by David Peters
“So, how many more of those do they have?” Daniel asked.
“Let’s hope there aren’t more. Thing is like a monster linebacker. I put enough into it to drop a bull moose,” answered Dylan.
As they neared the building, the two groups separated, Niccole leading the way to the truck and Dylan moving to the entrance of the building.
The closer they were to the entrance, the stronger the stench became. As the two stood at the entrance Dylan met his brother’s eyes. Daniel put his hand on Dylan’s shoulder and nodded. With a deep breath Dylan walked into the lion’s den.
Inside the front lobby they could see the interior had been completely altered to the whims of the Corrupted. Floor to ceiling and wall to wall was covered with a substance that looked almost like chewed up cardboard but felt as strong as plywood. The hallways had the appearance of a rabbit hole, but the smell of a sewer. They stuck to the largest tunnels assuming those would lead further in than the smaller ones.
The two brothers moved quietly through the building. They inched their way through the first office into a long hallway that traveled the length of the building. As they were whispering to each other about which direction to go, something brushed past Dylan. He threw himself against the wall as he tried to bring his rifle up, but in a panicked instant realized the lever action rifle wasn’t going to work in these close quarters. It was simply too long to actually point at something that close.
Walking away from the brothers was what appeared to be a small man or large boy. He was walking slowly with a pronounced hunch, and was a deep mottled blue color. He had failed to notice the two humans and in fact the thing seemed to be in its own world all together.
Dylan slung his rifle and drew his pistol opting for less stopping power over a weapon he couldn’t use at all.
Dylan whispered to Daniel “Erica also mentioned the workers. I’m thinking that is what he is. Sure is a quiet little bastard.”
Daniel nodded agreement. “Let’s follow him. He could be heading to stuff we want to burn.”
Dylan smiled and nodded agreement.
The small worker would stop periodically and inspect the walls or floor, sometimes feeling it with its stubby hands.
As they followed the worker deeper into the building, their eyes began to adjust to the near complete darkness. The more their eyes adjusted to the darkness the more they noticed the unnatural light the emanated from the walls. In some places the glowing swirls of artificial light showed repetitive patterns that almost looked like writing of some kind. They soon realized the greyish blue writing was everywhere.
Dylan whispered to his brother as he traced his fingers over one of the designs, “Are your eyes seeing what mine are seeing or am I losing it?”
“Ya, if I didn’t know better I would say that looks an awful lot like writing. It’s nothing I have ever seen though.”
The Worker was moving at a steady pace but was in no rush to reach its destination.
They passed several large rooms that were far too dark and far too large to see into, but there were sounds of movement. There was something in there they just didn’t know what. They passed a small room on their right filled with large vats of vile looking liquid. There were several of the workers tending to them. There were a few workers tending to the containers, stirring the thick slurry with their blue arms.
There were several other workers sitting around a dark pile on the floor. As they watched, one of them stood up. Walking to the nearest vat, it leaned over the opening and regurgitated more vile liquid.
Dylan and Daniel looked at each other and grimaced. This had to be the Corrupted version of a cafeteria. Dylan leaned into the room slightly “This room is huge, there must be, what, fifty of those tubs?”
Dylan had been holding out hope that he would know what he was looking for when he saw it. After seeing this room he realized that may not be the case. What they saw now was a completely foreign world at this point.
The next room was a different kind of storage. Dylan’s mouth hung open as his eyes moved around the walls, “Oh my God Daniel,” he whispered in saddened amazement.
Every available space on the walls and ceilings was covered with people embedded in the walls with the same materiel that covered everything else.
“A bunch of them are in the process of turning. Not sure about the others though. We don’t have time to deal with this Dylan. We have to get in and out.”
Dylan looked at them with a helpless fascination. Thankfully none of them were looking or calling out. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to cope with that right now. They left the room behind and hoped the firestorm they were trying to create would put them out of their misery. He tried to get a count but the walls faded into the darkness like all of the other rooms. As far as he could see, there were several thousand people in this room.
The Worker eventually turned left into the gaping maw that was the warehouse main floor. Dylan peeked around the corner. Although the skylights of the building were covered by the same substance as the rest of the building, to their darkness adjusted eyes the room was full of light. The hive description really came into view. This was exactly like being in a massive hornet’s nest. The look of textured cardboard covered every surface. In the center of the massive room and spiraling outwards was what could only be described as pods. The smallest of the pods was about the size of a large watermelon. The largest of the pods was in the center of the spiral and was nearly five feet tall. The ring of pods grew smaller as the ring spiraled out. Moving in and around all of these were the small blue worker Corrupted, tending to the pods as if they were children. The floor and walls were literally covered with the workers.
Daniel slapped Dylan’s shoulder and pointed up. The entire scene on the floor was replicated on the ceiling and to a smaller degree on the walls. The spiral on the ceiling held one more surprise. At the outer ring of the spiral, sat what could only be described as the Queen. She hung motionless from the ceiling, with countless Workers moving in, around, and in some cases even on her. She looked vaguely humanoid, although this thing couldn’t have possibly been human before. She was about seven feet tall, with a narrow face and large, completely black eyes. She had two complete sets of arms; one set was used to move her around the ceiling while the second set was used to tend the pods. Her legs ended in powerful looking talons that were clamped to the ceiling. She had a large appendage growing off of her back that was anchored to various points on the ceiling, with the end of it carefully adding another pod to the growing spiral.
There was a small commotion towards the center floor. Several Workers chattered something unintelligible and gathered around one of the larger pods. The top of the pod split and the Workers helped the first Pure Corrupted out of its encasement. The Workers eased the Hunter to the ground and carefully cleaned it while the Queen looked on. She was barking orders the brothers couldn’t begin to understand. One of the workers carried the Hunter in the human’s direction.
The Pure Blood looked like a demon from hell. The monster resembled its Human spawned brothers, the way a peddle bicycle resembled a top end sport motorcycle. This thing was built to kill, from its extremely large eyes, nearly twice the size of a normal person, to its razor sharp three inch talons. This thing looked fast when it was sitting still.
Dylan and Daniel ducked around opposite sides of the hatchery room opening. The worker carried the young Hunter past them without acknowledgment and continued across the hall. They watched as the worker placed the Hunter in a small cradle on the floor made out of the same material as the surrounding walls and ceilings. It was then that Dylan noticed the lines on the floor leading back to the room with the vats. The Hunters only movement was to bite down on the line and feed. Dylan finally realized he was looking at a nursery. He looked wide eyed at Daniel; there were thousands, if not tens of thousands of young Hunters in this room alone. They covered the floor and walls as far as they could see in the blackness.
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��Brother, I think the human race is in real trouble.” Daniel whispered.
From within the hatchery there was a very loud bark and all sounds of movement stopped in the room behind them. In unison the brothers turned to look back into the hatchery. The queen had come down to the floor level and she was staring directly at the brothers.
“It’s time to go little brother,” said Daniel, no longer trying to be quiet. Both brothers pulled the cords on their as yet untested bombs and rolled them into the room. Daniels rolled off to one side and Dylan’s made it to the first ring of eggs. Both tanks made loud ticking sounds, with each tick, the valve on the top of the tank would open slightly wider, and the hissing sound would get slightly louder.
As Dylan and Daniel turned to run, the Queen let out a scream that made the Hunter calls sound tame. It was the equivalent of an air raid siren, and undoubtedly had the same purpose.
Every Worker in the room pounced on one of the two ticking canisters. Some appeared to be trying to bite the metal cylinder while others were unsure as to how they should attack the things.
The brothers took to the hall in the direction they had come. They passed many workers heading to the hatchery but they still weren’t considered the threat. That would change any second. Both were temporarily blinded by the bright mid-morning sun as they dashed out of the entrance. Niccole had gotten the delivery truck running and left it running by the entrance. Once she had heard the scream she knew Dylan and Daniel had been successful. She had the back doors open and yelled at the brothers to jump in as they accelerated towards the bus. Any second they expected the hive to dump thousands of workers into the parking lot to find them.
Deep inside the warehouse, on the Queen’s chamber floor the two propane tanks continued to vent. With the valves now locked completely open frost was forming on the valve and the nearest Workers. The propane cloud was dense enough to be visible in the still air. With one final tick from the large clockwork on the top of the tanks the last bit of slack in the safety chain was removed and the pin to the grenade mounted in the middle of the device was removed. With a metal ‘ting’ the spoon released and the internal fuse of the grenade burned silently. Just over two seconds later and within a half second of each other the grenades detonated.
The delivery truck was about half way between the warehouse and the bus when the building was turned inside out. There was an initial thump of the exploding grenades followed immediately by the massive detonation of the dispersed gas. The second explosion lifted the roof off of the building and sent the bulk of the far wall into the lumber yard. A massive compression ring expanded out from the building, shattering the windows of the remaining cars in the parking lot. The wave passed over the UPS truck, rocking it as it accelerated. It then hit the bus broadside, blowing in the windows and knocking anyone standing to the ground. Parts of the building continued to rise into the air several hundred feet, following the dark black rolling cloud as it rose several thousand feet into the morning sky.
When the team arrived at the bus Travis was actually dancing on the roof top, “Did you see that? Did you see that? Did you freakin’ see that? That was awesome! That was beyond awesome! Parts of that building won’t land for a month! I absolutely love blowing shit up!”
Dylan decided to rain on his parade, “Not sure if you heard that call or not, but I can guarantee every Corrupted within a few miles of this spot is making its way here with undo haste.” As if responding to his statement several Hunter calls could be heard in the distance towards the city.
Julie had backed the truck up to the entrance of the bus and they made a human conveyer belt to move the supplies from one vehicle to the next.
Henry was laid carefully on one of the side shelves and strapped in like he was nothing but a large, fragile package.
They would be sitting and standing on the pilfered goods, but they would be able to load nearly all of it into the delivery truck.
From the roof of the bus Travis called out the first warning of incoming Corrupted.
“Need to pick it up folks, we have a small army moving through the smoke behind us now,” said Travis pointing in the direction of what used to be a solid wall of fire but was now breaking down into spot fires and burning vehicles.
Several of the side buildings still burned behind them and would for some days to come. Disregarding the heat and moving through the center of the street was a mixture of Sappers and Hunters. Travis and Mayberry didn’t hesitate to open fire.
The rest of the team finished with the last of the supplies and jumped into the back of the delivery truck. Daniel yelled to the two remaining bus defenders, “Jump across and let’s move!”
Travis and Mayberry jumped the short distance from one roof to the next and laid flat, both holding on to the one of the roof vents in a vain attempt to stay on the roof.
Daniel gave the go signal and Julie hit the gas. As she accelerated from what remained of the bus the first wave of Sappers clawed their way over the top and detonated. It was too late to catch any of the team but the bus was well and truly finished.
Julie drove the truck deep into the lumber yard. She was striving to reach the far side of the yard and the gravel road that led back up to Paradise Falls. There was safety behind those massive walls they built.
Dylan was looking out the open rear doors. He could see the Hunters attempting to keep up but the truck was just moving too fast. He couldn’t help but wonder how much faster the Pure Blood they had seen would be.
Travis yelled from above “Can you slow it down dude? We’re barely hangin’ on here!”
Julie violently swerved around a burning pile of the warehouse south wall. The vent that Mayberry was holding on to was never designed to hold weight like it was and broke loose. Mayberry yelled out then went silent as he hit the ground with a thump.
“Stop, stop!” yelled Daniel.
Julie jammed the breaks and Dylan and Daniel jumped down to run towards the motionless Mayberry. Daniel was the first to arrive “He’s still breathing, just knocked out. Help me pick him up.” His arm was twisted behind his back at an impossible angle but he didn’t appear to be hurt anywhere else.
Dylan grabbed his shoulders while Daniel grabbed his legs. They moved as quickly as they could while Julie slowly backed up to help close the distance. The first Hunter had arrived. Jumping over a nearby stack of lumber it landed squarely on Mayberry’s chest. The added weight tore Mayberry from their hands and slammed him back to the ground. Before anyone could bring a weapon to bear the Hunter tore into the wounded man’s chest.
“No!” yelled Daniel as he loosed nearly an entire magazine into the side of the Hunter, sending the thing rolling off of Mayberry and across the pavement. Several more crested the pile of lumber and both brothers fired. All three Hunters were dead before they landed.
Daniel knelt down next to Mayberry who was starting to moan quietly. “I’m so sorry, so sorry,” Daniel said quietly.
Mayberry was clutching the wound on his chest, “It burns Daniel. It really burns.”
Daniel stood up and drew his side arm to end his friend’s life. Dylan turned to shield his eyes from what he knew would come next. He didn’t see the next Hunter leap over the barrier until it had slammed into Daniel. It was obvious that it had meant to land on the ground and not on top of its prey.
Dylan swung his rifle like a bat catching the Hunter on the side of the head and sending it rolling away from his brother. In one smooth motion he spun the rifle, worked the lever action and from the hip sent a round through the Hunter’s right eye. In an explosion of gore the Hunter fell to the ground lifeless.
Dylan waited a brief second to see if any others were coming then knelt down to his brother.
“Beautiful shooting brother. I was just a hair slow to get out of the way I think,” said Daniel as he tried to hold in the blood where the Hunter had savaged his shoulder.
“No Daniel, no way. I didn’t come all this way to find you and lose you.” Dyla
n said refusing to believe what he knew was true.
“You did good little brother. Nice move at the end there, very flamboyant. Holy crap this burns, it’s like my blood is on fire.” Dylan dropped to his knees next to his brother.
“Doc can do something, give him a chance. We can find a way damn it!”
Daniel pulled the pin on his last remaining grenade, “Go little brother. I will try and slow them down. Love you man. Sorry it had to end this way. Glad you made it. Keep the family safe.”
From behind him he heard Niccole’s voice calling out, “Hurry Dylan, they are almost here!”
“Tell everyone I am sorry Dylan.”
Dylan backed all the way to the truck. The first two Hunters that cleared the corner in front of his brother were sent rolling by rapid shots from Dylan but then the Sappers arrived. Half a dozen or more rounded the corner as Dylan stepped onto the bumper.
