A Shrouded World 6

by Mark Tufo

  “Why don’t I go up?” BT asked, looking down at the wide-open front door.

  “Go ahead, man. Right now, I’m not sure which avenue is more dangerous.”

  “They’re not in yet. You go up.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said.

  Another shriek—this one much closer. I was on the chair, but we were both looking at the door.

  “Go, man,” BT urged.

  I couldn’t see much of anything. Unlike the rest of the house, which nearly glowed, this place was barren. I put my hands on the floor and jumped up, scrabbling until I had my upper body over the lip. In a few seconds, I was all the way up.

  “Give me my rifle.” I was reaching down with one hand while keeping my eyes into the room. “BT, hurry up, man.”

  When the rifle didn’t touch my hand, I spared a look at the big man; he was looking back toward the door. I leaned out, I could see the silhouette of a night runner. It was backlit like special effects for a horror movie.

  “BT.”

  He snapped out of it long enough to hand me my weapon, and as if that was the impetus the runner needed, it crashed through the storm door. Eyes shining a bright silver as it snarled, it pushed its arms down to its sides and threw its head back before screeching an earsplitting hunting cry.

  BT was getting his rifle up.

  “I’ll get it, you come up!” I shouted. I got down on my knees and placed the barrel against the wall. I fired into the runner, who was already halfway up the stairs. A plume of blood arced from its crotch as the runner fell away, breaking through the railing and falling to the living room floor. Two more runners were inside and had spotted their meal. BT hurriedly climbed the table. I’d not been watching him, but in his haste to get up to the crawl space, he’d stood incorrectly upon the chair. As he pushed up, he sent the chair skidding away down the length of the table. The only decent part about the whole thing was he’d launched it down the stairs and into the face of the nearest runner—blood sprayed from its now ruined nose.

  He’d bought himself some precious time as the runners attempted to untangle themselves from the falling furniture, but it was a short reprieve. BT had an arm up by me, now the question was, did I help him or keep the runners at bay? I could hear him grunting as he tried to get his heft up to me. I fired three more shots into the burgeoning crowd. Two more night runners fell away onto the floor, one with grievous injuries and one more pissed off than anything.

  “Come on, man!” I urged.

  “What the fuck do you think I’m doing?”

  I quickly put my rifle down, grabbed his arm and the material around his shoulder. I was straining as I pulled my own weight and as much of his as I could, backwards. It was a stalemate—until I got the feeling I was losing my balance and any equilibrium I had accomplished.

  “Mike, they’re coming!” There was panic in his voice.

  “JUMP!” I could feel myself being pulled forward; I was very much in danger of falling out, and with BT’s weight, I was more than likely going to sail over him and down to the main floor. If I somehow survived the fall, I would be greeted by a mob of hungry runners. There was a tearing sound—either the muscles in my shoulders as I pulled or BT’s jersey. Maybe both.

  BT had stooped down enough to get some lift. Another inch and I was gone. Then suddenly he came up, the top of his head just clipping my jaw and giving my molars a hard rattle. The upper half of his body now appeared in the small space with me. I grabbed his belt and was pulling for all I was worth; it seemed the enemy was doing the same on the other end. BT was flailing about as he kicked wildly at whatever had tried to lay claim. There was a satisfying crunch from below and then I had most of him in. He pulled himself the rest of the way up and lay still for a moment as I grabbed my weapon. The runners were now doing their best to get onto the table and in. We were screwed. Trapped inside with the runners, that now had sanctuary from the sun, we could be here indefinitely, I mean, within reason. We’d die of dehydration soon enough, so there was that.

  I blasted one on the top of the skull. Its knees buckled and it pitched over the side, crashing loudly to the floor below. Heads bobbed up as they jumped to take a look, then came the arms as some tried to come in and crash our private party.

  “Need you back in the fight, BT!” I said as I kicked a runner who had brought her head up. Teeth exploded out the left side of her mouth and there was a loud snapping sound, bones or railing, didn’t matter at this point. I shot two more runners and stomped my heel down onto the hand of another. I ground those bones into dust before I lifted my foot. There was a shriek of pain and anger as the monster quickly retreated.

  “How many are there?” BT asked, getting up.

  “Didn’t ask.” I’d taken a step back as a hand had snagged the bottom of my pants. If it had got a better grip, it would have been able to pull me down. There was precious little ground to yield. With BT next to me, we got rid of the closest ones. The table was clear, I mean, except for the copious amounts of blood and tissue laid atop it like a new redwood veneer set in a butcher shop. I changed out my magazine and put four rounds in the corner of the table.

  “And you said I was a bad shot,” BT said. My hastily thought out plan came to fruition as more night runners came as first one, then three made it to the top of the table. Finally the leg I’d been shooting at gave out, sending two of the trio rolling down the steps.

  “I take that back,” BT said. He killed two more night runners, but plenty were coming into the house to take their place.

  “Hold onto your rounds until they figure another way up here.” I could barely see him due to the thick smoke that filled in our area.

  “It’d be nice if they gave up.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to be the case. Oh, no.”

  “What could possibly be an added ‘oh no’ in this situation?”

  “We left the bag of broom legs down there.” I was looking to the corner of the landing, furthest away from the stairs. The bag was on the floor, undisturbed except for the blood clotting upon it.

  “Do we need it?”

  He was thinking what I was. That was ground we’d lost and had very little chance of recapturing.

  “I’d love to tell you no, but I can’t.”

  “They sleep, right? In the daytime?”

  “My scope of them is rudimentary at best, but yeah, I think so. It doesn’t mean they don’t set a guard to watch and see if we try to make a break for it during the daylight.”

  The runners had launched one more attack. A group of ten stormed the stairs and the now slanted table. We got rid of half as they sent the table scuttering away toward the stairs; it made a small barrier, but nothing that would stop them. The good part was that they could no longer get up toward us. I had no doubt in my mind they’d eventually figure out a new way up, but until then, we had a respite. I sank to my ass. BT sat down with a controlled descent.

  “That fucker is just watching us.” He pointed to the living room below where a solitary female runner was staring in our direction. We could hear the rest of her pack tearing through the house, looking for some hidden surprises. Although, could be they were trying to rip down support beams in the hopes we’d come crashing down with the rest of the house. “Looks like they did set up a guard.”

  “Maybe, but I just think she’s mad. That look she’s giving us.” I flipped her off.

  “Yeah, that’s right, piss off the psychotic one.”

  “You wouldn’t even believe me if I told you how many times I’ve seen that look from women directed at me.”

  “Oh, I think I would. You got enough of that other Talbot’s traits; it’s not much of a leap for me.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I told him truthfully. “I mean, right here, right now—not for the rest of this shit show.”

  “I know what you meant and yeah, believe it or not, I’d rather be here than any other place I’ve visited in this
world. You taking first shift?” He was already lying back.

  “Sure, why not. Now I know the real reason you’re happy to be here.”

  “Potato, potato,” he said, not changing the inflection for either word. Didn’t take long before he was snoring.

  The female night runner had not moved. I wasn’t sure if she’d even blinked. I brought my rifle up and had her in my sights. Still nothing, not so much as a flinch. “Stone cold,” I said aloud. Over the course of the next few hours, the noise in the house died down somewhat; runners came and went through the now broken-out storm door. With nothing happening and the night getting long in the tooth, it was all I could do to stay awake. It seems like you wouldn’t be able to sleep for a week in these types of situations, but the flood of adrenaline during battle takes its toll and it must be paid. I figured it to be about four hours later when I tapped BT.

  “I’m up, I’m up,” he managed to say between snorts and half snores.

  “Sounds it. I need some shut-eye.”

  “Got it.”

  I lay down; BT was next to me. “Dude.”

  “Yep.” He sat up with a groan.

  I didn’t dream, or if I did, it was nothing worth remembering. It was the rays of the sun splayed across my face that interrupted my slumber, well, that and the tree sawing of BT, who was propped up against the wall, his chin touching his chest. I was greeted by the female night runner, who, if she had moved at all, had returned to exactly the same spot, and her countenance had not changed.

  “You practice that resting bitch face? Because you got it down pat.”

  “I’m up!” BT looked around in surprise.

  “You’re lucky I’m not hungry enough to start gnawing on you.”

  “I didn’t fall asleep!”

  “Yeah, tell that to the drool on the side of your face.”

  He furiously wiped the evidence away.

  “The rest of them seem to be asleep; don’t know what’s up with this one.”

  “Maybe we killed someone she’s close to,” BT offered.

  “Shit, man…I don’t want to think like that. Gives them too much humanity. But she does look like she wants to exact revenge, as opposed to just eating us.”

  “Just eating us?”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “Now what?”

  “I’ve got to get that bag. You’ll lower me down, I’ll grab it, you pull me back up.”

  “How much leverage am I going to get? Half of me will be hanging out.”

  “Better half of you than three-quarters of me. But we could try it.”

  “I’m good.”

  BT and I moved closer to the edge, the angry runner watched us intently.

  “She knows something’s up,” BT said.

  “I’d shoot her if it wouldn’t wake the rest of them.”

  “Speaking of which, where are they?”

  That was a good question. We could not see the hallway at all from where we were; it was quite possible that they were waiting just out of sight for us to try and come down.

  “The moment I let you down, she’s going to rat us out.”

  “We shoot her, that’s an extra couple of seconds lost.”

  As if she knew our plan, she moved toward the stairs, never taking her eyes from us.

  “Now, man, now,” I grabbed BT’s hand and swung out.

  “Fuck, man,” he grunted as he leaned down. I jumped the remaining four feet to the floor. The runner was now halfway up the stairs and moving fast; she’d also let out an ear-piercing shriek to let the others know.

  I grabbed the bag at the same time BT shot at her. Hit her twice—once in the thigh—the other tore a runnel through the side of her head, unfortunately, neither enough to kill her. She stopped two steps from the top and went to her knees, but her shrieking continued. I could hear runners clamoring out of whatever hidey holes they’d climbed into. Bag in hand, I looked down the hallway and to the master bedroom, then looked back. Only ten feet separated me from the horde, but wide beams of sunlight fell across the carpet. For posterity, I flipped them off.

  “Really, man?” BT had seen my gesture.

  “Tossing the bag,” I told him as I launched it up, doing my best to avoid hitting him. Would have been very bad if I'd poisoned him; then I’d never get my ass up there. The runners in the bedroom were held at bay for the moment, but the others coming from downstairs would be here soon enough. Thought I had it all figured out, right up until a cloud fucked up my defense perimeter.

  “Shit, shit shit," was about all I managed to say as the runners' gazes went from the sunlight to me and then back to the hallway, where it was now much darker. “Coming in hot!” I yelled to BT. I wanted to use the table as a launching pad, it didn’t work out quite the way I’d envisioned. Number one, there was no spring. Secondly, the table was unstable and the railing it was leaning against was broken and, the kicker was, the surface was as slick as runny dog offal left out in the rain. I skidded along half the length of it then, as I pushed off, the table broke the rest of the way through the railing. Not sure when BT became Stretch Armstrong, but he grabbed my outstretched hand and swung me like a momma monkey does her baby. Teeth clacked violently shut where my body had just been. BT reeled me in and landed me like a tuna on the floor of the small room.

  “I hope that was worth it.” He was on his back, breathing heavily.

  “You and me both,” I told him as I stood up and looked down at the worked-up runners. The female runner that had been holding her vigil was right below me. A hand raised and she extended a finger. (Not that finger, though it would have been appropriate from her point of view.) This was her pointer finger, like she was signaling that I was next. Her I gave the other finger.

  “Dude.”

  “She knows what’s up,” I told him.

  “I don’t want to seem ungrateful for the high ground, but besides being hungry and thirsty, I need to go.”

  “Piss on their heads, give them something to be mad about.”

  “Other end.”

  I stopped looking at the runner. “No fucking way you’re taking an oily mud hen here.”

  “A what?”

  “You’re not going to punch your shit ticket here.”

  “Shut up about it already.”

  “It really would be like you making actual logs. Might have enough to build a cabin.”

  “Sorry I said anything.”

  “Me too. We need to get out of here.”

  “No shit.”

  “Circling back around to that?” I asked. I finally turned away from the runner, her finger still pointing. The room we were in wasn’t wide, ten feet, no more than that, the ceiling was steeply pitched and not high. BT could only stand in the center. I had a little more leeway, but not much. Given the size of the house, I figured the room went back the entirety of the hallway and the bedroom beyond, so, twenty feet, give or take, though you couldn’t see much more than half that in the recessed dark. Now seemed as good a time to explore as any. It might have been a good idea to have done it when we got up there the night before, but, well, just escaping death can be exhausting.

  “Where are you going?”

  “There might be a toilet back there,” I told him as I moved deeper into the shadows.

  “That would not be horrible.”

  “It would for me. Runners on one side, grunting, groaning and stench on the other.”

  “I’m not constipated.”

  “Can we stop talking about this?” I asked.

  “You’re the one obsessing!” he yelled.

  “As if. I can see the veins bulging from your neck, and I’m not even looking.”

  “Hey man, slow up! I can’t see you and you sound funny.”

  Couldn’t have been more than ten feet between us, at least, in a more logical world, but I noticed that his voice sounded warbled, like it was being stretched over a long distance.

  I was curious about what was going on, but I was more conc
erned with making sure we stuck together. I felt relief when he bumped into me. I thought about asking him if he wanted to hold hands; we didn’t do that, but he kept a hand on my shoulder. I walked what I figured was the span of the room before stopping. It was dark, not oppressively dark like a void was collapsing in on us, but enough so that I could barely see my hand as I held it out in front of me to keep from banging my face off of a wall—or something worse.

  “There’s no wall,” I said, reaching around.

  “Go a little further.”

  “Okay, grab hold of my uniform in case I fall through or something.”

  “Is that what you think is going to happen?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea. This was, is, a small room, but right now, I’m getting the feeling if I tried to touch the roof I wouldn’t feel anything.”

  “You’re right. What’s the opposite of claustrophobia? Because I think I’m feeling that.”

  “Agoraphobia.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I have a lot of issues.”

  He left it at that. “Do you think we should go back?” We’d walked another twenty feet.

  “To what?” was all I could think to ask. We had the fear of the unknown and the fear of the known to wrestle with. In the military, we learned all about killing zones, funneling the enemy into the position you wanted them through a series of obstacles. Forcing them into an ambush, a place where you have sufficient coverage for your fields of fire. An ancient technique, you can see it in cave paintings. The base of my skull was warning me that this was what was happening here. The runners had forced us into this room and, ultimately, to explore further in an effort to escape their clutches. It didn’t make sense though. The enemy we were dealing with had multiple opportunities to dispatch of us easily; why the elaborate set-up? What could they possibly be afraid of?

  “I can see you now,” BT said.

  We kept walking, it kept getting lighter. “Oh, no,” I sighed. I was once again back in the world devoid of nearly all stimuli except for that brain shredding noise I was sure would be upon us soon. The only decent thing was I had BT, or a passable version, anyway.

  “Mike?” BT stumbled and fell.