by Anthony Izzo
Matt scrambled for his gun, but he was too late.
The thing raised its arm and brought it down, burying its claws in the side of Harry’s neck, blood spurting as his jugular gave way.
It shook Harry violently, looking like a man trying to remove a piece of tape from his finger. Matt moved up behind the beast, pointed his automatic six inches from the back of the skull and fired six rounds into the head.
The abomination jerked as blood and bone sprayed from its forehead. Its claws tore from Harry’s neck, effectively tearing Harry’s throat open and finishing him for good. The creature whipped to see who had put the bullets in its brain, and Matt fired three more into its face for good measure.
It fell to the ground and ceased to move.
Matt knelt at Harry’s side and cradled his head in his arms. His neck and shirt looked as if someone had dipped him in India ink, but Matt knew it was the darkness making it appear black. The blood would be a scorching shade of red in the light.
Harry’s eyes were open, the stare of the dead, and his mouth hung slack.
“Aw shit, Harry.”
Hot tears came to his eyes and he fought back the urge to vomit, reminding himself that there were still several hundred of Them running around.
Matt said an “Our Father,” the only prayer that came to mind, then closed Harry’s eyes. Then he ripped the American Flag from the flagpole that he had used to kill the other beast, and draped it over Harry’s body. Matt hoped the other creatures wouldn’t find Harry’s body; if they did, they would surely consume it. The man deserved more dignity than that.
Matt proceeded to the hallway outside the boiler room and found out why Harry had attacked so recklessly. Liza’s body rested on the floor, her arms crossed, hands folded as if in prayer. The infection and the time in the damp, cold cell had taken its toll on her. Without Liza, maybe Harry figured there wasn’t much to live for, or perhaps he wanted to join her. Whatever his reasoning, he had given his life to save Matt.
He would owe Harry Pierce for the rest of his life.
He said another “Our Father” for Liza and slipped into the boiler room. Winding his way around the boiler, he reached the window and pulled himself up, grateful now for the pull-ups he had done in the Army.
He got to his feet, hopped the fence and ran through the yard, then cut through the parking lot to the side of the school. Jill was still in there somewhere and he was ready to go back to get her, fire or no fire.
He slid along the wall until he reached the front of the building. A host of demons erupted from the doors, some of them on fire, others with skin burned down to the bone.
Lights came on in the houses across from the school.
God, please shut your lights off. It’ll attract them like moths to the flame.
An elderly man stuck his head out his front door, and one of the creatures immediately charged after him. It took off across the street, moving with terrifying speed to smash through the door. Matt could hear thin screams for mercy that would not come.
Focus on Jill. You can’t help those people, he thought.
Matt backed up, realizing that the front door would not be an option. Then he heard a woman’s voice, frantic, yelling, “Let me go! Let me go, you son of a bitch!”
Jill.
He bolted around the corner and was knocked flat as one of them came around the corner.
Looking up, he could see the Rafferty-thing with his arm hooked around Jill’s waist, grinning as if to say, “Lookie what I got.”
Matt gripped the gun and raised it, but Rafferty thwarted him by wrapping his hand around Jill’s throat. She would be dead with one squeeze.
Jill still had the duffel bag slung over her shoulder, and she gripped the strap hard. Taking it off her shoulder, she swung the bag back and tossed it so that it skidded on the pavement and landed in front of Matt.
“Detonator,” she choked out. “In the bag.”
He unzipped the bag and found a white cylindrical radio transmitter. Keeping the gun aimed at Rafferty with one hand, he removed the transmitter with the other. In his haste to escape the school, Rafferty either hadn’t noticed the bag on Jill’s shoulder or hadn’t cared it was there. Whatever the reason, it was a godsend. Then he fished out a Zippo lighter and a Molotov cocktail rolling on the bottom of the bag.
Rafferty spotted the firebomb and the lighter, his amber eyes narrowed in suspicion, and released Jill to lunge at Matt. Matt set the Molotov and lighter down as fast as he could, and flipped the switch on the detonator.
There was nothing for a second, then a low blast erupted from the school’s guts, as if the hammer of the gods had struck at the foundation. The ground shook, and all three of them were thrown to the pavement. The school shook, fire licked from a basement window, glass whizzed through the air; a piece sliced Matt’s cheek open, and bits of stone and brick flew overhead.
The ones that had been at the front of the school picked themselves up from the ground as more of their brethren stormed from the front doors, some of them missing limbs, one completely decapitated but still moving. One dragged itself out on its belly, the once powerful legs smashed and twisted.
Rafferty took off across the school parking lot with his arm wrapped around Jill.
Matt got up and, looking around, shouted to the neighborhood in general: “Get back in your houses! Lock your doors!”
A woman in a pink housecoat got pinned to the ground, her fuzzy slippers visible as her legs thrashed in an effort to free herself.
Have to get to Rafferty, Matt thought.
He scooped up the Molotov and the automatic, and ran back to the unmarked car. He started it up and peeled out of the parking lot. Rafferty was likely headed back to the police station, a logical choice. He could hole up there, maybe switch back into his regular form, thinking Matt couldn’t touch him there. He was wrong.
Matt pulled into the police station lot. He grabbed the automatic and the Molotov cocktail off the seat and jumped out of the car. The garage door stood open, as it had when he left. Light glowed from the open cell block door.
Rafferty rounded the corner, Jill in his arm. She thrashed against him, attempted to punch him. That’s my girl, Matt thought.
He spotted Matt and stopped. He cocked his head and gave a grin, showing off those teeth again. Matt felt strangely calm. He had seen them enough now where the initial shock of their appearance didn’t bother him.
Rafferty proceeded to the open garage. He flung Jill to the ground, then turned around and, with a clawed finger, beckoned Matt to come closer.
Matt watched the muscles in Rafferty’s legs. They flexed, tensed. He was lowering himself into a crouch.
Now.
Matt dropped into a shooter’s stance, and before Rafferty could spring, he held the trigger down. Rafferty started forward, but the force of fifteen slugs from the automatic tore into his hide, dropping him three feet before his intended prey. He rolled on his back. Black blood trickled down its face; one of the slugs had blown out his eyeball.
Matt looked down at him. “You killed my family. Now you have to burn.”
He lit the rag on the cocktail. It caught fire, and he raised it over his head. The creature looked up at him with dim awareness. Backing up, he smashed the cocktail on the ground next to Rafferty. Rafferty rolled, squealing like a dying pig. He lashed at Matt. Matt backed up and watched Rafferty’s vain attempt to claw at him.
In a moment he stopped, a blackened monstrosity.
Matt looked to the garage. Jill was up on her feet, the front of her shirt smeared with oil from the fall to the garage floor. She looked tired and ragged and beautiful.
“Is he ... ?”
Matt nodded. “Come here.”
Jill started toward him. As she came out of the garage, he heard the pop of gunshots and saw the front of her shirt erupt in a spray of red. She fell to her knees, a pleading look on her face.
The red-haired cop stood in the garage, a revolver clutched i
n his hand. He grinned at Matt. “Did you really think you’d win?” he said, and collapsed on the ground.
The automatic slipped from Matt’s hand. He looked at Jill’s body and screamed. And screamed.
He went to Jill and rolled her over, hoping for some sign of life. She flopped over on to the concrete. The bullets had shredded the front of her shirt. The blood had spread in a star-like pattern. It was futile, but he touched the side of her neck. She had no pulse.
With the back of his hand, he stroked her cheek. He looked at the police station, at the red-haired cop lying spread eagled in the garage. They had done it to him again. Taken it away. Right in front of his face.
He slid his arms under Jill and carefully picked her up. He walked to the unmarked car and opened the rear driver’s side door. Then he laid her on the backseat. After shutting the door, he looked down at his shirt and hands. They were smeared with her blood. He didn’t wipe it off.
He had left the automatic on the pavement. Scooping it up, he strode toward the open garage. He could smell the stink of Rafferty’s burning corpse. As he passed the red-haired cop he spotted a gas can. Gas can. That was what he needed.
He picked up the can and flipped the top open. Then he spattered the dead cop’s body with gasoline. He went through the cell block and squad room, dumping gas on anything he thought would burn.
After grabbing a road flare from the supply room, he walked back out and looked at the garage. The dead cop’s fingers twitched. There would be no resurrection this time.
He lit the flare and it hissed. Matt tossed it in to the the pooled gasoline in the garage. The flames crept across the floor, up and over the cop’s legs.
He’d never thought it would end like this—he’d hoped to ride out of Lincoln with Jill.
He got in the car, pulled out of the lot. The flames had caught, and now they shot out of the garage door as if from a dragon’s mouth. In the distance, sirens sounded. He glanced in his rearview mirror and watched the smoke rise and curl into the sky.
As he reached the edge of town, he passed Folsom Furniture. He tried not to think about Jill’s body in the backseat. He tried instead to remember sitting on her porch sipping lemonade, dinner at Morotto’s, the night of sweat and passion in her apartment. And what could have been.
He drove ten miles, into the village of York. As he rolled past the rows of drugstores, plazas, and bars that lined York’s main drag, he thought: They have no idea. All these people, scampering in and out, buying hair dye and condoms, picking up dry cleaning, drinking a cold one in a dank bar. They had no idea what was happening down the road in Lincoln.
He spotted the municipal building, a brick structure with tall white columns in front. He pulled up to the driveway for the lot and saw the red-and-white police cars in the lot. This was the right place.
He swung the car into a spot and killed the engine.
Entering the front door, he walked down a long hallway to a window cut out of the wall. A heavyset man in a police uniform stood with his elbows on a counter. Through the glass he said, “Help you, sir?”
“I need to talk to a cop.”
The guy glanced at Matt’s shirt, and Matt looked down. He was covered with Jill’s blood.
“You hurt?”
Matt shook his head.
“I’ll get the lieutenant.”
Matt took a seat in one of the wooden chairs that lined the wall. A few moments later, a trim-looking cop in a crisp white shirt walked out of an office door. He approached Matt as if Matt were a ticking bomb that might detonate.
“How can we help you?”
“There’s a dead woman in the back of my car. It’s a brown sedan, you’ll see it. And you need to send someone into Lincoln. All hell’s breaking loose.”
He spent the next few hours in a haze, as if things around him were part of a play or television program and he was just observing. After the York police checked out the car and found Jill’s body in the back, the lieutenant, whose name was Campbell, sent a patrol car.
They kept Matt in a seat next to one of the desks, unsure of what to do with him yet. He’d told them he hadn’t killed Jill, that one of the cops in Lincoln did it. Soon cops were scurrying around the squad room. He caught a glimpse of one bolting out the door with a shotgun in hand.
Apparently someone had gotten on the horn with the Feds, because a tall, thin man with a gray brush-cut entered the room. He wore a dark blue suit and a red tie. “Matthew Crowe?”
“That’s me,” Matt replied woodenly.
“Agent Adam Haynes.”
“Who are you with?”
“Not important, but I’ll need you to come with me.” He brushed aside his suit coat to reveal a sidearm in a holster.
“Not till you tell me who the hell you are.”
One of the cops in the squad room, a balding guy with a goatee, said, “You’d better go with him, Mr. Crowe.”
“Not until I know where he’s from.”
Agent Haynes gripped him by the arm. He lowered his voice. “Let’s just say we know all about what happened in Lincoln. Our people are taking care of it. Now come with me—this involves national security and even though you are a valuable witness, I will not hesitate to hurt you. Got it?”
Matt pulled his arm away. “Fine.”
Haynes latched back onto Matt’s arm and led him past the dispatcher’s window and outside. As he stepped outside Matt looked up and saw a dull green helicopter zip over the municipal building.
Haynes led him to the curb, where a dark blue van waited. It was windowless on the sides except for the passenger. He half expected to be driven to a wooded area, where the last thing he would feel would be the cold steel of a gun barrel against his skull.
As they approached the van, a second man in a gray suit jogged around and opened the sliding door on the side. Haynes moved in closer and nudged him and Matt got a whiff of the man’s cologne and the garlic on his breath.
Matt slid onto a bench seat. He was vaguely aware of someone behind him and he turned around to see a third agent, this one in mirrored sunglasses, sitting as still as the Thinker.
“Turn around,” the agent said.
Matt did, and he felt fabric draped over his eyes and then heard the thwipp of it being tied into a knot around the back of his head. Great. Blindfolded.
He heard the van doors slam and the engine start, and soon the van rolled forward.
“I don’t suppose I get to know where we’re going,” he said.
“Sorry, chief,” Haynes said.
They drove for a few hours, Matt lurching back and forth with the bumps in the road. From behind him, he heard the low rhythmic breathing of the agent in the rear. The van slowed, then stopped. Someone killed the engine. From the front seat, he heard fabric against fabric. Haynes turning around?
“Were you up at that cabin? The one Pierce owned?”
“How’d you find out about that? Drug and torture someone?”
Haynes snorted out a laugh. “Big evil government agents, right? No, the fire department in Pottsville called the cops when they found one of those things’ bodies. The cops didn’t know what to make of it, so they called the Bureau boys in, who called us.”
“And who is ‘us’?” Matt said. This guy was starting to piss him off.
“Classified, my friend. We just missed Pierce, tracked him down to a hotel and then lost the scent. We were more concerned with the baddies we found up at the cabin. I’m hoping you can shed some more light on what happened in that little town of yours, Mr. Crowe. The media’s dying to get in there, but we scared the socks off of them, told them there’d be jail time if this thing went public.”
“How about taking this blindfold off?”
“In a minute.”
The accommodations were comfortable, if a little Spartan. The walls were painted government gray, but they had provided him with a bed, a table and television, and all the books and magazines he wanted. Over the next week, he talked to on
e dark-suited agent after another; a psychiatrist; a doctor, who performed a complete physical; and two brass with stars on their fatigues. He had shared everything, from the story of Rafferty killing his family to all the events in Lincoln through the Harvest. Most of them listened and nodded, and Matt guessed they had seen the evidence firsthand because no one came in and gave him a happy shot in the arm.
Now, he sat on the bed. The door opened and Agent Haynes strolled in, pulled up a chair and sat down. Matt still didn’t know which agency the guy was from, and he doubted Haynes would ever tell him.
“They’re doing an autopsy on one of them, you know.”
“Let me guess—classified, right?”
“Yeah,” Haynes said. “But the medical guys are having a field day with it from what I hear.”
“When am I getting out of here?”
Haynes shrugged. “We’ll see. Can we get you anything else?”
Matt shook his head.
“You should at least feel safe in here after what you went through.”
“I don’t know if I ever will.”
“Matt,” Haynes said. “This place is locked up tight. There’s enough firepower on the base to level a city.”
So it is a base, he thought.
“You should rest easy,” Haynes said. “We’re going to hunt them down.”
“Agent Haynes?”
“Yeah?”
“You going on this hunting trip?”
“We’ve got troops for that.”
“Don’t be surprised when they end up in body bags.”
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2007 Anthony Izzo
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