She put one foot on the stairs and an electronic trilling from her back pocket caused her to suck in a startled breath. She pushed the power button to send it to voicemail without even taking it out of her pocket. It was most likely Xander calling, but she didn’t want to take her attention off the task at hand. Nor did she want the sound to alert whatever was upstairs. Why isn’t Shay, Zak, or ET making any sounds? Syd crept up the stairs with the berserkers one step behind her. Her breaths kept time with her pounding heart and she was beginning to wish she had taken Hacker’s gun.
On the landing, she paused, holding up a hand to signal for Darren and Jake to wait. Shay’s room was the first on the right and she eased into the doorway and listened for sounds before peeking around the doorframe. She could make out small whispering sounds and strained to hear more. Her ears played tricks on her and she started to convince herself a berserker was on the other side of the wall listening to her. She finally realized it wasn’t likely a berserker was going to wait for her to make the first move, and she peered around the door.
A scream caught in her throat when Shay swung a small statue at her head. She could feel the metal brush against her hair as it whooshed by her ear. “Shit!” Shay whisper-yelled.
“What’s going on?” Sydney asked as quietly as she could.
“I don’t know. I heard something and just hid. It didn’t sound…right. Especially since Zak and ET got quiet too.”
For a moment Sydney wondered if they were all creeping around and hiding from a sound that would turn out to be the house settling. “Do you know where they are?”
“Zak’s room? At the end of the hall.”
“Let’s go. I have Jake and Darren with me.”
Shay followed Sydney out of the room and gave the two friendly berserkers a side-eye. “The sound wasn’t them?”
“Nope.”
Sydney and Shay, with Jake and Darren in tow, had only made it halfway down the hall when the sound of breaking glass from downstairs shattered the utter quiet of the house. It set off a chain reaction. Zak and ET began yelling and struggling with something making yowling noises. Instinctively, Shay and Sydney ducked for cover and it was just in time to miss the golf club swinging at their heads. It was wielding by a very small man with white-blonde hair. His eyes were rolled back into his head and drool trickled over his bottom lip. Sydney rolled into Zak’s office and Shay followed her. She saw Darren launch himself into the rabid golfer at the same another man burst out of Zak’s bedroom—followed by a shrieking woman whose shirt was covered in dried blood.
Sydney pulled her phone from her pocket and jabbed at the screen until it began calling Xander’s phone back. More crashing sounds from below were followed by booming gun shots that echoed off the walls. Sydney didn’t wait to see if Xander answered. She dropped her phone and picked up a metal trash can that served Zak’s desk. “Find a weapon!” she told Shay. “We’re gonna have to fight our way out.”
Xander
By the time Xander got done at The Pit, it was late afternoon and the sun was setting. He glanced at the takeout bag next to him. Inside were two bottles. One with a generic Vicodin and another filled with some kind of heavy duty antibiotic. He pushed the little car as fast as he dared. Getting pulled over right now with illegal drugs in his car would be a terrible idea—but he knew Sydney needed the medicine.
He had done some googling when he waited for Sherry to get him the things he needed and he was getting more and more worried about Syd developing an infection. Not to mention she was with Hacker, who he only trusted a little. He knew Shay, Zak, and even ET would have her back. But he was tired of having to worry about her from afar. The more he worried, the worse his need to see her. Finally, he resorted to calling. At least talking to her would ease his anxiety a little. The phone rang and rang and was finally answered by voicemail. “Fuck!” he threw the phone done on the seat where it bounced into the floor. “Shit!” he growled.
He was ten minutes away when his phone started to ring from somewhere on the floorboard. “Dammit!” He leaned into the passenger seat as far as he could while still seeing over the dash. He felt around within reach but couldn’t find his phone. He looked for a place to pull over, but traffic was still too heavy and there was no shoulder. He debated on pulling off onto a side street but decided by the time he did that he could be at Zak’s house. He pushed harder on the gas and the car whined as it picked up speed.
He clenched and unclenched his hands on the steering wheel. She just couldn’t get to the phone. Then she called back. If something was wrong she wouldn’t be able to call back. Even though that made sense, it didn’t stop the twisting in his guts. He couldn’t pinpoint what was setting off his anxiety, but he suspected it was a combination of Hacker’s theory and the fact that the sun was going down. Sticking around here is a bad idea. Even though Zak’s house was miles from his parents, it was still in the Chicago area. In fact, it was in Chicago—where the attacks had taken place.
The stupidity of their decision to go closer to the epicenter of the Dyian activity washed over him. What have we done? No longer caring about cops pulling him over, he punched the gas and darted across traffic to get to his exit. He barely paused at the light at the bottom of the ramp. Several cars had to veer out of his way and they blared their horns but Xander still didn’t slow down. Two miles from Zak’s house his phone started ringing again. But, he didn’t want to stop to find his phone so he kept going. He tried to tell himself he would arrive to find everyone was fine and they could laugh everything off. His paranoia second guessed him.
When he turned onto Cypress Ave with a squeal of tires, his pounding heart dropped to his stomach. Three people were running towards Zak’s house. Xander looked further down the street and two more were sprinting across the street directly into Zak’s yard. It didn’t take a second look for him to make out their wild eyes and bared teeth. Berserkers, he thought with dismay and anger. He slammed on the breaks in front of Zak’s house and jumped out without even turning the car off.
As he ran across yard, the first three caught up with him. He pulled Sherry's trusty bar gun from his pocket and fired. The crack was surreal on the silent street, echoing off the nearby buildings. The first shot hit one of the berserkers in the chest and she was slammed backwards, stumbling until she fell. The second and third kept coming—one towards him and the other towards the house. Before he could aim properly, the crazed man was on him, slamming into him like a defensive tackle and they both fell to the ground. Xander tried to raise the gun, but the man caught his hand and sank his teeth into the fleshy part at the bottom of his thumb.
Xander grunted and tried to pull his hand free, but that only caused the man’s teeth to dig in harder. His left hand was trapped between himself and the man on top of him and he fought to free it. The guy was heavy, at least three hundred pounds and Xander could barely breathe. Saliva trailed from between the berserker’s teeth and ran down his hand, mixing with the oozing blood. Realizing that pulling wouldn’t work, he pushed inward instead. Caught off guard, the man gagged at the thumb in his throat. The berserker released his bite and Xander shoved the gun into his eye and pulled the trigger.
The berserker’s head jerked back then nearly head-butted Xander as he fell forward. Blood ran from the back of the man’s head but Xander pushed him off before it could land on his face. He growled in anger and effort it took to get the big man off him. By the time he had rolled free and climbed to his feet, he heard yelling from the house. It was a woman’s scream but he couldn’t tell if it was Shay or Sydney. He took two steps toward the house before a body slammed into his from behind.
He went down face first, dropping the gun in order to stop himself from breaking his nose. Sharp nails raked down his back and a high pitched shriek made him wonder, crazily, if he had just been attacked by a mountain lion. He glanced over his shoulder to see a blonde woman tearing at his back with clawed hands. Luckily, she was small. She had only managed to take him
down because she had caught him off guard. He pushed up, lifting both himself and her off the ground. She latched onto him, hitching a violent piggyback ride.
He threw himself backwards and her growl cut off in a yelp and she let go of his neck. Xander rolled off the woman and picked his gun up. She tried to roll to her feet, but a single shot to the head stopped her cold. His stomach lurched when he surveyed the three people he had just shot, but his disgust only lasted an instant. Shouting from inside spun him around and he hurried through the front door that was standing open.
The first thing he saw was a pile of bodies wrestling in the living room. Furniture was knocked about and the TV had been overturned. Xander couldn’t tell who was at the bottom of the pile and he couldn’t risk firing into the tangle of bodies. He pulled the berserker closest to him off by her hair. She growled at him but went silent when he slammed a fist into her jaw. He dropped her to the floor and went for the next body. When he pulled the man up, he could see the back of Hacker’s head as he lay face down on the floor trying to cover his vital organs.
He pulled Hacker free by his feet and the two of them fought the crush of berserkers together. Xander was able to shoot three more and by his count he should have three more bullets left. Each gun shot rang off the walls of the house with a deafening crack. Hacker recovered his and fired at the snarling creatures. Two more dropped, but a berserker slammed into Xander’s side causing him nearly drop gun again and almost took him off his feet. Before he could right himself a second hit from the same direction finally sent him over. He crashed to the floor with both creatures on top of him. Only a moment later, Hacker joined him under the tangled mess of bodies.
The creatures bit, punched, tore and choked. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Xander tried to prepare himself to die. He could only hope that Sydney and Shay made it out alive. If his and Hacker’s defeat in the living room gave them a chance to go out the back, he would take it. A woman’s voice broke through the guttural snarls of the berserkers.
“—them! Hurry!” The weight of the berserkers shifted and Xander could breathe a little easier. “Watch out!” Sydney called.
She’s alive! Relief flooded through the pain of his entire body. “Run!” he tried to yell, but it came out as a whispered grunt. Time stretched on, measured in screeching pain until finally he felt hands on his back. How did I end up face down? he wondered. He looked up to see Zak hauling him to his feet. He looked around and Shay was helping Hacker stand. The two berserkers that Sydney controlled—Darren and Jake—were wrestling with several others and the rest, Xander realized, were writhing on the floor.
Sydney stood behind them, holding her useless arm and panting for breath. Her good hand was covered in blood and Xander realized the berserkers on the floor all had scratches on their faces. “What’s happening?” he gasped.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Hacker groaned. “The police. Someone will have called them.”
ET stumbled in from the kitchen carrying his laptop bag and Zak sagged with relief when he saw him. “Let’s go,” he yelled.
Xander limped towards Sydney. “Are you OK?” he asked her, putting an arm behind her shoulders.
“I think so. Are you?”
“I will be. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I know.”
“What did you do?”
“I scratched them. It was the easiest way to get them to stop.”
“Everyone in the cars!” Shay yelled.
"We can't let the police, or the government, find these," Hacker motioned towards the writhing berserkers.
"Why?" Xander panted.
"They can't know about Sydney's ability."
“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Sydney was staring in the direction of the front over Xander’s shoulder.
“Wha—“ he turned and his gasp was matched by Shay’s.
The air in front of the door split as if it was being unzipped. It was the same as before, when Sydney was taken. Everything went eerily silent and the air pressure shifted. Xander gripped Syd’s waist, refusing to let her go this time. Before, a hand reached from the darkness and yanked Sydney into it. This time, there was a click, a high pitched whirr and then an explosion of light.
Xander fell to his knees and Sydney followed him down. The blinding light sliced into his brain and made it impossible to think or see. He could hear Shay and Zak yelling something that didn’t sound like words—just confused noises. He also heard distant sirens that sounded like they were coming from deep within a well. He tried to climb to his feet but was too disoriented, he fell again. Something—maybe more than one something—moved quickly around the room. Xander could sense it more than feel or hear it. He felt a hand on his and nearly lashed out at it but realized just in time it was Shay.
“Follow me,” she croaked.
He held onto Sydney’s waist as Shay pulled him to his feet. He could hear the others also moving and he realized they had formed a chain. Zak called for them to go to the right and he could tell they had moved from the living room into the tiled kitchen. A crash told him someone had tripped over something, but he was relieved when he heard a door unlatch and open. Cool night air brushed across his face and he let it guide him outside. Loud voices warbled and at first he thought the shouting was Zak or ET, but he realized it was too far away.
Brown spots began to flash through the blackness of his vision and he blinked trying to clear his eyes. A shot rang out and Shay jerked his hand. He stopped breathing as he tried to hold Shay up. “Shay!?” he yelled.
“I’m here!”
There was more yelling from at least fifty feet away. At first the yelling was angry and authoritative. Then it turned into screaming. He heard the click and whirr again and Sydney called a warning. “Cover your eyes!”
He dropped Shay and Sydney’s hands and covered his face. The screaming turned louder but when Xander looked up he could finally see enough to make out shadowy figures to their left. They were in the alley behind Zak’s house and men in suits were scrambling on all fours rubbing at their eyes. He refused to turn around and look behind them for fear that another flash bomb would go off and blind him again.
With a punch to the gut Xander saw Shay and Zak trying to help ET to his feet. But, the hole in his throat told Xander it was pointless. “We’ve got to go,” he croaked. Hacker pulled Zak off and Shay let go on her own. She looked like she was in shock. She was white faced, wide-eyed, and her hands shook like she had palsy.
Xander pushed them both towards the garage. Sydney and Hacker brought up the rear and Xander fished in Zak’s pocket until he found his keys. “I’m sorry man. But we’ve got to get out of here.”
The agents, Xander guessed, were still stumbling blindly when Xander roared out of the garage with Sydney next to him and Shay, Hacker and Zak in the back. His whole body shook as he realized the only reason they made it out of there alive was because the aliens blinded the agents. Was that on purpose? he wondered. He didn't have time to contemplate that idea as he needed to concentrate on driving with flashing spots dancing through his vision.
He turned to Sydney and she was pale and shaking too. A red stain was spreading across her chest. “Shit,” she muttered plucking at her shirt.
“Where are we going?” Shay asked in a hollow voice.
In a shaky voice he answered her. “The Pit. I called in some reinforcements.”
Xander guided the truck onto the main road and slowed to avoid being noticed by the police cars that wailed past them. If they stood a chance at all, they needed more help. He had left Sherry making the necessary calls, but he had faith in the woman. If anyone could convince his old club to help them, it was her. They needed somewhere to lay low. A place that wasn't directly connected to any of them. Even if he didn't have any favors left, money talked. And all the valuables he could find in his parents' house would buy them enough time to come up with a real plan.
"I hope you know what you are getting int
o," Shay warned him, sounding steadier.
"Me too," he didn't look back. He didn't need to look at her to know she was shaking her head at him.
"It's a good plan," Sydney laid her hand on his leg. "It's the only one we have right now, at least."
Epilogue
Frankie and George sat in matching rocking chairs on the porch of Frankie’s little cabin. Night had fallen hours ago but they didn’t go back inside even though it was chilly. The temperature didn’t bother either of them. They had been listening to the news on a small portable radio for the past couple of hours.
This had been the daily routine since they dropped Sydney off at the Millville Center. Each night the news out of Chicago got worse and worse. They tried to pick out stories that may have had something to do with their young, lost, friend but there were so many it was pretty impossible to figure out where she was or what she was doing.
When a reporter named Ken broke into the current story about protesting in the Loop, both Frankie and George sat up straighter. Ken described reports of fires, gunshots, and rioting in a Chicago neighborhood on the north side. Apparently, some of the so-called berserkers had attacked a house and authorities had shown up and immediately began shooting after someone set off some kind of flash grenade. Reports were still sketchy at the moment, but the scene Ken described sounded like a mini war-zone.
Frankie looked at George. Her wide, watery eyes showed her distress. “George?” Her voice was thin and worried.
“I know.” George concentrated on twisting the wires on the contraption resting in his lap.
Show No Fear (The Dyian Series Book 2) Page 27