He spotted Quinton climbing up the scaffolding that led to the second storey where Kim and Trey were already standing, Anderson at their side. Malcolm waved to them, feeling a flash of relief that they were safe.
The sudden silence as the gunfire died out set his ears to ringing and he immediately spun around to see what had caused it.
“They’re holding at the gate,” Mendez called out and Malcolm ran back to her side to look out at the gate. She was right. Beyond hill of corpses in the middle of the site, he could see freaks standing at the gate and in the street behind it. What the hell were they waiting for? Had the gunfire and the sight of the dead freaks scared them? But why not just flee like some of them had tried when they had first attacked? What were they waiting for?
“Fuck!”
The shouted curse echoed off the steel beams above them and Malcolm craned his neck to look up, trying to see where it had come from.
Mendez didn’t seem surprised though, looking up through the second floor beams towards the east side of the building. “What do you see Banks?”
“There’s a hole in the east fence,” Banks yelled back. “Berserkers are coming in. They’re gonna surround us!”
Gunfire replaced his voice, increasing the urgency tenfold.
“Montgomery, Foster, go! We’ll cover you!” Mendez called out and the men on either side of her pulled back, running back to the scaffolding.
The sound of plastic ripping sounded to the left and Malcolm spotted the plastic tarps that had been rigged up to protect the poured concrete from the elements being torn down by the onslaught of freaks. They went straight for the scaffolding that Foster and Montgomery were climbing. The wall of freaks slammed into the structure hard, setting it to rocking with their impact.
Foster cried out as the impact took his feet out from under him and he slipped down, cracking his chin on one of the metal bars. The impact must have dazed him because his hands lost their grip. Montgomery tried to reach for him but he wasn’t fast enough and Foster toppled back into the freaks gathered below. He didn’t even have time to scream before they descended on him and began to tear him apart.
Malcolm turned away from the sight, not wanting to see it and knowing that he didn’t have time to watch. They needed to find another way up. He looked around the building and spotted a ladder propped up against one of the main support beams that stretched from one end of the building to the other.
“Up there!” he called out and led the way to the ladder. He grabbed the ladder to hold it steady and ushered Alan and Mendez up first before following them up to the beam. It was barely wide enough for him to stand on but it was well out of the reach of the freaks below.
“They’re coming in the gates again!”
Malcolm spotted Hillman on the far end of the beam they were on, spying out over the front of the site. Malcolm could see the stream of freaks flooding towards the outer wall where they had been only a few moments before. Hillman fired down on them but it only took a few seconds before his magazine was empty and he had to reload.
Malcolm watched the freaks pass by the concrete supports, most of them heading to where the others were feasting on Foster. They descended on the other freaks, trying to push them aside to get at their kill, some of them starting to fight violently with each other as they refused to give up their place at the feast. Their raucous actions kept the scaffolding rocking and Montgomery tried desperately to keep a hold of it.
“Give me your hand!”
Malcolm spotted Anderson on his belly, hanging over the edge of the second floor. Quinton and Kim knelt on either side of him to brace him as he reached down to Montgomery. They were on the opposite side of the second floor opening which meant that Montgomery was going to have to swing over the freaks below and trust that Anderson could pull him up.
Montgomery reached out with one hand, the other maintaining his grip on the shaking scaffolding, stretching across the open air until Anderson was able to grab a hold of his wrist.
“Okay, other hand now,” Anderson said but Montgomery hesitated, looking down at the freaks below him. “Come on, you gotta go now! Trust me!”
Montgomery listened and let go of the scaffolding, swinging over so Anderson could grip his other hand. He swung like a trapeze artist, his feet just brushing over the heads of the freaks. Anderson groaned loudly as he took Montgomery’s full weight and Quinton scrambled forward to reach for Montgomery and help.
Just as they tugged on Montgomery, a freak’s hand shot up and wrapped around his ankle. The freak that had a hold of him stood up and wrapped his other hand around his ankle and pulled. Montgomery started to scream and flail, kicking out at the freak that had him, trying to dislodge it.
Anderson and Quinton tried to maintain their hold on him but his panicked flailing made it almost impossible. Another freak grabbed at his legs and its added weight had Anderson crying out in pain. His left arm went slack and Malcolm knew it had been pulled out of its socket. His grip on Montgomery faltered and though Quinton tried to grab at him, Montgomery was pulled down by the freaks. He kept his grip on Anderson’s good arm, pulling Anderson to the edge, Quinton and Kim fighting to keep Anderson from going over. Before they could haul him back, a freak grabbed hold of Anderson and Malcolm heard Anderson scream as it bit down hard on his hand.
Banks appeared on the other side of the opening, his sidearm in hand and put a merciful bullet between Montgomery’s eyes. His grip loosened and the others were able to pull Anderson back up and out of the way.
Malcolm swiped his forearm over his forehead to rid it of the sweat that had gathered there. His heart was racing and his chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath.
“Come on, let’s waste these assholes,” Mendez said, putting her rifle to her shoulder and aiming down between the beams at the freaks. The staccato blasts of automatic gunfire echoed in the building as she began to fire and Banks joined her. Alan and Hillman joined in as well from their perches on the support beam, picking off the stragglers that were still coming in the building.
Malcolm looked across the wide space to where the others were gathered. Quinton was bent over Anderson, looking at his injured hand but Kim and Trey were standing, guns in hand, but waiting on his signal. He nodded at them and put his own rifle to his shoulder and started to pick off as many freaks as he could.
It didn’t take long before they had dropped all of them, leaving the ground floor of the building a warzone. There had to be over fifty bodies piled up down there, not to mention all the ones they had dropped outside.
“How are we on ammo?” Hillman called out in the silence that had descended on the building after they had stopped shooting.
Everyone went about checking their guns and the magazines on their belts. Malcolm still had two magazines for his sidearm but he only one left for his rifle.
“I’m low,” Mendez said, switching out the magazine on her rifle. “This is all I got.”
The others echoed the same sentiment as they reloaded with what they still had on them.
“That’s not good news,” Hillman said. “There’s still a shitload of them outside the fence. Like the whole damn town showed up.”
“Are they coming in?” Mendez called out.
“No, they’re just standing there.”
“Fuck!” Mendez cursed before turning to Malcolm. “We’ve seen this before. They like to surround you and just wait you out. You’d think a bunch of fucking cannibals wouldn’t have that kind of patience.”
They’d seen the same thing at the dealership and Malcolm wondered what the hell this infection was doing to people. His first encounters with them had made it clear that the infection turned people into mindless beasts. They were still like that when they caught a whiff of blood but there was also a calculating side to them, a flash that said there was still some higher functioning going on in their diseased brains.
He shook the thoughts away, knowing that trying to figure out the evolving aspects of the in
fection wasn’t going to help them out of this. They knew the things were smarter than they were led to believe and that was enough information for now. They needed to figure out a way to outsmart these bastards.
“Got some worse news,” Quinton called out from his place beside Anderson. The man held up his hand and even from this distance Malcolm could see the blood seeping out of a wound on his wrist.
“I got bit,” Anderson said, his voice forlorn as he stared at the wound.
“Fuck!” Banks cursed, storming away from them towards the far side of the building, running his hands over his head.
Malcolm caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and saw Mendez wobble on the beam, her knees knocking together. He shot out a hand to steady her and she looked over at him, her eyes mournful.
“I got them all killed,” she said, her voice despondent.
“No, you didn’t,” Malcolm said.
“I ordered them to come here,” she said, not listening to him. “I did all of this.”
He could understand the recrimination and doubt that was swamping her. She was their leader and she would carry this with her for the rest of her life. But now was not the time to question her actions or to mourn the fallen. “You need to get the rest of your men out of here,” Malcolm told her. “That’s what you need to think about. Save the rest of it for when we are out of here.”
Her eyes focused on him, her shock gone. She turned on her heel and looked at her men. “Hillman, any way out of here?”
“Negative,” he said. “There’s a truck by the foreman’s trailer but even if we can get it running, the berserkers are too thick at the gate. We won’t make it through.”
“Banks, is there a back way out?” she called out to the man who had made his way back over to his original watch point.
“Negative,” he shouted back. “They’re waiting us out.”
“It’s clear over here,” Alan called out.
He had moved off the main beam using one of the crossbeams to get over to a platform on the west side of the building. “There’s some scaffolding on the outside. If we detach it and push it over, it’ll fall on the fence. We can drop down to it and climb up and over the fence.”
The only problem with that was it required time and he could see that the freaks were already done feasting on Foster and Montgomery and were now eyeing the climb up the scaffolding. They would be up here in a couple minutes if they didn’t stop them.
“Alright, Alan, Hillman, look for tools to bring down the scaffolding,” Malcolm ordered. “Mendez, don’t let any of the freaks climb up here. Everybody else find anything we can use to block the freaks from climbing up here until we can get over that fence.”
Subject File # 750
Administrator: But it isn’t just kindness that makes you defend Jackson. He’s special to you.
Subject: Of course he is. I’d have had my throat ripped out if it wasn’t for him.
Veronica found the warehouse off putting. The cavernous space was pitch black and the way their footsteps echoed as they walked along the concrete floor ratcheted her anxiety up to a hundred. Veronica pointed her flashlight up at the roof, the beam of light barely beating back the darkness among the steel rafters.
Shelves thirty feet high were lined up in rows with passages between them big enough to drive a truck through. A fleet of forklifts were parked in a row in front of the loading dock doors that faced the truck lot, ready to unload the next shipment that was never coming.
“Plenty of places for things to hide in here,” Jackson said as he turned in a slow circle to take the place in.
He was right. Anyone or anything had plenty of places to hide in the vast expanse of shadows. And with the small size of their group, there was no way they could clear out the warehouse to ensure they were alone.
“If we make some noise, we might draw out any freaks,” Claudia suggested.
“There anybody here?” Jackson called out, his voice echoing across the steel and concrete before the space grew quiet again. Veronica listened, ears straining for any noise but only the loud silence came back to her.
“Best not let our guard down while we’re in here,” Jackson said. “Could still be somebody hidin’ in here.”
Veronica went to one of the forklifts, noticing a clipboard with papers hanging on the side of it. She pulled it down and held up the flashlight to read the print out attached to the clipboard. It was dated nearly a month ago, a list of daily tasks outlined for the forklift operator. The pallets that were to be moved were identified with a series of letters and numbers, no description of what the pallets held.
“Looks like the inventory was on computers,” Veronica said, holding up the print out. “Makes sense with a place this size.”
“How the hell are we gonna find anythin’ in here?” Jackson asked and swung his flashlight towards the nearest set of shelves, the light glinting off the plastic wrapped around the pallet. “Got televisions, patio furniture and baby strollers next to each other. How does that make sense?”
“Guess we take it row by row,” Veronica said. “Good news is that with the size of these pallets, first bit of food we find will be more than enough to get us to the island.”
“I just hope it isn’t canned peas,” Audrey said, turning up her nose. “I hate them.”
“If it’s just peas we’ll try to find something else,” Veronica said. “Probably a good idea to split up. Audrey go with Jackson, Claud, you’re with me. First group that finds anything edible, call out. The other group will come to them. Same thing if you run into any trouble.”
They paired off, Jackson and Audrey taking the shelves to the right side of the main passage while she and Claudia took the left side.
They walked between the shelves, lights scanning over stacked pallets. Cleaning supplies took up one side of the aisle while paper goods lined the opposite one.
“Keep an eye out for triple ply toilet paper,” Claudia told her. “We’re running low.”
“Craig found a bunch of toilet paper in the motel supply room,” Veronica said.
“I know but that’s one ply bullshit. I’m looking for the cashmere stuff.”
“Of course,” Veronica replied with a small smile. “Wouldn’t want your delicate ass to suffer.”
“Hey, you might be fine with leaves but I have standards,” Claudia replied and Veronica let out a small laugh.
“Alright but whatever we find, we split.”
Claudia smirked. “Who has the delicate ass now?”
They continued over to the next aisle, searching through the automotive section and around to the other aisle.
“Think we’ve got something,” Veronica said, gesturing the beam of her flashlight to the shelves on her right. Large red cans with a familiar yellow logo were stacked and wrapped on a pallet. “Real, non-instant coffee!”
Veronica grabbed her knife and slit open the plastic to get at the cans, pulling out three of them. She pulled off her pack and stuffed them inside, looking back to see Claudia eyeing her with a mocking smile.
“I thought food was the priority,” she said.
“Hey, you’ve got toilet paper, I’ve got coffee.”
They moved down the aisle, the next few pallets filled with more varieties of coffee and tea but then they gave way to pallets of peanut butter and different flavours of jam. The next pallets were full of cases of granola bars and pre-packaged breakfast pastries.
“Jackson, we’ve got food over here,” Veronica yelled out, aiming her flashlight up into the rafters and swinging it around in a circle as a point of reference for him.
“Alright, we’re coming your way,” he yelled back.
Claudia pulled out her knife and cut open the plastic around the cases and pulled one out, dropping it on the ground slice it open. She took out a box of granola bars and ripped it open, pulling out a couple bars and tossing one to Veronica.
“At least we won’t go hungry,” Claudia said with a smile before tearing
open the wrapper and biting off a chunk of the granola bar.
Veronica did the same, relishing the dry crunch of the oats and nuts. She hadn’t eaten since the piece of jerky she’d been given for breakfast and it tasted like ambrosia.
Jackson and Audrey appeared in the aisle and Claudia was pulling out more bars to hand to them when they joined them.
“Chocolate, nice!” Audrey exclaimed as she read the wrapper before opening it up.
Jackson took the bar and shoved it in his pocket, his focus on the rest of the aisle as he swung his flashlight over it. “What else we got?”
She followed him down the aisle, passing by boxes of crackers and potato chips, making mental notes of what they should take. Her flashlight beam caught off something metal in the centre of the aisle and she walked farther down the aisle to see what it was.
A propane stove was in the middle of the aisle. Cans were stacked next to it along with plates and utensils. She looked to her left and noticed that a large section of the bottom shelf had been cleared of its pallets and two lounge chairs were tucked in the space.
“The hell is this?”
Jackson had his flashlight aimed on the floor where a red extension cord that snaked out of the space and down the aisle. “Gonna see where it goes.”
He followed the cord as she moved into the little hidey hole to check it out. A lantern sat on the folding table between the loungers, a pile of folded clothes stacked beneath it. Sleeping bags were rolled out on the loungers along with pillows and her light caught on the brown stains among the floral print of one of the pillowcases.
Veronica crouched down and edged towards the lounger, reaching out to flip open the sleeping bag with the barrel of her rifle. A pile of clothes were clumped together, stained the same crusty brown as the pillowcase. Something was sticking out of the bundle and she shifted aside a shirt to reveal a pile of bones, a few pieces of dried out flesh still clinging to them.
Sanctuary Page 21
