by M. D. Massey
We headed upstairs, and Bobby, Gabby, and I each scanned our sectors, looking for signs of trouble. The place was empty as a bird’s nest in December, but I caught a whiff of a familiar smell when we hit the front of the house. It was a combination of clotted blood, graveyard dirt, and desiccated flesh.
I turned and whispered over my shoulder to Bobby. “You smell that?”
He nodded. “Nos’, for sure.”
I silently cursed myself for being so stupid. That nos’ that I’d run into must’ve come back and picked up our trail. When it smelled multiple and distinct human scents, it probably thought that I was holding out, bringing through slaves and trying to sneak them by without paying tribute. Probably also figured it’d take one of us, just to teach me a lesson.
That meant Christopher could have been dead already. Shit.
It was still dark outside, so I knew that we might yet have a chance to save him. I signaled everybody to huddle up and leaned in close to whisper the plan. “Matthew, how much night do we have left?”
“Three hours, give or take.”
“Good. Now, do you have any idea where this nos’ holes up during the day?” I figured Bobby could track him and the kid by scent, but we’d be better off if we could take the direct route.
“Yes. He hides in an old movie theater by day. The building has few windows, and the dark is preferable to his kind. I believe he has two or three revenants in thrall that stay inside with him as well.”
Matthew was talking about this thing like it was a person, but I didn’t bother to correct him. I’d developed my opinion of the creatures long ago, and regardless of their apparent human characteristics, they were “its” and “things,” all the way through. Ignoring his choice of words, I continued my line of questioning, staying focused on getting pertinent info from him that could help us rescue Chris. “How far is this place?”
“Less than a quarter-mile, as the crow flies. But, we’ll need to avoid the horde of dead who stand between the theater and us. We’ll take the creek north again, then cut over and come up behind the theater through the neighborhood that borders it on the northern side.”
I corrected him. “Not you, just us. You’ll have to mark it on my map. You’re staying here until sunup, and waiting for us to come back with Christopher.”
Matthew bristled, quietly seething with indignation. “I will not wait. Christopher is my brother in arms, and I’ll not cower in craven fashion whilst you rescue him for me.”
“Look, kid, I don’t have time to argue; you’ll only slow us down. I don’t know if you’ve figured this out yet or not, but none of us are fully human. I wasn’t supposed to reveal any of this to you, by order of Sir Reynard, but it’s something you need to know now. So that’s that. Believe me when I tell you, we three alone are best equipped to get your friend back.”
He remained still and silent for several heartbeats. “Are you all lycanthropes?”
“No, just Bobby. Gabby and I have been genetically modified, so we have some of their characteristics and talents. We have faster reflexes, greater endurance, and heightened senses. All told, it gives us an edge against these things that you don’t have.”
He nodded. “Well, I don’t know what sorcery ‘genetically modified’ is, but I’ve seen you fight, and I’ve felt Gabby’s fist. And Bobby—his current state speaks for itself. I believe you.” He paused. With my enhanced vision I could see by the look on his face that he weighed his options. “I will mark the place on your map, and wait here.”
I sighed in relief. We might not bring Christopher back alive, and the last thing I needed was getting Colin’s best boy killed, too. Matthew and I went back inside the safe room where he could have some light, and he marked the place on my map and explained how we should sneak up on it. My plan was for us to move through that residential area like famine, war, plague, and death, dropping anything that got in our way like a bad habit. Speed and surprise had to be on our side, because the odds were still stacked against us, no matter what skills we had between us.
“One last thing, kid—you got any extra lamp oil in here?” He rustled around on the shelves, and finally came up with a half-gallon of clear lamp oil. I grabbed a couple of empty mason jars, filled each with oil halfway, topped them off with some Sterno and hand soap that I found, and I capped them up tight. I wrapped them in a few articles of spare clothing and stuffed them in my bag.
Matthew and I clasped hands before I left the safe room. “I will do everything in my power to get your friend back.”
“Please do. I’ll never forgive myself for staying behind if he doesn’t come back alive.”
I clapped my hand on his shoulder. “Lock up behind us, son. If everything goes well, we’ll be back just after sunup and your friend will be back safe and sound.”
We exited the house at a trot, me in the lead with the katana, Gabby running center with the crossbow, and Bobby watching our backs. Just past the front yard, I snuck up on a small group of deaders in the pitch black and cut them down with two quick sword strokes as I ran by. Their dismembered bodies dropped in a heap. The only sounds we made were the wet soft smacks of body parts hitting the ground as we passed.
I moved as quickly as stealth and common sense allowed when I heard a crossbow bolt whiz by me and a deader hit the pavement twenty feet ahead. As I leapt over the body, I glanced back over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t leaving anyone behind. Gabby barely slowed as she snagged the bolt from the thing’s head with a slight sucking sound as she passed. Bobby was running in a crouch about ten feet behind her, nearly on all fours, scanning the night around us as we sliced through the neighborhood and deaders like Teflon death.
While we worked as a team, I felt a thrill rise within me. I knew the sensation wasn’t human. It was the thrill of the hunt, the thrill of the pack. I barely suppressed an urge to howl with delight as we stalked the night. On this night, man was no longer prey, but predator once more. We were in our element.
Soon we reached the relative cover and safety of the stream bed, and I motioned for them to crouch down beside me, leaning closer to whisper almost inaudibly. “From here until we reach the residential area north of the bridge, we use pure stealth. We can’t risk drawing even the slightest attention from the massive herd of deaders that’ll be above us.”
Both of them replied with a short nod and a look of eager determination. I could see it in their eyes; finally, we were striking back, and hard. I realized that this might as well have been a dress rehearsal for our coming attack on the Corridor pack, but stuffed any emotions I had about it down and out of sight. No sense in getting giddy now; that could come later, after we got Christopher back.
I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and gave the command. “Alright, stay close and don’t get separated.” I moved out at a stealthy trot, my feet sure on the hard ground and rocks beside the stream. Once we reached the bridge, I happily noted that the sound of thousands of feet and half as many moans and groans mostly masked our approach. I led the wonder twins under the bridge, sticking to dry ground and making certain I didn’t step on a single branch or leaf. We passed the bridge without incident and followed the creek further north until we saw the apartment complex Matthew had described to me.
I snuck up the ridge until I reached the remains of a fence that surrounded the apartment buildings. There was more cover on the far side of the parking lot, so I headed back into the gully and led us further north until we were just past the apartments. I climbed up again and vaulted a fence, landing in a backyard overgrown with weeds and littered with junk and debris. Bobby and Gabby followed and landed beside me, one each side.
The yard was full of deaders, and one of them had already seen us drop over the fence. She was moving quickly toward us and moaning loudly. Gabby shut her down with a crossbow bolt to the head, but that merely attracted more of them. Within seconds, the whole group was coming after us. Although they might ignore me due to the infection running through my blood,
I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to attack Bobby and Gabby.
From experience, I knew their moans would rise to a crescendo within moments of our discovery, which would draw the herd we’d just passed right to us. Despite the danger, a bloodlust rose in my veins and I wanted nothing more than to tear these things limb from limb. Without hesitation or even a plan, I strode calmly forward and wielded the sword like a scythe, chopping off heads and severing torsos with reckless abandon. I lost all sense of time and place; there was only me, my blade, and the dead who fell like stalks of grain before me.
One grabbed at me and I spun the blade, cutting its hands off at the wrists; in a smooth arc, I turned that cut into a backswing that split the deader under its right armpit and came out the other side of its neck, effectively decapitating it while keeping the shoulder and arm intact. I spun and swung the blade almost lazily, catching three more through their necks and dropping them instantly. On instinct, I ducked from another’s grasp and came up with a diagonal upward forehand cut, cleanly slicing through its throat and half its jaw. As I flowed through my dance of death, my blade followed a pattern determined by the rhythm of the fight: step-step-pivot, slice-cut-spin, chop-sever-duck, roll-rise-stab…
What seemed like an eternity must have lasted only seconds. Before I realized it, the fight was over, and all the deaders were down. Bobby and Gabby hadn’t even had time to enter the fray. I blinked, and everything sped up at once. I sucked in a breath as the kids took one final stride toward me, then blacked out and collapsed in a heap.
17
DEVOUR
“Scratch! Scratch, can you hear me?” Bobby frantically whispered, lightly slapping my face. His claws left little scratches under the three-day beard growth that adorned my face, but due to his excitement, he barely noticed. I grabbed his wrist as his hand came toward my face, stopping him from striking me again.
“I’m awake—shit, stop slapping me!” I whispered angrily. I wiped at my face with my other hand, feeling the sticky wet residue of my blood between my fingers. “You know, you could retract those things before slapping a guy in the face. It’s only common courtesy.”
He scratched his head and frowned. “Hell Scratch, I thought you’d had a heart attack or something. I mean, your heart just stopped beating, and you collapsed! What the hell, man?”
Gabby was looking at me with a mixture of awe and shock on her face. I looked past her and realized we were inside a house. “How’d we get in here?” I asked.
Gabby spoke up. “When you passed out, we pulled you inside the house. You’ve been out for a good ten minutes.”
Bobby put his hand on my chest. “Yeah, and I had to pump your chest for three of those minutes. First, you went all Agent Smith on us, and then you just dropped in a heap. I’ve never seen a human move that fast. One second you were there, and the next, bodies were flying all over the place. What the hell, Scratch?”
I rubbed my sternum in consternation. “Is that why my chest hurts so bad?”
Gabby started gesticulating wildly. “Um, hello? You were like, dead. Like, dead dead, as in not breathing dead, no heartbeat dead, Jesu Christo ay Dios mio dead. Scared the living crap out of us both.”
I had no idea what had happened, but there was little time to discuss it. I stood up, slowly, feeling the job that Bobby had done on my ribcage with every move and breath. I braced my side with my hand. “I think you might have cracked my ribs, kid.”
He looked at Gabby with mock disgust. “I save the guy’s life one more time, and again he complains.”
Gabby apparently didn’t see the humor in the situation. “I think you’re doing too much, too soon. La Araña said you needed time to let the serum do its work. You should have listened to her.”
“Got no more time for rest, not until I get Kara back. Now, let’s move out.” I shook my head slowly, searching around for my katana. "Where’s my sword?" I growled. Bobby retrieved it from the corner and handed it to me. Gabby chewed her cheek and gave me a look that was more concern than defiance or scorn, but even so, I knew we’d be having this conversation again. Unconcerned for my own safety, I focused my mind once more on the task at hand and half-staggered out the door and into the night.
The rest of the way to the theater, I took a path that allowed us to avoid deaders. We snuck around houses and cars, jumped fences, and hid behind overgrown shrubbery until we made it to our destination. Once there, we jumped another fence and hid behind some trash dumpsters behind the theater.
I took a peek over the garbage dumpsters and smiled. “Huh. I remember this place. I came here for a Kurosawa film marathon back in the day. They served beer and food during the movie. Damn, I miss civilized living.”
Gabby rolled her eyes. “You can reminisce later, viejo—what’s the plan?”
“The plan? It’s simple. This thing knows that it can keep Christopher alive for a while if it rations its feedings. So, Chris’ll be a few quarts low by now, but still breathing. The revs that Matthew spoke of are probably still out hunting, and chances are good they won’t be back until right before sunrise. That nos’ is probably all by its lonesome in there, so— ”
Bobby broke in and spoke in a rush. “So we drop in, snag Tubby, kill the vamp, and leave before the revs get back. Brilliant!”
I wagged my finger at him. “Um, not quite. We’re going to drop in, all right—but then we’re going to burn the place to the ground.”
We gained access to the roof by way of a drain pipe that ran all the way up the side of the building. None of us had much difficulty climbing the building that way, although my ribs were screaming bloody murder at me the entire way up. Once topside, I walked them over to the side of the building furthest away from the front entrance. I brought their attention to the area where the roof and wall met.
“Bobby, put those claws to use and start peeling up this asphalt—quietly. I want to see what’s under it.”
“Sure thing, boss.” He dug his claws in, and soon had a good-sized section peeled away. As I’d hoped, under several layers of asphalt the roof was plywood and not steel like some modern buildings. I directed him to keep pulling the asphalt and tar paper up until we found a seam.
“Alright, Bobby—dig those claws in and start peeling back that roof panel, just as quietly as you can manage.” Within a minute or two, Bobby had removed an entire four by eight sheet of the roof decking. It made a considerable amount of noise, but I banked on the fact that these theaters were built to be soundproof, so hopefully the noise wouldn’t carry to the front of the building where I figured the nos’ was laid up.
Under the roof decking and insulation there were ceiling tiles suspended in a frame, which we removed and set aside. I peered into the dark of the theater below, listening for any sound that might indicate something waiting for us down there. I heard nothing, so I dropped down into the space from the edge of the opening, swinging from the roof joists to the wall immediately adjacent. I grabbed the decorative curtain and used that to climb the thirty feet or so down to the floor.
At the bottom, I rolled left and landed on the balls of my feet in a crouch. I was still a little weak and dizzy from the episode I’d had earlier, and swayed slightly as I stood. Bobby and Gabby followed soon after. We each stood motionless, listening for movement from the building around us. Hearing nothing, I moved toward the theater’s front exit.
As I walked down the exit ramp, I noted a number of corpses lying around the place in various states of decay. The smell had escaped me on the way in, likely being trapped near the floor by the cool, stagnant air of the theater’s interior. But now it hit me full force. I gagged for a moment before my nose adjusted to the scent. I’d never been one for strong smells—and especially not of dead, rotting flesh. How I ever decided that killing zombies was a good career choice was beyond me.
I had to remind myself that we were here to rescue Christopher. We didn’t have time to wait around and end the things that had killed these people. Stowing my anger, I
led us to the exit door and listened for movement in the hall outside. Dead silence. Since the window in the door had been spray-painted over, I cracked the door to peek out into the hallway. No movement, either. It seemed that we were alone, after all.
As we exited the room, I waved Bobby over. “Can you pick up Christopher’s scent at all?”
He grunted softly and took a long whiff around him. “Now I can. Too many competing scents back there. He’s here, or he was not long ago. That way.” He pointed down the hall.
I looked at Gabby. “Make sure you have that crossbow ready, and your nine as well. No need to worry about making noise inside this place—no matter how loud we get, not much sound will escape. But if we run into anything before we see the nos’, take it out quietly. I want to extract Christopher without alerting that bloodsucker.”
“Not a problem.” She made sure the crossbow was cocked and loaded, and checked her Glock 9mm to make certain she had a round chambered. She also checked the little .22 she had holstered in cross-draw position on her left hip, pulling it out and screwing the silencer to the barrel. Good girl, I thought, with no small amount of pride.
All warm fuzzies aside, I still felt guilty about her acting like my personal Femme Nikita, even now that I knew she was older than she looked. Regardless of my guilt, I was going to have a serious discussion regarding transparency with Captain Perez later. I had begun to see why they called her The Spider, and how she’d used the kid to pull my strings. It really chapped my ass, thinking about it.
Turning my thoughts back to the task at hand, I motioned Bobby into lead position and drew the katana. We stalked down the hall toward the front of the theater, careful not to make a sound and to maintain our tactical awareness. Our vigilance was rewarded when a rev’ came barreling out of a doorway as we passed. Gabby pivoted smoothly and placed a bolt right in its eye. We waited for her to retrieve the bolt and reload, then moved on.
