by Lundy, W. J.
“Move up, dammit!” Murphy ordered. “Leave them!”
Jacob leveled his rifle and fired at the muzzle flashes coming from ahead. The dark space under the bridge lit up like a field of fireflies. Jacob moved straight on, facing them, ducking behind cars then aiming at the flashes before pulling the trigger, finding a new target, moving, ducking, and firing again. While they moved, the fireflies dimmed as their numbers dwindled. Soon, they were at the entrance to the tunnel.
Murphy held up an arm to pause the group before leaning back and resting against a sedan as he changed out the magazine in his rifle. Jacob walked forward and joined him, mimicking Murphy’s movements to reload his own rifle. A body dressed in jeans and a casual T-shirt lay at his feet. The thing was holding a black rifle with a synthetic stock and scope; its black eyes stared up. Murphy kicked it with his boot and said, “Police issue.”
As Murphy reached for the weapon, a rushing sound from behind caused him to pause. The crunching of cars and the screaming of the mob in pursuit grew louder. Murphy pulled his knife and crouched low to look under the rear of an abandoned vehicle. He shoved the knife into the car’s fuel tank and rocked the blade until fuel poured out onto the street.
“What are you doing?” Jacob asked.
"Giving us some time.” He pulled the blade from the tank and tossed a match to the ground, the gasoline whooshing and flashing brightly as it ignited.
“Go, Go, Go!” Murphy cried out, taking off at a sprint and leading the way into the tunnel.
Chapter Seventeen
Fire blazed, casting orange-tinted light over the path ahead. Black smoke billowed and rolled to the roof of the overpass above, catching the top and spilling forward. Jacob could feel the heat at his back. He heard the sounds of tires exploding, windows cracking, and sheet metal buckling under the extreme temperature. He struggled to stay with Murphy who was running, dodging abandoned cars, and leaping hoods like a world-class hurdler. Jacob picked up on the sounds of the mob behind him and the steady rate of gunfire to his front.
Moving through the smoke to the tunnel’s exit, he spotted Stephens kneeling against a concrete wall; his rifle was already up taking aimed shots as he attempted to suppress a small group moving toward them. Tyree stood over his shoulder with both arms extended, firing Jacob’s pistol. Murphy closed in on the group as the last of the things fell to their fire.
“How much farther is it to the cemetery?” Jacob asked.
“It’s just ahead, past the elevated platforms,” Tyree said, getting to his feet.
“Good, we need to keep moving; the fire won’t hold them. It won’t be long before they figure out they can go over the Skyway,” Murphy said, moving them out.
The two-lane road ahead was strewn with rubble; bits of broken concrete covered the abandoned cars, their windshields broken and pushed in. Buildings on both sides of the road showed damage from the bombing. Murphy marched them ahead, hugging the wall on the left side. Again, the road descended while it moved under the elevated railway tracks. From a distance, the station and platforms appeared abandoned. No trains, no movement. They patrolled through the area and continued on to the empty void where the road opened back into a commercial zone.
They stopped at an empty intersection. Storefronts stood in ruins on all corners, their faces a mess of shattered plate glass windows. Empty teargas canisters and riot gear littered the ground. A knocked-over police barricade explained the lack of abandoned vehicles ahead. The street to the left was scattered with bodies, the buildings pockmarked from gunfire. Murphy surveyed the now empty street before turning back to Tyree. “Where to now?”
“We have to go another block up that way then we’ll see the cemetery wall on the other corner, toward the lake,” Tyree said, pointing.
In the direction Tyree pointed, gunfire raged, broken only by the sounds of explosions. Occasionally, a group of unknown people would run down the street, traveling right to left toward the heart of the city. A group of attack helicopters flew low over the street, heading west at high speed to approach the city center. Sounds of rockets and heavy machine guns rocked the ground. All the while, human screams mixed with the howling of the Others.
Murphy sat silently looking ahead, concern in his eyes. After a moment, he looked at Tyree. “You sure there isn’t another way?”
“If we go around, it’ll take us all night and keep us on the streets.”
Murphy nodded thoughtfully and turned to Stephens but spoke so they all could hear. “They’re up there. When we hit the wall, we have to get over it fast. We get these two over first, then you, and I’ll go last.”
Stephens nodded in agreement and flashed a thumbs up as Murphy turned so that he could see into all of their faces. “We have to get to the wall; no stopping… if you go down… get back up.” He pointed. “That is the kill box; we can’t stay in it!”
He paused as a truck raced down the intersection to the north, the front end swallowed in flames and the bed filled with the Others beating the cab. It continued through the far intersection while racing away from the city.
Jacob looked at the chaos in horror. Sounds of the things behind them grew closer while gunfire and destruction lay ahead. “You sure about all of this?” he gasped.
Murphy shook his head. “This city is lost and we’re in the middle of it. We must get out now or not at all. Hug the storefronts; at the last corner, we sprint for the wall. Stay behind me, shoot anything that isn’t us, and do not stop!” He reached out a hand and squeezed Stephens’ shoulder before taking off to cross the street, running with his head down and rifle up. He briefly looked left down the near street then pushed ahead, crossing the intersection.
Stephens nudged Jacob in the back and told him to move. Jacob stepped off fast, running to keep pace with the Murphy. Still a hundred yards to the next block, he could already see the orange glow of fires and the blue smoke of gunfire. A pack of the Others cut across the street ahead; three continued across to move deeper into the city, the fourth stopped and looked in Jacob’s direction, catching the attention of the fifth.
The pair turned and took a step in Jacob’s direction. Before Jacob could call out a warning, Murphy had his rifle in action, firing at the one to the left as it moved toward them. Jacob took a step to the side and used a lamp pole to steady his aim then pulled the trigger and watched the man on the right drop. Jacob hit him in the chest—right where he was aiming. Grinning, he looked to Murphy for recognition. Stephens came up behind and smacked him. “Don’t stop running! Go!” he yelled.
Jacob cringed, realizing his error as the first three came back into view. After having seen the fate of their comrades, they charged around the corner. Two shots from Murphy and a stream of three rounds from Stephens cleared the route. Tyree ran ahead and planted himself on the corner. He pointed across the street to a tall, nearly eight-foot high, concrete wall offset from a wide sidewalk. Murphy nodded and rounded the corner. Taking a knee, he fired rapidly, drawing more to his position. “Get them over,” he shouted without taking his eye off the sights and the distant targets.
“You heard him… go!” Stephens yelled moving Jacob and Tyree ahead of him.
Jacob took a deep breath and ran into the street. He looked straight ahead to avoid the sight of danger to his left. He crossed the street and, recalling the last incident, deliberately threw himself at the wall, then turned away as Tyree came up behind. In a flash, Stephens was beside him; he knelt over and cupped his hands and Tyree stepped into the pocket. Grunting, Stephens lifted and nearly tossed Tyree over the top. Rounds impacted with the ground around them, popping as they skipped off the sidewalk.
Ignoring the incoming fire, Stephens again cupped his hands and looked to Jacob, who nodded and put a hand on the soldier’s helmet. Another grunt and Jacob were elevated upwards. He grabbed the top of the wall and pulled as Stephens pushed at the soles of his boots. Jacob strained and pulled until he was able to throw his leg over the top of the wall. Now straddling
the wall, he looked out and saw a group of three charging from behind. Recognizing the danger, his eyes went wide. He raised his rifle and fired wildly, hitting two of the Others running toward their position. The third continued and crashed into Stephens.
Jacob twisted on the wall, trying to get a new firing position and lost his balance. He flopped and tumbled off, landing on his head and shoulders into a thicket bush on the other side. In the dark, he couldn’t see but he felt hands grabbing at his clothing. Jacob lashed out with his fists swinging and feet kicking against the hands.
“Dammit! It’s me. Stop, you asshole!” he heard Tyree yell.
Jacob pulled back his hands and felt a wrist grip his ankle. He was yanked from the bush, the thorns catching and tearing at his clothing and scratching the skin underneath. He dropped from the bush to land on his face and his mouth grabbed a taste of grass and dirt. He crawled away from the bush, rolled to his back, and looked up at the top of the concrete wall.
The top edge seemed to glow and reverberate with the explosions on the other side. A gloved hand reached up and grabbed the edge just before Stephens’ helmet came into view. He climbed up and lay flat on the wall, gripping the top edge with his right arm as he dangled over the far side. Jacob watched the man strain as he pulled, and Murphy came into view before clawing and crawling directly over Stephens and tumbling into the same thorn bush. Stephens pushed up off the wall, dropped his legs, then fell the remaining distance to the ground and landed on his feet.
Stephens moved off from the wall and took up a spot a distance away to watch for trouble while Jacob and Tyree pulled Murphy from the bush. Once free of the entanglement, Murphy shook them off and motioned for them to watch the area. Unlike the violent activity on the city side of the wall, the cemetery side was still. They’d dropped in just short of a well-maintained walkway where heavy smoke blanketed the ground, just thin enough to reveal a number of crypts, tombstones, and monuments dotting the wooded terrain.
“We clear?” Murphy whispered as he exchanged magazines in his rifle.
“I can’t see shit in this smoke,” Stephens called back in a low voice.
“Tyree… which way?” Murphy asked.
Tyree pointed with the pistol. Murphy put down his goggles and scanned the terrain, then lifted them to look at his watch. “Couple hours till dawn; let’s get through here while we have cover.”
Jacob pulled his rifle in close to the vest and willed himself up to his feet. The gunfire and explosions still echoed off the wall to their backs, and the fires cast an eerie light that made the smoke seem luminescent. The tall tombstones and monuments cast optical illusions as their shadows moved in different directions with the strobes of the explosions. Jacob shivered but, knowing he had to stick with the team or he’d never find Laura and Katy, he urged his feet to move.
He cautiously stepped ahead until he was with the rest of the group. Again, Murphy directed Stephens out front and took the open side while keeping Jacob and Tyrell close to the wall on the opposite side.
They moved ahead slowly, creeping through the acrid smoke. Jacob pulled his T-shirt over his mouth and nose to block the stench. Gunfire raged close; the rounds cracked off the walls as aircraft flew over, attacking the city with their payloads.
Murphy called out just above a whisper, “Come on guys. Don’t bunch up.”
The team intended to stay spread out but continually grouped back together out of fear. Nearly shoulder to shoulder, they patrolled deeper into the graveyard; the dancing shadows and gunshots echoed off the tombstone, making it hard to focus.
They met a blacktop path and quickly crossed it, not wanting to stop in the open. The terrain sloped down on the far side, where it gradually leveled out as it met a small pond. Stephens moved ahead then suddenly dropped to the ground; without question, the others fell with him. Murphy low crawled past Jacob until he was at Stephens’ side. Jacob squinted and strained his eyes to see ahead. Then, with the flash of an explosion, a large crowd of figures were outlined where they gathered around the opposite shore of the pond—hundreds of them standing in a tight cluster.
“What are they doing?” Jacob whispered.
With a focused expression on his face, Murphy didn’t answer. Jacob crawled forward with Tyree toward the high grass and cattails that lined the shore, stopping when they were online with the rest of the team. The more he looked, the more his eyes adjusted to the light and Jacob saw that it wasn’t just a mob; all around the edges, there were more solitary figures. Looking closer, their posture revealed that they were armed and appeared to be standing guard over the Others. The group made noise and backed away to create a long opening for a group of men that ran through the gap carrying bodies to the water line.
The unconscious victims were dropped at the bank of the pond and their heads were submerged. All at once, the men huddled in the dark realized what they were seeing. The shoreline was awash with the bodies; only their legs— or just feet in some cases—were exposed. Occasionally, one would kick and spasm, inducing a random hand from the crowd to reach down and pull the body from the water. The others would hold it upright until it could stand on its own. The newly removed thing would drift away from the pack under the watchful eyes of the sentries, stumbling around drunkenly like a new calf learning to walk.
Jacob watched as the new ones were guided to the outer edges, their stride slowly improving over a short span of time. Then they would move back to the mob and merge with it, becoming lost in the mass. Groups would break off and move away from the mass and out of sight as others returned, carrying more victims. The swarm again opened up to accept them and provided a path to the water line as the cycle continued.
“Fuck me… look at the water,” Tyree muttered.
Jacob lowered his view to the dark surface of the pond only feet away. The moon’s refection barely broke through the smoke to allow the blue steel ball to reflect light back. The closer they looked, the more the opaque liquid seemed to have motion. It swirled and turned over while the surface remained static. Unlike water, the upper layer appeared thick and dense to resemble the look of oil—the same as the blood spilt from the things on the street.
Stephens picked up a loose branch and pushed it forward into the water, scarring its surface. As he dragged the branch across the top, the scratch seemed to remain and then slowly repair itself. When he removed the stick, the liquid pulled off. Like a rod dipped into mercury, the liquid held together, and none remained on the branch. Where the surface had been broken, the water suddenly began to bubble—slowly at first, then turning to a boil.
“We should go,” Jacob said.
Chapter Eighteen
With their eyes focused on the oily surface of the pond, no one was watching the Others on the far side. Tyree let out a high-pitched yelp as he backpedaled away from the bank. Jacob looked up and saw it too; the entire mob had their heads up, and their dark eyes were looking in the team’s direction. The mass hadn’t zeroed in on their position, but it sensed them—somehow the mob knew they were there.
Tyree continued to scramble back until he was on his feet and off at a run. Jacob followed him back up the hill at a sprint away from the pond, desperate to increase separation from the mass. Tyree was out front, breathing hard and oblivious to his surroundings. He ran head on into one of the armed sentries and plowed through it. Both crashed to the ground, Tyree rolling headfirst to the grass and the black-eyed man falling back and landing against a tree. Stephens, who was close behind, maintained his course and ran directly at the thing lying dazed against the base of the tree. Like going for a long-distance field goal, he kicked it hard on the side of the head before falling to the ground himself.
Murphy jogged up and stood over the now unconscious thing, stabbing it once at the base of the neck for good measure. When he pulled out the blade, he paused, looking confused.
“What is it?” Jacob whispered.
“It’s different… harder or something.” Murphy grabbed a handf
ul of the thing’s shirt and rolled the body. As before, he took his knife and opened the man’s arm. Instead of being filled with the black oozing gel, the limb now had thick fibrous flesh that extended bone deep. Murphy removed the blade and pulled at the creature’s neck; the same snake-like skin extended up to wrap behind its ears and the forehead appeared broadened and ridged.
Murphy wiped the blade on the thing’s shirt before returning the knife to its scabbard on his belt. Tyree and Stephens got back on their feet and moved closer. “Whatever is in the pond, it’s changing them,” Murphy whispered.
“Not changing… replacing,” Jacob responded.
Tyree turned the man’s head to look at the neck while asking, “What do you mean ‘replacing’?”
“Like a parasite, or those spiders that lay their eggs in their kills, so they can eat them from the inside out. We’re just a host for whatever that shit is,” Jacob said, pointing at the black goo.
“Then we should stop it—put gas in the pond, set it on fire, or something,” Tyree said.
Murphy shook his head. “Wouldn’t do any good… not now; these things are everywhere. This can’t be the only pond. No… we stick to the plan. When we get to the lake, we can pass this information up the chain.”
The sounds of branches snapping and things passing through trees startled them. “Let’s move,” Murphy ordered. “And Tyree… slower this time.”
Stephens grabbed the younger man. “I got him, Sergeant,” he said, directing Tyree to his to his front and then moving them out.
Murphy looked over his shoulder as he turned away from them. “Go on; I’ll be right behind you.”
Jacob peeled himself from the damp grass and forced his exhausted legs forward. He clutched the rifle in his sweaty palms and listened to the sounds of the Others closing in from behind. Not wanting to lose sight of Tyree and Stephens ahead of him, Jacob moved quicker. Soon they were back at the wall, and they turned alongside it so that they were running parallel to the street. They worked their way north in the direction of the lakeshore while gunfire erupted from behind. It was more sporadic than before—quick shots of one and two rounds with long pauses in between, mixed with the explosive crack of fragmentation grenades.
