Invasion. The word buzzed by Tori’s ear like an insistent insect.
Harvey cracked his neck with a twist of his head and grunted. “Nope. That’s not our plan. Remain quiet. Stay out of sight. We shoot if we need to, but shooting will only draw attention to ourselves.” A series of bullets fired in the distance. They all glanced at the kitchen window where dark shapes streaked past. “See? The other idiots are drawing them away.”
“That sounded like it came from Cali’s house,” Sherri said. “I hope they’re okay.”
Harvey rolled his eyes. “How the hell can you guess where that shot came from—”
Harvey cut short as something burst through the window. He grunted, hand moving immediately to his neck as he grimaced in pain. He tugged at the foreign object and a slick wet sound followed as he produced a dart in his hand. The needle was thick with the viscous goo. Sherri rose to her feet, alerting Damien who rolled across the sofa towards Tori. He sat up and pawed his bleary eyes. “Mum?”
Harvey wiped a palm against his neck and found it slick with blood and the dark substance. There was a small hole in the window, spiderweb cracks leaking from its edges. A pale face with wispy white hair stared back at them, eyes like gleaming beetle shells. In her hand was a flute which she drew to her mouth as she prepared to fire a second projectile.
“Get down!” Alex pushed Harvey to the floor as the dart soared across the room, finding its mark in Sherri’s chest. She let out a weak sob, the breath catching in her throat. Tori grabbed her shoulders and pulled her to her knees as Harvey twisted and fired off his shotgun. The blast was deafening, smashing what remained of the window and sending the creature flying backwards and out of sight. Wind and snow flowed readily through the window, its desperate ferocity unnerving.
Alex lowered himself to his hands and knees and crept along the floor. Tori watched with dread as he crossed the kitchen and moved toward the window. All it would take was one of those things to reach out and grab him, and he’d be toast. She barely knew the man, but already he’d become a safety blanket to her. Someone she could rely on to help her.
Alex placed his back against the cupboards and readied the rifle Harvey had given him. He took a couple of steadying breaths and listened for any commotion outside.
Only the storm spoke.
Alex eased himself into a position where he could see over the counter. He peeked out his head and looked into the storm. Snow fluttered at his face, chilling his skin and forcing him to blink rapidly, yet he could find no more sign of the creatures. He eased himself a little further and could just about make out the shape of the creature Harvey had shot laying in the indentation in the snow. Already the storm was claiming her. In a few seconds, she’d be out of sight, and out of mind. Gone until the storm decided to relent and the snow melted.
Alex closed the curtains, though they continued to flutter in the breeze. He returned to his sitting position by the cupboards. Tori was the only person he could now see in the living room as she held her eye to the sight of the Winchester and covered him while he moved. When Alex made it back inside, he shut the door behind him and started dragging a heavy mahogany storage unit in front of the door. After a few seconds of struggling, Harvey came to his aid.
“You okay?” Alex asked when they were finished. With the door shut, the cold snap had been muted, too.
“I think so. Damn it to hell, what was that thing?”
Alex held out his dart. Harvey produced his own, dismayed to find they both matched.
“Hun? Something’s wrong.” Sherri sat on the sofa, Tori beside her, examining the wound which had punctured a short distance above her right breast. The entry was clean, leaving a dark hole-punch mark as thick blood seeped from the wound, joining with the black ichor. “It hurts. Something’s not right.”
Harvey shook his head and took a seat beside his wife. He winced at his own pain as he inspected her mark. He turned to Tori. “There’s iodine in the bathroom cabinet. Can you fetch some real quick? We need to clean this shit out before it infects the bloodstream.”
“Harvey! Language.”
Harvey’s brows knitted together. “He has to learn. Tough words come out in tough situations.” He grimaced as a fresh wave of pain throbbed through him. “I can’t apologize for that.”
Tori found the iodine, some bandages, and clean towels. She freely poured the iodine onto Harvey and Sherry’s wounds as Damien silently wept beside them. The orange-brown liquid stained their clothes but did the trick in cleaning out the wound and leaving nothing behind but the neat round puncture mark.
When she was finished, Tori bandaged the wounds and perched herself on the edge of the coffee table. The whole time she worked they had sat mostly in silence, with Alex occasionally moving to the front windows and glancing outside.
“Better?” Tori asked the pair.
“Thanks,” Sherri said.
Harvey grunted. The bags beneath his eyes had grown darker, and a weariness washed over him. He struggled to keep his eyes open as he fought against his tiredness and pushed himself to his feet, joining Alex at the window. “Any sign of them?”
“None.”
“Why wouldn’t they come after hearing the gunshot? They raced across the street when the others fired their weapons.”
“I don’t know.” Alex peered through the curtain then closed it again. “I honestly don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“None of this makes sense,” Tori added. “This whole fucking night doesn’t make sense.”
Sherri glared at Tori but remained silent.
“Mummy? Are we going to be okay?” Damien’s voice was soft, vulnerable. He scooted closer to Sherri as she wrapped an arm around him. “We’re going to be fine, son. Everything’s going to be fine. Whatever happens, you’ll be okay.”
Damien nestled into her, clearly unconvinced.
Tori didn’t blame him. Already something deep inside told her that this was all far from over. The storm was barely beginning, and already she had more questions than she could handle.
She remained silent, watching Sherri with intense scrutiny as the older woman blinked sleepily in the darkened room and let out a yawn. Occasionally, Sherri would take a sharp intake of breath as the wound throbbed in pain, followed by a moment of relief as sleep washed over her and threatened to drag her into its clutches.
5
Karl Bowman
The taste of iron and copper lingered on Karl’s tongue. Her flesh was tough, but not impossible to tear through. His masked sentinel watched without emotion as Karl tucked in, gritting his teeth and tugging against the stubborn gristle that clung to the bone, stretching the tendons until they snapped like broken elastic, pelting him in the face with wet strings.
He cried. Cried and ate. The two warring parts of Karl locked in their dispute. Karl was nothing more than a recipient to the debate. His body racked with tears at the disbelief that this could be happening, that he wasn’t in some kind of fucked up dream, triggered by the guilt and shame he felt at his half a year affair with Tori. Yet, on the other side of that was the deep satisfaction that came with each mouthful of flesh and blood. Every swallow spurred his appetite, each morsel invigorating him, driving him onward, until all that he knew was hunger.
The masked figure was patient, standing silently in the dark. The stag’s skull held crooked in the darkness, the rest of the creature that Karl had begun to think of as the Masked One’s body appearing as nothing more than skin and bone. When Karl at last felt the first tease of satiety, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrored wardrobe and didn’t recognise what he saw.
He was a beast, crouched on all fours, a bib of blood staining his front. What was left of Alexa was nothing more than a putrid mess, minus the pale, severed hand and the golden band that sparkled on her second finger. Despite his delirious state, he couldn’t stomach that. Some rituals anchored themselves deeper than the immediate demands of the body.
The Masked One
took a silent step forward, signalling that Karl should rise. He obeyed, his forehead peppered with sweat as the heat inside the house continued to rise. His clothes clung to him like wet paper, and he suddenly found that he was thirstier than he’d ever been.
“What’s happening to me?”
The Masked One gave no response. Karl hadn’t exactly expected one. Instead, he turned and swept out onto the landing. Karl’s heart raced as the part of him that still held onto normality remembered the face of his daughter. Of Alice. The one bright star in his life who sprinted into their bedroom every morning and showered them with butterfly kisses. Whose giggles could thaw a frozen heart. Was she still here? Asleep and lined up to become his second course?
Karl followed, unable to stop himself from doing so. Wherever this thing was taking him, it would have answers, of that he was certain. The primal side of him that flicked his tongue across his teeth in a desperate bid to savour every last morsel of food overtook his delicate mind, causing his stomach to growl and his mouth to salivate.
There were more of them in the hallway. Karl had not expected that. A host of strange humanoid figures, each one clearly cast further down the pecking order than the Masked One who guided him onward. The others were a host of shrivelled-looking men and women, ages unknown, their bodies the sickly white of death, their limbs and digits long. Their eyes were dark pools in their faces, and in that moment, Karl wished that they had all worn masks. Anything to cover the vapid hollows of the inky orbs watching his every move. Black circles that spoke of death and the shadows that lingered on the other side.
They each remained silent, lined along one side of the hallway, a dozen of them leading down the stairs. One held the door open to Alice’s bedroom, head bowing as the Masked One swept past him. He stopped beside the child’s bed and waited for Karl to come to his side.
Karl’s throat constricted. The snow-white covers were pulled back and bunched at the base of the bed. The pillow still held the indent of her delicate head, and Mrs Bunny—her tattered and stained night-time cuddly companion—took residency where the bed met the corner of the room.
There was no sign of Alice.
Relief mingled with disappointment, then curdled into nausea as Karl raised a hand to his mouth and fought back a dry heave. His beard scratched his sticky palms as another tear worked its way down his cheek. When had been the last time Karl had cried?
The Masked One pointed a bony finger at the center of the bed. Karl was unnerved to find that, while the creatures in the hallway still sported some semblance of flesh over their fingers, now that he was closer, the skin around the masked one’s resembled tracing paper. Dry, thin, translucent skin that revealed the yellowed bones beneath.
Karl fought back another urge to vomit and wondered where Alice had gone. It seemed that the Masked One was asking the same question.
“You can’t have her.” Karl mustered the words with great effort, fighting against the instinct inside him that demanded he find her and devour her whole. “You can’t. She’s innocent.”
The Masked One turned its head slowly, and in that moment Karl knew true fear. A wave of something lost to the world washed across him and it took all of his strength to hold that empty stare. A stare where the ends of the Earth fell and all that was known was death. In the pits of the hollows of those eyes were the answers to everything, and the truth of nothing much at all. Karl’s skin prickled in an instant and, as the Masked One presented a single black hair to Karl, his hunger returned, paining his stomach and forcing him to cripple over and hug himself tightly. The stabbing demand of his appetite was overwhelming, the meagre whiff of his daughter’s scent cast onto that single hair powerful enough to send him out on the hunt like a beagle to a fox.
Karl groaned as a stream of thick bile rose from his stomach and expelled onto the floor. He took a couple of deep breaths and rose to his full height, a predatory grin on his face. He stared deep into the pits of the Masked One and gave a single nod, his nose twitching as he sniffed and began his hunt.
6
Cody Trebeck
“I’m thirsty.”
They sat under the glow of a single naked lightbulb, the milky yellow light barely strong enough to illuminate the many nooks and crannies of the janitor’s storage closet. Rows upon rows of chemical bottles, plastic containers, and tools sat on metal racks, each one with stickers detailing the various hazards of the substances contained inside.
Kyle chuckled at Travis, glad to see that he was somewhat conscious, even if the most he could do was sit with his back to the bare stone wall and hang his head. “There’s plenty in here to drink. What’s your poison of choice?”
“That’s not funny,” Sophie said. Beside her sat Amy, arms folded and as silent as a specter since they had made it downstairs and the banging had stopped. Cody and Brandon sat across from them, with Kyle keeping Travis company across the far wall. “You’d think after all that happened up there, you’d have an ounce of concern for your so-called buddy.”
“Shut your mouth, whore.”
Amy’s eyebrows raised, but her eyes didn’t. Sophie flushed red. Cody sighed. “Come on, Kyle. Is that really necessary? We’re stuck down here together for who-knows-how-long, can’t we at least be civil?”
He briefly met Sophie’s eyes. A silent ‘Thank you,’ passed between them.
“Fuck that,” Kyle scoffed. “I should never have invited you guys out here. Much less fatty boy over there. If me and King were solo, we could’ve just run back before the shit hit the fan instead of worrying about you morons.”
“Sure. Tell yourself that,” Sophie said. “Whatever you need to believe.”
Cody’s eyes lingered on the metallic staircase, wondering what the hell their next steps would be. The creatures had banged on that metal door for the best part of twenty minutes before they finally silenced. At one point it seemed as though there was enough power in their attack to break the door down, but miraculously it held fast. It had now been close to an hour since their descent into the underground closet, and Cody had to admit that he was thirsty, too. What he wouldn’t give for a glass of water.
Kyle rose to his feet and crossed to a wooden desk tucked in a crevice beneath the stairs. He rolled the office chair towards him, sat down, and pressed the power button of an ancient Windows computer. “Hey, this must be Davidson’s computer. Reckon I can find a folder filled with all of his paedo porn?”
“He’s not a paedo,” Brandon said, mouth dry, voice cracking. His eyes were barely open as he struggled to fight sleep.
“Me think the lady doth protest too much.” Kyle span towards Brandon. “How much has Davidson paid to keep you quiet, eh? How much does a fiddle cost these days?”
Sophie put her hands either side of her head and rose to her feet, growling in frustration. “Jesus Christ, Kyle. I knew you were a dickhead deep down, but this is intolerable. Leave the poor guy alone, won’t you? How about we play the quiet game and you shut your mouth until we can figure out what we’re going to do to get out of here.”
Kyle’s face twisted as he rolled over to Sophie. He stood up, looking down on her with the extra couple of inches his height allowed. “Why don’t you sit down and behave, little girl, and let the grown-ups deal with this? Didn’t your daddy ever teach you that good girls should be seen and not heard?”
Sophie slapped Kyle so suddenly that the room fell silent. Kyle held his hand to his face, eyes lighting up with rage. “You’re going to fucking regret that, bitch.”
He raised a fist and jabbed at Sophie, catching her on the cheek. She took an uneven step backwards, mouth falling open. “You hit me?”
“You started it.”
Cody pushed himself to his feet, heart in his throat. “Guys! Come on. Calm down so we can figure this shit out, please? We won’t be in here for long before the storm passes, and someone comes down here to rescue us.”
“What about those things out there?” Brandon said.
“T
hey’ve gone silent. They’re probably not even out there anymore.”
Kyle pointed his chin at the stairs, a grin on his face. “Why don’t you go up there and find out?”
“Maybe I will.”
Sophie turned from Kyle to Cody. “No! That’s stupid. We can last it out in here, right?”
Brandon shrugged. “Depends how long the storm lasts.”
Cody looked down at his friend, keeping Kyle locked in his peripherals. “What do you mean?”
“Storms in this part of the world can last for days, Cody. My dad once told me of a storm back in 1968 which lasted over two weeks. That’s a fortnight of solid snow-build. If this storm is anything like that, then…”
“We’re screwed.” Sophie rubbed her cheek, glaring at Kyle. Kyle kept his fists tightly balled at his side.
“So, we need to work out a way to get along and ride this shit out,” Cody said, moving into the center of the room. “Come on, guys. Yes, we’re in a shit position and we have no idea what the hell is out there, but that doesn’t mean we can’t deal with it. I don’t know about you guys but I’ve seen enough survival shit on Netflix to have picked up a few basics, at least.”
Kyle chuckled. “Who made Mr Bean the leader of this voyage?”
Sophie gave an exasperated sigh. “Really? A Brit joke?”
Travis weakly raised his head. “Nice one.”
When Winter Comes | Book 2 | Buried Page 4