Piper stood to her full height, breathing hard. The mask had fallen from her face and now hung from the duct tape still tangled in her hair. Her eyes had regained some of their color, and they were focused on him. She stared in confusion.
“Max?”
“I’m here, Piper.” He moved toward her.
“Stay back!” she said, holding up her injured hand. When she saw it, a gasp escaped her.
“I’ve found a cure,” said Max. He took the flask of whiskey out of his pocket.
Piper began to spasm, and her eyes glazed over once more. “Max…” she managed to utter. “Run!”
He turned around, following her eyes, and saw dozens of screamers coming down the hill.
“Hurry, Piper!” he said, rushing toward her with the flask “Hurry and drink th—”
Piper backhanded him, snapping his head back and sending him staggering into the side of the truck. She came after him, jaws snapping, all humanity now gone.
Max met the charge, slamming into her and driving her to the ground and rolling her over. He got the cuff back on, reluctant as he was to put them back on her skinless wrist. The screamers started down the hill less than twenty feet away as Max jerked Piper up and shoved her into the back of the truck. He jumped in the driver’s seat, but there was no Alan Jones in the truck. Likely he had wandered off to have zombie adventures. Right now, Max had bigger problems. The screamers slammed into the truck as he peeled out, swinging the tail around as he did a donut in the snow, batting aside the screamers and running over those who got in the way. The Bronco surged up the hill, gaining air, and slammed down with a heavy bounce and screeching tires. Max turned right, laying on the horn and cursing at the horde of zombies who were now charging down the highway. He couldn’t help but run them over. If he let them stop him it would be over; the truck would be overtaken, and Max would be the main course.
Max winced as the screamers thudded against the front bumper. It reminded him of a warm road after the rain and running over dozens of hapless frogs who were drawn to it. He broke through the crowd, leaving bloody tire tracks and dozens of bodies on the road, and headed straight for the radio station.
“Hold on, Piper, everything will be alright soon.”
Chapter 13
The Miracle on Ice
Max surged down the road toward the radio station. He glanced at the clock and was surprised to see that it was only 1:00 in the afternoon. So much had happened since this morning that the day felt like it had been a full week. He still felt like he was trapped in a dream. How could this have happened? And was it affecting the whole world? He tried to wrap his mind around alien worms from space that turned people into mindless screamers, but the more practical side of him argued that he was either dreaming, or someone had slipped something into his drink the night before. A small laugh escaped him when he imagined himself in a hospital bed, thrashing in his drug-induced sleep and murmuring about zombies.
Piper slammed against the dividing cage, jolting Max from his daydreams.
“How you doing back there, babe?”
“Beralgh!” she cried, slamming her head against the cage again.
“Hey!” he said, staring at her in the rearview. “Hey space worm, or whatever the hell you are that’s taken over my wife and my world. I’m going to get her back. We’re going to get the world back. I don’t know if you’ve ever met humans, but we’re a stubborn lot of bastards. We’re going to fight, and we’re going to win. Mark my fucking words on that one.”
Piper stopped thrashing. She stopped screaming.
She stared.
Max knew that whatever it was inside his wife understood him.
Good, he thought.
Piper, or the space worm, continued to stare at him. There was no fear on her face, only grim determination, one that said: just wait asshole, you’re all doomed.
“You in there, Pipes?” he said to the mirror. She glared at him. “You broke through once, you can do it again.”
Rather than “break through,” Piper began to wail like she had before. The sound reverberated in his head like a firehouse siren, dizzying him and forcing him to plug his ears. He drove with his knee like he was eating Wendy’s and yelled for her to shut up, though he couldn’t even hear his own voice. He knew that the sound would draw the screamers, which meant that he couldn’t lead them back to the radio station. He needed to get to a bar and find some liquor.
For now, Stefan and the other survivors were on their own.
Max buzzed past the road leading to the radio station and headed into town. What he found didn’t shock him, but it concerned him all the same. A congregation of hundreds of screamers waited, blocking Main Street and staring in his direction. They swayed gently as they stood, as if in a hypnotic trance, but as soon as Max hit the brakes and the sound of Piper’s terrible wail reached them, they sprang into action.
He put the truck in reverse, and that was when he saw the hundreds of screamers that had come out of hiding behind him, now clogging Main Street. Max couldn’t drive through so many of them, not when he knew they could be saved. They surged onto Main Street from the roads leading down from the hills that squeezed the town against Mirror Lake, and Max realized he had only one choice; he was going to have to take to the icy lake and escape across it to the other side. There were plenty of inns and bars on the other side of the lake, not to mention the million-dollar lodges and lakeside homes of the wealthier Lake Placid socialites, who were sure to have vast collections of wine and spirits.
The Bronco groaned as Max steered off the road, heading toward the lake down a side street. The truck had been through hell and seemed to be barely holding on. The engine sputtered at times, and the tires seemed badly aligned. He wouldn’t have been surprised if one of them fell off just about then. The roof had been crunched on his side, leaving him hunched forward and to the right as he sped across the snow-covered lawn, digging through a foot of snow to get to the lake. In the rearview, the zombies charged down the twin tracks left by the fleeing Bronco. They screamed and wailed, pulled at their hair, and thrashed and twitched.
Meanwhile, Piper did a similar dance of the evil possessed. She banged against the cage, slamming her head into it and screaming in Max’s ear before thrashing back against the seat. The Bronco hit the ice and slid, turning into the fishtail as Max expertly guiding the battered truck out across Mirror Lake. He shot across the ice, trying to put some distance between himself and the horde. Then he saw a flare shoot out of the woods and fly up over the lake. He looked to the shoreline as he sped toward one of the large houses, and to his surprise, a small army of hockey players surged out onto the ice. There must have been forty in all, most of them big, tall brawlers who had apparently gotten shit-faced the night before and had been spared like Max and Stefan. There were women among the group as well. They had holed up at the inn the night before, Max realized, and now he was leading hundreds of screamers across the ice.
They must have thought his charge across the ice to be an invasion, and they were well prepared. About a quarter of the hockey players carried guns, which they must have found in surrounding houses. The guns erupted, and bullets flew, hitting the Bronco and forcing Max to duck down. He honked the horn and flashed the lights, hoping they would know that it wasn’t a screamer operating the truck. The group sped by, leaving a cloud of powder in their wake. Max hit the e-brake and spun around. He did a full 360 and continued again 180 degrees until he stopped, facing the oncoming horde. The hockey players had reached the screamers. They plowed into the group, checking, high-sticking, slashing, and riddling them with bullets. Max saw blood spraying and guessed that the hockey players had attached blades to their sticks. He put the truck in gear and drove out wide, coming around the back of the group of screamers and cutting them off. The screamers changed direction, running after the truck as Piper wailed in the back seat.
The hockey players were making short work of the screamers. But the possessed men and women didn�
�t stay down. Unless their heads were blown off by a gun or cut off with a blade, they would keep getting back up. They proved uncoordinated on the ice as well, slipping and falling as they lurched at the zipping hockey players. Max caught sight of one big man in full goalie garb, speeding across the ice and slashing the screamers with a wicked-looking blade attached to the bottom of his stick. When he hit a screamer full force, the creature was taken clean off his feet and flipped back through the air to slam into two of his comrades. The hockey players were excellent skaters, but a few of them were taken off their blades and went down beneath the thrashing limbs of the screamer horde, which numbered at least two hundred.
Max sped toward one such congregation of screamers, and as he passed he opened his door, taking out a half-dozen of them. He pulled the e-brake again and spun around 180 degrees. The Bronco came to a stop, and Max hurriedly reloaded his shotgun and sidearm. The man who had gone down beneath the screamers suddenly rose up, eyes glazed and teeth snapping. Max put the truck in gear and peeled out, leaving a plume of snow in the rearview. He drove straight into the group—taking out nearly a dozen of the screamers—and kept going, thudding into bodies and painting the ice red.
It didn’t take long for Max to realize that he had to redirect the horde. The hockey players had survived this long on their own, and if he sought shelter with them, he would be sealing their fate. Piper was the one the screamers wanted anyway, and so Max steered the truck back toward the other side of the lake. The truck groaned when Max drove off the ice onto the lawn beside a small amphitheater, but he made it up to the highway. He checked the rearview, looking past the screaming Piper at the horde. They were still following him, which was good for the hockey players, but not so good for him. But he had a good lead on the screamers. He hooked a right and peeled out, fishtailing down the road toward one of the local nightclubs.
Max stopped the Bronco in front of a club called Rumors and glanced back at Piper. “You wanna go clubbin’?”
“Blehmahhh!” she screamed.
“That’s the spirit, babe. Come on, let’s find you some booze.”
Chapter 14
Mother Magnificent
Max grabbed Piper out of the back seat and urged her toward the stairs leading down to the nightclub. She kicked and thrashed and gave Max a hell of a fight, trying to bite him as he ushered her to the top of the stairs. When she went berserk and lunged for his neck, Max instinctively pushed her away and inadvertently sent her tumbling down the long flight of stairs. He rushed after her as she tumbled and hurried to her side when she rolled into the big metal door.
“Jesus, I’m sorry, Piper. You alright?”
“Froglawww,” she grumbled, looking like she had the worst hangover ever.
Max tried the door and, as suspected, he found it locked. He pounded on the door. “This is the sheriff! Andrew, you in there?”
A sound caught his ear, coming from the top of the stairs. He glanced back and looked up, seeing exactly what he expected—screamers filing down the stairs like it was opening night.
“Yo, Andrew!” Max screamed, pounding on the door.
The screamers were almost on him. He backed up and leveled the shotgun on the door, aiming for the lock. It was a metal door, and he doubted he would do anything more than fill himself with lead on the ricochet, but he had no choice.
A millisecond before he pulled the trigger, Andrew’s weary voice called out from the other side of the door. “Max?”
“It’s me,” he said. “Open the door!”
Max swung around as the door opened and unloaded five rounds into the horde as it descended upon him. Behind him, Andrew cried out.
“Get Piper inside!” Max yelled, slamming the butt of the gun into the face of a screamer.
Thankfully, Andrew didn’t argue further. He dragged Piper into the bar as Max backed toward the door. He was a dead shot, and squeezed out rounds that hit screamers between the eyes one after another. When there was breathing room, he turned for the door and slipped inside, but not before one of the screamers grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back out. He felt teeth slice into the bottom of his left hand. He yanked his hand back, infuriated and fueled by adrenaline and fear, and slammed the shotgun into the screamer’s face. Four arms reached out for him and pulled him away from the door. The screamers then surged forward, slamming Max against the door and closing it. Teeth went for his neck, broken fingernails clawed at his leather jacket.
Then, suddenly, the screamers stopped.
Max’s head swooned, and a feeling of pure euphoria washed over him. His vision blurred, becoming foggy as a white film washed over his eyes. In that moment, Max felt a kinship to the screamers. His mind linked to theirs, and in turn, to an entity of such magnificence that Max fell to his knees in awe. His body began to convulse as the space worms began to take him over. But he was now them, and they were now him. They whispered in his subconscious mind, telling him to just let go, to let go and join them. Another part of him resisted, and the worms screeched in his mind. He fought harder, pushing back against the overwhelming sensations and the invasion, and reclaiming his mind and body. It was then that the mother’s attention turned to him. He knew her only as Mother, and thoughts of her recalled damp, warm places deep beneath dark stone. He saw the silent vastness of space open before him, and the memory of an endless journey through the void. Mother read his mind, even as Max read hers, and in that moment of contact, all became known to him.
Machine gun fire erupted behind Max, and he cried out in pain as the screamers were mowed down before him. The worms infiltrating his body reeled and wriggled beneath his skin, and for a lucid moment he was back. The sudden jolt of pain to the collective released Max’s mind, and he found himself on his back just inside the door.
Max sprang to his feet, his mind on one thing, the only thing that could save him—liquor.
Andrew fought to keep Piper at bay and lock the door at the same time, yelling at Max as he passed. Max had no time to say hi, however. Already he could feel the worms taking over. He dove over the bar and grabbed the first bottle he could and tore off the spigot, tossing back his head and guzzling the booze down. Pain ripped through every fiber of his being, and he dropped to his knees and vomited on the floor as the worms recoiled. Max forced himself to drink more. His stomach felt like it had erupted in flames, and his head felt like it was being squeezed by a vice, but he kept at it, drinking until he felt the worms go silent. He threw up the last few gulps and suffered a terrible dry-heaving spell before falling dead tired on the floor.
“Give her booze,” Max moaned.
“Max! You alright? You been bit?” Andrew called. He had gotten control of Piper and was aiming the gun at Max.
“Give her booze. Get her drunk,” Max struggled to say. “It’s the antidote…”
Darkness washed over Max, and he surrendered fully. In the back of his mind, Mother called to him, but she was so far away.
Chapter 15
Put It on My Tab
Max floated through space within the protection of the stone egg. Mother had sent him to the new home, the blue home, and he and his brothers rejoiced as they waited, huddling in the egg by the thousands. They broke through the barrier, and flames engulfed the shell, cracking it in half and disintegrating it in seconds. Many of his brothers burned up with it, but not Max; he and the others spread themselves out wide, catching the air and floating gently toward the new home. Lights glowed in the whiteness below, and his excitement grew as he approached. Mother was urging him on, watching through his small eyes, feeling the air and the world and smelling the strange new smells through his tiny antennae.
There was a creature traveling through the whiteness below him, and his excitement mounted into glee as he fell toward it. The creature looked up, standing on two feet, and seemed to joyfully greet Max and his brothers into her nose. As soon as he was in, he dug with many arms into the warm red flesh, burrowing deep and seeking out nerve endings. He clamped
on to one, and his mind exploded with knowledge and new sensations. Mother joined his mind, and her love washed over him.
“Max…Max, you there, buddy?”
Max opened his eyes groggily. He couldn’t make out anything through the dizzying fog that seemed to storm beneath his lenses.
“Andrew?” Max groaned.
“I’m here, man.”
“Piper?”
“She’s out cold. Can you sit up?”
“I don’t know, give me a minute,” said Max.
Andrew handed him a glass of water and helped him to drink when Max showed interest. The water went down like the nectar of the gods, and he greedily drank until he was choking it up. Andrew patted his back to help him cough.
“You gonna make it?” he said.
Max nodded, pulling on Andrew’s offered arm to sit up. He put his back to the cabinets below the bar and rubbed his crusty eyes, realizing he was shit-faced drunk.
“What time is it?”
“You been out for about three hours,” said Andrew. “It’s around five o’clock. Sheriff, what the hell’s going on? I woke up about an hour before you arrived. Had a busy night last night, slept in. Are those actual zombies out there?”
“We call them screamers,” said Max. “But they’re really space worms.”
“Space worms?” said Andrew, frowning and glancing up suspiciously at the heavens.
“Yeah, I’ll explain more in a bit. Where’s Piper?”
“Back here. In my office. I didn’t know what you two might do or turn into, so I thought it best to separate you.”
“How much alcohol did you give her?” said Max.
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