by Gregory Colt
“Then we’re going to find her. We’re going to bring her home, Brandon,” I said.
He looked at me with tears in his eyes. Sad, but not angry. Determined.
“Yes sir,” he said.
I found it six blocks later. A piece of broken heel in a metal grate on the sidewalk in an area of old abandoned brick industrial buildings. Brandon said the color matched Ruby’s shoes. The break was still clean and sharp.
“What,” Brandon swallowed. “What do you think it means?”
“If her shoe caught in the grate and broke while she was running she’d have tripped and fallen. It’s possible even if she was walking that she hurt herself. Possible also that she’d stop if she were hurt. I can’t imagine her continuing with no direction, hurting, and with one shoe. I mean she could have. I don’t know. However, once she stopped, injured or not, she would have cooled off fast, would notice where she was alone and in the dark. Under that scenario, she would have turned around and gone back if she could, or, if the shelter was close enough, she might have tried going there. Which we know she didn’t do since no one saw her this morning. Therefore, whatever happened was between the diner and the shelter right along this route under the lights. She may have found a place to spend the night if she was injured. Lots of empty buildings here,” I said, holding my cell phone for light and looking through the broken boards over the entrance to the one in front of me.
“I’m sorry about earlier, at the garage,” he said.
“You based a decision on what you thought you knew same as the rest of us. We’re all finding our way in the dark, Brandon. But in the future let’s make responding with violence Plan B,” I said, calling the kettle black.
“Ruby, man, she has this way of making everything real clear. I never had a purpose or nothing and she comes along, you know, I ain’t ever planned anything before and now I have all these ideas of things I want us to be able to do.”
“Hey,” I waved him over to me.
I pointed into the dark.
“That’s…that’s her shoe. That’s Ruby’s shoe!” he said.
“Brandon, I think it’s time to call the police.”
“Yeah. Yeah I think—” something metallic fell deep inside the dark and Brandon grabbed my arm. “Did you hear that?”
I put my phone away and stood. “Yes,” I said. “But we should still—Brandon!” I screamed at him as he dove through the opening into the building. Damn it! I went in after him.
Shafts of sunlight shone through the western windows with beams of light illuminating everything they touched…and nothing else. What I could see was a wide-open manufacturing floor with scattered debris, but it was hard to tell. The room was a stark contrast of bright light and dark shadows. It smelled awful.
Brandon was several yards ahead of me, stopping to look around with his own cell phone. I stepped into the darkest patch near me and waited for my eyes to adjust.
The room wasn’t as empty as I’d thought. Off to the sides were massive pieces of machinery with wheels on a shaft bigger than me. Some still had rotten scraps of belt on them. I had an idea.
Brandon was still fidgeting with his cell light, which wasn’t working out.
“Hey, come give me a hand with this,” I said.
I found a half rotted table in the light and broke the only good leg off and wrapped it in whatever scraps of cloth and fabric Brandon found for me. Then I went over to one of the machines; the axles and various joints were covered in hardened grease. I took the back end of the leg and scraped off the outer layer and swabbed the cloth on whatever soft spots of grease I could find. I inspected my new torch.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I pulled out my lighter. I don’t smoke often, but you never know when you’ll need fire. I lit the fabric, sending up a small ball of flame as it caught, and instead of seeing the room come to light around me, I saw a young man chained to a post, wreathed in flames, screaming in a voice I could never forget. All seen through the scope of my rifle.
“You hear that?” Brandon asked in a half whisper.
I tore my eyes away from the flames and their twisted memories.
“Mr. Knight?” Brandon asked again.
The screaming came again this time. Louder. Closer. I knew what would come next and tried to close my mind and come back to the present.
“Adrian!” Brandon screamed right in my ear, snapping me to attention.
I turned to Brandon, who was wide-eyed and pointing deeper into the center of the building, beyond the shafts of sunlight, and far beyond the range of the torch.
There was a shuffling sound every few seconds. It was odd, but as long as it was moving, it sounded like someone walking and dragging their feet. There was a groaning noise when the shuffling stopped.
“What do you think it is?” Brandon asked.
“Don’t know,” I said, trying to organize my thoughts back to something like sanity. “It’s shuffling. Like someone dragging their feet. Moaning too, but I can’t see it yet.”
“Dragging their feet and moaning? Like maybe someone injured?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I said.
“Could it be Ruby?” he asked.
“I said I don’t know, Brandon. Let whatever it is come into the light and—” I started as Brandon set off toward the edge of darkness.
“Brandon! Get back here!” I hissed.
He stopped for a second. “I need to know right now. We came in here because Ruby might be injured. I’m not waiting. If it’s somebody else, it’s probably some homeless person or whatever and maybe they saw her.”
Brandon approached the edge of my vision and the shuffling sound stopped. Only the groaning remained.
I ran to where he had stopped in the light. He moved forward again as soon as I was there with the torch.
We made it several yards deeper into the building. Our torch had a light radius of maybe three feet, but it was still obvious this building was being occupied. Semi-organized piles of junk, mismatched chairs and tables, blankets, and trashcans with charred wood in them were all telltale signs of human habitation.
“What the?” Brandon said, stopping. He lifted his left leg trying to look at the bottom of his shoe.
“What is it?” I asked, keeping my eyes focused dead ahead where we’d last heard the groaning.
“Nothing. Stepped in something and slipped a little,” he said.
I knelt to take a look. Dark glossy rivulets covered the floor. I touched the dark liquid, rubbed it between my thumb and forefinger, and tried to smell it. The stench of the environment around us overpowered most of my senses, but it was sticky and looked like—
“What is it? More grease or oil or whatever?” Brandon asked, looking down at me.
I followed the dark, sticky trail and thought morbidly to myself that this was the yellow brick road in my adventure today. That figured.
About a yard off to the side were two piles of towels and rotted blankets, and on the concrete floor between them were rats.
“Not oil,” I said, holding the light for Brandon to see. Dead rats. Dozens of them. Mutilated and eviscerated little bodies all in a neat pile in various states of decay.
“Uhhh…yeah. You know, I, uhh…hate rats. Glad they’re dead. Maybe some alley cat or something killed them and stacked them like that,” Brandon said.
I could tell he didn’t believe a word he was saying, but as long as he tried to keep his nerve I wasn’t about to call his bluff.
The background noise that I hadn’t placed yet resolved into the distinct sound of heavy breathing coming from behind us to the left. Brandon noticed it a second or two after I did.
“How did it get all the way over th—” I interrupted Brandon by grabbing his arm to pull myself up, and stopped to look to the side and listen. A much quicker shuffling noise than we’d heard before started in our direction. I whipped around and raised the fading torch as I stood and saw the flame flicker and die in the r
eflection of a bright pair of eyes in front of me.
Chapter Nine
Brandon screamed.
I blew on the remaining embers glowing at the end of the stick in my hand, praying for enough light to get my bearings. A giant flame burst from the torch, showing Brandon right beside me, struggling to release himself from the grip of a half-rotted hand. As I did, the hand let go to block the light of the torch from its eyes and it stumbled backwards. I leapt in front of Brandon, kicking out, and struck the thing in its hip, sending it crashing down.
“Run!” I yelled, passing the dying torch ahead of me to Brandon. I was good in the dark and, even with the smallest light, would be able to keep track of it.
He needed no encouragement and, dark or not, showed off his lightning speed from earlier. In seconds I could see the square shafts of light nearer the front of the building. They were elongated and dimmer than before, the sun having settled lower behind the opposite building.
I reached out to the junk piles nearby and pulled them down behind me as I ran. I kept my focus straight ahead as something crashed into the debris behind me.
Brandon ran through the first lighted area and barked in surprise when his feet tripped over some tools on the ground. He fell to the floor at the edge of darkness right in front of me, and I leapt over him into the darkness.
Less than a second later, the two that were chasing us ran right into the light and jumped backwards, grabbing their eyes and making guttural howls.
I grabbed Brandon by the collar and dragged him into the light by the time the two men had recovered enough to prowl the edges of the dark.
Brandon hopped up, gripping the now burned out table leg like a club, turning circles to follow the noises just a foot away.
“What the fuck! What are these things!” Brandon yelled.
Our small island of light was becoming smaller by the second as the sun set behind the buildings across the street. I closed my eyes.
“They seem to be hyper-sensitive to the light. To the point of physical pain,” I said, drawing my 10mm blindly, flipping the safety off, and pulling the hammer back. “Stay in the light.”
I stood unmoving with my eyes closed tight.
“What are you doing? Hey, man! What are we going to do? Shoot them already!” Brandon said.
“I can’t see out there Brandon. I’m not wasting shots in the dark, and with all the metal and brick, a missed shot will bounce around in here,” I said.
“The sun’s setting, man. We’re losing what light there is between here and the street. How can you stand there so calm?” he asked.
“I am not calm. I am angry,” I replied, taking slow, deep breaths. “Something wants to tear into us and leave us in a pile here on the floor like so many dead rats. And that pisses me off.”
I felt him step closer to me, his breathing getting heavier.
“When I say run, you move fast as you can to that doorway we came in from, got it?” I said.
“They all look alike, man, which one is it?” he asked.
“Forty-five degrees behind us on the right. Ready?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Run!” I screamed.
I jumped off into the dark to the right and opened my eyes the instant I felt Brandon move. The outline of two shadowy figures charged me. I raised my pistol and fired two quick bursts into the body of the one in front. It staggered for a second, howled, and charged on. What the hell?
I fired again. Three shots in quick succession aimed higher, where I could almost make out a head. The body fell to the ground at my feet, but the figure behind it kept on without pause. I got off one shot as it crashed into me, sending us sprawling to the floor, and my gun sliding away into the dark.
I rolled away and got to my feet, spinning around looking for anything to use as a weapon. There was nothing.
I braced myself for it to charge again, but when it reached me, it threw its arms out and shoved. I flew more than ten feet, hitting the concrete floor hard and rolling a yard more before getting up. It was right on top of me. It grabbed my jacket, lifted me off my feet, and slammed me into one of the old machines.
Ow.
Losing a fight is never pretty. Getting tossed around like a rag doll was plain ridiculous, and I decided once was enough.
I charged hard, jumping off at an angle when it went to grab me, and slammed a kick down into the side of its right knee, blowing it out and sending the thing to the ground. I spun around as it stood and drove at it again, dodging its flailing grasps and striking blows, breaking its nose and jaw.
I blocked a wild backhand that still hit hard enough to take me off my feet again. How in the hell was that thing even still standing?
I stood more slowly this time. My back was killing me, my ribs felt like they were on fire, and my hands and knees were torn raw from being thrown around on all the old chipped concrete. I had to end this.
It came at me again, but this time I made no effort to block its charge or leap away for a cheap shot. I stiff-armed it right in the face, popping its head up, and struck a right cross into its throat, crushing its windpipe and stopping it cold.
It flailed around making gurgling, gasping noises before coughing.
“Freaking die already!” I yelled.
It lunged at me. I thought it was going to tackle me again or knock me back, but as I braced myself, its hands clasped around my throat and began to squeeze. My hands shot around its thumbs the instant it grabbed me, relieving just enough pressure to keep on living. No matter the rotted holes in the flesh of its forearms, it was only a matter of time before the pressure broke my hands. And then my throat.
I tried kicking around to find something on the floor to pull to me. There was nothing.
My chest shuddered as my lungs strained to pull in air. My vision blurred as my carotid arteries closed off. I was blacking out when concrete exploded over my face, burning wherever chips of it struck me. I didn’t know what happened to the hands around my throat, but I could breathe again.
The sounds of screaming and thumping got my attention.
I sat up, dusting off shards of concrete, and saw Brandon with an old rusted pipe with a chunk of concrete on the end, bashing it into a body on the ground in front of him.
“Brandon,” I coughed.
He kept hammering away.
“Brandon!” I tried more loudly, going into an even more serious coughing fit.
He looked at me, then back at the body on the ground. He didn’t move for almost ten full seconds before dropping the pipe and walking over to me.
“Are you all right?” He grabbed my hands and helped me to my feet.
“I am now. Thanks,” I said.
He nodded and helped me towards the doorway.
“Just a minute, Brandon. I want to take a look at our friends here,” I said.
“You didn’t get a good enough look while ago?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Did you see enough of the inside of that building to maybe call the cops now?” I asked.
He took his phone back out but didn’t reply.
“Remember, I’m not here. You found the shoe, went in, found the bodies,” I said. Not that my involvement would necessarily be a problem, but I was under more than one deadline and didn’t need the red tape just then. And maybe I didn’t want my name anywhere near a police report, given my conversation with Bob and Chris earlier.
Brandon nodded and stepped outside to make the call.
I looked at the one he had taken care of. It was too dark to say for certain, but the body looked destroyed. What wasn’t rotted or damaged from the fight had been smashed by Brandon.
I walked back to the light and found the other body. I hated moving it but I couldn’t see anything, so I grabbed it by its hands and dragged it into the light near the entrance.
What the hell? It wasn’t half as rotted as I’d thought at first. Only some spots of ruined flesh on the arms but the rest was normal. I mean it wasn’t
an it. It was a man. Fit, maybe on the too thin side, dark curly hair, and pallid. Hard to say if he was homeless or not. If so it hadn’t been for long, with his newer jeans and almost clean shirt, save for a couple of brand new 10mm holes in it. Which, I was quick to point out to myself, hadn’t had the intended effect. What in the hell was going on around here?
I sighed, made a futile attempt at retrieving my gun, then sighed again. If there were answers here, I sure didn’t have the right questions. I exited through the doorway and walked out onto the sidewalk. It was still light out. I could see sunlight on the next intersection, where it shone down the street between the buildings.
Brandon paced around in the middle of the street on his cell phone. I took a moment to check myself over for any damage. Bumps and bruises it seemed like. Probably wouldn’t sleep well tonight on my back, but otherwise I was okay.
“Bit?” Brandon asked, holding his hand over his phone and looking at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you bit? You know, scratched or whatever?” he said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Joey,” he said, motioning with the phone. “Won’t come out tonight if you’re bitten. Says that’s how they spread the virus.”
I grinned until I noticed I was the only one. Brandon really wanted an answer. Oh.
“Tell Joey I’m fine and I’ll be heading on to see Roman, so he doesn’t have to worry about me turning on him in the night,” I said.
Brandon nodded like that was both wise and profound, then relayed the information to Joey and hung up.
“Thought you were calling the police?” I asked.
“I did. They’re sending a unit out. Called in the guys as well. Every pair of eyes, you know.”
“And that was after mentioning what we already did find?” I asked again.
“Uhh yeah, well I might have left some of the particulars out,” he said.
“Look, we need as many out there looking as we can get, but you need to be straight with them. If they’re scared and can’t, or don’t, want to handle it, you need to let them stay behind; because when things go south, you don’t want someone falling apart on you. It’s important for those that come to know what they’re walking into. Mental preparedness is underrated. You explain the situation when they get here. Straight out,” I said.
