“Ell!” I choked, but she had problems of her own. Fatima, the mother of the little blonde girl I mentioned earlier, had emerged from the shadows with a wood axe. Her face was not only marked, it was almost entirely frostbite-black.
I watched through dimming vision as the axe hurtled downward, but Ell blocked the blow with her rifle. Scrambling and off-balance, she slammed the gun against the side of Fatima’s head, and Fatima collapsed.
By that time it was too late.
Berretti pounced on her and shoved a revolver against her temple. He no longer seemed sick and weak. His energy had been renewed.
“That’s enough, Eleanor,” he snarled.
Lee and Larry tied us up. We were placed only a few feet from the ground’s opening, at the apex of the triangle.
Berretti knelt down in front of me. He was sick—you could see it in his eyes, the way they sunk into his face—but for a dying man, he was quite agile and lively.
“I knew I should’ve had you killed when I had the chance, Grady,” he said. “You’ve been nothing but a problem for me ever since you crawled through the snow and begged for our help.” He laughed, but the laughter morphed into a coughing fit, which he quickly got under control.
Credence sidled up to him and rubbed his back. “Soon, my love, soon,” she said.
He waved his hand and focused on me again. “You know, that beating Larry and Ray gave you got me in hot water with Nick and George. They started wondering why they needed me around. Then when you started getting buddy-buddy with Nick, all of sudden he became a little more cautious about my work. Coincidence? I don’t think so. And tonight, you try to break up this beautiful event? No, no, no. No more. That’s it. The City’s mine, and pretty soon, both it and I will be one with the shadows.”
Credence laughed. “Oh, yes.”
The floor trembled. Dust and debris fell from above, clattering in the distance. The temperature of the hub had somehow decreased drastically in a matter of seconds.
“She’s coming!” Credence yelled. “She’s almost here! I can feel her! Can you feel her, John?”
Berretti didn’t answer. He was looking up, oblivious to everything else. I wanted to see what he was focusing on. The light inside stayed ethereal, like a graveyard at dusk, but I could still see the wraiths hovering above, an entire wall of them. They were waiting, biding their time, the same way they had when Ed Hark murdered Jonas, their hunger and malice radiating throughout the icy air.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered to Ell. I don’t know how many times I had told her that in the past. Too many times. Each time I had, some part of me thoroughly believed it was going to be okay. Right then, however, not one fiber of my being believed we’d get out of this alive. It wasn’t a matter of life and death anymore; it was now a matter of when we’d die.
But Ell, who’d been quiet and mostly calm up to this point, leaned back and smiled. “I know it is.” She then slid her hand across the floor and grabbed mine.
“What? How the hell—?” I began. She was tied like I’d been tied. Now she wasn’t.
“Here.” A small piece of glass filled my palm. “Easy.”
In awe, I slipped it up my sleeve just as Lee strode past. He was blank-faced and moving like a zombie from some cheap horror movie. The black marks on his face had seemed to turn darker. It could’ve been the dying light, but I doubted it.
Once he turned his back, I got to work sawing the rope. It wasn’t easy. Hell, the sharpness seemed to cut through my gloves more than it did the twine, but after a few moments of trying, I felt the binds loosen enough for me to be able to pull my wrists apart.
Only, it was still too dangerous to make a run for it.
Turning my head, I caught Nina’s eyes. Her execution had since been forgotten, thankfully—but for how long, who knew. I tried to convey to her that it’d be okay; I don’t know if I was doing a good job.
Credence stood to our side at the triangle's point. Berretti knelt beside her, his head bowed and eyes closed.
Staring at her open notebook, Credence spoke nonsensical words. As her voice rose, so did the strength of the tremors. This caused a few of the stacked corpses to slip into the fissure, and that eerie ethereal light pulsed from inside of it.
And deep, deep down, I caught the grotesque silhouette of some emerging beast.
“Here she is!” Credence repeated. “The Matron is coming!”
The screams of the few remaining survivors weren’t enough to drown out her voice.
Berretti, Lee, and Larry stayed silent. In shock and awe, most likely.
“Turn away,” I said to Ell. “Don’t look.”
But that was impossible.
With a thundering boom, a black hand as large as a car reached from the opening and gripped the side.
The floor dipped inward, and more corpses fell through.
Now the droning graduated to a horrible buzz, causing something wet to begin trickling out of my ears.
Blood.
“Run!” I shouted at Ell, pulling her to her feet. “Run—”
A second explosion sounded behind, joining the horrible cacophony.
I snapped my head in that direction and saw the tank, its high beams on, trundling through the hole in the wall and over debris before it stopped a few feet away.
The doors flew open, and Stone and George fell out with rifles in hand. They fired at Credence and Berretti, Lee and Larry, who all scrambled for cover.
They weren’t fast enough, however.
Berretti took a barrage of bullets and crumbled to the floor. Lee and Larry were cut down by Stone’s shots. Credence, her back to them, was hit in the shoulder/neck area. She promptly fell forward, landing face-first among the blood she was so eager to spill, dead before she hit the floor.
“Let’s go!” Stone shouted, lowering his gun. “Come on! Double time!” He dropped to his knees, moving as smoothly as I could remember since his accident, and began undoing the bonds of the tied survivors. Their numbers had dwindled since my arrival arrived, but the remaining few now had a chance.
The buzzing from above changed to screeches of pain and anger. I looked up and saw the wraiths transform into terrible beasts. Here was the spider, the werewolf, the Thumbprint People, the scorpion, and a clown, a whale, a corpse—you name it.
And it was then I knew that we couldn’t just run.
This wasn’t another skirmish. It was the final battle, the one that could potentially put an end to the war once and for all. We had to go for the knockout or risk dying in the future.
I was sick of these bastards, and the cold, I was sick of fearing for my life at every waking moment. I was sick of it all.
Everyone couldn’t pile into the snow-tank, so Stone and George had taken to guiding the survivors out of the hub. Where? I don’t know. Just as far away from all of this as possible.
Ell was pulling me toward the others fleeing the scene. I stopped and yanked my arm from her grasp.
“Grady! What are you doing?”
“Ell, I love you.” I leaned in and kissed her on the lips. She grabbed my hand. I thought that it might be our last, that this might be the final time I ever looked at her.
“What? Grady, are you crazy?!”
I didn’t answer her, but let go of her hand and made my way to the tank.
With a growing numbness coming over my body, I patted my jacket’s pocket. The flares from Nick’s panic room were still there. I pulled them out and gripped them tightly as the freezing wind blew me toward the broken ground.
Snow was falling again. Large gray-white flakes came down in droves, obscuring the black parts of the Matron still poised on the edge.
Moving toward it, another hand clamped the fracture’s opposite side. From each finger jutted a sharp nail as tall as a man.
“Grady!” Stone yelled. “What the fuck are you doing?”
I barely heard him over all the noise. That, and I was too set on what I meant to do next.
&n
bsp; The drums of fuel were still inside the snow-tank. I climbed in the back, popped the caps off their spouts. A gushing waterfall of sharp-smelling gasoline soaked the cargo hold. I became lightheaded for a moment, but shook it off before I could pass out.
I turned in time to see the Matron’s crowning head. I covered my eyes, because I knew if I looked at this thing, if I stared into its horrible face, I would lose my mind.
“Graaaddddyyyyyyy,” the voices of the wraiths called, a mixture of my lost loved ones and something sinister. “Graaaddddy—”
I ignored this and lit my flares.
Then I threw them into the tank’s storage hold. The flames that erupted in the back were as bright as July 4th fireworks.
Reaching in and grabbing the key hanging from the tank’s ignition, excruciating heat licking at the back of my neck, I twisted it and the engine roared to life. Amongst the debris was some shattered brick. I grabbed a piece and planted it firmly on the tank’s gas pedal.
A huge shadow fell over the entirety of the hub—no, the City. The screeches reached their peak. I thought my head was going to explode.
The tank lurched toward the fissure.
Eyes half-open, I turned and ran.
I ran for my life.
The result was like the explosion of a nuclear bomb.
And then it wasn’t.
The flaming tank had passed through whatever membrane lay between our world and the monsters’.
I was propelled forward, blinded by the brightness, and I had passed out before I hit the ground.
Later—I don’t know how long, though—when I came to, Eleanor was standing over me and crying, with soot stains on her cheeks. We were just outside of the hub. In the snow.
It didn’t feel as cold anymore.
“What—what happened?” I croaked.
“I-I don’t know,” she said. “But the storm stopped, and the—the wraiths are gone.”
She kissed me.
As she pulled me to my feet, movement came from behind. We spun around and saw Credence emerge from the debris. She had her back to us.
Impossible, I remember thinking. She’s dead. I saw her die.
I guess I wasn’t too far off, actually.
Neither Ell nor myself had a weapon, but Credence did. In her hand was a small pistol. Slowly, she turned. Her brow was bloody. She was smiling, but most of her teeth had fallen out.
And then she opened her eyes. They were the color of TV static.
She began to laugh.
This is it. This is the end of the road. Killed by a crazy person, I thought.
Credence, still cackling, raised her weapon.
I grabbed Ell, rotated, and shielded her as best I could just as the pistol cracked.
There was no more laughing.
I waited for the inevitable pain of the bullet wound to come. It didn’t.
I looked at where Credence had once stood.
She was dead, lying amongst the rubble. She had blown out her own brains.
In the later days, after I had time to ruminate on all this, the conclusion I came to was simple: Credence had looked whatever came out of the fissure in the eyes. It had scrambled her already infected mind and, no longer able to take it, she decided to put an end to the misery the insanity brought her.
And I didn’t blame her. Not one bit.
Without fuel and without a vehicle, we decided to stay in the City. At least there was shelter and some sense of familiarity, despite all that had happened.
For two days, I had no idea what had become of Mia, Monica, Chewy, Nick Rider, and the others. Had they made it out safely? Were they still okay?
The snow had stopped, but it was still bitter cold; the wind blew hard, although not as violently as before. Leaving in these conditions without a vehicle would prove fatal. So all we could do was wait. And pray.
Yes, I prayed that the others were okay. As you know, I am not a religious man, but it seemed my prayers were answered. The rumbling roar of the other tank roused me from a semi-doze.
It was Nick.
When he saw us, the few who’d survived, he burst into tears and he thanked us. He had driven the others to Julius’ bunker. They’d been happily taken in, and everyone was all right. We left in groups, and then someone would drive back and shuttle the others. Here we stayed for at least a month, maybe two.
I remember seeing Mia when we got there, how she burst into tears. I remember how Monica smiled and giggled when I picked her up and made goofy faces at her. I remember Chewy barking and jumping into my lap as if he was a puppy again. I remember Nina and Sharon sobbing as they hugged. I remember George’s eulogy for the fallen. I remember the little girl, Paige, reading a poem she’d written about happiness. I remember Julius sharing his whiskey with whoever wanted some.
I remember it all.
The City was lost, true—but most importantly, we were together again.
All that happened about six months ago, I believe. The snow’s been melting steadily ever since—slowly but surely—but there’s still a lot on the ground.
The sun rises and it sets. There are very few dark clouds in the sky.
This morning in particular was one of the warmest yet. It was the first time the thermometer passed forty degrees Fahrenheit. T-shirt and shorts weather compared to the frozen hell we'd lived through.
I actually saw the red line hovering somewhere between forty and forty-five when I took Chewy out for his morning walk. This was around eight a.m., which always seems to be the time he climbs onto our bed with his leash dangling from his mouth.
I’m not scared to go out with him. I haven’t seen a wraith since the ritual. I hope I never see one again.
We are set up somewhere northeast of where the City once stood, in an abandoned housing complex called Shady Pines. Those who were in the bunker eventually fanned out, taking this new warmth as a sign to try and piece together their old lives. Naturally, the supplies dried up, and we had to move on from there too.
Ell and I have our own place. Mia and Monica and Stone do as well, but they’re always staying with us. We are still too afraid to be alone. Monica is a not-so-little-anymore ball of joy. She talks a lot—babbling with a few words thrown in for good measure, mostly.
I don’t know what the wraiths are or where they came from. All I know is they were as unnatural as the summer snow. But I do have my theories. Some of them are insane; some of them are just mildly crazy.
I think the monsters sensed a weakness amongst our species. Think about it. Before they arrived and destroyed so much, had humanity as a whole ever been more divided? A virus was raging all over the world, people were rioting in the streets, racism was still very much alive, most of the United States population was living paycheck to paycheck or just flat-out broke, global warming loomed over our heads like a shadow of death, governments all over were lying to their people, and it seemed we were always involved in some military conflict or on the brink of war.
The wraiths consumed our fear and despair; they relished in it. And if ever there was a time so full of fear and despair, it was the year 2020. The monsters saw a chance and they took it, but they didn’t realize how resilient we are. They didn’t expect a fight.
Never count us out. Never.
Where did they go, though? I don’t know the answer to that either. I hope they’re extinct. Eradicated, the way they tried to eradicate us. Who knows? Maybe they’re just regrouping. Maybe they’ll be back.
But if they do return, we’ll be ready for them.
Because this is our world. And they can’t take it from us.
Another month later and things are better still. We get closer to normalcy with each passing day. I know that’s not saying much now, because our sense of what’s normal is permanently skewed, but it’s better than the way things were.
Chewy wanted out a little earlier than usual today. I heard the tags on his collar jingling as he ambled up the footstool on my side of the bed. The digital clock on t
he nightstand read 5:22 a.m.
I hadn’t slept because I was trying to think of how to end this account. See, I want to give you one of those “…and then we lived happily ever after” lines, but I can’t.
Not yet, at least.
I can, however, get pretty close.
That early morning, as Chewy sniffed around the piles of melting snow and the first hints of sun shone down on us, a beautiful sound reached my ears. A sound I hadn’t heard since before the blizzards began.
It was the birds.
And they were singing.
Afterword
As the great Porky Pig once said: “Th-th-th-that's all folks!”
Thank you for sticking around. I thought the journey would go on longer than five books, but stopping here just felt…right.
Grady and the gang have found a bit of peace and a bit of happiness—for now, at least—and that’s all we really want in the end, isn’t it?
Flint Maxwell
10/12/20
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About the Author
Flint Maxwell lives in Ohio with his beautiful wife, daughter, and their four furry best friends.
Whiteout (Book 5): The Feeding Page 13
