The Complex Read online

  Provided they make it through this, of course.

  She grabs two aerosol cans of hairspray from the tabletop, along with another of spray-on deodorant. Then she hurries over to Stephanie’s dresser. It takes her a moment to spot the incense burner in the darkness. It’s a small, ceramic cone sitting in the middle of a glass ashtray. A packet of incense sticks are on the dresser next to it, along with a red plastic cigarette lighter. She retrieves the lighter, accidentally knocking the incense packet to the floor. Then, with two of the aerosol cans tucked under her arm and the other in hand, she hurries back to the other room. The battering on the living room door is even louder as she rushes past it this time.

  “Get back,” she yells.

  Stephanie glances her way, but Sam is oblivious. He fires another shot at point blank range, killing an attacker on the other side. That room—the empty bedroom in Terri and Caleb’s apartment—is now littered with naked corpses, most of whom have been shot to death, but a few of which have been slashed by Stephanie. As a result, the crazy people are having trouble overrunning them, because the hole is choked with the dead.

  “Sam!” Mrs. Carlucci drops the cans and taps him on the shoulder. “Get out of the way! Guard the front door. Stephanie, you go help Terri get through that last wall.”

  Sam frowns. “Mrs. Carlucci…what are you—?”

  “STAND BACK, DAMN IT!”

  Visibly shocked, Sam and Stephanie comply, scurrying out of her way. Two more naked people charge the hole in the wall. As they start to crawl over the bodies surrounding the opening, Mrs. Carlucci raises the can of hair spray, presses the button, and flicks the cigarette lighter in front of the stream. The effect is instantaneous. A bright gout of flame bursts forth, as she transforms the hair spray into a homemade flamethrower. She sprays it back and forth in an arc, torching both attackers and setting their heads ablaze. They recoil, shrieking in agony. Behind her, Sam and Stephanie whoop and cheer in triumph and disbelief. Mrs. Carlucci extinguishes the cigarette lighter. Rather than turning to face her neighbors, she keeps her attention on the other room.

  “You’re like MacGyver,” Sam says.

  “I don’t know who that is,” Mrs. Carlucci responds.

  “Neither do I,” Stephanie admits. “Who’s MacGyver?”

  “It’s a TV show! Richard Dean Anderson?”

  Mrs. Carlucci glances at them in time to see Stephanie frown.

  “You mean the guy from Stargate?” Stephanie asks.

  “Sam,” Mrs. Carlucci interrupts. “Guard the door. If they get through, start shooting. Stephanie, go help Terri. I’ve got this covered.”

  “I guess you do,” Sam replies.

  The two of them hurry off. Mrs. Carlucci turns her attention back to the hole in the wall. Suddenly she feels very small and alone. Then, another attacker rushes forward, and there’s no time to think anymore. She unleashes another stream of fire, and the attacker recoils.

  From the other room, she hears Terri cry out with effort, hears the thud of the axe hitting the wall. Mrs. Carlucci wonders what her cats must think of all this noise. They’re probably frightened to death, the poor things—even Hannibal. Her eyes well up, thinking about their probable distress. When another naked person tries to crawl through the hole, Mrs. Carlucci snarls. She blasts them right in the face. Screaming, the attacker scurries backward and begins rolling around on the floor, trying to extinguish the flames.

  The air stinks—a miasma of burned hair and flesh, and blood, and gun smoke, and plaster dust. These are soon overpowered by a different stench—an acrid, chemical sort of smell like burning rubber or perhaps melting plastic. Mrs. Carlucci takes a breath and suddenly her lungs ache. She coughs as the smell becomes stronger. Black smoke begins to roil in the space beyond the hole. She realizes that the carpet in Terri and Caleb’s apartment is on fire.

  “Oh dear…”

  Here they went through all the trouble of stopping the crazies from setting the apartment building on fire, and now she’s gone and done it herself. Worse, judging by the stench and how black the smoke is, the fumes from the burning carpet are most likely toxic.

  Good, she thinks. Maybe that will take some of them with it.

  Of course, she and her neighbors will be breathing it, too, as will her cats.

  Mrs. Carlucci holds her breath and empties the rest of the can, spraying it back and forth in a wide, sweeping motion. The lighter grows hot in her hand, burning her thumb, but she ignores the pain. Soon, Terri’s bedroom is fully ablaze. The flames leap and crawl. Their speed surprises her.

  A random thought occurs to her then, out of nowhere. Mrs. Carlucci is no expert on firearms. That was her husband’s forte. But she thinks one of the druggies—the one who jumped out the window—might have had a .45, the same as her. If so, she could have gotten some ammunition from him.

  The pain in her thumb is almost unbearable now. The spray sputters, and then dies. Satisfied that the horde won’t be able to crawl through the hole, Mrs. Carlucci tosses the empty can through the hole. It lands among the flames and rolls twice before coming to a stop. Then she picks up the two spare aerosol cans and hurries to the hallway. She finds Sam hunkered down against the wall, hidden in the darkness. Only his coughing gives him away.

  “What’s that smell?” he asks.

  “The complex is on fire.”

  The living room door begins to splinter and crack. The hinges buckle with a torturous shriek. Mrs. Carlucci tastes smoke in the back of her throat.

  “I think Tick Tock and his friends must have found another axe,” Sam whispers, raising the pistol. “You’d better go with Stephanie and Terri.”

  “Nonsense. I’m staying right here. I can get more with flame than you can with bullets. How many do you have left, anyway?”

  “Not many,” Sam admits.

  There is a short, muffled explosion behind them. Sam jumps, nearly dropping his revolver.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “Relax,” Mrs. Carlucci reassures him. “It was just my empty can of hair spray exploding.”

  The top hinge on the living room door breaks free of the wall. The door shudders. The battering grows frenzied.

  “Girls,” Mrs. Carlucci shouts, “you’d better hurry!”

  The only response is the sound of the axe striking the wall—nearly lost beneath the cacophony on the other side of the door. Black smoke curls out of Stephanie’s spare bedroom and down the hall. Mrs. Carlucci’s eyes begin to sting. Coughing, Sam pulls his shirt up over his nose and mouth. Then he repositions himself again, gun pointed at the door. Mrs. Carlucci notices that his hands are shaking.

  She readies another can of hairspray and the lighter, and realizes that her hands are trembling, as well. Tears roll down her face, and not all of them are caused by the smoke.

  Please Lord, she silently prays, I’ve been your good and faithful servant for how many years now? Too many to count. Please keep my cats safe and see them through this night. And please keep my neighbors safe, too. Watch over us all, and protect us with your blood, which was shed for us. Especially Caleb. He’s just an innocent. He doesn’t deserve this horror. Please…

  As the smoke gets thicker, Mrs. Carlucci realizes that the hallway is growing noticeably hotter.

  Sixteen - Hannibal, King, Queenie, and Princess: Apartment 1-D

  Hannibal knows fear. He is no stranger to it. Indeed, he has known it his entire life.

  He remembers when he was a kitten, born in an abandoned shed in the middle of a swamp near the Susquehanna River bottoms, and how fear crept into that shed each night, no matter how tightly he snuggled against his mother’s warmth, or burrowed between his brothers and sisters. He remembers the terror every time his mother left the den, and how that fear solidified on the day she didn’t come back. He remembers the horror he felt when he found her, caught in a hunter’s trap, dead of blood loss after trying to gnaw her own leg off in an effort to free herself and return to her litter. He remembers nuzzlin
g her, trying to get her to wake up, and not understanding why she was so cold or why she wouldn’t move. He remembers staring into her sightless eyes, and how the fear gnawed at him then, chewing his belly as surely as his mother had chewed her own leg.

  Hannibal remembers the panic that overwhelmed him when he ventured out on his own, wandering through the forest and the swamp, and the rain. He recalls the trepidation he felt when he first encountered the humans who would eventually adopt him—Ward, Valerie, and their daughter Ellie. And even once he lived among them, and had been accepted into their family, he still felt fear—fear that he would lose them, too. Fear that they might cast him back out into the wild. Fear that he was unworthy. It was that fear that had driven him to earn his keep, bringing back trophies on a daily basis—mice, voles, snakes, frogs, butterflies. Anything he could catch, he brought it back to show his gratitude and keep his place. And his gifts had been accepted and appreciated and rewarded with scratches under the chin and more food and a warm place to sleep.

  But in time, a new fear settled upon him—a fear that he might lose his adoptive family through other means. Fear that something might happen to them, that something might harm them, and that he wouldn’t be able to defend them from it.

  And eventually, that was just what happened. He had tried to protect Ward and Valerie and Ellie, especially Ellie. And for a while…well, for a while, he had protected them. But then…

  Ultimately, he had failed. And in failing, he lost them, and became lost himself once again.

  Now, Hannibal has this new home, and this new family, and—until tonight—the fear had subsided a bit. He likes Mrs. Carlucci well enough. She feeds him, and gives him water, and pets him when he deigns to let her. What more can a cat ask for, really? There’s a good spot on top of the recliner in the living room. It’s his spot and he has marked it as such. He likes to lay there during the day, when the sun streams through the window. He is strictly an indoor cat now, and he misses chasing things and hunting, but his benefactor has an assortment of catnip filled toys that suffice when the mood strikes him. He is not overly fond of King, Queenie, and Princess. They are pampered and fat and have never spent a day outside. Born in captivity, raised in captivity, and it has never occurred to them to yearn for more. And why should they? Food and comfort and shelter are here, and they don’t know they are missing more than that. They have never rutted beneath the moon or rolled in dew-covered grass or stalked a bird. They are soft. Plus, they weren’t very nice to him when Mrs. Carlucci first brought him home from the shelter. They showed their displeasure by alternately hissing or ignoring him. But Hannibal is indifferent to the other cats.

  What he is not indifferent to is fear. It hangs thick in the apartment complex tonight—an almost palpable thing. Hannibal can hear it, smell it, see it, and taste it. It makes his fur stand up and his whiskers twitch and his sphincter tighten. If he still had testicles, they would probably be tight right now. His tail swings back and forth, snapping like a whip.

  All four cats are in the bedroom. King, Queenie, and Princess are cowering beneath the bed. They peer out at him from the darkness, terrified, but Hannibal pays little attention to them. He paces back and forth along the far wall. He hears Mrs. Carlucci, she who feeds and scratches him, on the other side of that wall, along with another sound—a noise like somebody striking the wall. It frightens him, but not nearly as much as the other things he is hearing—the screams, cries, gunshots, and shouts. There’s another noise, too. A crackling, hungry sound. He remembers that sound from his previous home. He heard it every time Ward burned something in the stone pit in the backyard. The sound is fire.

  Of all the things Hannibal fears, fire scares him the most.

  From the bedroom, King, Queenie, and Princess meow as one. Their tones are plaintive and frightened. Hannibal responds with a meow of his own, trying to sound brave, and failing.

  Hannibal’s ears swivel as he detects a new sound—a rustling noise at the front door of the apartment. He furtively pads down the hallway, cautiously looking around the corner. Yes, there is somebody at the front door. Several somebodies, judging by their smell. Hannibal doesn’t like their scent. They smell…wrong. Not like other humans. Indeed, their scent is unlike anything he has ever encountered.

  Hannibal’s fear grows, gnawing inside of him, just like it did that day he found his mother. He fights to control it, struggles not to flee back into the bedroom and cower in the dark with King, Queenie, and Princess. Digging his claws into the carpet, he ducks low and slinks forward again, entering the living room. That strange scent is stronger now, and he senses more people arriving outside.

  Then, something slams against the door, startling him. Hannibal holds his ground, but his haunches are raised and his eyes are wide. His ears go flat against his head, and he tucks his tail between his legs. The door is slammed again. Hannibal hisses, baring his teeth in warning. Another barrage shakes the door. The doorknob—that cursed device which he has never been able to master—rattles. Hannibal backs up one step. Then two. Then three.

  The door bursts open, and Hannibal’s resolve breaks. He darts to the left, slipping into the narrow space between the couch and the wall as six figures rush into the apartment. Their scent is overwhelming, and it is all Hannibal can do not to yowl in horror. Even worse are the sounds they make, and the way they move. They are more like a pack of animals than humans, and the behavior simultaneously fascinates and terrifies him.

  He remains hidden behind the couch as they search the apartment, hurriedly going through the kitchen and the living room, and yanking open the hall closet door. He feels an overwhelming sense of rage and territoriality when one of them paws the recliner, soiling his favorite sunning spot, ruining it with their stink. But the rage quickly dissipates, and the fear returns. Hannibal’s heart beats faster, and he curls himself into a ball as one of them inspects the couch.

  Then, just when he can’t take it anymore, just when he is about to howl and hiss and come out slashing and biting, the figures move on, disappearing into the bedrooms. There is silence, for a moment, and then Princess shrieks. The agony and terror in that wail momentarily paralyzes him. Princess’s howls are cut short, and then King begins to cry, as well. He hears paws scrabbling on the carpet, and feet pounding after them in pursuit, and although he can’t see it, Hannibal hears it when Queenie is caught and repeatedly smashed into a wall. He hears her bones snap. Her howls are the briefest, but also the most intense.

  Hannibal eyes the open door, and the darkness beyond it. He is torn between his loyalty to Mrs. Carlucci and his fear.

  In the end, it is his fear that wins.

  Hannibal slinks out from under the couch and darts toward the door. He slips outside, paws slapping across the hard asphalt of the parking lot, and runs for the safety of the nearby woods. The last thing he sees before he disappears into the tree line is an enormous, overweight man. The man is like the others—a human but not a human. He is bestial and cruel and his scent is the worst one of all. It seems to roll off the figure in great waves.

  And then, for the second time in his life, Hannibal returns to the wild, leaving behind the dangers of civilization.

  Seventeen - Grady, The Exit, and Shaggy: Apartment 6-D

  “So that was you, banging on the ceiling?”

  Grady nods, struggling to catch his breath as he, Mendez, and their new arrival—the druggie from next door—hastily restore the barricade over the front door. He never liked this kid, or his roommate, even before tonight, and his demeanor over the last few minutes hasn’t given Grady any reason to reassess his feelings on the matter.

  “What did you say your name was again?” he asks.

  “Shaggy.”

  “Right. Shaggy. Yeah, that was me, banging on the ceiling. We were trying to signal you.”

  “For what?”

  Before Grady can respond, Mendez interrupts.

  “How many of you were still alive up there?”

  “I
don’t know. There was me, Turo, the writer guy, the he-she, that old lady from upstairs. Oh, and this fine mom with her kid. But Turo…he…” Shaggy shrugs, and his eyes flick to the floor. “There’s five now. Or, at least there was when I left.”

  “And how many attackers?”

  “A lot more than five. I mean, like there didn’t seem to be no end to them. And that fat fuck, he was the worst.”

  “Fat fuck?” Grady frowns.

  “Yeah, some big motherfucker with a Hello Kitty tattoo on his floppy fucking man-boob.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” Grady replies.

  “You don’t know what man-boobs are?”

  “No, that kitty thing. I don’t know what that is.”

  “I saw him, too,” Mendez says. “Just a glimpse, when I was driving through the parking lot. It seemed to me like he was leading them.”

  “Yeah,” Shaggy agrees. “I think he is.”

  Mendez pauses, his brow creasing.

  “What are you thinking, Mendez?” Grady asks.

  “I’m wondering what happens if we eliminate him,” Mendez says. “The fat man. If he’s out of the picture, how might the others react?”

  Shaggy chuckles. “Some alpha male shit?”

  Mendez nods. Judging by his expression, Grady is fairly certain that he doesn’t think much of their other neighbor, either.

  Shaggy points at the door. “So, like, that’s your car outside?”

  Mendez nods again. “It is. Although judging by what you’ve told us, I doubt we’re going to drive it out of here.”

  “For real. Your car is fucked up, dude.”

  “And which way is the fire spreading?” Grady asks.

  “Everywhere,” Shaggy replies. “Depends on which way the wind is blowing.”

  Mendez slides the final piece of furniture into place. “Do you think it will reach the building?”