She huffed and puffed. “You need to slow down, Byron. I can’t run as fast as you, or for nearly as long.”
“Sorry.” My muscles tightened up a little, feeling stiff.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes filling with concern.
“I’ll be okay.”
“You need to feed, don’t you?”
“We don’t have time for that, right now. Besides, if we can make it to the prison, I have my snack in the Rover.”
She cocked her head. “All right, I guess. But you need to slow down and conserve your energy. We can’t have you burning out on us if a Lord or something comes to call.”
I nodded. “I’ll be fine. Let’s just get back to the prison.”
We started off at a jog, but after a few dozen steps, she clutched her side again and slowed to a stop, stooping over. “I can’t,” she groaned through grit teeth. “I’ve got a stitch in my side, and I can’t run anymore.”
I looked up at the street sign in the distance—20th Street. “We’re almost there. Two more streets.”
“I need to rest, dammit. Give me a minute.”
Grabbing her arm, I whipped her onto my back and ran with all my strength. Townhouses and brownstones flashed by us reflecting a mix of both late nineteenth and early twentieth century Philadelphia. I turned up 21st Street and poured on more speed. More blocks passed by as I ran.
“Where is this place?” I called back to her.
“Keep going, you can’t miss it.” A pleasant chill traveled down my back as her breath brushed against my ear.
Several more blocks later, the street ended in a T-bone intersection and the massive walls of Eastern States Penitentiary loomed before us. I let Dove back down to the tarmac.
“Where is everyone?” She asked the same thing running through my mind.
“I don’t know. And I’m not sure I like it.”
“Byron, you were surrounded by a massive horde before the rock eater appeared. Where did they all go?”
I shrugged and approached an enormous hole in the pavement. “I’m not sure, but my guess would be down there somewhere.”
I could see the fear in her eyes as she stared at the opening. “But that would mean—” She never voiced her fear, but I knew what she meant. I thought the same thing. If the Goners weren’t up here with us, then they were down there with the others.
“We have no time to lose,” I said, grabbing her hand and turning my back toward her so she could climb on. “We need to get down there and help them.”
She pulled away from me. “No. You need to feed, first. If you have no energy, then going down there is useless.”
I grimaced, furrowing my brow. I didn’t like what she was saying, but only because I knew it to be true. “Fine. Let me go get my snack, and then we head down there.”
She climbed onto my back and I turned to face the prison walls. In no time, I scaled the walls and descended down to the courtyard on the other side. Finding the Rover right where we left it, I opened the back hatch and removed the container full of rats.
“You don’t want to see this,” I told her and she turned her back as I slurped down a few of the tiny morsels. My muscles felt a little better, but some stiffness remained. I know I could feed more, and that I needed to. But we didn’t have time for me to hunt. We needed to save our friends, and we needed to save them now.
“Okay,” I said, pitching the last over the prison walls. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
She turned back to me and started. Her jaw dropped open a little and she pointed at me. “You’ve got a little something, right there.”
“Sorry. I’ve always been a messy eater. I guess old habits die hard, huh?”
She forced a chuckle. A weak smile spread to her lips. “So how are we doing this?”
I stared at her, my mind a blank. “I’m not quite sure. I don’t know what’s going to be worse, the horde of Goners, or the rock eater.”
She drew the sword from her back. “We need more weapons. I wonder if there’s anywhere around here to get some guns.”
I shrugged. “Don’t know. This ain’t my town. I’m from Jersey. But I do have an idea. We could search the gas station down the road. They might have something behind the counter.”
“Let’s check it out. I don’t want to jump into this an be completely overwhelmed.”
I chuckled. “We’re two people against a horde of zombies and some alien monster, and you don’t want to be overwhelmed? It’s a little late for that, I think.”
Her smile widened. “Fair enough. But you also know what I mean. I want to give us the best chance for survival we can get.”
I chuckled at her response, kind of flattered that she had adopted my use of fair enough. “I know. I know.” I held out my hand to her again and she climbed onto my back. In a few short minutes I stood outside the same gas station where I faced the flesh golem with not a Goner to be found.
“This is creepy. I know these things are out here, but…” I decided not to test fate and instead made my way toward the convenience store door.
“Let’s just do what we came here to do and get the hell out of here.” She had an icy tone to her voice. I liked it.
Stopping at the glass entryway, I scanned in all directions. No movement. No strange shapes. Nothing out of the ordinary other than a gas station convenience store abandoned in broad daylight.
I gave her a hard stare. “You ready?”
She nodded. “Let’s do this.”
chapter seventeen
We slipped through the glass doors and into the convenience store. A long counter ran the length of the wall to the left with a small office in the far corner. Rows of shelves ran away from us to the right. Floor-to-ceiling freezers occupied the back and right walls.
At my first breath, I wanted to retch from the stench of week-old milk. But I stood my ground, my sword clutched tight in my hands. Byron followed me inside.
Crypt-like silence greeted us. Oppressive and heavy. I opened my mouth, wanting to lift the weight of it off me, but Byron raised his hand in caution. He pointed at the counter and with the grace of a jungle cat poured himself to the other side, never lowering either of his swords. He jabbed something on the floor. A meaty crunch broke the stillness.
Byron disappeared behind the counter, kneeling down. I turned my body, facing down the aisles between the shelves, and stalked toward the back of the store. Reaching the refrigerators, I lowered my sword.
“This place is empty.” Even at a whisper my voice sounded like a gunshot in contrast to the silence.
“Not quite. The clerk is dead. I would wager he died before any Goners could infect him. It also looks like someone cleaned this place out. Most of these private gas stores have some kind of gun or something behind the counter for the overnight clerk’s protection. The register is open, and there is nothing back here. The safe is even missing.”
“So, like I said—this place is empty.”
He tipped his head to one side. “Okay. Fine. This place is empty. But this doesn’t bode well for us. We needed some weapons quick and this was our last hope.”
I stared out the front windows. Still no Goners. That unsettled me. There should be at least something shuffling around. And yet a sign across the street caught my eye.
“Byron. Come here, you’ve got to see this.” I pointed out the window.
He popped his head out of the office, craned his neck, and shrugged his shoulders. “All I see are gas pumps and a burned car.” He gave me a wicked smirk as the last two words passed his mouth.
“Across the street. Come here.”
He poured himself back over the counter and slid in next to me.
I watched his expression as he followed my finger to where I pointed. A grin spread from ear to ear.
“Do you think there’s anything left in there?”
My turn to shrug. “Beats me. But it’s at least worth a look-see.”
He didn’t need any further enc
ouragement and headed for the door. I sheathed my sword and followed him out into the street. He made a beeline for the animal hospital across the street, and I knew the snack he had eaten earlier did little to satisfy his appetite. If we couldn’t find any weapons, he could at least feed and increase his strength before we jumped into the snake pit and battled the rock eaters and Goners below.
“It’s locked.” His hand still tried to turn the handle. He looked at me, grimaced, then gave it a hard pull. The splitting wood reminded me of tearing paper as the door separated from its frame. He tossed the wooden slab aside and with one sword drawn stepped inside.
A commotion greeted us as various animals made their presence known. “Stay here,” he told me. “It’s not going to be pretty.”
He got no argument from me as he stalked back from the waiting room along the main hallway. A slight commotion resounded, then silence followed. “All good!” he called back. “Only one Goner. Took care of it. Be out in a few minutes.”
I stepped back out to the street, still unnerved by the lack of Goners milling about. A sudden strong breeze swept along Fairmount Street from the west, pushing me to one side. At first my legs felt weak, like I couldn’t find my balance. But soon I realized the problem stemmed not from my legs, but from the vibration emenating from the ground below.
Byron appeared by my side, his eyes wide. Crimson streaks adorned the sides of this mouth, but his skin tone appeared brighter and more vibrant. “They’re moving—a number of them.”
“Who are? Who are moving?”
“The rock eaters. They’re moving underground and shaking the surface.”
“Oh my God! That’s them doing this? I thought it was an earthquake.”
“No. It’s them, and they are coming this way.” He grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the building. It shook with unbelievable violence, swaying in wild directions before it collapsed like a house of cards. Plumes of grey and red dust erupted into the sky with a massive crack like that of breaking pasta only a thousand times louder. Bricks thudded to the ground. In seconds all that remained of the line of townhouses were low mounds of rubble.
“Keep moving,” he yelled as he dragged me. But I couldn’t. My eyes were locked on the piles as they boiled like water in a pot. The ground beneath them heaved upward and peeled away, revealing the black body of a rock eater. The top of its head opened and its skull-faced tentacles burst forth like an explosion at a licorice factory. A wild thousand-voiced cry broke the air, burrowing itself into my head.
Byron threw his arm around my waist and the pavement disappeared from beneath my feet. He ran like mad, tearing for the hole nearer the prison.
“I don’t think he likes you,” he told me as he ran.
I stammered, my thoughts out of focus. “Who? Who doesn’t like me?”
“Our friend, here—Rocky.”
I stared at the side of Byron’s face trying to understand what he meant, but as a tentacle swept past my peripheral vision, it came to me. “Do you think that’s—”
“Without a doubt,” he interrupted. “And he seems pretty pissed off about it.”
I turned and gazed back at the beast standing amidst the tons of rubble which only moments before comprised brick buildings. A wide but jagged scar stretched across part of its midsection. Its numerous eyes all around before locking on me.
“It sees me!” I screamed. The ground disappeared from beneath us and everything became dark.
~ ~ ~
Leaping into the original rock eater hole, I prayed to my self that we did not land into the waiting maw of another of them. I can’t even guess how far I fell before my feet met something solid again. Dove had slid onto my back and I could feel her arms gripping tight around my neck. I ran with all the speed I could muster, heading into the burrow hole the creature had earlier dug. We needed to get away, and fast. This thing had a vendetta to settle.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness again, and I weaved my way along the glassy tunnel toward what I hoped would be the place our friends were hiding.
“Where are we?” Dove whispered into my ear.
“We’re back down in the tunnels. I’m trying to get to the prison tunnel. We need to put as much distance between us and that thing as we can.”
The earth shook behind me and a massive rush of air shoved at my back.
“What was that?”
“I think it just entered the tunnel. It’s looking for you.”
“How do you know?”
“My Symbiots have sensed it searching. They warned me it was coming.”
“How does it know where I am?”
“If the Symbiots are correct, it is searching for chemical signatures that your body gives off. Sweat, adrenaline, endorphins, pheromones, all of them have specific signatures and the combinations are specific to a person because no two people excrete the same chemicals at the exact same levels. It can use these chemical trails to track us.”
“Can your thingies do anything to throw the scent off?”
“No. The rock eaters are far more sensitive than the colonies. They were able to see through that ruse. There is no fooling this thing. We need to figure out some way to deal with it.”
“How in the hell are we going to deal with that thing?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out, yet. Right now I just want to find our friends and get the hell out of here. If it follows us, we’ll find a way to kill it.”
I could hear her grumble, but she didn’t respond. Scanning the walls, the path diverged up ahead.
Roars filled the tunnel. I couldn’t tell from which direction they came.
I turned right, trying to trace our path from our earlier prison escape in my mind. A few hundred feet ahead, the tunnel turned left and emerged parallel to the prison shaft. The roars ceased as I exited the rock eater tube and entered the underbelly of the prison.
I scanned left and right. Back toward the prison, the ceiling had collapsed, blocking the path. To the left, the old door stood wide open. I ran toward it, hoping my instincts hadn’t failed me. If our companions had made it this far back, Jake would have led them along this tunnel back to the ground above.
Bursting through the door at the end of the tunnel, I felt the earth shake behind me. The tunnel collapsed and then disappeared as a swirling vortex of razor-sharp teeth devoured the brick and earth we had just passed through.
“Byron? What is that?” She sounded so much the lost, scared little girl.
“You don’t want to know,” I told her through grit teeth as I poured on some more speed and vaulted up a set of concrete stairs. Faint light outlined a door ahead. I held my arms up before me and braced myself for what I knew would be a horrific impact.
I crashed through the solid wood door into broad daylight. My eyes stung like they’d been seared by lasers, but I didn’t stop running.
“Byron!” A voice shouted and I stopped, rotating my trunk toward it. “Over here!”
Esmerelda’s face materialized from the light, my brain finally organizing and decoding the overabundant stimuli. We had emerged from a rundown garage-type building onto a cross street running perpendicular to the tunnel from which we emerged.“Run!” I bellowed as a tremor cracked the houses lining both sides of the street. Dove leaped from my back and sprinted for her aunt, with me running after both of them.
Esmerelda screamed, but broke into a full-out run as the ground upwelled beneath the garage.
“Where are the others?” I shouted.
“They were heading to Girard College to look for shelter and supplies,” she yelled back.
“How long ago did they leave?”
“Only a few minutes. At this pace, we should be able to catch up to them.” She wheezed her response.
We turned left and then right and ran for several blocks. Behind us, the rock eater had shot up through the earth, roaring its mighty cry. The ground shook with each step it took in our direction. But thankfully, as it crashed through the abu
ndant buildings located between us, it lagged further and further back.
“What the hell is that?” The faint cry reached me from far ahead. I recognized the voice—Evan.
I ran faster, grabbing up both women, one in each arm. I sprinted across Parrish Street and saw the rest of the party in the distance.
“Run!” I screamed in chorus with Dove and Esmerelda. “It’s coming!”
Evan let out a blood-curdling shriek. Something was wrong. I ran as fast as I could, encumbered by the two women in my arms.
“Byron!” John shouted with urgency. As I burst into the intersection of Poplar and 23rd Street, I understood why they screamed.
Jake lay on the ground, flat on his back with Sammy atop him. I could see the strain on Jake’s face as he fought against the other man. John held one of Sammy’s arms, while Evan kicked at the man. But still, Sammy didn’t relent from his assault one iota.
“He turned!” John’s voice cracked as he yelled. “We need your help!”
I shucked both women without breaking stride and whipped my swords from their scabbards. In one deft movement, I helicoptered, swinging both blades through Sammy’s neck and severing his head from his body. But the decapitated torso fought on, shooting geysers of clotted, black blood into the sky to rain down on Jake.
~ ~ ~
“Get this goddamn thing off me!” Jake screamed, his voice two octaves higher than normal, betraying the fear coursing through him. “Why the hell is it still fighting?”
“They’re changing,” Byron called back as he wrapped his arms around Sammy’s body and pulled it away. “The colonies within them are all fighting for control, even within a single Goner.”
“You know, he’s the one who coined that name?” I pointed at Sammy’s head laying on the ground with its teeth snapping at the air. “This morning when I first met him at the Church.” Something caught in my throat. “I never knew he had been infected.” Hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me away from the scene as Byron lopped limbs off and and threw them in different directions.
He grabbed Sammy’s head and held it up. The milked-over eyes searched the room. Its teeth clicked as the jaw closed. “Take a good look, people. This is the new face of the zombie apocalypse.”
Dove: A Zombie Tale (Byron: A Zombie Tale Book 2) Page 17
