by D. F. Noble
“You fucking better!” Blood quipped and drew his sword. Red Crow turned then, and realized he was still holding the camera. He shoved it into his pocket—that hideous static sound still swelling in the air—and simultaneously pulled his bow up and plucked an arrow from his quiver. Just as he notched the arrow and drew the feathers back to the corner of his right eye, the Big—the severed head firmly in its grasp—emerged through the brush.
Red Crow got one good look at the Big. Its mouth opened wide, revealing decayed and gnarled teeth, sharp and jagged as broken glass. Its body was pockmarked with scars and boils beneath the layer of filth it wore, and scraggly, long, matted hair covered its jaws and head. It had been a man once, but now it was a thin, wraith-like ghoul. A thinly veiled skeleton with leathery flesh.
It lifted the head it held—as in a grim warning or triumph, Red didn’t know.
He fired on reflex then, aiming his weapon was just a backdrop in his mind and his actions.
Thhhhwap!
The arrow covered the short distance in a fraction of a second and buried itself in the monstrosity’s skull. Before the thing could take another step and fall lifeless to the ground, Red was notching another arrow.
“Here they come!” roared Blood Wolf beside him.
The bushes rumbled, as if high winds were rustling them, but the illusion broke as bodies piled through. The grownups burst from the tree line, not quite running, but more power-walking in that weird way, as if something occasionally shocked them, as if they’d all developed a twitch, or borrowed their bodies for the weekend and were just learning how to use them.
Another arrow whistled out—not at the closest one, but at a Big mid-distance from Red Crow. Red was an excellent shot, but now was not the time for precision shooting; they would be overwhelmed quickly if they did not fight tactically. His next shot sank into a Big’s chest, and while the Bigs did not quite feel pain (or rather, ignored it), they were still human bodies. A shot to the heart, and a straight on headshot would stop them dead, but glancing blows and gut shots only slowed them. They would die eventually of the wound, if it was fatal, but to drop them quick, you had to know the sweet spots. For five years, Red Crow studied those sweet spots, and the Big who found an arrow in its chest took two faltering steps and keeled over.
Some of the Bigs would close in, but Blood Wolf protected his flank. This was not their first battle. Although the unexpected pyramid and the signal had cost them an advantage, they had faced worse odds, greater numbers.
Three Bigs, in various states of filth, rushed in to Red Crow’s right. They growled inhumanly, as if their voices were gargling the static of a bad radio. Two of them carried rusted knives, and the other, a piece of rebar. Blood Wolf roared beside Red Crow and leapt into the fray, first throwing his heavy javelin into the chest of the nearest Big, while preparing a sweeping blow with his broadsword. The javelin, made of heavy steel, bit through its chest, cracked ribs and punctured a lung till it stabbed through the Big’s shoulder blade.
With a grunt, the Big was knocked from its feet. It spun and hit the ground as Blood Wolf moved forward with his sword, cleaving the next Big across the face. The heavy blade didn’t so much cut through the skull as it did smash it, for the edge of his blade gave it just enough to split the skin before it exploded the jaw, then the teeth and roof of the mouth.
Dark red fluid, almost black, shot from the Big’s ruined head and hung in the air, suspended, as time slowed. To the normal eye, Blood Wolf was but a blur, but high on adrenaline, Red Crow caught from his peripheral the fluid action of his brother in arms. With blinding speed, Blood Wolf channeled the momentum of his swing, looped the blade around with two hands and buried the broadsword down into the third Big’s collarbone, biting deep into its chest. The Big had been at a fast-paced power-walk, but the blow was staggering, and the kinetic energy forced it to the ground. All this action took place in a matter of two seconds, as that was the frightening physical power of Blood Wolf.
The blade, sunken deep, had to be wrenched from the dying Big at Blood Wolf’s feet. As Blood placed a foot on its side and yanked his blade free, Red Crow loosed an arrow into the mouth of a Big trying to rush in. Shattering teeth, the arrow ripped through its skull and the thing toppled over, floundering like a fish, throwing up leaves and dirt as it skidded towards them.
Reaching for another arrow, Red Crow realized the Wild had come alive with movement. Bigs were literally coming out of the woodwork, and a quick glance behind him let Red know this wasn’t just a pack of twenty or so grownups;this was a horde of them. Dozens were piling towards them, power-walking in that jerky, broken robot feel they had.
Beside him, Blood Wolf tore through another Big, severing a leg with one swipe, and then decapitating a Bigger woman behind it. They were losing ground quickly, any advantage had been lost. This would be a fight to the tooth and nail.
“Blood!” Red Crow yelled, planting another arrow in the heart of a Big. “Fall back!”
Blood Wolf opened another Big’s stomach, spilling guts. The thing stabbed back at him with an old butcher knife, but with Blood’s Armor, it only slid off. “I got this!” Blood roared, and smashed his foe’s head with the hilt of his massive sword.
“We’re surrounded! Fall back!”
Blood Wolf did a turnabout, taking in his surroundings as he pushed his wolf-like visor up. Bigs were everywhere—behind them, to their sides, as if they knew to encircle them. “Fuck!” he spat, and retrieved his spear from a corpse with a terrible wet schlurp.
“I’ll cover you,” Red yelled as they backtracked. “Climb a tree!”
Blood thrust his spear into a Big with one hand, then bashed it in the face with the other. “You know I hate climbing trees!”
“For fuck’s sake, Blood!” Red knew they would waste precious time while Blood Wolf tried to climb up, so he zipped another arrow into the growing crowd and retreated. Red slung his bow over his shoulder, and like a chimp, leapt, grabbed a branch and swung himself up. He turned and offered a hand to Blood, who had just sheathed his sword, and they locked hands. Bracing himself with a leg and his free hand wrapped around the thick branch, he helped pull the heavily-armored Blood Wolf up until his war mate could climb himself.
From there, they scaled higher, till there was safe distance between themselves and the reach of the Bigs and their shabby weapons.
Breathing heavy, Blood Wolf turned to Red Crow—who was unwinding the rope with the heavy hooked end from the pouch on his belt—and asked, “What happened back there?”
Red shot him an annoyed glance. “Later, Blood. Later.”
Below them, dozens of adults swarmed around the base of the tree like dirty unwashed human piranhas. One of them was beginning to climb up, but Red Crow whipped the weighted hook down and bashed him about the head, and with a sickly crunch, the Big fell back into the crowd and was trampled by his own kind.
“Well,” Blood Wolf said, finding a sitting position in a nook between branches, “I just want you to know if we die today, it's entirely your fault.”
“Save it,” Red Crow said, and sent the hook down again, lacerating another Big trying to climb the tree. “We’re not dying today.”
Red knew something had happened back there when that static came from the heads in the pyramid, and when he heard that voice searing into his mind. There was a moment, just a fraction of a second, where he was sure he was going to lose his mind, and that the static was going to get inside and eat his sanity from the inside out, much like termites do to wood. Red had been screaming and didn’t even know it, and a pain he could not quite describe, as if some electrical current was ripping his mind out through his face, had almost taken him; almost.
Red knew what Owl was going to think when they got back, for it had been something Owl had been speculating on for some time. The Bigs were evolving, only Owl didn’t have the evidence to prove it. But he had evidence now, evidence that sat in a pocket in Red Crow’s vest.
Red a
lso knew what it meant, and he buried himself in the action, in this moment, trapped in a tree and fighting for his life, for what it meant was terrifying. Somehow, the Bigs were trying to bring the Static back, that Signal that had changed them, they were summoning it again, but not with radios and TVs and computers and cell phones. They were channeling it through the severed heads of their own kind.
If they bring back the Signal, Red thought, smashing open skulls below him, then all of us, the ones old enough…old enough like me and Blood and Owl. We’ll change… we’ll claw our eyes out and turn on the young.
We have to get back…
We have to tell Owl…
But first, we have to burn that fucking pyramid.
***
The sun had set by the time Red and Blood had culled the horde of Bigs. Their muscles ached and their hands and bodies were chafed with the task, for the pack had been high in numbers. Almost forty were dead, by the quick body count they did while sitting in the tree. It was dark then, and it was never smart to travel at night in the Wild anyway. It was even less smart to do it while next to a large nest of murderous psycho adults who didn’t need eyes to find you in the dark.
So they did what they’d done numerous times: they tethered themselves to the tree with an extra length of rope they carried with them. It was a safety precaution, because the last thing they wanted to do was wake up with branches rushing past them on their way to a blind date with the hard earth.
“You got any rounds left?”
That was Blood, making small talk as usual. He was canine in more ways than one. Where a dog would circle and circle a spot till it was finally comfortable enough to rest, Blood did the same, only with words.
“Didn’t use my gun,” Red replied, staring at stars through the leaves. He lay in a fork of branches, making himself as cozy as possible.
Blood chuckled, “I know. If we did it your way, you’d still be beating them to death with your rope.”
Red sighed, but smiled. Much like a dog, once Blood locked his jaws on something, you’d damn near have to kill him to make him let go. “It works,” Red replied. “Saves on ammo.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Blood asked the question. Red knew it had been coming, he was just waiting for it. They’d been friends since middle school and there wasn’t much that they didn’t know about each other.
“You gonna tell me what happened back there at the skulls or what?”
Red thought for a second, then decided that he would come clean. “The Static,” Red Crow said, his voice going grave. “I heard it.”
“Well duh, numb nuts,” Blood retorted. “I heard it, too.”
“No,” Red Crow said. “I heard it, like it burned in my head. There was a voice in it, Dean.”
They didn’t use their old names much, and when they did, it was serious. Those moments when they slipped back into The Before, when they were just kids, playing video games and dreaming about girls and what they’d do with their Summers. Before they had become killers, warriors…
“What do you mean there was a voice in it? What’d it say?” Blood's voice was thinly masked. There was concern just underneath his let-live, let-die attitude.
“I see you.”
“What?”
“That’s what it said. It said, I see you.”
There was a long pause.
“That’s creepy as fuck, Jake. Stop fucking with me.”
Red Crow, once a boy by the name of Jake Warren, replied back to his friend. “I’m not, Dean. I swear it. If…if you wouldn’t have shook me out of it…I don’t think…”
“Dude, shut up,” Blood, once Dean Raims, growled.
“Listen to me,” Red Crow said. “I was right there, right about to go crazy. You saved my ass, Dean.” They locked eyes then, just for a second, the whites of their eyes a soft florescent in the moonlight.
“Whatever, fucker,” Blood snorted, and looked away. “I was right there too. If you heard it, I woulda heard it.”
“Yeah, I’m older than you, though.”
“By three months!”
Red Crow pulled some jerky from his pouch, tore a piece off and handed it to his friend. “Maybe that’s all it takes,” said Red.
***
Red Crow woke at dawn, the rays of the sun cutting through the gaps in the leaves. A sound, wet and ripping, and the gnashing of teeth came from below. Looking down, Red saw the source of it. There was a pack of feral dogs enjoying the buffet of Bigger flesh.
“Blood,” Red said. “Blood, wake up.”
“Fuck off.”
“The pyramid,” Red said, and shook him. “Come on. We gotta take care of it.”
“Ugh.” Blood yawned and stretched. He gave Red a weary look, a look that could have said I could eat your face right now or give me a Mountain Dew or I’ll eat your face right now. Blood untethered himself from the tree trunk and saw the dogs below.
“Hey,” Blood said with grit in his voice, “close your mouth’s when you chew, you’re fucking disgusting.”
Most of the dogs only shot him an unconcerned glance, but one of them, some mutt with shaggy, matted hair, growled at him.
Blood Wolf growled back, ripped a twig off the tree and threw it at the dog. It missed completely and the dog snorted at Blood, then went back to the intestines it was feeding on.
“Fucker,” Blood Wolf spat.
The boys made their way down to the lower, thicker branches, walked a far as they could, and then dropped down amongst the corpses. Dead Bigs lie everywhere around the base of the tree, making it rough to traverse since every other step was a limb or eviscerated torso and split skull. It was a rank smell, and rot had not even set in yet. Just the odor of Bigs was bad enough, but when you cut them open, it was like chopping into a bag full of turds.
Several yards and the ground began to clear up. Red plucked arrows—the ones that weren’t broken or snapped—from the corpses around him, while Blood Wolf had to roll a couple corpses over to retrieve his spear, which was now coated with gunk and filmy gore. Grimacing, Blood wiped his weapon clean off in the grass. The pack of dogs paid Red and Blood no mind as they went. Since a gourmet had been left for them, only something interfering with their meal would have distracted the pack.
“So how do we do this?” asked Blood, as they tromped to the clearing which held the pyramid.
“Burn it, I figure.”
“Oh joy,” Blood said as they stepped through the tree line.
The gruesome structure sat ahead, and the heads seemed absolutely lifeless. Red wondered if they would come to life, static spilling from their chomping mouths, if him and Blood got close enough.
Apparently Blood was thinking the same thing. “Swear to god,” Blood said, lowering the face plate of his mask, “if they start talking when we get close… I’m gonna shit my pants. Just poop everywhere.”
Red nodded. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was nervous. What if that static did come again, would he be vulnerable?
“Let’s try something first,” Red said and drew an arrow. He pulled a bandana from his belt, and looped it tight around the tip, tying it off with its own corners. From a pocket in his tactical vest he retrieved a small container of lighter fluid and soaked the cloth.
Red notched the arrow and asked, “Gotta light?”
Blood grinned. “For you honey buns, always!”
Blood lit the arrow with a Zippo, and it instantly caught. Red took aim—the target didn’t need much, since it was close and was damn near the size of a house. The flaming arrow streaked out and sunk with force into the cheek of a bodiless head halfway up the pyramid. It was enough force to rock the head away from the stack, and as the fire caught, crackling the half-rotten skin like a dried log, the head tumbled down, but stopped short.
Something—a black cord of some kind—had been poked through the back of the skull, and there behind the growing flames and the empty spot where the head had sat, was a reflection of glass.
&
nbsp; “What the…” Blood Wolf mumbled. “It’s a fucking TV screen…”
He was right. The entirety of the pyramid did not seem to be made purely of decapitated heads, only the outer shell of the thing seemed to be. The boys moved closer with cautious steps, some superstitious fear bubbling up in them. This was far removed, above and beyond more strange than what they had come to expect from the Bigs.
Closer, and the face of the pyramid came alive with movement. Jaws began to open, and the hairs on the boys’ arms and necks began to rise.
“The static!” Red yelled, and backed away. “Blood! Get away from it!”
Instead, Blood howled and rushed forward, his sword above his head.
“Blood! Stop!”
The sound started low, just a tickle in the ears of Red Crow. His eyes began to itch just as Blood Wolf collided with the pyramid. Thrashing with his sword, splitting open skulls and knocking them away, each swipe revealed computers, TV screens, and coils of cords and wires, all of them punctured through the back of skulls or slithered up through the open necks.
For a moment, the static flared up, reaching a crescendo, this chattering symphony of locust-like throbbing that brought Red Crow to his knees. Pressure, like a volcano, rose up in his nasal passages, and Red’s hands shot up to his face.
The voice, that terrible electric alien voice…
I SEE YOU!
I SEE-
Then the sound stopped, just cut short like a plug had been pulled. Before Red Crow toppled over, he saw Blood Wolf atop the pyramid, his helmet gleaming in the sun, wrenching free a skull with a thick bundle of cables sprouting from its neck, hanging loose and frayed from where they had been severed. A trail had been cut up the side of the structure, a gruesome path of crushed bone and pinkish mush of brain matter where Blood had blazed to the summit, wreaking havoc and destruction with his broadsword.
Blood Wolf cried out and held the skull up to the sky, his voice like the roar of a lion or some primal beast. The war cry echoed out, and as Red Crow felt himself slip into darkness, he was positive the Wilds roared back with Blood Wolf. The bugs and frogs and birds and the feral pack of dogs, all joining their voices together into a powerful chorus.
