by Maxey, Phil
Anna pointed to the map. “There’s a medical supply center few blocks over. Lets start there.”
Within the hour they had scoured every facility within a few miles, but had avoided moving closer to the downtown area.
The SUV sat a junction. A cell phone company building sat on one corner, a liquor store the other, with the route ahead a mass of fast food joints, abandoned vehicles and beyond, turn of the century multi-storey buildings lining the once busy road.
“Whole lot of vamps in the vicinity down there,” said Joel. He was feeling the heat from the star above more than usual, and wiped away sweat from his brow.
“The last medical center is down there. Roughly…” Anna looked at the map. “Five blocks away.”
Dalton eased down on the gas, but moved the SUV slowly past the sedans, coupes and compacts left across the lanes. “We’ll go real slow and steady so not to wake them all up, until we have—”
Glass shattered to their right, raining splinters down on the hood. A vamp came with them from a second-story window, landing on the roof with a heavy thump. Corine shrieked while Dalton slammed on the brakes throwing the creature into the back of a red sedan. Before it had a chance to stand fully, he pushed down on the gas again, crushing it.
“Hopefully that didn’t—”
Before he could finish explosions of glass and wood came from all around.
Joel lifted his M4. “Looks like we’re going to have to clear out the vamps sooner than later.” He pushed the barrel out the window, and fired off two bursts downing two vamps that were almost at his door.
Dalton reversed then drove forward, veering around the sedan and another car until the road was a bit clearer, but vamps were now converging on them from all directions.
“Tell me where that center is!” shouted Dalton.
A bridge appeared to their left as they surged through another junction avoiding cars and vamps alike, while Joel fired out of one window and Anna the other. They swerved left and right past a wall of vehicles, before emerging near the start of the bridge, where Dalton promptly slammed on the breaks, making the SUV skid to a halt. Two of the four routes were blocked by a mass of trucks, with small walls of sandbags between them.
Dalton started to reverse but slammed into the side of a pickup catching on its fender. Wheels screeched as he increased the gas but the SUV refused to break free.
Tens of vamps were now running at speed towards them.
“We need to get out of here Dalton!” shouted Joel repeatedly aiming and firing.
“Grrr!” The big man flung open his door, punching to the ground one vamp that had managed to get close, then turned and slammed his shoulder into the back of the SUV shoving it backwards and snapping its fender clean off. He went to climb back in when claws sliced across his back. He whirled around smashing the offending vamp to the ground, but another two creatures landing on him, clinging to his back. Anna jumped out, grabbing one of the vamps on Dalton’s back and flinging it across the nearby abandoned cars, but Joel noticed what she hadn’t. A group of snarling vamps were charging straight towards her. He jumped out, firing a constant burst of fire, felling all five but missed another three that crashed into him, knocking the M4 from his grasp.
As a constant wave of vamps swept towards those outside, Corine sat in the back of the buffeted SUV terrified. When she saved Joel and Dalton days before she was in the top floor of a nearby property looking down at the unaware on the street outside, conducting an orchestra of chaos, but as the three hybrids fought for their lives a few feet away, she was frozen with fear.
The back screen shattered as someone or thing smashed into it, and she threw herself down between the seats. As the car around her swayed and jolted she closed her eyes looking for solace in the darkness. Her brothers smiling face appeared, joking, laughing, always ribbing her for something, and for a moment the pull of the memory was so powerful that she considered just staying where she was and letting the scourge take her.
She sat up. There were so many vamps around her she could hardly see where the others were, but could hear them fighting. She looked to her left, vamps were pressed up against the window, fighting someone she couldn’t see. Quickly rotating in her seat she climbed over the back towards the rear door when claws lunged at her through the gap. She screamed, pulling back as the razor sharp nails slashed inches from her face, then as fear became anger pushed her hands out. The rear door broke from its hinges and flew backwards taking the vamp and others with it.
She climbed out immediately waving her hand, causing a silver sedan to slide across the street crushing a group of creatures rushing towards her, then swung around. Anna and Joel were back to back, both with dark eyes and clawed hands, swiping and slashing at the sea of vamps descending on them.
She looked to her left. A metal pole broke with a ping and flew through the air skewering three vamps near the two hybrids, who looked at her with relief.
A roar made them all look the center of the junction where a figure towered over the creatures swamping him. Corine climbed on top of the SUV, flicking her fingers to cause a sewer cover to become free and barrel through two vamps almost on her, then scoured the surrounding sidewalks for what she needed. Joel and Anna dived back in the vehicle, placing new magazines in their weapons then immediately started firing at the horde Dalton was almost buried beneath.
Then Corine saw it. The traffic poles that loomed over the junction. One of them creaked, its metal warping and stretching then swung down directly above the wolf man. She cried out for him to grab hold of it, and just when she thought she couldn’t be heard over the storm of noise he grabbed it and it immediately lifted him up, free of claws trying to stop him escaping their clutches. The pole continued its movement and swung around, until it ended at a second-floor window of a store, which he smashed and climbed inside of. The vamps momentarily confused, surged towards an easier target, those at the SUV but before they had made it a few yards the twenty foot long pole, swept across the concrete with such speed and force that the creatures in its way were smashed into pulp.
The pole struck the barricade of trucks on the opposite side of the street with a loud clang, then fell to the ground.
Joel and Anna looked at each other, both with multiple lacerations, then at Corine, then up to Dalton who was back in his human form and looking down at them from the window.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Barry looked at his reflection in the small LCD TV screen, and tried to imagine playing a computer game on it. He sighed.
Bored…
He had been allowed an hour a day on his gaming console in his mom’s RV, but sometimes he would want to play for longer and she would get mad. They had packed up their things and set out from Washington after news of a virus broke, and had made it across four states before they found the strange girl, even younger than Barry wondering alone in one of the small towns they had driven through. She didn’t speak much, and on the night that she freaked out and bit him, he didn’t tell his mom, because Tandy’s teeth hardly broke the skin on his arm. No way he could have been infected. And anyway, Tandy wasn’t a vamp. Weird yeah, but blood sucking vampire? No way.
But then she was gone. They spent most of a hot summer’s day trying to find her around the lot in the town they were parked in, but there was no sign of the red-haired girl. Screeches followed movement behind windows and his mom decided they needed to give up and leave. She had been quiet for days after that.
The sound of engines jolted him from his memories, and he quickly moved across the aisle and pulled open the side door expecting to see the SUV, but instead two pickups, filled with armed men and women came to a halt just inside the main gate. He quickly backed up, closed the door and looked through the thin drapes as people with shotguns, jumped off the back of the vehicles.
He watched as they spread out, two of them heading for the diner.
“No, no…”
He quickly turned and grabbed the radio that Ann
a had left him. “Shirl,” he said quietly, then louder. He returned to the window. The two were now at the screen door of the diner. Crunching came from behind and he swung around as a shadow monetarily drifted across the curtain covered window on the other side of the caravan. He froze, not daring to breathe when static came from his radio.
“Stay where you are kid,” said Shirl through the speaker, her voice low.
The lumbering sound of boots continued around the side and he realized his door wasn’t locked. He crept forward as the footsteps grew near and flicked the latch across just before the door rattled, and the handle turned.
“Hey Earl!” shouted a man a foot away from Barry. “You know where the—”
Loud bangs rang out and footsteps became a staggered jog, moving away.
Barry looked out of the window. The man was running towards the diner, just as the two who entered it shortly before, smashed through the screen door, almost tripping on the wooden deck to get away. One of them was holding this arm, where a red stain resided.
People were now running all around, using the motorhomes and trailers as cover, and pointing their weapons at the diner.
“No…” said Barry. He wanted to help, but how? He would kill Shirl as well.
Gunfire opened up on the small wooden building of a few rooms, instantly causing the wooden beams to flake and splinter, and the large front window to shatter.
He ducked instinctively, trying to keep his emotions under control but not knowing if it was working. The closest man with a gun was only fifteen feet away.
Out of the corner of his eye a refrigerator sat innocently and an idea sparked in his mind. He clicked on his radio. “Get in the cold room! I think you will be safe from me! Shirl!… err Over.”
The chorus of pops continued as the building Shirl was hiding within disintegrated.
“Do it Kid! Do it!” came from the radio.
As if opening the cap on a shaken soda bottle he allowed his anger to explode out of him and pulled the latch, then pushed the door open.
The man nearby, with a red baseball cap and denim jacket did a double take on seeing the young boy emerge, then bent over lost within a coughing fit. His handgun fell to the ground as he reached to the side of the trailer next to him, but his fingers couldn’t get purchase and he fell to his knees.
Barry walked past him as the sound of battle faded, replaced with coughing and spluttering. A woman with a shotgun swung it in the boy’s direction, but as his eyes met hers she grabbed her chest and collapsed to the dirt.
By time he had walked up to the front of the diner he was surrounded by silence. He walked inside, his emotions once again returned to their normal state, moved into the back room, then knocked on the closed metal door of the cold room.
“I think they’re all dead. But don’t come out for a while, in case it’s still in the air.”
“You did good kid.”
*****
The SUV skidded to a halt near the entrance to the trailer park. The pickups sat inside, not having been moved.
“No, damn it,” said Joel pushing open the passenger’s door, his injuries still stinging but being largely healed. As he ran forward Shirl appeared from the diner, waving. A hundred yards beyond her Barry sat on the steps of his caravan, also waving.
Shirl walked to them as they walked up to the first abandoned pickup. “You all look like shit. What happened?”
“What happened—” Anna spotted the first body slumped behind the second vehicle to her right. Her head darted around looking for any possible danger.
Shirl held up her hand. “They’re all dead.” She turned around and waved. “Barry killed them all.”
Barry waved back with a smile of his own.
Dalton looked inside the other vehicles, then looked back. “Reckon these are from that town we passed through…”
“Barry killed them? How did it not affect you?” said Anna.
The older woman glanced back again. “He’s a smart kid. Told me to get inside the cold room. It was a bit of a risk, but—” She pointed back to the pot-marked diner. “— as you can see I didn’t have much of a choice if I wanted to live. The boy saved me.” She held up her radio. “We’ve been chatting.” She then clicked on the talk button. “How you doing buddy? Over.”
“I’m good. Did they kill all the vamps? Over.”
She looked back at the three torn and scraped individuals. “Yeah, reckon they did…”
Six hours later the sun was heading for the horizon. Dalton and Joel had only had a few hours’ rest, before they started to pull and heave some of the motorhomes and trailers into positions around the park, covering the main gate and other less secure sections from outside intrusion. The intruder’s pickups and RV were already on the other side, near the road, loaded with provisions, and Barry, while the SUV was also beyond the newly created fence, well hidden.
The four scourge infected and one human stood near the diner. Corine ran forward and threw her arms around the older woman. Who winced. “Easy girl.”
Corine pulled back wiping a tear from her eye. “I’ll come back I promise… but I don’t know—”
Shirl waved at her. “I’m sure we’re see each other again. For now you need to help them find their people.”
Corine nodded then stepped back, turning and walked towards the entrance. Dalton nodded and followed her.
“The cold room is full with as much as we could find in the homes around here,” said Joel. “Should keep you going for at least six months. Ammo’s in there as well, and the weapons in the room near it.”
Shirl offered her hand, something he had not seen her do before, and he shook it with a smile. “Keep your head down.”
“Will do.”
He turned and walked away.
Anna walked forward and embraced her, then let go. “You got plenty of medical supplies if you should need them. Joel couldn’t detect any more vamps, so you should be good on that front. But the corporation or people from that town might pass through, so don’t draw attention to yourself.”
Shirl nodded as Anna took a step back off the deck.
“I hope you find your people.”
“Me too.”
As the three vehicle convoy drove away, heading down the hill, Barry clicked on his radio. “Bye Shirl. Over.”
“Bye kid.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Amos looked at the elderly man to his right and the slightly younger man to his left and wondered what their ability was.
Searchlights swept across the prison yard, as a light rain hit the sodden ground.
A whine came from speakers attached somewhere high on the walls. “You have all been found guilty of crimes against the Corporation!”
Amos sighed.
“But fear not! Due to the scourge you were born again as Alkrons! Praise be to the scourge!”
Amos shifted from one foot to another. He had been at the ‘Re-education facility’ for just over a day, since being airlifted from the small town where he and the others were captured, and had spent most of the twenty-four hours being interviewed and examined, with various bodily substances being extracted.
“Not this shit again,” he said. During his time in his eight by eight cell, a continuous stream of religious level zeal about the virtues of the scourge, and the kings being the savior of humankind, played on a constant loop from speakers in the ceiling.
The man to his left kept repeating over and over. “Praise be to the scourge… Praise be to the scourge.” While his head appeared to involuntarily bob up and down.
The enthusiastic person giving the sermon continued. “But I have sad news to report to you, which is why we are all here tonight. One of our saviors, king Tyror is no longer with us. Struck down in the heat of battle, but not before sending hundreds of our enemies to their deaths!”
Despite the chill from the icy droplets falling on him, Amos felt a rush of warmth which produced a smile. “Good.”
“Sshh�
�” said the elder man to his right.
Amos looked up at him and frowned.
“So we will stand here for one hour—”
“One hour!” The volume of Amos’s voice got away from him, and he immediately tried to shrink into the muddy hole that was opening up beneath his feet, hoping his outburst was not heard behind the downpour.
“Alkron number four-two-one-zero-eight!”
“Shit,” said Amos under his breath. That was his new designated number, newly imprinted near the scar of the old one. The sound of heavy boots splashing through puddles made those around him suck in some air. He looked along the row of drenched men, at the black uniformed individuals walking towards him.
“You need to keep your mouth shut, kid,” said the older man. The babbling from the Alkron to his left intensified.
Two guards, standing at least a foot taller than Amos grabbed him under his shoulder’s and dragged him away through the mud.
*****
Kizzy stood under the blankets of rain with the other females and sighed. She closed her eyes and imagined herself on a beach, the sun beaming down but not hurting, and muscular tanned men on their knees, each one happily offering their wrists and necks to her. Amos was on a giant pink inflatable on the ocean, waving at her. She smiled. It was kind of nice not having your boyfriend be able to read every one of your thoughts.
It had almost been an hour since she was told the glorious news that one of the kings had died, and that the inmates should stand in silence in the prison yard. Most around her were struggling to stay upright, but her muscles and tendons were as fresh as the moment she walked out. She hadn’t been born a natural athlete but the scourge had transformed her into one, and she would forever be thankful to it for that.
Her first few sessions of ‘Re-education’ had been a bore which she just about managed to stay awake through. Something about the scourge being sent from a higher power, and the kings being the keepers of the message. Or something. Most of it she tuned out.
