by Maxey, Phil
Joel inspected the network of wiring that led back to two metal clips and a battery. “I think it’s—”
Jim grabbed Joel’s arm. “There’s no saving this town, Joel, you need to get the others and leave. I’m going to take as many of these fucks with me as I can, but you have to—” His words faded.
Joel put his hand on his friend’s. “We’ll leave. I promise.”
Jim’s eyes flickered. “And tell Anna, or any scientist you come across, about you, how you’re different…”
“I will.”
Joel shook Jim’s shoulder, then handed him the box. Jim’s eyes widened.
Joel pointed to the clips and battery. “It’s real simple, when you bring those clips together it goes boom.”
Jim nodded. “Let’s do this.”
They both pushed their doors open. Flint took the first opportunity to escape and lurched between the seats, landing on the gravel and grass, then stood his ground, growling at the shadows around them.
Jim staggered forward, the box in one hand and his shotgun in the other.
Joel stayed close, his M4 waving from side to side at any indication of movement.
They moved through the trees, each of them using their improved vision to navigate, and made their way to the entrance to the mine.
Jim looked to Joel. “You don’t have to come inside. I can take it from here.”
Joel shook his head. “Not leaving just yet.”
Flint suddenly started barking at the intense dark of the interior of the mine, and Joel sensed it before his eyes saw them coming. A group of vamps, some running, some clinging to the tunnel walls, surged towards them.
Joel and Jim moved forward, lighting the tunnel up with gun fire. Shotgun blasts and the clatter of the M4 mixed with the grunts and screeches the vamps made as they tried to get to the three intruders.
Flint ran forward and tore into one of the monsters, while Joel followed behind, firing and using the butt of the rifle to bring others to the ground. He looked back to see Jim leaning against the rock wall. “You okay?” shouted Joel.
“Yeah!” shouted Jim, pushing himself back upright, and walked forward.
Stepping over the writhing and dying creatures, they got to the cavern Jim had previously visited with his deputies.
Jim dropped to his knees, looking at the hole in the cavern floor. “I don’t know what’s down there, but I’m thinking that’s where I should go…” His words started to slur and deepen.
Flint started to growl again at both of the other tunnels.
Jim looked up at Joel and smiled. “Time for you to leave.”
Joel knew this time would come but felt rooted to the spot.
Jim bent over in pain. “It’s going to take me, Joel. I can only win this fight if you leave now!” The final word from his mouth came out more as a growl and Flint’s head whipped across to him.
Joel nodded, and he pushed his open palm out to Jim who grabbed and held it firm, then let go, getting back to his feet and looked down into the abyss.
Joel started to back up. “I’ll get them all out.” He then turned and ran, with Flint alongside. He made it almost back to the mine entrance when the ground shook and a fury of heat and flame exploded behind, flinging him through the tunnel to the outside.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The school appeared in the cruiser’s headlights, and Joel pulled up in front of the main entrance. He looked at the doors and sighed. After driving back to the hotel, he switched vehicles. He was almost sad to say bye to the green sedan, but the gold-and-gray pickup was a better choice. For most of the journey to the school, he went over how he was going to face Claire without being shot again, and tell everyone what had happened to Jim and Reg, and how Jim was a hero. When he got out, he mostly had it straight in his head, and he was happy to smell the night air after being cooped up with the odor of Flint’s burnt fur.
Kelly ran out from the entrance, then abruptly stopped.
“I know you told her, but it’s okay—”
She started to back up. “You should be dead, she told me she killed you.”
“If it helps, I think she almost—”
Kelly looked around, her fear growing. “Where’s Jim and Reg? What did you do to them?”
Joel took a step forward and Kelly turned and ran back inside, pushing the door closed and sliding the bolt across. She then turned and ran, disappearing into the gloom.
Joel sighed. “Shit.” He walked back to the pickup, leaning back on the hood. Waiting. The headlights illuminated the other vehicles in front, apart from that, he was surrounded by a complete darkness despite his ability to pick out small details. The night around him was quiet, but the explosion in the tunnel still rang in his ears. Sometimes having improved hearing was actually a drawback. He wondered how many of the vamps Jim had taken out, but the number didn’t matter, Joel knew that. For Jim, he just wanted some kind of payback for what the scourge had done to him and his town. He wondered how many other sacrifices had been made in similar places since it all started. A noise echoed out in the trees, but Joel didn’t flinch, he knew it was just a bird getting settled for the night.
A flashlight beam appeared in the hallway beyond the entrance, and he readied himself, in case he heard any gunshot too late. He didn’t plan on getting shot twice in one day.
Anna appeared at the entrance. His relief at seeing her quickly faded at seeing the handgun in her hand, and the fact that she wasn’t unbolting the door. She waved him closer, then when he was within a few yards, held her hand up for him to stop.
I guess they all know.
“That’s enough,” she shouted through the reinforced glass.
“I can explain—”
“Where are Reg and Jim?”
A sliding noise came from above, and a rifle barrel poked through a small gap in a new-opened first-floor window.
Joel looked back at the anxious woman in front of him. “There’s no easy way to say this, but they’re both dead.”
A look of shock was quickly replaced with one of defiance on the doctor’s face. “You do it?” She raised her gun towards him.
At least it’s still a question for her.
He shook his head. “No. The scourge got both of them, but Jim went out fighting.”
“Don’t believe him!” a male voice shouted from the shadows of the window above.
“Why would I come back here? If I was like the rest of the vamps, why wouldn’t I just—”
“Because they don’t have a way in. You are their way in!” said the doctor.
“This might come as a shock to you, but the vamps don’t exactly sit around drinking morning coffee and making plans. They see food and they try to eat it, that’s about the extent of their thinking.” He looked down. “I’m here to help. I’m not like the things out there—” He pointed into the darkness around them. He took a step forward and the doctor did the same in the opposite direction. “I’m sorry about Jim, he was a good man.”
Anna’s hand wavered.
“Look, if you’re going to shoot me, just do it. Otherwise let me in, because it’s only a matter of time before the vamps come at you from all sides. And I think it’s better we weren’t here when they do that.”
“Don’t do it, Anna!” shouted the man, pointing the rifle at Joel’s head.
Joel stood his ground. He was pretty sure he could hear the trigger click on any gun around him, and move before the bullet left the barrel, but part of him wasn’t pretending. He meant what he said. He then remembered what Jim said to him. “There’s something different about me. Jim said that maybe I might be the key to all of this.” A conflicted look fluttered across the doctor’s face, and she lowered the gun.
She started to unbolt the door when he sensed movement behind him from multiple directions. Flint let out a dampened bark.
“They’re coming!” shouted the man above.
Joel opened the driver’s door, grabbed the leash he had already put around
Flint’s head, and led him outside and up to the door. Anna looked at the dog and Joel as if she was making a final decision, then pulled the door open. They both slipped inside, and she closed and re-bolted it.
Joel could hear the things slithering and staggering towards the building. He looked back out to the parking lot outside. “It’s too late. They know you’re all here.”
“What should we do?”
“We need to—”
Gunfire shattered the silence outside. Joel ran further into the hallway followed by Anna, and he pulled the more secure inner doors closed, sliding more bolts across.
“These are fairly secure, but what about any other access points to the building?”
“There’s two more, one on the other side of the building, which leads to the gym, and one in the basement.”
“And the windows?”
“All reinforced.”
“I want all doors that can be locked, locked. So, if they make it inside it will still be slow going for them. Are the supplies still in the gym?”
She shook her head. “No, we moved to the top floor.”
Footsteps came from the nearby main staircase and Marina appeared, along with Mary.
Joel took a breath and walked towards the middle-aged woman. “I’m—” Before he could finish, she slapped him across his face. Physically he hardly felt it, but it struck deep regardless.
“You’re not even human!” she said as tears rolled down her face, then turned and walked back up the stairs. He watched her walk away, wanting to say something that helped, but the words escaped him. He looked at Marina. She looked angry.
“So, how you going to get us out of this mess?” she said.
He looked back at Anna. “The door to the gym, is it as secure as this one?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Then we need to make it so. Show me where it is.”
He switched back to Marina. “First, we make sure the vamps can’t get in, then we figure a way out.”
*****
Marina looked across at Mary sitting with Gabe and Dawn.
Least she knows what happened to her husband.
It was a harsh thought, and one that she wouldn’t have had a few months earlier on seeing a widow. But she was different now, her emotions made dull by being on the road and the suffering she had seen.
“Why is she upset?” said Jess, sitting up. Marina hadn’t realized she had awoken.
“Her husband died.”
Jess silently nodded.
Noises echoed in the distance outside. Jess’s head whipped around to the windows.
Marina got on the floor, and pulled her daughter towards her, hugging her. “Nothing can get in here. All the doors are locked and barricaded, and we have guns to defend ourselves with.”
“Okay…”
Marina sighed, not being sure telling her they were planning to leave was a good idea. “Don’t tell anyone, but we’re going to try and leave tomorrow.”
Jess pulled away. “To find Dad?”
Marina now regretted saying anything. She shook her head. “No, we have to go in a different direction. Somewhere where there are not many people.”
Jess frowned, then laid back down, this time facing away from her mother.
Great.
Three floors down, Joel heaved the last piece of heavy furniture he could find into the narrow hallway near the door to the gym. Light came from a single candle. Not that he needed it, but he thought the more he did to appear as human as possible the better. He had created the barricade largely by himself, as the others were keeping their distance from him. He didn’t mind. He was just glad they weren’t aiming their guns at him still. A noise from the other end of the corridor made him turn. Bill was standing there.
“Hey, Bill.”
The older man had his own candle, and walked slowly forward holding it up, as if he needed to see the strange half-vamp half-human specimen in more detail.
“How’s everyone upstairs?”
Bill remained quiet. His eyes studying Joel.
“Ya kinda freaking me out,” said Joel.
Bill held up an old silver crucifix towards him.
Joel stood there. “That looks old, family heirloom?”
Bill frowned, putting the crucifix back in his jacket pocket.
“I don’t think any of the stuff that was in the books and movies really works. In fact, I think a lot of those old myths got people killed,” said Joel.
Bill sat on the edge of a small table, which had a scattering of leaflets on it announcing upcoming school events. He still wasn’t saying anything.
“I’m sorry for your loss. Jim was a good man.”
“That he was.”
“He—”
Bill held his hand up. “I don’t need to know how he died. He’s no longer with us, that’s all that is important.”
“So… the vamps got to your place?”
“We got out just in time. Luckily, we had the necessary plans in place should such an event take place. But I must admit… I had hoped it would not come to that.”
“I don’t suppose you got some of that tea of yours handy? I could do with some.”
“Do you need to eat and drink?”
“Yeah…” Joel wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but he wasn’t giving up hamburgers, ice cream, or good tea even if he was partly some kind of hell beast.
Bill smiled. “Then, yes. I believe we brought a few boxes with us.” He stood and went to walk away.
“We need to face the reality of the situation we’re in,” said Joel.
Bill stopped without turning. “We can’t stay here, I know.” He then continued down the hall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Joel stood on the roof of the school and looked out at the parking lot and the roads and town beyond that. Whereas a few nights before some spots of light could be seen amongst the hills, now it was just uniform blackness, a good metaphor for the fact that the town was now just another memory of a place where people once lived.
But that didn’t mean there was nothing alive out there. He could feel them. At least a few hundred were in the homes, outbuildings, and amongst the nearby trees and roads. And he knew the school was their primary focus, because that’s where the food was.
He hardly knew the people in the building below him, but that didn’t matter. He was their best chance to get out alive, and that was enough. Flint lay at his feet.
The door to the roof clattered behind him.
“How’s Jess?” he said to Marina without turning around.
She walked forward, being careful to keep the flashlight in her hand pointing downwards. “Sleeping.” She waited before talking again. “Everyone’s been talking about—”
“Leaving?”
“— Yeah. But we are not sure how to do that without your help.”
“So, it’s okay to get help from the monster if it keeps you alive then.” He still remained looking out over the north wall on the roof.
“I don’t know what you are. I just know you saved us. But…”
“But?”
“You should have told me.”
Joel turned around laughing. “And you wouldn’t have put a bullet in my head?”
Marina walked forward, her face stern. “If this is going to work, I have to trust you! And… you have to trust me.”
Joel nodded. “I can do that.” Images of Russell’s face tried to force their way into his mind, but he pushed them away. “What do you want to know?”
She looked down, walking a little away, before turning back. “Do you have to feed like them?”
“I—”
“Kelly said you fed on whatever the hell that mountain lion had become.”
Joel smiled. “Sounds like you have all been having a fun time discussing me.”
Her face grew angry again. “You think this is a joke?” She pointed out to the darkness. “Just outside here there are things. Things like you—”
&nb
sp; “Not like me.”
“— Things that want to kill and eat us. And that’s just the ones in this town. Maybe there are thousands, millions out there beyond this place. If you hadn’t already realized, the human race is in real trouble here, Joel.”
The bigger picture was something he stopped thinking about from the moment he saw his dead child.
A small moment of silence past between them.
“I won’t let anything happen to you, or Jess… But we can’t stay in this school. Tomorrow we need to leave.”
She nodded and walked up to the wall and looked out. She then pulled the wall map from her back pocket, opened it up, and held it against the wall. She shone her light on Arizona then moved it slowly right. “I was thinking we’d head east to one of the central states. Either Oklahoma, Kansas, or Nebraska. Find somewhere remote.”
Joel leant closer to the map. “The Cornhusker State.”
“Nebraska?”
“One of the lowest populations. Lots of remote towns. Lots of land to grow on, and lots of livestock. Just a question of finding a good source of running water”
A noise drew Joel’s attention, and he looked back out over the wall to the trees and bushes just beyond the parking lot.
“They’re down there, aren’t they.”
“Yes.”
“Why aren’t they attacking.”
“I don’t know, but we need to plot a route east, and get everything packed up.”
You killed her husband.
“So, you have given up looking for your husband?”
She sighed. “For now. From what you have said, going further west is just walking into more of those things and I’m not putting Jess in that situation. If Russell is out there, he’ll find me one day.”
“That makes sense… We should tell the others about leaving.”
He went to turn, then stopped and quickly returned to the wall. In the distance, two specks of light bobbed and swayed.
Marina stood by his side not seeing what he was. “What is it?”
“There’s a car out there, moving through the town, its heading this way, but…” He looked down at the creatures one by one moving away from the parking lot, towards the oncoming headlights. “Wait here.”
