by Jacob Rayne
The nearest creatures twisted, but it seemed like death throes rather than conscious attempts to attack the men.
‘Look lively,’ Duggan said. ‘Joe sacrificed himself to save us, so let’s make sure we all get out of this in one piece.’
They cut through the middle of the large group of creatures, shooting as they went. As the creatures seemed to be regrouping, a car squealed around the corner. All the creatures looked up. It was one movement, like they all thought with the same brain, and it was distinctly eerie to watch.
Brakes squealed again, then there was the meaty thump of the car hitting a tree.
Craggs squinted, trying to see who was in the car.
‘Haha, it’s Wainscott,’ Winters shouted.
‘Get in,’ Craggs said.
‘Who’s that?’ Duggan asked.
‘The prick who thinks he runs this town,’ Craggs said. ‘The one who built the fences and, no doubt, took a good many backhanders to let that prick Jeffries build his labs here.’
The creatures all flocked towards the car, ignoring Duggan and his group.
‘Oh, excellent,’ Craggs beamed. ‘He’s our ticket outta here.’
‘He’s finally done something good for the town,’ Winters laughed.
‘Let’s go then,’ Duggan said. ‘Before they finish with him.’
They ran back towards town, hearing the sounds of metal being torn open, then bloodcurdling screams as the mayor and his entourage were torn apart and consumed.
‘Where do we go?’ Winters said.
‘I’m all for picking up my family and getting the hell out,’ Craggs said.
‘Aye,’ the men chorused.
Everyone was in agreement now.
‘There’s a few cars on our street, we can take them,’ Craggs said.
‘Lead the way,’ Duggan said.
Vanessa was in so much pain from the bite in her leg that she barely had the strength to lift the shotgun. Her head swam and her legs felt like they were going to buckle.
Her blast hit the mutant full in the chest, blowing away most of its left pectoral in a shower of blood. Exposed beneath was a dark gleaming hide.
The mutant seemed to grin at her.
‘Dad told me they can drown like us,’ Simone said.
Vanessa nodded, a plan forming in the back of her addled mind. She tried to aim, but the shotgun seemed to suddenly be a ton weight and she was forced to drop it.
Simone moved in and took it out of her mother’s hands. She and dad had often fired down at the range in preparation for something going wrong with Jeffries’ research facilities.
Her shot was perfect, tearing the mutant’s left knee out in a cloud of bloody splintered bone. The mutant let out a high-pitched cry as it fell, headfirst, into the river of sludge that ran along beside them.
It frantically flapped its arms, trying to pull itself free of the thick tide of shit and God knew what else.
It went under, a cloud of bubbles emerging from its panicked scream.
Popped up again, its eyes wide and terrified. It was a sweet feeling for them, to see the mutants on the receiving end for a change.
It flapped again, but its desperation was not enough to pull it free. It went under again, more bubbles forming in the sewage. Again it came up, its face pale and screaming and streaked with shit.
It didn’t come up the next time.
The girls high-fived each other.
‘Thanks,’ Vanessa said. Her eyes suddenly felt too heavy to keep open. ‘I’m in a bad way, girls,’ she admitted.
She was too weak to even react when another half a dozen mutants emerged from around the next corner.
Simone took the terror in her stride and lifted the gun to sight the nearest mutant. Her shot missed convincingly due to the shake in her hands. Clumps of shattered brickwork fell from the ceiling, raining down on the mutants but otherwise causing them no harm.
She sighted again, let the mutant take a step forward. It was almost close enough to touch now, so she couldn’t miss.
Her finger squeezed the trigger.
And the gun clicked empty.
Chuck flinched, seeing one of the creatures moving towards them. He levelled his gun in time, ready to blast it if it came any closer. It didn’t seem to neither realise nor care that he had the gun pointed at it, just kept walking.
‘Chuck,’ Jon said.
He nodded to show that he had seen the creature. It edged closer then suddenly began darting towards them. Chuck’s bullet went through its throat.
Its eyes went out after it hit the floor.
Chuck’s heart missed a beat as a second creature appeared in his peripheral vision.
He was powerless to stop its attack, but tensed himself ready for the impact.
The roar of a gunshot pierced his eardrums and sprayed hot wet chunks onto his face.
‘Fuck me, that was close,’ Chuck said, trails of blood running down his face. ‘Thanks, man.’
‘We’d best be on the move,’ Jon said, pointing out that the noise had drawn more of the creatures. They encircled the small group and started to move in.
‘Shit,’ said Chuck. ‘Run.’
He and Jon ran one way. Hill started to climb one of the Hanging Trees, reasoning he was safe up there.
Chuck blasted a creature that was on its way towards him. It slumped back against a tree and bled out into the soil. He and Jon ran. Chuck turned round, looking for Hill.
‘Where’d he go, Chuck?’ Jon said.
‘Didn’t see.’
‘Hill?’ Chuck shouted. ‘Hill, where the fuck you gone?’
There was no reply.
‘Leave him, he’s dead,’ Chuck said.
They ran, breaking through the circle of creatures and making their way deeper into the woods. Behind them, Hill’s screams echoed horribly.
Duggan’s group got to Craggs’s street and found that the place was trashed. Bodies, both human and mutant, lay everywhere. The ornate houses were in ruins, now just blood-spattered shells of jagged glass and splintered wood.
Craggs’s heart thudded in his ears. His house seemed to have been broken into, like most of the others. He said a quick prayer that his family weren’t dead.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Duggan said. ‘The rest of you start finding cars.’
The men agreed.
Craggs and Duggan ran into the house.
‘They were upstairs in the bathroom,’ Craggs said.
Duggan nodded.
A creature lurked in the front room. Craggs sprayed its guts up the wall and, as one unit, he and Duggan darted in and Tasered it while it was hurt.
They scanned around for more, but the rest of the downstairs was empty. As they moved upstairs, Craggs’s heart missed a beat when he saw that the bathroom door was open and streaked with blood.
Duggan looked at him, his concern written across his face.
Craggs steadied his gun, wiped his eyes and walked in. He took a hard blow to the head and fell, his mind reeling.
Duggan was through the door in a split second, aiming the Taser. He stopped his attack when he saw a dirty, blood-streaked woman.
‘Mrs Craggs?’ he said.
‘Yes. Oh shit, Jack, are you ok?’ she said, rushing to his side.
‘Fucking hell, my head’s pounding, woman.’
‘Sorry, I thought you were one of the creatures.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ He rubbed his pounding head.
Duggan fought to keep a grin off his face.
‘They broke in. I ran out of bullets, so I used the gun as a club. This was a trap, so they’d walk in.’
‘Well, it certainly works,’ Craggs grumbled. ‘Where are the kids?’
‘Don’t worry, Jack, they’re fine.’
Duggan and Caitlin helped him to his feet.
‘In the bedroom,’ she said.
He turned the handle and shoved the door open. Both he and Duggan flinched when they saw a reptilian corpse in the corner.
Two children poked their heads up over the body.
‘Jesus,’ Craggs said, running to his kids.
‘It’s like a fort,’ his son beamed.
‘What the hell, Caitlin?’ he said.
Caitlin did not reply.
‘Nevermind,’ Craggs said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Craggs picked up some more ammo on his way out and he met the other three in the street.
‘Looks pretty quiet round here,’ Winters said.
‘Cause everybody else is dead already,’ Duggan said.
‘Right,’ Winters said. ‘The Craggs family and Gooding in one car. Me and Duggan’ll go in the other.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Where are we going?’ Craggs shouted.
‘I don’t know,’ Duggan said. ‘Just away from here.’
‘Ok. We’ll meet again at the diner on the east highway out of town,’ Craggs said.
‘Good luck. Thanks for your help,’ Duggan said, extending his arm.
Craggs shook it and gave him a quick bearhug, before pressing a gun into Duggan’s waistband. ‘Thanks for your help. If you hadn’t come along we’d have been well fucked.’
‘We might still be,’ Duggan said, smiling grimly. ‘We’d best go.’
‘Yeah. I’ll see you soon, Duggan. Thanks for everything.’
Duggan was so taken up with watching the car pull away that he jumped when he heard a banging sound from the next street.
‘What the hell was that?’ Winters said.
The screams of Kyle’s family reverberated round the sewers.
Simone frantically searched her mother’s pockets for more shells. There were none in the first pocket, and there was no time to search the others.
The mutant’s hands were lunging for her.
Jodi screamed as the mutant’s hands left cold trails of blood down her chest.
Then the mutant’s head exploded, showering them in a sticky paste of blood, brain and skull.
‘Over here,’ Kyle shouted.
Their frantic eyes failed to pick him up.
‘Across the river,’ an unfamiliar voice said. Then there was another gunshot that sounded like thunder itself.
One of the mutants fell, most of his skull missing. It was still moving, but significantly slowed down.
They turned and saw Dad and another man – who, they couldn’t help but notice, had a gun to Marla’s head – on the other side of the river of shit.
‘Get your asses over here now,’ the man with Kyle said.
He fired a few shots, knocking out the legs of the nearest mutants as they drew near. The mutant fell, its jaws snapping at Jodi’s ankles.
Simone had seen what the bite had done to her mother and she didn’t want the same fate to befall her young sister, so she moved in and booted it in the back of the head.
The head jerked forward, the jaws slamming shut on empty air.
Simone grabbed her sister and dragged her to the stinking river.
‘It stinks, I’m not going in there,’ Jodi said.
‘We have to,’ Simone said.
The mutants were converging on Vanessa now, who was still too weak to stand. She looked as though she had gone to sleep. A sheen of sweat stood out on her pale brow.
Simone ran and dived into the tide, dragging her sister after her.
Shit flew a full ten feet into the air as they landed in the river of filth.
Almost immediately they were pulled down by the undercurrent, their mouths and noses and eyes filling with sewage.
They coughed and retched as they resurfaced.
‘Swim,’ the man with Kyle bellowed.
The mutants screamed as they saw that they were getting away.
One of them pitched headfirst into the tide in a clumsy attempt at pursuit. His hand wrapped round Jodi’s leg, pulling her down with him.
Simone tried to pull her up, but couldn’t find her.
A second body landed in the tide, a few feet behind them.
‘I’m gonna get my wife,’ Kyle said, seeing that the mutants were almost upon her.
A deafening gunshot took off the left side of the mutant’s head as it went for Vanessa. She did not react in any way, which was potentially even more worrying.
Jodi came up, eyes bulging, mouth wailing and screaming and panting for air.
Abbott’s magnum roared, taking off the rotten arm that held her leg. The hand still clutched her leg, despite the limb now ending in a ragged stump halfway up the forearm.
She cried out but realised that getting out of the sewage was her priority. More mutants fell into the sewage, keen to continue their pursuit of the girls.
Abbott’s gun roared again, putting down a mutant which was on the verge of sinking its teeth into Vanessa’s neck. Shards of splintered teeth bounced off her face.
He reached out, pulling Simone from the water.
Jodi screamed as she began to be pulled under once more.
Simone reached out to her, but her arm was just too short.
Jodi went under again, her screams forming bubbles in the sludge.
Kyle slammed a punch into the nearest mutant, sending it reeling into its accomplices.
He saw the blank look on Vanessa’s face and knew that she was in a bad way, but put this out of his mind as he slung her over his shoulder. After dodging the clumsy attack of one of the mutants he reached the edge of the river.
He faltered on the edge, daring to throw himself and Vanessa in. One sniff of the rotting flesh on the mutant’s breath was enough to convince him.
Jodi surfaced, and screamed as she saw a mutant almost close enough to touch her. Its eyes lit up at the thought of fresh meat.
Abbott reached out and grabbed her arm. He pulled with a berserk strength, riving her out of the shit and onto the stone where she sobbed and heaved in grateful breaths.
One of the mutants had made it to the other side, but Abbott put his foot on its head and held it down until the bubbles stopped.
Kyle managed to get Vanessa across, kicking his legs hard until they got to the other side. He was panting and sweating by the time he climbed out.
Abbott pulled Vanessa out, putting his gun down his back while he did so. He then reached down to help Kyle out of the sludge.
As soon as they were out, he went for his gun, but it was nowhere to be found.
‘Looking for this?’ Simone said, aiming the gun in his face.
Weiland saw the creature’s eyes in the gap under the loft hatch again. It seemed to have seen them, but it was just waiting. He didn’t know why until a clawed hand punched a hole in the roof slates behind him.
‘Ah shit.’
Another few hands smashed through the tiles on each side of them. He cocked the gun and told the kids to hide. The first creature was through within a few seconds and fell away, screeching in agony as it got a buckshot makeover.
The creatures seemed to break in all around. He took down another, then scooted back on his butt.
Suddenly the loft was full of creatures, all making their way towards him.
‘They’re climbing into the loft,’ Duggan said, pointing out the house.
Winters stood at the end of the street, sniping them from the roof. Duggan pulled out the gun that Craggs had given him and ran towards the house.
Winters watched his target’s head burst and its body slid from the roof.
Duggan burst into the house, dropped the creature at the top of the stairs with a wild swing of his shotgun and climbed up into the loft.
The place was swarming with reptiles. A man and his teenaged kids were trapped in the corner.
Duggan fired into the backs of the scaled heads in front of him and began Tasering the wounds. He didn’t have time to keep the blast on for long, just enough to give the creatures a quick shock.
The creatures seemed confused by his appearance. Duggan shot another few creatures, then his gun clicked empty. He thrust the Taser into their gnashing jaw
s, making them hiss and retreat. He wanted all their attention on him so the family could escape.
Weiland’s shotgun roared constantly in the darkness. Duggan took a good few punches and slashes, but he fought on. When the creatures were fully occupied with him, he motioned for the family to leave.
Weiland didn’t need telling twice, he grabbed a kid with each arm and charged through the creatures.
Duggan slapped the two who went for Weiland, to get their attention back on him.
Duggan followed, aiming the Taser at the creatures to keep them backed up enough to give him chance to get out of the loft.
The family all looked shell-shocked. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Anywhere but here,’ Duggan replied, blood trickling down from a cut on his forehead.
‘Sounds good to me.’
They climbed out of the loft and ran back to meet with Winters. ‘There seemed to be a shitload of the scaly bastards headed this way,’ he said. ‘I think it’s the bunch from the town hall.’
Duggan nodded. ‘Let’s get the fuck outta here.’
They ran to the car. As they climbed in, they saw a huge horde of creatures headed towards them. Winters drove at a speed the situation demanded.
‘It’s a shame to say it,’ Duggan said, ‘because it’s a great little town, but this place is fucked.’
The rest of his companions agreed.
‘Don’t feel bad,’ Winters said. ‘You’ve done more than anyone, ’specially that useless fuckwit of a mayor.’
‘Yeah, guess I did. Feel like I could have done more though.’
The car passed through the creatures and the piles of torn human corpses. The townsfolk had killed a few creatures, but legions remained.
‘What’s going to happen?’ Weiland asked.
‘They’ll take over here, no problems,’ Duggan said. ‘No doubt try and spread out from here into the rest of the country too.’
‘Much’s I hate to say it, the place wants napalmin’,’ Winters said.
‘Reckon yer right,’ Weiland said. ‘Nip it in the bud.’
‘Cause if those things get out of the town…’ Winters trailed off.
Everyone else was thinking the same thing.
‘No one points a gun at my baby sister,’ Simone said.
