by Maxey, Phil
The highway which spanned the landscape east to west was a wall of light, so much so that it seemed impossible they could not be seen in the largely flat fall landscape, but they had kept to the slight indentation in the ground, close to where the creek flowed, using it as their guide.
“How much further…” said Sam.
“Not far,” said Jess. The diagram she had seen on the tablet was fixed to the inside of her mind. She looked back the way they had come. The silhouettes of rows of two-story homes were just visible against the lighter sky. How far were the creatures now? Or the spores? Surely the wind was—
No time for these questions.
She squinted against the shrill wind.
“What you see?” said Landon, as they others kept going.
“I… I thought there were more lights on those homes some miles off.”
Landon looked for any signs of movement behind them, but couldn’t see any. His legs were beginning to feel his son’s weight on his back. “Come on, lets keep going, we’re almost there.”
She turned, tripping over a fallen branch, before catching her footing again. She went to start off again, when she heard them. Not monsters, but people and vehicles to the west. She had already seen the map on Ben’s phone and knew of the connecting road which headed north to the highway. Once a route north to Boulder, it was now a sea of people that had long given up on their sedans, trucks and bikes, and were crammed into a half-mile wide column that were making their way towards an equally determined wall of soldiers and makeshift barriers.
The clatter of gunfire rang out, making each of those traipsing through the mud crouch, before continuing on.
Josh raised his head from his father’s shoulder. “What?” he said.
“It’s okay buddy, go back to sleep. We’ll be safe, soon.”
About ten feet ahead, Ben looked over his shoulder to them. “Stay close and keep following the creek.” He turned and they continued on. The tanks and APC’s were now only a few hundred yards away, their camouflaged frames and turrets being trained inwards, against whatever may come from the city. Human or otherwise.
Jess stopped again. It was like an itch at the back of her mind, or the feeling she always got before a thunderstorm. She looked at the packed road to the east.
Gunfire drifted on the howling wind once more, this time more sustained. The others stopped as well, looking where she was, to the southeast and to the back of the thousands trying to escape north. There was movement back there, bodies were being dispersed, people were running, some spilling onto the muddy grassland. Another rash of shots rang out with screams attached.
Without a word being exchanged, they all started to run best they could through the long grass that clawed at their boots and pants, but then froze as a searchlight from the highway started to sweep across the ground towards them.
A shape of a small bridge ahead offered protection, and they all pushed their muscles till they burned, scampering over the uneven ground, then threw themselves into the bushes under the bridge as the cone from the powerful light slid overhead.
As most fell back against the concrete underside of the bridge, catching their breaths, Landon let Josh down to the ground, and flicked his head back to the chaos just half a mile away. A swarm of people… or something, he couldn’t tell in the gloom, were rushing their way, the wind bringing with it screams and screeches. He swung back to Ben. “Tell Ray to do it now!” As the older man spoke into his radio, Landon moved back past Jacob and Daryl, to his children and Jess who had her arms around both of them. He placed his hand on Josh’s shivering shoulder. “We’re almost there!” He pointed towards the lights, trying to distract him from what was rushing towards them from the darkness. He hoped whatever it was would have just as much of a hard time covering the ground as they did.
“It’s happening n—” Before Ben could finish, a flash of orange light came with a boom, about a mile to the northeast, behind the cordon. The searchlight swung in that direction, as did more than one turret. Ben climbed unsteadily to his feet. “We gotta—” Even in the dark, everyone could see the white of his eyes, and swung their gaze in the same direction. He raised his rifle and started shooting. “Go!” he shouted to the others.
Landon went to sweep up his son, but Josh got up quicker than he did and was already running with Sam and Jess. He ran to Ben’s side, kneeling then firing at dark angular forms. A mass of shifting shadows that science had no classification for were tearing through the mud and grass towards them.
“Go! I got this!” shouted Ben, repeatedly firing.
Landon looked towards the others that were now almost at the tunnel under the highway. A tinge of relief flowed through him. He turned back to the wave of misshapen creatures, and fired off what remained in his Glock’s magazine, then grabbed the arm of the man next to him. “Come on, we can still—”
A bullet singed the side of his face, then another split the air between them, both men chucking themselves to the sodden ground, as the darkness became an explosion of neon streaks from the highway nearby. Landon threw his arm out again to Ben, dragging him through the dirt towards the tunnel, when a roar came from behind. He turned just in time to see the face that was part dog, part human, be torn apart, a projectile from the heavy guns up top making short work of what was about to bite into him. With Ben, he half staggered, half fell forward, ducking and swaying left and right, as the battle raged just above and behind them, until they collapsed into the shadows of the circular opening. Booms, cracks and clatters echoed around the walls. He fumbled for his new flashlight, not being sure of who was close, switching it on and fell back with relief on seeing his family. Their mud smeared smiles visible in the cone of light at the end of the tunnel. Grabbing hold of Ben, who could hardly stand, the two men walked forward.
Josh, Sam and Jess ran forward, embracing Landon, the latter reaching out to Ben, no conversation being possible due to the fury of noise above.
“This way!” shouted Jacob, pointing to a nearby path that ran along the creek, continuing north.
The others nodded and quickly walked onto it, each person feeling a pound lighter due to being on the other side of the cordon. They quickened their pace, not wanting to look back at the raging battle, but Landon did, looking up at the highway. A figure in a beige and gray hazmat suit was looking down at him, some fifteen feet away. For a heart stopping moment the soldier looked like he was going to raise his rifle in their direction, but instead he turned away, joining the fight with his squad.
As they progressed into the night, the cacophony of noise quietened enough for them to be able to hear each other, but most lacked words to describe how they felt. They just needed to keep moving forward. To escape the horde that almost claimed them.
“Not… far… now…” said Ben, between breaths.
They came to a small bridge, this time passing over rather than under it, and in the distance, some twenty or thirty yards ahead, were the headlights of vehicles. A voice came from Ben’s radio.
“That you Ben? Over.”
“M… Me… Yes. Over,” he stuttered.
From behind the glare ran a man and woman, both wearing baseball caps, while an older man stayed near the first truck. The woman went to Jacob’s aid, the man, Ben’s, and everyone crashed forward, almost not being able to stand as they got to the sidewalk, bordered by desolate suburban houses.
“Told… you, we’d make it,” said Landon bent over, before standing back upright. Josh threw his arms around him, making him smile. But the joy was brief, for he could now appreciate what was happening just a mile to the south.
“Holy hell…” said Daryl.
Flames and explosions covered the highway in both directions. Soldiers or perhaps something else could be seen staggering through fires, then toppling over the edge, being lost in the shadows below.
“For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Ray,” said the man near the truck, his dyed dark hair just visible in the gloom. “A
nd we gotta go.”
CHAPTER NINE
2: 12 a.m. Outskirts of Boulder.
Lights sparkled within the void outside, as droplets of rain slid down the windshield. Craggy peaks and troughs were just visible against the night sky some miles off. Those in the lead pickup, Ray’s own, listened to a broadcast on the radio.
“The president is currently in a meeting with the joint chiefs, and the head of Homeland and FEMA to discuss how to contain this outbreak, but in a brief statement put out by the Whitehouse, they said that as a nation it is not the time to mourn the loss of those in the city of Denver, but instead to prepare ourselves for the days and weeks ahead, to defeat this scourge from another planet. Here at KXFM, we have seen reports that despite the best efforts from the military on the outskirts of Denver, many of the infected still broke through the cordon, and could now be anywhere. Stay turned for more on this dramatic developing story after the ad from our sponsors.”
The man who was seated right of Ray, who was driving, leaned forward and reduced the volume. Behind him were the Keller family, with Jess doing her best to keep her two children warm.
There was a brief roar of an engine outside as a sports car overtook and sped off into the darkness ahead. Ray frowned.
“So you don’t know if you got electricity at this new place of yours?” said the man with a distinctive southern accent.
“It might be on,” said Jess. “If not, there are trees… lots of them.”
She caught Landon’s smile and squeezed his hand.
“Where you going to be heading after you drop us off?” said Landon. He didn’t miss the slight head turn from the Lt.
“Yeah,” said Ray. “About that.”
“You’re welcome to stay with us,” said Jess. She ignored her husband looking at her.
Ray patted the steering wheel, then turned slightly with a smile. “Well, I didn’t want to just invite myself, but, things as they are…”
“You saved us. It’s the least we can do.”
The passenger wearing the cap appeared to nod, while looking back out into the dark.
Jess didn’t care who these people were. Ray was Landon’s lieutenant, and from what little she knew of him, a good man. The kind of man those in the department would go to when they had a problem. The younger man to his right, she just knew as Owen, and was somehow related to Ray. The woman in the other pickup was Owen’s girlfriend.
The more people the better…
Without him saying it, she knew Landon felt differently, but they were going to be high up in the Rocky Mountains, miles from the nearest town, maybe without power, heat or tap water. If Ray and the others wanted to stay and help out, that was a win for the Keller family. ‘Never look a gift horse in the mouth’ was something her mother used to say, and she agreed.
A brightly lit gas station slid past, with two men arguing on the forecourt. Their discussion gone from view as soon as it appeared.
She wanted sleep, but her brain wasn’t about to let that happen. She was running science experiments in her head, trying to figure out what had caused them to run from their apartment in the middle of the night. Had the probe brought some form of microbial life back with it? Microbes can create spores as a reaction to an adverse environment, but are dormant, lacking the machinery to do anything like what they had witnessed. Whatever had crashed just outside her home city, terrified and fascinated her with equal measure.
A sudden flash of anger flowed through her.
Stop being a scientist! Thousands of people have just died, and we… Sam and…
She felt the tears well up and was glad for how dark it was in the back seats, but outside buildings with lights burning bright sat beyond the highway. Their headlights caught a sign for the University of Denver, and memories of getting drunk before exam night forced their way into her mind, making her briefly smile. She knew Boulder well. She leaned forward slightly. “If we take the next exit, a few blocks further on, there are a bunch of stores we can get supplies. We can buy everyone a meal to take with us on the road, if… you want?”
Josh mumbled something in his sleep, which sounded like ‘pizza.’
Owen looked to his left, nodding. “Good idea, kid. Pizza it is.”
Ray steered to their right, quickly arriving at a line of traffic that was slowly moving around two crumpled wrecks of sedans. Sam and Josh were both asleep but Jess moved her hands across both of their faces just in case. Luckily they were soon joining the eight-lane road once more as apartment blocks passed by on both sides, most a sea of activity at their bases, as people ran frantically to their vehicles, pulling suitcases with them.
“It’s just a block ahead on the left,” said Jess.
The bright lights from a retail estate were made even more so by the lines of traffic which were invading their parking lots. Hundreds of cars, pickups, vans were all trying to cram into the same spaces.
Owen sighed. “I was really looking forward to that pizza.”
“Lets just keep going,” said Landon. “We know some places in Rocky Pine.”
The further north they traveled the closer the hills became, until they were driving within them and bare walls of rock passed by on their left, while fields dotted with dark silhouettes of trees slid by on the other side.
“Kinda reminds me of Texas,” said Owen. “That’s—”
Landon’s eyes had been closed for most of the past hour, but as he opened them on hearing Owen’s words, he caught the look of shock on the younger man’s face in the rear mirror. Before he had a chance to turn around in his seat, the sound of an engine running free was quickly followed by the sound of metal smashing, rolling and crumpling.
Ray’s pickup skidded to a stop, everyone inside looking behind, trying to make out in the darkness where Ben’s pickup had ended up after leaving the road.
The adults pushed the doors open and Owen ran into the wall of black, his boots crunching gravel and dirt before he disappeared from view.
“Owen!” shouted Ray. “You need a flashlight!”
“I got one!” Landon turned his on. “Pull your truck off to the side, don’t want anyone crashing into us in the dark.” He looked back to Jess who was also outside. “Stay with the kids.” She nodded as he took off after Owen.
CHAPTER TEN
3: 38 a.m.
Landon’s arm was stretched out, trying to stop him from tumbling down the slope, which led… he had no idea where it led, but he could definitely hear running water. There was every chance he would step off a ledge and fall twenty-feet to his death, but finding what lay at the bottom of the ravine would be worse. Being the first responder to an MVA was always the part of the job he hated the most. Usually nothing could be done other than to just sit with those that were near death. And he always felt guilty for not having the right words to say. Nothing could train you for that moment.
He suddenly lost his footing and fell on his rear, sliding a good few feet, rocks and loose dirt moving with him until he collided with a trunk of an old warped tree and that’s when the glow from a single headlight came into view. It fluctuated, dimming and coming back to full strength, providing just enough light to see the dark shape of Ben’s overturned pickup, sitting in the middle of a creek, with the rushing waters separating around it. He grabbed hold of the old bark and started to step down between boulders, when a hand reached out from the shadows and dragged him to the ground.
He flailed a hand at the assailant, but instead their hand covered his mouth.
“Shhh” said Owen, pulling the flashlight from Landon’s hand and pointing it immediately at the ground.
Landon’s turned away, looking to where Owen was pointing, and at first there was nothing to be seen beyond the wreckage, other than a few more trees, but then he noticed one of them appeared to be moving… more than that, it was walking, slowly, taking a step… a dark mass of limbs on storks, shapes that made no sense to him. A nightmare had come to life and was just a stone’s throw from both
of them.
Owen leaned in closer. “Someone’s alive in the pickup… I have to get down there… need you to create a diversion, lead that thing away…”
The younger man’s instinct was right, but he had no idea how he was going to do that. He couldn’t see four feet in front of his nose, but before he could tell Owen that he was going to need a minute to come up with a plan the young man had moved off into the shadows, moving to the right, using the trees and large boulders as cover.
Shit…
He fumbled through his jacket pocket, feeling the imprint of his phone and pulled it out.
Alarm… I can use the alarm, but…
The sound of the rushing water gave him the next part of the plan. He pointed the flashlight up enough to see what lie around him, then saw what he needed. Grabbing a gnarly piece of wood, he set his alarm to go off in thirty seconds, then lodged it in the bark, wrapping a thin branch around it for good measure, then followed Owen down the same path.
It was a crazy plan. He had made a toy boat out of a piece of old wood that would toot its horn in approximately twenty seconds. Doubt raced across his mind as he tried to keep track of the human shaped shadow a few yards ahead, while not making any noise in the pitch black of night. He hoped the sound of the water would mask them from the thing, but he was ready to pull his Glock if it didn’t.
Water splashed around his boots, as he and Owen crept through the trickling waters, trying to keep their balance on the slippery rocks.
Landon had no idea where the thing had gone, maybe it had already moved off into the wilderness.
Owen crept around the side of the overturned vehicle, cupping his hands to peer inside the rear window. He jolted and started tapping on the glass.
“Abby! Abby!” he repeated, each time getting louder.
