Coyote

by David L. Foster

  “Are they locked out?” asked Beast as she entered the lobby.

  “Not for long,” answered Bait. His voice was worried.

  As if answering his worries they heard the sound of breaking glass coming from up the stairs. It was difficult to distinguish over the buzzing and splintering sounds of the front door being torn apart, but the dog ran to the stairs, shifting his growling and barking up the stairs, before running back to face the main exit, and barking again at the front doors. He went back and forth between the two, obviously frustrated by his inability to face two threats at once. The message was obvious. The horde of thumpers wasn’t focusing only on the front doors, but had also broken through the large glass windows in the central lounges upstairs, and would soon be finding their way down here to where the group waited.

  With thumpers soon to be flowing in from the front doors as well as from upstairs, the group’s options for retreat were limited. To their left lay the front desk and then a long hallway leading to several guest rooms. To their right, there was a set of conference rooms and other meeting areas. She chose the hallway.

  “This way,” she said, moving to the hallway at a run.

  The others followed, Bait helping the Professor rise from the couch and hobble toward the hallway, as Beast stayed behind the pair, ready to guard the rear. As she entered the hallway, passing through the double doors that usually closed it off, she inspected the doors. They were largely decorative, made of wood and without any sort of latching mechanism to keep them closed. They would be no help at all.

  However, some ten feet down the hallway was another, much sturdier set of doors. These were fire doors, designed to swing closed automatically in an emergency, and built with a solid, metal core that was supposed to keep a fire at bay long enough for the lodge’s guests to evacuate in some other direction. They had been closed when the group arrived since they automatically fell closed when the electricity was interrupted, but somebody had since propped them open again by sticking pieces of wood beneath them against the carpet. She removed the piece of wood from the right-hand door easily, allowing it to swing shut. The left-hand one was stuck. For a moment, as she gave it a series of increasingly violent kicks, she wondered if they would all be killed because a little triangle of wood was stuck beneath a door, but it soon popped out. Now both doors were shut, but they had no latch.

  Looking at the doors in frustration, she was surprised as the Mule yelled “Look out!” while he came barreling past her carrying a desk. He had ducked into an open guest room for the desk, and now dropped it on the floor in front of the doors, shoving it up against them to block them closed.

  “Good,” she said, wondering why she hadn’t thought of this herself. She turned to the others. “Bring more!”

  As the Mule braced the desk against the fire doors, she heard the first of the thumpers begin to bang against the other side. More and more of them arrived, and the doors began vibrating to their pounding as the others piled two more desks and a television cabinet against the doors.

  Soon the pounding once again melded into a single, buzzing cacophony, as the uncountable members of the horde outside pounded away at all points of the doors.

  The horde was stopped for now, but she doubted it would last. The fire doors were stronger than the largely decorative doors at the front of the lodge had been, but they had surely not been designed to take this kind of pounding. After just a few moments she could hear the pounding on the doors change tone as the wooden veneer was stripped away, and now the thumpers were pounding directly on the metal core. Would the metal core or the metal in the thumpers’ claws be stronger?

  Soon she had her answer, as she began to see cracks and dents appear on the group’s side of the fire doors. They would not last.

  Looking down the hallway, she saw more bad news. The hallway ran straight, past several guest rooms, past another set of fire doors, and then some storage rooms, finally ending in a fire exit to the outside. Early in the winter, the Mule had nailed heavy boards across the fire exit, as well as across the windows of all the guest rooms. It would slow any thumpers trying to get in from that direction, but would not stop them forever. There were no other exits.

  For better or worse, this was where they would stand, defending this hallway from the thumpers until the last of them fell. The best the group could do would be to push their deaths as many minutes away as they could.

  She looked at the group. The Mule was bracing the desks against the doors so they wouldn’t gradually be forced back by the vibrations and the press of the horde on the other side. Beast, Bait and the dog were arrayed across the hall, weapons out (or teeth bared, in the dog’s case), and the Professor was leaning against a desk, one hand supporting him, keeping his weight off his damaged leg, and the other holding a long kitchen knife he had adopted for himself after arriving at the lodge.

  The Professor would be the weak link, she could tell. Besides his wounded leg, he still looked groggy from the beating the thumpers had given him outside. But perhaps that did not matter. There were not enough of them, even if healthy. When the horde descended on them in numbers, they would all quickly be overwhelmed.

  Which meant, she realized, that the horde must not be allowed to descend on them all at once.

  “Listen,” she said, having to almost shout to be heard over the noise of the horde at the other side of the doors. “There is nowhere left to run, and no real chance of escape. So we have only one choice. Kill or be killed.”

  “There’s a lot more of them than of us,” worried Bait.

  She looked at him. “Then you will have to kill several.”

  They all looked worried, but nobody argued her conclusion.

  “Professor and Bait,” she continued. “Go down the hallway to the last storage room. Take everything out of the room and throw it in the hallway. Every shelf, every bottle, every little rag.”

  The Professor, proving that he was probably suffering from a concussion at least, headed down the hallway without comment or argument. Bait looked at her for a moment and then did the same.

  Beast and the Mule looked at her with questions in their eyes, but she had no time for explanations. They had wanted a leader. Now they had one.

  “The Mule will be here,” she said, having him stand up from where he was bracing the desks with his back and instead plant one boot at the bottom of the desk, leaning his weight on it to prevent it from sliding back.

  “Beast, stand here,” she said, directing him a pace back from the Mule to one side of the hallway. She stood next to Beast, at the other side of the hallway. The three of them formed a triangle, with the Mule at the front of the triangle, closest to the doors.

  She turned to the dog, which was dutifully at her side, teeth bared and staring at the door.

  “Dozadu, couvej… Dozadu,” she told it, as it backed a few steps down the hallway, away from the door. “Připrav se.”

  At her command, the dog spread its legs out, lowering its chest and growling again, ready to fight.

  “Prepare yourselves,” she said to the others, zipping her own jacket for protection and coming into a crouch. She made sure her hatchet was snug in one hand, and her hunting knife ready in the other. The others looked to her example, as the Mule zipped his own jacket, also pulling on a pair of padded gloves that had been in one pocket of the jacket. He then bent to fasten the last few buckles on his high, armored boots, which he usually left open for daily wear. Then he picked his double-bladed axe back up, cradling it in both hands.

  Beast had no real protective clothing to prepare, but he zipped up the front of his vest, for what it was worth, hefting his long hunting knife in his right hand and holding his spear half-way up the shaft in his left, ready for stabbing.

  This all took mere moments, but already she could see more bulges and cracks developing in the fire doors.

  She looked to the Mule. “When I say, take one step back, opening the doors just a bit. Not all the way.”

&n
bsp; “What?!” he yelled. He obviously thought he had misheard.

  “One step back,” she repeated. “Let them come, but slowly.”

  He looked at her as if she were insane, and she could see the same thoughts echoed in Beast’s eyes.

  Frustrated by the need to explain, she raised her voice. “They are coming through soon no matter what,” she yelled. “Let them in slowly, and you can stand longer, kill more. Wait until these doors collapse and you will die quickly as they all come through.”

  Finally understanding, he nodded.

  She looked to the dog, behind them, still alert, teeth bared, ready to fight.

  “Zůstaň,” she said to it. “Zůstaň a kryj nám záda.”

  Then she looked to Beast. “The Mule will be the front. He is the best protected. We will guard his sides. The dog will guard us. Ready?” He nodded.

  “And now,” a thrill ran through her body, and she couldn’t help the feral smile that escaped, “we kill them.”

  “One step back!” she yelled.

  The Mule hesitated, looking at her. He saw the smile on her face, and frowned at it. Then, just as she was getting ready to prod him again, he took a small step back, and the pressure on the doors soon pushed the desks to where his boot rested on the floor.

  This opened the doors a crack, and she could see the first of the thumpers sticking their heads and arms through, but the crack was not big enough to fit their bodies.

  “Another step,” she yelled. She was pleased to see that this time the Mule obeyed without question. He took one more step, and the battle began.

  The crack between the doors opened further, once again being stopped by the Mule’s boot at the back of the desks. The desks still blocked the lower half of the door, but the upper half was clear for the thumpers to enter. The crack allowed two or three at a time to spill through onto the piled desks, where they would first fall on top of each other in a disorganized mess of limbs before righting themselves and moving to attack.

  At first the Mule handled all of them easily enough, bringing the flat of his double-bladed axe down on the desks again and again, leaving the thumpers that fell there a twitching ruin. But soon one, then another and another fell to the side, or fell onto the desk at just the right time, lucky enough to avoid the swipe of the axe.

  The Mule swiped his axe sideways, taking care of one that had escaped, but embedding it in the wall of the hallway. In the moment it took him to free the axe from the wall, five more thumpers had wiggled through the door and moved to the attack.

  “Just the ones at the door,” she yelled to his back. “Leave the others.” To emphasize her point, she lunged forward, cutting one thumper nearly in half with her hatchet as it sprang off the desk, then stabbing her knife into another that had slipped off the desk and onto a chair by the wall.

  Wordlessly, the Mule obeyed her instructions, again resuming the sweeping pattern of his axe, bringing it down again and again on the desk, each time with a crashing thump as he crushed the thumpers beneath his blade. She saw Beast moving, his spear stabbing out to impale a thumper that had escaped to the other side.

  After that, she had little time to watch the others. One after another she stabbed, hacked and even kicked the thumpers that made it past the Mule. She heard the grunting, and soon the panting, of the others. The thumpers themselves made no noise, at least none that could be heard over the continued pounding of the larger horde at the other side of the doors.

  Once she turned back to stab at one that had scampered between her legs but pulled her hand back as the dog’s jaws closed on the body of the creature. Before the thumper could bring its claw to bear on the dog, the dog gave a mighty shake, and the thumper disintegrated, its heavy claw sailing across the hall in one direction, and several legs going in other directions. The dog tossed the body on the floor with two or three others that it had already dispatched and moved back to the spot at the center of the hallway that she had assigned it. It was guarding them as she had instructed.

  The thumpers came in an endless stream but at a pace the four of them could manage for now. She wasn’t sure how long they could last, though.

  She had always wondered why boxers or wrestlers looked so tired after fighting for only a few minutes. Now she understood. Fighting was an all-out sprint while standing still. It was constant, complete effort, nothing wasted, and no pause to rest or consider. Stab, hack, twist and kick, then stab again. No rest, no pause, no moment to recover from one opponent and prepare for the next. It was a level of effort nobody could keep up for long.

  And yet the ferocity, the violence… it was pure joy to her. Despite knowing they may all die in the next few minutes, the eager smile remained on her face.

  A wrenching noise from the doors brought her out of her reverie. A top corner had been torn from its hinges by the constant hammering of the horde, and now more were able to wriggle in past that bent corner. She looked to the other side, and saw the other door also looking ominously loose.

  She slapped Beast’s arm with the flat of her blade to get his attention. He looked up at her from where he was crouched over his spear as he drove it through one of the thumpers at his feet.

  “Now,” she yelled, at the same time diving for the desks at the Mule’s feet. “Push it closed.”

  At first her weight did little to force the doors back closed, but in a moment Beast added his weight. Together they shoved the desks back, and the doors with them, cutting off the entrance they had given the thumpers.

  The Mule continued to swing his axe for a few moments, then switched his attention to where the thumpers were still slowly wiggling through one at a time in the top corner where one door had bent back from its hinge.

  Panting, she looked down the hallway. Bait and the Professor had made progress in emptying the storage room, and had bottles, buckets, and old furniture strew all across the far end of the hallway. They were just coming out with a wire shelving unit held between them.

  “The doors! Get the next set of doors!” she yelled, pointing down the hall at the next set of fire doors.

  They understood, running to the doors and pulling the wooden chocks out from beneath them so they could be swung shut. They held the doors, looking down the hallway and back to her.

  She looked to Beast and the Mule. “Now we run. Ready?”

  They both nodded.

  “Go!” She and Beast sprung up from the floor, running full speed down the hallway. The Mule turned to follow, then she heard his footsteps slow.

  “The dog!” he yelled.

  Turning, she saw the dog, lunging to intercept a thumper that had come through the crack in the door that was even now being pushed open. It stood fast, still guarding the spot she had told it to guard. She realized it would stay there, following its orders until she told it differently or until it was killed.

  “Běž, pse, běž!” she yelled, and it turned, running down the hallway and quickly passing them all.

  The Mule turned to run again, and she did as well. They were all faster than the thumpers, and reached the doors well before the coming horde. Bait and the Professor closed the doors, and Beast leaned his weight on them.

  “Desks,” she said to the Mule. “Desks and furniture.”

  He understood, ducking into a guest room on one side of the hallway as she ducked into one on the other side in search of furniture light enough to move quickly and heavy enough to help hold the doors shut.

  Soon they had this next set of fire doors blocked, and they could all hear as the first thumpers arrived and announced their presence by pounding on the other side of this new obstacle between them and their prey.

  She looked at Bait and the Professor. “Back to the closet. Get everything out. After they get through here, that is where we will stand.”

  Bait nodded, for once saying nothing, and turned, dragging the dazed-looking Professor with him.

  Beast and the Mule again took the same formation in front of the fire doors: the Mule i
n front bracing the desks with his boot, with Beast and herself one step behind him and to either side of the hallway. The dog even stepped into its position behind them at the center of the hallway, seeming like it, too, knew the plan now.

  “Chraň nás,” she told it, just to be sure.

  Then she looked to the others. They, like her, were tired, sweaty, but as prepared as they would ever be. It was time to begin again.

  The Mule looked to her. “Chraň,” he said.

  She looked to him, bracing herself for the fight and giving him a small smile. “Ochráním tě. Now one step back.”

  ---

  At first, this second stage of the battle went much like the first. The Mule stepped back, cracking the doors and letting a slow stream of thumpers in. He would smash those he could with his axe, leaving her and Beast to take care of those that escaped his axe, and the dog picked off any that escaped all three humans.

  But they were already tired, and it soon told in their fighting. The Mule’s strokes with the axe seemed just a bit slower. More thumpers seemed to escape him. She and Beast took just a bit longer to deal with each Thumper, and occasionally had to lean across to the other side of the hall to help each other when one or the other faced two or three thumpers at once.

  Even the dog had its struggles. At one point she heard the regular growling and tearing sounds behind her interrupted by a yelp, and turned to see the dog shaking one thumper apart while another was on its back, pounding against its vest. Before she could react, Beast turned, whipping his spear crossways just above the level of the dog’s back and knocking the thumper against a wall, where the dog quickly jumped on it. She had to turn back after that, as she had her own share of the creatures to fight.

  They were holding their own for now, barely, but they were tiring, and they were each picking up their own wounds. She saw the Mule wincing every time he raised his axe over his head, and Beast had a bloody gash down one arm. For her part, she was pretty sure a few fingers on one hand were broken where a thumper’s claw had gotten a lucky hit, and one foot was someplace between painful and numb inside her boot, where a thumper had hit it several times before she could deal with it.