As he’d expected, the place was in shambles. The countertops were strewn with paperwork, pens, and cups; the office doors left hanging on the hinges. Several bodies were strewn across the floor and countertops.
The smell of death clung to the air, and Dan covered his mouth to repel it.
He stepped through the wreckage, scanning the room for a door that might lead to the roof. Behind the main counter was the vault. Surprisingly, the steel gate was still intact, preventing entry, though it looked like several attempts had been made to open it. He grimaced at a body on the floor next to it. The person’s hands were still clinging to the bars, even though their lower half was missing.
To Dan’s left was long hallway, which contained a row of glass offices on the left, a set of doors on the right. He crossed the room, heading toward the doors.
Through the glass offices he could see the windows that led to the street. He glanced through them, verifying that his daughter was still safe and sound in the vehicle. When he reached the first door, he tried the handle. The door opened without effort, revealing a host of cleaning supplies: mops, brooms, and buckets. He clicked it closed and tried the other.
The second door contained a flight of stairs, presumably leading to the roof.
He crossed the doorway and started up them.
His footsteps echoed on the stairwell, and he did his best to dampen them, taking one stair at a time. Although the room was dim, he could make out his surroundings from a small window about halfway up the wall.
All clear so far.
At the top was a lone door. He reached for the handle, listening for noise on the other side. If it was indeed the roof, which he assumed it was, then the girl should be waiting for him.
The door wouldn’t budge. It was jammed from the other side.
He raised his knuckles and gave it a rap. He heard a feeble voice from the other side, then the sound of objects being moved. The girl must have barricaded herself on the roof. How long had she been up there?
The door handle turned, and he stepped back a few feet.
A face poked through the crack. The girl was pale, fair-skinned, about sixteen years old. Her lips quivered when she took sight of Dan. It looked like she was in a state of shock.
“I thought you were going to leave,” she whispered.
The girl kept the door closed to a crack, as if opening it would let in the creatures she’d been trying so hard to keep out. Dan put his hand on the edge of the door.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” he said. “But we need to get out of here as soon as possible.”
She released the door and he parted it the rest of the way, allowing daylight to creep into the stairwell. The girl remained in place. He saw that she was wearing a gray tank top and a pair of tattered white shorts.
“What’s your name?”
“Sandy.”
He extended his hand.
“I’m Dan Lowery. Listen, Sandy, I know this is difficult, but we really need to get out of here before those things come back.”
She glared at his gun, perhaps noticing his stance on the stairwell.
“Are you a police officer?” she asked.
“I was.” Dan paused. “But not anymore.”
“Who’s in the car?”
“My daughter Quinn. You’re going to be all right, Sandy. We’re going to get you out of here.”
No sooner had he spoken the words than she leapt into his arms and started to sob. He embraced her with his free hand, holding her close. He felt awful for the girl. It was as if her entire ordeal had culminated in this moment, and the prospect of escape made it even more real.
He let her cry for a minute, then led her down the stairs one step at a time. He could feel her shaking, and he did his best to console her, keep her quiet.
They were halfway down the stairs when he heard a clatter from somewhere at the bottom. The girl jumped.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I’m not sure.”
The two of them halted mid-step. He strained to see the bottom of the stairwell, but the door above them had already shut, pitching them into semi-darkness.
The noise below them continued. It sounded like it was coming from the main floor of the bank. Dan glanced back at the door to the roof.
“Get ready to run, Sandy.”
She clung tighter.
“I’m not going back up there,” she whispered.
“Hopefully it won’t come to that.”
The clatter had increased in volume. It sounded like it was getting closer. Dan’s eyes had once again adjusted to the dark; he could now make out the outline of the door below them.
Without warning, it moved, and a hand shimmied through the crack.
Sandy screamed.
Dan cupped his hand over her mouth, but he was too late. The hand retracted and a head came into view, snapping and snarling.
“Back to the roof!” he shouted.
He heard the clap of Sandy’s footsteps as she retreated, and then the thud of the door being cast aside. A flood of light penetrated the stairwell, and Dan saw that the creature had wormed its way inside.
He raised his pistol and squeezed off a shot, knocking it backward, but there were already others behind it. Dan tried to determine the exact number, but there were too many to count. The creatures were already climbing the stairs, and with only a limited amount of ammunition, he had no option but to retreat.
He bounded up the stairs and crashed onto the roof, the creatures right on his tail. Sandy was waiting for him. When she saw what was behind him, she clapped her hands against her face.
To his left were a stack of chairs, a couch, and a shelf.
“Quick! Barricade the door!” he yelled.
He slammed it shut behind him, pressing his full weight against it. The door bucked against his shoulder, and he gritted his teeth, doing his best to hold it. Sandy grabbed the couch and began sliding it in place.
But she was too late. The door was already about to give way.
Dan jumped back as a flood of creatures poured from the entrance. He raised his pistol and fired several rounds into the mass, but the numbers were too strong. Before he knew it he was fleeing to the edge of the roof, Sandy behind him.
He peered over the edge, reeling at the sight of the thirty-foot drop and the station wagon below. By his count there were six bullets left in the chamber of his gun—not nearly enough to ward off the horde of creatures in front of them.
“Are there any other weapons up here?” he shouted.
“No!”
The girl behind him was frantic, and she dug her nails into the back of his shirt, as if Dan were the last anchor to her sanity.
He scoured the roof, looking for an escape route. Jumping was out of the question; that was for sure. Other than that, the only other way out that he could see was back through the door they’d come in.
“Dammit!” he yelled.
The creatures were almost upon them, ten feet and closing, and he fired off two shots, felling the two closest to them. No sooner had they fallen than two more emerged to take their place, biting and clawing the air in front of them.
He fixed his eyes on one in particular, which appeared to have been a woman with long dark hair and blue eyes. The creature’s face held the same shape and curves as Julie’s, and before he knew it, he’d replaced the image with that of his dead wife’s.
His heart swelled with despair.
Would he be joining her soon?
Get ahold of yourself, Dan.
The sound of a car door slamming jolted him back to reality.
He looked back over the roof’s edge, just in time to see his daughter racing from the station wagon and into the bank.
“Quinn! No!” he shouted.
But he was too late.
His daughter had already entered the building.
5
Meredith faltered back down the hallway, unable to believe what she was seeing. The man coming toward her was pale and disheveled, his eyes rabid and roving. He looked nothing like Ben. His hands raked the air, fingers bloody, and he emitted a low hiss through clenched teeth.
If he recognized Meredith, he showed no outward signs of it. This was not the neighbor she’d known for five years.
This was a different person entirely.
Even still, could she shoot him?
She aimed the rifle at his mid-section, her hands shaking, and wondered if she’d have the courage to pull the trigger.
To be fair, Meredith had known about the infection. She’d seen the details on the news, and she’d even seen footage of the infected. Knowing that things could escalate, that her town could be next, she’d done her best to prepare for the worst. But as she quickly realized, seeing something on the television and seeing it right in front of you were two different things.
There was no way to prepare for something like this.
Ben—or whatever Ben had become—advanced toward her without hesitation, paying little mind to the gun she was carrying, and she backed up several steps until she was next to the stairwell. Her foot slid from the landing onto the first step.
Ben’s eyes had stopped roaming, and his gaze locked on her face.
“Ben!” she screamed. “It’s me, Meredith!”
But her words were useless. She may as well have been speaking in a foreign language.
She heard a bang from downstairs, and her heart leapt in her chest.
“Sheila? Where are you?” she screamed. But there was no answer from the old woman.
Ben took a swing at her, and she moved to the side, narrowly avoiding him. She moved down another stair and clenched the trigger of the rifle. If she were to run, the man would be upon her in no time; given his size, he’d overtake her in seconds.
Meredith raised her gun; swallowed the lump in her throat.
I’m sorry, Ben.
She squeezed the trigger. The resultant blast knocked her back a step, and she watched as the man stumbled back into the hallway. He hunched over, head tilted to the side, but he did not retreat.
She’d struck him in the arm, and the wound gushed a red spray: a mixture of blood and something else she couldn’t identify. Despite the injury, he made no sound, no outward indication that he felt any pain. Instead, he took another plodding step toward her.
Meredith ran.
She took the steps two at a time, her feet sliding across the carpet, and she heard Ben chasing after her. She heard a crash, as if he’d hit the wall, then a series of thuds as his feet hit the stairs.
When she reached the ground floor, she veered right into the kitchen. There was no sign of Sheila, but the phone was lying on the floor. Next to it was a puddle of blood.
“Oh God,” Meredith whispered.
Despite her concern, Meredith had no time for hesitation. She heard another enormous crash behind her—probably Ben hitting the first floor landing—and darted through the kitchen and out the open back door.
At the rear of the property was an enormous field. At one time it had been used for growing crops, but with Sheila’s husband deceased, it had succumbed to overgrowth. To Meredith’s right, fifty feet away, was a barn.
She darted forth without hesitation, her feet pummeling the earth. Although she didn’t dare turn around, she could sense Ben’s presence behind her. The hissing had increased in volume, and his footfalls thudded against the grass.
The sun blazed overhead, illuminating the field in a golden film. Meredith squinted from the glare. There was still no sign of Sheila. Her hope was that the woman had made it to the barn, that she was waiting for her.
When she was twenty feet from the barn doors, she noticed that they were hanging open. Had Sheila left them ajar? Was the woman in there, bleeding and injured?
Her mind scrambled for answers while her feet traipsed the ground.
She’d almost reached the entrance when she felt something brush the back of her neck. Startled, she tried to pick up speed, but she was too late.
Ben had caught up, and he grabbed ahold of her shirt and flung her to the ground. Meredith pitched forward and onto the dirt, landing on the rifle. The blow knocked the wind out of her, and she struggled to roll over.
Ben was latching on to her legs. She kicked behind her, striking Ben in the face. His grasp relented, and she grabbed hold of the rifle underneath her.
This time she was able to turn around.
She rolled onto her back, propped the gun in front of her, and took sight of her attacker. Ben was still advancing, even though it looked like she’d broken his nose. The same substance that had bled from his arm now erupted from his face, and his eyes were an inky black.
Despite his injuries, he showed no signs of slowing down. He wasn’t going to stop until she was dead.
Meredith pulled the trigger, watching the top of his head explode.
His eyes rolled backward, his body crumpled, and Ben fell onto his face.
She stared at him for another minute—this man that had once been her neighbor and friend—and felt a sob rise up in her throat.
How would she explain this to the man’s wife? How would she go on living after what she’d done?
Tears sprung to her eyes, and she dropped the rifle in the grass. She’d just killed her neighbor. She was a murderer.
But he wasn’t Ben anymore.
Meredith stared at the top of his head, at his pallid, gray arms, and tried to convince herself that she’d done the right thing. Before she could come to any resolution, she heard a commotion coming from the barn.
Sheila.
It wasn’t over yet. The woman needed her help. She forced herself to her feet.
Muffled cries wafted from the barn, and she heard a series of scuffs and bangs. From the sounds of it Sheila was in trouble. Meredith retrieved the rifle and dashed the ten feet to the doors, then kicked them open with her foot.
Her stomach instantly dropped.
Lying on her back, stomach torn open, was Sheila Guthright. Sitting on top of her was Ben’s wife, Marcy.
6
“Marcy! Get the hell off of her!” Meredith shouted.
The woman that had once been Marcy snarled, her hands wrapped around the old woman’s intestines.
“Now!”
Meredith aimed the gun, her finger on the trigger. Her face was wet with tears, and she fought to control her emotions. In just a few minutes, she’d been forced to kill one of her closest neighbors.
And now she was poised to kill another.
Marcy hissed at her, holding up her blood-laced fingers as if to taunt Meredith. She lowered her hands back to Sheila’s stomach, ready to continue her parade of gore, but before she could, Meredith fired.
The gunshot echoed through the barn.
Marcy fell sideways, collapsing like a stone.
Meredith dropped the rifle to the dirt and rushed to the old woman’s aid. Sheila opened her mouth, emitting a trickle of blood. Her stomach had been torn open, her insides torn and upended.
“Stay still,” Meredith instructed.
Tears streamed down her face. Without being a doctor, she knew that the woman was mortally wounded. The nearest hospital was about fifty miles away. Even if they could make it, she doubted the woman would survive.
But she’d try to nonetheless.
“I’ll be right back, Sheila. I promise.”
Meredith raced out of the barn, past the bodies of Marcy and Ben, and across the field. Her throat was tight and constri
cted, and her pulse still raced, but this time for a different reason.
Two of her neighbors were dead, and another was dying.
The kitchen was even worse than she had left it. The chairs had been knocked over, the door hung off its hinges. Ben had torn through it like a whirlwind, destroying everything in his path to get to her.
She’d been extremely lucky.
She just wished she’d reached Sheila earlier, before Marcy had—
Meredith pushed the thought from her mind and picked up the phone. She clicked the button off, then on again. The receiver spit a dial tone. She tapped the numbers 9-1-1 and waited for the phone to connect.
But it didn’t.
It rang and rang.
That’s impossible, she thought. How could nobody be there?
But she knew the reason, and try as she might, she was unable to ignore it. She hung up and dialed again, same result. Frantic now, she tried the phone numbers of her closest neighbors. No matter whom she called, she was unable to get a response.
The fear inside her grew.
How could things have happened so fast?
She looked at her hands as if expecting herself to suddenly transform, but her fingers remained fleshy and white. She’d been careful not to consume anything other than what was on her farm. Had Ben and Marcy done the same? She thought they had, but she couldn’t be sure.
Meredith left the phone behind and raced back out the kitchen door. Once outside, she glanced at the driveway. Her car was still adjacent to the house, a hundred feet away.
She changed course from the barn to her car. She could still make out the body of Ben Parsons on the ground, and as she ran, she had the sudden premonition that the man would sit up and chase her. But he remained still.
When she reached her truck, she jumped in, started the engine, and drove up to the barn’s entrance. If Meredith couldn’t get ahold of an ambulance, she’d drive Sheila to the hospital herself.
Contamination Box Set [Books 0-7] Page 44
