by Maxey, Phil
He looked across to Ryan. His deputy was on the ground, his shirt covered in blood, as well as his neck. Images of Ryan’s wife tried forcing their way into his mind.
I’ve got your husband killed.
He staggered across the uneven ground, being careful not to move near the hole, and kept firing back into the tunnels around him, but he knew deep in his gut he was not going to see the sunlight again. He slumped near his friend, feeling for a pulse when claws sunk into his shoulder, he whipped the gun around and went to fire, but only a dull click came from the trigger. He sighed and looked up into the distorted face of a man he once knew. Arthur Gower. He and his younger brother ran the Bellweather auto repair and had gone missing a month before.
The thing in front of him though was not the same, its eyes were as dark as onyx, and the face around them had lost most its human structure, being more warped and serpentlike.
Is it smiling?
He tried to struggle, but the thing’s razor-like nails just sunk deeper, and as his consciousness started to flicker, he could feel the blood starting to pour.
Amongst the pain a noise came from the tunnel behind him.
More want to feed…
Suddenly, the pressure eased in his shoulder, and the thing in front of him flew backwards as automatic fire echoed around the rock walls. Jim tried to focus through his pain, but the scene in front of him was one of blurs and screeches. Something else was inside the cavern, moving as quick as the unholy creatures. Bodies flew, impacting and breaking against the solid walls, while others exploded in sprays of blood and bone.
A hand slid under his shoulder and began to lift him. “I can’t go. Ryan…” He murmured to his rescuer.
“He’s dead,” said Joel, lifting Jim, and placing him over his shoulder in a fireman's lift.
The clatter of more automatic fire rang out, as Jim’s world went dark.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Joel stood in the waiting area of Bellweather medical center, a modern single-story building, looking at the various candy options available in the vending machine. He was getting hungry. A few hours earlier he had rushed inside carrying the sheriff on his back, with most of what was left of the town pulling into the parking lot in their cars behind him. In one of them was Ryan’s wife, desperate for news of her husband. Soon afterwards, while Jim was having multiple lacerations sewn back together, Joel had told her of the fate of her loved one, and then spent an hour trying to console her. Eventually though, everyone filtered away, just leaving himself, and the medical staff. Without anyone saying it, he was acutely aware that Bellweather no longer had anyone to protect it.
The same woman he had seen hours earlier in the hotel, walked up to him, she had a smear of blood across her glasses, and more on her pale blue shirt.
“How is he?” said Joel.
“He’ll live, but he’s lost a fair amount of blood. We’ll have to do another call for blood in the morning.”
Joel nodded then turned, grabbing his jacket.
“You’re leaving? It’s already dark out.”
Joel looked surprised and turned to face the glass doors a few yards away. She was right, the daylight was just a memory. It had still been light when he brought the sheriff in, and he thought he had enough time to get back on the road before the sun completely disappeared beneath the horizon, but time got away from him.
“Have you got somewhere to stay?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe the hotel again. I stayed there last night.”
“I’ve got some blankets in the cupboard, if you want to sleep on the couch here. Once we bring the shutters down its pretty secure in here.”
“Thanks, Anna, but I’ll try the hotel. That’s your name, right?”
She smiled, then her eyes turned to the large tear in his shirt. “You sure that arm of yours is okay? Your shirt has a lot of blood on it… and if any of their blood got into a wound…”
“It’s not mine.”
That was only partly true.
She nodded, then her expression dissolved into something more serious. “Can’t believe Mike and Ryan are gone. I went to school here with Ryan before leaving for university… His poor wife.”
He felt like he should place his hand on her shoulder, do something to console her, but he resisted. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
He walked out into the cool evening air and breathed in a lungful. Even though it was early autumn it was still warm out. A part of him couldn’t help but feel the heat was making things worse and when winter came, the cold would hurt the scourge somehow, but it was an instinct, nothing more.
He walked across the small parking lot past a parked ambulance.
Flint looked back at him through the rear window.
Getting in his car, he sat and looked at the dark shapes of the homes and other buildings perched on the side of the mountain, with only the occasional twinkle of light to indicate life still existed in the town.
I could go. Just leave. I’ve done my bit, I saved their sheriff.
The fight in the cave took a lot out of him. But the number of things was less than the number he often had to fight in LA. It’s a lot easier when a horde is coming at you if there’s a bottleneck, and the confined space of the tunnels proved just such a situation. Still, he was glad to have the M4.
I wonder what Jim will remember when he wakes. Will he know what I am?
He laughed to himself.
“That’s a good question. What am I…” He suddenly remembered the role Flint played in the caves. The dog took down at least two of the creatures in the dark. Until then, he wasn’t sure the dog had changed, but the speed and fury that he attacked the creatures in there confirmed it. No animal would have survived the onslaught. He turned and faced Flint laying on the backseat. “So, you’re… vampire dog? Dogpire? That’s really a bad name…”
This time he laughed harder and Flint looked up at him. “But you don’t attack humans, only the scourge…”
He shook his head. It didn’t make sense, but it meant he didn’t need to be worried about Flint being around any of the townsfolk. In some ways he was the same. The first creature he fed on was an animal, not a human.
“Is that it? Is it the first thing you feed on what matters?”
His ears picked up footsteps within the medical center’s hallway, and he looked across to see Dr. Faraday bringing the metal shutters down, and then heard her closing and locking the glass doors on the inside. Shortly after, some of the lights within went out.
“Guess she lives there.”
He sat in the dark of the parking lot, although he could still pick up much of the surroundings because of his ability to see, despite the lack of light. It was one of the aspects of being ‘different’ that he liked.
My own personal night-vision goggles.
A wave of fatigue passed over him.
Hungry.
He knew what the distant feeling of heat within his body meant. He was going to have to have blood soon.
*****
Rachel Fowler lifted her head from the sofa and looked around the living room. The small picture frame of her wedding fell from her hand, landing on the thick rug.
She rubbed the crust from her eyes and reached forward for the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the coffee table. The glass was nearby, but ignoring it, she spun the cap and took a deep gulp of the golden liquid.
The burning started in her throat but was soon expanding into her chest and stomach. She waited for it to reach her brain. The pain which had consumed her just hours before, had become a dull ache, which flared up each time she let herself believe her husband wasn’t coming back.
When the scourge began in the big cities they thought they were safe in Bellweather. Sheriff Reynolds closed the roads. No one was getting out, but more importantly, no one was getting in. Whatever was causing people to turn homicidal wasn’t going to affect any of the four hundred plus people of this former mining town. They were sure of it. But then
, as the weeks rolled on, cases started coming in from towns in Arizona, each one closer than the last, like an invisible wave of intent. When they lost contact with Wyton they knew they were next, but with the road block up they felt they could quarantine anyone that showed any symptoms. Not that they knew what the ‘symptoms’ were. Dr. Faraday gleaned what she could from news reports and the internet before it went down, but she had no actual cases to study, and the CDC’s advice was just to keep away from the infected, not exactly much to base a treatment on.
When the Changs disappeared, quickly followed by Mr and Mrs Rush, the elderly couple that arranged the local book club, she knew the scourge had crept inside the towns borders. But Ryan boarded up the windows, and they had a few months’ worth of food and water in the basement, so they would get through.
She had always accepted the risks his job entailed, but for the first time in their eight years of marriage, she started to get anxiety when the sun went down.
He’s dead, and you’re next…
She lifted the bottle up high above her, to let the liquid cascade into her mouth, but only a drip caressed her lip. Angrily, she threw the bottle which smashed against the stone fireplace.
She looked around her living room. Two of the candles were reaching the end of their wicks.
Need to get more candles.
It had become a nighttime ritual of replacing the only light source they had. Ryan had always wanted for them to get a generator, but she argued against it, saying she wasn’t going to turn into one of those ‘prepper’ types. As she looked around her barricaded home, and the piles of books and cans, she laughed, for that was exactly what she had become.
She went to stand, but any motor control was nonexistent, and she crashed back down to the sofa.
Maybe I’ll just stay here till the sun rises.
She made an attempt to pull one of the cushions beneath her head but gave up and laid back. Sleep came quick.
“Ryan?” Rachel sat up, then instantly regretted the sudden movement, and placed her hand against the side of her head to try to stop the room from continuing its movement. One candle still burned bright and, for a moment, in her drug-induced state, she was lost inside the flame, watching it flicker and sway, then the events of the previous evening rushed back into her mind, and she started crying again.
A scratching came from somewhere near the back of the room.
She looked across at the mass of wooden planks sprawled across where the patio doors used to be. The scratching repeated.
A few months earlier the same noise would have had her thinking about calling the exterminator, but now she had to consider other things. Things that tore and clawed.
She sat in the silence, waiting for the noise to stop, but it continued.
They can’t get in. It’s secure.
The shadows on the walls danced. Startled, her hand flicked out to grab anything solid to defend against the dark gray shapes but found nothing. She giggled, then pushed herself to her feet.
“You can’t come in! My husbandsss in here…” She shouted, at the air towards the rear of the room.
“Rachel…”
“Ryan?” She rushed towards the barricade keeping out the night, but her aim was off, and she stumbled over one of the containers of water and fell forward slamming up against where the glass doors used to be. She ignored the splinters in the palm of her hand and stood back up. “Ryan? Baby, are you there? Are you hurt?”
“Rachel… It burns…”
She could hear his voice was deeper, but who knows where he had been for the past ten hours.
Anger grew inside her.
That damn FBI liar! My heart broke, and my Ryan was still alive!
She pushed her hand up against the beams. “I… I can’t get through here, its boarded up remember. Stay there I’ll come to the back!”
She whirled around and fell into a bookshelf, then shook her head trying to shake the haze which was enveloping her brain and senses.
Need to concentrate. Need to think, he needs my help. Where’s the first aid kit, and my car keys—
The wooden beams holding the night outside shuddered as something slammed into them, making her jump and turn around to face them.
“I’m coming, baby!”
She looked around the room at the various cupboards then staggered to one, pulling a drawer open, and pulling out a small paint-chipped box. She then spotted her car keys on the coffee table, grabbed them, and ran through the hallway, bouncing off the walls to the front door. Lifting the multiple beams that Ryan had fitted on latches across the door, she then unlocked another three heavy duty locks, and opened the door.
The cool night air rushed in, and for a moment her brain left its cobwebs behind and she stopped in the doorway.
Maybe he’s like them?
But like the candles in the room behind her, the idea that her husband was something else extinguished and was replaced by an overwhelming urge to see the man she couldn’t live without.
She ran out into the absolute black, and into her husband’s embrace.
CHAPTER NINE
A body of a young boy lay strewn across the concrete of Joel’s parents driveway. He had already found his mom and dad in their living room, still warm, but just as lifeless and was now holding his child in his arms.
Screams, and other more unnatural noises rang out in the once pleasant suburban neighborhood.
A voice from deep within urged him to get to his feet, to try and help what people he could, but he refused to listen to it. His world had ended, so why should it be any different for anyone else?
He pulled his Glock from its holster and held it to the side of his head. He looked down at Daniel. “I’ll be with you soon…”
As his finger touched the trigger, he heard another noise added to the chaos around him. A baby’s cry.
The sound of the screaming infant clawed at his mind, keeping him chained to his consciousness.
He looked out at the once neat homes and manicured lawns. A green stroller, its wheels squeaking, rolled slowly forward across the road. Blinking, he tried to make sense of the world around him. A person, or something else, he wasn’t sure, burst from the side of one of the single-story homes and sprinted towards the source of the crying. He had seen hundreds of similarly afflicted people, from the first one in the hotel room, to the groups of them that now seemed to inhabit the streets of LA, but he was still shocked by how it moved, its limbs moving in unison, animallike. Its eyes, like the rest, were jet black.
He watched motionless as the thing tore across the lawn, heading for the buggy, which had come to a stop against the curb.
Joel sluggishly looked down at his boy, then back up at the thing bearing down on someone else’s child.
“No…”
He raised his gun, and fired off a perfect shot, hitting the thing square in its side and knocking it momentarily off course. It still kept on going, its hands grabbing at the air in front of it, like it was swimming rather than running. Joel got to his feet and walked forward firing off another shot, this one missed as the creature was now weaving as it moved forward. Joel started running forward towards what he and the thing were going to converge on.
The baby’s screams filled the air. He broke into a sprint, but the thing was covering the ground faster. Clicks came from his gun as the magazine was now empty, the thing was going to get to the child before him, and there was nothing he could to stop it.
“No!” he shouted into the darkness of his hotel room. He was awake, sitting up. His heart pounded in his ears, and the final scene from his dream fluttered through his mind. In reality, the second shot did not miss, and the creature fell to the ground dead, but his nightmares didn’t agree. He sat there, trying not to think about what happened to his son, but anger and bitterness started to well inside him. Pushing those emotions aside, he looked over to Flint, whose eyes glowed slightly in the dark. He wondered if his did too.
Might want to avoid lo
oking at people after the sun’s gone down or get some sunglasses.
A soft knock came at his bedroom door.
“Yes?”
“Umm, I heard some shouting, just wanted to know if you are okay in there?” said Kelly.
“We’re fine.”
“Okay,” came the meek reply.
“Are you okay?” Joel wasn’t sure why he asked, the words just sort of fell out.
Kelly fumbled a few words.
“You can come in, I’m decent.”
The door opened, and Kelly wearing denim pants and a flannel shirt, walked in, closing the door behind and sat tentatively on the end of the bed. Flint got to his feet and slid across her legs sitting in front of her. She stroked the top of his head.
“So, what’s the problem? Everything alright with your grandmother?”
“Yeah, she’s probably sleeping or in the office downstairs. It’s just there’s a lot of talk with the townsfolk of what’s going to happen now the deputies are dead and Jim’s in the hospital, and seeing that you’re—” Joel could see where things were going and wanted to interrupt but let her continue. “— An FBI agent, then some of us wondered if you could help out?”
Joel took a breath.
“And you were in the mine, you saw what was in there. Are more of those things going to attack the rest of us?”
Joel wondered what authority he would have in the small town, that’s if any federal agencies were still functioning. She looked at him waiting for an answer. “Look, I don’t plan on staying around here forever, but… maybe I can help out for a few days.” He presumed he could shield his thoughts from Marina or avoid her for that amount of time. “One thing though. You know where there are any livestock around here?”
*****
Joel could hear the heartbeats and smell the odors of the twenty-five people crowded into the ground floor of the hotel before he descended the stairs.
