by Riley Flynn
Without a word, Timmy ran to the back of the house, where a collection of bedrooms was arranged along a single hallway. It was the best defended part of the house. Tiny windows and beds already nailed into place over every entrance.
“Reni, you and Nelson in the kitchen.”
Nelson was already moving while his sister stood and stared, trying to steal a glimpse through the heavy wooden slats. Candles had been placed in lanterns all over the house and flashlights were stationed, ready to be used.
“Come on, Reni,” he shouted, picking up a flashlight. “We have to move.”
She turned, her eyes full of understanding. Together, the brother and sister ran toward the kitchen.
“Jenna, you stay here. Guard the entrance.”
The girl froze.
“I’ll be here, helping. Don’t worry. Jamie, take the back. Make sure they’re not trying to come in through the yard.”
Rather than argue, Jamie left the room. Alex had been expecting a disagreement. He turned back to the teenager. Around them, Levine’s people were hammering on the walls and windows, trying to find a way in.
“Let’s go, Jenna.”
One of the windows shattered. The glass fell away, leaving only a wooden plank between the inside and the outside.
Alex heard the scratching of hands against the surface of the wood. It’s not a complicated plan, he thought. They’re just trying to overwhelm us.
“Jenna, take a gun.”
The words took a moment to register. Jenna shook her head and looked at Alex, her brain processing the information. Skipping to the cache, she picked on of the smaller pistols.
“Good, come on.”
With Jenna, Alex ran to the window.
“Point it out there,” he tried to find an empty space between the planks.
“Here,” said Jenna, finding a spot.
Alex nodded. The girl raised the muzzle of the gun, pointed it through the empty space and pulled the trigger. The shouting outside stopped for a second. There was a dull thud as a body hit the floor. Then, it all started again.
“Don’t look at me,” Alex shouted. “Again! Again!”
Jenna threw her other hand around the grip of the gun and fired.
Alex left her to it. She knew what to do, for now.
“Help!”
Timmy’s voice struck a chord with Alex. He would know it anywhere. His friend sounded scared. He ran for the hallway.
“In here!” Timmy called again. “In here!”
The voice came from one of the bedrooms. Alex followed it. As he ran in, he could see one of the boards was already in danger of being pushed off the wall. It covered a small window in the top of the wall. Timmy had pushed a bed beneath and was pressing back against the intruder, shouting over his shoulder.
“There’s a hammer on the bed. And nails!” Timmy motioned with his head.
In the dark, Alex couldn’t see much of anything. There were three beds in the room. Rubbing his eyes, he looked again. There it was. A big claw hammer and a box of nails. It’d have to do.
The board creaked and groaned, in danger of giving way.
Alex blinked as a flash of light from outside shone in his eyes. The barn was burning bright. The believers were getting through.
Grabbing a handful of nails and the hammer, Alex leapt up on to the bed beside his friend.
“Hold it steady! Hold it still, Timmy.”
“I’m trying, I’m trying!”
Grunting, Timmy pushed back against the wood.
Alex could smell the smoke from outside. He coughed. There’s no time for that, he told himself, raising a nail into place.
Before he could drive it into the wall, the board heaved forward, a hand reaching through from behind.
The hammer twitched in his hand, reacting on instinct. Alex swung the tool, catching the hand and smashing it against the wall. He felt the bones break beneath the skin.
A howl of pain from outside and the hand slipped away.
“Quick! Hold it steady!” Alex shouted.
As Timmy held the wood in place, Alex arranged the long nails and drove them into the wall. One, two, three. Once the board was in place, he turned to the others, driving more and more nails into the wall.
“There, Timmy. That should hold now. Take the rest of these and make sure the others are the same.”
Alex handed over the nails and the hammer to his friend, jumping down from the bed.
A scream.
“That came from the kitchen, man.”
“I’m on it.” Alex had already started running through the house.
They passed Jenna, still shooting through holes in the boards. She was concentrating, so he didn’t talk. Let her focus.
The scream again.
Alex arrived in the kitchen and his eyes flicked across the room, trying to find anything wrong. It didn’t take long. Nelson and Reni were standing either side of one of the big bay windows as a long knife sought out every gap, flashing between the boards.
“You’re hit?” Alex shouted over the noise. Finn barked beside him, smelling blood.
“He got me in the arm.” Reni had a hand clasped just below her shoulder.
“Okay. Just make sure he doesn’t break the defenses. “
Looking around the room, Alex needed a weapon. Gun’s wouldn’t work. The window was too big. They could see through. There was a gap at the top of the wooden board, a place where Reni hadn’t been able to reach when she was sealing the house shut. About a foot high, eight feet off the ground.
“Alex! Behind you, pass me the water.” Nelson pointed to the other side of the kitchen.
A kettle was boiling on the open fire. Picking it up, Alex could feel the heart radiating out. He ran it across the room, laying it at Nelson’s feet.
“You know what to do.”
Nelson nodded and bent down, taking the kettle in one hand and removing the lid with the other. He leaned back, stretching out an arm, and threw the boiling water up through the gap above the boards. It sailed through.
The sizzling sound of searing flesh was drowned out by the howls of agony. Not just one person. The knife stopped appearing.
“Wrap up her wound, keep going.” Alex was already leaving the room as he shouted the instructions.
Alex ran back to the entrance. The sound from Jenna’s gun had stopped. He had to find out why. Finn followed just behind.
“Jenna,” Alex shouted ahead of himself. “What’s happening?”
He turned the corner to find the teenager bent double beside the window, her hands rushing around the gun, fiddling with everything.
“It’s stuck!” she shouted. “I can’t get it to work.”
Gun jam. Alex cursed.
“Don’t worry, get back from the window.”
As she stepped away, one of the wooden boards broke from the wall. A pair of hands appeared from the outside, grabbing at the space where she had just been. Jenna tripped and rolled away, dropping her gun. It skidded across the floor, landing at Alex’s feet.
Bending down to pick it up, Alex saw Finn leaping through the air, his teeth bared. The German shepherd’s mouth clamped shut on one of the wrists, dragging it down as the dog hit the ground.
Alex pulled back on the slide, expecting to a see a round tumble out. Nothing happened. He threw the gun to the floor while Finn tore into the wrist of the believer.
“Jenna, get a new gun. Go to the pile and grab another.”
The girl was already doing it, already running to the small cache Timmy had piled up in every room.
“Fire where Finn is, right through there.”
She ran to the empty space.
“Finn. Come here,” Alex shouted.
The dog stopped tearing strips of flesh from the arm and ran back to Alex. Jenna stepped into the space where he had been, thrusting the pistol through the wooden boarding and unleashing a volley of shots.
Alex could hear the bodies hitting the floorboards of the porch.
But the space was too big. Jenna couldn’t hold it all. He grabbed one of the pistols and a couple of magazines from the cache and joined her.
The space left in the window was six inches high and ran a couple of yards wide. Jenna stood at an angle, firing outwards. Alex joined her, shouting from the side of his mouth.
“Go find Timmy. He’s got a hammer and nails. We’ll fix this.”
From here, Alex could see outside. The believers were swarming, running around in all directions. They seemed enraged and delirious. Crazy. Aiming the pistol and pulling the trigger, he dropped one and then another. But it did nothing. No one slowed down. No one stopped attacking. They simply stepped around the bodies.
“One moment. I just got to get this one…”
Alex heard the sound of footsteps along the porch. He swung around to his right. Too late, he saw the knife plunge in through the window, catching Jenna in the shoulder. She fell.
The man with the knife gave a joyful yelp, turned and saw Alex’s gun pointing right at him. The gun kicked and he dropped to the ground.
“Jenna, you hurt?”
The muffled sound of someone trying not to sound in pain. Alex recognized it.
“Jenna, I need you to go and get Timmy for me. Can you do that?”
She nodded.
“Good. Go! Go!”
As she ran into the back hallway, Alex reloaded. He shot another attacker, one who had tried sneaking along the porch with a rifle. They’ve got guns, Alex thought. Why aren’t they shooting at us?
Alex scanned the courtyard and saw Levine. The man was back atop his horse, galloping around the house and shouting instructions to his believers.
Good God, Alex thought, he’s actually enjoying this. It’s sport to him. Shooting fish in a barrel is too easy. Stabbing them is much more fun.
For a brief moment, Alex tried to aim his pistol at Levine. He moved too fast. Before Alex could be sure of the shot, the preacher was already gone.
“Alex!” Timmy was running back into the room.
“Timmy, what’s going on?” Alex didn’t dare turn around to his friend. He took a potshot at a passing attacker. “You brought your tools?”
“Back hallway is all sealed up. They can’t get through, trust me. I practically nailed the bed to the window.”
“Good, good. Do the same here, would you? Help Jenna.”
There wasn’t an answer. Timmy got to work. He collected the wooden board which had been freed from the window and put it back into place. Alex covered him, using any available space. As he fired, he kept count of his shots, aware that he had nothing in his pocket.
“Jenna, reload me.” He passed her the gun.
The injured girl took it, slipped in another magazine and handed it back. Timmy was on to his tenth nail, making sure the board was properly secure.
“Great,” Alex stepped back. “You two hold on here. Timmy, wrap her up if you can. I’m going to-”
Far away in the house, someone called for help.
“I’m going to deal with that.” Alex ran and the dog followed him.
The shout had come from the back of the house. Jamie. She had to be in trouble if she was calling for help.
Alex heard the scratching of metal on metal and Jamie called for help again. He arrived around the corner, seeing her pressing her back up against the door, trying to reload her pistol with one hand.
“I need a new clip,” she shouted. “Help me.”
Before Alex could respond, she threw the gun through the air. He caught it, running to the nearest pile of ammo, looking for supplies.
As Alex scrambled around for another magazine, he could see Jamie picking up an axe. The one which had spent its days in the back yard, chopping wood. She turned back to the door as it shook on its hingers.
A hand burst through a wood board, followed by another. Right away, another plank was knocked from the wall. As a face appeared in the gap, just below head height, Jamie swung her axe.
The blood splattered across the room. Not in a neat, thin arc. The man’s face had almost exploded, sending scarlet drops in every direction. Jamie was soaked. Alex passed her the gun.
“Thanks.” She fired a pair of shots outside into an unseen assailant. “But there’s too many. I can’t hold them here forever.”
Alex knew she was right. The sheer weight of numbers was dooming them. He thought Levine only had fifty or so believers. Outside, it felt like ten times that. Trying to fend them off the entire house was impossible.
“We’ll drop back from this room, defend the rest.”
“It’s too risky. They’ll get in!”
“It’ll be easier to defend.”
“Fine.”
Even if she didn’t look happy, Jamie followed orders. Cam might have doubted her military record, but she was every inch the soldier right now. She finished the clip, shooting through the door, and held out the gun to Alex.
“Again.”
He already had a magazine in his hand. He reloaded and passed it back.
“I’ll take the rest of these guns back to the others. You delay them as long as possible.”
“With this thing?” Jaimie looked with disgust at the pistol.
From the cache, Alex took a shotgun. Already loaded.
“Be careful with it.” He handed the gun over. “I won’t be here to reload.”
“Then I better make every shot count.”
Alex tried to carry as many guns as he could back to Jenna. His arms were overflowing as he stumbled down the hallways.
By the entrance, Timmy and Jenna were firing rifles through a missing slat in the defenses.
“Alex, we need-”
There wasn’t enough time to respond. He dumped the guns and ran back to Jamie.
It only took seconds to get back to Jamie but it wasn’t quick enough. She was already shouting his name as he sprinted around the corner.
“I’m here, I’m here!”
Jamie was walking backwards into the room, shotgun facing an open door. They’d got in, broken down the barriers.
“Christ,” was all Alex could say. He reached for his rifle.
With the stock pressed into his shoulder, he fired at the people trying to squeeze through the door. They were all trying at once, two people pressing up against one another, their gray clothes blending into a single many-headed monster. Every time one fell, another replaced him.
“Fall back, fall back!” Alex shouted at Jamie.
“There’s too many!” Jamie fired another shotgun blast into the mass, juggling the weapon to reload.
“We have to get back to the others.” Alex found a headshot. “I’ll cover you.”
Jamie turned to look at him. Her eyes had steeled over.
“You go.” Her voice was hoarse and hardened. “I’ll cover.”
Before Alex could argue, she’d stepped forward, standing in his sightline.
“Damn it,” shouted Alex, lowering his rifle.
Jamie strode forward, pumping shotgun shells into the massed ranks of Levine’s men. A pile of bodies was beginning to form on the floor.
Clack. The gun struggled. Out of ammo.
“Fall back,” Alex shouted again. “Come on.”
Jamie threw the gun down and turned around. She grabbed the axe.
“I said go!” she yelled through the noise. “Now go!”
The head of the axe flashed in a long arc before it pummeled a man in the face, turning his skull to mush. Alex knew he had to run. He couldn’t look away. He couldn’t leave her.
“Go!” Jamie screamed it this time, her arm looping back to re-swing the axe. “Go!”
Alex ran. He had to. Behind, the sound of another face being blown apart. Still, they shouted.
Jamie was gone. They had her now.
Alex pushed his legs harder, forcing them to move him faster through the house. As he arrived back in the entrance, he screamed.
“Timmy! Hammer and nails, now!”
The door slamm
ed shut behind him and Alex held the handle as tight as he could. On the other side, he could hear steps. Those rooms were gone now. They had to defend the rest.
Timmy didn’t waste time. His hammer began working right away, driving nails through the door itself and into the frame. A few spare boards sat in the corner but it wouldn’t be enough.
“We need more,” shouted Alex. “They’re going to try to come through now!”
“I’ve got an idea,” said Timmy, running over to his small arsenal.
Timmy selected a shotgun, made sure it was loaded, and pointed it at the ground just away from his feet. He fired. A cloud of splinters exploded, ripping the floorboards to shreds. A hole – about a foot wide – was left in the floor.
“Come on,” Timmy called. “Help me here.”
He was already down on his knees beside the hole. His hands felt around one of the splintered edges and began to pull upwards. The whole floor creaked. The rest of the floorboard began to rise up. Alex ran to help his friend.
Jenna kept firing and reloading. The smoke was pouring off her pistol.
Together, Alex and Timmy managed to rip up four floorboards in a minute. Each time, they ran across and hammed them to the door. On the other side, Alex could hear the believers scratching at the wood. It wouldn’t hold them long.
Finn barked. He could hear the people all around him. He could smell them, Alex knew. But he couldn’t see anyone. There was no way the dog could attack without putting him in harm’s way.
Protect everyone, Alex told himself, especially the dog.
“You guys stay here, keep doing what you’re doing,” Alex told Timmy and Jenna.
“Where are you going, man? We need help here.”
“I have to check on the others. I have to. I’ll be back.”
They didn’t argue. Alex had already started to run toward the kitchen. Reni and Nelson had been quiet.
The kitchen was quiet, too. Nelson was crouched over Reni, talking quickly.
“What’s up?” Alex rushed over to join them.
“Reni got hit. I’m trying to patch her up.”
“Not here. Back in the entrance.” Alex looked at the wound, a huge gash along her shoulder. “We’ve got medical kits there.”
Nelson stepped back from his sister.
“I don’t want to leave her.”
“You might have to. I need you here, Nelson.”