Crawlerz | Book 4 | From The Ashes

by Merritt, R. S.

  Jeff lay down on his cot and threw his arm over Yue. He personally was sporting the military cover, but LeBron had snagged a comforter for Yue to use. Most likely because LeBron had been smart enough to know if he didn’t get one for Yue then he’d lose the one he’d grabbed for himself. Jeff was thankful for that thick comforter now as it was about a million times better to sleep with than the blanket that he’d grabbed for himself. He rested his head on his arm and fell asleep.

  He woke up to the sound of screaming. Yue was flipping out in her sleep. Her eyes were wide open which was freaking out Jeff and LeBron and Lisa as they all stared over at her. She suddenly sat straight up and screamed shrilly one more time before collapsing back into her comforter cocoon. The three of them looked at each other with concern. Something was obviously not right. None of them wanted to talk about it while there were crawlerz all around them though.

  The next morning they carefully got off the train. The bottoms of the cars had been lined with fencing and metal poles to make it less likely the infected would crawl underneath them to pass the day away. It also served to make it harder for them to come flying out from under the car and attack the people on the platform. A precaution against the occasional crawler who’d force himself under the car during the night then get stuck there like a lobster in a trap. Vicious killers with psychic powers they may be but all of them would lose a game of tic tac toe to a drunk toddler. At least everyone hoped there weren’t any smart ones out there.

  They met up on the platform. Harley and Drew happily reminiscing about how they’d whacked around a handful of the Marines stationed here when they’d arrived. LeBron wondered if the two of them knew that a few of those Marines were listening to them right now. They were of course still stationed here and had been lucky enough to be assigned sleeping quarters on the second floor of the high school. The only person who’d survived from the first floor had been Charlie.

  He’d survived because watching all those movies of the crawlerz had made him completely paranoid. He’d see over and over again how the freaks did things that should be impossible. They jumped to the tops of buildings that should have been way out of their reach. They beat through walls that no one would’ve expected to come down. He’d even watched them contort their bodies to get into spaces they thought might have prey in them. He had one clip he’d shown LeBron where a crawler literally broke every bone in its body squeezing itself through a tiny gap between the bottom of a garage door and the floor. The pile of skin and broken bones had then still inched its way across the floor to the door behind which the uninfected had been sleeping.

  Charlie had sent soldiers to warn the people in that building to wait before they opened the door. The pile of skin and bones had reared up like something out of a late night horror film to try and attack the two Marines who’d been sent to finish it off. It was that incident Charlie was thinking of now as everyone gathered on the platform to discuss what to do moving forward. He didn’t know if it was going to be a town hall type meeting or if Tom and Jeff were just going to start barking out orders, but it should be interesting. No matter what they said Charlie was still going to make sure wherever he was sent that he made sure he had his own private panic room if it all went to hell.

  Tom looked out over the small crowd assembled on the platform. If they’d done this same sort of assembly on the day prior there would’ve been four times more people. Even accounting for the men he had standing guard this was still a tiny congregation. Tiny or not he still had to climb up on the pulpit and let them know where he planned on guiding his flock. Assuming they still trusted him to keep the wolves at bay that is. He stepped up on one of the benches and waited until the hum of conversation died down. It didn’t take too long since mostly everyone kept their mouths shut unless they had something important to say now a days. It was important when the sound of your voice could bring a surger flying at you.

  “Alright. You all know what our main mission here is. We do intake for the refugees who show up and make sure they’re sent where they can be safe and useful. Most of you also know our secondary mission is to field trial ideas on how to survive and thrive in an infected world. Our attempt to live at the high school didn’t work out. We’re not going to stop because of a setback though. We’re doing this so that others can follow in our footsteps. We’re the first step towards taking the country back from these monsters. Today I want to get your feedback and ideas. Then tonight senior leadership will meet. We’ll review the ideas we’ve heard and set a course of action for how we rebuild. Make sense?” Tom asked pausing for the sake of taking a breath as much as to listen. He didn’t really want any feedback on their mission. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t be super constructive.

  “I fought my way here from the mountains because the radio said this was the best place to go. That recorded broadcast didn’t mention anything about us being guinea pigs.” A tall man in the middle of the audience called out loudly. All around him people were nodding. The military men may have volunteered for this assignment but most of the civilians were clueless.

  “How come some people got sent away somewhere safe and some of us got chosen to stay here?” A lean deadly looking woman asked. On top of all the normal weapons she was also sporting a samurai sword.

  “No one gets chosen to stay here instead of sent somewhere safe. For those of you who are hearing this for the first time I apologize. All of you would’ve been given the choice in time. We were working on how many people we thought we may need and where we thought we may need them. We didn’t want to bring more people in than we needed. We’ve got plenty of refugees here who’ve made the choice to stay and fight. We just didn’t think it was a great idea to tell refugees as soon as they got here that they were part of a base that was trying to lure crawlerz to it to figure out better ways of killing them.” Tom explained.

  “My brother came with me. He was twelve. We were supposed to be on the next train out of here to go to the coast. He didn’t make it. If we’d known how dangerous this place was, we’d have just gone to the coast ourselves.” A young woman spoke up from the center of the crowd. Tom realized he needed to push on. This was turning out to be just as unconstructive as he’d thought it might be.

  “There’s nothing else to be said. It was a mistake not to make everyone who showed up here looking for safety aware of the other purpose for this unit to be here. I will not repeat that mistake. The mission stands though. What should we try next? What we tried before obviously didn’t work.” Tom stated clearly.

  Thus began a freewheeling brainstorming session on the platform of a dilapidated train station. The ideas ranged from staying in the train cars for good to building cities in the clouds. The city in the clouds idea was interesting. There were a few buildings in Fayetteville where they might be able to take over higher levels than the high school had. As far as killing the crawlerz went it was all a variation of luring large groups of them somewhere then killing them with either poison, fire or the expenditure of large amounts of ammunition. One thing shone through bright and clear. In order for them to be safe the crawlerz had to be killed. Everyone had seen how those things came at them. They had no mercy. They were never going to stop. The only solution was to kill them all.

  Tom cut off the session before it could get too far off the rails. He promised everyone he’d share what leadership decided on the next day as to the proposed course of action. For now they needed to gather supplies and continue living their lives. The refugees who were going to the coast would be picked up the next day. Until then they were to report to their assigned coordinator to get their jobs for the day. Tom had rattled off that last part primarily to give the refugees something to do other than bother him. Unfortunately he’d forgotten that all the coordinators had been housed on the first floor of the high school and were now dead.

  “Are we going to talk about the witch?” A tall refugee said loudly after someone else had reminded Tom all the coordinators were dead. That stateme
nt seemingly giving this other person the courage to publicly ask about a witch.

  “What are you talking about?” Tom asked good humoredly. He was half expecting to hear a lame joke. Something along the lines of it being time for a sandwich.

  “The woman who can talk to the crawlerz.” The man said. A few people around him nodded. Everyone now intently focusing on Tom to see what he had to say to that very popular rumor.

  “News to me. Sergeant set some of your men as coordinators. They’ll work with the refugees not on the force to assign tasks for the day. All you refugees listen up. After last night we have a lot of openings that need to be filled. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous the work is. I also don’t need to tell you how important it is. If you’d like to come aboard, please let your coordinator know and they can get you setup. Otherwise I wish you the best of luck on the coast.” Tom hopped down off the bench before anyone could ask him any more questions.

  Chapter 14: Witchy Woman

  “I’m sorry.” Yue said pulling away from Jeff.

  “It’s ok. What’s the matter?” Jeff said reaching out to hold her hand.

  “Don’t touch me!” Yue hissed slapping at his hand and jumping backwards. Her face contorted into an expression of pure disgust.

  Jeff froze. He didn’t know what to do. Yue had asked him to follow her out to this little copse of trees. He’d assumed it was so they could be alone together for a few precious minutes. They rarely got any alone time otherwise. At night they were crammed into a train car with her two brothers and a contingent of soldiers and refugees. While some of the couples in the car chose not to care neither Yue nor Jeff were those kind of people. When they were alone though they normally couldn’t keep their hands off each other. At least in the past it’d been that way.

  “What’s wrong?” Jeff asked. He’d frozen in place. He was scared if he moved towards her, she’d bolt off into the woods. Yue looked up at him with tears dripping down her face. She started sobbing.

  “When you kiss me.” She stopped. Her shoulders heaving with sobs. Jeff wanted nothing more than to move forward and hold her, but he sensed that was the wrong thing to do. Instead he just stayed silent and tried to radiate the love he felt for her.

  “Yes. You can tell me. I only want to help.” Jeff finally said after the silence had stretched out for way too long.

  “I can feel what it’d be like to bite into your face. I can taste the blood. It tastes so good. That feeling of biting into your flesh. I dream about it now. It’s all I want to do. You have to stay away from me. When your skin gets too close, I have to bite my own tongue. I’m missing a big chunk of it now. I swallowed it and I wanted more. I’m losing my mind.” Yue spouted out the confession in one long diatribe. When she was done, she turned away from him in shame.

  “I love you. We’ll get through this. Just keep talking to me. Tell me how you feel. This connection you’ve got could be a game changer. If not, then we head for the Alps or somewhere. We’ll do what it takes so you don’t have to be drowned in crawler weirdness anymore ok?” Jeff said. He fought back the urge to go in for a hug. It was a little bit easier knowing that she might bite off a big chunk of his face if he tried it.

  “You’re scared of me now.” She said moving further away. She was refusing to let him see her face.

  “This whole thing scares me. The way you can see inside their heads. That’s scary as hell. I can’t even imagine how messed up it is for you. I can barely live with myself after the random snippets of nightmares and visions I get from them. You’re just extra sensitive to it. Not your fault. I love you. I’m here for you. No matter how messed up our lives get I’ve always got your back.” Jeff pleaded with Yue to understand. He was freaked out by what she was going through. He was not freaked out by her. He didn’t know how to say it any clearer.

  “I scare you and you’re dumping me. I get it. Bye.” Yue said and sprinted off into the woods. Jeff considered following her then decided that’d only make it worse. Instead he tromped his way with a heavy heart out of the overgrown park back into the city proper. He was trying to piece together what’d just happened when he looked up and saw Drew, Lisa and LeBron staring at him.

  “Where’s Yue?” Drew asked.

  “She went for a walk.” Jeff answered sharply. He wasn’t anywhere near being in the mood for this.

  “You let her go for a walk? When she’s had like two concussions in the last week and passes out every time a crawler walks by?” Lisa asked with a look of disgust on her face. Jeff wondered if he deserved the looks that he kept getting. These people were going to give him a complex. Lisa didn’t wait for him to answer. She just took off in the general direction Jeff had indicated earlier when he said Yue went for walk. Drew immediately followed her.

  “You coming?” LeBron asked.

  “No. I don’t think she wants to see me right now. Tell her I’m not going anywhere though.” Jeff said. LeBron said he would and disappeared after his brother. When they were out of sight, Jeff said a silent prayer they’d find Yue and talk some sense into her. He struggled briefly with an urge to join them in the search. Winning the fight he spun on his heel and set off in search of Major Tom instead. He could help more by making sure the major didn’t open his mouth to the spooks at Weathertop. That seemed like a better use of his time than chasing Yue around the park potentially making her even more angry.

  He found Jeff at the high school supervising the removal of all the gear they’d stored there. They had to clear each room carefully before they could go in and fetch the gear that’d been left there. To do that they were using crowbars to pry the hoods off the windows then sledgehammers to knock off the internal supports and second layer of metal. Between the noise and the sunlight that poured in most of the crawlerz took off before the men moved in to clear the space.

  Most didn’t mean all. More than enough of the crawlerz stayed to make life interesting. Even when faced with the hypnotizing light beams and the visions that they had of the other crawlerz in the building being shot multiple times they stayed. Their lust for flesh overrode everything else. Their need to spread the infection was greater than their need to live. Many were easily dispatched once the sunlight filtered in through the windows. A quick headshot took care of the killers hypnotized by the dusty beams of light.

  Far more exciting were the ones they couldn’t see. The ones that jammed themselves under couches and into closets. The ones hiding above the ceiling panels waiting to drop down on them when they entered the room. After losing a man to a crawler who’d been hiding behind an open door like a kid playing hide and seek Tom called the operation off. There was nothing in those rooms worth losing men over. Instead of continuing the search for supplies he grabbed a notebook and started making a looting list. He planned to send men to grab supplies from somewhere that was hopefully much safer.

  Jeff showed up on a golfcart right as Tom was wrapping up the list. Jeff parked the golf cart and walked over to stand by Tom.

  “How’s Yue doing?” Tom asked.

  “She’s good. A little weirded out by everything but good. What are you working on?” Jeff asked to change the subject. Tom wouldn’t be happy to hear that the person he’d labeled as the most valuable asset they had was currently running upset through the forest with no one guarding her.

  “Making up a looting list. We need supplies. Without your girlfriend helping us out pulling the supplies out of the school’s way too dangerous. It was so much easier when she was here the other day.” The major said. He was obviously alluding to having her come back and help them again. She was able to sit outside a room and tell them how many of the monsters were in the room. On top of that she could also pinpoint where in the room they were hiding. That made it a million times safer to clear a room. Instead of looking behind all of the bookshelves they just blasted a few rounds through the ones Yue told them to.

  “She’s working on controlling what she sees. Most of it’s the kind of stuff we only se
e in our nightmares. Too much of that and she’ll lose her mind. Moderation’s the key to successfully using her talent. I wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t a lot more like her out there. People who’ve become more attuned. People who’ve learned how to open themselves up.” Jeff said.

  “I hear you man. I still think she’s special though. She’s the only I’ve seen do it in a way that’s controlled and useful. I think she needs to be protected and studied. There’s a train coming tomorrow with more men to reinforce us. I’d love to put her on it and send her back to Weathertop.” Tom said.

  “Her brother and sister and that whole group would want to go with her.” Jeff reminded Tom. Tom shrugged.

  “I doubt that’d be a problem once I tell them what she can do. You know she’ll be way safer there, right? Out here you could die at any second. Back at Weathertop the biggest problem you’ll have is trying not to get fat. I’m assuming you’d want to go with her right?” Tom asked slyly.

  “I’ll talk to her about it tonight and see what she wants to do. I’ll most likely be staying no matter what she chooses. I like being out here seeing the plans we make being executed on as we make them. Otherwise I’ll have to wait for feedback over the radio every day. I’d rather see it with my own eyes.” Jeff answered. He didn’t mention the fact that he doubted he’d be allowed to go back to Weathertop regardless. If Yue opted to go back, she’d be going back without him.