by Stu Jones
Kane huffed, making his way down the slope. “What could the good news be?”
“I found our kill,” the boy said, pointing off to his left.
The buck was just visible through the trees, the blood loss having forced it to lie down due to exhaustion.
“All right. Come on. Let’s get you up,” Kane said, as he reached the bottom of the slope. He was in the process of pulling Jacob to his feet when the sound of a snarl caused him to freeze.
Several people, who looked dirty and haggard, entered the clearing on the far side. They moved with caution, focused on the wounded buck. Behind them, several more appeared through the brush, a few of them loping on all fours like gorillas. Kane heard another snarl, followed by a high-pitched whistle. The sound went from high to low, then high to low, followed by a third snarl.
Kane’s eyes were wide now as he and Jacob held their position. These weren’t people. They were Sicks who had organized themselves into a disciplined group, as though they somehow had come to master their new forms. Moving in an organized pack like this, these mutants seemed a far cry from the madness of the creatures that Kane and the others had encountered in the metro areas less than a year ago.
In a flash, the Sicks converged on the dying animal. The buck cried out in terror and thrashed about as they came at him. With slashing claws and razor-sharp teeth, the Sicks tore the beast apart with an unnatural strength, stuffing greedy handfuls of deer guts into their mouths.
“Oh my G—” Jacob started as Kane clamped his hand over the teen’s mouth.
“Quiet! Don’t say another word. Get up slow make your way up the hill and back to the Jeep. Move slow. If they spot us, we’re dead. Do you understand?”
The boy nodded in understanding.
“Now go. I’ll cover you,” Kane whispered through clenched teeth.
Kane grabbed the Marlin and took a few cautious steps backward up the hill. But the boy was already moving too fast, hopping on his good leg and clawing at the earth. The fear had taken hold, and there was no stopping it now as Jacob scrambled up the hillside. Kane motioned for the boy to slow down and be quiet, but the ear-piercing shriek told him it was already too late.
Kane spun as the Sicks came fast through the underbrush, loping toward him on all fours, hybrids of man and beast. Halfway up the hillside, Kane raised his rifle and fired from his advantageous elevated position. Another scream followed the smack of the brush-busting 30-30 round as it made contact with flesh and bone. The creatures were moving fast, much faster than he remembered.
“Run, Jacob! Get to the Jeep!” Kane screamed, the sound of his own voice lost in the heaving of each labored breath.
Working the rifle’s lever action, he took aim on another Sick and fired just as it reached the base of the hill. The round blasted through the front of the mutant’s skull, leaving a ragged, red hole the size of a man’s fist on the rear side as it exited the creature’s brains across the blackened floor of the forest.
There were too many of them. Kane would be overwhelmed if he tried to hold his ground. Turning, he trudged as quickly as he could up the hill before wheeling and firing several inaccurate shots from the hip. In an instant the rifle was empty, and he knew he’d be ripped limb from limb before he had a chance to reload. Reaching the top of the hill, he flipped the weapon over, gripping the hot barrel like a baseball bat as the creatures continued to dash up the hill straight toward him. He bent his knees and bared his teeth, preparing to go up to his eyeballs in them, as his mind began to drift.
Don’t wait for me, Jacob. One of us has to make it back.
The first Sick cleared the ridge just as Kane slammed the rifle against the monster’s head, caving in its skull. As a second reached the top, Kane swung from the left, but his strike was too slow coming from his weak side. He struck the Sick in the chest, causing the monster to howl and latch onto the weapon, tearing the rifle from Kane’s grip as it went down. Disarmed of his rifle, Kane drew a straight-blade knife from the sheath on his belt and held it at the ready. A Sick on his left and another on the right cleared the crest of the hill and came at him. The mutant on his left opened its sharp claws as it rushed forward. Kane parried the clawed hand away and swiped at the monster with the short blade. The blade sliced through its neck and lodged in its spine with a crunch, as the beast gurgled and fell to the ground, tearing the knife from Kane’s hand. Kane pivoted just as the one on his right slammed into him, sending them both flopping hard against the blackened earth. The creature raised itself up over him, digging with its claws into Kane’s flesh as he closed his hand around the mutant’s throat and tried to push it away. The Sick snarled a ferocious sound, its gray lips peeling back over sharpened teeth. Saliva foamed from its lips, as the overpowering stench of rotting flesh washed over Kane in waves.
After everything…this is how it happens.
Straining, the muscles of his back screaming, Kane pushed the monster away with everything he had, pinching his eyes shut as the vicious, feral mutant bore down upon him.
The dark wine cellar had a pungent, rotten odor, much more like death than wine. Shana detected murmurs in the darkness—a laugh, people sweating, the pungent odor of death. Her bare thighs rubbed against each other, and she realized she had been stripped naked. She shook her head and closed her eyes, trying to tell the difference between the darkness of the cellar and the blackness behind her eyelids. The darkness slid over her, causing a shudder to crawl across her skin.
Where am I?
“Where…” Shana whispered, beginning to speak her thoughts.
“Shhhhhh,” came the reply through the darkness. “Boss wants to talk to you. Until then you keep your pretty mouth shut.”
“But—”
Without warning, a slap struck the side of her head, sending a sea of stars across her eyes. She cried out in pain, whimpering in the dark.
“Shhhhhh,” slurred the voice again. “I told your stupid ass to be quiet.”
Minutes passed—or hours, she couldn’t be sure. She clenched her jaw to try to ease the ache. She heard more laughter in the darkness, unseen devils planning their next bit of amusement. After a while, she heard shuffling, followed by a snap and the small fluorescent winking of a battery-powered torch. As the light brightened, Shana began to make out forms, shadows in the musty void around her. The blood-and-brain-soaked floor of the cellar looked brownish red and was covered with a gooey film that stuck to the bottom of her bare feet. Broken skulls and bits of meat littered the floor around her chair.
Shana let out a gasp. “Dear God…”
A massive frame stepped forward. Others instinctively moved away to give him plenty of room, as though they were afraid of what he might do. She could just make out the tattoo of a large, coiled viper in the center of the huge pectoral muscles that hung heavy like cinderblocks in front of her.
“No, God isn’t here,” spoke the man, his voice like gravel scraping over vocal cords. “And if you even whisper his name again in my presence, I’ll tear a hole in your chest and drink what’s left of your fragile spirit.”
Shana sputtered in terror.
“Got your attention? That’s good. You are a prisoner of the Coyotes. How long you remain that way is up to you. I’m going to ask you a series of questions, and you’re going to tell me the truth. Any deviation will result in pain and humiliation like you’ve never imagined. Nod if you understand.”
Shana took a moment, breathing in the foul stench of the cellar as she attempted to collect her thoughts. It was coming back to her now—the bandit ambush, Cal without his head, and Mico too. She had not been able to flee.
She shifted in the small, metal chair to which she’d been bound, and her insides revolted. A searing pain worked its way up from her groin and burned into her guts. She had been brutally beaten and raped and was now their prisoner. She took another deep breath then nodded.
“Tell me about where you came from—the radio station.”
“Just please don’t hurt me anymo
re. I can’t stand the pain.”
Malak’s lips stretched tight over his teeth, forming a hateful smile as he nodded to the ugly mush-faced man next to Shana. She gasped out loud as Shank giggled and gently traced the outline of her ear and the contour of her jaw with the tip of a knife.
“Then you should answer the question,” Malak whispered.
Shana swallowed and wet her lips. “Okay, please. Please. There’s about eighty of us,” she started, trying to compose herself. “We mind our own business, scavenge what we can, and broadcast to other survivors.”
“Who’s in charge?”
“A guy named Kane. He’s a former cop. He and his friend, Courtland, they kind of run the show together.”
“This Courtland is a very large black man?”
Shana nodded.
“Security?”
Shana nodded again. “They have it pretty buttoned up, and they’re willing to fight.”
Malak smiled. “Oh, I do hope so. How many weapons and resources have they stockpiled?”
“A lot. Just enough water to get by, but a good bit of everything else. Working vehicles, canned goods, fuel, weapons, ammo. It’s all easily accessible.”
“Good,” Malak said, his voice like stale air escaping from a grave. “Now how are you going to help me get in?”
“I…I can’t,” said Shana, lowering her head. “I mean, you won’t get in. They’re armed to the teeth. You’ll lose a lot of men.”
Malak leaned closer, the sinister features of his ruined face becoming more visible in the dim light. She choked back a sob as the tip of the blade slightly entered the skin of her neck, just below her ear.
“Men and women…Didn’t you hear? You’re with us now, so I think you’d better find a way to make it happen. Well, it’s either that, or I’ll let Shank here deglove the skin off your face, and we’ll all take bets as to how long you can survive without it.”
The crowd snickered.
Shana swallowed hard, but she didn’t hesitate. “I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever. Just don’t do that. Please.”
“Then accept my blood and worship me as your god,” Malak said, as he cut his hand, the wound beginning to heal before he’d finished cutting. He made a fist and squeezed some of his blood across Shana’s face. It splattered there, and though she found herself disgusted for a moment as she licked the liquid from her lips, she somehow knew this was her only way out. Nothing else remains, she thought, as her eyes began to glaze over with fear and despair.
“I’ll worship you, my lord.”
Shuck, shuck, shuck, shuck. The sounds came in rapid succession, mixing with the pitter-patter of fluid slapping onto his face and chest.
“Aaargh,” Kane managed as he snapped his eyes open. “What the…?”
The ghoul lay over him, motionless, more like a limp, leather sack of blood and bones than a vicious monster. Its black blood had splashed onto Kane’s face and chest. He looked up and saw a roughhewn arrow piercing the creature through its eye and protruding from the back of its skull.
“Get off me!” Kane groaned as he shoved the monster to the side, looking for the one who had delivered him. Three other Sicks lay around him, all dead with arrows protruding from their skulls.
The rest of the mutants crested the hill with a strange, premeditated precision. They seemed to be surrounding and protecting a central figure. Each creature stopped at the hilltop, some swaying, others crouching in anticipation. Kane struggled to see the figure in the center. He scrambled backward, wiping the blood from his face. The creature appeared half-clothed in a primal, savage sort of way. Its eyes were wild, orange slits set into the mottled, gray flesh of its face between pointed ears that jutted away from its domed skull at forty-five degree angles. A strange, carved object of bone—like a flute or a whistle—hung around its neck. Kane saw its sharpened teeth as it let out a vicious growl. The creature pointed right at Kane and its minions turned their whole focus on him.
Shuck, shuck, came the sound of two more arrows released in succession as the creature blew a quick tune on the flute. Two ghouls stepped in front of the Sick, each shielding their leader and intercepting an arrow through the skull.
Just as Kane gathered himself and made it to his feet, he heard a wild battle cry. Tynuk, his lean figure clad only in animal skins, dropped from a tree branch above. With his bow slung over his shoulder, the boy slammed his war club into the skull of the Sick below him, launching a spray of black blood into the air.
The group cleaved in two and turned on the boy in a whirl of screaming rage. Kane searched for a weapon but found himself transfixed by the boy as he watched him work. Tynuk moved with incredible precision, ducking and leaping like a cat as he delivered blow after crushing blow to the ghouls with his club. With broken femur here, a shattered jaw there, Tynuk flowed like water among them, moving so fast they could scarcely track him.
The head ghoul flashed a wicked grin of bloodlust as it charged the boy, fast and primal, like a shark on the hunt. It was faster than Tynuk, faster than any creature Kane had ever seen. It caught the boy off guard, tearing a jagged gash through the flesh of his shoulder. Tynuk barely spun away from the worst of the creature’s clawed swipe. It slammed into him again, knocking the boy back and into a nearby hillside, where it cornered him.
“Tynuk!” Kane called out, as he snatched his rifle from the ground.
“Go!” the boy yelled. “Get to safety!”
“But—”
“Just go!” the boy shouted.
Using his fingers, Tynuk blew a sharp, high-pitched whistle and braced himself against the hillside. The monstrous, black form of Azolja leaped from the top of the hill and cut through the group with one swipe of his a razor-like paw. Azolja snapped his massive jaws shut just as the mutant leader dove down the hill to avoid the beast.
The battle in full effect, Kane was up and moving, stumbling, dragging himself through the underbrush as fast as his legs would carry him. The skeletal branches tore at Kane’s clothes and face as he blindly fled from the horror behind him. Bursting free into the open, he broke into a full run. Jacob and the Jeep were nowhere in sight.
“Jacob!” Kane yelled as he ran. “Jacob!” The Sicks were closing on him from across the field.
Gears grinding, wheels spinning, the Jeep Wrangler, with Jacob in the driver’s seat, launched into view, crossing the field toward Kane, fishtailing as it went. Kane was losing ground. The mutants were almost upon him when the Jeep collided with the two closest behind him, carrying their gray, rubbery flesh across the front of the vehicle as it slid to a stop. Kane vaulted into the passenger seat and pulled a Beretta 92FS handgun from in-between the seats.
“Go, go, go!” Kane yelled, as the tires of the Jeep spun and several Sicks slammed into the vehicle’s sidewall and tailgate, clinging with wild screams. Kane fired as fast as he could acquire each target. Each muzzle flash briefly illuminating the scowls of hatred on the mutant’s faces as they struggled to pull themselves up and into the vehicle in the growing darkness. Kane dropped the magazine and began to reload as the last visible creature crawled through the back hatch of the Jeep.
“It’s behind me! Shoot it! Shoot it!” Jacob yelled in hysterics.
“Shut up and focus on getting us out of here!” Kane responded, as he dropped the slide and took aim on the Sick, which looked like an angry goblin as it scrambled toward the front seats. Firing as fast as he could pull the trigger, Kane shouted in victory as the monster’s head came apart, its limp frame tumbling backward, sliding lifelessly into the road behind the speeding vehicle.
The bitter wind bit at their faces, and Kane breathed a sigh of relief as he settled back into the passenger seat, dropping the gun across his lap.
“That was close,” Kane murmured.
“We did it!” Jacob yelled. “Hell, yeah! That was awesome! We kicked their asses!”
“Just keep driving and don’t let up,” Kane grumbled, his brow furrowed as he pulled the emergency wal
kie-talkie from the dashboard and watched the road ahead. “This isn’t a damn game, kid.”
Courtland lumbered across the open courtyard as the setting sun dipped below the horizon casting the world around him in a murky twilight. The unyielding cloud cover had a way of distorting the time of day, making days appear dim and nights black like pitch. With no moon or stars to travel or work by, and to save resources such as fuel, just about everything at the station came to a screeching halt once night fell. Only a few solar-powered lanterns and torches remained on in the medical bay and with the station lookouts.
Courtland was on his way back from checking the water levels of the purification cisterns. The black-water levels were low, but they were always low. That wasn’t the real reason he was wandering about. Courtland knew he should head inside and grab some sleep, but he was worried about the scavenging party, not to mention Kane and the boy, Jacob. There was no reason they should be gone for so long unless something had happened. Courtland couldn’t shake the notion that they could have been attacked and injured, or stranded in the dark somewhere. He didn’t like it. A true giant, with the superhuman strength of heaven coursing through his body, Courtland Thompson feared little, but at this moment, he feared the loss of a close friend, and that fear gnawed at his guts from a place deep within.
The radio on his waistband blipped and began to fuzz and crackle.
“Cour…shhhhhh…not much…we…shhhhhh…”
Courtland fumbled with the radio, which disappeared in his massive palm, and pulled it from his belt.
“Hello? Kane? Can you copy?”
“Shhhhhh…Court…secur…shhhhhhhh…”
Courtland struggled to adjust the volume, his thick fingers bumbling around the small knobs for a moment before he keyed the radio again.
“Kane, are you OK? You’re not coming through. Repeat your last transmission.”
With a squawk, Kane broke through with crystal clarity. “Courtland, can you hear me?”
“Yes! Yes, Kane. I’ve got you. Go ahead.”
“We’ve had a situation,” came Kane’s breathless voice.
