by Phil Maxey
“Never said I wouldn’t come with you. Just wanted to get the lay of the land. Know what I’m getting myself into.”
“We appreciate you helping us…”
Fifty or so feet ahead of the pickup, Sanchez looked at his passenger as he placed the radio on the dashboard. “What you think?”
Esther moved her lips to the side, sizing up the words she heard. “I think they’re being honest about their kid. But I get the sense that they are knee deep in shit.” She looked at the driver. “You think it’s going to be worth it? We avoided the cities for a reason.”
He smiled while looking back at the road. “It’s always worth it, chica.”
*****
5: 58 a.m. East Denver.
This is what hell looks like…
Mingled with the silhouettes of civilization were other shapes, the mutated remains of the inhabitants of Sam’s home city. The SUV traveled at a snail’s pace such were the countless misshapen bodies that covered the sidewalks, forecourts, streets and parking lots. She tried not to look at what the truck’s lights discovered in the dark Denver streets but more often than not she would catch sight of a decaying face which belonged to neither man nor beast. She was also sure the deeper they moved into the city the larger and more incomprehensible the creatures were becoming.
I don’t want to run… I have too… but… there’s… so… many…
“Not far to go now,” said Joan. “I must admit I’m quite exhausted. We—”
I’m not like you.
“— don’t need as much sleep as humans. One of the benefits, but… I do miss dreaming…” She sighed as if remembering a fond memory.
They arrived at a junction that was packed, not merely by the things, but also by vehicles, most missing parts. Just jagged, torn clumps of metal, revealing their insides littered the frost covered concrete. Joan swung a right, weaving between sedans and pickups, then an SUV and a semi. Car after car for as far as the headlights would illuminate. A flash of images from the beginning of the nightmare, four days prior jumped into Sam’s mind. She didn’t want to return. She wanted to be far away…
We fought so hard to escape…
She tried to resist the blanket of depression which was draining what little energy she still had left. The feeling of hopelessness was almost worse than what she could see staggering and crawling just a few feet away.
They’re coming… They will find me… I have to escape… but where…
Her thoughts ping-ponged around her mind, fear not allowing them to settle into any meaningful plan. She squeezed the door handle, not to open but to try and release the panic which was building. Soon they would be at the crazy woman’s destination and then it would be over.
She forced her eyes to try and see into the dark, beyond the abominations to any recognizable landmarks.
Southern Denver?
She wasn’t sure. She had only been to her mother’s company building a few times and knew nothing of the area other than it was a bit ‘greener’ than the more central parts. There certainly were a lot of trees and fields between the apartment blocks and office buildings they were driving past.
Static came from somewhere down by Joan’s left side. The older woman reached and reclaimed a radio handset Sam didn’t even know was there.
“We’re not far. Over,” said Joan.
“Is she still… intact?” The voice was male and gravely.
Sam’s eyes grew wide. The shaking had returned. Without moving her head, she looked at what they were driving through.
Too many monsters…
Joan glanced at her. “Had to knock her about a bit, but yeah she’s fine. Over.”
“What does she know?”
“Some. There are a lot of the creatures out there. City’s swarming with them. Over.”
“Yes… see you both soon.”
Joan returned the radio from where she took it. “If you haven’t already guessed, that was Lucas.”
“He… he sounds unwell…”
“Yeah, said he was got pretty good by some of the things that attacked Biochron.” She shook her head. “They should have known the immunes would be like sugar to flies.”
Sam kept scouring the darkness along the side of the road. Waiting, hoping for more space without the things. “Why… er… why would the monsters want to attack the immune people.”
“I was told the virus was made especially virulent by Rackham. The alterations he made to it, altered the mind of the host, made them want to spread it, make others like themselves… it was almost as if the little itty bit of… ah hell.” The SUV slowed, almost to a stop due to the jam of vehicles crammed into the four-lane highway. Things were clambering over them, all heading in the same direction. Joan placed the truck into reverse and turned in her seat, looking out the rear window. “Well, I guess we’re going to be even more—”
Without a second thought Sam opened the door and thrust herself into the dark, catching the ground then using what little light there was, sprinted forward, running left and right as the things lunged at her, then vaulted over the wall separating the road from another. She almost landed directly on top of a mass of insect like legs, narrowly avoiding the creature and rolled forward, keeping her momentum into another wall which she also ascended, dropping down onto crisp ice-covered grass and tumbled forward until she gained her footing and clattered up against a metal chain-link fence. The creatures were behind her and so was her captor.
Keep going… run… run…
She grabbed hold of the fence and climbed as a truck’s engine revved on the road she had just left.
She’s coming.
As she landed on snow-covered concrete, her improved vision giving her hints of a large building ahead, she could hear the things, roaring and growling. Their hoofs, claws and legs eating into the ground, moving in her direction.
They’re… coming…
Sam’s mind had no comprehensive thought, just emotion. Terror propelled her across the forecourt where she smashed through the wooden door at the back of a superstore, staggering along the narrow corridor, her fingers scraping the bare-brick walls until she hit up against another door, and fumbled desperately for the handle. She was sure she could not only hear the things, hundreds, maybe thousands, all with a single purpose to get her, but she could also feel them within her bones. An ache which wanted her to become like they were.
Absorb… they… want to absorb me…
She flung the door open and ran forward into a void, only broken up by slivers of faint frozen light from the glass panels a hundred-feet above.
Warehouse…
She could feel the ground shaking through her boots. Objects starting falling from the towering shelves. A city full of creatures were moving in her direction.
“No… please… leave me alone!”
With her hands outstretched she ran down an aisle, but missed what was below and clipped the corner of an upturned cart, falling into something solid and sharp. Pain rained down from her nose which was burning, but it didn’t mater. She stood and walked forward again, kicking items out of the way, and—
Something growled within the darkness to her right, making her jump to the left, up against spongy bags of plastic. She fumbled forward, trying to move away from the stench of rotten meat until her fingers hit up against a wall.
“You know—”
She spun around and screamed.
Joan continued. “I could just let the things have you. I think you know what they want. They want you to be like they are…”
“Leave me alone!” Sam screamed between tears. The older woman’s voice was everywhere and nowhere, but within the darkness multiple darker shapes were moving, shifting closer.
“You still don’t get it…” continued Joan. “I can sense you… just like these things sense you… you will never escape…”
Light burst from just ahead, blinding Sam. She tried to see the shape behind the glare but her eyes were tear ridden, her worl
d a blurry, foul smelling horror. She fell back against the wall, her legs lacking any strength and crumpled to the ground as the figure with the light walked towards her.
CHAPTER FOUR
6: 41 a.m. Highway 70.
Red lights came from the back of the truck’s trailer. Bertha was slowing.
“Umm… we got a problem,” said Sanchez through Landon’s radio.
Landon looked at his wife. She was holding some fingers against her left temple and he knew what that meant. “The things?”
She nodded, letting out a breath.
He tried to see beyond the headlights, but the flat landscape which had accumulated some buildings was just as dark as ever. He held the radio to his mouth. “What do you see? Over.”
Jess answered for him. “There’s a lot…”
The semi-truck slowed to a stop and by the time Jess pulled up alongside, on the highway, they could both see what her more exotic senses were already telling her.
“Shit…” said Landon. A sea of dark lumps covered the flat fields ahead. All relentlessly moving towards the city they were only twenty or so miles from.
“You want to tell me why the one place we are traveling to,” said Sanchez. “Happens to be where about a zillion of these damn things are also going to?”
The two in the front of the pickup looked at each other.
“What shall we tell him?” said Jess.
Landon held the radio to his mouth. “Got no idea. You think you can get through? Over.”
In the cabin of the truck, Sanchez looked at his passenger who was scouring the fields with binoculars. “What you think?”
Esther’s frown accompanied a subtle head shake. “I’m not seeing an end to them. If it’s like this all the way in…” She looked at him. “All this just to save someone else’s kid?”
He looked away. “If you haven’t noticed, people are kinda thin on the ground. These two know things. Could be big for us once this craziness is over.”
She held the eyepieces back up and looked again. “There’s fewer on the highway. If we get up a good speed…”
Sanchez nodded then held the radio to his mouth. “Stay close behind us. We’ll be hitting a lot of them. Where exactly in the city we headed?”
“Will do.” said Landon. He looked at Jess and held the talk button down.
Jess leaned closer. “About ten miles south of the center. I’ll give you more directions when we’re closer. Over.”
The truck’s engine revved and the heavy vehicle shuddered, then took off, Jess doing the same in the pickup, keeping only ten-feet behind the trailer’s tailgate. Landon slid his window down and leaned out, trying to better see the road ahead then pulled back, sliding it back up when the sound of screeches and roars were louder even than the noise of the thundering truck.
“Here we go!” said Sanchez from the radio.
The truck veered to the right, Jess doing the same as both vehicles’ speed increased to around ninety.
Misshapen appendages belonging to unwieldy bodies flashed by on both sides of the small convoy, lit by the headlights and for an instant those inside caught sight of rows of teeth and claws snapping and scything at them.
“This might—” The truck shuddered, its rear lights suddenly becoming red making Jess hit the brakes and a screech was cut short by a crunch and pieces of rotting bones and flesh rolling beyond the glare. She gave up on what she was going to say and redoubled her efforts to concentrate on the truck’s movements as it gathered momentum again, equally steering left then right, mirroring it.
“We can’t be—”
Another impact slowed the truck as it tried to avoid what it was careering into, then another, each hit reducing Bertha’s speed.
“They’re coming at us!” shouted Lachlan, now able to see the creatures staggering in their direction, off the side of the road.
“Go faster!” shouted Landon into the radio.
“Trying!” responded Esther. “But there’s too many! And—” Something scratched along the pickup’s windows, making Landon and the teen pull away. “— I think they’re attacking us or something!”
The semi’s engine roared, the heavy vehicle picking up speed, Jess trying to do the same.
“Look!” shouted Landon, pointing, as they all watched something almost the size of the pickup, with multiple arachnid type legs spring onto the side of the trailer, grasping the top of it. In the headlights’ glare an almost human like head coiled around on a protruding neck, and looked in their direction. “You got one on your trailer!” shouted Landon into his radio.
“Working on it!” shouted Esther in reply.
A flash of light heralded a boom and parts of the creature fell away, one piece flying back towards the pickup.
“Look out!” shouted Jess, trying to steer them to the left, but it was too late and a claw smashed into the windshield, lodging in the fractured glass just inches from Landon’s head.
Red lights came on again, this time almost causing Jess to slam into the back of the trailer, the pickup’s momentum slowing just in time. More gun blasts echoed out.
“I don’t think we can keep this up!” shouted Esther through Landon’s radio. “There’re too many!”
Landon grabbed the map from beneath his seat, pulling the cover open, flicking through some pages, then held the radio to his mouth. “There’s a town just up ahead on our left, drive to it! If we make it to more built-up areas, there might be less of them! Over.”
The horn of the semi bellowed out in reply.
“I hope…” More gunfire came from the radio’s speaker. “You’re right!”
The pickup gained speed, pulling out from behind the truck to see ahead. A dark shape loomed large in the headlights causing Jess to veer back behind the trailer but not before something clipped the front right with a crunch. The headlight on that side immediately went dark. Jess shouted in frustration.
Landon shook his head, then looked at his wife. “They’re too many, Jess,” he shouted, trying to be heard over the engine noise. “We need to another way in!”
The truck slowed suddenly then steered right onto an exit. A blue sign flashed by mentioning gas and food and the dark silhouettes of small buildings came and went, lost amongst groups of trees and long grass. They arrived at an intersection, but the bigger vehicle hardly slowed, taking a sharp left, moving back under the highway, the road narrowing so that the front yards of single-story wooden homes were just feet away.
Lachlan looked out the back window. “I… We’re leaving most of them behind, but some are still following.”
“There are some larger buildings up ahead,” said Sanchez from the radio. “I say we park up. Hopefully those things keep on going to the city. Over.”
It was the first time those in the pickup had heard the driver of the semi sign off a message properly.
Landon looked at his wife, who was shaking her head. “I know we need to catch up with Sam,” he said. “But we’re not going to ever get to her if we keep trying the highway. If we—”
“Okay, okay!”
He held the radio back to his face. “Do that. We’re right behind you. Over.”
*****
7: 15 a.m. South Denver.
Shadows and blurs were all Sam was conscious of as they sailed through the Denver streets, moving ever south towards their destination. After being surrounded amongst the shelves of the superstore, all fight had left her, and she meekly walked back with Joan to the SUV, the creatures clearing a path for them as if they were royalty or something. Sam didn’t know what the things were anymore, or Joan or even herself and she didn’t care.
As they turned into a leafy suburb with shiny modern buildings, she caught glimpses of the pinks and mauves of the new day before being plunged back into darkness. The engine noise echoed off bland concrete walls. Some kind of underground parking garage, the vehicle’s headlights being the only illumination as they circled lower and lower, moving deeper into the subterranean
hell. The SUV drove into a parking space and stopped.
Joan let out a breath before turning to her passenger with a smile. “Well, there were sometimes I didn’t think we would, but we made it. No more monsters for you.” Sam stared blankly at the two spots of yellow light on the dimpled wall in front of them. Joan leaned closer, the youngster not reacting. “You still in there?” She sat back heavily in her seat. “You were the one that ran! I didn’t make you do that, did I!”
Still no reaction.
Joan let out a breath, pulling her seatbelt off then held the radio to her mouth. “We’re here. Where are you? Over.” She looked out of the side window for any sign of a welcoming committee but there was only stillness lost in shadow.
“I know…” said the man from the handset radio.
“Well, where are you? I’ve kind of come a long way to bring you your little present! Over… Oh and you should be aware that the parents are probably not far be—”
“They are being taken care of…”
Joan glanced at Sam, being sure his comment would get a rise out of her, but she was frozen like a statue. She started to worry that the ‘present’ was damaged beyond repair. Lucas wouldn’t be happy about that, but that would be his problem. She played her part. She hit the talk button again. “So what level am I taking her? Over.”
“Seven…”
“All the way to the bottom? Seriously? What about the creatures? Are they still giving you problems?”
“Not anymore…”
“Hmm… you okay? You sound different… Um. Over.”
“Perfectly fine. I’m waiting.”
She turned to Sam. “You heard the man. Seven floors down we gotta go.” Sam hadn’t moved an inch. She slid her hand in front of the teen’s eyes, slowly, up and down.
“I don’t care,” said Sam almost making the middle-aged woman jump in her seat.
“Don’t care about what?”