Chapter 29
Jill crept forward hesitantly, acutely aware that she did not have much ammo left. The pack hanging from her shoulder was empty,. All she had left was the half-empty clip in the rifle. Her finger rested against the trigger guard as she examined the hallway, wondering where Nicholai went.
She turned a corner and encountered two more zombies. Like the other one she discovered in the building, they both wore plastic yellow jackets as well as rubber gloves and hard hats. Jill gritted her teeth, irritated about using up even more ammo, and took down each zombie with a well-aimed bullet to the head. The hallway clear, she continued forward.
The next hallway opened up into another, smaller production area with gleaming metal vats and large drums lined up along the wall, each with a pump installed on top and a hose that hung down to the floor. This room was much smaller than the other one, and Nicholai was not inside, unless he was actually hiding inside one of the vats, which Jill doubted. She swung her gun to the left and right and proceeded inside, seeing two doors, one on the left and one on the right.
She heard something, and began to turn a split second before Nicholai leaped down from the narrow storage space directly above the door. He landed on top of her, slamming his forearm across her jaw. Jill staggered back, trying to swing her gun up, but Nicholai chopped down her arm, knocking the gun free, and slammed his other fist across her face, stunning her.
Her legs gave out and she fell to the floor, grasping for her gun, which lay just out of her reach. She heard Nicholai let out a low chuckle as he stepped over her and pressed his booted foot down on top of her hand.
“No, you will not be needing that anymore,” he said darkly, kneeling down over her. With a strong hand, he grabbed her neck and forced her to look up at him. His fingernails dug into the soft flesh of her throat.
Awkwardly, Jill swung her other arm up and tried to hit him in the face, but she was only able to slap weakly against his shoulder. She struggled against him, trying to get her legs up to kick at him, but he crouched down and prevented her from using her legs.
“Fighting to the last breath, I see,” Nicholai said. His dark eyes seemed to sparkle with enthusiasm, and he grinned ferociously. “That is very good. I like it when they fight.”
Swiftly, he pulled back, dragging Jill upward. She managed to get onto her knees before Nicholai punched her across the face once more. Stars flashed in front of her eyes and she blindly lunged forward, but Nicholai sidestepped her and jammed his knee hard into her stomach, laughing as Jill gagged and toppled forward, painfully gasping for breath.
She got onto her hands and knees and Nicholai stepped in to kick her right in the stomach. She cried out in pain and rolled onto her back, grabbing her stomach and closing her eyes tightly, her body trembling in pain.
“I wanted to do this sooner,” Nicholai said somewhere above her. “But now the time is right. We have plenty of time, you and me. And when I am almost finished, I think you will beg me to kill you, yes?”
“Go ... to hell,” Jill gasped through clenched teeth.
“Yes, I want you to resist me.”
Nicholai grabbed a fistful of Jill’s hair and pulled her across the floor. She screamed in pain and grabbed his arm, scrambling with her feet to keep up with him. He ignored her cries, chuckling to himself, and dragged her through a doorway and down another hall, to a smaller office room. He hauled her up by her hair until she was able to stand, and then hurled her into the room, where she collided with a large wooden desk, knocking the objects on it, a lamp, some papers, and a cup full of paperclips, to the floor. She spun around dizzily and braced herself to fight back.
She jumped at Nicholai, but he blocked her desperate punches almost effortlessly, and quickly slammed one fist into her stomach. She bent forward and he smashed the back of his other hand across her face. Jill flailed at him but could only hear his mocking laugh as he swatted her arms aside and struck her once more, her head snapping back with the blow.
She fell back against the desk, but lost her balance and wound up back on the floor, lying on her stomach, trying to fight off waves of nausea and the unconsciousness that crept up on her. She tasted blood in her mouth and numbly reached up to feel her bloody lip. She gasped for breath and tried to get to her feet.
Nicholai grabbed her and pulled her back up, and then slammed her down on the top of the desk. He leaned forward, his hands locked on her shoulders, holding her down, and pressed in close, until his face was only inches from hers.
“I must confess,” he hissed. “I do not find you very attractive. But that is not a problem.”
With one hand, he grabbed her throat and began to squeeze. Jill helplessly grabbed his arm and clawed at him, trying to reach for his eyes. But he was just too strong for her. She tried kicking, but he had positioned himself between her thrashing legs and she couldn’t get him that way either. She gritted her teeth, blood smeared down the side of her face, her eyes narrowed in anger and fear.
Nicholai laughed once more, with a note of finality. With his free hand, he reached behind his back and pulled a long combat knife out of a sheath on his belt. He raised the serrated blade and held it on front of Jill’s eyes.
“After I am done with you, I will use this,” he growled excitedly, his face covered in a sheen of sweat. “You are not the first. There have been many before you. Maybe that will be consolation.”
He slowly brought his arm down and lowered the knife until the tip of the blade was hovering over her belly button. He used the knife to lift up the bottom hem of her shirt, and with a fiendish grin, slid the blade underneath, skillfully slicing upward. The blade cut through the thin fabric of her shirt, revealing her midriff, on its way toward her chest.
In a final act of desperation, Jill fumbled behind her, groping for anything to fight him with, any loose objects within reach. Nicholai squeezed her throat tighter and she began to choke, hopelessly trying to find something, anything, to use as a weapon. Her face turned red, and blackness began to creep in her vision.
And then, there was a terrifying scream that seemed to shake her from the edges of despair. But it wasn’t Jill that screamed. It wasn’t a human at all.
It was the monster. It was here in the building, coming for her once again, just like she knew it would.
Nicholai jerked back suddenly, lifting Jill up off the desk, and looked over his shoulder in surprise. For a moment, Jill was able to breath, and she managed to turn her head enough to see where she was reaching. She managed to push one of the desk drawers open and stuck her hand inside.
“Maybe I will make this quick after all,” Nicholai said gruffly.
He turned to look back down at Jill, and she swung up to stab him in the face with the pencil in her hand. Her aim was off, and instead of stabbing him right in the eye, the pencil gouged deep into his cheek, spurting blood across her hand.
Shouting in pain and surprise, Nicholai reeled back. Jill did not let go of the pencil, and stabbed down again as he reached up to block his face. She stabbed down into his forearm, the pencil snapping off with a crack. His hand spasmed and the combat knife went flying. He screamed, too in shock to fight back, grabbing at his cheek to stop the blood gushing down the side of his face.
Jill got one leg up and kicked hard in the center of Nicholai’s chest, knocking him out of the way. She rolled off the desk and tried to run, but she was too weak, and instead she stumbled for a few steps, pushed open the door, and collapsed into the hallway.
“You bitch!” Nicholai screamed. “You bitch! I’ll kill you!”
Somehow, Jill got to her feet and ran for it. Behind her, gunshots rang out, and she cowered, covering her head with her hands. She barreled through the other set of doors, back into the room where Nicholai had ambushed her. She was weak, dizzy, and her whole body seemed to throb with pain, but she forced herself to run to her rifle lying on the floor.
Just as sh
e picked it up, Nicholai came after her, wielding a pistol. His shots went wide and she spun around, opening fire, blasting a spray of bullets across the doorway. Nicholai stumbled back, returning fire.
Another scream burst out from nearby, coming from right behind her. The other doors crashed open, revealing a huge figure standing there. Towering in the doorway, the immortal creature in the trenchcoat glared down at her, its twisted face in a permanent grimace, mouth open to reveal rows of long, jagged teeth. The coat was ripped and torn in places, exposing mottled pink flesh, and sections were charred and burnt, although the flesh beneath was undamaged. The creature hunched down and took one step, flexing the fingers on its huge hands.
With one last surge of energy, Jill turned and ran. The rifle felt like an anvil in her arms, and her feet felt like they were tied to lead weights, but she ran as hard and as fast as she could, gasping for breath, her body erupting in pain.
The other set of doors led to another large room, this one lined with huge metal racks to the right. Rows of metal drums lay on the racks, stacked five high in the room. On the other side, there was a stand-up forklift used to get the drums down off the shelves.
Jill couldn’t run any farther. Overcome with exhaustion, she turned defeatedly and raised the rifle as the monster came up behind her, roaring triumphantly.
Time seemed to stop. In the space of a breath, the creature came lunging at her. But she moved the rifle away from the creature, lowered her aim, and opened fire at the bottom supports of the huge rack holding up the heavy drums. The bullets blew apart the supports, and with an ear-piercing screech, the gigantic rack leaned forward as the beams bent and buckled underneath the weight. Thick bolts tore free from the wall, and the entire rack of shelves toppled forward in a roaring collapse, the rack twisting and collapsing like a house of cards.
The monster whirled and raised its arms as an avalanche of metal fell down upon it. Jill jumped back to avoid being crushed herself. The drums rolled and crashed to the floor like boulders down a mountainside, and the creature was immediately buried underneath a pile of twisted metal and heavy barrels. Several of them broke open when they struck the ground, spilling their contents. A flood of chemicals rushed across the floor.
Jill slumped down and wearily continued onward, knowing that the monster would not be delayed for long. She had killed it how many times already? In a few minutes, it would climb from the wreckage and come after her again.
She went through another set of doors and limped down the next hallway, blood from her split lip dripping down onto her shirt. She paused to look behind her, knowing that Nicholai was still alive as well. She had two adversaries to deal with.
A sign above the next set of doors read “Disposal and Recycle Room: Authorized Personnel Only.” Jill wasn’t authorized, but she didn’t care. She went through the doors and stepped out onto a metal walkway a few feet above the floor of a narrow, empty room.
The walkway went all the way around the room, to a control panel on the other side, which led down a short set of stairs to a wide pair of doors. The floor of the room was stained with spilled chemicals and other substances, that collected along a seam down the center of the floor.
Jill crossed the walkway and the control panel and went to the doors. There was another long hallway on the other side that stank of chemicals, the fumes burning her throat. The hallway split in four directions, each leading to more doors. Jill, totally lost by this point, went to the door on the right and reached for the handle.
The door suddenly swung open, and bloody hands clutched out at her. Jill stumbled back as a mob of zombies poured through the doors, reaching for her. The hallway beyond seemed filled with them, and they snatched and grabbed for her, their mouths hanging open, eyes frozen.
Jill pulled the trigger and the rifle fired out a single shot, disintegrating the nearest zombie’s head. It flopped over backwards and the other zombies shuffled over the corpse.
But there were no more shots. The gun, finally, clicked empty.
Jill cried out and threw the rifle at the zombies. It struck the nearest, opening a gash on its forehead before clattering to the ground uselessly. The zombies poured in, and Jill could only back away, shaking her head.
She was trapped in between an army of zombies, an unstoppable killing machine, and a deranged murderer. Death faced her in every direction.
Suddenly, a loud barrage of gunfire exploded nearby and Jill fell to the ground, covering her head with her hands. The zombies standing nearby staggered and fell.
It was Nicholai. He was here to kill her now.
But somehow, the spray of bullets did not touch her. She felt hands grab her shoulders, lifting her to her feet, and she struggled weakly against them.
“Jill! Come on!”
She opened her eyes and stared in disbelief.
It was Carlos.