forward slowly, matching Yang's pace.

  The interior light still burned bright. My mouth dropped open. It looked as if someone had thrown a bucket of gore across the front seats. Blood dripped from the door jamb into a large puddle and bloody, mismatched footprints continued on up the street.

  Palm on the hood of the car, Yang said, "Still warm."

  "Then he's close."

  "But where?"

  I looked around, trying to get my bearings. "I think—"

  "Jon, get down," Yang kneeled and motioned for me to come around to the back passenger side. "There's more of them up there."

  At least half a dozen figures seemed to be huddled in a group outside a red brick building, and suddenly, I knew where we were, and where the man had gone.

  "That's the building," I said. "Taylor and I found the saw inside that ward. You can't get in from the ground level. Those things must not know that."

  Yang learned forward and put his right hand above his eyes as if to block out a light that wasn't there. "They don't seem to be moving."

  "Think they're dead?"

  "Maybe. Some of the bodies were like the one in the headquarter
s building. They didn't attack like your friend, only twitched. I followed another after it disabled a transformer, hoping it would lead me back to Taylor, but it fell down in the road as if it remembered how to be a corpse…I think they run out of juice."

  I bit my lip. "Would explain why it couldn't make it through the window. What do you want to do?"

  "Make sure they're dead," he said.

  "You got enough shells in that shotgun?"

  "No, and save your bullets. I got a better idea." Yang banged his fist against the broken trunk latch and the lid popped open. "Unscrew the gas cap," he said, then reached in and grabbed a red fuel container along with a clear plastic hose. He handed me the hose and I snaked it into the car's gas tank.

  He put the other end of the hose in his mouth, sucked in sharply, and gas filled the hose. Yang turned his head, gagging as the amber fuel flowed out onto the cement, so I quickly adjusted his aim into the refillable tank.

  Once the can had filled, we crept through the shadows, avoiding the small glow of the outside emergency lights above each door.

  From twenty paces away, I saw naked bodies, the sea-green colored scrubs of the nursing staff, the thin patient robes and camouflage uniforms. All of them looked as if they had taken a bath in blood. Thick, black liquid oozed from amputation points.

  Over a dozen people huddled in that mass of bodies. They weren't separate individuals any longer; a tar-like substance stretched between the wounds of the missing body parts.

  Two of the men were orderlies who had taken care of me when I had first arrived at Walter Reed. The sides of their heads were pressed close, and gooey black strands connected them where their ears and cheeks should have been, blood dripping from the exposed portions of skull. Their arms and legs had been severed as well, each stump connected to a missing portion of someone else.

  I began to feel as if I were about to pass out until I realized that I had been holding my breath.

  Yang cleared his throat. The stench was barely tolerable.

  I looked for Mary in the pile. "They aren't moving," I said, inching closer.

  "Let's burn them," Yang said.

  I tucked the gun into my waistband and opened the gas can. Yang covered me while I dumped half the fuel on the mass. He lit a match and tossed it. I stepped back and covered my eyes as the flames engulfed the bodies.