by LC Champlin
Gunshots roared.
The Dalit, however, lunged with the speed of a pouncing lion. Movement behind the startled gangsters—The two cannibals who had vanished into the aisles reappeared, each selecting a thug to attack. They sprang onto their preys’ backs, wrapping them in arms and legs while sinking their teeth into the bastards’ necks.
Screams echoed through the empty store. Shadows writhed across the aisles in the glare of the headlights.
Clean up at checkout five. Bring a biohazard kit and level-four decon gear. The thugs struggled, but they proved no match for the adrenaline-amped strength of Dalits. Even if they could throw them off, the contagion had already entered their bloodstreams. Soon they would turn into what they feared.
“Dude, that’s insane!” Weedy crowed.
The cannibal nearest the pharmacy dropped his prize and spun about to stare toward the source of the sound. Swaying side to side like a cobra preparing to strike, it gauged the situation. Its fellows rose from their meals. Then they resumed their advance, with two again moving into the aisles’ darkness.
Nathan eased around the lottery counter, now behind the cannibals. He turned toward the broken window—just as two more Dalits climbed through the opening.
Chapter 71
Busted
Young - Hollywood Undead
In the open now, Nathan froze. Damn it, never a roll of foil around when you needed one. He should have put a priority on lining a set of clothes with foil and mylar. He should have at least taken a space blanket along. It would disrupt the Dalits’ ability to sense his electromagnetic field.
Maybe the cannibals would decide to follow their comrades. They ranged out along the entry area, faces panning. Then, as one, they looked left, toward the pharmacy. And Nathan.
The two Dalits closest to him continued looking leftward, locking on his location. Trapped.
“Get them!” Voices from the pharmacy drew the cannibals’ attention. The sounds of a struggle between druggies and Dalits ensued. With luck, the two factions would destroy each other.
Nathan crept further along the wall, toward the exit and, unfortunately, the cannibals. If he could get past them, he could reach the Acura. He grabbed the nearest grounded shopping cart and flipped it onto its wheels. Ready, set, go! Charging the Dalits, he released the cart at the last moment, sending it forward as he dashed toward the window.
The two missing monsters returned, materializing from the murk ahead. They needed only to run faster than he and they’d make the exit first.
Wasting ammunition and causing an unholy noise made him cringe. But five—or seven, if the gang bangers turned—Dalits versus one person with a spear?
“Hey!”
Clang clang clang! Metal on metal. From—the parking lot?
The Dalits turned from him to stare at the source of the sound.
“Get out, uglies!”
The voice came from a young person. It sounded familiar. Wait. It sounded like one of the teens he’d counseled. Fuck it all. Why couldn’t they follow the rules?
The monsters turned from him, even as the gangsters began to spasm in puddles of blood and oil.
The first of the pack stuck its head through the opening. Then it dropped, falling onto the shards of glass that protruded from the floor where the window once stood. Its body seized once, and went still. Its three companions paused.
Six teenagers piled into the store, crunching glass as they came. They entered in breaching fashion, one going right, one left, right, left, and so on. They formed a phalanx, two lines of three people, with spears aiming forward. Following protocol, they wore improvised PPE: garbage bag ponchos duct taped to them at the edges, plastic gloves, safety glasses, and rain boots. They’d taken his lecture on maturity to heart.
“Nathan, here!” The nearest boy—Chas, the jock who’d mouthed off to Rodriguez—waved him toward the group’s center.
His polearm toward the cannibals, Nathan sidled over to the young people. The relief of joining a group rose, but the surreal panic of finding oneself at the head of six teenagers facing Dalits intent on their deaths kept it in check.
“We stay like this,” he announced. “We can keep them at bay.”
“Are you okay?” the Asian girl who had helped repel the Dalits at Marlin Park asked, glancing at him.
“I’ll be much better once we get rid of these.”
The cannibals retreated farther into the store.
“Move sideways, left,” Nathan ordered. “Keep your spears up between us and them.”
The group shifted sideways, toward the pharmacy.
“Are you here for food?” asked Chas. “’Cause it’s been cleaned out.” Bitterness in his tone.
“I’m here for the pharmacy.” It sounded better than, I’m here for drugs.
The group proceeded, with the cannibals keeping watch from the rear of the store. Now and then came a hiss, or a crunch from them stepping on glass shards. The Dalits moved with amazing stealth, considering that just a week ago they could barely stumble about.
“Shouldn’t we be going?” asked Marlin Park’s Defender.
“No. We need to deal with this before more come or they move farther into town.”
Ssssaaaaaaahhhh.
A cannibal streaked from the left, aiming at the team’s middle.
“Shit!” someone yelped.
“People in the center,” Nathan barked, “stand. They’re going to come from the sides too.”
The cannibal attempted to leap over the wall of spears, but one of the blades caught it in the gut. The creature stopped in mid-air, impaled. Then its weight overbalanced it.
“Kill it!”
Nathan swung his blade around. The point pierced an eye socket. The Dalit writhed for a moment before the body caught up with the brain death. Two down, possibly five to go.
“There’s more!”
The left- and right-end teens braced themselves for a charge of a cannibal on each side.
“Move left!” This shifted the target so one Dalit faced the center and the other faced the right side. “Don’t let them flank you.”
The spears shifted. A baseball bat appeared in the team’s midst, with the jock Chas swinging it. Crunch. It sank into the top of the closest cannibal’s head.
“To our left is a row of shopping carts,” Nathan related. “Keep moving left until we get behind it.”
The kids followed orders well when the motivation presented itself. They sidled behind the barrier, if one called wire baskets a barrier. Hissing, the cannibals advanced.
Nathan kicked the closest cart toward the cannibals. “Spears forward. Go!”
They shifted forward, plunging blades into the confused cannibal across the “wall.”
“Is that all?” Chas panted. He looked around, gripping the bat in his right hand and the spear in his left. His time on the sports field gave him fortitude to face a charge.
“There’s more over there,” whispered a younger teen as she gestured toward the pharmacy. She wore black from neck to toes under her garbage-bag PPE. Goth influence, or night camouflage?
Now that the store fell silent, sucking and spluttering reached them from the pharmacy.
“Are they eating somebody?” asked the girl who had earlier worn the disgruntled cat T-shirt.
“I’ll look,” Nathan announced. Best if they didn’t see any more than they had to, and not just of the cannibals.
He stepped away from the teens. Beyond them, at the door, the two gangsters twitched and spasmed but remained grounded. With a glance over his shoulder at the pharmacy, he strode to the victims.
Slowly . . . Easing up to them, he prodded the nearest with his spear. Gore and oil covered the thug’s upper body. Eyes rolling to show the whites, spine arching, he let out a hissing breath. His cohort did likewise.
Enough. A thrust to the head silenced each.
The teens watched, spears ready, breathing ha
rd and looking as if they’d just realized their situation. Poor bastards.
Chapter 72
Raid
White Rabbit - Emiliana Torrini
Nathan advanced toward the pharmacy, spear braced against his hip. The door stood ajar. Sweat rolled down his back as his pulse rattled in his ears. Six teens to keep alive while retrieving drugs from looters and cannibals? Not how he wanted the evening to go.
Worse, Amanda would find the note and begin to worry. Well, she’d send reinforcements. It trumped dying here, but having to suffer through the humiliation of an extraction by his own people didn’t sit well.
Edge toward the door . . . Light ready, he pushed it open with his toe. The beam roamed over three cannibals who fed on the innards of Baritone. Where the hell had they all come from? Blood soaked the area as they squished and squelched in the cooling intestines. Scent of shit, blood, and bile fell heavy, choking him worse than tear gas.
Shifting to breathing through his mouth—little better, because the taste manifested—Nathan retreated.
He waved the team ahead. They slunk up, wide eyes on the pharmacy.
“Form up. There are at least three cannibals inside. We have to draw them out.”
“Won’t they come out on their own?” asked the angry-cat teen in a small voice.
“Eventually.”
“But we want to get this sewn up, right?” from Chas, standing tall in an attempt to look courageous. “We wanna get going. Hey, we get a cut of this, right?” He apparently wanted the drugs as much as Nathan. But he lacked broken ribs for an excuse. “We got here and helped fight cannibals. We even saved your butt. Right?”
Cocky SOB. “I do have a handgun, you’ll recall. I simply prefer not to use it due to the noise. And you know cuts aren’t how we do things. We find what we can, then we divvy it up as need dictates. Everyone works, so everyone gets what they need.” Like socialism, it would work until they ran out of other people’s supplies to hand out.
“Let’s lure them out,” Chas decided.
The kids nodded.
An uproar followed, with everyone stamping, clapping, and yelling for attention. This worked perfectly. Damn it, what happened that he considered three blood-covered, shit stinking cannibals exploding out at him perfect. They sprang, unthinking, at the phalanx of bladed death. Perhaps their supper made them stupid, like people after Thanksgiving dinner.
“Stand strong,” Nathan urged. “If you break ranks, we could all die.”
Weapons flashed. Angry Cat caught one Dalit in the eye, more by accident than by skill. Chas bashed another in the knee with the bat, while Goth caught it in the temple with her spear blades.
As they slew the abominations, they shoved them away as far as possible before the blood and gore could contaminate the area.
The other teens brought their weapons to bear on the last cannibal, who died as a voodoo doll lived: impaled.
“Well,” deadpanned Goth, “that looks like it. Fuck, it stinks.”
“I’ll see if it’s safe.” Nathan held up a hand as he edged toward the pharmacy again.
“Safe?” one of them muttered. “I don’t even remember what that means.”
“Get used to it,” Nathan growled.
Inside, the light played over two corpses: Baritone and Bat Girl. Where did Weedy go?
Nathan crept forward. If they had controlled medications here, they’d keep them in a controlled environment. There! A keyhole in one of the cabinet doors. He pulled the small pry bar from its loop at the back of his belt to force the cabinet open. The effort made his ribs whine and his eyes water. Then the door popped open.
Bingo.
“That’s ours. We came here first.”
Nathan whirled. Weedy leaned against the counter near the front window, sweat dripping down his forehead, eyes wide and staring. He held a semi-auto at waist height, pointing it at Nathan. Where did the weapon come from?
For that matter, where the hell did he come from? Wait . . . Beside him a cupboard large enough to conceal him stood open.
“Want some pills?” Nathan inclined his head toward the cabinet he’d pried open.
“No. I want them all.”
“There’s one of you and seven of us.”
“It’ll soon be one of me and none of you. Because I’m taking these and getting out of here. There are cannibals out there.”
“No. I’m the biggest danger here.”
“You’re bluffing, and I have the drugs.” Twitch of the head to another cabinet.
“I see. Well, I can’t have that. Hand them over and I’ll let you be on your way.”
“I have a gun,” Weedy announced, voice wavering. “If you move, I’ll kill you.”
“If that gun worked, you would have used it on the cannibals.”
The pistol began to shake. The tremor worked its way up the arm, into the body.
“Are we done?” Nathan sighed. “Say, what’s your favorite zombie movie?” As the question ended and Weedy’s confusion began, Nathan launched forward. The pry bar flashed. It caught the idiot in the gut first. Up and down. Cervical vertebrae cracked.
“Are you all right? Is there—”
Nathan snapped around to face the teens, who appeared to the doorway. “He had a gun.” And the rest of the drugs. “I had to stop him.” The pry bar tapped against his thigh as his mouth went Sahara-dry.
“Why didn’t he shoot the cannibals, then?” Goth wondered, grimacing behind her dust mask and goggles as she surveyed the corpses.
“You should have asked him, I guess,” Defender put in before Nathan could voice a similar sentiment.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Angry Cat whispered
Pulling his shirt up over his nose, Chas shot her a glare. “Other than the stink, it’s no worse than last Halloween’s haunted houses.”
The two other teens—males, younger than the vocal quartet but also among the Defenders of Marlin Park—gawked at the carnage in silence.
“I assume,” Nathan began, “you’re breaking curfew for the same reason I’m here: scouting.” He had them now.
“Yeah.” They exchanged nervous glances.
“We came in Chas’s truck,” Angry Cat supplied, as if it would explain everything.
“Ah.” Perhaps some came to secure medications for their families, but others had come in hopes of securing controlled medication. “As I see it, there’s no reason why what happens in Nob Hill Foods can’t stay in Nob Hill Foods.”
“This isn’t Vegas,” muttered Goth.
“No, but we are gambling. Now, shall we?” He nodded toward the shelves of pill bottles.
“Do we just take everything?” asked one of the younger teens.
“You never know when you might need it.” Nathan crouched beside the fallen Weedy. Feeling inside the bastard’s jacket, his fingers brushed a pill bottle. Aha. It contained hydrocodone. Shit, nothing better?
A search of the pants’ pockets produced pay dirt. The Percocet bottle disappeared into one of Nathan’s pockets.
The group filled their satchels, pockets, and garbage bags with meds. Not much remained after the rush on the stores, but at least this would keep people in blood pressure and psych meds. They’d certainly need them.
When they finished, the group gathered before him.
“I got the guns from the other bodies,” reported Goth, holding up a package of black plastic. “I wrapped them up in garbage bags.”
“Excellent.” He gave the team a nod of approval. “You all did a magnificent job tonight. Now, let’s go. I want some of you to ride with me; I want to talk to you.”
“I guess I’ll ride by myself, then,” Chas replied in a passive-aggressive tone. “Other than that girl, I mean.”
“Her name’s Taylor,” Angry Cat corrected.
Chapter 73
Hook
Animal - Neon Trees
“Taylor Muster?” A chill radiated
down Nathan’s spine and into his extremities, prickling in his fingertips. Did the entire young-adult population of Redwood Shores come on this Children’s Crusade? At least Denver hadn’t tagged along too.
“I guess.” Chas shrugged. “Skinny, blondish, comes from Keelson.”
“Come on.” Not waiting for them, Nathan stormed out to the vehicles.
Two parking spaces away from the Acura hulked a yellow Nissan Titan XD, its windows tinted to the legal limit. Who drew the short straw to ride in the bed? But at least it sported a topper.
Breathe. Composing himself, he halted at the driver-side window and rapped on the glass. “Taylor. Open the door.”
The passenger door inched open. Taylor’s face appeared at the crack. “Nathan, I know I’m breaking curfew, but I found your note, and I didn’t know what to do. I should have told Mom, but . . .” She sat back with the resignation of a suspect in the back of a squad car on COPS.
“I understand that you were worried, but you brought the teens?” he hissed, half to prevent them from hearing and half to keep from shouting with his rising anger. Growling, he looked away.
“I’d heard them earlier talking about going to the pharmacy, so when I saw the note, I . . . I told them about your trip.” Her shoes continued to deserve more of her eye contact than Nathan did.
“I’ll speak with you about this later.” He sighed, shoulders relaxing. “I’m just relieved you’re safe. Thank you for your concern,” he added, patting her on her shoulder.
Small smile in place, she glanced over at him.
“Ride with me, Taylor.”
The teens and Taylor piled into the SUV, leaving Chas alone in his vehicle.
Nathan drove north along Redwood Parkway. “Thank you all for your help. You shouldn’t have been out here, but then again, I should have taken backup. You’re a capable team.” He smiled at them via the rearview mirror.
They exchanged elbows, pats on the shoulders, and fist bumps. In the front seat, Taylor looked out the window.
“But remember, this adventure stays here. We have to keep order and keep people safe.”
