Omega Days (Volume 1) - By John L. Campbell Page 0,107
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.