by Anthony Izzo
Son of a bitch.
Rafferty still had the old woman tied up, and that was in his favor, but if he didn’t get the situation in the gym under control, half of them would be roasted alive before anything could get started.
The fat one named Harry was rushing the stage, an automatic weapon gripped in his hands. Best think fast, Ed.
His people would be transformed shortly, and when they were finished, they could surround Harry and tear him to shreds if he ordered it. But that wasn’t what he wanted. The fat bastard and the rest of them had to die slowly, the way Rafferty had planned it. They would be tied to the crosses, slit open from crotch to chest and have their entrails ripped out before their eyes. That was how it had to happen.
Rafferty surveyed the crowd and saw that two of his followers had completed the change and had spotted Harry. He yelled, “Wait!” but they couldn’t hear him over the din in the gymnasium, so he removed his revolver and fired at one of them, winging it on the arm. The beast turned with fire in its eyes, ready to attack, until it saw who fired at it.
Rafferty met its gaze and motioned for it to come to the stage. With two quick strides, it was at the foot of the stage. Rafferty leaned down and said, “I want him alive.”
It grunted and then spoke to another creature in a series of clicks and snarls. The two of them started for Harry, but he saw them coming and raised the rifle. Firing on them, he scored two headshots, reducing their brains to black jelly.
“Shit,” Rafferty said.
Smoke clogged the air in the gym, and he could see plumes of it chugging under the door that led to the stairs. They’d obviously started a fire out there too, hoping to cut off the only escape route.
Harry was on the move again, his back to the wall, firing deadly bursts at the ones that had transformed and were leaping at him.
The creatures retreated from the center of the floor, now littered with burned corpses stacked on one another. The gasoline had spread, starting three smaller fires on the floor, and Rafferty knew he had to get them out of here before the whole Harvest was ruined. It was going up in flames, literally.
He fired a shot in the air. “Quiet!” he shouted. His voice echoed in the gym. His followers looked to the stage.
“Surround him,” he said, pointing to Harry.
Six of them formed a half circle around Harry, and his gaze darted back and forth between them and Rafferty, waiting. He still had the weapon trained on them, although he could never hope to kill six at once, even with an automatic.
“Give it up, boy. You tried to change the deal on me,” Rafferty said.
“You had no intention of keeping a deal with us,” Harry retorted.
“Oh, but I do. Drop the gun, put your hands on your head and you’ll be escorted up here. And then I let the old lady go. Hell, I’ll even call an ambulance for her.”
“You produce more bullshit than all the steers in Texas.”
“Don’t argue with me. You got ten seconds to drop that gun or I blow the little lady’s brains out her left ear.”
He had them either way. The fat one was surrounded, and Rafferty had just cranked up the leverage he already had by threatening the old woman. Jill would be found by one of his sentries, and then they would die as soon as he could get out of the building and away from the fire.
He was curious to see if Harry would be stupid and weak enough to drop the gun and surrender himself for the old woman. Rafferty found the whole thing quite amusing despite the smoke that was pouring under the main door and the ever-spreading flames.
There would be a way out of the gym for him, maybe by climbing up to the balcony. If worse came to worse, he could charge through the flames in the hallway. If he survived, his body might heal and restore the damage done by flames.
To his delight, Harry dropped the gun and placed his hands on his head.
He had them.
There was a red door coated with glossy paint in the cafeteria wall, the word DANGER painted in white letters. Matt let his curiosity get the best of him and tugged on the steel handle, hoping that it would swing open.
He heard someone coming in the corridor from where he had just come.
He heard sniffing. Trying to smell him out again. And it was close, almost at the end of the hallway.
He had to get out of here quickly, so he knocked on the door, expecting the ring of metal but surprised when it was thick wood.
Backing up, he aimed the nine-millimeter at the lock and fired twice, shredding wood and turning the lock into a gnarled lump. Then he yanked on the handle, the door jiggling but refusing to open.
Try turning the handle, stupid.
He did, and with a hard pull, the door popped open.
As Matt slipped into the service corridor, his pursuer reached the end of the hallway outside the boiler room. Shutting the door behind him, he hoped for another way out of the service hallway.
He moved through the gloom; a cobweb kissed his cheek, and Matt brushed it away. Three gray electric boxes lined the wall, with thick white cables running out of their tops and up the wall.
Matt felt his way along the coarse concrete wall, expecting the beast to crash through the door at any second. His heartbeat sped up for a moment when he thought there was no way out of the corridor except the way he had come in.
But his hand found a cool, smooth surface, a door.
Leaning into it with his shoulder, he pushed, stumbled and went through the doorway. He shut the door behind him, glad to have two doors between him and the pursuer, however flimsy. The creature that was after him had most certainly found the body in the cafeteria and would be out for blood.
He was in a room three feet across with block walls. Three concrete steps led to another door directly in front of him.
Matt opened the door in front of him and stepped into haze, his eyes watering. He squinted and made out a green curtain ahead of him; he was behind the stage’s rear curtain.
Rafferty’s voice was audible from in front of the curtain and it sounded like he said, “Bring him here.”
Did they have Harry or were they dragging some other poor soul up onto the stage for a sacrifice?
Feeling his way along the curtain, he found the seam in the middle and parted it slightly. Rafferty stood with his revolver pointed at someone strapped to an X-shaped cross and Matt realized it was Liza. There were two more of the crosses on the other side of Rafferty, meant for him and the others.
A crowd of creatures gathered at the far wall and moved backward in a rough semicircle, surrounding someone, herding them to the stage.
Through a gap in between two of them, Matt made out the squat frame of Harry.
The crowd on the gym floor began to squeal again, beating at one another, climbing over each other to avoid flames.
If Harry was down on the floor, then where was Jill? In better shape than Harry or Liza, he hoped.
Fire flashed in the center of the gym as one of them fell onto the flames, and the air began to smell like burning flesh. It was an alien smell, like hot metal and cooked meat mixed together.
If Matt was lucky, Rafferty was thinking that he was farther away, maybe trying to break into the school rather than lurking twenty feet from the police chief.
They had Harry almost to the stage steps when Matt decided to make a move and bust up Rafferty’s party. He slid through the seam in the curtain with the pistol’s barrel aimed squarely between Ed Rafferty’s shoulder blades.
He fired three times, hitting Rafferty in the upper back, twirling him around, Rafferty clutching his chest and spinning off the edge of the stage. He looked like a bad actor hamming up a death scene.
In a perfect world the bullets would have killed Rafferty stone dead, but things were far from perfect. Hell, they weren’t even normal, with abominations from God knew where congregating in an elementary school gym and preparing for a ritual slaughter.
The gunshots got the attention of the monstrosities surrounding Harry, and they look
ed at Matt, snarling deep in their throats.
Harry sensed opportunity and he lowered his shoulder and plowed ahead like a two-hundred-sixty-pound cannonball, knocking one of them off balance and breaking out of the circle.
Harry moved with surprising speed, taking the steps in one bound. It was amazing what a little fear and adrenaline pumped in your veins could do for your time in the ten-yard dash.
When he reached the top of the steps, one of them darted from the crowd and grabbed his pant leg, hooking its claws into the fabric. Harry jerked his leg and the jeans gave way. Harry shot forward, half of his pant leg gone, exposing a leg covered with thick gray hair.
The one that ripped his pants got up and Matt pumped two shots into its face and it rolled off the stage.
Harry ran to Liza and began to untie her bonds.
When she was untied, she fell into his arms and he joined Matt near the back of the stage.
“You saved my ass,” Harry said.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
Ed Rafferty, now transformed, climbed onto the stage, seven feet of muscle and fangs. Three others joined him.
“You got her?” Matt said.
“Yeah. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“We’re not leaving without Jill.”
“First we get out of the gym,” Harry said.
Rafferty and the others started forward.
While Matt and Harry were busy in the gym, Jill was dealing with problems of her own.
She had started back up the stairs when she heard heavy footsteps on the upper level, then caught a whiff of something sour. She knew one of them was on its way down the stairs. Which was worse, the flames or the beast?
She thought about making a run for the lobby doors, but that was nixed as the creature stuck its head over the railing, grinning and drooling. When she looked into its eyes, Jill thought she might die then and there. For the first time death seemed real, for even at the cabin she had known they would live to fight another day.
This was different. She was face-to-face with one of them, and the menace was all the more real being this close.
It moved rabbit quick, blocking the doors to the lobby. She backed downstairs, getting as close to the fire as she dared without setting herself ablaze. The smoke raked her lungs and she coughed.
It crouched, staring at her, cocking its head to one side, then the other, as if sizing her up.
It looked at the fire, then back at her. It backed up, then moved forward, then back again.
Afraid of the fire, but for how long?
The flames leapt over the bottom step, forcing her one step closer to the creature; she couldn’t hold her position much longer if she didn’t want to be burned to a crisp. Sweat poured down her back and a rivulet of it ran down her neck, chilling her despite the heat.
She had to think of something quick.
“Come on, you son of a bitch. If you want me, come get me.”
Saying that to the creature felt a little like tapping an angry bull on the snout with a stick, but she had to do something to get things moving.
It growled, crouched low and worked its claws, clenching and unclenching.
“Come on!”
That was all the encouragement it needed. It pushed off the top step, almost instantly on top of her. She was a hair quicker, and flattened herself against the steps as it flew over her and rammed into the door, falling into the flames.
Pulling herself up with the railing, she climbed the stairs in a hurry as the thing shrieked behind her, the flames blistering its flesh. She knew it wasn’t dead and would likely pursue her up the stairs.
She opened the balcony door and slammed it behind her, the pursuer roaring up the stairs and smashing into the door, full of pure idiot anger. She hurried to the far end of the balcony and grabbed the shotgun.
It kicked the door so hard it flew off the hinges and fell over the edge of the balcony. She aimed the shotgun and braced herself against the file cabinets, knowing that the shotgun would have one hell of a kick.
It charged and she fired, the gun digging into her shoulder. The blast hit the flaming creature in the face, and it staggered to the side and went over the edge, flaming and howling.
Her shoulder felt as if she had been mule-kicked, but there was no time to dwell on the pain. She had to find Liza and Harry and get the hell out of here before more of them came looking for her.
Looking over the edge of the balcony, she got a little taste of what hell might look like: a flaming pit filled with demons. Her Molotov cocktails had started fires in three locations, and the beasts flailed and pushed against each other to avoid the flames. One of them tried climbing the opposite balcony.
The gym stank of putrid flesh, and clouds of smoke rose from the crowd, swirling around the ceiling and blotting out the already dim emergency lights.
She coughed, realizing that they wouldn’t last much longer in here with all the smoke.
Looking to the stage, she saw Harry and Matt backing up as a group of demons advanced, Harry with Liza in his arms.
She took another Zippo out of the bag then pulled a Molotov cocktail from the box.
Lighting the rag, she lobbed it over the side, and it looked like a flaming meteor falling from the heavens. She didn’t wait for it to hit the ground before lighting the next one and tossing it over.
CHAPTER 35
“Go, Harry!”
Harry backed up into the rear curtain and slid through.
Matt scanned the creatures on the stage, looking for a subtle twitch or sign that would indicate a charge was coming. He could slow down maybe two of them with the automatic, but if they all came at once, he wouldn’t have a chance. The only thing in his favor was their arrogance, for they were sure they had him and could pick him off at their leisure.
A flicker of light caught his eye, then another. Glass shattered and a high-pitched wail rose from the crowd.
Another fireball hit the floor, lighting up the gym and sending the creatures rushing to get out of the way as the flames searched them out.
Rafferty and the beasts on the stage turned to see what the commotion was, and Matt took the opportunity to slip through the curtain and out the back stage door, closing it behind him. Jill had just saved their hides. At least for the moment.
Harry stood in the hallway with Liza in his arms.
“How is she?”
“Barely breathing.”
They passed through the hallway and service corridor, winding up in the cafeteria.
In his haste to escape the gym, Matt had forgotten about the unseen intruder that he had heard on his way to the stage. Now, when he glanced to the left, he saw it—a malevolent shape in the darkness. Its eyes glowed hotly.
“Go that way. There’s a boiler room where I came in. I smashed out the window.”
Matt took a clip from the gun belt and slammed it home. He had one more left after this one.
Harry started for the door that would take him to the boiler room. The creature sniffed the air, tracking its prey. The eyes moved back and forth, and Matt thought that this was what it would be like to be caught on train tracks at night, facing a locomotive. Only this locomotive had teeth and claws.
He backed up and aimed at the eyes, aware that more of them could come crashing through the door at any second.
It came for him, and he fired, the flash from the barrel lighting up the darkness, the monster slamming chairs out of the way.
Matt held the trigger down, the gun bucking in his hand, spitting shells at the still-charging creature. The gun clicked empty as it hit him. It was like getting run over by a Buick.
The gun slid away and it knelt on him, pinning his arms to his sides.
He struggled to move, but it only dug its knees deeper into his flesh.
It opened its mouth, ready to kill, and he closed his eyes, hoping for a quick death.
Smoke bellowed up from the gym floor as Jill lobbed the second-to-last Molotov
cocktail over the balcony. She had tried to spread her volleys all over the floor, and it had paid off, as a good third of the crowd was on fire, thrashing and burning.
There was a thud as the gym door was battered open and they spilled into the stairwells, no longer afraid of the flames in the hallway now that the gym was an inferno.
After launching the second-last firebomb, she slung the duffel bag over her shoulder, not wanting to lose the transmitter. There was one more cocktail left plus the Zippo, and she shoved them in the bag just in case.
Then she picked up the shotgun and decided that since Matt and Harry had ducked out the back, it was time for her to get on her horse and ride.
If she stayed any longer on the balcony, she would be cut off.
She started for the door as one of them popped its head over the balcony wall. It must have leapt up, grabbed purchase on the bottom of the balcony and scrambled up to the top.
It reached an arm over, then a leg, intent on climbing over the lip. She wasted no time, pumping the shotgun, getting three feet from its head and firing. Its head exploded like a melon with an M-80 inside it. The headless body fell over the side and landed on one of its flaming brethren.
She tried to leave again, but the balcony door flew open and another one of them stepped out, hissing at her. Plumes of smoke rose from its skin and she could smell the scorched hair on its hide.
She pumped the weapon, ready to fire, when she was spun around from behind.
This one towered over her, and she knew it was Ed Rafferty coming to take her.
The cold floor pressed against the back of Matt’s skull.
He heard quick, heavy footsteps on the cafeteria floor and the grip on his arms loosened.
Opening his eyes, he saw Harry standing next to it, landing punches against its skull and shouting “Motherfucker!” over and over.
He must have pissed it off, for it thrust itself off of Matt and landed on Harry, who punched at it, landing haymakers that would have left a human bloodied and bruised. Instead, Harry’s fists bounced off as if he were pounding on a basketball.
