by Crae, Edward
George paused then, swallowing nervously.
“I know what you’re talking about,” Toby said. “We’ve all seen one. Two actually.”
“Really?” George asked.
“Our friend Dan actually knew who the first one was. His name was Robert Rathburn.”
George cocked his head. “I’ve heard that name before.”
“He was a sociopath,” Grace said. “A serial killer that had been stalking Dan and his friend Drew. Dan said he left a diary of his transformation as well as how he tortured his victims.”
“I see,” George said. “Our research concluded that sociopathic subjects turned into the strangest and most dangerous of creatures. They retained the memories of their former lives, unlike most. Who was the second one?”
“It was a woman named Betty, I think,” Grace said. “She worked in a slaughterhouse and lived deep in the woods with her husband at a cabin. There was something about her…”
“What?” George asked, leaning in closer.
“She laid a bunch of eggs.”
Jeff sighed loudly, baffled. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Dozens of them,” Grace said. “But Dan destroyed them.”
“Crazy,” George remarked. “That’s mind-blowing. We had never considered that a female subject could reproduce.”
“My mom was infected by a baby monster that burst through its own mother’s gut,” Toby said.
“What happened to her?” George asked.
“She’s dead.”
“I had no idea that the mutants could infect others, either,” George said. “That’s new.”
“Another friend of ours was bitten but didn’t get infected,” Toni added. “He thought he was gonna die but he didn’t. Almost blew himself up though.”
“Fascinating,” George said. “I wish I had a way to share this info with my colleagues. If they’re still alive that is.”
“Maybe Max can help when he gets back,” Toby said. “He knows everything.”
George grinned. “Okay. We’ll wait for Max.”
Chapter Ten
“It’s cold,” Rose said as they silently crept through the ruins.
Dan gave her his coat, knowing full well he would be freezing in a few minutes. But, anything to keep her quiet. As he draped it over her shoulders, she looked up at him with a blank expression then tightened it around her.
Drew pulled out his radio and began contacting the base. “Micah,” he said. “Come in.”
“How ‘bout ya, Drew?”
“We have Rose. Where should we meet you?”
“We are at the power station like Max suggested. Plenty of equipment here to do what he wants.”
“Right,” Drew said. “Out.”
He stopped for a moment to gain his bearings, looking around at the rubble.
“Where is it?” Max asked.
“To the north,” Drew said. “But it’s hard to judge direction at the moment.”
“I know where it is,” Rose said. “Follow me.”
She took off ahead of them, beckoning them to follow. They all shrugged and started after her, ducking under the metal beams that she so easily run under. The rubble was getting thicker in this direction, and it became harder and harder to navigate through.
But then, large figures melted from out of the shadows, and the group stopped. Alien weapons were trained upon them, and the tallest of the creatures stepped forward, seemingly laughing as it looked down at Rose through its glass visor.
“Damn it,” Drew cursed, dropping his weapon and raising his hands. “Just drop them. They won’t shoot us unless we—“
Drew was cut off by the loud crack of what sounded like a whip. The alien leader’s head flew from its shoulders, causing the others to scatter. Another darker figure appeared from above, using its tentacles to attack the other creatures, impaling them and beheading them one by one.
Dan froze then, realizing something horrifyingly familiar about the creature. Jake and Max seemed frozen as well. Drew jumped forward, grabbing Rose and pulling her back. The creature, having slaughtered the entire troop of aliens, dropped to the ground in front of them. It was tall, slender and ghastly. Though black and glossy, it was a familiar creature. The group had all seen them before.
“Hi Lanny,” Rose said, walking up to the creature and taking its claw in her hand.
She led it back to the group, smiling and looking up at it horrifying face.
“This is Lanny,” she said. “And Lanny, these are my friends. I’m going to help those three get back home to their world.”
The creature cocked its head, speaking just like the Robert creature had. “There is no hope for anyone else,” Lanny said. “Why care about them?”
Max stepped forward, boldly standing in front of the creature. “If we can generate enough power, Rose’s portal can be opened large enough for everyone here to escape.”
The creature nodded. “I know this,” it said. “But she may die if her illness is allowed to take hold.”
“We will make sure that doesn’t happen,” Max said. “All she has to do is initiate the field, and we can do the rest.”
Lanny leaned down, his tentacles swirling around him. “If you harm her, or allow her to be harmed, I will come to this world with you and lay it to waste.”
Dan could hear Max gulp. “She won’t be harmed. I promise.”
“Where is this world of yours? Why is it different?”
“The comet never struck the Earth in our world. Not all of it anyway. Maybe a few pieces here and there.”
“And the sun?”
“The sun is still visible, as is the blue sky.”
Lanny nodded, his strange, skeletal face glinted in the moonlight. “Then she will be happy there. Take her with you.”
“We planned on it.”
“Then let us continue,” Lanny said, leaping onto the top of the nearby wall. “I will get you there safely.”
“You hear that?” Royce asked as he and Toby searched the parking lot for any sign of Dan’s disappearance.
Toby stopped and turned his ear toward where Royce was pointing. He listened for a moment, hearing nothing but the light wind, the rustling of the trees, and what sounded like a distant shuffling—of hundreds of feet.
“Herd?” Toby suggested.
Royce sighed, reaching up to look through his riflescope. He shook his head as he watched, then lowered his gun.
“I don’t see shit,” he said. “But I sho hear it.”
Toby raised his own rifle, which was equipped with a nightvision scope. There were very few features he could see. There was a dog or coyote in the distance, its colorful presence showing that it was alive and looking for food.
“Dog,” he said.
“You sho?”
“Yeah.”
He kept sweeping from side to side, still seeing nothing alive but the dog. Then he realized he may never see something coming if it wasn’t alive. His heart dropped at that moment. He realized he could see black shapes. He thought they were just shadows of the trees, but then recognized them as human shape.
Undead.
“The fuckin’ dead ones,” Toby said. “Why are they still around?”
“Maybe we should tell e’erbody.”
“Yeah,” Toby said. “Maybe George will what they really are.”
Toby quickly shouldered his rifle, and the two headed back toward the store. They hoped George would know an easier way to deal with the dead. He was a scientist, after all.
“Who is that?” Dan asked Drew.
Drew shrugged. “Only Rose knows, I guess.”
“His name is Lanny,” Rose repeated. “That’s all I know. I thought he was a monster, but he was nice. He helped me escape the bad guys a few times.”
Dan remembered Betty, the overlord type creature that actually helped them defeat the horde in the woods along with Enoch’s fuckstick gang. This Lanny was different than Robert, for sure, but he was also different f
rom Betty. His outer skin was black, pitch black, and shiny like plastic. Could he have been black in real life, or was the mutation just different for him?
Or was he even a mutant at all?
“Was he human once?” Dan asked Rose.
She shrugged. “I don’t think so. If he was a man once, why would he be an alien now?”
“It’s just that we’ve seen creatures like him before and they were people before the comet came.”
Rose giggled. “That’s weird. I think Lanny is just one of them, a boss or something. There are others like him, but they aren’t nice like he is.”
“So he’s a rogue alien,” Dan said to himself.
“Hey,” Jake said, nudging Dan’s shoulder. “Remember that TV show V?”
“I do,” Max said, smiling. “That was kickass. But I only watched the reruns.”
“Maybe it’s the same thing. He’s the Willy of these aliens.”
Willy, Dan thought. Robert Englund’s character, long before the days of Freddy Krueger.
“One, two, Freddie’s com—“
“Shhh!” Drew sounded, squatting. “I think we’re here.”
Lanny had stopped and had stood straight up, looking down upon the group. “We have arrived,” he whispered. “Your people are about. They see me.”
“Micah,” Drew said through the radio. “You can come out. The alien is with us.”
“What!?”
“He’s with us. Trust me. He’s protecting Rose.”
There was a minute of silence, then a group of people, at least fifty of them, melted from the shadows. Micah stepped toward Drew, keeping his eyes on the dark alien standing above them.
“Who is he? Is that one of the Archons?”
“I think so,” Drew said. “I didn’t think of it before. I’ve never seen one.”
Lanny jumped down, landing near them in a squat. He was still their height. “I will need electricity before I can help you. But I must make contact with the generators if I am to amplify the field.”
“What is he talking about?” Micah asked.
“He can help,” Max said. “He can do it without any special equipment. I suppose it’s some kind of ability his kind has. Just start the generators and we can open the portal.”
Micah nodded. “And you say we can come back to this other Earth with you?”
Max nodded.
“What about everyone else around the world?” Micah reminded them. “They’ll all die eventually if they’re stuck here.”
“I will stay behind and find others like Rose,” Lanny said. “I will help them escape one way or another. Start the generators and we can begin.”
“I’ll need a strobe light,” Max said. “That’s the only way I can trigger Rose’s brain.”
“I’ll find one,” Micah said. “This is… crazy as Hell.”
“The dead?” George repeated, dumbfounded. “That’s… new.”
“You’ve never seen them?” Grace asked.
George shook his head. Eric got the impression he was genuinely confused, which he thought was weird since his own father had come to some startling revelations all those months ago.
“My dad dissected them,” he said. “Plus most of the other types of creatures.”
“What did he find?” George asked.
Eric shook his head. “Grace could probably explain it better.”
George looked at Grace, who cleared her throat. “Well, from what he said I gathered that the people who initially died instantly didn’t really die. That just laid dormant, rotting like a corpse, but growing some kind of strange parasite in their brains that was inactive until something woke them.”
“Something?” George said.
“One of the more advanced creatures,” Grace explained. “The sentient ones that mutated from sociopaths.”
“The overlords,” Toby said.
“Ah,” George sighed. “And how were they… activated?”
“Some kind of enzyme in their tentacles,” Grace said. “That’s what Travis said, anyway.”
“Look,” Royce said, interrupting. “These mutha fuckas ain’t no joke and they comin’ this way. We need to get strapped and do somethin’ about it.”
“We could probably just put out the candles and torches, lock up and stay quiet as shit until they pass,” Cliff said.
“That sounds good,” Eric agreed. “How many do you think there were?”
Toby shook his head. “I don’t know. I just saw a line of dark bodies. No heat signatures, but they were moving. The only thing they could be are the dead ones.”
“They can smell us, though,” Toni said. “They’ll know we’re here.”
“Frankie’s body is still in a smoldering heap in the parking lot,” Jeff said. “Maybe his scent will throw them off.”
“Who’s Frankie?” George asked.
“My brother,” Jeff said. “AKA, the smoldering heap of burnt flesh in the parking lot.”
“That’s another thing,” Toni said. “He was infected almost instantly by another one of us who also mutated in less than an hour. The difference is the first guy cocooned himself. Frankie just threw out slimy octopus legs and big ass teeth and attacked us until we fried his ass.”
Jeff lowered his head a bit, but nodded. “She’s right,” he said. “Things are getting much worse than before. I think whatever it is might be mutating itself. Becoming more advanced or something.”
“Jesus Christ, we’re fucked,” Cliff said.
“Come on, then,” Royce said, slapping a mag in his AR. “Let’s get rid of these mother fuckers.”
“Wait,” Toby said. “Maybe we can at least try to let them pass. We’ll keep close watch on them and take out any that look like they’re on to us.”
“That’s a good idea,” Cliff said. “I’ll get my sniper rifle and attach the suppressor. That mother fucker is silent as hell. I’ll take the rooftop and somebody else can take the other sniper rifle and maybe get on the other side.”
“Good plan,” Toby said.
“I’ll take the other rifle then,” Eric said. “I’m a good shot.”
“Word.” Cliff said. “Grab that shit and we’ll find a way up before they get here.”
“What is it about this town?” Eric wondered out loud. “This is the third or fourth time this herd has passed through.”
“Good question,” Cliff replied.
The two of them climbed through a hatch that led to the steel rooftop. Eric looked down at the store’s logo painted in white on the roof, remarking how neatly the edges were painted. It was like a giant stencil had been placed over the steel and then sprayed on.
“This is good work.”
Cliff snickered. “Fuck that logo,” he said. “I’ll take the south west corner, you take the east. Only fire if necessary.”
Eric nodded and crept over to the corner closest to the McDonald’s. He could see that the sun was coming up on his side, and the herd was nearly visible by now. It was still shadowy, but bright enough to see movement. He only hoped that there were no mutants among the dead. They would be able to sense movement and smell.
That would not be good.
As he watched, the herd approached the McDonald’s, not even stopping to sniff or investigate. Evidently they knew crap when they smelled it. It likely smelled now different now than it did then. Eric chuckled a little.
The herd continued down the highway, staying away from the road that led into the shopping center. The IGA would be the first building they would encounter, but none of them seemed to care. There was, however, a small group of them toward the tail end that veered away from the rest and came stumbling across the grocery’s parking lot.
They were coming right for the hardware store.
“They’re coming,” Eric whispered loudly. He could see Cliff nod and look through his scope.
Eric gritted his teeth, taking aim at the nearest stumbler. He watched the creature and its three dozen or so companions as they came right f
or them. He couldn’t figure out why they were heading this way, or why the bulk of the herd stayed on course. Maybe this group had a better sense of smell than the others.
Then he realized they were attracted to the smell of Frankie’s burnt flesh. They were close enough to smell it, but the others weren’t. The wind must have shifted and this small group in the back had caught the scent.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
If this little herd found the remains, they would likely gather around it or even search the area for more. He hoped the others were watching so they could prepare.
“There’s a small group coming this way,” Toby said to the others.
He pulled out his semiauto pistol; a Ruger .22 with a suppressor. He watched through the tiny hole in the OSB they had placed over the front door. As he scanned the lot, he realized the group had been attracted to Frankie’s remains. He cursed to himself, thinking he should have at least dragged Frankie’s body out of the way.
“What’s up dog?” Royce asked behind him.
Toby moved away so Royce could look.
“Fuck,” Royce whispered. If they can smell that, they can smell us. We smell like a bunch of dirty twats in a gym bag.”
“I have this pistol,” Toby said. “I’ll take out any that get too close. They won’t hear shit.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” George asked behind them.
“With a good suppressor like this one,” Toby explained, “this isn’t any louder than a bottle cap falling on the floor.”
“I don’t have a gun,” George said.
Royce moved away, thinking for a moment. “There’s some rebar in the back corner of the main room. We could grab some of it and use it as little spears. Just a good pop right in the brain and these mutha fuckas go right down.”
George smiled. “You have a way with words, my friend.”
“Shit, they’re coming closer,” Eric said to himself.
Cliff began picking off the deadies in the rear, pausing between shots to make sure nothing was heard. Thankfully, the dead were mostly deaf at this point, so even the high-pitched pops went unnoticed. Eric took aim and picked off a few as well, but the bulk of the small horde was heading for the front of the store.
