by Stark, Ken
This was Plan C, conceived as a last-ditch play and spotty as all hell. But truth be told, Plan B wasn't much better. The original idea was that they'd get to Gloria from here the same way they'd gotten here from building six – namely, a slow-motion crawl through the swarm. It was iffy enough on the face of it, but after Plan A went up in flames, it took Plan B right along with it.
It was Sarah who'd insisted they have a Plan C, just in case.
For all intents and purposes, that ridiculous crossing between the loading bays should have been do or die. If Plan A failed, they should all have been torn to bits, then there would have been no point in even imagining how they'd get from building five to the truck. But Sarah was too cautious and too smart to leave it at that. And so, Plan C. It was their Hail Mary play, and this time, it really was do or die. If Mason fucked up now, the Peterbilt would remain parked in that spot forever, and Skyline would sport thirteen new corpses.
He tried to see what was directly below, but dangling at the end of a bat-rope from the side of a building didn't allow a great view. Still, he tossed his head from side to side to get an idea of the immediate area. When he saw a general surge toward the explosions coming from the Quad, he let go of the rope and dropped into the unknown.
Immediately, he was beset on all sides. He had his rebar out in a flash and clubbed two alphas into mush with a single swing. But he couldn't move. Whatever spurious route he'd mapped out in his head had dissolved away with the detonation of the Pepsi bomb and subsequent hail of gunfire. All he could see now was a solid wall of teeth and claws closing in from all sides.
Then came Sarah's next miracle. A metallic ding-ding-ding began to chime from the wristwatch at the end of the string, and just enough alphas were drawn to it that a hole opened up in front. Without a moment's hesitation, Mason widened the hole with a few prodigious swings of the rebar. Then, he picked out the path of least resistance through the swarm and did what he did best.
Every swing of the rebar was like a buzz saw through jelly. With no time for subtlety, Mason targeted every skull in his path, turning one after another into hamburger. Blood spewed, bone fragments flew, and on more than a few occasions, a lucky strike detached the skull entirely and sent it sailing away, pinwheeling a trail of gore over the swarm.
He stepped on fallen bodies to gain a few extra inches in height. He directed his blows so that each fresh corpse fell into the paths of others. All the while, he thought of only one thing...
Get to the damn truck!
He heard Hansen's voice in his head. It's only twenty feet out and ten feet down!
But two minutes had already passed and Gloria was still half that distance away. And so he fought on for all he was worth. Then, the watch stopped chiming, and he fought even harder.
He heard glass shattering from above and Sarah shouting from the far end of the second floor. As a portion of the swarm took off after her voice, something massive crashed to the ground only a few feet away from Mason. It was one of the library's bookshelves. It must have weighed eighty pounds, but Hansen had somehow man-handled the thing through the window and flung it right where it needed to be. One alpha was knocked unconscious and two more wound up pinned beneath it, and as the crush of bodies was temporarily stymied by this new barrier, Mason took advantage of those precious extra few seconds.
There was no time to distinguish between the creatures, and no time to plot a course. He merely bashed away at any body part that presented itself and did his best to catch another on the backswing. The entire seven-foot length of rebar ran slick with blood and gore, making his hands slip several times. But he never let go. He simply tightened his grip and had at the next. And the next. And the next.
At last, Gloria loomed up, big and beautiful, a few feet away. He threw himself into two big alphas between him and it, nestled his back against those ten gorgeous tons of Detroit metal, and swung madly away.
With the gunfire from the Quad, Sarah hurling down abuse, Hansen hurling down things of a more substantial nature, and Mason fighting like a man possessed, a gap finally opened up and he was able to sidestep to just below the passenger door. But now, there was another problem.
As soon as he turned his back on the swarm, they'd be on him.
He redoubled his efforts and managed to beat back the swarm enough to allow a full half-second to grab the handle. But even as the door swung open, his felt claws at his back and another grabbing hold of his shirtsleeve. He gave a backwards donkey kick and heard a satisfying crack! as the hand fell away from his sleeve. In a moment of desperation, he spun around, drew his pistol, and fired pointblank into the swarm until the clip ran dry.
At last, he hurled himself through the open door even as a dozen claws raked at his ankles and feet.
He fell to the floor of the truck and kicked at one claw after another to hold the creatures at bay. But with every one he kicked away, more were there to take its place.
One particularly massive alpha began to haul itself up onto the step. Mason leapt onto the passenger seat and thrust his rebar straight through the creature's throat. As the body pulled free and dropped onto the swarm, he made a grab for the door handle. But the swarm surged again and there were suddenly a dozen hands and arms in the way. He reloaded his pistol and emptied it, reloaded and emptied it again. When his last clip ran dry, he took to swatting viciously at the claws with the butt of the gun, just to buy himself that second he needed to make a grab for the handle.
He was holding his own, but it was a deadly game of whack-a-mole that was bound to end badly. He couldn't get the door closed with hands and arms in the way, and no amount of injury made those unfeeling claws withdraw. But then, the rules changed again. All of a sudden, there was a sound like hailstones on a tin roof, and alphas began dropping to the ground, one after another after another.
Up above, Sarah and Hansen were doing what they had to do. With salvation so near and yet so far, they had turned to their guns to keep Mason alive. But they were ringing their own death knell in the process. The only thing keeping the swarm from overrunning the library was a thin sheet of glass, and strips of dowdy old-lady dress. All of that gunfire would whip the swarm into a frenzy. Every bullet those two fired was one more tick of the clock... and time was quickly running out.
He took a last desperate swing at two alphas who'd somehow escaped the fusillade., Then, he lunged for the door, and with claws grabbing at his very sleeve, he threw all of his weight into it, swinging it shut.
But no! It hadn't closed all the way! At the last second, a single alpha had reached through, and now a dainty little arm was trapped between door and frame. And with the door unable to close, a multitude of fingers immediately appeared around the edges of the gap and succeeded in widening it enough to let more claws and arms squeeze through. With no room to swing the rebar and his pistol empty, he once again reached for his knife, and once again he cursed himself for losing it.
Just as the door threatened to be wrenched from his hands, he had an epiphany. He groped blindly beneath the passenger seat, hoping that the thing was still there. And it was! His hand closed around a pair of rubber grips. His thumb popped open a snap, and from under the seat came another one of Sarah's Hail Marys.
It was a Desert Eagle .50 calibre pistol, courtesy of Magnum Research Inc., and a would-be survivalist who'd locked himself safely away in his 4x4 with tons of supplies and an infected child. Mason had found the pistol early on, but he'd only used it once. The recoil was so intense that his arm had ached for days afterward. He was all for getting rid of the thing, but Sarah wouldn't allow it. So, under the seat it went, waiting for the unlikely day when that unwieldy monster might just save their collective asses.
He pressed the muzzle directly against the dainty forearm and pulled the trigger. The report was like an explosion inside Gloria's cab, but it was worth the ringing in his ears to see the offending limb quite literally blown in half. As a dead claw flopped to the floor and the ragged stub of forearm s
lithered away, he pressed the gun against the next arm and fired. And again. And again. And again. As the last claw crumpled to the floor like a dead tarantula, he once again threw all of his weight into pulling the door closed, and at last... there was a muted click! as the latch snapped into place.
He was safe for the moment, but there wasn’t even time to catch his breath. He could still hear muted gunfire through the gongs ringing in his ears. He realized with a wave of dread that none of the swarm around the truck were being hit. That could only mean one thing.
He looked up through the windshield and saw Sarah and Hansen with their backs against the window. They were still shooting, but they had changed the direction of their fire. Now, they were shooting into the room.
Shit!
He jumped across to the driver's seat and toggled the key. There was a single hesitation as Gloria coughed out two days' worth of neglect, but the engine finally caught and Mason jammed it into gear. He swung the wheel wide and watched a dozen creatures careen off both sides of the cowcatcher. Then, he slammed it into reverse and ran a dozen more into the ground. With one last spin of the wheel and a heavy foot on the accelerator, he manoeuvred the big truck directly below the broken window, rolled down the window, and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Sarah! Jump!”
Sarah motioned for Hansen to go first, but she quickly lost the argument. Hansen gave her one good, hard shove, and she flew through the window, landing on Gloria's roof with a thud! Mason dug a spare .50 caliber clip from under the seat to the accompaniment of a mad scrambling from above.
Sarah called out, “C'mon, Gary! Jump!”
He looked up to see Hansen's big back framed in the window. The man took four more shots, and with his gun now empty and the swarm inches away, he leaped through the window and hit the roof hard. A pair of legs briefly appeared over the windshield as he lost his footing, but they quickly scrambled up and out of view.
Sarah pounded on the roof. “Go, Mace!”
Any other time, he would have floored the accelerator, but not with two passengers perched so precariously above. So, he feathered the pedal to pick up speed slowly, and his caution very nearly spelled their undoing.
The first alpha thudded down to the long, wide hood of the Peterbilt like a sack of potatoes. And then came another. And another. Realizing at last what was happening, he hollered, “Hang on!” and pegged the gas pedal to the floor.
In the mirror, a steady stream of alphas continued plummeting to the ground as they blindly followed the sounds of their prey. But they were no longer a concern. Three alphas were stubbornly clinging to Gloria's hood, and even now, one of them was scrambling up the windshield to the roof. Mason screeched the truck to a stop and climbed halfway through the window, Desert Eagle at the ready. But there was no need to fire.
Up top, Hansen was on his back with the wind knocked out of him, but Sarah was on her feet, having ridden the truck like a champion surfer. And with her gun blazing three perfectly-aimed shots in the span of a second, one creature went tumbling over the side, another somersaulted backward over the cowcatcher, and the third slid lifelessly down the windshield, trailing a hideous streak of gore.
Mason tucked the pistol in his waistband and threw a grin up to Sarah.
“Are you enjoying the view from up there, or would Madame rather come in?” he quipped, earning him a beleaguered groan from Hansen and a big smile from Sarah.
It was no easy feat getting Hansen through the window. In Mason's mind, helping the man in feet-first as the rest of him flopped around on the roof was rather like watching a whale giving birth in reverse. Finally though, the man crumpled to the seat and dropped to the floor, and Sarah followed him in as gracefully as a swan.
“Hi, sailor. Going my way?” She beamed a grin at Mason, but there was no mirth in it. She took her place in the passenger seat and patted Gloria's big, flat dashboard. “Long time no see, sweetheart. I've missed you terribly.”
And with that, they were off.
Mason spun the wheel, tossing the dead alpha off the side and crushing several more to pulp. He carved a wide, circular path through the swarm to come around at the Quad with as much speed as possible. Bodies flew left and right or were crushed beneath the Peterbilt's wheels, but Mason only increased speed. He ploughed through the swarm like a sickle through wheat. Then, he rounded the corner into the Quad, and his heart skipped a beat.
Christ! There are hundreds. No, thousands!
The entire Quad was a rolling sea of alphas, shoulder to shoulder, and without a breath of space between.
As many as fifty might have been blown to bits by Addison's Pepsi-bomb, but the void was quickly being filled in. The gore of all of those deaths trampled into an unrecognizable goo under a hundred feet.
Atop building six, Christopher, Addison, and Alejandra were raining down Hellfire. But at the first sight of Gloria, the three of them ceased fire and scampered back across the roof, and everyone's salvation suddenly rested in Mason's hands alone. With Hansen on his knees between the seats and Sarah trying to hang on for dear life even as she rummaged through the supplies in the sleeper cab, Mason dropped his foot to the floor and charged headlong into the swarm. The cowcatcher did a good job of keeping bodies from piling up under the wheels, but it wasn't long before Gloria started skidding from side to side like a drunkard on ice. Mason feathered the gas when need be, opened the throttle wide when he could, and above all else, he didn't allow the truck to lose one iota of momentum, lest the crush of bodies close in and pin it in place.
He did everything he could to keep the truck moving as the roar of that big, throaty diesel engine whipped the swarm into an absolute frenzy. He swerved, he spun, he circled around and doubled back. But no matter how many bodies came apart on the cowcatcher, or were crushed under Gloria's wheels, the creatures never stopped coming. They roared, they clawed, they howled, and they charged at the truck from every direction at once.
So around and around he drove, not once taking his foot from the accelerator.
Sarah came out of the sleeper cab and threw a handful of fresh clips to Hansen. As she climbed over him into her seat, Mason couldn't help but notice that she'd collected something else from their stores besides ammunition. The homemade holster strapped to her thigh was relatively new, but the thing inside of it was an old friend. She'd found that sawed-off shotgun on the very first day, and it had saved her bacon more than once. She dumped a box of shells into her lap, stuffed her pockets full, and threw Mason a nod.
The crazy circling of the truck had the swarm charging every which way in utter confusion. But enough of a space finally opened up that with one last spin of the wheel, Mason bulldozed his way between buildings five and six, and shuddered to a stop directly beneath the open window.
He keyed off the ignition to silence the roar, crawled back through his driver's window, and all but leaped onto Gloria's roof.
The bottom ledge of the window was chest-high – easy enough for an active man to haul himself up. But Mason was no ordinary man, and he was presently fueled by fear, rage, and one hundred-proof adrenalin. He planted one hand on the sill and vaulted cleanly through, while Sarah and Hansen clambered up to the roof after him.
Plan C had taken a heavy toll. With the detonation of the Pepsi bomb and the subsequent hail of gunfire, the swarm had torn through the doors of building six and flooded the lower floors. All that held them back now was a jumble of tables and chairs and couches blocking the main stairwell. But it wouldn't hold them back for long. Even now, one end of the barricade was failing, and it was only the concentrated effort of nine desperate souls pushing back against it that kept the swarm from pouring through.
Only Mack and Clancy were hanging back. Wisely, the girl knew she'd be of little help at the barricade. She was doing the right thing. She had her .22 at the ready for the inevitable moment when the walls fell. She caught Mason's eye as he appeared, but where any other child of ten might have rushed to greet him, she merely nodded, smil
ed, and sighted down the barrel of her gun.
Sk8rBoy William saw him as well. He shouted, “We can't hold them!” Far from the tough-ass kid he'd pretended to be before, Mason saw him now as what he really had been all along – a teenager scared half to death.
Mason charged at what he perceived as the weakest point in the barricade, and threw himself into it beside Becks, using every ounce of muscle to wrangle it back one more inch.
“All you kids, go!” he grunted through the strain. “Becks, get these children clear!”
Becks was barely more than an arm's reach away, but she had to holler just to be heard above the roar. “I can't! Ally, take the kids!”
The Latina spitfire may have been tiny, but she wasn't exaggerating when she grunted back, “A poco? I don't think so, chica. I think you need me right where I am!”
“Addison!” Mason tried again, but all he got back was, “Uh, yeah... kinda busy here, Mace...”
Sarah was only then clambering through the window, and even though she couldn't have heard the conversation, she jumped right into action.
“Teddy! Diego!” she howled, waving her arms over her head to get their attention. “William! Richie! C'mon! Move!”
None of them budged from the barricade, so she tried again, rather more emphatically this time.
“Teddy! Diego! Get your asses over here, now!”
In Mason's mind, an ordinary mother would have called to her own daughter first. Hell, an ordinary mother would have grabbed her daughter by the scruff of the neck if need be and hauled her bodily from the place. But Sarah was no ordinary mother, and Mack was no ordinary girl. No, Mack was right where she needed to be, and so was Clancy. If and when the walls fell, that skinny little .22 and that massive hound might once again be the only things standing between them and death.
Diego and Teddy looked to Mace, and he flicked his head. All at once, they peeled themselves away from the barricade and ran to Sarah. As she lowered them through the window down to a waiting Hansen, she called out again.
