Crawlerz | Book 4 | From The Ashes

by Merritt, R. S.

  They were going to be cutting their arrival at the train depot pretty close at this point. Despite that the six of them took the time to say a few words before Harley threw a match on the gas soaked body of their good friend and protector. They hadn’t known him a long time calendar wise. It didn’t take very long to form bonds when you’re living the lives they were living though. With the fire still burning in their rearview mirrors they got back on the road for the train depot.

  There was no fooling around now. Harley took over driving the truck Haywood had been driving. It needed some body work but was still ok to drive. Jeff put the hammer down on the lead truck. Within a few minutes they were blowing down the interstate past the flotsam and jetsam of a sunken civilization. The world flashing by outside the window seemed darker than normal now. Any sense of safety they’d felt being out on the road in the middle of the day had now dissipated.

  LeBron had moved up into the truck with Jeff and Yue. He was sitting in the backseat now trying to help Yue get herself under control. She couldn’t stop fidgeting and moving back and forth. Her face had a permanent snarly look on it. She hated herself for feeling the emotions that crawler had felt when it bit into Haywood’s throat. She’d felt the energy pouring into her own body as the warm blood spurted out of his neck. She’d tasted the salty coppery goodness pouring out. She’d loved it. It’d turned her on like nothing else did to feel the hot blood gushing all over her face.

  Now she was disgusted with herself. She’d cried like a crazy person while they’d all taken turns saying empty words about Haywood. She’d looked down on the body and remembered what that blood on the concrete had tasted like. She’d lived that whole viscous assault vicariously through a strong psychic link with the crawler who’d attacked Haywood. She couldn’t remember now if she’d known the crawler was in the car when they passed it or not. She was getting so used to seeing themselves through the eyes of their enemies that it didn’t necessarily even register anymore unless she was focusing on it.

  She appreciated LeBron’s attempts at some level but mostly she was inconsolable at this point. He tried to feed her a Valium and that set her off again. What if she missed another crawler and it killed her lover or one of her brothers? She told herself for the millionth time that she’d figure out a way to master these impulses she got. She’d teach herself to control the shared visions with the enemy. She’d use them as a weapon against them. She just hoped that weapon didn’t destroy her before she mastered how best to use it.

  The sensitivity she’d developed may very well be a double edged blade that cut her every time she used it. She was ok with that. She’d just have to make sure she was strong enough to keep getting cut. Whatever it took too to protect her family. Watching the road as they turned off at the exit that would take them to the train depot, she saw that she may be putting those powers back to work sooner than she’d have liked. The shadows all around them were starting to get pretty long.

  By the time they made it to the train depot they were all getting nervous. From the backseat Yue had told Jeff they were only going to have a few minutes to get out of the trucks and into the train. Jeff whipped the truck into the train station and slammed on the brakes. Harley pulled in right behind them. They all sprinted for the door to the station. They ran through the station to the platform where the trains would pull in to load and unload passengers. No one needed Yue to tell them to hurry at this point.

  The train from Fayetteville was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 32: Spelunking with Demons

  “Coffee?” Major Tom asked Jeff once he and the rest of the crew had emerged from the non-electrified train car that they’d been forced to spend the night in. The major’s train had been slowed down by some fallen trees and a small herd of cattle that’d refused to move until automatic weapons had been fired over their heads. They’d toyed with the idea of killing one of them to have a steak dinner, but they didn’t have the time. It was a definite consideration for the way back though.

  “Oh god yes.” Jeff said quickly. He’d been up most of the night trying to get Yue to take a Valium so she could sleep. She was so torn up about Haywood’s death that she hadn’t wanted to take anything. She was worried that what’d happened to Haywood would happen to someone else she cared about if she wasn’t able monitor the crawlerz. The crawlerz who’d been beating away on the walls of the train car they were in. With no medicine Yue had been exposed to their raw hatred as they tried to get in the car. Whether she was trying to atone for what’d happened with Haywood or whatever she did eventually pass out.

  The second she’d fallen fitfully asleep Jeff had crushed up half a Valium and slowly worked the powder onto her lips. She needed to be somewhat immunized against the seriously demonic vibes she was having forcefully injected into her head. Otherwise she was going to go insane. Jeff didn’t see how she was taking as much of the abuse as she already let herself take. Anyone without her strength would’ve gone mad months ago.

  “How close were you?” Jeff asked.

  “We almost made it. We were only about a mile out. It got too dark for the engineer though and he shut it down. We knew you had this car to crash in for the night. Sorry you couldn’t make ice cubes or anything.” Tom joked.

  Tom waited for Jeff to pour himself a cup of coffee then expressed how sorry he was to hear about Haywood. Jeff nodded along. Everyone had liked and respected the chief. Losing him to such a random accident really sucked.

  “We’re going to miss the man. I think today especially we’re going to miss the warrior that he was. I was thinking he’d be the best one to lead today’s op.” Jeff said sipping on the piping hot mug of coffee he’d claimed. Yue was still sleeping. He’d decided not to wake her up until absolutely necessary. Drew and Harley had already left with some of Tom’s guys to go to the base and pirate away some of the vehicles parked over there. Once they got back, they could start taxiing everyone over to the base to prep the assault.

  For now there wasn’t much else to do besides carry their gear through the train station over to the parking lot and wait for the guys to get back with transport. In the meanwhile they talked briefly about tactics. It became pretty obvious there was an elephant in the room around how they should tackle what was otherwise a suicide mission.

  “How many of them do you think Yue could get to walk the other way?” Tom asked casually. He’d purposefully steered Jeff away from everyone else so they could talk in private. Jeff unconsciously rubbed his scarred hands together. He was wearing gloves daily now to hide the bandages and lotion he coated his hands and arms in every morning.

  “When we were trapped in that tunnel that I told you about she was able to shift about a hundred of them, but it took some major sacrifices.” Jeff answered finally.

  “What kind of sacrifices?” Tom asked curiously. He was expecting the answer to be around Yue’s mental state. He was willing to risk Yue’s mental state to save the lives of five dozen men. Not to mention however many others they may be able to rescue. The whole point of this exercise was to save whoever was trapped down below.

  “She has to put strong images in their heads to get them interested in going somewhere. To do that she has to be able to perfectly picture biting into someone and then share that with them. I don’t think any of us really understand it. I don’t know that Yue even really gets it. It‘s painful though and requires sacrifice.” Jeff said pointedly rubbing his hands together. He wasn’t going to agree to Yue doing something like that again without asking her first.

  Tom stared at Tom’s glove covered hands for a minute while he worked on putting two and two together. He must’ve finally figured it out as he grimaced and turned his eyes away from Jeff. He looked down the street to see if he saw any sign of their rides coming back. It just so happened that the convoy from Weathertop arrived right then. Jeff was glad for that since it meant they could get moving. As an added bonus it meant that the conversation that they were currently engaged in was over. I
t was over for now at least. Something told him that before the day ended, they’d be having the same conversation again. This time Yue would need to be involved as well.

  Thinking of Yue reminded Jeff that he’d left her and LeBron sleeping back in the train car. He’d left Lisa watching over the two of them on a just in case basis. Excusing himself he jogged back through the train station to grab them. He was on the platform when he sensed something was wrong. With an image of Haywood’s dead body flashing in his mind he didn’t question his gut. He dug his heels in and dropped to his knees while pulling his pistol. The clicking sound he heard was the infected kids teeth clicking together as he sailed over the top of him.

  One of the kids feet caught Jeff in the back of the head spinning him down on the ground. His gun got knocked out of his grasp. He ended up lying on his side on the platform. He turned over to look around and found himself face to face with the crawler who’d knocked him over. The emaciated face of a teenager was right next to him. The eyes looking far away as the sunlight played on the platform. The infected boy who should’ve been going to get his driver’s license in a few weeks was instead casually dispatched with a nine millimeter round. Jeff jumping up in disgust when sharp pieces of skull and warm blood splattered back into his own face.

  “Thank god. I thought we were too late.” Yue said behind him.

  Jeff turned around and saw Yue, LeBron and Lisa all standing over him. The whole scenario must have looked pretty crazy to them. Jeff ducking for no apparent reason only to blast way at the possessed teenager who’d ended up right beside him on the ground. Yue must’ve seen Jeff through the eyes of the infected teen and rushed out to warn him. In his hyper-adrenalized state Jeff came close to screaming at her. If she’d moved faster maybe he wouldn’t have had to trust this own instincts and duck like that.

  “Nice moves for an old dude. You went matrix on that crawler.” LeBron joked. He was talking about the way Jeff had dropped to his knees then cleaned out the teen’s ear canal with a blast of hot lead. He supposed it might have looked kind of matrix style if you didn’t know that he’d just been scared out of his mind.

  “Keanu can keep all that crap. It’s time to roll out if you guys want to grab your gear. We need to make sure no one forgot anything important.” Jeff said in response. His heart was pumping so hard that it was strange to hear his voice come out sounding so normal. It felt like he was outside himself hearing himself speak. That run in with the teen stalker must have messed him up more than he’d realized.

  By the time they collected everything and made it back to the parking lot there was just a single lone vehicle waiting for them. Drew grinned and ran around the truck to open the door for Lisa. His grin faded as he saw the expression on the faces of the group trudging towards him. He started to ask what happened then saw Lisa shaking her head at him. Putting a cork back in his curiosity he helped them load up. The second they were good to go he started the drive back to the base for the second time that morning.

  “We going to just run in with guns blazing?” Lisa asked snarkily. She couldn’t decide if everyone else was suicidal or if they were just a bunch of idiots. There was no need for them to do what they were about to do. No one would’ve even looked at them twice if they’d just driven back to Cape May.

  “They all think I can do something again.” Yue said quietly.

  “Can you?” Jeff asked. He was looking at her hopefully. He didn’t really see a lot of other ways to pull this off. The more he thought about it the more he wondered if they should just turn around and figure out somewhere else to go. He could stand to live on a Caribbean beach with Yue for the rest of his life. That sounded a hell of a lot better than what they were doing now. Even if what they were doing now somehow managed to actually work that beach idea still sounded like it’d trump it.

  “I don’t know. In the train I had no choice. We had to get out. It’s not hard for me to do it. I can slip right into their minds. The hard part is slipping out. If it’s the only way to rescue those people though we should try.” Yue answered. She sounded tired and scared. Not at all like the normally energetic fearless Yue they were used to. The timidity in her voice scared them all.

  “I take it you’d need us to help again.” Drew said. It was his turn to sound timid and tired. The idea of letting her munch on his arms again wasn’t an exciting one. He was still itchy and hurting from the last time.

  “We could find some different people maybe?” Lisa asked. She really hoped they didn’t expect her to step up. She didn’t even like getting shots.

  “I don’t really like the idea of biting into strangers. On top of being gross it sounds like a whole lot of biohazard to me. I don’t want to end up with syphilis or aids or whatever you get from eating strangers.” Yue said smiling once more.

  “Did I mention ever since sitting on that toilet seat in the train yard yesterday that I’ve felt pretty syphilitic?” Drew joked. He was over it already. If it came down to it, he’d melt some butter on his arm and let Yue go to town again. This time he absolutely wasn’t watching though. That mad look on her face had been what freaked him out last time. The hunger in her eyes was what was going to haunt his nightmares long after the bites had turned into scar tissue.

  The conversation and jokes continued until they pulled in next to the other trucks at the base. Yue had been joking along with the rest of them right up until Jeff parked the truck and opened his door to get out. Her face got noticeably paler. If anyone had looked closely, they’d have seen her hands trembling slightly. She suddenly found herself choking down a whole lot of saliva. She tried not to think too much about why she was drooling at the prospect of what may be about to happen.

  They followed Jeff to over where Major Tom was poised behind the other pickup truck. He had the tailgate down with a big erasable whiteboard sitting on it. Other men were unloading the gear they’d brought and sorting the munitions into different piles. You only mistake a flash bang for a fragmentation grenade one time before you start getting really anal about organizing your explosives. Jeff walked over and looked down at the white board.

  “We still cranking the doors open as wide as they’ll go and cranking in a bunch of flashbangs and frags to get this party started?” Jeff asked.

  “Yeah. I’ve got another idea too. I’m pretty sure I saw it in like a Dracula movie or something.” Tom said. He sounded slightly embarrassed to be bringing it up. Everyone else was intrigued. Especially when Tom pointed to the large rectangular shaped packages that’d been covered with moving blankets taped all over them to protect them.

  “We’re going to ask them for help moving and then they’ll suddenly have other plans?” Drew joked before he could stop himself. Not even a courtesy laugh. Tough crowd.

  Ignoring Drew Tom called out for the men to start stripping the blankets off of the objects. Wondering what kind of gamma ray laser beams Tom had brought to the fight they all watched as the blankets were removed. A large antique mirror stood leaning against the concrete wall once the soldiers had it unwrapped. They were already starting in on the next one. There were about fifteen in all.

  “Reflecting the light around like in the Mummy movie?” LeBron asked.

  “I think I was thinking of Indiana Jones but yes.” Major Tom answered.

  “Huh. We can give it a whirl. Be pretty sweet if it actually works.” Lisa said glancing over at Yue. Yue being the acknowledged expert on how the crawlerz would react to something.

  Yue was already looking into the space revealed behind the fully open doors. The doors opened up into a large warehouse used to store goods. You could easily drive two big rigs fully loaded through the doors side by side. Inside the cavernous space was lit by the red night lighting the military liked to use. Considering the base still had power they could presumably find the light switches in each of these rooms and make life a lot easier.

  Regular fluorescent lights wouldn’t deter the crawlerz from attacking them. It might disorient them som
e though. They were going to need any edge they could get. Yue could see them approaching the gates through the eyes of hundreds of crawlerz. They were scattered around in the giant warehouse. Some had been resting while others paced endlessly in the darkness. Now that the images were circulating around, they were all up and on the move. They wouldn’t linger in the background too long with prey approaching.

  “They’re waiting for us.” Yue said. She didn’t really need to say it. Every person standing in the concrete corridor leading into the warehouse could feel the hatred radiating out of the door. You didn’t need Yue’s hypersensitivity to know that they were only about twenty yards from dozens of monsters that wanted to rend them to bloody little pieces.

  Major Tom ordered his men to use the mirrors to try and shine light inside the space. They fussed and fumbled with the mirrors until they had some beams of light reflected inside. Crawlerz scattered away from the bright light beaming though the dusty red glow they were used to. Yue let her mind travel out to feel what they felt. The visions of the light coming through the door bubbled to the top of the hundreds of things she was seeing at once. The light was an annoyance. It caught her attention but then she moved on. The pull of the uninfected soldiers standing outside was a million times greater than a reflected beam of light.