This is a vignette I've been sitting on for quite a while, modified to fit in with the latest evolutions of my story arc. I may use it as an alternate lead-in to "Congress of the Lepers" in "Death Valley Drag".
Eleven days after Patient Zero ate a contaminated hamburger in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a pilot had gone prodromal in the cockpit of a jet shortly after takeoff from McCarran International Airport. The plane had crashed into the Augustus Tower of Caesar's Palace, virtually demolishing the complex. For reasons not completely understood, the Bellagio, on the other side of Flamingo Avenue, also caught fire and collapsed. The Flamingo was left outwardly intact for the most part, but with a surface charred and riddled with fractures, and an interior no one was brave or foolhardy enough to investigate. Finally, Bally's suffered significant damage, enough to send a tower on the east end toppling onto Flamingo Avenue, but not to prevent a large infestation of zombies that grew even thicker in the adjacent Paris and Planet Hollywood casinos.
Even among the casinos of Vegas, Paris Las Vegas was uniquely audacious. Its counterfeit of the world's proudest city was fronted by a huge replica of the Eiffel Tower, most of which rose directly from the roof of the main casino. It was only1:2 scale, and the top had been shorn off, most likely in a collision with the same plane that destroyed Caesar's Palace, but still stood more than 300 feet high. A large hunting party covered the front of the casino, with base camp at the foot of the faux Arc de Triomfe. Sydney and Wichita watched from the top of the Arc. Deputies on foot were closing in on the Eiffel Tower facade, while sharpshooters on cherrypickers held the perimeter. Shots rang out intermittently as zombies in the open were picked off. An especially loud report came from the undisputed Most Powerful Handgun In The World, as a deputy known as Q fired through a strut of the tower to take an especially well-hidden zombie. But none were inside the casino, yet, except her husband.
If the outside of the casino seemed designed to outrage the French, the inside seems designed to offend the very senses. The architect had seen fit to simulate outdoor streets, with a sky blue ceiling, false building fronts, street lamps and even one of the feet of the fake Eiffel Tower. With the power out and significant damage to the structure, what had been jarring had turned positively ghoulish. Columbus shuffled through the main casino, guided only by emergency lighting and sunlight from the occasional hole in the roof, holding himself back from panic at every figure seen or heard passing by. The infected were more aggressive in the dark, and more sensitive. His zombie disguise, even with the scent of infected blood added, could easily fail to convince. But, as he continually reminded himself, zombies relied on body language, and attacked at the sign of fear or weakness. As long as he moved steadily and confidently, there was a good chance he would be left alone. So far, his luck had held, but he didn't like the sound of footsteps following behind, drawing closer.
"Okay, nobody shoots unless you're sure what you're shooting at," Wichita announced. "Anyone who shoots my husband is going to have a pissed pregnant lady to deal with."
"Yeah, I'd rather take on a swarm of zombies any day," Sydney said.
"That's my man," she said.
"What's that? Over." Bruce spoke over the radio.
"Sorry… Columbus is on the first level of the tower. Looks like he already found a few."
Heights were among the few things Columbus didn't have a phobia of. Still, he was nervous as he stepped onto the floor of the first level of Paris's faux Eiffel Tower, which was roofed over as a restaurant. What he feared most was not heights, but being cornered. Especially since he had still not seen the one that had been following him... He surveyed the restaurant, gripping a nightstick concealed under his right sleeve and reaching for his silenced .38 revolver. The restaurant floor had ample sunlight, which only made it harder to see what was in the shadows, and beams simulating the latticework of the iconic tower provided plenty of places to hide. Still, he had little trouble spotting four, just in the line of sight from the door. There were sure to be more, enough for a large pack or even a swarm. He looked back at a huddled shape behind a beam, to find it rising. Abruptly, it lunged for him. He instinctively raised his right forearm to throat height, and the zombie ran right into the nightstick. It lurched back with a gargled, guttural cry, and he was assured that it saw him as a rival zombie, not as prey. He began to relax. Then it picked up a bottle from the table. One shot to the eye brought it down, and a second stopped its twitching.
A tiny earpiece for a transmitter vibrated; he thumbed it off. It was no time for distractions. He thrust the nightstick into his belt and took the revolver with both hands. The silencer had taken care of the sound of the shot, but not the falling body, and it did nothing at all for the scent of gun powder and blood. One zombie rose, and others, more than were in sight, stirred. He hunched his shoulders, a gesture of submission, while keeping his gun on the zombie as it shambled toward him. It reached the freshly slain zombie, halted, and dropped to its knees to feed. He relaxed, while backing toward the door he had entered through. This was one time when a strong-arm hunting party was best.
Only, the door was locked.
"Something isn't right," Wichita said. "Everybody get ready to move in."
From out of the darkness, a voice called: "Hey. Samaritan- Don't look at me, you idiot. Do what I say and you can get out alive." There could be no doubt that the speaker was a leper, infected but (at least relatively) sane and intelligent survivors who preyed on the zombies. A leper named Jack Ketch had saved his life in Sunrise Hospital, but the speaker's voice was unfamiliar, sounding masculine but soft enough to leave gender in some doubt.
"So... a feeding pen, huh?" He had found Jack Ketch in the Stratosphere tower, where other lepers had penned docile Type 2 zombies like cattle, and hunting parties searching the Boulevard Mall had reported a similar pen. "Do you have a key?" he whispered.
"No, not my place. Sorry."
"It seems like these things are bad luck." At the last pen they had discovered, Ketch said that the experiment in "domestication" had ended badly, as the keepers degenerated into zombies.
"Yeah, but that's not what happened here. The ones who set this up aren't dead, or gone native; they're just plain gone. We don't know where, either."
"Sounds bad."
"Not as bad as it is. But never mind that now. You have to get out of here, and you've got another problem. You could say a friend of yours is in here, and no, not Jack Ketch."
"The Capp?" Andy Capp was the most notorious zombie in the city, and in his most recent exploit had stolen and apparently figured out how to use Wichita's Skorpion machine pistol.
"Bingo. He's been trailing you for a while, you know. I guess you interest him."
"I noticed he's turning up more. I figured he was just going where the meat is."
"I think it's more than that, but it don't matter now. He didn't follow you up, but I expect he's coming another way."
"I can just signal for help."
"An' don't warn them about the Capp? Or do and get them running in to catch him?"
"Okay. Where do I get down?" He still had not seen the leper's face.
"Not here; you could shoot the lock, but they'd follow you down. Door, back corner. Get onto the balcony, and you see a stairway down the leg to the casino roof. And fast, these guys are getting curious." Sure enough several zombies had already gathered, and looking too interested, while more were getting up. He used two bullets on a zombie that got between him and the corner. He didn't bother with the door. Three sweeps of the nightstick cleared away enough glass to climb onto the balcony.
Chief Sahara was quick to countermand Wichita, and even she hadn't told anyone to go in, but it hardly mattered. Just inside the facade of the Louvre, chattering assault rifles were nearly drowned out by the steady roar of an M60 machine gun. In an amphitheater at the base of the Arc, a more orderly assault had breached the lobby and now pressed into the heart of the main casino, while more hunters scaled a fire engine ladder to the roof. Wichita herself was trying to restore some order. "There's something wrong in the tower restaurant," she said. "Secure the casino, but don't go upstairs, repeat, do not- AUSTIN!"
Austin used his last few shots on the padlock that barred the gate to the maintenance stairway, a discrete addition that was built more like a step ladder than a staircase. The lock held, and several blows of the nightstick only fractured the plastic club. He heard shouting and looked up, then groaned at the sight of his wife. She was waving and gesturing, but he was already tuning her out. He began reloading the revolver, and was loading the fourth chamber when a female zombie came charging at him on the balcony. He jerked back, sending ammunition scattering. A clumsy swing of the nightstick momentarily slowed the zombie, but shattered the weapon once and for all. He snapped the cylinder shut and pulled the trigger, only to hear the click of the pin on an empty chamber. He kicked the zombie in the knee as he retreated, and cocked the gun to advance the cylinder, but the next chamber was empty too. The zombie regained its footing after a stumble, already lurching back up to speed. His hands were trembling so much he had trouble getting his thumb on the hammer to advance the cylinder again. Then a window fractured and the zombie fell with a bullet in the brain. He looked in the window, expecting to see the leper, only then registering that he had not seen him before. Instead, he saw the shadowed face of Andy Capp, grinning from behind his wife's Skorpion. He cocked the revolver and emptied three chambers through the glass, but the zombie was already gone.
He looked back to the gate, to find hunters already breaking open the stair at the bottom. He loaded one more round into the gun and fired one more time, finally knocking the lock open. As he descended, he heard a metallic "spang" from the restaurant behind him. In the casino below, guns were falling silent on empty magazines. He almost plodded toward the ladder, and did not brighten in the least when Krista reached the top to meet him. "Austin, what were you doing?" she said, in a grating tone that always made him wish, however briefly and shamefully, that he never had to hear her voice again. "Why didn't you talk to me?-" They both froze. Below them were shots and screams, as the unleashed swarm poured into the casino and out into the street.
Columbus and Wichita sat on the steps of the rooftop pool, staring morosely at the stagnant water. He stiffly put an arm around her. She was unresisting but aloof. After a moment, she rested her chin in her hands. "How bad?" Columbus said at Sahara's approach.
"Bad enough," he said.
"Anyone see Andy Capp?"
"Two deputies emptied their guns at him behind Harrah's. He got away."
"He could have gotten there through the footbridge from Bally's. We need to put sentries there." Only then did he look up. "Did anyone see a leper?" The chief shook his head, obviously skeptical whether Columbus's encounter was even real.
"You did good work today," Sahara said. "Both of you. Really. But maybe you need to think about whether you do your best work together or apart."
As he walked away, Wichita rested her head on her husband's shoulder. He brushed back her hair, but did not wipe away the tears that ran down her cheeks.
