Crawlerz | Book 4 | From The Ashes

by Merritt, R. S.

  “Because we need all the intel we can get. I can’t tell you how the hell they haul ass across a parking lot then hop up onto the windowsill of a third floor window without breaking a sweat, but I can tell you they can do that. We don’t really need to know how they do stuff to kill them. We just need to know what they can do.” Charlie explained.

  They continued watching videos until LeBron decided he’d had enough. It was fascinating but he wasn’t really learning anything new. He pressed Charlie to see if there was anything else unique that’d been captured. Charlie thought about it for a minute before shaking his head slowly. He was about to tell LeBron that he thought the infected already had quite enough powers when Jeff burst through the door. A frantic look on his face as he scanned the room until he saw them sitting in the corner.

  “The building’s been breached. The third floor’s sealed off now. I can’t find your sister or brother or anybody else. They must still be up there.” Jeff told LeBron with zero preamble. There wasn’t time to screw around. If Yue and the others were still alive upstairs, then they were living on borrowed time.

  “What do you mean sealed off?” LeBron asked jumping to his feet. His hands were already making sure his weapons were where he needed them to be. His feet were already taking him towards the door.

  “In case of something like this happening the first thing they do is seal off the stairs. That means the second and third floors are now cutoff from us. Kind of the same way they dog down the hatches on a sinking ship to keep the water from spreading.” Jeff answered.

  “It saves the ship but screws everybody inside the section that’s flooding. How do they secure the doors? Can we get through them?” LeBron asked. He noticed for the first time that someone was switching the lights off and on in the hallway. It must be the code for general quarters in the building. You didn’t want to announce it out loud and attract any unwanted attention.

  “Every floor has clasps bolted to the outside of the doors. We have long steel pipes we use to reinforce the doors. That’s on top of the doors being locked. They’re already pretty heavy duty doors.” Jeff said hustling to catch up to LeBron. They’d reached the first chain link barrier across the hallway. LeBron opened it and went through. Jeff followed behind securing the gate behind him once he was through it.

  “Guards on the doors?” LeBron asked.

  “There should be someone guarding it. The guy in the cage around the door isn’t supposed to desert his post. If I were him, I’d slide over outside the chain link surrounding the door and guard it from there. Before you ask there’s another staircase. It’s already been locked down. It’s not opening anytime soon though. They sealed it with concrete.” Jeff answered in short bursts as they hustled towards the middle of the hallway.

  “Coming with me?” LeBron asked.

  Jeff didn’t bother answering. They’d made it to the last gate before the sealed doors going up. Two men were standing inside the small area outside the sealed doors. LeBron recognized one of them as the base commander. Hopefully the guy wasn’t too much of a stickler for enforcing life or death rules on his base. Otherwise this could get messy. Jeff opened the final gate and walked in with LeBron behind him. Major Tom and the soldier with him turned to face them.

  “We’re going up.” Jeff said simply.

  “I figured as much when I saw you stomping this way with your little sidekick.” Tom said casually. He was looking them both up and down appraisingly.

  “We need the door open now!” LeBron said loudly stepping out from behind Jeff to get in front of Tom. He hadn’t quite screamed it, but he hadn’t left any room for interpretation either. To emphasize his point he had his pistol gripped tightly in his hand already. He wasn’t quite threatening them, but he also wasn’t not threatening them.

  “Cool. Help me grab these pipes. I’m only letting you in because nothing is slamming up against the doors yet. I don’t see anything through the peepholes yet either. Once we open these, I expect you to slip through immediately and get the hell out of the way so I can seal them back up. You come running back down here with a bunch of those freaks in hot pursuit I’m not opening this door back up. You understand?” The major asked calmly.

  “Yes sir. Makes sense to me sir.” LeBron said. The major tried looking through a peephole again then asked the soldier to turn the lights on. The soldier went over to a tangled mess of extension cords and started messing around. He must have found the right one because the major told him to stop.

  “Alright. Good luck. If you don’t make it back, I’ll see both of you morons in hell.” Tom said before pulling out the last pipe and firmly pressing the latch to open the solid wooden door. Without another word Jeff and LeBron dove through the opening and crouched in the bottom of the eerily lit stairwell.

  “They better not be sitting around in a safe room on the first or second floor.” LeBron muttered. Jeff nodded his head in agreement. Weapons pointed upwards they slowly ascended the staircase. The string of lights running up along the bannisters warped their shadows into those of giants. They moved upwards a flight or two before hearing a challenge.

  “Is that you Drew?” LeBron yelled back.

  Drew came around the corner after yelling back it was him and they were coming down. Excellent communication skills really help avoid dying from friendly fire. Directly behind Drew was Harley and Lisa walking with Yue in the middle of them. She had an arm thrown across each of their shoulders. Even in the subpar lighting you could tell she didn’t look good.

  “Are you ok?” Jeff asked jogging up the last few stairs to swap positions with Lisa. Yue threw her arm around Jeff once Lisa walked away. Yue even managed to laugh when she told Jeff she’d gotten herself concussed again.

  “We need to hurry if we don’t want to spend the night on the stairs again.” LeBron announced. He turned around and began walking briskly down towards the first floor. He was hoping the major would see them through the peephole and let them back in without any issues.

  Chapter 9: Out of the Frying Pan…

  They filed out the door leading to the first floor and then waited while Tom and the soldier sealed it back up. Tom slammed in the last steel pipe then stepped out of the way so the soldier assisting him could doublecheck all the pipes were in place.

  “Well that worked out pretty well for you guys. What’s the third floor like?” Tom asked.

  “Looks like hell. Those things jumped up the wall like giant frogs on crank. It was like a demonic Cirque show. We barely made it out. More luck than anything else.” Yue answered. She looked groggy and pale, but she held the major’s eyes as she spoke. She was pretty happy not to have puked all over herself this time. She made herself find the silver linings. It was a mental game that got her through days like this one. Which were pretty much most days now it seemed like. She’d really hoped this place would be different.

  How could it really be different though. These people had setup a nice secure base then dared the crawlerz to break in. Their defense against thousands of screaming zombie like assailants was throwing a few guys up on telephone poles with sniper rifles. All of this technology at their disposal and they’d covered the third floor windows up with sections of chain link fences. When you took a step back to consider it rationally, it was amazing they’d survived this long. Once that one crawler figured out a way in it’d been all over. The infected psychic party line kicked in and the high school turned sanctuary was doomed.

  “Somehow I don’t think you can keep calling the way you guys survive luck. This far into it you’ve got skills. You all look like you could use a place to rest up from all the excitement. We’ve got an open room that way. I think it’s about five doors down. Should have cots and pillows and all that.” Major Tom said by way of dismissal.

  Recognizing that they were being given the night off the small group headed in the direction Tom had pointed. Yue was looking forward to putting her head down and resting. She may not have puked yet, but she was feeling al
l the normal symptoms. As an added bonus her neck was killing her this time too. She was going to have to raid the stash of pain killers and muscle relaxers she’d taken off of Harley when he’d been passed out. She wished she could ask him which pills were which. That’d be awkward though after insisting multiple times that she’d never seen the Ziploc bags full of pills he kept looking for.

  It seemed to Yue like they walked forever to get down to the room they’d been pointed at. Everything was always further when you were fighting off waves of nausea and dizziness. Once in the room they realized that when Tom had told them it was a barracks room what he’d really meant to say was it was a room that was intended to be turned into a barracks room. At present it was still very much a classroom with a bunch of boxes and assorted junk stacked haphazardly against one of the walls.

  “I guess we’ve still got work to do.” LeBron said shining his flashlight around the room. He walked over to a stack of boxes and poked around until he found one with two cots folded up inside it. He enlisted Drew’s aid to help him get the cots unboxed and opened it. Once assembled they let Yue lie down while the rest of them searched the other boxes to see what else they had to work with.

  Thirty minutes later they’d moved the desks and chairs to the side and were settling down in a ring of cots. They’d found a box full of the scratchy green blankets as well as a couple of big fluffy comforters still in the plastic bags they came in. Yue and Lisa immediately claimed the comforters. Lying down on his cot with his thin, scratchy military issue blanket LeBron found himself wishing chivalry would hurry up and die the hell off.

  Jeff had volunteered to stay awake and watch over everyone. He needed to be out in the hallway talking to Major Tom and helping get everything organized anyway. There was still a lot of night ahead of them. The crawlerz had already taken the third floor and the roof which had both been considered ultra-safe by everyone until now. The third floor and that mysterious space between the third floor and the roof were going to be packed with crawlerz come morning. There were plenty of shadows in both for the infected to hide from the sun for the day.

  Wham! A massive smashing sound from the wall in the classroom they were sleeping in. They all sat up quickly scanning the room with flashlights in one hand and pistols in the other. Most of them trying to emulate the way they’d seen cops on TV doing it. Wham! All of their flashlight beams zoomed over to the wall with the windows on it. The patchwork window covering made from the hoods of cars and reinforced with two by fours had just moved. If that one on the inside had moved, then the more solidly constructed one on the outside wall must’ve also just moved.

  “Everybody up!” Jeff had gone out into the hallway a minute before the sound of the first crawler smashing into the metal covers of the windows outside. He’d come hustling back in after the pandemonium had started outside.

  “They can’t get in, right?” Lisa said sitting up with her hair going in every direction and a tiny bit of drool pooled up on her chin. It sounded like another night of sheer terror that they’d have to spend fighting for their lives. She’d really hoped to spend the night with the fluffy yellow comforter she had wrapped around herself. She pushed the comforter down and swung her legs off the cot. Sitting up with her pistol in her hand she wondered if it was too late for them to go back to that Weathertop base. She was good with being locked into a tiny hotel room where they brought you three meals a day and you were protected by concrete walls three feet thick. That sounded so much better than having your life depend on salvaged car parts screwed to the wall.

  As if in answer to Lisa’s question the lights in the hallway started flashing on and off. To punctuate that silent alarm gunfire rang out from one of the classrooms down the hallway. The crawlerz throwing themselves at the various windows tripled their efforts. Nonchalantly breaking most of the bones in their bodies as they used themselves as high speed battering rams to get into the building. Adrenaline fueled muscles that could propel them to the third floor now focused on smashing them into the thin metal window coverings as hard as possible. Whatever it took to get inside the school. Their psychic party line buzzing with the success of one group that was battling their way into a classroom right now.

  “They’re inside the first floor.” Yue said calmly. She was letting herself focus on the brief flashes of terror inducing visions ripping at her conscience. She let herself mind meld with the group of psychotic things outside ramming themselves into the walls of this hardened high school.

  “Where do we go?” Drew asked Jeff. Jeff knew this school and its defenses. He’d been studying the layout and design for the past month. It’d been his main focus while separated from the rest of the group. If he didn’t have an idea where to run to then they were screwed.

  “We could try and make it to the second floor.” Jeff said after a brief pause. Jeff saw that everyone had noticed the hesitation. It was hard to hide things from people you’d grown so close to. It didn’t matter if they saw it or not though. It was the only idea that made sense. The other thing he was thinking about was suicide. He decided to not even mention it unless he had to.

  “Wham!” The sound of tortured metal behind them as the blue hood of a Hyundai bolted to the wall outside their window ripped loose. One of the infected had collided with it at just the right angle. The dirt covered mockery of what once had been a man ripped a massive patch of the skin off the side of his body in the process. Bleeding profusely he stood back up to throw himself at the wall again. He could sense the humans nearby. Red hot rage incensed him to slam his broken body into the next barrier separating him from the humanity he hated. He’d claw at the wall until he died from blood loss. His mind filled with the vision of sinking his teeth into the uninfected veins of the humans cowering inside.

  No one needed Yue to let them know they needed to get the hell out of the room. All of them were getting the flashes of hate. None of them were opening themselves up like Yue was though. She did it out of love for the group. She hoped getting those quick insights into the monsters mentality would help her guide them to safety. The thought of biting into a big bloody raw steak had started sounded pretty appetizing too her. She gagged every time she reconciled that sudden craving with the visions that she kept receiving of biting into human flesh.

  Jeff ran back out into the hall. He stopped himself before colliding with Tom. The major and a handful of his men were facing towards the stairway to the second floor blasting away at the shadowy crush of demons trying to break through the fence to get at them. It looked like the stairs were no longer an option. He saw a look of desperation spreading across everyone’s faces as they exited the classroom to join him in the suddenly crowded hallway. If they couldn’t get to the second floor, then they were trapped on the first. Trapped on a floor where the crawlerz were breaking through walls of metal and two by fours like they were made of paper machete.

  There were two chain link barriers still standing between them and the steadily increasing mob that wanted their blood. The air was thick with the smell of body odor and gunpowder. Drew and Harley automatically snapped their weapons to their shoulders and joined the firing line. Lisa hung back with Yue and LeBron who were looking in the opposite direction down the hall.

  “We have to go somewhere! Before we’re cutoff by the infected getting into the classroom behind us!” LeBron yelled over to Jeff who was standing immediately behind the men firing away at the invaders. Jeff looked paralyzed. He was hesitant as to what to do next. He looked over at LeBron yelling at him and blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

  “We can fall back to the cafeteria!” Jeff yelled out tentatively.

  “It has more windows than any of the classrooms. How about we lock ourselves in the men’s room? Use it like a safe room.” Tom suggested loudly.

  “We’ll be stuck there. No way out even when the sun comes up.” Jeff said as one of the fences between them and the horde of crawlerz coming down the hallway crumpled and gave in. It was to be
expected. The fences on the inside had been installed to slow down the infected if they got in. No one was naïve enough to think they’d hold the crawlerz off forever. If the things could beat their way through solid metal barriers, then a chain link fence wasn’t going to fend them off for very long.

  The flesh eaters swarmed over the twisted remains of the fence they’d just torn down to slam up against the fence directly in front of them. From inside the classroom they’d just left the sound of splintering boards and twisting metal overrode the sound of gunfire. It was time to fall back.

  Yue and Lisa whipped open the gate and everyone went back through it. The men who were covering them walking slowly backwards. They were attempting precision shots to put crawlerz down. They were doing their best not to help the hellish crowd by shooting parts of the actual fence. Not that they could guarantee that in this situation. The adrenaline and fear levels were pretty high up there on the pucker factor meter. Even for seasoned fighters who’d been on the front lines of this impossible battle since the beginning.

  The fence protecting them went down before they’d all made it backwards through the next gate. The agitated pack of crawlerz had hit the fence hard. They were shrugging off bullets right up until they collapsed to the floor to die. The infection blocked out the sensation of any pain. They cared about nothing but ripping down the barriers between them and the source of all of their frustration. They could make their long nightmare end by ripping apart the mortal enemy holding weapons and firing at them.