Another scream. And then the sharp, pure sound of something being torn.
Fabric?
The scream rose into a shriek of agony. Another sharp rip, farther away. And another accompanying scream.
Pleas of help, mercy. And the tearing, on and on without end, from too many different places.
The sharp smell of blood.
Oh god. No!
Not fabric, but flesh.
"Get up!" Stefan roared, off to one side. The sound of shuffling feet. Grunts. Something hit a wall. "Angelique!"
Then he was there beside her, yanking her to her feet and dragging her deeper into the barn, away from the field. Trying to run.
Hanging by her shirt, blind to what was happening behind them, arms and legs futilely dog-paddling. No traction. Knuckles bruised, toes scraping. Another sharp tearing noise right next to her ear! And she felt herself falling.
No! No! Please don't let it be him!
She realized it was her shirt, pulled out of her pants, felt the thin material twisted and torn.
Don't leave me! Don't leave me to face—
jamie
—whatever is happening out there!
Lifted again. Images flashed through her mind— Padraig's story about the refugees on the boat, shredded flesh, large caliber fire. Human teeth.
What the hell was happening?
Someone else was shouting now, echoing the same question. So very far away, down a deep well. No, close by! From the phone in Stefan's other hand. "Don't you dare hang up!" Kurtz shouted.
"Let go of me!" she cried.
Another support post appeared suddenly beside her head. Reflexively, she reached out for it. Stefan dropped her. "Get up! Angelique, hurry! Before they see us!"
"Before who . . . ? What?"
The bus was drawing nearer. She could hear the engine straining as it came up the hill. She looked up, behind her, and the scene on the field froze the blood in her veins. So much red out there. So much—
"Nordqvist!" Kurtz shouted. "What are you doing? Unmute this phone!"
She snatched the device away from him and brought it to her ear, still hugging the post with her other hand. "What are you doing?" she shouted into it. "Stop this right now!"
But he couldn't hear her.
She stabbed at the screen, swiping, trying to find—
Another dreadful scream.
She was sobbing now, terrified, in shock.
A chirp as the privacy setting shut off.
"What the hell are you doing?" Kurtz shouted, as the scream rose. "What is that sound?"
"They're waking up!" she gasped into the phone, her voice at first no louder than a whisper. "Oh my god, they're . . . . Oh my god!"
Only a handful of them had woken up. Most of the others were still not moving, their faces registering none of the horror being inflicted on the field. The scientists and attendants, as well as a handful of refugees, were being attacked. The victims, too foolish to think they could stop it, too slow to run. Unprepared for such inhuman brutality. Utterly defenseless against it. Caught in the middle. Thrown to the ground. Torn limb from limb. Teeth and claws shredding without mercy. Ripping the flesh away and—
"They are eating," she whimpered. "They are fucking eating them! Oh mon dieu!"
Bloodied bodies fell to the ground, many still alive, trying to escape. The grass turned dark red. The deep purple evening sky sprayed crimson.
Someone stumbled into view, a glistening shape, his scalp torn away. With a shock of horror, she saw that it was Duke. He turned toward her and the side of his face was gone. A chunk of neck flesh flapping like a decorative epaulet on his shoulder.
He staggered forward, fell, knees cracking, arms useless, and flopped straight onto his face. He was still alive. He rolled groaning, blood spurting from his chest. Air leaking out, whistling, foaming. A screaming man screaming without sound.
Another body flashed into the doorway, slammed into him, skidding. This one was a wild animal, ravaging Duke's body until he arched backward in the peak of agony and fell once more. The attacker dropped his face onto Duke's abdomen and chewed through the flesh and fat and muscle.
Angel opened her mouth to scream, but a hand clamped over it. "Quiet!" Stefan whispered.
How could he not be dead? How could Duke endure such trauma and still be alive?
His body bucked and jolted. Then, with a final spasm, it grew still. The attacker jerked upright, trailing a knotted rope of intestines from his mouth, and gurgled in ecstasy.
Her scream burst past Stefan's hand and echoed in the enclosed space.
The crazed man turned his face to her, neck straining, jaw ratcheting as he chewed. He was a vision from hell, smeared with blood and gore from head to belly, skin and clothes stained every shade of red. All but his eyes. Just two glistening black holes in the middle of that horrific face.
"We have to go now!" Stefan said.
The man-monster thing hissed and jerked to his feet. He turned, slid a foot forward, a shambling step, swaying uncertainly.
Then he charged.
Angel rose, stumbled backward, and fell. Stefan was no longer there, no longer holding onto her. No longer pulling her up and away. She tried to scramble in another direction and slammed into a different post and fell down again. Her feet slipped, slick with bits of hay and mud.
The attacker launched himself at her.
There was a whoosh of air and a blur of movement, and the man's trajectory was abruptly altered as Stefan stepped between them. He swung his arm up, and the thing followed, as if attached to his fist. Then it was flying through the air, flipping, crashing into the wall and bouncing off. It landed in a heap on the cement.
It a flash, he was upright again, on his feet. The hoof pick Stefan had lodged beneath his chin gushed blood, the tip protruding from his mouth. Yet it didn't seem to faze him at all.
He charged.
With a kick, Stefan drove him back against the side of the barn. "Get up, Angel!" he shouted at her. "Run!"
He tried to grab the monster around the head to keep it from biting him. But its skin was too slick with blood. It snapped its teeth, clamping down onto Stefan's wrist, crushing his watch, fracturing bones.
Stefan bellowed in pain. His other hand rose, a fist the size of a melon, raining blows upon the madman's face until it let go. But he didn't stop pounding.
"No!" Angel tried to yell, but her voice came out weak. "Do not kill him!"
But Stefan was beyond hearing anymore. He was fighting for his life. He threw the man to the ground and tried to stomp on him.
Somehow, it jumped right up again and lunged, ducking beneath Stefan's punch. Somehow, even with the hoof pick in its jaw, it still managed to sink its teeth into Stefan's shoulder and drive him back. The big man let out another roar of agony.
Angel scrambled away to the opposite wall, got back to her feet, eyes searching. Nothing around her for a weapon but a decorative antique pitchfork, rusted tines worn thin. She wrenched it off the wall and turned.
Stefan was slipping in the muck, a mixture of mud and blood. The crazed thing was still attached to him, still clamped onto his shoulder. Blood poured down Stefan's side, soaking his shirt and jeans. He screamed again, which only seemed to craze his attacker even more. Its head was a blur, jerking from side to side, like a wolf tearing into the neck of its prey.
Angel stepped forward, stopped. If she ran the pitchfork through him, she might get Stefan, too.
Do it! This is his fault anyway!
But she couldn't. As much as she despised the man for what he had done in the past and what he had been trying to do now, she knew he wasn't responsible for this. It was Kurtz. Kurtz was murdering them all out of spite. He had done something to turn them in to killers.
And suddenly Angel realized what had happened to the American and Korean naval crews from the story Padraig had told her. The refugees they had picked up had been turned into the same sort of killers as these. They had attacked.
And then, when they were finished, they self-destructed.
Beyond Duke's body, the last wisps of daylight were finally gone, and the flood lamps suddenly snapped on with audible clicks.
She became aware once more of the whine of the bus engine and knew it was nearly here, approaching from one side while, on the other, fully half of the refugees were now awake. Some were attacking. The rest seemed to be trying to rouse those not yet moving.
On the field, only scattered moans remained, a few cries. Those who were dying were beyond vocalizing.
Her eyes flicked down to Duke's body, zeroed in on his chest. She kept expecting him to move, to—
reanimate
—get up.
But he didn't. He was dead. He wasn't going to wake up. He wasn't going to do anything ever again.
All this she heard and saw and thought in the fraction of a second before the bus crashed into the side of the barn behind her, splintering wood beams and showering dust over her. The force of the impact threw Angel to her knees. The phone flew from her hand. Kurtz was gone, the screen winking out. Not thinking, she scrambled forward on hands and knees, snatched it off the ground, and shoved it into her pocket.
The bus had spun sideways into the opening and lay canted on its right wheels. Shattered glass sprayed the cement. Several of the metal grates were pulled away from the windows, now filled with the broken bodies of the passengers. They lay across the openings, eyes glazed in death. The smell of gasoline filled the air.
Two people stumbled out through the door of the bus and landed with a sickening crunch on the cement. One was the driver.
Angel screamed, seeing the bloodied face of the man on the ground. For a moment, she had thought it was Norstrom, but Norstrom was gone. He was in Turkey.
"Get out of here!" Stefan shouted at her.
He was still wrestling with the madman, still locked in the other's grip. They spun across the floor like drunken ballroom dancers. Angel lifted the pitchfork. But what could she do?
With a sudden squeal of metal and splintering wood, the bus tilted even farther in. The puddle of fuel on the cement quickly spread. Another body fell from the window and onto the ground.
"The bus is going to tip!" she shouted at Stefan. "Get away from there!"
Another timber snapped. The tires began to slip.
"Stefan!"
The overhead lights flickered. Something popped and they were enveloped in darkness. Then came the crackling sounds and the smell of burning.
"Fire!" she shrieked, as thick smoke began to fill the dark space. "The barn is on fire!"
Stefan yelled again for her to run. His ankle twisted as it landed on the driver's arm, and the two men fell. The impact finally knocked them apart. Stefan twisted and rolled onto his attacker. He grabbed a fistful of hair and slammed his head into the cement. Again and again, not heeding Angel's cries to stop. At last, the madman's fists unclenched and fell to the cement.
"Give me that!" he shouted at her, crying out when she hesitated handing over the pitchfork. He gestured with his good hand, his injured arm hanging limply by his other side.
"Leave him be!"
"He's not dead."
"He is!"
He raised the tool in his good hand over his head and took aim. But his body shuddered and he collapsed. The pitchfork clattered woodenly to the ground.
"Get up!"
Another loud POP! and the flood lamps outside blew. Their only light now was the dull orange glow emanating from around the bus.
"Let's get the hell out of here," he croaked. "That thing's going to blow!"
"The driver's still alive."
"And those things are coming for us!"
He gestured weakly at the silhouettes on the field. They were making their way toward the barn.
"They have stopped attacking."
"Because everyone else is dead."
"Why aren't they attacking each other?"
"I don't know." He grunted in pain as he got to his feet and stepped forward, limping. "I'm not going to wait around to find out. Let's get the driver and get out of here."
Chapter Twenty Five
"Hurry! The barn roof is coming down!"
She could see the refugees drawing closer, as if attracted to the beautiful flames enveloping the eaves overhead. But she knew that it was her and Stefan they wanted.
They moved unhurriedly, and yet Angel sensed an urgency, a sort of electric undercurrent energizing them, directing them toward her and Stefan.
Once again that odd word came to her, straight from the pages of science fiction, the word that had always made her roll her eyes. She was a medical professional with an advanced understanding of how biology worked, and how it didn't. People didn't eat each other!
Except everything had been turned on its head, hadn't it? Ever since China, it was possible to consider other, previously unthinkable, eventualities.
No, Angel! They're not dead. Their minds have just been . . . .
What? Rewired? Erased? Reprogrammed?
The closer they came, the faster they moved. They began to jockey with each other, as if they were in some kind of slow-moving race.
Except they weren't so slow anymore. And their hissing was getting more urgent.
There was a crash as a beam gave way just a couple feet away. Angel spun around, coughing from the dust and smoke. "Stefan!"
"I said get out of here! I'll follow!"
Follow?
She turned and saw hands extending out the windows now on top of the bus. Some of the people inside the vehicle were still alive. They were reaching out, climbing through. And in their eyes she saw the same blackness, their skin as ashen as those on the field. Most of them were hissing. A scream rose from inside the bus.
Stefan raised the pitchfork and turned to face them. "Go!"
"You can't fight them all!"
"Get the driver and go!"
She stepped closer, waving away the dust and smoke. But it didn't help, so she dropped to her knees to search for the man. The hissing was all around her now. Stefan yelled. Something hit the ground, a body tumbling.
She found the driver and tried to pull him out, but he was stuck beneath a fallen beam.
She heard another sound, like a body slamming into a wall. She sensed movement to her left and instinctively ducked, expecting another part of the structure to collapse.
Another tug on the driver's arms, straining with all her might. The poor man yelled out in pain.
"Stefan!" she coughed. "I can't—"
Hands appeared before her out of the swirling smoke, then a face. She fell backward with a whimper and scrambled away from the woman's soulless gape and her bloodied blackened lips. Signs of trauma from the crash were clearly evident on her face. Gore dribbled in viscous strings from her lips. One of her eyes had avulsed and rested against her cheek, leaving a socket filled with blackened flesh. Her teeth and neck were stained dark red.
The wall beside Angel shuddered, and the fallen beam shifted. The driver screamed. The woman responded to the sound, twisting around. Her hand shot out, wrapped around the man's neck, and squeezed.
"Stop," Angel whimpered. But the woman didn't. Her fingers tightened, twisted, pulled. Angel realized with horror that the odd noises she could hear were the man's blood vessels and tendons popping.
His cries suddenly jumped two octaves, then dropped into near silence as his windpipe ruptured. And yet the she-monster carried on, crushing muscle and flesh within its terrible grip. With a sound like a tree being torn from sodden earth, a chunk of flesh separated from the rest.
The killer raised her gory hand, and in it was the driver's shredded trachea, ridged and grey. She brought it to her lips. The flesh flopped stiffly in her hand. She took a bite and began to chew.
Another set of hands snatched at Angel then, pulled her upright, wrapped her in viselike arms. She had no time to struggle before Stefan hissed into her ear: "It's too late for him. We have to go now! They're all dead.
"
Another beam fell, raising more of the choking dust. Three steps and she couldn't see the woman anymore. She could still hear her feeding. She didn't think she'd ever not hear it.
They ran for the gap between the bus and the corner of the barn opening, but the walls were fully engulfed by then, repelling them with the searing heat of the fire. Beneath the weight of the bus, the structure crumpled with a roar and a sudden gust of hot air. The vehicle slammed onto its side, rocked slightly, and erupted, fed by the fresh oxygen sweeping in on the cross draft. Stefan stumbled and fell as a flurry of sparks rained over them. He cried out, clawing at his eyes.
"This way!" Angel yelled. She tried to pull him away, but he was too heavy. "Back to the breezeway!"
"They're coming from that direction!"
"And we can't get past the bus!"
Even as she said it, the monsters materialized out of the smoke. Angel and Stefan were penned in!
They grabbed each other's hands and careened through the thick air into the darkness of the breezeway, past the mad whinnying of the panicked horses, slipping through the fingers of the—
She didn't know what to call them anymore.
Cold, dead hands brushed her arm, landed on her neck and back, and she shrieked as she ran.
Into the darkness chased by shadows. Through a shower of water where a sprinkler pipe had burst.
"Where are we going?" she yelled.
"Rifles," he said, gasping. "There's a gun cabinet in the meeting room!"
"Against a hundred of them? You can't even use your other hand!"
They reached the door, and Stefan fumbled clumsily for the knob. Her own bag was in there, the handgun inside.
"Padraig!" she shouted. "I have to help him! We have to get out of here. "
"Guns first!"
She was already feeling her way back up the hallway. "Get them and meet me in the medical exam room!"
"There's no exit from there except back into this runway!"
"I have to help Padraig!"
She found the door and opened it and rushed in, immediately tripping over something and crashing to the floor. Objects tumbled onto her from the shelves. Cold, stagnant water rushed over her hands and knees.
Iceland: An International Thriller (The Flense Book 2) Page 16
