A Shrouded World 6

by Mark Tufo

  “Seriously?”

  He looked again.

  “Reveling in their victory would be my best guess,” I said, figuring he wouldn’t be satisfied until I gave him some sort of answer. Now would have been the perfect time for one of those world-changing shimmering events to happen. Something to whisk away all of the zombies and leave us three behind. That seemed about as likely as me winning the lottery. (Although, actually, I have won a few dozen times, and for well over a million. Sure, it was after the z-poc had started, and I had about zero percent chance of collecting, but still, it’s fairly exhilarating to scratch off thousands of pilfered tickets and finally get a big winner. When you’re hunkered down there’s not a whole lot you can do. Tracy wasn’t thrilled when she caught me using the kids as free labor in my bid to scratch off more tickets quicker. I didn’t see the problem; I promised all of them a cut of the payout.)

  Nightfall was close, and I didn’t think I was going to see another starry sky. I’d spent my fair share of time looking to the heavens. Certainly, nothing that could quantify as even the most amateur of astronomers. Right now, though, I would write sonnets to the celestial bodies for but one more evening under their light. Maybe Jack would summon the night runners, but unless it was an army of them, it wasn’t going to matter. We were standing in a loose circle, well, me and Jack were standing, if BT hunched over any lower he was going to be kissing dirt. This was worse than being chased; there was the obvious reason of being trapped, but now the wait, the dread, like we’d been sentenced to death and we’d not been commuted nor been given a final meal.

  I used to imagine what might go through the minds of those walking those last few feet to their demise; now I no longer needed to think on that exercise. I looked to the so-close-to-escape path and hoped that Kalandar or even Trip, with his slingshot, would appear, but if they had any smarts, they’d be using this delay in pursuit to get themselves good and gone. Sure, that’d be a shitty thing to do to those you left behind, but it wasn’t like we’d be around to complain. Jack was sighting in a zombie.

  “What’s your rush?” I told him, figuring if he fired, they’d attack.

  “They’re penning us up, Mike,” he responded.

  “That’s…” I was going to finish with “ridiculous,” but was it? They’d chased us for miles and now that they finally had us, we weren’t being eaten. What other explanation was there? Zombies, like night runners, didn’t play with their food. Whistlers though, yeah, they played with their food. “Jack, I think we’re in trouble.”

  “Mike, please tell me you’re not just coming to that realization.”

  “I think it’s worse.”

  “Worse than being eaten?” BT was finally able to stand.

  “Whistlers.” And like I had summoned a demon, we could hear the motorcycles off in the distance.

  “You could have kept that to yourself,” Jack said.

  “Why? Why didn’t they do it themselves?” BT asked.

  “We’ve killed a few of them. I think maybe they got sick of being on the receiving end,” Jack said.

  “I’m not sticking around waiting for a staple to the forehead and then going for a drag behind a bike,” I said.

  “You got something planned, I’m all ears.” Jack was looking the way of the dust cloud moving toward us.

  “You may wish to step back!” boomed from atop the bluff.

  Not sure where Kalandar wanted us to go; any step backward brought us closer to the zombies. Then we all saw the reason why. A boulder, roughly the size of an engine block, was hurled off the edge. I don’t mean to complain, but it took out four zombies in what had to be the most gruesome fashion I’d ever had the misfortune of watching. Their heads erupted, smashed like grapes to feet in a wine-making barrel. Eyes and teeth shot out like they had a small charge of gun powder behind them. The bodies folded over and backward like disjointed accordions. The deaths were instantaneous, but the memory would linger for as long as I kept taking breaths.

  Four fewer zombies was always a good thing, but in terms of what we were dealing with, it made not the slightest difference.

  “Holy shit.” BT was pointing, my eyes were still glued to the gruesome demolition. Even with the approach of multiple motorcycles, it would have been difficult to miss the sound of a colossal boulder cascading down the side of the bluff. Unlike the original rock, this one was the size of a small car, like, smart-car sized. This one had been pushed; even Kalandar had his limits. The massive rock was shearing off sides of the bluff even bigger than the original object. I felt like I was watching an extinction event in real time, and we were right in the crosshairs. There was no way our twenty feet from the wall was going to be safe, but backing up too far had its own sets of concerns, and the zombies couldn’t have cared less with what was happening. If any even turned to watch I’d not seen it.

  We backed up as the avalanche picked up steam. There was a twenty-foot wide swath of destruction as stones, boulders, cliff ledge and scree slammed into the unwitting zombies, raising a gigantic cloud of dust and dirt. I was glad I couldn’t see the carnage. It was unsaid as Jack and I moved forward: the zombies had taken some serious damage, but it was in that one spot and it was off to the left of the path we needed. Advancing to the destroyed area would be of no benefit.

  “Whistlers are coming. Why have you not moved?” Kalandar asked, we could see him peeking over the edge.

  “Another boulder to your right!” Jack said.

  “These are heavy!” Kalandar complained.

  As the dust settled and half-covered bodies of zombies revealed themselves, the living undead ones filled in the space left by their dearly departed. The whistlers would be here in under a minute, and whatever they had planned would not be beneficial for us. Seconds clicked by as we waited, each one tolling a louder death knell as it slid into the past.

  “Kalandar!” I yelled as the motorcycles came to a crescendo.

  There was a round of loud revving like they wanted to make abundantly sure that we knew they were there. Sort of like a douche bag neighbor might with his Harley at four in the morning. Then en masse, they turned their engines off. Whatever was going to happen, this was the climactic finale. Jack and I both had our rifles raised to the newest threat, though from where we were, there was little chance of getting off any kill shots. The zombies shuffled forward all around us. It looked like the whistlers weren’t going to take any chances. They were going to let their newest lackeys do the heavy lifting, but unlike any spy movie, they were going to hang around to make sure the job was done right.

  Heard a yell from up top then Trip poked his head over the ledge. He waved then stepped back.

  “I hate your friend,” Jack said.

  “Holy shit,” was all I could manage to say as the newest rock was rolled into place, but calling it a rock was like calling a whale a guppy. The thing had to be the size of a city bus, although, I’ve never seen a country bus, so I don’t know what the size disparity is.

  “Jack, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.

  “If you’re like the Talbot I know, there isn’t anyone alive that could even begin to ponder what you’re thinking,” BT replied.

  “We need to run.”

  “Where…” Jack started with, then moved quickly to, “aw…fuck.”

  “What?” BT asked.

  “Come on,” I shouted just as a piece of the earth’s mantle was pushed to the very edge of the precipice. It was dangling as it sought balance then Kalandar yelled out as he gave it one final heave-ho. To me, it looked a lot like I figured the asteroid that did in the dinosaurs looked to them. A piece of the edge, double the size of the rock broke away. We were moving as fast as we dared, straight toward the zombies and straight toward the impact zone.

  “Uh-oh,” I heard Jack say through the cacophony, like, what the fuck could be an uh-oh at this point? Then I felt the hairs on my neck rise in response to some unseen force. A shimmer broke over the left side of the zo
mbies then over us, but they, as of yet, had not disappeared.

  “Everything has stopped moving!” BT said.

  “Except us,” Jack said. “We need to go!”

  We’d reached the frontline of the zombies. They weren’t technically unmoving, they were just moving at a much slower pace than we, or more incredulously, we were moving at The Flash types of speeds. Even stranger was the mini-mountain coming down; right now, it looked more to be magically hovering. I could see individual rocks just stuck in the air. If not for Jack constantly kicking and pushing zombies out of the way, I may have been content to watch the show.

  “What the absolute hell is going on?” I’d turned to see what the whistlers were up to. I was looking at rows of staples inbound, seemingly floating towards us on the barest breeze. If and when whatever this time dilation event ended, and we were still in this general area, there would be little chance we would survive. Between the staples, the zombies, and the landslides, it would be a perfect storm of extermination. I felt another shockwave race across me from right to left, the exact opposite of the way it had started. There were roughly two seconds where everything returned to normal. Small stones pelted the area, zombies, which were surprised we were among them, reacted quickly and reached out, and the swarm of staples had closed to the point where I was ducking and warning the others. As suddenly as the speed up occurred, we were once again in a slow down.

  Jack had made it through the zombies and was clearing a lane for BT. I was third by a good ten feet when again, the real world intruded with its gravity and live-action speed. Zombies, not more than a few feet behind, fell in a wave as staples zipped into them. Larger-fist and soccer ball-sized rocks were plummeting, and I was under the shadow of a boulder that would leave nothing of me worth finding. Again—a snap, and the world was stuck. For some unfathomable reason, I again turned around. A staple was aimed straight for my eyeball, no more than an inch away. There’d be nothing I could do if the phenomenon once again clicked off, and that would hurt like a motherfucker. I wisely plowed forward.

  None of us said anything as we raced up the natural crevice in the wall. Even BT, who had been entirely out of gas some five minutes ago, was at what could be equated to a sprint. Amazing what having your adrenal gland squeezed like an overripe orange can do to your system. We were halfway up the incline when the earth rumbled under our feet. It was safe to say the eagle had landed. Now we were moving to avoid the massive dust cloud that was rapidly coming up from the ground. When we finally reached the top, Kalandar and Trip awaited, both on the ground, lying on their backs looking up at the sky. Kalandar was breathing heavily, Trip seemed to be tracing clouds.

  Jack was looking back down the pathway. “I can’t see it clearly, but I think it’s sealed off. We should probably get moving just in case.”

  BT groaned…or maybe it was me.

  “I cannot.” Kalandar had still not opened his eyes.

  “Mike, how much ammo do you have? We’ll defend this path if we have to.” Jack was pulling out magazines from pouches.

  “Less than you, apparently,” I told him enviously.

  Between us, we hovered close to three hundred. Against a traditional enemy, that might be enough, only so many casualties humans wanted to suffer, no matter how important the high ground…but again, not a conventional enemy. Every shot could be a kill shot and they would still come. They had the numbers and the desire.

  “What’s the chances that’s the only way up?” BT asked.

  I looked at Jack, the big man was onto something.

  “Slim,” was all Jack said, his lips pulled into a grimace.

  The heavier dust had settled down and, like Kalandar had thrown a bullseye with a dart, the stone sat across the entirety of the opening. One problem solved, seventeen or thirty-two more to go.

  “I’m gonna sit,” BT announced, although he was already halfway down as he said so.

  “Trip, what’s going on?” I asked.

  “Why, what have you heard?” He checked his pockets. “Is the po-po here?”

  “I’d actually like it if they were. I’m talking about the time-thing.”

  Jack was splitting his attention, turning intently between my conversation and the path up.

  “Time is relative.”

  Trip!” I yelled. Stressed out didn’t even begin to convey how I felt. He sat up to look at me.

  “Ponch!” he yelled back. “What!?”

  “Why are you yelling?” Kalandar asked, he hadn’t moved much.

  “Maybe he thinks I’m far away,” Trip told the demon.

  I could keep trying to drive myself insane, attempting to extract some knowledgeable tidbit from him or walk away. I chose to walk away. Fuming was fitting; I didn’t have a destination in mind, just away from Trip. Jack caught up soon enough.

  “I have BT watching the pathway, but between the rock and the resultant rock slide they’re not getting up that way. We should check out the perimeter.”

  I looked up from my boots to realize I was about halfway across the top of the bluff. It was red dirt, like from Mars or Utah—sort of the same place. There wasn’t much vegetation and nothing in the way of wildlife.

  “Damn,” I said as I gingerly looked over the edge on the far side.

  “That has to be a hundred feet.” Jack was looking down as well.

  The wall down was sheer. Nothing was going to be able to climb it. We walked the entire perimeter; I figured it to be about two miles around in an oblong shape. Where we had come up was by far the most accessible avenue of approach. Didn’t mean there wasn’t another way, but there wasn’t any way we could effectively guard the entire bluff, we had to pick the most obvious entry point.

  “We have a few problems. I know, I know.” Jack put his hand up. “These are more immediate.”

  I nodded.

  “First, there is that,” Jack said, pointing toward the setting sun.

  I looked toward the sun, low in the sky.

  “And, I don’t know why I haven’t been bothered by night runners for the past year or so. It may have something to do with you being pulled into the portal, but now that you and BT are here, who knows,” he said, shrugging.

  “Do you think there’s a chance they’ll pop up?”

  “I suppose it’s possible. After all, the sky did open up and pour zombies at us. I don’t see why night runners aren’t a thing anymore.”

  “If they come, we’ll be pretty fucked,” I replied.

  “Yep. But, we need to be ready in case they pop into existence.”

  ““So, we’ll both stay up until after dark,” I told him as I sat down right at the top of the path. “You said ‘a few things.’ What else?”

  “We have very little water and less food. Plus, we’re exposed to the elements. If we get one of those strange weather phenomena…” He left the rest unsaid.

  Going back the way we had come wasn’t an option. We’d be right back in the thick of it, and we’d not seen another path down in our travels, though, the burgeoning night had created deep shadows we’d had a difficult time seeing through.

  “We’ll look tomorrow,” was all I could think to say. When we got back, all three were asleep. Jack was pissed that a guard hadn’t been posted. “They could all be dead.”

  The light dimmed as the sun ventured behind the horizon. We sat near the middle of the mesa, waiting for night to claim the land. With a last flash of defiance, the sun surrendered, dropping below the horizon. We stayed motionless, watching for the appearance of white portals to pop up and send waves of night runners screaming toward us. If they came, I doubted we would have enough ammo and any we did use would leave less for the crowd of zombies and whistlers waiting below.

  No portals appeared, much to my relief. “You get some sleep, I’ll take first watch.”

  He groused some and put some distance between him and us. If he wanted to sleep, he needed to. BT was sawing logs, but it was Trip that sounded like one of those tree shreddin
g machines. Kalandar could have been a mouse in the corner with how smooth his breathing was.

  There was no moon; the skies were clear and the stars were brilliant, giving me more than enough light to keep an eye on the general area. Wasn’t going to be able to do much if they found another way up, but short of walking the entire perimeter, what more could I do? I would have done so, but it would have left everyone exposed for close to forty minutes, and all things being equal, I was as exhausted as the rest of the group. I was startled awake sometime in the middle of the night when the whistlers started their engines. Then came the mini-coronary when a giant demon hand rested on my shoulder.

  “They are looking for a new way up,” he said.

  “Scared the shit out of me, Kalandar.” I sat up. The rock I’d been using as a pillow left a crick in my neck, insult to injury.

  “I do not smell your offal.”

  “Just an expression…you have to eat food to be able to produce waste,” I told him. I was used to not eating much in the worlds I haunted, but this was pushing even that minimum caloric intake. Hunger pains twisted through me; they would subside briefly and then come back with a vengeance. Like I needed my body to add pain to the empty feeling and the lethargy the starvation was bringing.

  “We could perhaps eat the fat one.” Kalandar looked over his shoulder.

  I hoped he was joking. If he wasn’t, I didn’t know how we were going to stop him, plus we had no fuel to start a fire, and I’m just not into raw meat. We sat in silence for a while, the sounds of the engines drifted off as they circled the far side.

  “Did it happen up here?” I asked.

  “You will need to be more specific.”

  “Time stopped, or, I guess, slowed down when you pushed that big rock down. And first off, let me apologize for not thanking you for that.”

  “You are welcome and there were no anomalies here. What exactly happened?”

  I told him of our escape, how time had ceased to move except for us. How it had sped up and slowed again. How we wouldn’t have made it if not for that intervention.