Free High Water by R.W. Tucker Page A

was unbelievably loud. The man tried to cry out when a kick took him across the jaw, blood and teeth spraying out to the side. A stab of empathy hit Pete as he watched Bryan’s face get stamped into the concrete, but there was nothing they could do.
    Pete grabbed Liz and limped to the other side of the catwalk, passing various knobs and nozzles. They climbed another ladder to a second catwalk. As he ascended, he noted that the howls below them didn’t get any closer. He guessed that Bryan’s involuntary sacrifice had shifted attention away from them. As much as Bryan had been a prick, his grisly death was buying them time. At the top of the second ladder, among the howls of the infected, Liz grabbed him in an embrace.
    “Those people, Pete, we killed them,” she cried, the cracking in her voice muffled by his shirt. “And Bryan…”
    “… saved us.” When shit hit the fan, the big dude had not hesitated. Pete felt regret and guilt. It could have just as easily been him and Liz down there.
    Liz clutched at his shirt. “What’s going on?”
    “Something terrible, baby,” he said, touching the back of her head and holding her close. “You were right, there’s some horrific shit in the water,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything spread so fast. The whole place is an incubator.”
    “Do we have it?” she said, choking back a sob.
    “I feel pretty decent.”
    A small laugh escaped through her sobs and she squeezed him tighter. From his vantage point, Pete had a bird’s eye view of half the water park. He could see bodies lying still and strewn across the floor, with continuing scuffles raging between half naked individuals in the stage pool. A sudden pain in his arm  brought Pete’s attention to a tooth lodged just above the spur of his elbow. Grinding his own teeth, he yanked it out and maroon blood pulse out of the wound.  He watched as his blood dripped off his elbow, through the catwalk and into the dark below.
    Patting his pockets, Pete realized his phone was in the car. But Liz had already broken away and had her cell phone out, focused on getting them deliverance. It took several tries because of poor reception in the building, but somehow Liz was connected and he listened to one-half of her conversation.
    “Hello yes, my name is Liz Boyer and I’m at Tahitian… yes… yes, they attacked us... yes, it’s me and my boyfriend, Pete… no, we don’t have it… look, what the hell is going on? When are you guys going to get here? ... no, wait!... NO!” Liz pulled the phone away from her ear, looking at the device as if it was infected too.
    “They put me on hold!” she said in disbelief.

I n the Name of the Funk
     
    The Cutlass drifted down the middle of the empty freeway, grey smoke billowing from the window. Walter turned the levels up for “Machine Gun Funk”, absent mindedly rhyming along as he tried to take a hit off Challenger, a parting gift from Pete. Biggie Smalls bombastically rapped about his imminent death as Walter thought about the massacre that just went down at Crescent City Diner. It had been way too long since he’d had a burger, though the meat had been runny and rare. Still, pretty delicious. As Walter clutched the bong between his knees, his phone rang out a notification. He considered not taking it, thinking twice about committing three offenses simultaneously. But the roads were clear and, being honest with himself, he didn’t really give a single shit.
    The phone displayed several missed calls and texts, all from Liz, and some as long as twenty-five minutes ago:
    Need help at tahtin water adv something in water dead people infected
    Walter, please come
    Pete and I are trapped
    cops put us on hold, and we can’t get out
    please
    “What the… fuck…” he said aloud. Keeping an eye on the road and balancing the stem of the bong with his elbow, he thumbed back:
    You need me to come?
    He coasted for two miles, barely able to keep his eyes on the road, but there was