“Alright, let’s just say what you’re telling me is true. How are they planning to do it?”
Donnie chuckled, a low menacing sound. “You mean you really haven’t figured it out yet? C’mon, Scratch, you’re smarter than that. We have always been here—your legends are proof of that. But when did my kind start to appear in force?”
I didn’t even have to think twice about my answer. “After the bombs fell.”
Donnie’s melted-wax face lit up like Roman candle. “Exactly! Your war-mongering leaders had no idea the Pandora’s box they were cracking open when they pressed the button. They were quite literally crashing down the doors of reality. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!” He yelled maniacally and struck a nearby corpse’s chest in time, once, twice, and then on the third strike his hand went straight into the corpse’s ribcage with a loud cracking and splitting sound.
Donnie discarded the arm he’d been snacking on, then dug around inside the corpse’s ribcage and came out with what I presumed to be the poor bastard’s heart. I supposed the dead punter wouldn’t be needing it anyway. He held it up like a trophy and eyed it greedily before he began tearing off chunks with his teeth. I wanted to vomit, but I distracted myself by wondering how he’d become so skinny with his appetite.
Donnie continued speaking between bites. “And trouble ensued. Your technology weakened the Veil in places where the bombs fell. Did you know that the American and Japanese governments had an infestation of tengu to deal with in the years following Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Nasty little bastards, and hell on wheels with a sword.”
He took another bite, chewed for a moment, and then swallowed the rest in one large gulp, unhinging his jaw like a snake to do so. I could see the huge bolus of meat travel down his throat in a manner that no human esophagus could manage. He stood up and wiped his hands on his pant legs, picking up where he left off. “That’s why your government created Area 51, to put a lid on all the supernatural happenings that they’d unleashed in the desert with their nuclear testing projects.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “What you’re saying doesn’t add up. There were over 2,000 nuclear detonations worldwide prior to the Great War. If what you’re saying is true, we’d have been overrun by your kind a long time ago.”
Donnie waggled a grimy, gore-splattered hand and smiled. “Doesn’t work that way. The effects aren’t cumulative, and the weakening only lasts a short time. Not only that, but it takes a tremendous amount of energy for us to come through. It can take time to harness enough…resources…to make the crossing.”
“So what you’re saying is that the ’thropes and vamps have figured out a way to make another bomb?”
Donnie giggled. “No, silly, not a bomb. They’re going to create a doorway between your world and ours using a nuclear reactor as the power source. In other words, they think they’ve found a way to cause a permanent weakening of the Veil. In two days, they’re going to test their theory. And your girlfriend is the person who is making it all possible.”
I leaned back against the wall and rubbed my forehead with the barrel of my Glock. It was all just a little too much to take in. “So how in the hell is my Kara wrapped up in all of this? She’s just a bartender; she wouldn’t know fission from Fuzzy Navels.”
Donnie laughed loudly, and it echoed off the walls in the YMCA entryway. “Oh, how little you knew your woman. She had a life before the bombs fell, Scratch. Your girl was once a nuclear physicist. That’s the whole reason why the ’thropes came all the way across the badlands and into the safe zones to raid your settlement. They’d found records indicating that there was a former employee of the facility they’re currently using who lived out your way. Your friend Jimmy confirmed it for them. Shot in the dark, but they seem to have hit pay dirt.”
I sighed and breathed deeply, trying to calm my nerves. “So what do I have to do to stop them?”
Donnie shrugged. “The only thing you can do. You have to kill your girlfriend.”
I stopped rubbing my face and turned to look at him. “I’d say that’s a non-starter, right there.”
Donnie shrugged again and gave me a sheepish grin. “Well, I thought it was worth a shot. I mean, you’ll have to agree with me that it does seem to be the simplest solution.” He looked at me from beneath a brow darkened by sagging skin. “Not a chance you’d do it, as a favor to me? Oh well, I tried. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He made a funny face and bobbled his head side to side. “Alright, so Plan A is out the window. Plan B it is, then. You’re going to have to infiltrate a compound that’s crawling with lycanthropes, rescue the girl, and potentially kill a master vampire.” He started whistling the theme from Mission Impossible.
I screwed up my face and squinted at him. “I don’t suppose I can expect any help from you with this? You know, from those interested parties you represent?”
Donnie stopped whistling and looked at me with a shocked expression on his face, slapping both hands to his cheeks and splattering the walls and his face with tiny flecks of blood and gore. He dropped one hand to his heart, and took a step back. “Well, Scratch Sullivan, this is simply beyond the pale. And here I thought you were a fine upstanding young Southern man with a pleasant disposition and an even temper, with manners to match. What exactly do you think this amounts to, me telling you all this and getting you those maps?”
I gestured with my Glock at him. “Well, it seems suspiciously like you and your friends getting me to do your dirty work. Also seems to me that a creature with your abilities could round up a bunch of your buddies and play hell on that pack of ’thropes. No pun intended.”
Donnie clicked his tongue twice and snapped his fingers, making a toy gun with his hand and pointing it at me. “Well, chief, you got me there.” Then he mimed looking at a watch on his arm and made an O with his mouth, covering it with his other hand. “I’m terribly sorry, but I have other engagements at the moment. It’s been fun chatting with you, Scratch ole’ buddy, but it’s time for me to say my goodbyes.”
He tipped an imaginary hat in my direction, then ran like a cat on all fours out the door. I stood there stunned for a moment until he popped his head back around the corner and winked at me. “P.S.—Have fun raiding the castle!” Finally, my anger kicked in and I chased him outside at a sprint, but he was long gone by the time I reached the front walk.
About that time, Bobby came out from behind some bushes and strolled up. I gestured toward the front entrance to the Y. “You take care of the sentries on the roof?” He nodded. “So, I guess you caught all that?”
“Pretty much. First off, what the hell was that thing?”
I screwed up my face and squinted. “Once it was the local constable for the settlement. Now, I’m pretty sure it’s what Native American tribes called a wendigo.”
Bobby didn’t say anything, which surprised me considering he didn’t ask me what a wendigo was. Maybe his pack had dealt with others in the past; that was something I’d need to ask him later.
He tilted his head and looked thoughtful. “What’re you going to do about it? Or rather, what are you going to do about what that thing told you?”
I stood there for a moment, pretending to be listening for any sounds of returning deaders while I gathered my thoughts. “Assuming we can even trust anything that thing says, this changes nothing. We still have the same mission and the same goals: destroy the Corridor Pack, get the settlers back, and save Kara in the process.”
Bobby laughed. “So, save the girl, save the world?”
I shook my head. “Honestly, Bobby, I’m not even thinking about things that broadly. I’m pretty much just fed up with feeling like a pawn in somebody else’s chess match. And I think it’s high time I shook up the board, starting with the Corridor pack.” I holstered my pistol and pulled out my tomahawk. “Now, let’s go gather up Gabby and Pancho, and do what we came here to do.”
“That’s cool and all, boss, but what’re you going to do when that thing turns on you?”
I looked him dead in the eye and replied without missing a beat. “I’m going to put it down.”
Bobby merely nodded again, falling in behind me as I stopped to get my gear before we headed back toward the pawn shop where Gabby and Pancho awaited our return. Despite the revelations of the past few moments, only one thing was for certain, and that was the fact that I was tired of reacting instead of being the person pushing everyone else’s buttons. It was time to take some action and force our enemies into doing what we wanted for once. I began formulating the rough outlines of a plan as we jogged the now empty parking lots and streets, back to our makeshift safe house.
· · ·
We were just a few hundred yards away from the pawn shop when we noticed the ruckus. I heard crashes, Gabby cussing in a way I’d never heard previously, lots of moaning, and gunshots coming from that direction. I took off at a sprint and Bobby soon passed me up. He had a good 25-yard lead on me by the time we turned the corner into the pawn shop parking lot.
What we saw when we got there almost made me chuckle, and I would have, if the situation hadn’t been so serious. There were decapitated and dismembered deaders everywhere, and Gabby was finishing one off with her kukri right as we strode up. She sidestepped and took a swing and a head went flying. She then kicked the twitching corpse away and whipped the kukri down and to the side to fling off the excess gore.
Bobby spoke up before I did. “Holy crap, Gabs! What they hell happened here? It looks like a Romero flick exploded all over the pawn shop parking lot!”
She smirked and looked embarrassed for a second, then blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and put on a tough expression. “Took you guys long enough—figured I’d have to take care of things myself.” I could detect a slight quaver in her voice that told me she was putting on a good show for us, but she was rattled for sure. She stooped down and wiped the blade of her kukri on the shirt tail of a headless corpse, and I noticed her hands shaking slightly.
I knelt down in front of her and put a hand on her shoulder. “What happened, Gabby?”
She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of one sleeve. “Well, about ten minutes after you guys left that pendejo kept whining about how he needed to pee. So, I unlocked the chain and collar you’d made for him, and started to escort him to the head.” Bobby snickered at that, and I hushed him with a hidden gesture of my hand.
I could hear him mumbling behind me. “Well, it just sounded funny is all.” I gave him a harsh look over my shoulder. He raised his hands in a conciliatory manner. “Okay, okay, not the time for humor. I get it.”
Gabby continued. “So, as soon as I start walking him down the hall, he donkey kicks me and takes off for the back door. I fall ass over teakettle in a heap, then roll up to my feet and take off after him.” Bobby snickered again and then stifled it. Gabby paused and stuck her tongue out at him. “Then that cabrón hits the back door and flings it wide open, and hauls ass off into the night. But before I even get to the door, deaders start pouring into the place from out back.”
I furrowed my brow at that. “Just from the back entrance? They weren’t trying to get in any other way?”
She shook her head. “Nope. It was like they were expecting Pancho to make a run for it, like it was planned or something. Once they started pouring in the back, I tipped over some shelves to trip them up and made a—whaddyacallit? A tactical retreat—yeah, that’s it—to the front door.”
I nodded. “Smart girl. Then what happened?”
“Well, they came around front from the outside. I could see them shuffling around through the windows, and I had about half a dozen at least coming at me from the back room. So, I busted the front door open and started cutting them down as they approached, just like you taught me. I kept ’em stacked up two or three in a row so they couldn’t come at me all at once, and just lopped off limbs and heads and kept moving. Donkey took a few out inside the shop by kicking and trampling them all to hell, and pretty soon it was all clean up. That’s about when you guys arrived.”
“What about the gunshots?” I was curious as to whether or not it was her who had fired the gun.
She shook her head. “Wasn’t me. I know better than to start shooting at deaders in the middle of the night. When those shots rang out I was busy cutting down one of those tough ones, and then I heard a gun go off and felt a bullet whiz past my head. I finished with the Z I was messing with and turned around to see a deader with a bullet hole clean between the eyes on the ground not ten feet behind me. Must’ve been sneaking up on me; I guess somebody decided to be nice for a change and give a stranger a hand.”
I squeezed her wrist and smiled. “You did good, Gabby, real good. Now show me that deader, the one that got shot.”
She stood up and walked about 20 yards, then pointed at a corpse that was sprawled at an awkward angle. I examined it and found a bullet had creased it right behind the ear. Another had entered the forehead between the eyes and blown out the back of the deader’s skull. I could only guess, but from the angles I’d have to say the shooter was on the roof of the gun range next door. This meant that someone was keeping an eye on us—or more specifically, on Gabby.
I gestured for them both to stay where they were. “Give me a sec. I want to check something out.” I trotted over to the gun range and climbed onto a car that sat adjacent to the building. The building itself was an empty shell, as such businesses were the first to be ransacked when the famine riots started. I doubted there was even a spent shell inside.
I vaulted onto the roof and searched around, finding evidence that someone had used it as an observation perch. I also found an empty 7.62 shell casing, still slightly warm. But whoever had been up there was long gone.
I hopped back down and jogged over to Gabby and Bobby, noting the increasing sounds of low moans in the distance as I strode up to them. “Alright, this safe house is burned for sure. Let’s gather up our gear and post watch on top of those storage buildings a block over. Then, once it gets light we’ll take off after Pancho. I have a sneaking suspicion that this was a planned attack to bust him loose, and that he’s headed to tell the ’thropes what we’re up to.”
Bobby raised a hand. “There’s just one problem with all that, Scratch. Zombies don’t work in packs.”
I chewed my lip and nodded. “I once thought that way too, but I’ve seen evidence over the last few weeks that says they still have some form of lower reasoning. I’ve also seen them react to Donnie on more than one occasion, almost as if they were following his commands.”
Gabby chimed in. “You mean that creepy thing you say keeps following you around?”
I nodded. “Yep. And if he can control these things, it makes me wonder if there are others out there who can do the same.”
Bobby looked unconvinced. “Okay, let’s just say that’s true. Then the Z’s are working with the ’thropes?”
I shrugged. “Or whatever has the power to control them. One thing’s for certain though; until Pancho actually makes it to the ’thropes, they aren’t going to know what we’re up to. So, first priority is chasing him down, and then it’s going to be tearing those ’thropes a new one and getting the settlers out safe. But for now, let’s just get some rest until first light.”
We gathered our gear and stowed it up on the roof of the storage facility, tucking Donkey safely inside the building. I had Bobby take first watch. My mind was reeling with the implications of the night’s events, but just one thing was on my mind, and that was getting Kara back and keeping her safe. If what Donnie said was true, she’d be a target for the ’thropes and that vamp until I took them out of the picture for good.
With single-minded devotion to the task at hand, I pulled out the maps Donnie had given me and began studying them in earnest under the pale moonlight. Far in the distance, a wolf howled, slamming home my suspicions that we were in a race against time. In defiance, I whispered out a warning to the night.
“I’m your Huckleberry. And I’m still coming
for you.”
· · ·
This concludes Season 1…
This concludes THEM Season 1…
Continue the story with Scratch, Gabby,
The Doc, and Bobby in Season 2!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M.D. Massey has been a soldier, an emergency room technician, a fitness trainer, a truck driver, a martial arts instructor, a cook, a consultant, a web designer, and a security professional. He also spent six weeks in law school before deciding that, if he was going to lie for a living, he’d do it honestly as a fiction writer. M.D. lives in Austin, Texas with his family and a huge American Bulldog who keeps him company while he writes the sort of books he likes to read.
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THEM (Season 1): Episode 4 Page 9