by Matt James
Good, I think, happy to hear that Andy’s team is alive.
“Dom? John-Ryan?” Andy asks. “You guys still with us?”
“John-Ryan is dead,” Dom says, breathing heavily. “Took a bullet to the fucking head.” He sighs. “He’s with Rachael now.”
My quizzical look gets a silent, mouthed reply.
“Wife,” Andy says, not verbally speaking the word.
Then, I remember what she said about this team of volunteers—that none of them had anything waiting for them back in Chattanooga. John-Ryan lost his wife and was willing to sacrifice his own life to save TJ’s.
“Dammit,” Cooper says, pacing the room.
“And you?” Andy asks, her voice catching.
“Took a round to the shoulder. Cosmetic damage only.” He laughs. “Still hurts like a bitch, though.”
She grins. “Baby… Sit tight, Dom. We’ll come for you, okay?”
Dom softly laughs. “Yeah, sure. No problem.”
We all sign off and get moving.
Gun up, I gently push open the metal door and take a quick peek outside. Cold air greets me, stinging my face. But it also reinvigorates me too, waking me up from the ass-kicking I just took. I was damn lucky that the Kevlar did what it was designed to do. Inhaling hurts a little, but it’s better than not being able to do it all.
“Watch the roof,” I say, heading out first. There was a duo of gunmen up there too. Turning toward the back of the building, I slowly edge out into the loading area, waiting for one of the asshats to give me something to shoot.
One does, but I don’t get the pleasure of taking his head off. Cooper snaps up his gun with lightning precision and squeezes off the shot. The single bullet is answered with a puff of red and a shout. The dead man’s buddy just witnessed the headshot up close.
“Goblins,” Jill says, keeping her voice low.
The loud gunshot’s report has brought a few unfriendlies our way. So, I decide to take them out the ‘quiet way.’ Luckily for me, like the snipers atop each building, there’s only two of them.
“Cover me,” I say, holstering my gun.
I lift my bow up and over my head, off my shoulder, and quickly nock an arrow. The movement is a lot more painful than I thought it would be, but I have to try.
I steady my nerves with controlled inhalations and drop to one knee. There, behind the cover of a dumpster, I lean out and take aim. Two seconds later, I release the carbon fiber bolt. I’m pleased when it slices through the air and impales the beast in its gut. The creature doesn’t die, but it will.
As it falls to the concrete, I’m already nocking a second arrow. This goblin doesn’t make it as easy as the other one. It crouches down to check on its buddy but shifts back and forth as it does. With that minimal movement, I have to mimic it. If my side wasn’t so sore, I wouldn’t care much of anything it does.
Grinding my teeth against the discomfort, I release the bowstring. The arrow stealthily cuts through the crisp, winter air and buries itself deep in the second goblin’s throat. Its chokes can he heard all around us, reverberating against the rectangular facades of the neighboring structures.
I get shoved to the ground, and the dumpster is pinged with gunfire. I keep my head down before I’m forcefully yanked to my feet and shoved back toward the loading docks at Dunkin’. There’s only three of us, however. Jill is gone.
Before I can ask where my wife went, I follow Andy and Cooper’s line of sight. They’re looking up toward the two-story roof. I turn and do the same. When I do, I see something I hate. Jill is scaling the building’s maintenance ladder up to meet the gunman head-on. I get a glimpse into her plan as I do. Her knife isn’t in the sheath on her lower back. It’s in her mouth.
She’s a pirate?
Andy leans in and lets me in on the plan.
“He’s protecting the ladder access,” she explains. “We are supposed to keep him from seeing her.”
“Surprise attack?”
Andy shrugs.
“She’s got balls,” Cooper says.
I nod. “Biggest set I’ve ever seen.”
Switching back to my Glock, I also take aim at the lip of the roof and wait. Jill is just beneath the top rung, moving as slow as a molasses covered sloth in the sand. Now, the knife is in her right hand. She’s gripping it backhanded and waiting for her opportunity to strike. More shrieks answer the call of the sniper’s last gunshots. Any second, we’re about to have more company.
Maybe that’s what we need!
I rush out into the middle of the alley and start waving my hands. “Hey, uglies. Over here!”
The assailant takes notice of my idiotic behavior and leaps to his feet, rifle jammed into his right shoulder. But as he gets his feet set, Jill springs into action. With a roar, she slams the blade into the gunman’s unprotected chest. For good measure, she rips it free and hits him again.
I think she’s about to climb back down to us, but instead, she continues higher and disappears over the edge of the roof. For over a minute, she’s gone—silent as a church mouse. The only thing I can do, besides move back into the cover, is pace back and forth with the feeling of a full bladder. I’m far from having to pee too. I’m just super nervous for her.
I’m about to call up to her but suddenly she pops up and almost throws herself off of the roof. Additional gunshots ring out above us. Jill ducks down as a few of them impact the other side of the concrete ledge with a whump and a puff of dust. Jill has the sniper’s weapon dangling across her back and has an armful of supplies. I can’t see the payload, and honestly, can’t say I disagree with her decision to go after them. She had been right. Their gear was prime for the taking.
On the bottom rung, I relieve her of the scoped weapon. I’m not sure what it is, but it looks well-maintained. She has two magazines in her left hand and gives those to Cooper. I hand him the rifle as well. It’s then I finally notice that his CPD M4 Carbine is missing. Andy has hers, though.
Probably, back in the Yukon.
“That was nuts, Jill!” Andy exclaims, hugging her hard. Jill looks uncomfortable, keeping her arms down to her sides. “Wow!”
Cooper inspects the scoped FN Special Police Rifle (SPR) and grins. He likes what he sees.
His eyes flick up to me. “She’s making you look bad.”
“Ahem,” I say, pointing to the felled goblins.
Jill kisses my cheek. “Nice work, Robin Hood.”
Andy and Cooper snicker softly.
I stomp over to the now-dead goblins and swiftly yank my arrows free with twin pops and slurps. I wipe the tips off on their clothes and slip them back into my quiver. I face my cohorts, about done with their crap. “Let’s keeping moving, shall we?”
Jill falls in line next to me, her smirk lasting a hair longer than the Chattanooga cops’ who take up the rear. Their longer-range weapons will serve well in our trimmed down four-man group. With our pistols leading the way, Jill and I are ready for anything.
The alley ends up ahead. There, in all its former glory, is the Gatlinburg Space Needle. It fell due north, crushing the Ripley’s museum in the process. We’ll have to be careful while navigating through its ruins. I’d say we should just backtrack and head back out toward the intersection, but I’m not sure how many enemies we’re dealing with—not to mention that the commotion is bound to draw in more Unseen than we can handle. They’re starving, and that makes them even more dangerous than ever.
Grabbing a metal support strut of some kind, I hoist myself up and gingerly duck and dodge the more splintered areas. It’s the same as the tree line outside Sanctuary, except a hundred times more unstable. This building was supposed to be standing upright, not laying on its side.
One false move, and it’ll come down on top of us.
“Um, Frank,” Andy says from behind. She’s the last one in. “We have a problem back here.”
I turn, barely seeing her around the miasma of steel. She’s leaning back out into the alley, then turn
s and almost dives into the fallen space needle.
“Go, go, go!” she shouts, shoving Cooper from behind.
“What is it?” I ask, moving a little faster now. I already have a metal sliver in my hand, but it isn’t big enough, or deep enough, to bother me.
“Unseen…” she grunts. “A lot of them!”
13
Halfway through the wreckage, the entire structure begins to shake. The screeches and shrieks of the Unseen are everywhere. Looking straight up, I can just barely see them scurrying over the outside of the unstable rubble. There have to be dozens of them, maybe fifty in all. I panic and screech to a halt, looking for any kind of cover—anything at all.
I see it, and boy, is this going to suck.
“Inside, now!” I shout, helping Jill into the overturned elevator car. On its side, we are forced to hurdle the right-hand door. It’s been jammed shut, bent into place. The left-hand door is still open and will need to be closed before we are overrun by the creatures in pursuit.
Andy and Cooper practically dive in together, falling into the metal siding with a resounding gong. I’m last, and I dread what I see. A burner steps into view back in the alleyway. I quickly follow my counterparts, draw my Glock, and squeeze off a single round. Then, we all pull like mad until the open door starts to close. Just as it does, the burner explodes into a fireball. It shoots straight toward us, using the path within the needle’s frame as a makeshift chimney.
The concentrated explosion hits the rectangular elevator car and slams into us like the semi had done. The four of us go rolling backward as the car is ripped from the space needle’s remains.
I have no idea which end is up, or whose ass is in my face. What I do know is someone just kneed me in the balls. I go headfirst into one of the walls, but thankfully get my arms up in time to prevent another blackout concussion.
I’ve had way too many of those lately.
We must’ve hit some sort of decline or something because we keep going. Luckily, we aren’t barrel-rolling anymore. Instead, we’re sliding, scraping across a steep grade of earth.
Our potential coffin comes to a jarring stop, and I’m tossed into Andy and Jill. I land upside down directly between them with my ass next to their heads. It’s a comical way to end up, but my head and back are killing me, not to mention my not-so-private parts. I just got groped by three different people, and I only know one of them well enough for that to be okay.
“I can’t believe that worked.” I groan, staying still.
“You call this ‘worked?’” Cooper retorts from somewhere behind me. Well, I guess he’s in front of me. Never mind, you know what I mean.
I clumsily fall back to earth with a loud clunk. “We’re alive, aren’t we?”
“Turned us into a cannonball too,” Andy adds, laughing softly. “Seriously, Frank, how are you not dead yet?”
“Well,” I say, sharing in on the laugh, “there’s a lot of reasons—”
“None of which we have time to go through,” Jill interrupts.
She’s right, and I can see the annoyance on her face through a break in the doors. The sun is shining in, perfectly lighting her scrunched, dirty face.
Staying low, I stumble over to the partition and grab it. “Help me, will ya?”
Jill does, and as a duo, we slowly slide them open. Sort of… They stop halfway, much too mangled to move any further. So, our foursome squeezes through, and we all take in a couple of much-needed breaths of fresh air. Andy, for her part, gathers whatever gear we lost inside the demolished elevator car.
Accepting my bow and quiver, I turn in a circle and see why we traveled so far. We hit an embankment and followed its decline. The road isn’t really a road as much as it is the entrance to the First United Methodist Church. I quickly head the other way. There is no way in hell that I’m going to get strapped to another crucifix.
Jill catches up to my westerly march back up the church’s driveway. It’s a short one, but I’m sore, and even the smallest of movements hurt.
Back towards the space needle, near the wreckage, where we entered, is a billowing cloud of smoke. The burner that went off was a big son of a bitch. He wasn't all that big, physically. The results of him bursting was huge though and it took out all of the Unseen or at least spooked them, from what I can tell. There are none chasing us now.
“Goblins!” Andy shouts, squeezing off a three-round burst.
Spoke too soon.
I look north and spot what Andy sees. A small pack of goblins is making its way toward us, running as fast as their emaciated, hobbling forms will let them. I raise my pistol and take one down at the same time that Jill and Cooper do.
More appear to the south, and it’s enough to get us moving.
“Come on!” I shout, rushing forward.
There’s a passable alley between the fractured base of the space needle and a local pizza joint. I can’t remember the name of the restaurant only that it serves up an acceptable pepperoni pie. My stomach grumbles at the thought of having pizza...and I still want that beer!
Not now, dammit! I think, yelling at my belly.
Our path is littered with debris from the space needle but is still a cinch to navigate. If I weigh both of the paths we've taken on a scale of zero-to-ten, the elevator car scores a ten. The alley registers as a two, tops. Maybe even a one-point-five.
The only obstacle is at the end of the corridor. A car has been wedged up against the corridor’s exit. I spot a way through, however. The vehicle’s driver’s side door is gone, probably sheared off in the accident. I dive in headfirst, pop the passenger side door, and immediately spill out the other side once the lock disengages. It had held for a second longer than I anticipated, catching me off guard.
Jill hurdles me, and then quickly helps me get to my feet. She snaps off two quick shots, both sizzling over Cooper’s head as he ducks down into the sedan. Both bullets strike a moving target.
And there’s a bunch of them.
I lift my weapon and start shooting, dropping another three goblins. One of them goes airborne—a siren! Jill and I both take aim, each putting a round into her chest. Midair, her body goes limp, and she goes crashing into the pair of goblins who had just entered the car.
I slam the door, locking it, not waiting to see if the barricade worked. We take off running once more.
Bullets pound the asphalt around our feet, coming from across the street where the Dunkin’ Donuts is and the two snipers we didn't take out are standing on top of the building. They, apparently, stayed put and waited to see if we’d, stupidly, show our faces again.
And we do…
Jill goes to duck behind a car parked sideways on top of the sidewalk, but I yank her to the left, away from the incoming gunfire. Instead of heading into the next closest store, I move to the next alley and race down it. That’s when I look for a door. We’re out of the shooter’s sights and seem to have evaded the Unseen for now. The gunmen are still shooting, though. They seem to be helping us, though, inadvertently.
“Keep going!” I shout.
Andy and Cooper are in hot pursuit, right on our asses. Within seconds, we crash through the backdoor of another shop. This one kind of smells good too.
“More Unseen!” Cooper yells.
“Shit! Door lock is broken!” Andy yells. “We won’t be able to hold them back!”
I take in the room and see that we’re in a candle store. Most of the inventory is still in its place. I guess people didn’t need scented candles during the apocalypse. Not everything is useful in today’s world. I dig into my jacket pocket and produce two Zippo lighters. I toss one to Jill.
“Get started.” She gives me a quizzical look. I smile. “I have a plan.”
14
“Any…time…now!” Cooper says, in between impacts. He and Andy have been holding the rear door shut while Jill and I do our thing. Lighting dozens of candles shouldn’t be hard work, but alas, it is. We’re rushing around the storefront as fast
as we can, flicking our Zippo lighters over and over again. The skin on the side of my thumb is getting really sore too.
Jill gives me a wave from across the thirty-by-thirty room.
“Okay,” I say, “we’re good!”
After the next impact, Andy and Cooper dive away from the door and scatter to different corners of the room. Then, I lose sight of everyone as we all do what we talked about. We duck and wait. If we come across any of them, we take them out quickly and quietly. It means no guns.
I have my knife drawn, and I’m down on one knee. I stay in a relatively athletic position just in case I’m forced to get moving in a hurry. The store is still, except for the telltale sound of someone breathing. I rise up just high enough to see a quintet of goblins enter. Each one of them has their nose up, vigorously sniffing the air like a dog.
Hopefully, our scents are masked by the noxious combination of the fragrant candles. I reel back when I’m assaulted by the smell of imitation pumpkin pie. It’s horrendous in every way possible. The open backdoor brought a breeze in. That air flowed through the candle smoke and flung the stink right into my face.
An image of girls wearing ridiculous Han Solo-inspired vests and ugly boots flashes across my mind. In one hand, they’re holding pumpkin spice lattes, and in the other, they’re using their phone to Instagram about it.
Hashtag, gross.
Speaking of gross, the breeze brings with it a waft of rotten fish and dog shit. There’s only one thing that smells this rancid, the Unseen. Even their stink is overpowering that of the haze of fragrances assaulting our nostrils.
The last goblin to enter gets attacked from behind. Cooper covers the beast’s mouth with his hand and runs a blade across the creature’s neck. Then, he dashes over to Andy’s position and goes back into hiding.
The dying monster gags, getting the attention of the other four goblins. They turn to take a look, and that’s when Jill and I make our moves. Slowly, she emerges from behind the cash register and stalks up to the nearest goblin. I watch as she raises her knife over her head. Just as she brings it down, her shoe squeaks.