Grayland

by James Bierce

  “I wouldn’t do that,” comes a man’s voice.

  Christine turns her head and sees a man wearing filthy clothes, probably in his thirties, and holding a rifle that’s aimed directly at her head. She stands up and starts to back away toward the doorway, but the man takes the barrel of the gun and closes the door behind her, motioning for her to sit down on the couch. “I’m not armed…” she pleads, with tears running down her cheeks.

  “Let’s keep it that way for now, okay?” He sits down across from her in an old recliner, then points his gun at the floor instead of her head. “How old are you? You look like you’re still a kid.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I figured. Are you from around here?”

  “No, I’m from Adna.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s near Chehalis, east of here.”

  “And you’re alone, all this way from home?”

  She nods, afraid of saying too much. He looks friendly enough, but she’s heard more than a few of the infected speaking almost normally in the past. Besides, there’s something about his eyes, and the way he keeps shifting from side to side that doesn’t sit well with her instincts.

  “Listen, I’m not gonna hurt you, but I also can’t have you running around with a gun either — understand?”

  She nods again, noticing that most of his clothes are dry — except his shirt, which is soaked in what must be sweat.

  “Have you been in this town for very long?” he asks.

  “Two nights I think, it’s hard to keep it straight.”

  “Yeah, I know how that is. I noticed a lot of people when I came into town, and they didn’t look all that friendly…”

  “They’re hunters.”

  “Hunters?”

  “They kill everything in sight, even each other.”

  “I don’t know, they didn’t look all that dangerous to me.”

  He stands up, then aims the rifle at her again, kneeling down to place the pistols back into the bag.

  “You look like you’re soaking wet,” he says, looking her up and down. “There’s some clothes in the back bedroom, why don’t you go change…”

  He motions again with the barrel of the gun for her to get up, then follows her down the hallway. Shivering from the cold and fear, she opens a dresser and pulls out some jeans and a sweatshirt that reek of mildew, but they still smell better than the ones she has on. She turns around and starts to close the door, but he holds it open with his hand, then stands in the hallway watching her.

  “Sorry, I can’t let you out of my sight. I still don’t know you.”

  “Can I at least cover myself up with a blanket while I change?”

  “It’s a rough world, sweetheart — just change your fucking clothes so we can get out of here.”

  Feeling absolutely humiliated and violated, Christine starts taking her clothes off while the man watches her with a smirk on his face. When she’s done, he gestures for her to lead the way back out into the living room, then smacks her on the butt as she passes by. Instead of following her, he picks up her clothes and starts searching through them, checking every pocket carefully. It completely slipped her mind that she still had a pocketknife in her pants.

  “Mind explaining this?” he asks, unfolding the blade and showing it to her.

  “I forgot about it, I didn’t…”

  “Right, let’s go,” he says, interrupting her.

  “Where are we going?”

  “A church, which can’t be too hard to find in this town. There doesn’t seem to be much to it.”

  He points to the back door, which she opens and then steps outside, then immediately backs up when she spots an old man coming around the corner of the house. Her captor pushes her out of the way and stands on the back porch, aiming his rifle at the man. As soon as the first shot is fired, she crouches down to the floor and places her hands over her ears as he continues to shoot. Then she sees something reflecting under a piece of broken drywall, the same drywall she broke the day before when she fell out of the ceiling. She glances up at him, then grabs her old revolver from under the debris and slips it into the pocket of her sweatshirt.

  “Come on, he’s dead.”

  She stands up again, wondering if he saw her — then she follows him down the steps and into the parking area outside.

  “What’s your name by the way?” he asks.

  “Christine.”

  “You got a last name, Christine?”

  “Not anymore.”

  The man laughs. “Okay, fair enough. My name is Jake.”

  “Jake Wilson?”

  The man turns around, and from the expression on his face, Christine knows immediately that she shouldn’t have said that.

  CHAPTER 26

  GRAYLAND: DAY 6

  Hearing gunshots in the distance, Larry’s heart is racing as he begins to back away from the man approaching him in the hallway, his finger lightly squeezing the trigger of his gun. He can already hear that the guy is breathing heavily as they back up past a window, but when the sun appears on his face, Larry can see bruises covering his face and arms, and large, dark open sores. When another man appears from the kitchen behind him, carrying a hatchet in his hand, Larry can see the same grotesque features on his skin as well.

  “Drop your gun buddy, we’re not gonna hurt you…” the man says, his voice filled with sarcasm. “We just wanna talk…”

  “Stop, or I’ll shoot you!” Larry responds.

  Still moving forward, the man tilts his head to look at Beth, who’s staying behind Larry. “There were three of you earlier, where is the other one?”

  “Listen, if you stop, we can talk about everything…”

  “Oh, you’re gonna talk, I’m not worried about that.”

  Larry can’t see a weapon anywhere on the closest man, but his hands are bruised and bloody. “Beth, keep an eye behind us, they might be leading us into a trap.”

  “Why don’t you just shoot them?” she asks quietly.

  “He doesn’t wanna wake up the entire town, honey, he’s not that stupid.” the man replies, motioning for the guy behind him to circle around next to him, blocking that end of the hallway off completely.

  “This is your last warning, back off!” Larry screams.

  “What do you think, Nate, do you think he’ll shoot?” the man asks his companion, who looks back and forth between Larry and Beth, with bloodshot eyes that look glazed over and dead. The unarmed man looks back at Larry and smiles. “I call him Nate, but in reality I have no idea what the hell his name is. The crazy fucker hasn’t said one single word the entire time I’ve known him. Then again, not a lot of people around here do.”

  Larry jumps back as the man takes two quick steps toward him, then he fires three shots into his chest and shoulder, sending him back against the wall. The guy with the hatchet immediately lunges at Larry, but Beth manages to empty her entire clip in his direction, hitting him in the torso and legs and knocking him to the floor. “Beth, reload!” Larry yells at her, keeping his gun aimed at the man he shot, who’s still standing upright. Waiting until she finishes loading another clip into her gun, Larry fires one more shot into the man’s forehead, then another one into the back of his friend’s head before reloading his own pistol. “We need to find someplace to hide before the others come looking.”

  Beth grabs Larry’s arm and pulls him into a classroom behind them, just as more footsteps are heard coming from the cafeteria. After making their way into the room and closing the door behind them, they discreetly look out through a window in the upper half of the door, and see several more dark shadows passing by. They watch for a few more minutes, and then Larry takes a seat at the teacher’s desk and tries to catch his breath. “How many did you see?”

  “I think there were eight, but I’m not sure.” Taking her eyes off of the hallway, she starts reading something on the wall instead.

  “What is that?”

  “It�
�s an emergency escape map, in case there’s a fire.”

  He pulls himself back to his feet again and joins her, feeling light-headed and tired. “Where is the closest exit?”

  “It looks like there’s one in the classroom across the hall — which is the north side of the building.”

  Larry looks out at the hall again, seeing no signs of movement in either direction. “Okay, we’ll move straight to the room, then barricade the door behind us — that way they won’t be able to follow us.”

  “Okay, I’m ready when you are.”

  They push the door open slowly, and the dry hinges fill the silent hallway with a faint creaking sound as they move quickly across the corridor, seeing no sign of the group that passed by only a few minutes before. Larry wedges one of the student chairs underneath the handle, testing the door as quietly as possible to see if it holds.

  “Will that work?” Beth asks him.

  “Let’s hope so, there’s no locks on these doors.” He takes another look out into the hallway, then sits down in one of the chairs, laying his head onto the desk in front of him.

  “We should get out of here as soon as possible.”

  “I need to rest for a few minutes — we might have to run like hell once we’re outside.”

  She sits down next to him, looking out of the windows at the trailer park beyond. The sun is now up, but the rain is still coming down in buckets, and is blowing against the glass and partially obscuring the view. The tall fir trees that are scattered throughout the mobile park are bending over from the storm, dropping large branches onto the homes below.

  “It’s getting bad out there again, worse than yesterday,” Beth says, hoping to keep him awake.

  “At least the fog will cover us.”

  “That guy was talking, coherently — we haven’t seen any of them that can speak like that.”

  “Amanda does.”

  “Did you notice the scratches on his arms? They didn’t look self-inflicted, they looked like somebody else’s defense wounds.”

  “They must’ve killed everyone else in town.”

  “He had bruises all over his body too — didn’t Jennifer have those right before she died?”

  “On her chest, yeah, but they weren’t open sores like theirs — they were more like purple bruises. She said they didn’t hurt though.”

  “Did she ever say anything… odd?”

  “She wasn’t one of these people, Beth.”

  “I know she wasn’t, I was just wondering if…” she looks at him, seeing the look of detachment growing on his face. “Never mind. Are you about ready?”

  “Yeah, ready as I’m gonna be.” He stands up, feeling the weight in his arms and legs as he grabs his bag again. Between two wide windows on the outside wall is a door leading to the parking lot. Larry unlocks it, then pushes through and holds it open for Beth to follow him, and as he turns around and faces the empty parking lot next to the building, the window next to him shatters as the sound of a gunshot echos through the air from somewhere nearby.

  Beth jumps back inside and pulls Larry in with her as another three shots hit the door beside him, and then the two of them scramble on their hands and knees into the corner and away from the windows. “Did you see where that came from?” she asks.

  “I saw a muzzle flash from the last shots — in a trailer across the way,” Larry replies, scared and out of breath.

  Beth looks up at the exit map on the other side of the room and tries to read what it says, but the graphics are too small to see. “Stay here, I’m gonna sneak across the room and see where the other exits are.”

  “Stay down and out of sight…”

  “I know, I’ll be careful.” Crawling on her stomach to the opposite wall, she grabs a chair from behind a desk and uses it to knock the framed map off of it’s hook, then barely catches it before it hits the floor. She looks behind her, making sure that somebody wasn’t standing there, then crawls back to Larry.

  “What does it say?” he asks.

  “There’s only two exits on the south side. One is the main entrance on the other end of the building, and the other one is through the kitchen.”

  “We can’t risk running through that kitchen.”

  “They could be keeping an eye on the entrance though, maybe the kitchen is the safer bet…”

  “Okay, but if we see anybody, don’t hesitate to shoot them — and keep some extra clips handy.”

  The two crawl around the edge of the room, Larry leading the way. When they get to the door, they both rush into the hallway without looking, hearing yet another gunshot hit somewhere in the classroom. As they get to their feet and start running down the hall, they hear a voice coming from behind them, moving quickly. With the kitchen still too far away to reach in time, Larry finds a dark place to stand, then turns around and takes in a deep breath, aiming his gun down the corridor with Beth right beside him. It takes only seconds before the group comes into sight, and before any of them even realize they’re standing there, they both open fire into the crowd. Empty their clips at almost the same time, they immediately start reloading as they watch for any activity.

  “Shine a light down there, I’ll cover you…” Larry says, pointing his gun in their direction again.

  Holstering her pistol, she aims the flashlight at the group and sees most of them lying motionless on the floor. Two others are writhing around in pain and coughing up blood. “Do you wanna finish them off?”

  “Why bother?” he says, walking back toward the kitchen. “It’s just a waste of ammunition.”

  CHAPTER 27

  COHASSETT BEACH: DAY 6

  Curtis closes his eyes for a few seconds, trying to stay as calm as possible while Sarah attempts to tie a loop into the end of a rope. The guy on the other side of the door is surprisingly strong, and Curtis isn’t sure exactly how long he can hold it shut — especially as his hands become covered in sweat.

  “Sarah, you need to hurry it up…”

  “I’m working as fast as I can — it’s not like you’re any better at tying knots.”

  Although grateful that the handle is a lever-type instead of a knob, he can still feel his fingers beginning to slip on the polished brass surface. The man is violently twisting the handle and pulling at the same time, and occasionally tugging at it so forcefully that Curtis isn’t sure that the hinges will be able to hold it — even if he can.

  “Here, try this…” Sarah says, slipping the looped end of the rope over the door lever beside Curtis’ hands.

  With both of them pulling on the rope, Curtis guides the other end of it around the wood stove in the center of the room, then tightens the slack.

  “Okay, slowly let go,” he tells her, as she carefully releases the rope and backs away. He starts easing up on his grip too, waiting for the man to pull hard before finally letting go completely. When he’s convinced that the wood stove will hold the man back, he collapses onto the couch behind him and watches as the assault on the door becomes even more aggressive. Before long though, the man begins to scream and kick at the hinged side, eventually causing a crack to appear on the surface as the door begins to split apart. Curtis rushes back and leans against it with all of his weight, but he can feel the wood beginning to give way as the kicks keep coming. “Sarah, find some kitchen knives, I don’t think this thing is gonna hold together much longer.”

  “Dad…!” Matt says from the kitchen. “Come here, quick!”

  “I’m a little busy Matt…”

  “Someone is trying to get in through the pet door.”

  “Are they a full-grown adult?

  “I think so.”

  “Then they can wait, they can’t fit through. Just stay out of the kitchen for now, okay?” Curtis turns his attention back to Sarah, who has just returned with two large kitchen knives in her hands. He takes one of them from her, then holds the blade against the rope.

  “What are you doing?” Sarah asks, baffled as to why he would suddenly release the
man.

  “Take the boys into the other room and close the door.”

  “No, I’m not going anywhere — and don’t cut that fucking rope! I can hold onto it and open the door just a crack.”

  “Okay, just brace yourself against something, this guy is strong as hell.” Curtis holds onto the rope, then waits for Sarah to untie it, using the wood stove to secure herself. Little by little, he gives it some slack, watching the door slowly open a few inches. With a few feet of distance from the room still, he leans over to see if the man is visible through the small opening, when a hand suddenly reaches out and nearly grabs him by the forearm. He pulls back hard on the rope and pins the man’s arm in the door, then takes hold of it and bends it backward against the jam in an attempt to break it. He hears Sarah scream something at him, and a split second later the man grips his coat sleeve and pulls his arm into the bedroom, biting him just above his wrist as he desperately tries to free himself. He turns around, seeing the rope fall to the floor as Sarah slams herself against the door, breaking it completely free from it’s hinges. The guy, who stands nearly a foot taller than Curtis, let’s go of his arm and turns to face Sarah — but just as he reaches for her, she lunges forward at him, piercing the tip of her blade into the middle of his throat. He falls back onto the bed and tries to pull the blade out, but Curtis already has his hands wrapped around the handle, pushing the knife further into his flesh as the man thrashes around underneath him.

  Feeling the cold drops of rainwater run down his face from the broken skylight above, Curtis finally lets go when the intruder stops breathing. He sits back for a minute, suddenly aware of how much his body is shaking all over, then he gets up and sits in a chair in the corner of the room.