No Light Beyond

by L. Douglas Hogan

  ...

  Mason crouched behind the remains of a broken-down car that was located about a hundred yards from the bus stop and peered through the scope of his rifle. He panned it back and forth, looking for any signs of Scrounger activity. Just as he scanned to an alley, he saw movement that looked like a man stepping into it and out of sight. Mason switched his position so he could see down the alley, and he caught a glimpse of the same man turning the corner and into another alley. He couldn’t see any other movement in the area.

  Assuming the coast was clear, he stepped out into the open and ran across the street. He put his back against the wall next to the corner of the building where he first saw the movement. Once he had peeked around the corner and felt safe to do so, he ran down the alley and peeked around the corner of the second alley. Mason could hardly believe his eyes; it was one of the men he and Shemika had shot and killed.

  “Didn’t I kill that guy?” Mason asked himself. He was confident that he had left all of them dead—doubly so because he’d stuck each of them twice in the lungs. Maybe it’s just another Scrounger wearing his clothes, he thought, making the decision to creep up on the man.

  The Scrounger was walking down the alley away from Mason’s location. Mason was moving from corner to corner, using dumpsters and whatever else he could use to shield himself from being seen.

  As he moved in closer to the Scrounger, he could see that the man had the same colored hair, build, clothes; everything about this Scrounger indicated that he was exactly the same man Mason and Shemika had killed. The question remaining, then, was how was he moving about in such good physical condition? And where were the other two Scroungers? Mason made the decision to hold off on killing the man for the second time. He needed more answers, so he remained quiet and followed the man.

  “Why is he unarmed?” he asked himself. It was a dangerous move for any person to move about the new world alone, but this guy was not only alone, he was roaming about without a weapon. Mason wanted to turn away and leave the situation. There was an eerie silence in the air, and something was telling him to stop pursuing the man, but his inquisitive nature got the best of him.

  Mason followed the Scrounger until he turned one more corner and again disappeared from his line of sight. He quickly moved forward and advanced on the street the Scrounger had turned onto. He remained as silent as a mouse as he peeked his head around the corner of the building.

  The Scrounger was walking down the middle of the street toward several other Scroungers, fifteen in all, that were meandering around doing seemingly nothing in what appeared to be a Scrounger camp. None of them were armed; there were weapons and packs lying all over the ground.

  Among the group, Mason spotted the other two Scroungers he had shot and killed. They were also up and walking around the street. His heart rate picked up substantially when he saw the three men he had killed. He reasoned that he could have mistakenly left one alive, but not all three. Something was off, way off.

  As he stood there studying the situation, he saw some of the Scroungers’ bowels were dragging behind them as they moved. Others were covered in blood, and one in particular had his esophagus ripped away from his neck, and his jaw was dangling from his face.

  Mason was suddenly scared. He made the decision to run, but he hesitated long enough to see the Scrounger he was following suddenly stop in his tracks. He looked like he was smelling something in the air, like a cat would smell an open can of tuna fish. The Scrounger’s nose went into the air and he turned to face Mason. He had a bullet hole in his forehead, just to the left of his left eye, exactly the way Mason had left him. His eyes were a hazy white color.

  Unexpectedly, the Scrounger let out a bloodcurdling scream that didn’t even sound human. The rest of the Scroungers turned to face Mason. Suddenly, the entire group began screaming and started running at Mason.

  Mason fell backwards in his attempt to sprint from a dead stop, but he picked himself up and ran as fast as he could toward his motorcycle, which was parked two blocks away. As he ran, he continuously looked over his shoulder. The mob was running faster than he was. He wasn’t gaining any distance on them, and they were rapidly closing the gap. He had to move faster or he would be done for.

  Mason wanted to find a place to break their line of sight on him, but he was afraid that taking the time to do so would give them an advantage to continue to gain ground on him. When he cut the corner of the second block, he cut as close to the building as he could, hoping to gain every possible second. When he did, he bumped into two Scroungers that were carrying rifles. He caught them both off guard, but knocked one of them to the ground.

  Mason didn’t hesitate to stand back up to keep running, but the other two men pointed their rifles at Mason and prepared to shoot at him, but were cut short by the sounds of the screaming Fleshers that came running from the alleyway. They were caught off guard by what they saw. The Fleshers ran up to them and swarmed the two men, pinning them both to the ground.

  They were screaming for help as Mason looked over his shoulder to see that the horde had stopped their pursuit of him in favor of the two Scroungers, whose screams had turned to gurgles and then to silence. He continued on foot, slowing his sprint to a jog until he reached the Knucklehead.

  The streets were otherwise quiet. A brisk morning breeze blew a light dusting of Yellowstone ash across the streets as Mason reached the motorcycle and started it up. His paranoia that the loud bike might be heard in the dead silence was justified. He didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do next; the only thought that was in his mind was getting out of the area and trying to make sense of what had just happened. Time and research were two things that later came to mind, but those were two things he couldn’t manage without putting Lydia and Shemika at further risk.

  On down the road, Mason found a highway culvert that might be able to buy him some time to think things out. He slowly rode the bike down into the ditch and then pushed it into the large concrete drainage system away and out of sight. Mason dropped down and rested his back against the wall. Normally, he would take his pack off and eat a morsel, but his pack was gone, and with it several key survival items that he had come to be reliant upon.

  The Daubers patrolled these areas and seemed to have a working relationship with the various communities. Mason was putting some thought into searching them out to see if any of them had witnessed anything like he had just witnessed. Then again, he considered the possibility that anybody he shared this story with might consider him a madman. He was torn.

  For a moment, he even considered turning himself over to the Scroungers. If what the Colonel said was true about them wanting Mason, then maybe giving himself to them could lead him to Lydia. Perhaps catching another Scrounger was the answer, or did they have a sickness that reanimated them after they had been killed? Should he collect on Shemika first? He needed the help, and he was starting to like her.

  All these things entertained the playground of his mind, making it difficult to be decisive. The most prominent of all the questions he posed himself was calling into doubt the reality of what he’d witnessed. He was certain the three Scroungers he had killed were not wearing any kind of body armor; even if they were, he’d stabbed them. At least one of them had been shot in the head and was walking around. The man’s eyes were a hazy white color, which indicated blindness. The scream that it had let out didn’t even sound human. The horde had attacked the other two Scroungers like they didn’t even know them, indicating that their minds were gone as well as their sight.

  Mason pushed it all out of his head for now and made a decision; he needed Shemika.

  Minutes later

  Just outside Ebony Pistols territory

  Mason was careful to bring the motorcycle to a stop about a half mile up the road from the enemy’s camp. The last thing he needed was for the Pistols to hear him coming and to set a counter-ambush. His previous visit happenstanced a run-in with Shemika. This time, he was l
ooking for her. Where would he look? Where would he even begin? He decided to spend the remainder of the day staking out the territory to see what he could learn about them and their activities. If he were to get lucky, maybe he could learn of her whereabouts.

  After about an hour of inactivity, Mason turned around and relaxed his back against a burnt-out car. No sooner than he did, the sound of gunfire erupted from within the camp. Mason ducked, thinking he wasbeing shot at, but he was not hearing any impact sounds that normally accompanied it.

  He peeked over the door of the car and looked toward the Ebony Pistols camp, but didn’t see anything. He moved closer, moving from the cover of one vehicle to the cover of another. The shooting didn’t stop. Whoever, or whatever, was being shot at, it wasn’t him, so that gave him the courage to move deeper into the Pistols territory until he could see what was going on. It was there that he saw a man running to and fro in the middle of the street as he was being shot at.

  Mason scoped in on the man to catch a glimpse of him. As bullets were flying from several upper-story windows, Mason could see that many of them were hitting their mark. He could faintly see the clothes on the man were moving where each shot impacted, some of them exiting and causing his shirt to blow back. With each shot, the man responded and switched directions to run another way. The shots continued until the man stopped running and let out the same scream Mason had heard earlier. It didn’t even sound human to him.

  Mason opened the door of the car and quietly entered it to watch from the safety of his current vantage point. The man let out another chilling scream. Mason realized that the thing he thought was a man wasn’t a man at all, not anymore. Something had changed him, just like the Scroungers he’d seen earlier. They had been changed into something else.

  The shots picked back up. Mason couldn’t believe his eyes. This thing had been shot dozens of times. It began to frantically run around again like it was trying to find something that wasn’t there. Stopping at nothing and running back to be shot at some more.

  Mason was analyzing the behavior of the creature when suddenly the car he was hiding in was temporarily enveloped by a mass of the creatures running by him toward the one in the middle of the street; each of them were screaming the same horrifying way the one in the street was. Mason ducked down as low as he could, fearful that he would be seen, but they ran on by and joined the first one in the street, where the sound of gunfire picked up. More guns than were originally being fired had joined in on the action.

  Mason slowly lifted his head to see what was happening. There must’ve been thirty of them, each running back and forth in a different direction.

  “They should’ve seen me,” he whispered. Mason double-checked the windows of the car he was hiding in. All four of them were rolled up, sealing him in.

  Can they even see? he thought, trying to rationalize things. No time for this now, he thought. “I need to find Shemika. She’s in there somewhere.”

  Mason calmed himself, reassured that the creatures were preoccupied with being shot at. He exited the car and moved into an alley, trying to stay out of view of the gunmen in the windows, and especially out of view of the creatures. From the alley, he found an emergency fire exit stair system on the side of the building that had been lowered to ground level. It appeared to be unattended, so he made the choice to proceed up and to the second-floor doorway.

  Once he was there, he slowly turned the knob. He figured it would probably be locked but was surprised to discover it didn’t resist his efforts. The knob turned and the door quietly opened. He stepped into the building, forsaking his own safety, hoping he would be able to rescue Shemika. For Mason, her rescue was twofold. He felt a bond with her and desperately needed her help. She wasn’t a warrior, but Mason had learned years ago that counting on a friend could be just as useful.

  The hallway of the second floor was dark. There was nothing but the natural soft light that barely entered from the outside door, and that didn’t reach too far. The floor appeared to be an apartment complex. It smelled dank, like raw sewage, musty body odor, and general uncleanness.

  Mason could hear the sounds of whispering women coming from the apartments as he passed by. Before he made his way too far, he came to a stop and selected a random door and gave ear to the whispers that were coming from within. This time, Mason quickly turned the door handle in an attempt to storm the room and catch the occupants by surprise, but it was locked.

  Mason knocked gently on the door and covered the peephole with one hand.

  “Who is it?” a woman’s shaky voice said.

  Mason had to think fast. This wasn’t a well-thought-out plan. “A friend,” he threw out with a facial cringe, disgusted by his own stupid answer.

  To his disbelief, the door unlocked and opened three to four inches. It stopped when the chain guard was fully extended. A woman peeked through the narrow opening. When she saw Mason, she became startled and tried to push the door closed, but he caught it in time and placed his hands between the door and the frame to prevent her from fully securing the door. Mason couldn’t give up on this. If this lady was to reveal his presence, she could jeopardize not only his life, but also those he was trying to save. It was easy pressing against the one female, but then a second female came to the rescue of the first, and both of them were pushing against Mason.

  “Please, wait,” he said. “I’m not here to hurt anybody. I’m looking for a friend of mine that I rescued from here. We were separated, and I was told she was brought back to this place.”

  The women stopped pressing on their side of the door. The first woman peeked back out at Mason. She was a black lady with sad and scared eyes. Her face was thin from malnutrition and she had the appearance of one that needed saving herself.

  “Please,” Mason pleaded.

  The woman gave in and nodded her head. Mason moved his hands out of the way and the door gently closed. He could hear the chain lock sliding against the door frame. The woman opened the door and peeked out around the corner.

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did anybody see you come up here?”

  “No, everybody seems preoccupied.”

  “Go close that door first,” the woman said, pointing back to the emergency exit door.

  She waited for Mason to return and then let him into her apartment.

  Mason entered the room and began talking as he rapidly moved from door to door with his rifle to make sure there were no thugs in the apartment. As he did, he began saying, “I’m looking for a woman that I think is here somewhere. She’s tall, medium dark skin, green eyes, and—” Mason cut himself short when he looked at the second woman’s face; it was scarred like Shemika’s, only more so. After a pause in his words, he picked back up with a more thoughtful description, “—and she carries the wounds of an abusive and violent past. Have you seen her?”

  “Yes. She isn’t far from here, but she is more badly mistreated than most of us. They say it’s because she left without permission, and to make it worse, she left with a man that murdered one of their members.”

  The first lady was obviously the eldest of the two. She had one prominent scar on the right side of her face. It hadn’t been visible when Mason first saw her through the narrow door opening. The second woman was a few years younger.

  The eldest woman saw Mason looking at her scar. “It’s not as bad as it looks. My little sister has had it much harder than I. The men here mark us up when we speak our mind. I learned to shut my mouth early on, but my sister has a very strong will, and I’m afraid for her life. If you saved Shemika, you can save her, too.”

  “Lady, I’m not…” Mason again cut his sentence short, considering the words that were coming out of his mouth. It wasn’t much different than thinking his words through before he spoke to his daughter. “I’m not going to leave anybody here that doesn’t want to be here,” he said. The sentence wasn’t what he had originally thought to say. Rather, he was about to tell t
hem that he wasn’t here to save anybody but Shemika, but the look in the youngest lady’s eyes was that of desperation mingled with hate and revenge, not that different from his own.

  The eldest woman ran to the back room and began packing a bag for her sister.

  “What’s she doing?” Mason asked the youngest lady. Each of them followed her to the back room. “She can’t take more than what is absolutely necessary,” Mason said to her. “What am I doing?” Mason blurted out. “I need to save Shemika. Tell me where she is, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll swing back by.”

  “You must hurry,” the eldest woman said. “They’ll be back when the Ravagers are dead or gone.”

  “Ravagers? What?” Mason said, hoping she could shed some light on the creatures she was referencing.

  “The undead.”

  The woman pushed Mason to the door. “She is three buildings down to the north on the fourth floor, but you must hurry back. Tynice will die in here.”

  The eldest sister hoped that by putting a name on the scarred woman’s face, it would play on the stranger’s sensibility.

  “Can I have a knife?” Mason asked.

  “They keep them away from us. If you want weapons, you’ll have to kill them for them,” she answered.

  Mason nodded to the woman, then left.

  Several minutes later

  The third building down

  Mason came bursting into the apartment, oblivious to the possibility of being heard by the Ebony Pistols. He had done so for each apartment on the fourth floor under the cover of what otherwise sounded like a war zone. He rapidly ran from room to room until he found her.

  Shemika was tied to the bed, and she was bleeding from just about every part of her body. Her captors had kept her limbs secured to the bedposts. Her arms and legs were spread, and she was completely undressed and apparently had been tortured as she lay there, helpless. Mason felt his heart plummet to the bottom of his chest. He didn’t want to take a moment to fathom what she had been through.