Shit. Wish I was in my truck heading up I-55 right now, I thought.
A sudden jolt sent me slipping on the muddy truck bed. I almost fell.
“Watch it.”
“Sorry.”
“We're almost to the main road, assuming it hasn't been washed out,” Roger informed me.
What a small consolation. Any road would be underwater. We'd still have to navigate carefully wherever we went. If we made it out I'd suggest heading to my place. First we had to escape.
A pair of glowing orbs grew dangerously close. As the truck jostled around the hybrid leaped into and out of our reversed spotlight. From this distance the damn thing looked just like the camouflaged “soldier” I'd seen earlier that day, albeit a leaping, diving otherworldly spawn hell-bent on our demise.
Bending my knees to better absorb the truck's shimmies and shakes, I carefully let loose the roll bar. “Take it easy, Roger. I'm about to take care of an unwanted guest.”
“No promises,” he called back. “Make each shot count.”
No joke. This was like deer hunting at night from the back of a surf board. And this country boy had never been surfing.
I almost squeezed one off when the thing leaped up and nearly caught the tailgate. But I knew it would grab it on its next jump. Then I'd blow a hole in it the size of a softball. From this range I didn't plan to miss.
The thing shot up out of the water like a leaping dolphin. It landed on the bumper, latching onto the tailgate with both hands. The truck bounced from its impact. Concentrating, I took aim. Its wide grin mocked my determination. Breath held, I squeezed the trigger. The blast pounded into my shoulder, the hybrid's head exploded, its body fell back into the water with a splash as I slipped and fell. I landed hard on my ass.
“Got 'em!” I said, clamoring back to my feet.
Maggie replied, “Are you okay back there?”
“Couldn't be better unless I was ten miles away, yee haw!”
“Almost to the road. I think we're gonna make it.”
“We've got more company. Anytime you can put that hammer down won't be too soon.”
“Don't worry,” he said.
But I did. With three rounds remaining and a half-dozen creatures outrunning the Chevy I just didn't know. No way I could reload in time to squeeze off enough shots.
“Oh shit.” Maggie's voice.
“What?”
Roger said, “Fuckin' creatures on the main road. Better hold on.”
Yeah, right. Two more leaps and another one would be riding in back with me.
“Watch out,” Maggie yelled.
“Fuckin' thing better watch out,” Roger said.
Then the truck shuddered with a meaty smack. A cracking of glass followed. I slammed back-first into the roll bar. I glanced over the cab of the truck, instinctively grabbing the roll bar, as a hybrid came sailing through the air like a bloody rag doll, having obviously clipped the grill of the truck and smashed into the windshield, which, it appeared, had acted like a ramp. The damn thing sailed past and splashed into the water safely behind us.
That's when the truck began to bounce like a bucking bronco. I felt us hitting more obstacles, hybrids, trees, freaking deer, I didn't know. My feet left the bed of the truck. My hand clenched metal for dear life. The most hellacious mechanical bull ride ever devised. Eight seconds (or less, but feeling like much more) the Chevy full-size pickup roared into the air threatening to dump me out. Then came crashing down with a bone-crunching splash. I dropped the rifle into the bed of the truck.
For the moment our forward progress halted. A thing leaped up into the bed of the truck, its eyes nearly blinding me with their reflection of light. A sound of metal rang when it landed. Several more metallic rings came from the front of the truck. The whole vehicle rocked.
Hearing the clatter of the rifle, I found it and scooped it up as the hybrid lurched at me.
Luckily I swung the rifle just in time. I pounded it in the side as I fell away. The roll bar caught the thing in the midsection, doubling it over, giving me barely enough time to get to my feet. It turned to come at me again. The spotlight had been bent to my right. I saw two more hybrids ripping away the shattered windshield. Maggie jabbed at them through the glass with her gig. Two more, one on each side of the truck, reached into the cab trying to grab my friends. Hearing the splashing approach of more things behind me, I knew my time was limited. A thing on the hood snatched the gig out of Maggie's hand, tossed it out into the drink.
God help me...
I cold-cocked the son of a bitch with the butt of the rifle.
Three bullets remained. Five creatures were here, with more on the way. Let me die blazing away in hip waders, I thought, shouldering the rifle. That's when I saw Maggie's head snap sideways; Roger struggled not to be pulled out of the cab.
“Shit.”
I jumped over the side of the truck. Along the road the water only reached to my calves. I ran like a bat outta hell into the darkness. After twenty yards or so I glanced back. A hybrid glowing red in the taillights turned my direction. It seemed to be the only one interested in me now. Interested enough to earn itself some lead. I stopped, turned, held my heavy breath. With careful aim, I squeezed off a round dropping the thing out of sight.
Then resumed my mad dash into the night.
By Faith
I hadn't run like that in years. Not since high school football. Ran so fast I ran off the road and nearly went ass over into the ditch before scrambling back onto the road. The entire time I knew one of those blasted things would get me before I did. Finally my eyes adjusted enough I could see by moonlight. It had stopped raining, and I supposed the clouds had blew on past. Perhaps the rain earlier had come from a lone cloud created by their god. I stopped running, started walking. As I walked I'd occasionally stop long enough to listen for followers. I heard sounds of the night, no hybrids. I kept walking. But a feeling of being watched fell over me. The moon shone overhead. I grateful appreciated the light. Without it, I'd be sunk. It felt like I was under the spotlight, however. Like I had an audience. It infuriated me.
To think I'd come to Clayton to help. I'd practically been killed. I'd be lucky to get home alive. Even if I did, what did I have to go home to? A flooded house and the knowledge of a cult-crazy town. Long-legged jumping, swimming sons of bitches. Cropland laced with eggs of those things. Stilted houses. Arrogant townsfolk. Kids with jacked-up eyes.
A shiver coursed through me.
It hit me: their god existed. Really, truly existed. Mauz-Gurloth. Damn him. Without him, no rain. No flooding. No destroyed house. No wife gone to St. Louis. Hell, no dead people. Heaven help Seth, Maggie... Had Roger made it out, I wondered. Hell no. No way. Dead. Like all the rest. I could feel the water swelling up in my eyes. My vision grew blurry. My own rain began to pour. Did the rain of their god carry as much frustration and anger as mine? I didn't know. But I doubted it.
I'd lost everything it felt, including my god.
I hadn't lost my religion, however. No. I'm sure they and their god wanted me to doubt. If anything realizing this helped strengthen my own beliefs. If the god of a nowhere town like Clayton could do all this, what could my Heavenly Father do with millions of followers? Anything He damn well pleased, of course. It sounded like some ill-conceived joke when I thought about it.
Still I wished He would do something. Anything. Why allow this to go on? Then I realized, even an all-knowing, all-seeing God such as mine might overlook these goings-on. Hell, I lived right next door to Clayton and I didn't have a clue. In retrospect it seemed downright unbelievable. How could I not have known? Why didn't a hybrid wander across my path before?
Because doing so must not be in the grand plan of their god, of Mauz-Gurloth.
I'd come to Clayton intending to help those who needed help. Unbeknownst to them, they, too, were doing the Lord's work. He must have directed me here, I believed. I had to have faith. It was the only thing I had to cling to.
&n
bsp; Maybe I was full of shit. Tired, sore, wet, downtrodden, homesick for family, I didn't know what I wanted more, a hot shower or the nice, soft driver's seat of my Chevy. Right now I'd settle for my jon boat. Or eyes in the back of my head. With every step I took phantom noises alerted me to one of them.
Damn it to hell. I stopped again. Listened. A heard the faint dripping of water. Could it be me? No, too far away. My imagination? Again, louder. Like a foot carefully moving, perhaps. No, not a phantom noise. Or was it?
Cautiously, I turned shouldering my weapon.
It took a moment to register the glint of moonlight reflecting in its eyes.
Hold still, I thought. Don't move you son of a bitch.
I drew a bead on a glowing orb. Nudged left, between the pair. Squeezed. A muzzle shot of red blasted into the night. My ears rang. The twin glow disappeared. I turned and ran hard. My arms pumped. I ran for several minutes, the rifle growing heavy, my legs going stiff. Eventually I slowed to a brisk shuffle. After my ears quit ringing, I stopped. Listened again. Heard nothing but the pounding of my heart.
Damn those things. Damn them damn them damn them. One could pop up at anytime, from anywhere. I wasn't even sure how much farther I had to go to reach downtown Clayton. Without a boat it might take several hours or more to make it back to my waterlogged home. And that was, of course, if I could make good time crossing those flooded fields. If I had to swim home I'd be dead. That hybrid soldier might be there waiting for me. How many more might I encounter on the way home? Shit, I had one bullet left. Maybe I could get more ammo in town. Worth a try. At least I had my knife with me. Like a pig-sticker would do me any good. I needed more firepower. I needed transportation.
I needed a freaking prayer.
I trudged on down the road. Made a left. Kept on keeping on in the general direction of Clayton. Along the way I kept stopping to listen, kept squinting to see. Mostly the moon provided enough light. I wouldn't be breaking any land-speed records. Sometimes, though, overhanging trees would blot out moonlight, leaving me in inky darkness. Those were the times I knew I'd be jumped, literally. But that never happened.
I wondered where all those damned things had went. How many were there? Too damn many, that's for sure. I started thinking crazy thoughts. What's green and red and goes flying through the night? A god-damned hybrid bouncing off the grill of a Chevy.
Shit, I needed to get home. My legs were threatening to give out.
Finally, the town's lights could be seen as I topped a small hill. At this hour, early morning, not many shone. However, enough did. A low hum of generators filled the night.
My fury reignited. These bastards were prepared. For the moment I knew what it felt like to be a religious fanatic. This whole god-damned town came as an affront to my own beliefs. The fact that they had a temple, hybrids, crazy oily semen, and lightning strikes, while I only had a Book, didn't sit well with me.
I had never felt so devout in my beliefs than I did right then. In fact, I felt downright ashamed of all the times I'd skipped the Sunday sermon to watch the Rams play.
“I might watch football now and again, Lord, but you know in my heart I don't care much for this blight on your world. They killed Seth, Maggie, Roger, and, hell, probably Luke and Leigh Ann by now. I can't fight this whole damn town on my own, Lord. Or their god. And I might not be the most god-fearing man there is. But, by damn, I'm gonna give 'em what-for on my way outta town.”
I kept close to the road knowing the water wouldn't be as deep there. When I reached the edge of town I picked my way, moving from house to house slowly, in the shadows, staying under houses.
The closer I got to downtown the more light there was. Breaking dawn promised light to come, however, each business kept a kerosene lamp burning out front. The lamps provided enough light for me to see the lone sentry standing on the boardwalk. A hybrid, I thought, but I couldn't be sure. The people from Clayton looked odd as is. From two blocks away it was hard to tell. Either way, I wanted to kill the bastard. With only one bullet remaining, I didn't dare miss. I moved closer. Silently, I crept, daring not to cause the slightest ripple in the chest-deep water. I imagined this is how snipers felt.
Standing behind a Ford 4x4, I used the truck bed to steady my rifle. I closed an eye, sighted down the barrel. I drew a bead on the thing standing right there. It had to be a hybrid. Either that or the guy had thick thighs, narrow legs, and wore camouflage. Both seemed plausible. Carefully, I squeeze the trigger. Its chest exploded as it blew back against the five and dime. It slid down to slump on the boardwalk.
I moved quick. The blast would have woke half the town. I had the element of surprise on my side, however.
The flooded land tried to stop me by dragging me back but I climbed a ladder onto the boardwalk. I rushed along, pushing myself as fast as possible toward the hardware store, past the bleeding hybrid, the rifle slung over my back bouncing, jostling.
At the large display window – Clayton Hardware est. 1870 – I didn't hesitate to unsling the rifle. Holding it by the barrel like a baseball bat, I swung. Glass shattered inward. I stepped in, tossed the rifle aside. Only a few lights burned. Luckily the small store didn't take too long to navigate. I quickly found what I was looking for. A small flashlight and Stihl chainsaw. I took them and rushed to the back of the store, where I pushed through a set of swinging doors into the storeroom. There I found another door. From behind that door came the steady hum of a generator. A single bare bulb cast a dim glow. It provided enough light to find everything else I needed: a gasoline can and motor oil, apparently for the generator.
Having cut wood to burn since my teen years, it took no time before I had the chainsaw ready to roll. The flashlight package contained batteries. I busted straight out the back door, dropped off the back deck into the water. It reached nearly to my nipples. By now I was as wrinkled as a prune and didn't give a shit one way or the other. I put the mini flashlight in my mouth and bit down.
After priming the engine it caught on the second tug of the starter rope. The powerful little engine roared to life. I revved its engine, holding the blade overhead, as I waded under buildings. The entire elevation system appeared haphazard to me. Originally the structure had been built on six-by-six posts; however, over the years, reinforcements of various types had been used. It looked like a century-old jury-rigged construction job embarked upon by a piss-poor rural population of inbreds, which I reckoned summed it up quite well. It seemed typical of a backwoods, god-fearing people. Deliverance meets an amphibian deity. Although these people weren't quite inbred. No. They received a steady infusion of oily black seed. The water sudden felt very chilly.
“God damn you, Mauz-Gurloth,” I cried around the flashlight as I waved my blade. Sawdust flew as I cut through stilt after stilt under the buildings making up downtown Clayton. The faux heart of the town – the temple being the true heart. “To hell with all of you!”
I severed dozens of support beams. Carefully, I skipped two, cut one, making my way all along the boardwalk. My new weapon created too much noise to listen for hybrids or angry townsfolk coming after me. But I kept my eyes peeled, darting around, looking every way, moving out from beneath the structures as they became less stable. If anyone or anything confronted me, they'd have to answer to the chainsaw. Jesse James Dupree sang snippets of “The Lumberjack” and “I Stand Alone” in my head as I went to work ravaging downtown.
Having reached the end of the block, I doubled back. Wood cracked above me as buildings tried to settle. It wouldn't be long now before the whole thing collapsed. In fact, I'd started skipping more support beams in attempt to damage every building in downtown. Oddly, that consisted of only one side of the street, which made my job easier.
The opposite end from where I stood began to drop. The boardwalk slapped water. Soon, I hoped, nothing would be left except a protruding roof.
Then bubbles broke the surface of the water. They popped, leaving motes in the coating of sawdust.
Up sprang a hybrid.
Although I nearly had a heart attack, it didn't stand a chance. I swung down with the Stihl. Instinctively it threw up its long arms. I sawed them clean off. Blood sprayed everywhere. I felt the warm spray hit my face. Then I parted its bald head, practically dissecting the damn thing.
It dropped down into the water. A red tint filled the immediate water surface. I dodged back, disgusted by it. Also, cracking wood grew louder. More of the boardwalk began to collapse in on itself. A split-second later I realized the earth beneath me was starting to shake.
“What the...?”
A rumble louder than the chainsaw or the cracking wood sounded. The earth trembled. Another blasted tremor. But no, not a tremor, a full-blown earthquake began. My vision shook like the reel of a bad apocalyptic film.
I spat out the flashlight and backed out into the middle of the street, watching the boardwalk shake to its foundations. Everything began to collapse, except the stone structure of the bank. No longer needing the chainsaw, I simply let it drop into the water.
A glorious, uplifting feeling swept over me watching the buildings collapse. They tilted, caved, dropped, and ultimately crashed into the water taking the boardwalk with it. Now I could see the houses a block behind downtown. Some leaned from the quake. Most had residents come out on the porch. I'd have to get out of here soon, before someone came after me. Get while the getting was good, as they say. But I could barely stand, let alone move.
The ground shook hard. Water churned. An undercurrent tugged at my legs. Holy shit, how long would this last? Residents started grabbing hold of porch beams everything shook so violently. If this kept up I wouldn't have needed to saw through the stilted downtown to take it down.
From Murky Depths Page 6
