The Gristle & Bone Series (Book 1): The Flayed & The Dying

by Roach, Aaron

  Determined.

  Don, with his hands still tight around the girl’s throat, turned to give the creature a disdainful scowl. He looked the monster up and down, unafraid, before squinting his eyes in recognition and barking a mocking laugh.

  “I remember you,” Don said to the beast. “You’ve grown.” Then he bent low and snarled into Sophia’s ear loud enough for Kat to hear. “Your daddy can’t touch me. None of them can.”

  Sophia’s eyes were beginning to roll backwards in her head.

  The monster dropped forward onto all fours, snorting, and Don tilted his head at the thing, his eyes wary.

  It was the first time Kat had ever seen a skeletal experience anything resembling pain. It trembled and whined but took another tentative step forward. Don’s smug expression turned to one of hesitation as he watched the thing skulk closer.

  “What…what are you doing?” Don asked of the monster, dropping his hands from Sophia’s throat and slowly coming to his feet.

  Sophia choked down a breath of air and scrambled into a sitting position, backing away.

  The monster took another tentative step towards Don.

  “Get back!” Don yelled at the beast. He snatched up his pistol and fired into the approaching skull, sending shards of cheekbone flying.

  Still, the thing pressed forward.

  “Hey!” said a voice, and Don turned.

  Sophia had found her slingshot and was leveling it at Don’s face. She released her thumb and index finger from the leather pad, and the stone shot across the distance faster than Don could blink. It slammed into his left eye, pulverizing the soft tissue there. He screamed before he was cracked again in the temple and rocked sideways. He brought his hands up to protect his head and face, but Sophia sent stone after stone flying into him.

  When the stones mercifully stopped coming, Don opened his one good eye to see the once-Burome looming tall before him. The monster gazed with empty eye sockets and drooled.

  “I…”

  The beast brought its open mouth heavily down onto Don’s face, clamping its broken teeth around his head. Don screamed as the thing began to chew, only to release him a moment later, spitting and heaving.

  Don’s vision blurred with spilled red and he turned to flee. Before he progressed two steps, however, he felt teeth sink into his calf and drag him down to earth like a police dog. He turned onto his backside to see gnashing teeth incoming and he brought his right arm to defend himself. It wasn’t enough. The once-Burome simply chomped through the meat there, rendering his arm in half at the elbow.

  Don shrieked in pain, but so did the monster, as if every bite was misery. Still, it forced itself teeth first into Don’s torso until, after several moments, it finally stopped. It backed away vomiting gristle and blood. Don used the interruption to turn onto his belly and crawl away as best he could on his knees and what remained of his arms. He made his way as far as Sophia, pleading and crying for help, when the sounds of hacking from the beast behind him suddenly became a roar of anger. Don felt himself being pierced deeply at several points along his side and he screamed as he was lifted high by the beast’s antlered crown. A moment later he was slammed back down to earth.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Once more.

  Only when Don’s body was merely a flesh bag of detached bones did the assault finally stop. Paralyzed and broken, he could do nothing but stare up at the full moon as it grew darker and redder.

  Then all was black.

  -90-

  The two snowmobiles drew tracks over the snow as they zoomed towards the edge of the island.

  “Keep her steady!” Maldonado shouted as Francesca swerved to avoid a leaping skeletal. He fired on the thing as they drove past it and missed completely. It gave chase, zigzagging through the snow after them and dodging his gunfire. “I said, steady!” he yelled in frustration as another barrage of bullets passed harmlessly through the snow in front of their pursuer.

  The bastards were quick.

  “How about you shut up!” Francesca yelled back angrily. “And let me focus on what I’m doing!”

  Maldonado muttered something about female drivers and Francesca yanked on the brakes. The snowmobile came to a sliding stop. “What was that?” she snapped. From the unmoving vehicle, Maldonado finally put a bead on the thing’s head. He squeezed the trigger and sent it plowing into the snow, dead.

  “Nothing,” he muttered, “Never mind.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she retorted before bringing the vehicle up to speed again.

  Next to them, Thaniel revved on the throttle of his own snowmobile and rammed through a groaner rising up from beneath the white. He ducked as its body tumbled up and over the front of the vehicle and was left in a broken heap in his wake. Ahead, he saw the depressions in the snow they had made when they had first arrived. “There’s the path down to the beach!” he shouted to the others.

  Francesca brought her snowmobile behind Thaniel’s and slowed to a stop at the path’s entrance. Maldonado hopped off first, keeping his rifle trained on the pursuing dead.

  “Gotta go, gotta go!” he shouted. “Briends, take my pack! I’ll cover you – move!”

  Thaniel grunted as he took the weight of the extra pack on his shoulder, then nudged Francesca ahead of him onto the path that cut diagonally across the cliff’s face. “After you, Doc. Watch your step!”

  Francesca and Thaniel ran as fast as they dared down the icy and treacherous slope. Maldonado hung back and covered their retreat for several moments before he too started down after them. “Briends!” he shouted as he came up from behind. “Your rifle! I’m out!”

  Thaniel tossed his weapon to Maldonado, who caught it and turned just as a skeletal came running down, deathly quiet, behind them. Maldonado roared in surprise as he saw the incoming thing and blasted its face inwards. It buckled at full speed, tumbling over the edge of the path and into the frigid waters below. Maldonado sent a curse flying after it as it disappeared.

  Ahead Francesca screamed as the body of a groaner rained down from above and landed in a heap on the path in front of her. She didn’t have time to slow, so she leapt over the thing as it brought its face up from the earth, snarling. Thaniel wasn’t so lucky. It snatched at his legs, causing him to tumble over its broken body. It held fast to his ankle as he tried to scramble away and Thaniel could only watch in horror as the thing pulled his foot into its mouth. Before the jaws could clamp closed around it, though, Maldonado was there, firing into the back of the thing’s head.

  “Up, Briends! You ain’t dead yet!” he shouted, lugging Thaniel to his feet.

  They caught up with Francesca as she neared the warning sign posted at the rocky beach below. Maldonado sprinted ahead, leading them to the ducky tied up at the far end of the beach.

  At the small craft, Maldonado tossed Thaniel his knife, shouting for him to cut the line that held the boat in place while he dropped to his knee and turned, ready to open fire on their dead pursuers.

  The pursuers weren’t there.

  “Where the hell?”

  Francesca and Thaniel turned at the remark to see a beach empty of the dead.

  “Where are they?” muttered Thaniel.

  “There!” Francesca pointed.

  At the other end of the beach, still up on the path, two skeletals snarled at each other like battling lions. One was on all fours while the other, standing, rained clubbed fists down on its skull. The crouching skeletal weathered the beating until it found a moment to launch itself into the exposed ribs of its opponent, slamming it against the wall of rock.

  “What’s happening, Doc?” Maldonado whispered over his shoulder, still keeping his rifle trained on the fighting dead things in the distance.

  “Sharpe must have done it,” she answered.

  “Done what?”

  “Killed the alpha, the king,” she said. “They fight each other for supremacy, remember? Looks like there’s a recently vacated opening a
t the top and those two are applying for the position.”

  As she said that, one of the skeletals drew its pronged arm back, and then slammed it into its opponent’s nasal cavity. It went through the skull and dug into the rock wall on the other side. The opponent let out a high whine before it went limp. It dangled there, pinned through its face, as the other skeletal tried to unbury its arm from the rock. As it tried to free itself, a third creature suddenly appeared, dropping from the cliff’s edge above and onto the stuck skeletal’s shoulders. When it landed, the newcomer drove its own spiked fist down through the thing’s cranium, killing it instantly. It buckled into a pile of bones on the path.

  “Holy shit,” muttered Maldonado.

  The newcomer stepped off the dead skeletal’s shoulders and turned to stare menacingly at them from across the distance.

  “Hey, Doc?” said Thaniel worriedly.

  “All hail the new king,” Francesca whispered.

  The skeletal slowly shifted its glare to the cliffs above them. They followed the gaze, craning their heads to look upwards.

  “Holy shit,” Maldonado said again.

  Along the cliff’s edge, silhouetted against the low sun, a wall of groaners stared down at them. One by one, they stepped forward into space and fell.

  “Move!”

  They threw their packs into the ducky as the first of the bodies struck the ground hard. It landed a few feet from Thaniel with a thud before bringing its face up, snarling. It lurched towards him, pulling itself across the shore. Thaniel brought the knife down into the thing’s forehead before it could come any closer.

  As bodies rained down around them, Thaniel, Francesca and Maldonado lifted the ducky and staggered towards the waterline, trying to ignore the sounds of meat impacting rocks.

  “In, in!” Maldonado shouted once they were knee-deep in the frigid water. Thaniel and Francesca clambered in while Maldonado spun the boat around. He jumped over the transom, soaking wet, and started up the engine.

  “Look out!” Francesca screamed.

  Maldonado turned to see the new alpha charging into the water behind them. “Holy sh–” he managed to mutter one final time as the thing punched a stabbing fist towards his face.

  Boom.

  The skeletal’s skull snapped backward, buying Maldonado enough time to slam his hand around the throttle and kick the ducky forward before the thing could renew its attack. It shrieked in anger as they tore away from it before another boom sent its face crashing inwards into death. Maldonado turned to see a rifle barrel sticking out over his shoulder. He followed the length of it down to Thaniel, who winked at him through the sight.

  “How’s that for shit aim?” Thaniel asked.

  Maldonado stared at him for a long moment before breaking out into laughter. “I told you we’d make an operator out of you, Briends.”

  Behind them, Francesca rubbed her fingers at her temples, whether in exasperation or relief, they men didn’t know.

  For several minutes afterward the survivors watched in silence as the island seemed to sink in the water the farther they moved away from it. Ahead, the sail of the Shiloh protruded from the sea like the dorsal fin of a giant whale.

  “What’s that?” asked Francesca.

  “Our ride.” Maldonado answered.

  “Oh, and when we get there, call me Jones, okay?” said Thaniel in a serious tone. “I’ll explain later.”

  Francesca raised a suspicious eyebrow but nodded. She turned back to look at the island. “You think Sharpe managed to neutralize the compound?” she asked softly.

  Maldonado shrugged. “There’s no way to be sure. All I can tell you is that Sharpe wasn’t one to let a mission go unfinished. If he managed to kill the alpha, then I’m sure he was able to figure out how to stop Neyra’s doomsday device. I guess we’ll find out in a few days when we’re dead, or not dead.”

  The watch on Maldonado’s wrist beeped.

  Eight hours.

  Maldonado looked up and Thaniel and Francesca followed his gaze to see a bright light streaking across the sky like a comet.

  “Wherever Sharpe is, I hope he’s at peace,” Thaniel said softly. Maldonado bowed his head in respect.

  In silence, they watched the light fall over Aptok Island until it suddenly flashed, bright and blinding. A few heartbeats later, the roaring wind from the shockwave slammed into them, causing them to take cover in the belly of the ducky. When the rushing wind passed, they rose to see much of the island had been replaced with a giant column of smoke that reached up from the seascape.

  “It’s…it’s gone,” stammered Francesca.

  Maldonado shrugged. “When Command wants something buried, they bury it.”

  Thaniel kicked the packs filled with evidence at their feet. “They didn’t bury everything,” he said victoriously. “Not by a long shot.”

  -91-

  Sophia held Kat in her arms, trying to staunch the warmth that flowed from her friend’s gut. She couldn’t keep the tears from her eyes as she murmured to her friend that everything was going to be alright.

  Kat simply kept her eyes closed to the pain.

  Nearby, over by the corpse of Don, the dying monster let out a low whine and Sophia turned to look at the thing. It had withered, and was withering still, into a fraction of what it was from when it had first arrived. Now it was slowly desiccating, like some cancer or radiation was rotting it from the inside. Despite the beast’s morbid appearance, there was something in it that she recognized but couldn’t place.

  Some connection.

  “Soph.”

  Sophia turned to see Kat had opened her eyes and was raising a weak finger at the crowding dead things. The dead had, for reasons unknown, stepped closer. Their bubble of protection was weakening, shrinking along with the beast. The monster let out a guttural moan, dribbling blood. It was as if it was trying to speak.

  Sophia laid Kat gently back down onto the grass and stood up to approach the beast. As she drew near to it, though, it turned its eyeless gaze at her and snarled.

  “Who…”

  It roared terrifyingly loud and she stumbled backwards until the beast grunted, satisfied she was far enough away. It raised a pointed claw at the surrounding mob of dead things, which began to move aside to form a path.

  Sophia looked at Kat, and then down through the path. “I…I can’t leave her,” she said to the monster.

  The mob of dead pushed the edge of the barrier closer inwards and the beast whimpered.

  “Soph,” said Kat faintly. “It’s time to go. You have to go.”

  Sophia choked down a sob, shaking her head.

  “Get me the gun, Sophia,” Kat whispered, inclining her head to the weapon Don had shot her with. “Bring it here, please.”

  When Sophia hesitated, Kat cursed painfully. “Please, Soph. It hurts.”

  Sophia crawled quickly to the gun and brought it back to her. The dead stepped closer and the monster whined again. “Time to go, Sophia,” Kat said tenderly. “You’re going to be okay out there. But you have to go.”

  The path through the bodies was beginning to waiver.

  Sophia kissed Kat on the forehead and whispered a tearful goodbye. She turned her back on her friend as Kat aimed the barrel up through her chin. The girl then entered the corridor of the dead, skirting around hands that reached for her, and forced herself not to look over her shoulder at what her friend was about to do.

  Rat-tat-tat.

  That’s no pistol!

  Sophia turned to see the wall of bodies crash inwards, with skeletals and groaners alike being run down beneath a Humvee.

  From the driver’s seat, Ward saw her, disbelief written on his face for a heartbeat before he reacted. He opened the door. “Get in, Soph!” he shouted. Above and behind him, Litz manned a massive machine gun mounted on a turret, and he was cutting down the surrounding dead in a hail of bullets.

  Sophia ran and jumped into the backseat. “Where’s Kat?” Ward yelled over the sound
of gunfire. Sophia, still in shock, indicated with her head down the path she had just come from, and Ward fishtailed the truck to charge through the bodies. They broke through the circle and entered the clearing.

  There, Ward saw a scene he didn’t understand. To his left, a giant skeletal, dying and rotting, lay next to the corpse of the man they had rescued from Boston. A few feet away was Kat, holding a pistol up to her chin, staring confusedly at their arrival. She let the pistol drop to the ground beside her.

  While Litz spun the turret in a circle, keeping his finger heavy on the trigger, Ward and Sophia sprinted from the truck. They grabbed Kat by the shoulders and legs and carried her to the backseat of the vehicle.

  “Let’s go!” Litz shouted from above them as the gun clicked on empty and he moved to reload. The dead pressed in closer.

  Ward slammed on the gas and drove through the horde, all the while speaking to Sophia through the rearview mirror.

  “What happened, Soph? Was she bit?”

  “No, she was shot… Twice, I think.” Sophia answered hopelessly. She didn’t bother mentioning Don or what he had done to Kat in the schoolhouse. The man was dead and unimportant right now. Good riddance.

  Through the mirror, Ward stared at the pale and ashy Kat lying in the backseat and saw the blood seeping through her fingers at her belly. Abdominal wounds. It was bad, but not catastrophic. He turned his gaze to Sophia and began giving her instructions. “Okay, Soph. I need you to feel underneath her, at her back. Are there any wounds where the bullet passed through?”

  Sophia probed, digging with her fingers between the seat and Kat’s back. Her friend screamed in pain and Sophia yanked her hands away apologetically before turning back to Ward. “I felt something! There are holes!”

  “Good,” said Ward. “That’s good, Soph. That means the bullets aren’t still inside her. Maybe they passed through without missing any vital organs. But we need to stop the bleeding now. Look under the passenger seat; there’s a box down there with a handle. That’s a medical kit. I need you to open it and take out as much gauze and bandages you can find. Yes, that.”