by JJ Zep
Ruby felt herself thrown forward in her seat, slammed back by the seatbelt. Pearl was screaming, the Z’s swarming forward, swamping the car. Ruby entered the hive mind and backed them off. But immediately she detected the malevolent presence she’d encountered in the forest and she lost control of them. The Z’s moved in again, jostling the vehicle under their weight.
She twisted the key in the ignition.
“Hooley!” Uncle Joe shouted.
The engine snarled into life.
“Hold on, Hooley. We’re almost there!”
Ruby mashed her foot on the gas and the vehicle lurched forward, burning rubber, fishtailing, plowing through the Z’s and racing up Garstin Road. This road, she knew, looped around the back of the hospital. They’d be there in minutes.
In the back seat, Uncle Joe was crying.
thirty eight
They would all have to go in the ambulance. The vehicles to the front of the building, Chris’ Jeep and the Caddie, were out of reach. The Z’s were already streaming across the parking lot. Chris stood at the head of the stretcher and pushed Jojo through the ER, while the doc guided their path. Samantha ran alongside, holding the drip that was still attached to Jojo’s arm. From outside came the rattle of gunfire.
Ferret and Skye parted the double doors of the ER, and Chris pushed the stretcher through into the side lot without breaking stride. To his left, Kelly was running towards the cab. In the next moment, the ambulance’s diesel engine roared into life.
The crunch of footfalls from the approaching Z’s was ominous, punctured only by the pop-pop-pop of Charlie and Wackjob’s rifles, by Sugar’s snarls and growls. Chris cast a quick glance along the side of the hospital to the lot. The main body of Z’s was maybe twenty yards away, advancing as relentlessly as a tsunami. This was going to be close.
He directed his attention back to the ambulance, where Ferret and Skye had just swung the doors open. Two backward paces bumped his legs up against the rear of the vehicle. Without pausing, he scrambled aboard, got a grip on the stretcher and hauled it towards him.
“Take over,” he shouted to Ferret as the wheels folded under the stretcher and Jojo was delivered into the back of the ambulance. Then Chris jumped to the tarmac and ran to where Charlie and Wackjob had taken up position.
The 9-mil was in his hand and firing in an instant. One of the zombies came stumbling around the side of the building and Chris dropped him. He swung the pistol and drilled another who came blundering up the path. Sugar made a lunge towards the approaching Z’s.
“Sugar!” Chris shouted. “Stay back!”
The main body was just ten yards away. Chris looked over his shoulder and saw Doc Whitfield scramble aboard the ambulance after Ferret and Skye.
“Let’s hustle!” he shouted to Charlie. “You two in back! Take Sugar with you!”
And then he was running, up the path and along the side of the ambulance, vaulting into the cab beside Kelly and Sam. He slammed the vehicle into gear, applied his foot hard on the gas.
The vehicle lurched forward, heading towards the back of the building. From there he’d pick up Garstin, join up with Big Bear and head for the cutoff. A thought occurred to him. He still hadn’t heard from Joe and Hooley. He was going to have to rectify that right now.
He cast a quick glance in the rearview mirror, saw the hospital slipping away behind him. Then he reached for the radio between the seats and had just got a grip on the handset when he spotted headlights. A moment later, he picked out the familiar black and white markings of the police SUV.
“Ah, Christ,” he said.
“Who is it?” Kelly’s voice was anxious.
“The Dumfries brothers. You two get your heads down.”
He reached for the 9-mil, watched as the red and white lights atop the SUV blazed into life and the vehicle turned broadside in the road.
Chris’ first instinct was to ram the thing and send the Dumfries brothers to hell with it. That would be foolish. Even if he didn’t roll the ambulance he’d probably kill everyone in the back, Jojo included. Instead, he pushed down on the gas and kept going, veering right at the last moment, clipping the SUV hard enough to send it into a spin.
Chris looked into the side mirror and saw the police vehicle standing askew in the road, move than likely disabled. He put his foot down and raced the ambulance up a short incline, confident that the Dumfries brothers wouldn’t be able to follow.
The intersection loomed up ahead. Too late he saw what waited there.
thirty nine
There was no way he was going to be able to stop in time, no way he could veer out of the way without flipping them over. There was nothing for it but to keep going, hope that the ambulance had enough power to force a way through. He stepped on the gas as the first of the things loomed large in his headlights, mashed the first five rows under the grill. A series of wet slaps greeted each collision. Z’s bounced off the ambulance’s front, off its flanks.
Chris kept her revving high, kept plowing ahead, veering right to line them up on Big Bear Boulevard. But there were so many of the things, more than he’d ever seen before. Inevitably, the ambulance became bogged down. Eventually, it stalled.
Chris worked the key in the ignition and heard the engine grind and then sputter and die. The Z’s closed in, packing so tightly up against the vehicle that they blotted out the scant light from outside. Chris looked through the glass at the wall of eyes and teeth that gaped in on them. Beside him Samantha sobbed and Chris took her hand and gave it a squeeze. He looked beyond his daughter, beyond his wife, to the zombies pushed up against the side window, one of them spilling a slew of green gunk from his jowls. The creature was salivating, Chris realized.
And yet something strange was going on here. This many Z’s, packed so close together, could have crushed the ambulance under their weight. They could have jostled the vehicle, overturned it, pulled its occupants from the cab and torn them apart. They were making no effort to do any of those things. It was as though they were waiting.
Waiting for what? For who?
He thought he knew the answer to those questions.
From the rear compartment Chris heard voices raised in argument, Charlie and Skye. He pushed back the sliding panel, turned in his seat, and looked into the darkened interior.
“You are not going out there,” Charlie was saying.
“My decision,” Skye said.
“Then it’s my decision to go with you.”
“Keep it down,” Chris whispered into the dark. “No need to get them riled up.”
“Mr. Collins –” Skye started.
“Shh,” Chris said and slid the panel back into place.
He turned back to the carnivorous wall in front of him. Christ, why hadn’t he listened to Kelly? The hospital hadn’t been ideal, but anything was better than this, trapped like sardines in a can, waiting to be plucked out and eaten alive. How could he have been so stupid?
“Quit beating yourself up,” Kelly said from the other side of the cab.
“I wasn’t,” he said.
“Yes, you were.” Kelly’s voice sounded remarkably calm. “And you can quit it. You did everything you could have done. We should have left town this morning and if I hadn’t been so stubborn –”
“Kel –”
“Shut it, Collins. I’m talking here.”
Chris knew when to let Kelly have her way.
“If I hadn’t been so stubborn, we’d have been miles away by now.” She let out a sigh. “But it is what it is, as my mother used to say, God bless her soul. And if this is where it ends, so be it.”
“Don’t say that,” Samantha sobbed. “Don’t say that.”
“Shh,” Kelly said and drew Samantha to her. She looked over Sam’s shoulder towards Chris. “When the time comes,” she said. “You’ll know what to do.”
Something was happening outside. At first, Chris detected nothing more than a ripple that ran through the horde, like the swell of a placid
ocean. Then they were backing away, opening a path, heads bowed as though in deference. A split appeared in their ranks, stretching all the way down Big Bear Boulevard, in the direction of the hospital. Something moved along that path, a gaunt figure in a long coat, stepping with a steady, unhurried gait. Moonlight spilled down in his wake, like a spotlight following a star performer onto the stage.
“What’s happening?” Kelly whispered.
“I believe we’re about to meet the infamous Mr. John Messenger,” Chris said.
forty
Ruby powered through the darkness, running as though every demon in hell were on her trail. Except the demons weren’t behind her but before, clogging up the intersection where her family must surely be trapped, might already be dead. That thought send a surge of adrenalin into her veins and pushed her ever harder along the road.
The collision with the ambulance had left the occupants of the SUV mostly unscathed. The same couldn’t be said for the vehicle, left standing askew on the blacktop, its rear wheel buckled under it. Ruby had stood in the middle of the road with a thousand thoughts crashing in on her, demanding answers, demanding decisions. In the distance, she’d heard the rumble of the departing ambulance carrying her family towards certain death. But she had responsibilities here too. Pearl was crying, shaken but unhurt; Uncle Joe’s lacerated ankle had ballooned and she was certain he was going to lose the foot unless it was attended to soon; Hooley was still breathing, but only just.
Ruby had scanned along the road, desperate for something, anything. It was then that she’d spotted the tiny chapel, a few yards back from the road, among the trees. There’d been no time for debate or consideration. She’d run to the vehicle and got it started, driven it across the road on three wheels, the disabled fourth dragging behind it with a banshee screech, kicking up sparks. She pulled right up to the alcove leading into the church, then helped Joe inside, ignoring his protestations. He wasn’t going anywhere on that ankle. Then she’d directed Pearl inside and finally carried Hooley, slung across her back, and laid him down gently in one of the pews.
There was an array of weapons in the vehicle’s rear compartment (what looked like the entire contents of the Big Bear Lake PD gun safe). Ruby carried these into the church, along with the first aid kit she’d found in the SUV. She’d then left the church and pulled the police vehicle right up against the doors, sealing them in. A moment later, she was sprinting after the departed ambulance, slinging her sword as she ran.
Now, Ruby hit the gradually rising curve in the road. The rise obscured what lay beyond, but she’d see it in a moment. A feeling of dread descended on her. She tapped her reserves of strength and pushed up the incline and over it.
The scene that opened before her caused her to falter, to slow, to stop. The ambulance stood in the intersection, surrounded by a cordon of Z’s, stretching back into eternity. Hundreds of thousands of the things waited motionless in the moonlight. Not a whisper came from them, their infernal Z hum was banished to nothingness. To one side, a path jagged through the horde, leading back towards the hospital. Someone was moving along that path, a dark figure in a long coat striding confidently, now less than ten yards from the circle surrounding the ambulance. Ruby knew immediately who it was, what it was. It was the man she’d encountered in the hive mind, the man who’d been tearing the woman apart with his bare hands.
She reached behind her and got a grip on the handle of her sword. The feel of the familiar scrollwork under her palm fortified her. She released it in a whisper and began running down the incline towards the horde.
forty one
“Stay in the ambulance,” Kelly pleaded. “Please stay in the ambulance.”
“Just going to check this out, Kel. Charlie says this Messenger talks. Maybe I can reason with him, see what he wants.”
“No.” Kelly’s voice was desperate. She reached across, got a hard grip on his wrist. “Don’t go. They’ll kill you.”
“I have to try.”
Gently as he could, he released Kelly’s hand from his arm. Then he popped the door. He looked across the cab at Kelly clutching Sam to her, Sam sobbing. Kelly looked forlornly back at him, mouthed the word “please.”
“You stay put,” he said. “This won’t take long.”
He pushed the door open and stepped out onto the blacktop, half expecting them to charge him. When they didn’t, he turned and was about to close the door when a thought occurred to him. He reached for his holster and removed his pistol, placed it on the seat and closed the door before Kelly could protest.
A breeze shuffled through the trees, bringing with it the stench of rotting corpses. Chris walked towards the front of the vehicle, stood looking into the dead faces that surrounded him on every side. He heard shuffling footsteps behind him.
“Charlie,” he said without turning. “If that’s you, get back into the cab. There’s nothing you can do out here.”
“Maybe not,” Charlie said from his right. “But I sure as hell ain’t leaving you out here on your own.”
“Me neither,” Wackjob said from the other side. “Never could pass on an opportunity to kill me some Z’s.”
Chris was about to argue the point, then decided against it. If the Z’s decided to attack, the ambulance was going to be scant protection anyway. “You boys keep your finger triggers in your pockets,” he said. “And you don’t say a word, no matter how this plays.”
A shuffle of movement brought his attention back to the edge of the circle where a tall figure had just stepped through. A flash of static electricity seemed to arc from him to the front row of Z’s, to run from there through their ranks.
John Messenger wore a long leather coat, unbuttoned, over dark jeans. His torso was naked and the moonlight offered a glimpse of the horrendous chest wounds he’d suffered. Chris was certain that, had the light been better, he’d have been able to see Messenger’s black heart, pulsing like a malignancy. He focused in on the man’s face, thin and corpselike under a head of lank, greasy black hair. A single eye looked out of the shaded face, displaying as much life as that of a gutted fish.
From either side of him, Chris heard Charlie and Wackjob bring up their weapons.
“You boys, hold your fire,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Let’s not do anything that will get them riled.”
“Say the word, boss, and I’ll put a bullet in his rotten Z brain.”
“Hold fire,” Chris said. Somehow he didn’t think bullets were going to harm Messenger. He wasn’t sure that Messenger was a Z at all.
The creature took a pace forward and a buzz sprang to life in Chris’ head, a dentist’s drill vibration that increased in intensity until he could hardly restrain himself from throwing his hands to his ears.
He bit back against the pain, focused his attention. He’d come out here to try and negotiate with Messenger. His family’s lives might depend on it.
“John Messenger!” The assurance in his own voice surprised him. “Tell us what you want? What will it take for you to let us pass?”
Messenger zoomed in on him, regarded him with that dreadful dead eye and spoke two words. “The girl.”
“The girl? What girl?”
“He means me.”
Chris turned his head towards the sound of the voice. Skye was walking across the tarmac, crossing the space towards Messenger.
forty two
Ruby was afraid of entering the hive again, terrified of the dark force that lurked there. But there was no other way. The horde was just ten yards in front of her, those to the rear already turning to face the intruder that was racing through the dark towards them. She’d be on them in seconds. They’d swamp her, tear her apart.
From the vicinity of the ambulance came a cry, a voice she recognized. “No!” Then a short burst of gunfire that was abruptly cut off.
Ruby dropped her head and sprinted headlong into the midst of the zombies, simultaneously entering the hive mind and scattering them before her. She immediately enc
ountered the entity, but it was weaker than before, distracted.
She powered through the outer ranks of the Z’s. The ambulance was just ahead.
*****
It was Charlie who reacted first, shouting out to Skye then swinging towards Messenger and firing. Then Wackjob joined in, dropping into a crouch and directing a burst that emptied his magazine. Chris heard the percussions. He could have sworn he saw the bullets fizz across the space and then deflect around Messenger and into the horde. Several of the zombies buckled under the barrage. Others surged forward but were thrown back.
The static electricity that Chris had detected earlier seemed to pulse out from Messenger. In the next moment, Chris felt himself lifted from the ground as though by a bomb blast.
He hit the deck hard, giving up a layer of elbow skin to the tarmac. Left of him he could see Charlie, lying on his side, unmoving. He tried to rise, to call out to his son, and found he couldn’t. He was pinned to the ground like a bug to a board. The buzzing was back in his ears, increased tenfold. From ground level, he saw Skye, walking slowly across the tarmac, Messenger opening his arms to receive her.
And then Chris saw something that he was certain must be a hallucination. Another figure had just entered the circle, materializing as though from nothing.
It was Ruby.
forty three
Ruby took in the scene in a single sweep, her father lying motionless on the ground, Charlie too, and another man who she didn’t recognize. A young woman, who she also didn’t know, was walking towards the man in the leather coat. He stood with arms open to receive her. She understood now, this man, this thing, was controlling the horde.
Not a thing, a God!
The voice boomed in Ruby’s head, almost buckling her legs under her. Quite suddenly she wasn’t standing in the road anymore but in seamless darkness. The terror she’d felt earlier, the dark malevolent force she’d detected, was back.
