by Maxey, Phil
“How many you think are in there?” said an officer with a baseball cap on.
“Don’t know, Mike. But whatever the number, they are a long way from human, so we shoot to kill. You both got that?”
Mike and Ryan nodded. They were all armed with twelve gauges, as well as their service handguns in their holsters. On their chests, hanging from straps around their necks, were box flashlights illuminating the way ahead of them.
Jim moved into the tunnel first, then Ryan, then Mike.
They all quickly covered their noses. A putrid smell filled the confined space.
“It didn’t smell this bad last time we checked this place,” said Mike.
“Nope,” said Jim.
They crept forward, stretching their eyes and ears as far as they could. Soon a junction appeared in front of them.
“There’s three adits. The one behind us was the main one. These two tunnels eventually lead out to the other two, but before they do, they move through a number of levels with shafts,” said Jim. “We’ll check the left one first, that takes us to the deepest point we can get to without climbing equipment.”
As they moved forward down the left tunnel, Ryan took a brief look back at the small rectangle of light twenty yards away and wondered if he would see the outside world again.
As they progressed, the dank smell increased in richness, as if the air itself had died.
“I’m not sure how long I can stomach this stench,” said Mike.
“It’s hard for all of us, Mike,” said Ryan.
The intense darkness around them made it feel as if they entered a different realm, not one meant for the living.
“Look, up ahead. It’s the first shaft,” said Jim, slightly out of breath.
Ryan whipped around, looking at the way they had just come. His light lit dust and rusting beams, but nothing else.
“You hear something?” said Jim.
“Maybe… I dunno. Probably nothing.”
“Let’s keep going.”
The tunnel opened out to a circular cavern. With dark openings to two other tunnels. Directly in the center was a hole some five foot wide.
In the glow of the flashlights, Jim’s face was one of confusion. He walked forward and looked into the pit.
“What’s the problem?” said Ryan.
“This hole’s the problem.”
“I thought this was the shaft?”
“We’re standing in the shaft, originally it went up to the surface.”
Ryan looked down at the jagged black void, chewed from the ground. “So, what the hell is this then?”
Jim suddenly stood upright and waved his flashlight around. “Where’s Mike?”
They both looked back the way they came.
“Mike!” shouted Ryan into the previous tunnel. He looked back at Jim. “Maybe he went back to the entrance?”
Jim shook his head in frustration, walking around the hole in the floor, then walked forward to look into the nearest of the other tunnels. Before his flashlight filled the tunnel with light, a shadow moved towards him. He quickly raised his shotgun.
“Hey, it’s me! Don’t shoot!” said Mike.
Jim lowered his gun, angrily. “I said we stick to—”
Mike looked questionably at his boss. “What?”
“Get down!” shouted Jim.
Mike dived to the ground as a shotgun blast boomed out just above his head, deafening him. As he tried staggering back to his feet, Jim’s hand grabbed his upper arm pulling him forward, but not before he felt a vicelike grip on his ankle. He spun and fired his own gun, point blank at whatever was holding him. The blast from the shotgun illuminated the tunnel far better than the flashlight around his neck and, in that instant, he realized where most of the people from the town had gone.
Panic filled him, and he pushed his arms and legs into the moist ground trying to get away from the hordes that were about to descend. Not bothering to fire again, he got to his feet and ran across the shaft, his mind only wanting one thing. To be rid of the image his brain was hanging on to.
Jim flailed at his deputy as he ran past, desperately trying to steer him away from the newly formed crevice in the ground, but it was no good, and Mike stumbled forward, his foot catching the loose rocks around the edge of the hole. In the blink of an eye, he was gone into the abyss, his screams mingling with the almost constant blasts coming from Ryan firing into the other tunnel.
For a moment, Jim stood frozen, then a blur charged into him, knocking his gun from his hand and him into the rock face. He dropped to the ground, then uneasily stood, feeling the gash on the side of his head.
The shadowy form leaped forward again, and he instinctively fired as it was about to drive its large canine teeth into his leg. It squealed and scurried away, joining the others of its kind that were almost inside the cavern.
He looked across to Ryan. His deputy was on the ground, his shirt covered in blood, as well as his neck. Images of Ryan’s wife tried forcing their way into his mind.
I’ve got your husband killed.
He staggered across the uneven ground, being careful not to move near the hole, and kept firing back into the tunnels around him, but he knew deep in his gut he was not going to see the sunlight again. He slumped near his friend, feeling for a pulse when claws sunk into his shoulder, he whipped the gun around and went to fire, but only a dull click came from the trigger. He sighed and looked up into the distorted face of a man he once knew. Arthur Gower. He and his younger brother ran the Bellweather auto repair and had gone missing a month before.
The thing in front of him though was not the same, its eyes were as dark as onyx, and the face around them had lost most its human structure, being more warped and serpentlike.
Is it smiling?
He tried to struggle, but the thing’s razor-like nails just sunk deeper, and as his consciousness started to flicker, he could feel the blood starting to pour.
Amongst the pain a noise came from the tunnel behind him.
More want to feed…
Suddenly, the pressure eased in his shoulder, and the thing in front of him flew backwards as automatic fire echoed around the rock walls. Jim tried to focus through his pain, but the scene in front of him was one of blurs and screeches. Something else was inside the cavern, moving as quick as the unholy creatures. Bodies flew, impacting and breaking against the solid walls, while others exploded in sprays of blood and bone.
A hand slid under his shoulder and began to lift him. “I can’t go. Ryan…” He murmured to his rescuer.
“He’s dead,” said Joel, lifting Jim, and placing him over his shoulder in a fireman's lift.
The clatter of more automatic fire rang out, as Jim’s world went dark.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Joel stood in the waiting area of Bellweather medical center, a modern single-story building, looking at the various candy options available in the vending machine. He was getting hungry. A few hours earlier he had rushed inside carrying the sheriff on his back, with most of what was left of the town pulling into the parking lot in their cars behind him. In one of them was Ryan’s wife, desperate for news of her husband. Soon afterwards, while Jim was having multiple lacerations sewn back together, Joel had told her of the fate of her loved one, and then spent an hour trying to console her. Eventually though, everyone filtered away, just leaving himself, and the medical staff. Without anyone saying it, he was acutely aware that Bellweather no longer had anyone to protect it.
The same woman he had seen hours earlier in the hotel, walked up to him, she had a smear of blood across her glasses, and more on her pale blue shirt.
“How is he?” said Joel.
“He’ll live, but he’s lost a fair amount of blood. We’ll have to do another call for blood in the morning.”
Joel nodded then turned, grabbing his jacket.
“You’re leaving? It’s already dark out.”
Joel looked surprised and turned to face the glass doors a few yards
away. She was right, the daylight was just a memory. It had still been light when he brought the sheriff in, and he thought he had enough time to get back on the road before the sun completely disappeared beneath the horizon, but time got away from him.
“Have you got somewhere to stay?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe the hotel again. I stayed there last night.”
“I’ve got some blankets in the cupboard, if you want to sleep on the couch here. Once we bring the shutters down its pretty secure in here.”
“Thanks, Anna, but I’ll try the hotel. That’s your name, right?”
She smiled, then her eyes turned to the large tear in his shirt. “You sure that arm of yours is okay? Your shirt has a lot of blood on it… and if any of their blood got into a wound…”
“It’s not mine.”
That was only partly true.
She nodded, then her expression dissolved into something more serious. “Can’t believe Mike and Ryan are gone. I went to school here with Ryan before leaving for university… His poor wife.”
He felt like he should place his hand on her shoulder, do something to console her, but he resisted. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
He walked out into the cool evening air and breathed in a lungful. Even though it was early autumn it was still warm out. A part of him couldn’t help but feel the heat was making things worse and when winter came, the cold would hurt the scourge somehow, but it was an instinct, nothing more.
He walked across the small parking lot past a parked ambulance.
Flint looked back at him through the rear window.
Getting in his car, he sat and looked at the dark shapes of the homes and other buildings perched on the side of the mountain, with only the occasional twinkle of light to indicate life still existed in the town.
I could go. Just leave. I’ve done my bit, I saved their sheriff.
The fight in the cave took a lot out of him. But the number of things was less than the number he often had to fight in LA. It’s a lot easier when a horde is coming at you if there’s a bottleneck, and the confined space of the tunnels proved just such a situation. Still, he was glad to have the M4.
I wonder what Jim will remember when he wakes. Will he know what I am?
He laughed to himself.
“That’s a good question. What am I…” He suddenly remembered the role Flint played in the caves. The dog took down at least two of the creatures in the dark. Until then, he wasn’t sure the dog had changed, but the speed and fury that he attacked the creatures in there confirmed it. No animal would have survived the onslaught. He turned and faced Flint laying on the backseat. “So, you’re… vampire dog? Dogpire? That’s really a bad name…”
This time he laughed harder and Flint looked up at him. “But you don’t attack humans, only the scourge…”
He shook his head. It didn’t make sense, but it meant he didn’t need to be worried about Flint being around any of the townsfolk. In some ways he was the same. The first creature he fed on was an animal, not a human.
“Is that it? Is it the first thing you feed on what matters?”
His ears picked up footsteps within the medical center’s hallway, and he looked across to see Dr. Faraday bringing the metal shutters down, and then heard her closing and locking the glass doors on the inside. Shortly after, some of the lights within went out.
“Guess she lives there.”
He sat in the dark of the parking lot, although he could still pick up much of the surroundings because of his ability to see, despite the lack of light. It was one of the aspects of being ‘different’ that he liked.
My own personal night-vision goggles.
A wave of fatigue passed over him.
Hungry.
He knew what the distant feeling of heat within his body meant. He was going to have to have blood soon.
*****
Rachel Fowler lifted her head from the sofa and looked around the living room. The small picture frame of her wedding fell from her hand, landing on the thick rug.
She rubbed the crust from her eyes and reached forward for the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the coffee table. The glass was nearby, but ignoring it, she spun the cap and took a deep gulp of the golden liquid.
The burning started in her throat but was soon expanding into her chest and stomach. She waited for it to reach her brain. The pain which had consumed her just hours before, had become a dull ache, which flared up each time she let herself believe her husband wasn’t coming back.
When the scourge began in the big cities they thought they were safe in Bellweather. Sheriff Reynolds closed the roads. No one was getting out, but more importantly, no one was getting in. Whatever was causing people to turn homicidal wasn’t going to affect any of the four hundred plus people of this former mining town. They were sure of it. But then, as the weeks rolled on, cases started coming in from towns in Arizona, each one closer than the last, like an invisible wave of intent. When they lost contact with Wyton they knew they were next, but with the road block up they felt they could quarantine anyone that showed any symptoms. Not that they knew what the ‘symptoms’ were. Dr. Faraday gleaned what she could from news reports and the internet before it went down, but she had no actual cases to study, and the CDC’s advice was just to keep away from the infected, not exactly much to base a treatment on.
When the Changs disappeared, quickly followed by Mr and Mrs Rush, the elderly couple that arranged the local book club, she knew the scourge had crept inside the towns borders. But Ryan boarded up the windows, and they had a few months’ worth of food and water in the basement, so they would get through.
She had always accepted the risks his job entailed, but for the first time in their eight years of marriage, she started to get anxiety when the sun went down.
He’s dead, and you’re next…
She lifted the bottle up high above her, to let the liquid cascade into her mouth, but only a drip caressed her lip. Angrily, she threw the bottle which smashed against the stone fireplace.
She looked around her living room. Two of the candles were reaching the end of their wicks.
Need to get more candles.
It had become a nighttime ritual of replacing the only light source they had. Ryan had always wanted for them to get a generator, but she argued against it, saying she wasn’t going to turn into one of those ‘prepper’ types. As she looked around her barricaded home, and the piles of books and cans, she laughed, for that was exactly what she had become.
She went to stand, but any motor control was nonexistent, and she crashed back down to the sofa.
Maybe I’ll just stay here till the sun rises.
She made an attempt to pull one of the cushions beneath her head but gave up and laid back. Sleep came quick.
“Ryan?” Rachel sat up, then instantly regretted the sudden movement, and placed her hand against the side of her head to try to stop the room from continuing its movement. One candle still burned bright and, for a moment, in her drug-induced state, she was lost inside the flame, watching it flicker and sway, then the events of the previous evening rushed back into her mind, and she started crying again.
A scratching came from somewhere near the back of the room.
She looked across at the mass of wooden planks sprawled across where the patio doors used to be. The scratching repeated.
A few months earlier the same noise would have had her thinking about calling the exterminator, but now she had to consider other things. Things that tore and clawed.
She sat in the silence, waiting for the noise to stop, but it continued.
They can’t get in. It’s secure.
The shadows on the walls danced. Startled, her hand flicked out to grab anything solid to defend against the dark gray shapes but found nothing. She giggled, then pushed herself to her feet.
“You can’t come in! My husbandsss in here…” she shouted, at the air towards the rear of the room.
“Rachel…”
“Ryan?” She rushed towards the barricade keeping out the night, but her aim was off, and she stumbled over one of the containers of water and fell forward slamming up against where the glass doors used to be. She ignored the splinters in the palm of her hand and stood back up. “Ryan? Baby, are you there? Are you hurt?”
“Rachel… It burns…”
She could hear his voice was deeper, but who knows where he had been for the past ten hours.
Anger grew inside her.
That damn FBI liar! My heart broke, and my Ryan was still alive!
She pushed her hand up against the beams. “I… I can’t get through here, its boarded up remember. Stay there I’ll come to the back!”
She whirled around and fell into a bookshelf, then shook her head trying to shake the haze which was enveloping her brain and senses.
Need to concentrate. Need to think, he needs my help. Where’s the first aid kit, and my car keys—
The wooden beams holding the night outside shuddered as something slammed into them, making her jump and turn around to face them.
“I’m coming, baby!”
She looked around the room at the various cupboards then staggered to one, pulling a drawer open, and pulling out a small paint-chipped box. She then spotted her car keys on the coffee table, grabbed them, and ran through the hallway, bouncing off the walls to the front door. Lifting the multiple beams that Ryan had fitted on latches across the door, she then unlocked another three heavy duty locks, and opened the door.
The cool night air rushed in, and for a moment her brain left its cobwebs behind and she stopped in the doorway.
Maybe he’s like them?
But like the candles in the room behind her, the idea that her husband was something else extinguished and was replaced by an overwhelming urge to see the man she couldn’t live without.
She ran out into the absolute black, and into her husband’s embrace.
