by Maxey, Phil
He frowned, letting the plastic figurine drop back to the bed.
Two floors above, Landon pushed open the rusting metal door to the exact same scene as hours earlier. The janitor hadn’t moved, but his flannel shirt was soaked through, his hair slick with rain.
“John?”
Landon stepped out into the bitter night air. A light patter of sleet hit the concrete and plastic plant coverings. “John?” Hannah went to walk forward, but he flicked his hand out once more, stopping her in her tracks. Her expression of anger quickly dissolved on seeing he was removing his gun from its holster again. He leaned towards her. “Get back in the stairwell.”
“Why?” Her eyes jumped between the shadows.
“Trust me.”
She moved back into the narrow space while he walked forward. His gun ahead of him, he circled around to the near left wall, stepping over and around the various pots, but keeping watch on the janitor’s face which was clothed in shadow as the light was from behind. “John…” He stepped closer, switching on his flashlight.
The old man lacked a face, or rather it had become like the fruit in the store, brown slippage, no features. Rotting.
“Is he okay?” shouted Hannah through the sound of the downpour.
His hands remained though. Blue fingers containing black nails that gripped the top of the north wall, holding his aged frame upright. Which made no sense. The body should have been on the floor. Landon had seen death, but not this kind. There was nothing natural about what had become of John.
Landon started to turn away, when a noise came from the janitor. His gun flicked back up, pointing directly at the brown stained flattened skull that was turning towards him. Hannah screamed, the clack of her shoes being heard on the stairs as Landon stepped back.
“J… John…” But he knew what was facing him wasn’t Mr. Harris, the grumpy but always good at his job, janitor he had known and liked since they moved in. What was now awkwardly taking a step towards him was something else. “Stay back, or I’ll—” The thing charged with the speed of an animal, its upper arms extending, so it could gallop. Landon staggered back, firing off a round, then tripped, falling backwards, hitting the top of the west wall as the creature lunged, both of them toppling over the edge.
Landon’s gun and flashlight fell as his fingers scrapped across brick then just when he thought he was going to continue to the ground, gaining purchase on the same cable he had fallen over. He looked down as the deformed janitor continued silently down, landing with a clump on the shadow covered concrete below.
“Reach up!” shouted Jess from above. Landon looked up into his wife’s face and her outstretched hand, which he grabbed and with a heave from her and another he couldn’t see, slid up, where he flung his arm, then leg over the wall, sliding down the other side.
Jacob stood by Jess’s side.
“Are you okay?” said the older man, while Jess kneeled, trying to see if her husband was hurt.
“I’m fine,” said Landon, standing back up, catching his breath. He looked over the edge to the street below, but the sidewalk was too dark to see anything. He looked back to the man he hardly knew. “Thank you.” He then looked to Jess. “We’re leaving now. Did you see Hannah?”
“I just caught her run into her apartment and slam the door closed.”
Landon nodded, walking to the stairwell, pulling his wife with him. “We’re taking her with us.” He looked back to the man. “We got space for you too.”
“I… okay.”
CHAPTER FIVE
10: 13 p.m.
Landon banged on his neighbor’s door. “Hannah, we’re about to leave. You should come with us!”
“I’m not going out there!”
Landon shook his head.
Jess looked at her husband. “Get the kids and the supplies in the car, I’ll get her.” Landon nodded, then moved off into the stairwell with Sam and Josh, all carrying as much as they could.
“Hannah. There’s something going on. I don’t know what. Maybe a virus, something to do with the crashed probe. But you’re not safe here. And you don’t know what’s happened to Karl.”
“He might come back! I want to be here when he does. And you don’t know what’s going on as well!”
“We can write a quick note. With the Rocky Pine address. He’ll know where to go.” There was silence on the other side. “We’re safer together.”
The sound of bolts and latches being removed came from the door, which then swung open. Hannah had a pen and notepad in her hand. “Write your address on this. I’ll quickly throw some things in a bag.”
Jess took the pen. “Be quick.”
Downstairs, Landon held the kids back while he stepped out of the stairwell and looked around the underground garage. The clatter of five-inch heels from a well-dressed woman echoed round the single floor, while behind her, a man struggled with too many suitcases, both moving towards their rear-engine sports car, which was sat alongside Jess’s sedan. It was the couple from the ground floor, people he had never met before. Landon waved to the woman but she ignored him and climbed in the car.
Just audible outside in the street was the din of a crowd, shouting amongst screams with screeching of breaks and engines revving.
“Wait here, I’ll bring the truck closer,” said Landon, then ran towards the shadows that covered the far left wall. Sam switched from watching her father to the man opposite, trying to squeeze the over-packed green set of luggage into the small trunk of his car. While he pushed and leaned on the leather bound case, Josh’s eyes were on the back of the woman’s head in the passenger’s seat. She seemed impossibly still, looking at the wall in front, as if it contained something of great interest. The man looked up from his efforts, then turned around, he too now staring…
Tires screeched and Landon’s truck pulled up, blocking Josh’s view.
“Help me get everything in the bed,” said his father, stepping out.
Josh walked slightly to the right, then peered around the hood. “Where’d they go?”
Landon picked up a heavy case, dropping it on the bed. “Where did who go?” He looked around at the empty sports car. “You mean those people?” He walked forward, grabbing another, Sam doing the same. “Probably went upstairs to get more stuff. Help your sister and stay close.” He swept his eyes across the shadows in the corners and behind the concrete pillars, but nothing jumped out as a threat.
The door to the stairwell swung open with an out of breath Jacob, Jess and Hannah behind, but before Landon could move forward to take the younger woman’s suitcase from her, the air filled with the sound of a vehicle driving into the garage. He spun around to see another truck, newer and one he recognized. It skidded to a stop alongside his own.
A stout, late middle-aged man, with a crew cut, pushed open his door and got out. “I’ve been trying to reach you!” said Ben.
“Cell network’s down!” said Landon. He flicked his head to the others. “Get in!” Then back to his former partner. “Why you here?”
“The whole city’s gone to shit. It’s madness up there. I came here to convince you to leave, but looks as usual you’re one step ahead!” He reached back into his truck and grabbed a two-way radio. “Here, take this,” then tossed it to Landon, who placed it on his seat. “Ray and the guys have already left.”
“We’re heading to our place in Rocky Pine. You’re welcome to come with…” he noticed Ben was looking past him, to the stairwell door. He turned as he heard the creaking of hinges.
“Get down!”
Instinctively, he dropped and pulled his gun at the same time. Cracks of something heavy and semi-automatic pounded sinew and an arm covered in scales, emerging from behind the stairwell door. The thing fell back inside, while Landon’s heart beat in his ears, both of his hands clasping his service weapon.
In the passenger’s seat, Jess’s mind was lost in a haze of questions as to what she had just seen. Human? Maybe… Animal? But it looked like a hu
man arm… did Ben just kill a person? Why—
The door slowly swung open again, but the interior was a complete wall of black. Whatever lights existed inside the small space had been spent or destroyed.
Jess blinked herself back to the world around her. “Landon, let’s go!”
The rear pickup’s door opened behind her. “Karl?” said Hannah, getting out.
“Mom…” The near panic was obvious in Sam’s voice.
“Get back in!” shouted Jess to her neighbor, but Hannah was already stepping cautiously towards the open doorway and the void beyond.
Landon stood, his gun trained on the opening, then stepped towards his neighbor. “Hannah, that’s not him. We need to leave.”
She turned angrily. “But it could be him!”
“Hannah! Get back in!” shouted Jess again.
“I got you covered,” said Ben to his former partner, his AR-15 resting on the hood of his pickup.
Hannah looked back to the darkness. “Karl? Are you hurt? Karl, I—”
Landon lunged forward, in an effort to pull the young woman back, but inches from his extended fingers, something long, covered in moist skin and rows of hooked claws stretched out from the darkness, wrapping around her neck, cutting her scream short, and pulled her back into the stairwell with such force that they all heard the snapping of bones as a hail of bullets descended upon it.
Sam and Josh were screaming. Jess awoke from the shock before anyone else, jumping out and pulling her husband backwards as he was still firing. Without words he jumped in the driver’s seat and hit the gas, turning in a tight circle, following Ben out and up the slope, but both vehicles immediately had to stop before hitting a wall of people and cars.
As bodies pushed up against all sides of the pickup, cries and screams of anguish came from the two youngsters in the back.
Jess turned to them. “It’s okay, we’re out. We’re away from the thing!”
Thumps and scrapes filled the air while the vehicle rocked on its wheels. Landon hit the horn, but between fight or flight, these people had chosen to flee, and the road had become just another path to escape on.
“Maybe we should go back?” said Jacob, breathlessly.
“Back?” shouted Sam.
“We’re not going back!” said Landon, trying to see his partner’s tailgate lights through the sea of bodies, one of which slammed into the hood while trying to get past, then spun around with a surprised look on their face.
“Daryl?” said Landon and Jess at the same time.
The twenty something guy, wearing a backpack pushed his way to the passenger’s side, and the open window. “Where are you—”
Before he could finish, the clatter of gunfire made everyone but Landon crouch or duck. From how the sound bounced off the nearby buildings, he knew whoever fired, had done it a block away. But it gave him an idea. He looked across to Daryl outside. “Get in!” he shouted to the building’s doorman then slid his window down, pulled his gun out, and stretched his arm out the gap and fired into the air. While the young man was jumping in alongside Jacob and the kids, those in front of the truck spun around recognizing the sound, but not knowing where it had come from and started to run. A chaotic scattering of people filled the road, but it gave him and Ben enough of an opening to drive forward and pick up speed.
People ran along the sidewalk with carts full of newly looted items. A man ran into another, spilling boxes of cell phones to the ground, while others ran with arms full of clothes.
As Landon followed Ben, taking a sharp right to head north, Jess turned in her seat, reaching back to clasp her children’s hands. “We’re going to get out of this!”
Landon held the radio to his mouth. “What’s the plan, Ben? Over.”
There was a moment of white noise. “Stick to the smaller roads, that way we might avoid the army. Over.”
As they headed down a narrow stretch between multi-storey buildings, everyone looked at the man with one hand on the wheel and another on the radio. “Army? Over,” said Landon.
“City’s being locked down. No one in or out. But I think I can—”
Ben’s truck stopped abruptly, making Landon do the same, as a blue sedan flew across the intersection they were crossing, almost t-boning them. They pushed off again, as the buildings around them became fewer in floors.
Ben continued. “As I was saying. The army hasn’t the manpower to block all the exits yet. I know a way out. Over.”
The small convoy now moving at speed, swayed around vehicles abandoned in the middle of the two-lane road.
“Agh! There’s no internet,” said Sam from the rear seat, trying to get any information from her phone.
“It’s not working, dummy!” said Josh.
“Where’s the department in all of this? Over.”
“I talked to Ray and the guys, been all federal from the moment that thing crashed…” Ben’s truck slowed and all those in Landon’s could see why. About a mile off, a row of lights were laid out across the road, sparkling amongst the darkness. “Must be the military. They got here quicker than I thought they would. No worry, just follow me. Over.”
They drove forward then took the next right, plunging into a wall of darkness of an alleyway, which divided a six-story parking garage, looming above them. Their engines echoed off the walls of the confined space, the concrete just inches from both sides of the trucks, when Ben’s vehicle suddenly stopped, causing Landon to slam on the brakes.
“Why’s he stopped?” said Jacob.
“Something’s blocking the end of the alley,” said Ben from the radio. “Can’t see what it is…”
Those behind saw Ben push his door open a bit, place his rifle in the gap, then look down the night vision scope. He scrambled back inside, awkwardly pulling the rifle in then closing the door.
“What’s—”
“Back up! Back up!” shouted Ben from the radio’s speaker, interrupting Jess.
Landon pushed the stick into reverse, turned around in his seat and hit the gas.
As the pickup bumped and swayed, Jess caught glimpses of something in the glare of Ben’s truck’s headlights, something was running… no, not running, sprinting, a person… but with arms that were stalks, flailing outwards, like an octopus, and a head that was…
Both vehicles burst out into the street they had just been in, but now it was a mass of people, running in all directions amongst the shade and light from the street lamps. Some climbing desperately up walls, smashing windows or doors to gain access. Ben’s truck jolted forward then stopped as people ran in front of it. Jess watched as a woman was swallowed by something which lived in the shadow of a doorway, then another person, a young dark-haired man appeared then was gone, his face not even having the time to show terror, as a blur flashed past her window, swiping him from her view. The children were screaming again, but she was oddly detached, her left side brain accumulating facts, analyzing the slaughter around her.
Red neon streams, accompanied with whooshing sounds and pings, split the air around the pickup. A spray of blood hit their windshield.
“Drive!” shouted Landon into his radio, as a bullet pinged off his door. Ben’s truck surged forward, clipping someone in the dark, who spiraled away, then another. Landon turned the steering wheel, left then right, trying to avoid those running from the creatures and the soldiers firing, alike, but the wheels bumped over the fallen. Ben’s truck suddenly swung right, and for a heart stopping moment Landon thought his friend had been hit by a stray bullet, but the truck bumped up a curb, and kept going across a parking lot he hadn’t seen. He followed as Ben steered back to the left, scraping the side of a parked van, off the curb and back into a side street leaving the battle behind.
As apartments slid by, everyone sat in silence in Landon’s pickup, although Josh could be heard sniffing. Sam went to place an arm around him, but he pushed her hand away.
The vehicle began to shudder, but before anyone could react a deafening roar w
as followed by lights zipping across the sky directly above them.
“Fighter jet’s,” said Jacob.
“I’ve got something!” said Sam, looking at the tiny gray bar appearing at the top of her phone’s screen. She immediately tapped on her news app, which appeared awash with images of flames and explosions.”
Landon held the radio to his mouth again. “How far until we’re outside the cordon? Over.”
“If we don’t hit anymore checkpoints or… things, maybe another ten miles. If we can make it past Broomfield, we should be okay. Just keep heading north. Over.”
CHAPTER SIX
11: 35 p.m.
As a drum of rain hit the roof of Landon’s truck, Ben’s tailgate lights were just visible through the swirl of water being pushed across the windshield by the wipers. Landon looked in his rear mirror. A wall of headlights twinkled in the darkness behind them. His truck was stationary on an incline, behind a jam of traffic which had accumulated to the approach of an intersection roughly seven miles northwest from downtown Denver. Horns, beeps and the patter of droplets on the roof and windows, were almost drowned out by the cacophony of noise coming from Josh’s tablet, which those in the back were watching and those in the front were listening to.
“Turn it this way a bit more so I can see,” said Daryl. Josh did so.
A live feed from a helicopter circling the southwest of the city played out on the digital screen. Fires raged in some quarters, while people and other humanoid shapes ran amongst the shadows. As the camera angle slid to a new region, explosions could be seen as well as an almost continuous blanket of red streaks, flicking between sidewalks then buildings.
“Hey… I think that’s our apartment block,” said Sam.
