by Maxey, Phil
She nodded with a smile then looked back to windshield wipers. She knew he was lying and closed her eyes.
A crackle of static woke her.
“Go ahead,” said Andy holding the radio. “We’re listening. Over.”
“We’re only fifteen minutes out…” said Scott. “I’m seeing a lot of destruction on the roadside. How you want to approach the diner? Over.”
“Here,” said Jess to the young man driving. He handed her the radio while she wiped the condensation from the inside of the side window, trying to see beyond the glow from the headlights and being unsuccessful. “We can’t see much back here. How bad is it? Over.”
Sanchez’s voice came from the speaker. “Imagine if trains were able to move across the land. Something like—”
Scott cut in. “Lots of felled trees…”
“Can you see any lights up ahead? Or movement of any kind?”
“Can’t see beyond a hundred yards. Over.”
“Keep going north, but slow down. Over.”
“Okay. Over.”
The trailer’s red lights immediately came on, the truck at the front slowing and Andy did the same for the pickup.
Jess examined every sensation within her body and mind, hoping to feel something of what might lay ahead, but there was no warning of danger. They could be driving into anything.
The truck slowed again, this time continuing until it fully stopped. The radio came alive with Esther’s voice. “We’re at where you marked on the map, but we ain’t seeing any buildings. No diner or house. You want to keep going? Over.”
Jess and Landon slid their windows down, trying to see into the darkness for any recognizable landmarks, when Landon caught the reflection of light from the rippling waves of the large boating pond. His eyes immediately strained to see beyond, to where Rufus’s house would be, and closer the diner, but there were no dark shapes within the lighter sky. He let out a breath which mixed with the falling snow.
Jess pushed her door open.
“Are we here?” said Andy.
But she didn’t hear his question, instead she got out into the icy cold and trekked forward, moving past the back of the trailer.
“Jess!” shouted Landon, pushing his door open as well.
Sam did the same, but he stopped half outside.
“No, wait here.”
She ignored him, got out and ran after her mother.
“Point the headlights over there!” he said to Andy, getting out. The young man reversed a little then steered to the left, illuminating a scene of destruction already being buried by the storm.
Jess waded through two-feet of snow, her calfs already numb, then jogged down the bank onto the more flat area of what should have been the small parking lot outside the diner but there were no vehicles.
“The diner… it’s gone,” said Sam, looking at small mounds of snow which covered a twenty-foot square area. She ran forward, kicking then tripping over something solid in the ground.
The truck’s door opened and everyone but Esther jumped down. Scott with his MP5, eyed the surrounding shadows. Lachlan ran down the slope, Sanchez moving more cautiously, both joining the others. In his hand another flashlight, which he swept across the remains of the diner.
“Hey! Look!” shouted Sam. She pointed towards where the house should have been. Esther, back at the roadside, raised her weapon at the small figure standing on snow-covered steps.
Even with human sight Jess recognized Helen. She ran towards the child, falling to her knees and immediately heard the shouts beyond.
*****
7: 12 a.m. Heavercroft School.
Jess steered the pickup around pieces of furniture strewn across the two-lane road as she led the two vehicles through the suburban neighborhood. On either side were remains of grand houses, some completely collapsed, others shells, like old castles she would see in books as a kid, the top windows giving a view of the sky beyond which was beginning to lighten.
Landon was to her right, Sam with Lachlan and Scott in the back. Brad and the kids were in the cabin of the truck, following behind.
She glanced in the mirror. The two teens in the back gave hope for the future, except for Jess there was no future without her son. They drove slowly up the hill which headed towards the school, the pickup straining to gain grip on the icy surface, the truck having the same issue, but all could see the snapped and splintered remains of trees on both sides of the road, some of which had fallen, almost blocking the route.
She slowed even more, driving around the bark and branches, bumping over others and as they neared the crest of the hill took in a breath which she had trouble releasing.
The two story complex of buildings was still there, half a mile off. That was something. But the entire area was dark. Too dark. No light existed within the silhouettes of structures. They drove along the short route to the parking lot entrance then drove in. Lachlan swore on seeing the destruction of the vehicles, and even though Jess’s audible senses were now normal, she was sure she could hear the heartbeats of the rest of her family.
A spark of light caught her attention. “What’s that? Over there?” She pointed towards a nearby field which ran alongside the road and lot. She drove towards it, parking then quickly got out into the falling snow.
Vance stood in the headlights, a shovel in his hand. A pile of snow and mud visible in front of him.
“What happened? Where is…” Jess saw the boots of multiple bodies in the gloom behind the piles. She walked forward then lowered her head on seeing what was left of his wife and daughter. “Oh god…” There was no time for questions as she turned, her mind flooding with panic and started to run back to the main building.
“He took your kid…”
She spun around. “He’s alive?” The words came with tears as waves of emotions flowed through her.
“Who?” shouted Landon. “Who took him?”
“The thing… he looked like a man… but wasn’t…” Vance looked down. “I tried to pull the creatures away.” He nodded to the lot and a mangled clump of snow-covered steel and plastic. “It was working, but… the soldier—”
“Soldier?” said Scott.
Before he could answer the sound of glass being crunched was just audible within the winds. Everyone but Vance looked towards the source, which was the entrance to the school. He continued to dig.
The shadowy figure ran across the ice-covered concrete and ran into Jess’s arms.
Tracey’s sobs mixed with muffled words. “They killed… all… killed.”
Jess held the young woman as she looked at her husband. The truck’s door opened, Sanchez jumping down.
“I’m going to check out the school,” said Scott.
“I’ll go with you,” said Sanchez.
Vance turned to them. “There are… a lot more dead on the roof.”
They nodded and continued to the entrance.
Jess pulled back from Tracey, trying to see if she was injured.
“He’s dead, Jess…”
“Who?”
“Daryl… and…” Sobs fell from her. “Meg… the creatures killed them… I hid… hid in a closet with Donnie… I thought they would come for me…” she wrapped her arms around her elbows, her body shaking.
Jess took a step back. If there had been something to hold on to, she would have used it, for the strength to keep her upright was rapidly draining away.
Landon walked closer to Vance. “This soldier. He took Josh?”
Vance nodded while dropping icy soil onto the pile.
“Which way?”
Vance nodded behind them. “West. The things went with him. Reckon he’s using them like his personal army or something… I… tried to…” A choke emanated from the older man’s throat and he slammed the shovel harder into the ground, digging the grave deeper.
Jess whirled around, moving unsteadily back to the pickup.
“Where you going?” said Landon after her.
�
�We can catch up with them. We can get him—” A hand pulled her back, which she tried to push off but failed.
“If we go after him now, we’ll die! And Josh with have no parents!”
She whipped around to face her husband. “I left him! Landon!” She forced the words from a tightening throat. “I left them both! She said I should stay! Meg…” Her words dissolved into tears.
“We had no idea this was possible. That this thing, this man would control these things.”
She fell to her knees. “They died because of me…”
Landon kneeled, hugging her close.
Sam walked to Vance. “You got another shovel? I’ll help.”
Concluded in book six.
BOOK SIX
CHAPTER ONE
9: 34 a.m, December 20th. Heavercroft School.
The final day.
Thick black smoke drifted from burning bodies half a mile away, staining the blue-white ice which blanketed everything. Jess’s eyes stung but she continued digging. The muscles in her shoulders, arms and lower back cried out for a rest but she was almost done with the last of the two rectangular holes.
Scott, by her side, stood, stretching, placing his shovel into the pile of dirt and snow. “Should be deep enough.”
The graves sat next to two others already filled in with a small pile of rocks at the top, and repurposed pieces of wooden furniture stuck in the ground as markers for Willa and Carly Gaines.
Jess nodded and looked across to the back of the field, at the flames removing all trace of the other ninety something people who were evidently partying at the time of the attack. She looked down at the two bodies covered in sheets and shook her head. Vance said after the screams on the roof, there was a gunshot and he saw Daryl drop to the parking lot with Josh in his arms, the kid then trying to escape but being caught by the ‘soldier.’ The things then made quick work of the man that had saved her son. He never saw what happened to Meg, but Jess was sure it was her gunshot that Vance heard. A last desperate attempt to stop the inevitable. She owed them both more than they would ever know and that was almost as hard to deal with as knowing that Josh was somewhere out there, with the things that caused all the destruction.
The sky was bright and mostly blue, the smoke only smearing a part of it and brought into contrast what the monsters had done to the landscape. Flat and scarred for as far as she could see in all directions. Even if the occupants of the school weren’t distracted they probably wouldn’t have had a chance against what broke against them during the early hours.
“You ready to put them in the graves?” said Scott.
She nodded, her eyes the only visible part of her face, the rest being covered in a blue scarf. He jumped down then she carefully dragged then lowered both bodies into each hole and helped him climb back up.
“Anything you want to say?”
She looked at him with red eyes, his question catching her off guard then looked at the first grave, Daryl’s. “I hardly knew him… He worked in our apartment building. Always seemed a good guy. Hard worker… Thank you Daryl for protecting my children. You deserved to get through this…” Looking at his remains she couldn’t help but feel guilty at not trusting him for as long as she did. She took a step to the side, standing in front of the woman who had become a surrogate grandmother to her family and tried to force words from her tightening throat, but instead silent sobs came, her nose running with the tears. She started to use her sleeve to clear her vision then remembered what she had in her pocket and pulled out Gregg’s letter. She looked down at the handwriting on the outside.
‘For Meg from an admirer.’
Another wave of grief flowed across her, but this time with anger.
“You going to read that?”
She shook her head, kneeled and dropped the letter onto the sheet in the grave then picked up her shovel. “Let’s get this done.”
*****
9: 59 a.m. Central Kansas. Highway 70.
Arlo felt the tremors through his fingers which were clamped to the large steering wheel. He looked at his fuel gauge and swore. Less than quarter of a tank.
Not enough…
He had used a lot getting this far and soon, somehow, somewhere he would need to refuel. He sat in the old sedan on an overpass looking to the west and a cloud of dust and dirt on the horizon. Behind, in an almost direct line from the school, hundreds of miles to the east, was a newly formed highway, one created through homes, parking lots, barns and farmsteads. As if an almighty plow had descended and chewed its way across the state, grinding trees and pylons which now lay flat amongst the mud and smattering of snow. A swathe of land reduced to a memory of what it once was.
His eyes shifted to the rear mirror and then the side. A check he did every few minutes just in case one of the things came up behind him.
As he looked back to the front, images from the early hours made themselves known and he flinched. Swirling flakes of ice almost hiding a horde of things descending upon the school… and his friends. He shuddered, trying to shake the hateful scene, but it held on and once again forced him to witness what he was powerless to stop.
Once the party had started it was obvious they were quickly going to run out of alcohol, and despite his extreme reluctance to leave, he was the one voted on to find some more. So he trekked through the burgeoning blizzard to his old car and slid his way along the road to the nearby houses, north of the school, where he found hardly anything. So he drove further and further until he realized if he didn’t turn around the party would be over. Luckily he did find some beverages, a few boxes of beers and was making his way back along the narrow road when he saw Vance’s pickup putting on a sound and light show. He almost kept on going, almost drove all the way into the parking lot and certain death, but instead saw the frenzied motion and slammed on his brakes, sliding then only stopping when his car hit a fence post, bending the front fender.
He had sat frozen, watching the destruction. The things came at Vance’s vehicle but it sped off into the darkness and once some of the things appeared to be moving in his direction, Arlo did the same, reversing, then when finally gaining grip, turning and accelerating away, tears in his eyes, guilt in his heart. It wasn’t long before he cracked open the first of the bottles.
Maybe it was the beer or anger at what had happened but after a few minutes of trying to stay on the road in the storm, he stopped, turned around and headed back. When he arrived the things were gone. But he saw what they had left in their wake, including Daryl’s body beyond any kind of help. In that moment he decided to follow the trail of destruction which moved in a westerly direction. He had no idea why he was taking this action, it was obviously suicide if he actually caught up with the army of things, and after an hour he did.
That was two hours ago and he had been following at what he hoped was a safe distance ever since.
He looked at the fuel gauge again, shaking his head then his gaze slipped down to the radio which sat on the passenger’s seat amongst two empty bottles. More than once he had been tempted to hold down the talk button and send out a message to whoever was listening, but what if someone bad, heard? What if whoever Joan was working for, was eavesdropping on the airwaves? Waiting for some poor sap to make themselves known, and down would come the black helicopters. He wasn’t having any of that, so he was going to keep radio silence until he couldn’t any longer.
The brown-gray smudge sitting above the fields was dissipating. The things moving out of sight. He turned the key in the ignition, starting up the engine and pulled forward.
CHAPTER TWO
10: 27 a.m. Heavercroft School.
Jess glanced at those in front of her. Some heads were bowed while others looked at her with pain etched into their soot covered wrinkles. Nine adults, two teens, three children and two animals inhabited the largest of the classrooms on the second floor. One of the few rooms that was not commandeered for human occupation. A room with text books half opened on desks and a half
full flask of stale coffee on a window ledge.
“As all of you know, the thing which attacked the school… and killed everyone here, also took my son…”
Helen huddled close to Brad, but Agatha and Toby sat by themselves, the former playing with Donnie, the latter looking at a book he found.
Brad shook his head. “We were so close…” He looked at Vance. “You said the things were gone?”
“They were…”
Jess had no clear explanation for what came at the school in the early hours, other than Rackham was responsible. After what she saw on level seven of the Biochron complex, she was willing to accept any possibility. Including that he had found a way to prolong the nightmare. She looked down. “I saw—”
“We saw,” said Scott, interrupting.
She nodded at him with a brief smile then looked back to the others. “Yes, we saw unimaginable things at Biochron… the man in charge, a scientist… well, was, I don’t know what he is now, he’s insane, but he’s responsible for everything. For the virus being released, for what people became, for what happened to our friends last night.” She glanced at her daughter who looked down.
“And we blew his ass, up,” said Scott. “He’s at the bottom of thousands of tons of rubble.”
“So… he’s dead?” said Brad.
“I wish I could say I know he is,” continued Jess. “But he wasn’t human anymore. He’s something else. Perhaps something which could have survived. Either way, the soldier that you and Vance saw, works for him.”
“Like Joan?”
Sam looked up. “Not like Joan. She… wasn’t all bad… this guy’s a monster… like Rackham. I…” She touched her temple. “I think she talked about him on our trip to Denver. He was one of a group, which Biochron gave an early version of the virus to, but he went crazy or something. Killed a bunch of people… I can’t remember where.”
