by Maxey, Phil
Society was changing.
No going back.
He wondered what was happening in the rest of the country. Would it be better? Worse? Had the army finally got a grip on the cities?
Casually he looked to his left, glancing at the front of the single-story homes he was now walking past.
Eyes.
His head whipped back towards the front window of the smart residence. Only a reflection of trees, sky, and the home’s front lawn was visible on the glass surface.
He quickened his pace towards his house, for the eyes he saw did not belong to any human. Dark rimmed, yellow, hungry orbs were watching him as he passed by. He knew if he crossed the grass at the front of the house and moved down the narrow alley to the rear of the property, he would see the same level of destruction he had witnessed elsewhere. Another family gone.
A noise from behind him made him start to jog then run. A light wind brushed across his face as he ran across the road to the front of his own home. Maybe the sound had been a branch breaking.
He got to the stairs to the basement, stepping down them as quickly as his tired legs would carry him. Concentrating, so he would open the door in one movement, he moved quickly inside and closed it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Grant drove along the four-lane street, which was lined with single-story homes that just a few months earlier would have been a welcome upgrade from his own property in LA. But the Cascade had transformed them into mini fortresses with wood across their windows and spikes and fencing around their borders. He wondered just how effective any of that would be.
He had spent the last few hours patrolling empty roads and coordinating with others to deliver food and water to where it was needed. There had not been one encounter with any creatures which looked like they belonged on another planet, but he put that down to the rudimentary wall which was taking shape around the city and suburbs. He wanted to feel hopeful, but each time he started to get lost in the brilliant sun, blue sky, and traveling the abandoned roads, his memories would do their best to ruin it.
As the sun started to head towards the horizon, he had one more stop, a medical center just eight miles from the safety of the army headquarters.
He clicked on his radio. “Jones and Carey. I’m dropping the medical supplies and fuel off at Prima Medical center, then I’m heading back, you two can head back now if all is clear. Over.”
The two other volunteers acknowledged.
He briefly stopped at a junction. Across the road was the expanse of a parking lot and beyond that a five-story building, which covered half of the block. An ambulance pulled out from the lot and drove past him. He waited for its emergency siren to fill the air, but the white and red van just slid away into the distance.
He pulled into the lot, past a few parked vehicles, and drove up to the front of the center. The glass of the entrance doors had been replaced with wooden boards, not allowing him any view inside.
He got out and knocked. After a few seconds, the door opened and the wrinkled face of a security guard appeared in the gap. With the man’s attention came the sounds of a TV, heat, and an antiseptic odor.
“I’ve got some fuel and—” said Grant.
The guard nodded, raising his hand. “Just bring them and put them down here.” He pointed to a spot near the check-in counter.
Grant returned to his car, carrying the two fuel containers into the waiting area, which was empty. A TV, attached to the far wall, showed battles between soldiers and creatures.
“Oh, are you the delivery we’ve been waiting for?” said a woman in a white jacket, appearing from the double doors to the long corridor behind. Her jet-black hair was tied back into a ponytail.
Grant nodded.
The fluorescent light above their heads flickered.
“Damn generator. It’s still got some juice but there’s something going on with the wiring or fuses… I don’t know, I’m just a doctor, not an electrician!”
“Do you want me to take another look, Doctor Baker?” said the guard.
She shook her head, and the guard walked outside to get the boxes.
Grant looked at the woman whose sense of authority went beyond her name tag. “Maybe I can have a quick look? I’m not an electrician either, but—” The security guard dropped the boxes near the fuel. Out of breath, he sighed then closed the external doors. “— But I know a thing or two…”
“Umm… sure. Happy to take any help we can get,” she said while examining the newly delivered supplies.
“Everything you want?”
“Not everything, but it’s a start.” She stood and held her hand out. “I’m Doctor Baker, Rose Baker…”
Grant smiled and briefly grasped her hand. He looked around for a sense of time by trying to see the sky, but with the doors closed no natural like was making its way inside.
“If you need to get back, I’m sure it will be fine…”
Grant smiled. “I can take a quick look, which way is the generator?”
Rose led him through a paint-chipped door and down a narrow set of stairs.
“So, how you been dealing with everything here?” said Grant.
“With the attacks along the coast, we had to close our emergency room to non-emergencies, but I think we have held our own pretty well. We’ve had a big intake of animal, or whatever these things are, attacks. So lots of lacerations, also some stings from insects we’ve not seen before.”
Grant resisted the urge to rub his cheek which still ached from time to time.
They walked along a corridor and through another door, into the bowels of the hospital. Pipes and cables crawled along the floor and ceiling, fighting for room amongst large molded and cast machinery.
“A lot of this stuff we got from older hospitals up north. I kept on at the board to get it replaced, but well, here we are.”
The green-painted machine in front of Grant, which took up half of the floor of the small room they were in, hummed with the occasional pause before it continued supplying power to the cables around them.
He looked at the small glass boxes which displayed the generator’s fuel and output levels. As he watched, one of the needles dipped in tune with the lights in the room, then sprung back up.
“Any ideas?” said Rose.
He stepped back and looked around the damp space, following the cabling as it ran along the wall.
“What’s in there?” he said, pointing to a door at the back of the room.
“Storage. There’re pieces of machinery, tools… There’s nothing in there that should affect the generator that I’m aware of.”
Grant slid between the generator and cabling then stepped over plastic half-used containers and gripped the small silver handle of the door. With some effort, he pulled it open, and a wave of rot escaped from the space beyond. He scrunched his face. “What’s in here again? Smells like something died.” He tried seeing into the shadows and felt around the inside of the wall for a switch or piece of string. “Any light?” Before she answered, he found what he was looking for and a single, grime-covered bulb came to life in the center of a space more closet than a room.
There was no sign of a reason for the stench.
Grant took two steps inside before the tiled floor gave way and he was falling into a void.
The world became a jumble of pressure and dust until darkness overwhelmed him.
A voice, somewhere in the dark above, dragged Grant back to consciousness. He looked up at a point of light, seemingly in the heavens. A shadow moved across it and the voice repeated.
His head throbbed and, instinctively, he rubbed the back of his skull, bringing his fingers close to his eyes to better view the sticky, red substance dripping from them.
The smell of decay was even stronger were he had landed. Grant wondered if he had fallen into a pit full of medical waste.
“Grant! Are you down there, I can’t see you!” shouted Rose from somewhere above him.
“Yeah!�
�� he croaked back, trying to breathe in air that was full of dust.
“Are you injured?”
He suddenly woke to the fact that he fell through the floor and lifted his head from the pieces of masonry he was resting on. His back stung, as well as his elbow, and his head was still throbbing, but nothing felt broken.
“I hit my head, but I don’t think I broke anything. Where the hell is this place?” he shouted back.
“What place?”
The light from above lit a small patch of ground around him, but that was it. Beyond could have been a wall or cavern, there was no way of telling.
“Can’t see anything. Maybe a sewer under the hospital.”
“There is no sewer under the hospital that I’m aware of. I’ve got a small flashlight, I’m throwing it down.”
A small piece of green plastic fell on the dirt near his leg.
“Don’t try and move too much, I’m going to get some help.”
Reaching forward, he turned the flashlight on. The cone of light revealed that he was in a pit. The walls of dirt and stone were almost complete apart from a hole, a few feet high, near his feet. He pointed the beam upwards. Chiseled marks covered the inside of a perfect circular chute up to the storage room some fifteen feet above. The same marks covered the walls which were confining him.
He slowly got to his feet, letting his fingers feel the grooves on the walls around him.
He wondered if he was in an old well, although he didn’t understand the void at the bottom. He knelt and pushed the flashlight beam into it. A tunnel, filled with the same markings as were around him, faded into the gloom.
A noise made him look up.
He was now able to see Rose’s face due to the dust having settled. Next to her was the security guard.
“We’re throwing down a rope, grab hold of it, and we’ll try and pull you up.”
“Okay.”
A piece of rope landed on his shoulder, which he grabbed with both hands, wincing as pain from his head and elbow washed through him. Pushing his back against the wall he propped his boots up against the one in front of him and went to push up when a noise came from the hole near his feet.
“Hold on!” he shouted up, then knelt, examining the tunnel again with his flashlight.
Darkness enveloped him. Rose’s keyring flashlight was the only anchor he had to his surroundings.
“Damn it!” said Rose. “The bulb’s gone up here!” she shouted down. “Are you ready? There’s still some light from the generator room. We’re going to pull you up.”
The noise coming from the void beyond what the small light could penetrate was undefined like white noise.
“There’s something down here, don’t pull me up yet!” he shouted. “There might be a burst water—”
The noise was louder now, crunchier. A sea of tiny breaking shells.
Not water…
The hair across his arms was standing in tune with his heart rate increasing. A presence was moving towards him.
He turned, making sure his boot was lodged firm and pushed upwards. “Pull me up!”
Strained grunts came from above, and he reached up, grabbing hold of what piece of rock and masonry his fingers could find, then pushed with his legs again.
The noise filled the space he had just left at the bottom of the hole. He wasn’t about to look back, instead, his climbing became scrambling, as he kicked and heaved himself upwards towards the doctor and the security guard. His hand wrapped around the jagged edges of tiles and other hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him onto the floor.
“There’s…” he swallowed, out of breath. “Something’s coming along the tunnel at the bottom,” he said, getting to his knees. “We need to get out of here.”
The elderly guard peered into the hole. “Maybe there’s a burst mains pipe down there.”
Grant stood. “It’s not water. You need to leave, now!”
Rose and the guard stepped outside, but Grant stayed in the room trying to make sense of what was in the gloom around him. He grabbed a large metal pipe and threw it down the hole, then a box of tools, anything and everything that he could lay his hands on. Rose stepped back into the room and started doing the same, then the guard. All three in a desperate attempt to plug the gap that had opened up in the earth, without knowing what was about to spew from it.
The sound was almost mechanical in its nature. A constant scraping and scurrying.
With the guard's help, Grant ripped a rack of metal shelves from the wall and let it tumble into the hole. It crashed down into the depths.
“Come on, that will have to do,” said Grant.
They all quickly moved outside and slammed the door closed. From within the pit, metal started to twist and bend.
“What’s down there?” shouted Rose, trying to be heard over the tornado of noise from the room.
Grant had no answers, but he knew they needed to get back upstairs.
Crashing, crunching, scurrying, scraping… then nothing.
They all stood near the door to the corridor, the drumming of their heartbeats in their ears, looking at the door to the small room. Waiting.
Rose went to talk, when the door disintegrated. As if it had aged a thousand years instantly, it crumbled and was replaced with a pulsating black mass.
Each of them was speechless. It was as if they were looking into hell. Hundreds of tiny rodent-like bodies, intermingled with spindly legs and teeth, all writhing together with a uniformed purpose.
The seven-foot high form sunk to the floor then surged towards them.
Instinctively they all fell backwards, and through the doorway. Grant fumbled then grabbed hold of the handle to the basement door and slammed it shut, just as the mass slid into it, making the metal door bulge.
Rose momentarily looked back, but Grant pushed her onwards. “Run, it’s not going to hold!”
Each of them moved as fast as their muscles would propel them. Running down the corridor they scampered up the stairs, and back out into the hospital lobby. Grant pulled the final door closed.
The lights above them were now flicking continually, switching the waiting room and corridors between darkness and light.
“That door’s not going to hold either!” said Rose. “We haven’t got time to evacuate the entire building!”
Grant searched around him in the intermittent gloom for an answer, then he spotted the containers near the counter. He and the guard gave each other a knowing look and they both grabbed the one-gallon fuel containers and walked back to the door.
“Umm wait, you need something to ignite it with!” The doctor reached into her side pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.
Rose tried to hide her awkwardness. “I just started, okay!”
Grant looked at the guard and Rose. They were all standing on either side of the door. “I’m going to open it, throw the fuel in, then you throw in the lighter. Ready?” Grant said to both of them.
A crashing came from beyond the door, foretelling the basement door giving way.
“Now!” shouted Grant, opening the door and, in his next movement, emptying the foul-smelling fuel down the stairs. The guard did the same.
They both saw it at the same time. The tar-like mass flowed onto the bottom steps.
“More! Empty all of it!”
Grant and the guard desperately shook the containers, then dropped them onto the steps. The hordes of small, slicing creatures suddenly flowed up the steps.
“Throw the lighter!”
Rose flicked her thumb across the metal wheel, trying and failing to see a flame.
As the organic, devouring mass moved closer it lifted higher, filling the entire space, from step to ceiling, as if the stairs were filling with black oil.
“Come on!” shouted Rose, her thumb red.
A flame ignited and she flung it forward as Grant slammed the door closed and pulled the doctor away, covering her.
An explosion of heat and flam
e burst from the stairs, sending the door through the air until the wall opposite stopped it.
Grant stood then crept back to the doorway and looked inside. He immediately put his hand over his nose, trying to stop the stench from invading his senses. Small pieces of burnt skull, claws, and black skin covered the walls and ceiling, which were completely black. Some of the creatures were still moving, crawling and scratching at the concrete.
“Is it… they, dead?” said Rose.
Grant nodded. “I think so…”
The road home was as silent and unused as it had been in the daylight. But any vestige of hope that he might have had while driving earlier had been replaced with a dread of what the new day may bring. He stopped at a red light. It burned against the dark gray clouds overhead.
Something buzzed around it. As big as a bird, but this thing had legs which hung down like an insect.
The light turned green. Grant drove onwards.
The End.
Thank you for reading the first in the Cascade prequel series, Encounter! I hope you enjoyed it. The second in the series will be released in December.
If you would like news on my latest releases, special offers or a free book, you can sign up to my mailing list on my website at www.philmaxeyauthor.com .
Thank you again.
Phil.
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About the Author
Phil Maxey is an author who resides in the UK. Formally a game developer he now spends his time putting his love of sci-fi and the paranormal into words.
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Acknowledgements
Book cover design by www.starbookcovers.com.