Omega Days (Volume 1)

THIRTY



Oakland International Airport



Anderson James had been sulking since they’d eaten the female staffer, and Brother Peter had a black eye.

The swelling and dark smudge would go away, Peter knew. Anderson’s situation would only get worse. Right after the televangelist crushed the staffer’s head with the crowbar, Anderson had gone mad and rushed him, babbling and swinging his fists. One managed to connect before the pilot – Thing One – wrestled the man to the ground. Peter kicked his most trusted aide unconscious.

“What do you think, Anderson? Ribs or rump roast?” The minister was holding a Sharpie marker, gesturing with it. His last male staffer was secured to a vertical pipe by heavy-duty zip ties at his ankles and around his throat, arms held together above his head. He was naked, and covered in dotted lines, looking very much like the illustration of a cow often found in supermarket meat departments, identifying the different cuts.

In a corner of the break room, the last female staffer – Sherri, he thought – was on her hands and knees, head bobbing in Thing One’s lap. She had quickly figured out how things were, and was determined to be useful, not to be eaten. Smart girl. Peter would eat her last.

Anderson said nothing.

Brother Peter poked the Sharpie at the young man’s ribs. “Awful skinny. Not much meat here.” The staffer wept silently, both at the pain from the zip ties and at what was to come. He, like the others, had hungrily participated in the feast (except for Anderson) without ever suspecting he would end up on the menu. Now, as his spiritual leader poked and inspected his body, he wondered how he could ever have believed he would not end up as a meal.

The Sharpie jabbed a buttock. “Lean, but still a little there. We can harvest it without killing him, make it last longer.”

The boy began sobbing and shaking his head as much as the zip ties would allow. The girl with the broken leg had spoiled long before they could finish her, and they were left vomiting as their bodies struggled to reject the alien, near-toxic flesh. Her remains had been dumped somewhere in the complex, but that was days ago. They were all hungry again.

“You’re insane,” said Anderson.

“No, I am filled with the glory of Jesus,” Peter said. He crossed the room to where Anderson was also tightly strapped to a pipe against one wall, naked like the other staffer but forced into a kneeling position. He had been there since he dared raise a hand to his minister, and stank of his own filth. He was given a little water, which he accepted, but he clenched his teeth and refused to eat any part of the girl.

Brother Peter used the marker to write JUDAS on Anderson’s forehead. He placed a hand to his chest and spoke to the ceiling. “Traitors shall be consigned to the ninth circle of hell, encapsulated in ice in all conceivable positions.”

Anderson laughed at him, and Peter snarled and slapped him several times. “Stop laughing, Judas! Hear what awaits you!”

The bound man did stop, only to shake his head and smile. “That’s not even from the bible, you idiot. It’s Dante, and you’re quoting him poorly.” Anderson looked up at him. “You’re an abomination. If you want to see the devil, find a mirror.”

Brother Peter clenched his fists, looking like he was about to attack, and then he let out a long breath and squatted, resting his hands on his knees and looking at his aide. “I don’t know whether to eat you, or feed you to the dead. What are your thoughts?”

“It makes no difference. God is waiting for me either way, and my conscience is clear.”

“Oh, no, no, no. There is no heavenly afterlife for betrayers, Anderson. All that waits for you is an eternity of pain. But when the Lord lifts me up to sit at His right hand, I’ll pray for you.”

Anderson just stared at him.

Peter tapped his chin, then looked over his shoulder at the whimpering young man with the butcher’s marks. “I’ll get back to you.” He looked back at Anderson. “Eat or feed, eat or feed.” Tap, tap, tap. “Both, I think. I’m going to chop off your arms and legs, cauterize the stumps with that blowtorch we found, and toss the rest of you out into the terminal. You’ll still be conscious when they rip into you. We’ll dine on your limbs first, and later, I’ll snack on your toes while I watch the new zombie roll around on the floor, going nowhere. I think that sounds like a good time.”

If he’d had any moisture in his mouth, Anderson would have spit on him.

A man’s grunt and a gasp from the corner made Brother Peter smile and stand. “My turn. Sherri, come on over here, honey.” The young woman left the pilot and approached, dropping to her knees as the minister unzipped his pants, right in front of Anderson.

Before the woman could begin, Peter noticed movement and looked past her to the hallway at the far end of the room. A rotting corpse stood there in stained white coveralls, its skin gray and sagging, hair missing from its head in patches where scalp had been peeled away. Another corpse was behind it, and more beyond that. A door left open? A way in they hadn’t known about? It didn’t matter. Brother Peter slipped a heavy box cutter out of his pants pocket and thumbed out the blade. He gripped the girl’s hair and jerked her head back so that she was looking up at him.

“Make it loud,” he whispered, and then sliced her face from hairline to chin. Her screams filled the room. Peter shoved her away as the dead tumbled in, heading frantically towards the noise. Several noticed the pilot, still relaxing against the wall with his privates exposed, and fell upon him before he could react. The rest went for the screaming girl, and quickly noticed the two men strapped helplessly to the pipes.

A chorus of squeals and growls chased Brother Peter as he fled down a tunnel, a tiny flashlight leading the way with a weak yellow beam. He laughed as he ran, imagining Anderson struggling and praying loudly as they fed upon him. Meat for the beast. Funnier still was the idea that once he turned, he would spend eternity strapped to that pipe, forever hungry, forever powerless to do anything about it.

Right turns, left turns, through electrical rooms and down corridors, the darkness held at bay by mere feet in the dimming light. He sensed the way, wasn’t afraid of getting lost, and he did not fear sudden teeth in the dark. God had a plan, and would not permit him to be taken until that plan was revealed.

A metal stairway, a metal door, and then he was through. Even the gray overcast of a rainy day was blinding after so long underground, and he stumbled blindly out onto the grass. Yet he knew this was not God’s light, and the sound of creatures around him was not that of His angels. He forced himself to squint and started to run.

He had emerged from another red and white-checked cinderblock building with motionless radar equipment on the roof, situated at the extreme northern edge of the airport. Twenty yards of grass led to an eight foot fence with barbed wire at the top, an expanse of trees beyond. Peter ran for the fence as the dead came at him across the grass, some bodies blackened by fire and others dressed in the varied uniforms of airport ground crews. He hit the chain link and scrambled up and over, tearing his clothes and skin on the triple strands of barbed wire before dropping over the far side, landing on his back with a whump which knocked the wind out of him.

Gasping for air, he saw the dead reach the fence and hook their fingers through the links, shaking and moaning at their escaped prey. Peter lay there until he could breathe, then limped into the trees which turned out to be little more than a screen for open, rolling green fields all cut an even length. Several hundred yards away stood a tiny flag next to a small white cart. He focused on the flag and forced himself to move, weak from the exertion and lack of food. He was half way there before his brain processed the words golf course.

At the cart he found a sour, half-consumed bottle of beer which made him gag, and an open bag of stale pretzels which he crammed into his mouth. The cart had a dead battery, but from a bag strapped to the back he was able to arm himself with a heavy putter. Then he was moving again, with no direction in mind other than forward.

By its nature, the golf course was relatively free of the dead. Peter saw only a few of them at a distance, all male, dressed in pastel shirts and ridiculous pants. He hoped to find the clubhouse, knowing it would mean food, but after two hours of walking he came upon another fence. There was a road on the other side, and a body of water with more land beyond.

Over he went, more careful this time so as not to cut himself again, and he didn’t fall. Following the road took him to a bridge crowded with cars, and he spent hours moving from vehicle to vehicle, raiding coolers and luggage and trunks and glove boxes. He found packaged food which wouldn’t make him sick, and bottles of soda and water. It was a feast, and he gorged himself until he vomited on the road, then ate some more.

In a glove compartment of a Honda Civic he came across a baggie of weed and an unlabeled pill bottle with a couple dozen Black Beauties in it. He swallowed two and washed them down with a warm Pepsi, and it wasn’t long before the speed hit him, providing much-needed energy. A pickup truck yielded a huge hunting knife, but he decided he would also hold onto the box cutter. After carving up Sherri’s face, it now had sentimental value. The cab of another pickup delivered a heavy, black .45 with ivory grips and a box of shells which its absent owner never got the chance to use. It was loaded and weighty in his hand, reassuring and powerful like the sword of Christ.

He shed his filthy clothes and picked out sneakers and a black track suit with a hooded jacket. As he changed, Peter caught his naked reflection in the rear window of an SUV, startled at the concentration camp survivor he saw there. He was dirty and unshaved, gaunt and jaundiced, and the rain did little to wash him clean. The new clothes couldn’t mask his stink.

After filling a backpack with as much food and bottled water as he could find, he crossed the bridge and entered the community on the other side. A sign read, ALAMEDA WELCOMES YOU. The answer to His mystery lay ahead, he was convinced of it, and he was not afraid. Breaking into a methamphetamine-enhanced jog, Brother Peter started humming Lamb of God.