For years he’d shoveled shit and tried to get cows to go where they didn’t want to go for Will. He saved his money for the day when he’d buy a spread of his own and go about shoveling shit and making cows go where they didn’t want to go for himself. Compared to that, he found it exhilarating to not have any idea what the day would bring when he woke up each morning. And he excelled at putting down creepers. Will, Jiri, and he had turned killing the dead into an art form. You couldn’t excel at shoveling shit. You just shoveled it.
He didn’t have a family to speak of. He had a Mom somewhere, or at least he did until the outbreak. She’d left him, his alcoholic Dad, and their pathetic little dirt farm when he was eight. His Dad wasn’t abusive, but he had quit on life, and on being a Dad, when his wife left. He crawled into a bottle every day around noon, leaving the work still to do on the farm or in the house undone. That’s how Danny learned to work hard and take care of himself. By the time he was twelve he’d work the cattle after school and haul them to the sale barn in town when he needed money. He’d stop by the grocery store with the calf money in his pocket and cook himself supper once he got home. It wasn’t long before he caught the eye of the barn’s owner, Kyle Abbott. Mr. Abbott assigned him odd jobs around the place, and Danny made sure his performance was first rate. Soon he worked side-by-side with the adult staff, unloading cattle, corralling them, and keeping their hay and water fresh. One hot July morning, the ring man turned his back on a steer at the wrong time and took a horn to the thigh for his trouble. Danny filled in for him and did such a good job that Mr. Abbott offered him the job on a permanent basis.
On his eighteenth birthday, he stuffed his few possessions in a grocery bag and left the farm. He lived in his truck for a time, then in a little shack behind the sale barn. He’d worked his way up to Mr. Abbott’s right-hand man, and on auction day he’d put on his cleanest jeans, his nicest shirt, a crisp and spotless Stetson hat, and work the ring. They called him the best ring man in eight counties, and it was a rare week when he didn’t get a job offer from one of the ranchers that bought and sold cows there. When Will invited him to lunch one day he figured it was a subterfuge to make an offer of his own. But the cattleman didn’t mention a job at all. He asked a blizzard of questions about his childhood and his opinions on different subjects, some ranch-related, some not.
They ate together once a week for six months before Will made the offer. And what an offer; a hundred more dollars a week more than anyone had ever offered him PLUS a house rent-free PLUS points on the farm profits. After he said yes he went to his truck and cried for the first time since his Mom had left.
He came to worship Will and act as a big brother to Coy. And Becky mothered him like his own Mom never had. As far as he was concerned he was with his family. To Danny, new and interesting adventures filled this world every day, people appreciated his abilities and respected him as one of Will’s lieutenants, and he was with people he loved, and who loved him back. Things would be just about perfect- if only he could get laid.
It would be a simple thing to seduce Tess or the older Hendricks girl. He was good-looking, well built, funny and could charm a worm onto a hook. He’d developed a near-foolproof line of patter over the years and turning on the full measure of his charm to either of those girls would be akin to taking a sandblaster to a soda cracker. But Will and Becky declared them off-limits. He was so horny that he’d begun pondering what it would feel like to bore a hole in a watermelon when the little blond, Tasha, let her gaze linger too long as he walked by earlier in the week.
She was pudgy, with stringy hair and a weird underbite that brought to mind an English bulldog. In a bar in the old days he wouldn’t have spared her a second glance. But these weren’t the old days, the pit wasn’t a bar, and beggars can’t be choosers. So while she was in mid-sentence he leaned over and kissed her on the neck. Minutes later she was breathing hard and moaning, and gyrating her crotch against his.
Someone screamed, clear and loud, further back in the tunnel. They both froze and laid there, motionless, looking at one another. Danny strained but didn’t hear anything else. After about twenty seconds she took him by the shoulders and spun him face-up underneath her. Without breaking eye-contact and with an impish grin, she unzipped his fly and reached inside. “Oh, my,” she whispered.
Three more screams sounded in rapid-fire succession, followed by the faint shouting of two far-off men. Danny pushed her gently to the side and stood up. He winced as he stuffed his dick back into his jeans. He returned his combat knife to its sheath and hung his machete from a loop on his belt. People shouted and ran by outside while he buckled his holster. He checked the clips in his twin Berettas and handed one to Tasha. “Do you know how to work this?”
She looked up at him, her eyes huge and her lips quivering, and nodded.
“Stay here until I come back. Don’t leave this room unless you see me. Shove the dresser in front of the door. Shoot anyone that tries to get in that you don’t know. Two shots to the head. Can you do that?”
She nodded again. He cupped her cheek with his hand and kissed the top of her head. A sheet of tin nailed to a pallet acted as the little apartment’s door. He pulled it aside with caution and peered out into the tunnel. There was a cacophony of noise, with people near and far calling out for friends or help. Several people ran by in groups of two and threes; two of them were bloody. For a short time nothing else happened, then a trio of creepers lurched out of the darkness.
Danny took a deep breath, steeled himself, and stepped out into the tunnel.
Creepers on the Inside
* * *
He stood in the center of the cavernous tunnel with his back against one of the enormous limestone pillars. His breath came in ragged gasps and he let the pillar support most of his weight. A machete dangled from his right hand, dripping crimson and black fluids into a small puddle on the concrete near his feet. His arms were slick with gore and his clothes tacky with blood. Creepers littered the floor around him, at least thirty of them.
Twice he’d avoided bites by a narrow margin. The first near-miss came at the hands of what had been a woman in her seventies or eighties. It wore a filthy pink bathrobe, and a hairnet askew atop its head covered most of its hair. Deep claw marks furrowed both sides of its face. As it grasped for him it made a high, keening moan that ended in mid-note when he brought the machete around in a long arc that sliced through its neck. The creeper’s head popped up in the air and somersaulted to the ground against his foot, and its teeth promptly clamped onto the toe of his boot. The pressure was immense, like a cinch of steel wire around his foot. He wailed a pitiful cry of the damned and kicked his leg with all his might, trying to fling the head away but it held tight. He struck the head with his other foot, kicking it as hard as he could. It took three more blows before he freed himself. It ended up laying sideways with an ear pressed against the concrete as if listening for noise coming from beneath the tunnel. He inspected his foot, gibbering with fear. The ultimate nightmare wasn’t dying; it wasn’t even turning. It was turning and then mindlessly harming those he cared about. Not long after the outbreak, he decided he’d never walk the earth as a creeper- he’d eat his gun first.
Relief washed over him when he saw that its bite hadn’t penetrated his boot. He walked over to the disembodied head; its teeth still snapped and its eyes spun in their sockets. He stomped on it again and again until it was a blob of jelly with a spatter of teeth mixed in, and only stopped because two more of the dead emerged and stumbled toward him.
The second one to almost bite him had been a young child when it turned. Another pair of creepers came snarling and shuffling toward him (for whatever reason the dead appeared alone or in small groups of two or three. Danny didn’t know why, but he was grateful. If all thirty or so had mobbed him at once they would have torn him to pieces). The little creeper came in behind them, obscured by his bigger partners. Unaware of it, he let the momentum of his strikes on the pair in fron
t to carry him right into the arms of the smaller one in the rear. Fighting off the panic that surged through him, he pulled back and braced its forehead back with his hand as its teeth gnashed and its hands clutched at his waist. He kept steady pressure on its head and pushed it away, then arced his Bowie knife down through the top of its skull.
Panting, he worked to catch his breath. He checked the clip on his Beretta again, even though he had checked it during the last lull in the parade of the dead. He ran a bloody hand through his hair, wondering if the dead rampaged throughout the quarry. He yearned to leave the spot where he’d been fighting and check on the plight of his friends. But two things had kept him alive and bite-free to this point; the creepers weren’t together in a herd, and he had the pillar to protect his back and prevent the dead from surrounding him.
A pair of slow, heavy feet shuffled through the gloom in his direction. His shoulders slumped, and he let out a long breath. He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked to see what he faced now.
The biggest creeper he’d ever seen lumbered into the lantern light, mewling, its cloudy eyes rolling. It had to weigh at least five hundred pounds, a gray and rotting mass of lard that shambled out of the darkness with its chest cavity torn open and its ribs exposed behind half-a-foot of gelatinous fat tissue. Danny had seen horrible things on the ranch; calves eviscerated by marauding coyotes, a horse dragging her intestines behind her after being disemboweled by a bull’s horn, and a coon dog that bled the ground red after feral hogs got after it. But nothing had ever turned his stomach like the gray and glistening fat that bounced and jiggled inside the creeper’s gaping wound. Bitter bile rose in his throat and he gagged as the creeper reached him. Danny kicked it in the knee to take it off his feet, but the kick wasn’t strong enough; the ghoul wavered for a split-second then barged into him. It surged forward, mashing him into the pillar, and tried to reach him with its snapping teeth. He beat the machete blade against the back of its head to no effect; he couldn’t get enough momentum to penetrate its skull, making harmless slices in its scalp instead.
The ghoul’s teeth, black and jagged, snapped inches from his face; its dank and fetid breath assaulted his senses. Its enormous gut had saved him thus far- it jutted out so much it created a few inches of space between its mouth and his body.
Strings of yellow drool dripped from the ghoul’s mouth and landed on his neck and shoulders. Danny struggled against the clawing fingers of panic that tried to seize him and ignored the fear yammering in his mind. Every time the creeper lunged to bite him it crushed him against the pillar- he couldn’t drive forward or squeeze to either side. All he could manage was to pull his head away when it lunged forward.
Finally, he had a kernel of an idea. The creeper pulled its head back but before it darted forward he forced the machete blade between them, pushing the flat end of the blade against its face. He pushed it back further and further until he created enough space to squeeze his arm to his side and pull his gun from its holster. He pushed even harder, shouting with exertion. Feeling for the safety with his thumb, he found it and slid it to the off position. He brought the Berretta up and in between them, jammed it under the creeper’s chin, and pulled the trigger. The creeper stumbled backward and teetered from side to side, its mouth still. He fired twice more into its forehead and it fell.
Danny slid to the ground, panting. He was wet with sweat and his back ached where the creeper kept driving it into the pillar. His throat burned and his tongue felt like dried leather.
The sound of approaching footsteps echoed across the shaft. This time they came from the other way, toward the entrance. Did he let one get past him? Was one that walked by earlier coming back? No matter. He took a deep breath and brushed his wet hair out of his face, then pushed himself to his feet. He slid along the back of the pillar, ignoring its jagged finish until he was on the side away from the footfalls. His gun at the ready, he watched and waited.
.
Creepers on the Outside
* * *
Five minutes had passed since they’d encountered the initial trio of creepers and now a baker’s dozen littered the ground around the tunnel entryway. The team took advantage of a lull in traffic to catch their breath and wipe the gore from their weapons. Will stood gingerly, trying to support himself on his good leg. His injured knee throbbed, urgent bursts of pain that threatened to swallow everything except its own presence. He’d put down an ancient creeper with skin that had sloughed off over most of its body, leaving a grayish skull with patches of skin and hair. During that battle, he’d taken a blow to the already tender and swollen joint. He’d cried out in pain, and waves of nausea left him bent at the waist in mid-fight. Coy, had to step in and take his spot on the skirmish line.
He motioned to Coy and Tara and they hurried over to him. “I think Danny’s in there somewhere,” he told them, “and we’re going in to find him. You two round up folks and get them up to our tunnel. Tell Becky to make sure everybody has warm, dry clothes and see if they need anything to eat or drink.”
Coy grabbed Will’s arm and took a deep breath. “If Danny’s back there I want to help find him. Besides, Dad, you can barely walk. Let me go in your place.”
Will refused to consider it. He leaned close to the teen and put an arm around his neck, drawing him near. “Half these people think I’m the devil and they’re all scared of me. Everybody likes you and will listen to you. They’ll come out of hiding for you, where they wouldn’t if I was the one looking for them. I need you to do this for me.” He gave Coy an expectant look.
“Yes sir.”
Will clapped him on the back, then waded into the tunnel with Jiri, Ando, and Justin. Coy and Tara disappeared in the opposite direction.
They’d only walked twenty feet when a pair of figures appeared out of the gloom to their right, the side of the cubicle apartments were on. Will was about to raise his machete when the figures came close enough for him to make them out- The Judge, with Cyrus slinking behind him.
“The biters are in our tunnel,” The Judge cried out in a tremulous voice.
Will let out a quick, disgusted snort. “No shit Jody. Have you seen Danny?”
He looked around with feverish eyes, as if creepers were going to appear from every direction. “Danny? I saw him earlier, before all this. Where’d they come from, Will?”
“Hell, I suspect.” He grasped The Judge’s shoulders. “Listen to me now. I need you to focus.”
The Judge’s dazed eyes sharpened a bit.
“Your people scattered across the pit when they realized the dead were in the tunnel. We’ve got folks rounding them up and getting them to our place. Those people know you, and I need for you to go help with that.”
The Judge’s brow furrowed. “Are there any of those… things out there?”
“I don’t think so. Stay close to Coy and Tara, and I’ll send Justin with you, too. If they are out there my people will take care of them.”
“Okay… okay, we can do that.” They headed for the exit, then The Judge stopped and turned back. “Have any of you seen Mark?”
No one had. “I’m sure he’s hunkered down out in the snow somewhere. Go find him and get him to our tunnel.”
They started walking again. They made it fifteen more yards before gunfire shattered the silence.
“Shit. Danny.” Will turned to Jiri and Andro. “Go. I’ll get there quick as I can. Go!” Will watched them run into the murky tunnel, then hobbled after them.
Looking for Danny
* * *
Jiri trotted beside Casandro, resisting the urge to run faster. He hadn’t made it almost a year into the apocalypse by running blindly ahead when there were creepers about. They ran by the cubicles where The Originals lived. Most of them looked the same as always but the makeshift doors hung open on some of them and a few of the padded gray partitions they fashioned into walls were knocked over. A half-dozen bodies were scattered along the passageways around the apartments. Two of the
corpses were victims of one or two bites; the rest had been partially eaten and then discarded, like a bad chicken dinner left behind at a roadside diner.
They stopped and Jiri gave Andro a nod. The stocky Hispanic nodded back and approached the closest body. He carried a fearsome weapon, one as simple as it was deadly. He’d removed the head from an ax and set the handle aside. Back when they were on the road, he had found an eight-inch piece of cast iron at one of the farms where they stayed the night. It was an inch across and arced in a gentle curve, so that it looked like an incomplete letter C; one end came to a long point. Danny said it was a tine off a tiller. Andro worked it and sharpened it for months, and when he had it shaped to an unbreakable and deadly point, he attached it to the handle. One swing powered by his muscular frame drove the blade through a creeper’s skull like a hot knife through butter. He approached the dead but not yet turned Originals, dragging his weapon behind him. His broad shoulders swing it with ease, one for each of the victims. He made the sign of the cross, then used the shirt from one of the dead to wipe the gore off the business end of his weapon. He tied a rubber cover around the point with a short piece of twine, placed in a sling across his left shoulder, and turned back to Jiri. His dark eyes smoldered and his mouth was a small, tight line. It was the closest thing to anger Jiri had ever seen out of the good-natured Latino.
“We find Danny now so I don’t have to swing weapon on his head.”
He considered correcting Andro’s English but decided now wasn’t the time. They resumed trotting through the tunnel. They’d gone about a quarter mile beyond the living area. The lights were spaced further and further apart and came to an end up ahead. The fading light illuminated two more pairs of pillars before the darkness swallowed it whole. A pile of bodies, dozens of them, formed a half-circle around one of them.
The Haven Series (Book 2): Haven Page 11
