by Maxey, Phil
Jess fumbled on the ground, finding an arm and pulled Landon towards her while lifting the bookshelf with her other hand. “Landon!” He mumbled something in reply. She could see his left arm dangling uselessly from his shoulder and heaved him up to his feet and scrambled towards the steps. “Come on!” she shouted to those behind her.
Arlo ran with her, adding some lift to Landon, while Tracey fired towards the deep shadows beyond the opening to the corridor then walked up the steps backwards. They made it to the top of the stairs, then out into an office and slammed the door closed.
“Filing cabinet…” Landon grimaced. “Move it in front…”
Arlo and Tracey strained to move the heavy metal piece of furniture as sounds of what was left in the basement being destroyed, wafted through the wooden door.
Landon looked at his wife. “Jess, help them. I’m fine.”
She quickly turned, moved to the light gray set of drawers and with adding her one hand to Arlo and Tracey’s shoulders, pushed it across the door.
The sound of glass shattering came from outside in the church, followed by gunfire and shouts. The door to it flew open with the kids and Meg running back inside. “They’re breaking through the main entrance!” she shouted, closing the door behind her.
Jess looked at the only other door left. The stairs which ran up six stories to the room below the spire. “Everyone into the stairs to the spire! Now!”
“How we will get out!” said Arlo.
Jess looked at the kids, ignoring the question and frantically pointed to the small doorway. “Go now!” The kids ran into the staircase. She looked at the others. “We don’t have a choice!”
Landon nodded and awkwardly got up from the desk he was seated on, Jess helping him to walk forward.
The air was alive with the sound of things desperate to get into the small administrator’s room. A heavy jolt almost knocked the filing cabinet from the door. It tilted then fell back against the door, just as Tracey, the last of the group, climbed the small set of metal steps, pulling the arched door closed and dropped a heavy iron latch across it.
*****
8: 12 p.m.
Jess looked out at the things which filled every available space outside. A thin mist hung across the streets and sidewalks, illuminated by the moon and within it, oddly shaped entities walked, crawled and slid on appendages which seemed ill suited to the task. She lacked the vocabulary to describe most of the things she could see within her scope, but knew that it was not possible they could be naturally born. These things were manufactured by a virus, with a purpose she still didn’t truly understand. The Biochron man, the one she had never set eyes on before, who appeared to be in charge said she was responsible. Could that be true? Could her thirst for knowledge have unwittingly provided her company with keys to an insidious plan?
She shuddered.
A few hundred yards away, many floors below, something briefly emerged from the fog. A colliderscope of parts from various animals, including human, all combined into something that was definitely less than the sum of its parts. But despite it and the others appearance, something else jumped out to her. Unlike the previous members of the animal kingdom, these things did not attack each other. It was as if they moved with a single goal. A hive mind.
A hand lightly touched her shoulder, making her jump.
“Sorry,” said Landon. His left arm was bandaged, held upright with a piece of rag to his shoulder. “Didn’t mean to make you jump.”
“It’s okay. Just thinking.” She leaned back slightly, allowing him a view of the outside.
He shook his head. “I can’t see much, but…” He strained his eyes, leaning closer to the glass. “They don’t seem to be leaving…”
“No.” She looked back to the top of the ladder. “How’s everyone?”
He sighed while continuing to try to observe what he could. “As can be expected. We need a way out of this.” He looked back to her. “They stopped at the office. But it has to only be a matter of time before they realize where we are, and make a concerted effort to get up here. We don’t have much ammo left.” He smiled. “You got the brains and I got the looks remember.” It was her turn to smile. “So how we getting out of this jam?”
Unlike Meg, she knew he would know if she was lying. Problem was she had no idea how to get out of the church without the things knowing. There were too many to fight and he was right, they showed no sign of forgetting about their prey and returning to the Capital building. But she desperately wanted to give him and the others hope.
It’s just… there wasn’t any.
His smile dissipated and he looked away. “I see.”
“I will think of something, I swear. We’re not dying up here, Landon. We’ve survived through too much. I won’t accept it.”
He nodded, still not wanting to meet her gaze then looked up at her, this time his smile fake. “I know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
8: 56 p.m.
A tapping came from the ladder. Jess didn’t turn around from the nightmarish vision outside. It was preferable to what was about to climb up behind her. Another person come for a solution to how they will live to see another sunset. Another who would leave disappointed. Before they reached the top, she gave in and glanced at the ladder, but was surprised to see a mop of straggly red hair appearing.
Tracey climbed out, standing, then smiled. “How… are you?”
“Fine. Is there something wrong? Are the things—”
“No no. It’s quiet at the bottom of the stairs…”
Jess briefly nodded. “Needed a change of scenery?” She looked back to the small window. “Not sure if you’re going to like what’s outside though.”
“Actually, um… I’ve got an idea about how we can get out of this… mess, but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“Go on?”
Tracey let out a breath and sat on the dusty floor, lit by a single candle, looking down, gathering her thoughts. She looked up at the older woman. “See… there’s this group called the immunes. I don’t know how they found each other, but they came out of Kansas City. I… well… me, Clint and Jay were with them. But we didn’t like what they were doing, so we—”
“Doing?”
Tracey looked away again. “Yeah, umm… the guy in charge. Isiah, he said we need to… protect ourselves and the only way we could do that, was if someone started to change, we would put them down. Like, before they changed and hurt someone.”
“You killed people when they changed?”
“Sometimes before…” Tracey looked up into an expression of horror. “That’s why we left! They were crazy! He… is crazy. Clint and Jay aren’t exactly good people but they weren’t murderers, not like Isiah. So we got the hell out, but then they ended up dumping me…”
Jess shook her head. “What has any of this got to do with helping us?”
Tracey stood then moved to the window, looking out, nodding to herself. “Might be high enough.”
“What are you talking about? What might be high enough?”
“It might be possible to contact them with the radio. This is like real—”
“What? You want a group of murderers to come here and rescue us? Why would they do that?”
“Isiah might be crazy, but he is looking for others like us… well, me. Other immunes. Says they can start again. If he thought you were like, true immunes, he might come. Might try and get us out of the city.”
Even as Jess shook her head to discourage the idea from the young woman, her mind was thinking differently. Posing questions she did not want to face.
Do you want your children to die in this church?
How long will the water last?
She turned away, having no good answers.
“But we gotta send the message soon, as they were intending to leave and head north this evening… and if they come, you all got to pretend that you’re like me. Don’t mention the vaccine.”
“And what do we do if the vaccine runs out?”
“Well, then you’ll be dead anyway…”
She had a point, thought Jess. She nodded.
“Okay, but it should be you that tells the others…”
Jess reluctantly nodded again, letting out a sigh. “Fine.” She climbed down into the slightly larger room with slanted walls. Most looked at her as she stepped off the ladder with expectation, which she hated. She wasn’t bringing them hope, just a grenade with the pin already removed and it was still better than anything she had. She briefly smiled. Even Landon looked at her, waiting for the solution to their predicament, but it was Josh and Sam’s widening eyes that weighed most heavy. Tracey climbed down behind her.
“We might have a way out of this.”
“We?” said Landon, glancing between both women.
“Tracey, knows some people. People that might be willing to come here. To rescue us…”
Arlo looked incredulous. “Who would come here? A place full of the things?”
Jess looked at the younger woman.
“I was with a group before. A bunch of survivors, they called themselves the immunes…”
Meg tilted her head. “Immunes?”
“Yeah… I think you already met two of them…”
Meg took a step forward, ignoring Tracey, looking directly at Jess. “They were going to kill a kid, Jess. They are the last people we want to be around!”
An expression of concern came to Landon. “You’re not seriously considering—”
“I got nothing!” Jess shouted, making some around her flinch. “Everyone’s expecting me to come up with some kind of genius plan to save our lives. Well, I haven’t got one! If we stay here, we die. That’s what I got!” Landon looked down. “Yeah, these immunes are bad people. But it’s the only option we have. And Tracey says that if we don’t try to contact them soon, we won’t even be able to have that.”
“But we’re not immune, Jess…” said Meg. “Once they find out…”
“I know. But we just need them to help us to get out of this city. Then we can think about getting away from them as well.” She looked at her husband, who nodded.
Now it was Meg’s turn to consider the unthinkable. She let out a sigh then looked back at Jess. “What if they know it was I who killed their people?”
Tracey answered. “Well, did they take a photo of you or something?” Meg shook her head. “Then they won’t know…” She looked around the small group, finally settling upon Jess. “So we doing this?” Jess nodded and the younger woman immediately held her hand out to Landon who gave her his radio, then climbed up the ladder to the room above.
*****
10: 27 p.m.
The fog hadn’t lifted. If anything, to Jess it looked even thicker. But the things that were once people still moved within it. Glimpses of limbs and bodies that made no sense came and went, swallowed by the milky white mist. She could think of no better scene which illustrated the end of the world. A world that she and her family still, somehow were surviving in.
And the humans that won the lottery of immunity were monsters as well, just a different kind. Perhaps worse than the B-movie creations stalking the streets outside.
Rescued by child murderers…
She wasn’t even sure she wanted that. Perhaps here, now, in this holy place, it would be better to give—
Somewhere far below, a sound bubbled up to where she was stationed, at the topmost room in the building.
“I think they’re trying to break through the lower door!” shouted Meg from the room below
This is it… the end…
The pop of gunshots came from below and Josh’s head appeared at the top of the ladder.
“Dad said we should come up here,” he said, climbing out, handing the small dog to Jess then was followed by Tye.
Jess helped him out then Sam. “Sit here.”
“They’re going to get us, aren’t they?” said Sam.
Jess grabbed her daughter’s shoulders, looking directly at her. “Don’t think like—” More gunshots rang out, this time accompanied with a guttural screech. “— that! We’ll find a way out of this!” She suddenly remembered where they were. “Have faith!” Sam nodded and Jess picked up her assault rifle and climbed down into the smell of fear. Landon and Meg rushed up the narrow set of stairs and back into the room through the small doorway, slamming it closed behind them.
He dropped the shotgun from his one good arm to the boards and pulled a Glock from the back of his belt. “If we can kill one outside the door, it might—”
Glass broke from the room upstairs as one of the kids screamed. Jess immediately climbed back on the ladder as something heavy slammed into the door behind her. As she ascended, Meg, Landon and Arlo threw their weight against it, the raging thing on the other side, smashing and splintering the paint chipped wood.
Jess didn’t get a chance to emerge into the spire room as before she reached the top a brown wrinkled appendage lined with teeth but with no discernible body swiped through the air from the small broken window. The kids ducked as it scythed above them, and Jess let forth a volley of shots, some missing, but others finding their target, sending a spray of blood across the slanted walls. The arm of the thing rapidly retracted back outside and they all hunched as they heard its heavy body scratching across the tiles above. Jess climbed into the room, her gun tracking the thing clambering across the roof.
Below, the four others shouted and grunted, their strength being drained by the increasing pressure of something battering the door. Claws pushed through the jagged gaps, trying to hook one of them on the other side. Landon responded by pushing the handgun into the hole and repeatedly firing. Screeches confirmed the hits, but the thing still retained its fury, the top part of the door now almost completely gone.
“We can’t hold them back, Jess!” shouted Landon but her mind was somewhere else, her attention being drawn not to the thing threatening to attack again just a few feet away, but from the other sound which was added to the chaos. She moved quickly but cautiously to the window, looking then stretching higher to see lower, to the street directly below. Were there lights down there? Wagons, horses?
Bullets ricocheted off the roof just inches from the broken window and her head. She pulled back as a screech came from outside and then caught a flash of something dark, fall past the window. She moved back to the opening. More of the things were moving towards the church, but within the misty gloom she could see bodies… people moving, fighting.
Her radio crackled, then a man’s voice came from the speaker. “You still alive in that church?”
She grabbed it from the floor. “Yes! Yes! We’re alive, in the top! The things are trying to get us up here!”
More gunshots echoed out, but these were muffled, coming from inside the building.
“Jess, we can’t—” Landon’s shout was cut short from the clatter of gunfire followed by a roar and screech, which was fading then fell silent, but outside a battle still raged.
“Get your asses down here, now! We ain’t waiting around for you any longer!” shouted the man from Jess’s radio.
She looked down the shaft to below, trying to see into the room. “Landon?”
He appeared, looking up, flecks of blood across his face. “I’m okay. We’re okay. I think—”
“They’re here! They came!” She whipped around to the children. “Quickly! Down the ladder. We’re leaving!”
They all scrambled to their feet then climbed and jumped down into the lower room, which was strewn with pieces of the door. Arlo was holding his arm, which was bloodied.
Landon pulled what was left of the door towards himself and peered out into the gloom. “I think it’s clear…” Meg handed him the nub of a candle that still burned and he started to descend the spiral staircase.
Jess picked up her backpack and with the others, followed.
“Someone coming down?” shouted a man within the shadows of the stair
case.
“Yeah, we’re coming down!” replied Landon. “Don’t shoot!” He reached the first floor room. A heap of brown arms, legs and other things sat, slumped beyond the bottom step, and on the other side of the room two men, one much older than the other. “Thank you for—”
The older man frowned, waving Landon forwards. “Yeah, yeah, come on! We ain’t having a party here.”
Landon, Jess and the others followed the man down the wider stairs and emerged into the office, then moved into the church. Bodies of the creatures sat like forgotten mounds of old clothes around the pews and pillars. Brown and crimson blood lay in puddles across the stone slabbed floor. The constant clatter of heavy weapons outside rattled the stained glass windows and at the end of the room near the large entrance doors were another group of people, headed by a middle-aged man. Tall, wearing a stetson and a denim jacket.
“Run, damnit!” He shouted to Jess and the others. “Or none of us are getting out of this city alive!”
Everyone ran between the scattered seating and already decaying creatures, towards the front.
The man held his radio to his lips. “Cover us, we’re coming out!”
The group with him pushed the solid looking arched doors open and a storm of noise flooded into the church. They immediately raised their weapons, firing at a sea of rage, all of it surging towards the three wagons in the street at the bottom of the church steps, lit by flaming torches attached to their sides.
The man turned. “Get your people on the wagons!” he shouted, then turned and fired a bolt action rifle, his aim true, but the bullet only slowed the spindly thing, which was sprinting across the concrete towards the first of the two shackled horses. One of them reared up in fright as more bullets slammed into the catlike creature which slumped to the ground, skidding to a halt at the horse’s hoofs.
