Then there were the caddies-- long and low-slung like their vehicular counterparts. According to the television, they didn't attack people. Their preferences were for glass and steel. They’d first been seen in Raleigh, back when there was a Raleigh. Their slow moving hulks left trails of digested planet in their passage. The few skyscrapers that had pierced the Wilmington skyline were now miserable masses of rubble. Buckley could only pray that the caddies would leave their poor building alone.
The creatures had originally surged forth from somewhere in the Smokey Mountains. The combined might of sixty thousand soldiers at Fort Bragg to include the elite Delta Force and two Special Forces groups had failed to even halt them. Like speed bumps, the Warriors of Democracy only slowed the massed enemy as battalion upon battalion became the snack food of creatures with no political preference.
It seemed as if nothing was able to stop their brand of evil. Nothing that is, except salt. That's why places like the Outer Banks and other islands off the coast had yet to be attacked. Salt acted upon the creatures like an acid and before the group had holed up in the bar, they’d collected quite a stash.
Buckley sighed as a song from Grandma Riggs interlaced with the screams from Sally outside.
"Two little girls dressed all in white,
Tried to get to heaven on the tail of a kite.
The kite string broke and down they fell,
They didn't get to heaven, but landed in hell."
Little Rashad and Bennie grinned broadly. Even Buckley cracked a smile. Gert, however, was fed up with everything and Grandma was the straw.
"Grandma, you better lighten up on that shit or it's gonna kill you," the fifty year old whore said. Ever friendly, her demeanor was undergoing a change as she realized her body wouldn't get her out of this one.
"Hell girl. Them damn maggies are gonna get me long before my brain rots away. I might as well enjoy my last few days.” Grandma sucked on her pipe. “Don’t you think?"
They’d picked up the old woman passed out in the front seat of an old Plymouth Valiant. Blind as a bat, she’d gone out looking to score some marijuana to ease the pain of her glaucoma. With her chocolate-chip cookie charm, it hadn’t taken her long to wheedle the ten grand worth of ice from Bennie who’d merely shrugged and said, 'Take it. No one to sell it to now, no how. Like money means anything anymore.'
Gert frowned, but beneath her ugly glare was the softness of the mother she’d never be, and Grandma Riggs was becoming the child she could never have. "Fine then. But if you puke all over yourself again, I ain't gonna clean it up." She stroked the old woman’s long hair. “You just be quiet now.”
Sally's screams crescendoed, as if her flesh were being ripped from her body. So went Buckley’s determination. The others were right. It was too much. Sally’s continuous shrieks were getting under everyone's skin. He could feel the tension in the air as everyone stared at him, waiting, begging for the command. Sally had been one of them and they couldn't let her die this way.
"Ahhhh, hell. Here we go.” Everyone shifted in anticipation. “Samuel, grab the emergency bucket from the kitchen. Bennie, hold the knob. When I say go, you open that motherfucking door, count to five and then slam it shut. Do you hear me boy?"
Bennie nodded fast and hard.
"Now, MacHenry, you shove Lashawna outside just as soon as we open it. Her body will make a buffer and give us a few seconds as the damnable things fry upon her salt."
MacHenry backed away.
Samuel seemed as if he was about to argue.
"Hey! You tough guys want the screaming to end, then don't get mushy on me. This fine young black woman is gone and there's nothing we can do about it. But if she stays here, she'll bloat up and explode with their eggs. I've seen it happen. I’ve seen respect for the dead kill people." He lowered his voice and placed a hand on Samuel's shoulder. "I'm sorry, son. This is hitting you hard, I know. But it has to be done the way I say it has to. Understand?"
Samuel returned the stare. The garbage man saw the cool fire of tempered anger. He recognized it for what it was. The boy wasn't mad at him, merely the world for what had happened.
Samuel nodded slowly. “I understand.”
"All right. And no ogling. You just concentrate on your counting, Bernie. You get to six and it could mean all of our deaths."
Bennie grinned like the way he’d probably done the first time he’d seen a friend gunned down after a drive-by.
Buckley grabbed one of Bennie's Nines. He propped the butt of the shotgun against his leg and held the pistol eye high, aiming down the barrel.
"All right, Samuel. When I say throw, you hurl the salt. You got that?"
Samuel nodded just as hard and just as fast as Bennie had.
Buckley waited for MacHenry to grab the dead girl under her arms and lift her up. They exchanged looks and everything was ready.
"Go!"
It was a horrific five seconds.
Sally, her face half eaten, her body a colander of maggie holes...Lashawna's body landing at Sally's feet...maggies, noticing Buckley and the fresh meat of the girl turning and moving...pistol firing, a hole appearing in the center of Sally’s forehead, her misery ending...a hundred maggies shifting from her legs in a wave of dedicated death, slithering for the door...shotgun opening with both barrels, salted grape-shot halting the first charge...Sally's eyes convulsing, staring a grotesque come-hither farce.
"Throw!”
A shower of salt hit the body. Putrid steam rose as the maggies melted in a runny gray slime.
"Now!"
And the door slammed shut.
Buckley spun and placed his back against the wall, breathing heavily. Sissy, a lithe blonde who had until recently been at NCCU studying to be a civil engineer, hurried to the door and poured a line of salt along the bottom edge. Buckley smiled through clenched teeth, his black skin shiny with sweat. "There,” he said tossing the shotgun back to Samuel who caught it clumsily. "Is everybody fucking happy, now?"
The Last Call of Mourning - An Oxrun Station Novel (Oxrun Station Novels) Page 21