Crawlerz | Book 4 | From The Ashes

by Merritt, R. S.

  The knife was torn out of Lisa’s hand hard enough to sprain her wrist. One of Drew’s bullets having connected with the hardened steel Rambo knife he’d enjoyed teasing her for carrying. His other two rounds hit the crawler in the head and neck respectively. Lisa was knocked to the side as the crawler smashed into the floor in a heap.

  “You ok?” Drew asked with concern in his eyes. Lisa nodded. She tried to hold her pistol with her sprained hand and winced. She was going to have to use her off hand to defend the window instead.

  “Get that thing off your sister and get back to your window.” Lisa ordered Drew. She snapped her eyes away from him and stood ready to blast away at the next shape that dared fill her window. She wasn’t going to have the luxury of the fence to slow it down.

  Drew dragged the body of the oversized crawler off of Yue and made sure she was alive. He didn’t bother waking her up or checking her too thoroughly. He could feel a heartbeat and she appeared to be breathing. That was good enough for now. He dragged her back a little further from the window. That task completed he then jogged back to his own window just in time to put a few rounds into yet another crawler. He’d managed to make it back before they lost the protection of the fence inside his window as well.

  “There’s a big open space up here!” Harley yelled over to Drew.

  Drew took his eyes off the window to look back behind him at Harley standing on the teachers desk. He was standing on top of two chairs he’d sat on top of the desk. None of it looked very sturdy. Turning back around to guard his window Drew waited for the cussing and sound of the chairs falling off the desk. When he didn’t hear any of that he yelled back at Harley.

  “Can we get up there? Yue’s knocked out again!”

  Drew had no sooner asked that question than they all heard something slamming into the door leading out into the hallway. Drew hoped that the threat of shooters wandering through high schools would’ve forced educators to go for the premium doors and locks. Premium or not the crawlerz would eventually beat their way through. The pounding from outside meant that the hallway was no longer a viable escape route. Suddenly the ceiling sounded a lot more appealing.

  “Yo Drew! Grab your sister and bring her over here. I’ll boost you up then hand her to you. Lisa, get ready to haul ass over here once Drew pulls Yue up!” Harley yelled.

  Not bothering to try and diagram the plan Harley was laying out Drew ran over and picked up Yue. He sprinted over to the desk and draped his sister over the side opposite Harley and his two chairs worth of support. Harley hopped down off the chairs with an agility that was surprising in someone his size. He helped Drew get up on the chairs then made a step with his hands to complete boosting Drew up into the rafters. Drew didn’t bother looking around too much. He got himself in a secure place and reached down with both hands for Yue.

  Over by the far window Lisa wasted the next crawler who popped into her window and then stepped back so she could cover both windows. She hated having her back to the classroom door. There was no telling when it might give out. If that happened while she was focused on the windows, then she was done. Taking a deep breath she focused on killing anything that popped into the windows. As fast as the infected were if they escaped out of that framed in area, they’d be almost impossible to kill.

  A loud bang to her left made her spin in that direction. Expecting the worst what she saw was surprisingly predictable. Yue’s lower half was hanging out of the ceiling. Her legs disappeared into the ceiling while Lisa watched. The loud bang had been the chairs Harley had put together so he could get a boost up into the attic. He’d knocked them both off the desk. Probably while trying to help Drew manhandle his sister up. The result of losing the chairs had been Harley bouncing off the desk and landing on the floor.

  Praying that Harley hadn’t hurt himself Lisa ran over to help him up. On the way over she blasted a few shots at yet another crawler who’d bounced up to say hello. She was ecstatic to see the infected jumper fall backwards off the windowsill. It was an easy target, but she was shooting with her off hand while running across the room in the dark. By the time she got to Harley he was already stacking the chairs up again. Instead of her helping him up he bent down and easily scooped her up.

  As much as she wanted to close her eyes in that brief journey from the floor to Harley’s arms to Harley stepping on a desk then stepping precariously onto the two chairs, she kept them both wide open. She was scanning the room ready to blast away at any infected that managed to luck into jumping up into the room while the defenders were at their weakest. She barely even heard Drew yelling for her to help pull herself up. Harley must not be trying to fall off the desk again by boosting her into the ceiling like he’d been forced to do with Yue.

  As soon as Harley felt Lisa able to pull herself up, he let go of her and pulled his shotgun around. Nothing jumped up while he waited. Whoever was at the door to the classroom kept right on hammering away. The thick wooden door easily shrugged off the assault for now. Then Lisa was up into the space above the tiles. Dropping his shotgun to hang from its strap Harley leapt up off the chairs. He grabbed ahold of the two rafters he’d tested earlier and pulled himself up into the ceiling. For a second he actually saw himself disappearing up. He blinked to clear his head from the white hot anger he’d felt at seeing his own legs disappearing into the tiled ceiling.

  “Did you guys see that?” Lisa asked.

  “See what?” Drew asked.

  “Harley’s legs going up into the ceiling.” Lisa said softly. Harley almost missed what she said. Then he put two and two together with what LeBron had been going on and on about today.

  “Oh hell.” Harley said pulling himself over to the boards that made up a floor down the center of the huge attic space.

  A crawler burst through the tile right next to where they were all gathered. Drew had broken open a glow stick and thrown it on the floor to help them see in the pitch dark space. The crawler must have still been in three story jumping mode. It sailed past them through the jumble of wires and pipes to smash headfirst into the bottom of the actual roof. The impact snapped its neck. They listened as the lifeless body tumbled back down through the maze of overhead infrastructure.

  “Maybe they’ll all do that?” Drew said hopefully.

  “I wouldn’t bet on it.” Yue muttered sitting up and rubbing her head. She must be getting better at concussions. The last one had put her out for hours. This time she’d barely been out for fifteen minutes. It was telling that everyone took it in stride that she was back up. They were all relieved that now they didn’t have to carry her. At least they’d die unencumbered. Drew was actually a little sad for Yue. If you were going to be eaten alive by monsters in an attic, then being in a concussion when it happened was really the way to go.

  “When did they get so good at jumping anyway?” Drew asked. The damned things were getting a little ridiculous. With the numbers advantage they had did they really need to also get Superman jumping abilities?

  As if in answer to his question the floorboards underneath him erupted upwards. Drew fell over backwards into the tiles next to him. He got tangled up in a rat’s nest of cables that kept him from falling through the roof. He was freaking out about tumbling down into a room full of the infected while he was tied up in a big ball of cables.

  They quickly got Drew pulled up and ran for the other end of the building. Crawlerz were popping up into the attic all around them. Smashing through cables and pipes as they sought out their prey. Drew turned around and blindly emptied his magazine into the darkness behind them. He ejected it and slammed in another one. He felt Lisa sliding up next to him. She joined in on the random spray and pray approach to fighting off the infected in the darkness. It wasn’t going to work but it was better than running until you felt their teeth on the back of your neck.

  They’d talked about this before in hushed tones. What to do when it all went to hell? What to do in an Alamo situation like this one? None of them wanted to be
eaten alive. None of them wanted to be trapped in a prison of flesh with their will stripped away from them by some ancient moldy virus. It was unanimous that if they were infected, they wanted to be shot in the face. It got to be a slippery slope when they talked about hopeless situations like this one. What most people called hopeless situations were what they called a Tuesday.

  Drew was snapped out of his thoughts by the feeling of a hand clamping down on his shoulder. He spun around ready to kill whoever or whatever it was. Beside him Lisa was still blasting away. Harley was reaching over to get her attention as well.

  “Follow me!” Harley yelled. He didn’t wait to see if they did or not. He turned and sprinted into the darkness. His flashlight bobbing around wildly as he ran. Not having any other more pressing appointments on their calendars Drew and Lisa hauled ass after him.

  Up ahead Yue was holding open a door to a staircase. She waved at them to hurry. Sucking up their last reserves of energy they poured on the speed and basically flew through the open doorway. Yue slammed it shut behind them. Less than a second later there was the muffled sound of flesh pounding on the door.

  “That was close.” Lisa said in between her loud and ragged breathing.

  “Yeah. I was wondering if we were going to end up having to shoot each other or something.” Drew said. The others nodded. They knew exactly what he meant.

  “The nights young and we’re stuck in the dark in a staircase surrounded by demons. I wouldn’t write off the shooting each other plan quite yet.” Harley said. As if to prove his point the lights suddenly popped on. In the distance they heard a door open and slam shut.

  “You had to say something.” Lisa said accusingly to Harley who just grinned and pretended to knock on the wooden bannister of the staircase.

  Chapter 8: Documenting the Damned

  Jeff dropped LeBron off with a beer bellied man with enormous arms. The man was named Charlie. He was in charge of the videography operation. He referred to his work as a documentary of the damned. He’d been part of the IT staff at Weathertop in charge of physical security. He had the necessary clearances and education you’d expect from someone at that level despite looking like a dive bar bouncer. He laughed a lot and continuously self-medicated. LeBron’s first thought was that he really needed to introduce this guy to Harley. His second thought was that he hoped Harley and this guy never met. Neither one of them would survive the exponential increase in partying that’d happen if they did.

  Charlie got LeBron situated in a corner of the classroom turned mad scientist AV lab. There were televisions and network equipment setup all over the place. The network switches humming along as the battery backups they were hooked up to were continuously charged from the rooftop solar cells. Charlie walked over to a computer and started clicking through files.

  “I suppose you’re here for the greatest hits, right?” Charlie said double clicking on a QuickTime file. LeBron walked over and sat down in the seat Charlie pointed at.

  “I want to know how to kill them better. How to avoid them killing us. Whatever we can learn.” LeBron said excitedly. He was looking forward to this.

  The screen came on with the date listed first. The camera was in night mode inside a very dark room. There wasn’t anything visible other than a green tinted floor and walls. LeBron looked up at Charlie to see if maybe he was missing something. Charlie nodded down at him and told him to wait for it. A few seconds later the camera caught an influx of the infected pouring into the building. They crawled all over each other as they fought to get as far from the windows as possible. A bunch of them ended up in a big drift up against the interior wall. The video stopped and displayed a date two days later.

  “Do we know where that is? We could take out a ton of them during the day when they’re weak.” LeBron said.

  “Great minds and all that. Check this out.” Charlie said.

  The video came back on showing the bodies piled along the floor. Many of them seemed to be sleeping while others were just kind of crawling around. Then there were bright flashes of light on the screen. Crawlerz were shredded to pieces. The floor ran with their blood. The remaining infected seemed to not even notice they were now sleeping in a mass grave for their kind. They simply rearranged themselves and either went back to sleep or continued slithering around the slaughterhouse.

  “Claymores?” LeBron asked. He wanted to be excited about it but that was quite a bit of death and maiming to take in. The hardest part was seeing the little forms darting around through it all. The infected children always broke his heart when he saw them. He really hated it when he was forced to shoot one of them.

  “Yep. We had the men who set them do their best to aim away from the camera. I think this is probably one of the best clearing methods we’re going to have. Most of the ones in there still crawling around died the next day from their wounds.” Charlie said.

  “Do they go back there again? The crawlerz?” LeBron asked.

  “No. That’s the weird thing. We rewired the place the next day hoping we could get another batch of them but only a few wandered back in. The night after that not a single one showed up.” Charlie answered. He was obviously perplexed. LeBron filled him in on his psychic party line theory. By the time he was done talking Charlie was shifting from foot to foot with excitement. He looked like a kid in elementary school trying to get the teachers attention to ask to go to the bathroom.

  “This ringing a bell for you?” LeBron asked amused. Here he was explaining a theory he’d come up with on his own to this highly technical middle aged dude. The guy wasn’t dumb. Based on what he knew Charlie had accomplished and just how he talked in general LeBron could tell he was smart. He was evidently smart enough to get really excited and start connecting dots as soon as he heard something that clicked for him.

  “Yeah. Looking at it that way makes a lot of sense. It’s also really freakin scary.” Charlie finally said. LeBron could tell the man’s wheels were spinning. He didn’t say anything else though.

  The next video segment showed a street on the edge of town. Charlie told him to watch as this one was time lapsed to get to when the fireworks first went off. They’d setup cameras to try and capture the crawlerz running towards the high school once the show got going. Capture them they did. The crawlerz came up the street so fast that they were blur in a few scenes. LeBron had to check with Charlie to make sure the time lapse hadn’t accidentally been left on.

  “That’s why if you get caught out in the open you can pretty much give up.” LeBron said. He was watching in awe as the night vision on the cameras caught the crawlerz rushing by unbelievably fast.

  “We need to get one of those radar guns that capture how fast something moves. I’d love to see how fast they’re really moving.” Charlie commented.

  “Maybe we could get one of those big LED signs the cops leave beside the road to show people how fast they’re driving.” LeBron said.

  “Owning the apocalypse one ‘Office’ reference at a time.” Charlie said waiting to see if LeBron got it.

  “Nice.” LeBron said appreciatively after reaching back into his memory to dredge up that obscure reference.

  The videos kept coming. The only real conclusion to draw was that the regular human race was screwed. They were no longer the apex predator. The worst part of observing the infected like this was that LeBron had to admit to himself the monsters weren’t getting any weaker. If anything they appeared to be getting stronger. They were also acquiring new skills at a ridiculous pace. The psychic communications appeared to be getting more narrowed and purposeful. The damned things were jumping around like giant fleas. Making leaps that should be impossible. Running at speeds that shouldn’t be biologically possible.

  There was only so much potential energy stored in the muscles of the human body. No amount of crazy mold or weird mummy virus should be able to alter that. Everyone always used the reference of a mother picking up a car to save her child to explain how the infected were so strong. W
ell that mother didn’t pick up that car and then run around the block with it before leaping a three story building for fun. There was only so much that adrenaline bursts and psychic powers should be able to explain.

  “You’re wondering how what they’re doing is even possible right?” Charlie asked knowingly. “The first few times I sat down and watched these clips I was the same way. It’s one thing to be in the heat of it. They’re jumping everywhere while you blast away at them. It’s another to actually catalogue how many of them are able to easily hop on top of a three story high school. All that adrenaline crap everybody talks about sort of explains it to the lay man. To the scientist it just opens up a lot more questions. Questions I don’t have the answers for. I don’t think we’re going to find the answers watching videos either.” Charlie said. He was really opening up. He must feel like they’d really bonded over the shared ‘Office’ humor.

  “Then why do you keep filming them?” LeBron asked.