by Maxey, Phil
“Who’s gonna be stupid enough to be up there? Let me see.” He handed her the binoculars and she looked for herself and waited as the king of the things below continued its screeches and grunts, seemingly to an attentive audience. A glint appeared on the raised highway and Luci focused best she could on it. “It’s a vehicle… someone’s inside. Like they’re watching the circus below… Here, I’ve got an idea.” She handed the binoculars back and retrieved her flashlight from her jacket.
“You think that’s wise? What if one of those things see you?”
She raised the plastic tube, being sure to angle it away from the graveyard. “I want to know why they think it’s worth risking their life to witness what’s below.” With a flick of the switch, she turned the light on and off, then again and waited.
As the ice flakes fell they waited, then suddenly the engine of the car below fired up. They both flicked their view back to the road nearby.
“They’re leaving,” said Luci.
“And the things. You were right, it’s a traveling circus.”
They watched the twin beams of the sedan drive in a straight line for some seconds then disappear behind groups of trees.
“Looks like they’re heading—”
“Hey look!” said Miller, looking at the overpass and the newly appeared two dots of light. “It is a car!”
Luci was already focusing her view through the eyepieces at the small vehicle, which was turning in an arc to face the opposite way.
“Don’t tell me that dumb bastard is following them?”
Luci stood, quickly moving back to the ladder while placing the binoculars inside her pack. “Come on, we’re doing the same.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
7: 04 p.m. Town of Newgrove.
Dale Hamstead swung his old flashlight’s beam across the assorted abandoned kitchen appliances, furniture and even rusting cars of the junkyard he had taken up residence in. His home had been thirty or so miles to the west, but he had made the journey east a few days earlier hoping to find other survivors like himself. The chain linked fence with the two-story house near the entrance was the first he saw of the town he later found others in, and with Owen’s agreement, became his new place of residence. He had been an engineer in a former life and the forgotten pieces of electronics and pieces of metal and plastic that lay scattered over a few acres looked like useful pieces of a puzzle which he would find a use for. The town was going to need ways to generate energy and he had already drawn up plans for a wind farm just outside its borders.
The house also doubled as a lookout post for when ‘zombies’ as he called what people had become, would try and enter the town from the north or west, being located on the main route into the town from those directions. He had watched a few dozen of the things leave, wishing them good riddance just a day before and since then there had been no new danger to Newgrove.
Kicking the deflated tire on an old pickup, he turned back to the house. One more sleep and if what people told him was true, people could start putting their lives back together. And despite his seventy-two years he would be part of that effort. He smiled as he walked carefully between the muddy ground and tufts of long grass, looking at the flickering candlelight visible through the drapes on the ground floor of his home and almost made it back to the front door before hearing a noise which was different to the wind buffeting his ears.
He turned to the fence which ran along the two-lane road and the darkness beyond. His reading glasses sat on the table in the kitchen but for distances he could see as well as someone half his age and he strained to better see past the rail tracks which followed the road, and the fields and groups of trees which covered a few miles to the north. He stepped off the porch and walked closer to the main gate and swung his light across the concrete hoping the beam would illuminate further, but beyond there were just dark shapes of a rural landscape against the lighter sky.
He shook his head and looked down, relying upon his hearing to detect what his eyes couldn’t. Pulling the radio handset from his jacket he held it to his mouth and held down the transmit button.
“Ford. You out there? Over.”
There were a few seconds of crackle before the young man replied. “I’m here Dale. What’s up? Over.”
“Have they started up the old locomotive? I’m hearing something… like a rumbling or something. Over.”
“Umm… hold on. Over.”
Dale looked to the north again. The distant trees were shaking.
“Nope. The next engine test won’t be until noon tomorrow, at least that’s what it say’s here on the schedule. Why? Over.”
Three miles away, Ford Grozer held the earbud on his headset. “Dale? You hearing me? I said nothing’s happening with the train until tomorrow. Over.”
A noise came from behind as Owen and a similarly aged woman that Ford knew as Gale entered the station, both brushing flakes of ice from their coats and hats.
Ford tried again. “Dale?” His eyes flicked to the dials. The signal strength was good despite the weather.
“You got Dale on there?” said Owen from the room next door.
“Had Dale. But I can’t seem to get him back. He asked a weird question about the train. Wondered if—”
A rhythmic clang of bells bellowed out from nearby. The eyes of the occupants of the small radio room grew large.
“That’s Floyd!” said Owen then looked to Ford. “Keep trying to get Dale.” As the young man tried, Owen held his personal radio to his mouth. “Floyd? What you seeing? Over.”
The racket of cast iron pieces clashing against each other streamed from Owen’s radio. “At the north edge of town. Lots of movement! I can’t reach Dale. He should be right in amongst it! Over.”
“Code red!” Owen shouted into the microphone. “Same drill as before. Stay up there as long as you can and tell me where they are.”
“Will do. Over.”
He looked back to Ford. “Anything?”
Ford shook his head.
“Okay, we’re in an emergency situation. Transmit code red to everyone listening.” He handed Gale the keys to his vehicle. “You know what to do, get everyone in the bunker.”
She nodded, running to the exit, opening it then passing three men coming the other way. They quickly made their way to the back room.
“We’re code red,” said Owen to them. “They’re coming from the north. Get everyone to their positions on the roofs.”
“What’s Dale saying?” said a slim man, almost lost behind a winter green coat.
“We can’t reach him.”
“We should—”
“Just get to your positions! Dale can take care of himself!”
As the men ran back outside, Owen looked at the young man with sweat on his brow and panic in his eyes. He placed his hand on Ford’s shoulder. “Nothing more we can do here. We need to—”
A crackle then a hushed voice came from one of the speakers on the desk.
“Dale?” said Ford.
“I…” A sigh came from the speaker, accompanied with the sound of crack’s and crunches. “Code…”
Owen pulled the headset from the young man, holding it to his ear. “We know. Can you get—”
“Ain’t going anywhere… I’m in the basement… took some damage… bleeding pretty bad…”
The two in the station exchanged a brief look. “How many are there?”
“It…. Dark… too dark… I dunno… the fields were full of them.”
“Stay hidden. Hopefully they just pass thr—” Booms and the clatter of automatic fire echoed around the street outside the station. “— Stay hidden! Over and out!” Owen dropped the headset, virtually pulling Ford out of his seat. The younger man grabbed his coat on the way through the office and both burst onto the sidewalk into a chorus of screeches.
“There!” shouted Ford, spotting a dark horse like shape within the parking lot across the way. It moved under one of the few working street lights and a misshap
en head flicked in their direction, the rest of its body rearing up then charged towards them.
Owen again dragged Ford with him along the sidewalk as hoofs or claws thumped the inches of newly laid snow. “We got to get to the courthouse!” He strained his muscles, his arms pumping, both running for their lives as they sprinted across the road towards the neoclassical building, its four pillars standing tall above two rows of stone steps. Shadows shifted around them as Owen fumbled to pull his pistol from its holster, his lungs burning from the ice cold and ran up the steps. Just as he was halfway to the large wooden door he looked back and gasped as the creature, its form mostly lost to the darkness, scampered up the bottom steps. He desperately turned, knowing they wouldn’t make it to salvation when a stream of bullets fell from above, pinging off the stone but some hitting their target and the creature let out a howl, falling back, trying to stop the projectiles from inflicting more damage.
Ford pushed open the heavy door. “Come on!” he shouted to the older man who bumbled past him, both slamming the door closed and sliding the latch across.
Owen immediately held his radio to his mouth, while trying to catch his breath and running towards the wide grand staircase in the gloom. “Good shooting, Floyd!”
Clatter of gunfire came from the speaker and outside. “That’s why you put me up here, Owen!”
Something hit up against the door, shaking the hinges but the two men were already ascending to the first floor. Turning, they moved past oil paintings and doors with important sounding names on metal plaques and raced up again to the second landing until finally entering a narrow stairwell. As they reached the top they could already hear the crack of Floyd’s semi-automatic and they emerged onto the balcony which wrapped around the large dome a hundred feet above the street.
“There’s too many!” shouted the thirty something with the rifle, angling it best he could downwards but Owen didn’t hear for he stood at the wall, mouth agape at what was flowing through the small town. Most of the streets and small, single-story homes were lost to shadow but even through the blanket of darkness the dark forms, scampering over the yards and sidewalks were obvious. A few blocks over a roof suddenly lit up from the people firing from it, neon streaks striking the street below, but unlike the town hall, this building was far too close to the ground.
Owen held his radio to his mouth. “Connor? Braydon? Anyone out th—”
Gunfire burst from the radio, causing him to move it away from his ear as Floyd also continued firing at the creatures running through the street below. “We… There…. Can’t…”
Owen grabbed the binoculars sitting on the small wall and focused on the battle half a mile away, immediately seeing the desperate fight coming from the radio’s speaker.
“We got to get over there!” said Ford, his hands gripping the ice covered bricks.
Owen saw what the young man couldn’t. Things… multi-limbed things were clambering up the side of the old row of stores on Main Street, and despite the hail of gunfire hitting the spider-like shapes, their progress wasn’t being slowed. The spindly dark masses climbed over the top, onto the far-off roof and immediately the gunfire stopped.
“No…” said Ford.
Owen held the radio back to his mouth. “Gale…. tell me you got everyone to the bunkers? Over.”
As those in the confined space of the roof waited, their heartbeats were almost as loud as the constant stampede of noise below.
“Yes, Owen. Everyone’s in the bunkers. Where are you? Over.”
“I’m safe. To anyone else listening. Don’t engage. Stay hidden and hope the things don’t find you.”
CHAPTER NINE
8: 18 p.m. Eastern Colorado.
So close…
Two words that keep repeating on a loop inside Jess’s mind. The snow had returned and with it memories of death, which she was having difficulty suppressing. Then there was the impossibility of what she saw in the depths of Biochron and worse still… much worse, what her daughter had been reduced to…
She’s fine… she’s whole again…
She looked to the darkness outside the pickup’s window which was alive with thousands of white particles sweeping past, some hitting and accumulating on the windshield before the wiper turned them to water. She hated this journey, hated it more than any part of the last few days. Josh being taken was as if she had lost a limb… again. Taken by something inhuman which she was powerless against because she was human. Her joints ached, her muscles were sore and there was a slight throb of a headache within her skull. All signs that the virus which boosted her physical abilities had left her system. There was also the exhaustion, the temptation of sleep which sat at the edges of her reserve of energy, just waiting for her to relax and overcome her resistance. But keeping her awake was a combination of fear, anxiety and anger. She had zero idea how she was going to reclaim her son. Scott had given her some hope with his mention of tanks and platoons somewhere out there, but it felt like a fairytale and she needed a cast-iron plan, something which she could work towards… which she didn’t have. With Sam, blind panic and a rage she had never felt before propelled her across the state, back to her home city to confront the monster and somehow it worked out, despite the horror that befell her daughter, but this time…
Her eyes started to close, not with tiredness but with despair, until she forced them open.
Come on, Jess… you can figure this out… how do I get him back… So close…
In the trailer of the semi-truck behind, Landon sat with three others amongst large cardboard boxes, some already broken into. A flashlight rested on one, the only illumination in the confined space and lit Tracey’s, Andy’s and Lachlan’s faces. The former having receded further into the darkness of the back of the trailer than any of the others. Landon looked at the other former resident of his home city. “What you do in Denver?”
“Firefighter… You?”
“DPD. Detective.”
The younger, brown-haired man smiled. “Yeah, you have that way about you.”
“Calculating, cool under pressure?”
“More like you’re trying to fix the world…”
Landon smiled, which was an effort due to the pain emanating up his arm from his wrist.
“It’s too broken to fix…” said Tracey, her tone flat. “You didn’t hear…” The three others looked at the young women, her face mostly in shadow. “What came at the school… these things were… louder, stronger… more… evil…” She let out a sigh and before anyone could reply they felt the brakes be applied and the truck and trailer stopped.
A crunch of footsteps on the snow came from outside before a thump came on the trailer’s door, which then opened to a red faced Brad. “We’re picking up a message on the truck’s radio. It’s from a town called—”
Landon and Andy both said ‘Newgrove’ at the same time and walked forward, jumping down to the white surface of the road and with Brad ran to the cab, where Esther already had her door open.
She nodded at the last comment from the radio’s speaker. “Yeah, I hear ya, Owen. Hey, I got Landon here now. I’ll pass the mike to him. Over.”
She did so. “I’m here, Owen? Over.”
“You can’t be too far if we’re communicating. That’s good. Few hours ago we had a few hundred of the things pass through town, killed some of us. But that’s not what I want to tell you. Soon after, two soldiers came into town. Got one of them with me now. They say they know, Jess and Scott? Over.”
A crunch of ice came from behind Landon, making him turn to face Jess and the others from the pickup.
“Is it Luci?” asked Scott.
Landon saw the pained expression on his wife’s face and knew she needed the answer to a different question. “Owen. Did you see a car? Maybe driving amongst the creatures? Over.”
“Uh? Car? No, we were too busy trying to…” Muffled voices came from the speaker.
“Landon? We haven’t met, I’m Luci. Your wife and Sco
tt know me. You asked about a car? Over.”
“Yes! They have my son! Josh! Did you see him in the car?”
“We saw a boy in a car in southern Denver with two others, one’s a kind of messed-up, human monster hybrid. Appears to be leading the creatures. We followed them to Newgrove. Over.”
“Did you see where they went? Over.”
“Looks like, south. Over.”
“We’ll be there within the hour.”
*****
8: 32 p.m. Colorado, Oklahoma Border.
Ice hit the windshield of Arlo’s car, instantly being batted away by the wiper but the interior of the glass was blanketed in condensation, narrowing his view of the void outside. A few hours before he had sat on the overpass, questioning his sanity, watching the lights from a car move into the mass of creatures and then stop as they gathered around it. It made no sense. He waited for the things to tear the vehicle and occupants apart but instead they swarmed as if in deference to whomever was inside. And then a few minutes later the car left, the creatures going with it. He thought about stopping his chase. Things were happening which were beyond his comprehension and there was no way to bring his friends back. But instead of continuing to Denver, he took the exit south and followed the destruction. A few hours later he had seen the horde move in the direction of a town and knew if he followed there was a good chance he would get caught in the narrow streets, so instead he veered far left, a few miles to the east of the town of Newgrove, driving in bursts and spurts to check he wasn’t about to collide headfirst with something unnatural.
He hoped there were no survivors in the town, but if there were… He didn’t want to think about it. Instead, the car he had seen played within his mind. An awkwardly shaped piece of puzzle with no good hole to place it in. He had seen some of the creatures behave strangely over the past few days, as if they remembered what they once wore. Hints of more intelligent behavior and the attack on the school was odd. Why that school? A location on the outskirts of the larger town… could the music and light had been so obvious to what was watching from miles around?