by C A Gleason
Jonah had never considered it because he hadn’t been in a situation when he’d driven for such a long distance. Undoubtedly, Molter numbers had never been higher. Maybe even the mass of them coincidentally decided to go north too.
The rushing predators jutted forward in throbbing waves, a burst dam having built up with strength for years, and hunger needing to be sated. Thankfully, the current road behind them was flat. It allowed them to anticipate. And ready themselves for the next move.
The Molters were still a ways off, but there were so many they could be heard from the distance. It looked like every piece of the earth was planted with clawed feet. And now the others noticed. Their eyes were often on Jonah to follow his lead.
Whether it was decided, or a consensus or not, Jonah was indeed their leader. What he saw, they did, and what he decided needed to be done, to leave, was an unspoken command. They rushed to the two vehicles.
Jonah spotted, in the pile of abandoned supplies, a rocket launcher. They possessed extras of the same weapon system, but not one of them should be wasted. It was the one-shot, fire-and-forget kind after all.
Marching over and rooting it out—he swung it around to get a blanket off—he crossed the road to the far side.
He readied the devastating weapon and assumed the correct firing position, placing the launcher over his right shoulder.
He took a quick glance behind him before aiming. “Back blast area clear!”
Aiming the rocket launcher low center, at the undulating and sickening mass of them, he depressed the trigger.
Streaking across the grayish landscape, the warhead struck against the fast-moving creatures, erupting with an explosion that rumbled the ground beneath their feet.
Molters were vaporized, and the ones near the explosion launched into the air. Some remained whole. Others’ legs and arms and heads came off. The blast was quickly absorbed by a cloud of smoke.
But so many more of what thirsted for blood emerged unfazed. Jonah dropped the expended weapon system onto the grass.
Doreen shouted, “Behind you!”
Even though the window was rolled down, her voice was muffled by being inside the truck, but Jonah didn’t have to turn to understand. He knew what happened.
And why it was suddenly so much louder. Why the lovely voice of a woman could barely pierce through such horror.
The encompassing volume of them was because Molters were on all sides. The tactic meant a feeding was certain. It was then, when the rest of the creatures revealed themselves.
They were surrounded.
CHAPTER 26
Donnelly exchanged places with Bernard, so Bernard could drive. Donnelly was a better shooter. He aimed from the passenger seat.
Bernard and Henry were both seconds from speeding everyone away. But even if the drivers floored it, what hungered for them was coming in too fast. And from every direction. Including their front.
There were four hundred rounds in the ammo box attached to the SAR. Jonah had reloaded it. And he remembered the crate of incendiary grenades he’d been saving. It was time to put them to use. He rushed to the bed of the pickup truck to fill his pockets.
Jonah’s life, whatever he’d wanted for himself, didn’t matter anymore. All that did matter was keeping those he cared for safe. And there was one way to make it happen.
“Whatever it takes,” Jonah said into the driver’s side window to Henry.
“Jonah?” Doreen said across Henry from the passenger side.
He winked at his wife. “I love you!”
Jonah hefted the SAR off the ground by the carrying handle, the weapon meant to go along with the convoy after he joined them with it in hand.
Then he faced the uncountable monsters, aiming the weapon from the shoulder firing position. There were so many Molters, a nightmare made real, there was no reason to eye down the sight picture.
When they yelled for him, he yelled, “Go!” without turning around.
Sensing what he was about to do, the Molters converged. Snarling and howling and growling, undeterred, they were about to overtake all the humans.
Until Jonah went loud with the SAR, unleashing 6mm rounds at fourteen rounds per second. The nonstop bullets sawed through veiny muscular flesh and heads and limbs and anything else in its firing path.
Jonah’s continuous machine gun fire was a constant bark of rounds rifling down the smoking hot barrel, the muzzle flashes igniting the gray gloom of day.
Bits and chunks of gore and bone and blood popped, sprayed, and even entire body parts sloughed off.
Once Jonah pulled the trigger, the Molters devolved from aggressors, into any other frightened animals, and actually ran away, some even into one another.
He realized that in order to apply the correct engagement techniques and continue to control the large target area, he needed to apply what he’d learned during basic training. Natural athleticism aided soldiering skills.
To engage so many targets—the creatures didn’t forget about how hungry they were—he moved the muzzle of the weapon left and right laterally, as well as up and down, mowing down Molters with the SAR.
The weapon system was a bladed brush painting wet, glistening gore.
To keep them at bay, and for successive aiming points throughout the width of his sector of fire, which was quite wide, he made changes, minor ones, based on experience.
There would be no reloading. So, he kept on shooting.
He shifted his shoulders or moved his elbows, but always kept his body aligned to remain directly behind the weapon.
The SAR clicked empty and the barrel smoked to the point it looked like it might burst into flames. Jonah had exhausted every bullet in the ammo box.
Dropping the destructive SAR, and as it clacked to the ground, Jonah swung the automatic rifle from his back, yanked off the strap around him to hold it freely, switched the selector switch from safe to fire, and fired.
Pulling the trigger made Molters fall until all thirty rounds were expended and it too clicked empty. He dropped the weapon.
The mass of creatures knitted back together, again with the strength they were before. Bolder now, as they noticed the immediate danger of the SAR was abandoned behind Jonah. As was the automatic rifle. They were much closer to him.
An explosion turned part of the horde into a pile of dead Molters. Thankfully, Jonah wasn’t alone in this fight.
Before moving forward, Jonah saw Doreen holding the antique grenade launcher she’d given him as a gift. A holiday present. She lowered the weapon and yelled something impossible for him to hear. No doubt she was pleading for him to return.
Even more Molters appeared beyond. They’d been lying in wait? Impossible for him to know.
It was then that he heard more cover fire. Salgado, already behind the grenade launcher, saw what Jonah was doing, and from his firing position was obliterating the edges of the beyond. Explosions rocked the world.
Pulling the next weapon, the pistol, he removed the silencer and tossed it away. He went loud with it, taking advantage of any noise, drawing attention away from those in the vehicles. Jonah advanced on the horde.
So close he could see the redness of gums holding sharp, curved teeth, aching to be drenched in his blood, and so many separate sets of teeth and claws, he didn’t have to aim center mass.
He didn’t have to aim at all. He simply moved the barrel and pointed at any of the many creatures and pulled the trigger.
Some fell dead. Some fell wounded.
One bullet punctured an eye, dropping the creature, and it was trampled by the onslaught of the ones behind it, claws reaching for him.
Another of his shots got one in the throat. Its teeth-lined mouth gagged as it reached into the open wound with clawed fingers, making it even worse.
The pistol clicked empty.
As he allowed it to fall to the ground, Jonah pulled the pin of the first incendiary grenade and threw it as far as he could.
It arced and land
ed somewhere within the churning mass of them. He hoped the distraction would work. He knew once activated, the grenade would burn for over thirty seconds. He didn’t wait for the flash.
He pulled another pin, threw the grenade, as well as two more—he’d grabbed four—and as he wondered when, tremendous light grew and shone, casting shadows over a scrambling panic and growls of pain.
Incendiary grenades went from normal temperature to thousands of degrees, and flames were almost immediate. The weapons could burn through steel. They could even burn underwater.
Any Molters within the vicinity of the weapons were melted, and freshly wounded ones reacted by frustrated howling and growling.
Some Molters still wore tattered clothing from the people they’d molted from. Hanging loosely, it caught fire, making others catch fire too. Flaming Molters split the horde.
Fleeing the flames and the tremendous heat, the horde crumbled, avoiding the length of road where Jonah tossed grenades along the shoulder.
If the drivers drove away right now, they would gain enough speed to distance themselves before the Molters could converge.
Jonah withdrew his machete.
A voice screamed, “Jonah!”
It was Heike’s voice. His stepdaughter’s voice.
It was then Jonah realized the distraction he was attempting to provide would be the end of his people, because they weren’t going to leave him behind. They were waiting for him.
Jonah had provided enough of a distraction. Creating a path for the convoy to drive through was the mission. He did an about-face.
Engines revved as Molters growled and snarled behind him, and they were so loud it was as if the horde was the height of a mountain.
A mountain he was running to get away from as its base constantly crumbled, sending down avalanches filled with bloodthirsty creatures.
Recognizable faces. Ecstatic to know he was almost to the rear vehicle.
But then sudden shock by Salgado. He frantically waved his hand. He’d seen something disturbing.
But Jonah made it. He grinned up at Salgado’s worry, lifted the door handle, yanked the door open, seeing so many men crammed in there he knew they would have to make further room for him, and gladly, and lunged inside.
Except reaching hands to help him get in the vehicle, were quickly moving away.
While being dragged, a bloodthirsty squall moved over Jonah, and teeth rained down. On his back, he slashed with the machete while getting bit up his legs and stomach and arms and finally his neck and head.
There were so many on him, he was weighed down and unmoving, and looked to the side.
A Molter mouthed the red rushing out of him. So much blood was on the ground already. He glimpsed two vehicles lurch forward. Henry, Heike, and Doreen were in the pickup, the lead vehicle.
Bernard, Donnelly, Philip, and Sven were crammed into the UV. Salgado manned the grenade launcher in the gunner’s hatch, the rear vehicle in the convoy.
Both vehicles used bumpers. Even ran over Molters, as they’d already swarmed the truck and UV.
Teeth bit into Jonah as he was yanked in another direction.
Then another.
He couldn’t see anything. He felt the sting of teeth as sharp as frayed steel, and sensed strength, starvation, hunger, and his own imminent death.
It was worth it though. What he’d done. To pry open a chink in the armor of the Molting and take advantage of it. His people were safe. They would live. He hoped he’d done enough. For his family.
The weight of the world was on his shoulders for what felt like an eternity but was really only a fraction of time. And now it was lifted away.
Jonah existed during a pocket of resistance as many had done before him, and now he was struggling for survival in his final moments too.
Nothing but a brief and momentary angular flicker of flame compared to the infinite, roaring bonfire that was life in this universe.
CHAPTER 27
Jonah entered the UV. They’d helped him. She saw. He’d made it. He’d been safe.
For a moment, she thought maybe she could think of the memory differently. Change it so that Jonah remained within the up-armored UV Salgado guarded with the fully automatic grenade launcher.
But one of the big ones got him. A Behemoth bomb before it opened up. It dragged him away and then Jonah disappeared.
All he’d needed to do was get his legs inside and close the door behind him. The last Doreen saw of him, Jonah, her husband, was him swinging his machete around on his back before being dragged out of sight.
She snapped into the moment, realizing Heike was sobbing uncontrollably. Doreen was holding her hand without thinking about it, trying to comfort her daughter. Doing something robotic as a mother.
“He can’t be dead. He can’t be killed. It’s impossible. We can’t leave him! We must go back!”
“We can’t,” Henry said gently. “What do you think he would want us to do?”
Doreen knew the answer but didn’t say.
Heike cried and squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry, Mom!”
Doreen gently squeezed her daughter’s hand in return. She closed her eyes, again wanting to go back in time, somehow, to decide to stop somewhere else to merge passengers. Somewhere safer. But the tragedy had occurred.
They were driving fast once again. The brightness and hot flames of the incendiary grenades were in the rearview mirror somewhere, burning out of view. Jonah’s sacrifice had helped them get away.
The two drivers, Henry and Bernard, sped them further away from the madness of basic survival, but there were still sporadic claws and leaps.
The lesson of the incendiary grenades was a valuable one. Doreen knew there were more of the grenades in the truck bed from where Jonah retrieved them. Someone among them surely knew how to use them the same way. But no one needed to at the moment.
Salgado had been saving the grenades for the fully automatic grenade launcher, but he wasn’t saving them anymore. He was attempting to fire them all.
Mini suns expanded within the ranks of creatures trailing them and the flashes instantly turned into gory bits, then smoke. The devastating weapon was keeping the closest Molters away.
But for how long? How many grenades were left? Doreen didn’t know.
“Doreen,” Henry said. “Shoot out the window.”
Yes, she still needed to fight. She would mourn later.
Doreen rolled her window down, and took her other hand off her daughter’s hand, picking up a weapon.
She glanced over to make sure her daughter still had earplugs in. And also her father.
Doreen braced the stock against her left shoulder. She shot the automatic rifle at the creatures trying to keep pace with the truck near the passenger side.
Some were hit in the body, some were tripped up by leg shots. But there were so many, all she needed to do was pull the trigger. The weapon clicked empty.
She loaded another magazine. And shot it until it was empty too.
Then she did it again. And again. Until it was empty of ammo too. She knew there was more ammo stored. Her Jonah had made sure.
“Are you OK, Mom?”
No. I imagine I never will be again. But for you . . . I will make sure to be. “Yes.”
Doreen placed a comforting hand on her daughter’s hand once again. Gunfire had staggered her daughter’s sadness, but it resumed again. This time quieter, an echo of the pain of loss from losing someone so important in her life.
Doreen didn’t have to ask her daughter how she was doing. Her crying was the answer. Doreen felt the hand guard in her right hand, remembering what she’d done, and lowered the weapon so the barrel rested on the floorboard.
She turned to her father. “I did it.”
Henry kept his focus on the road. “Good girl.”
Shafts of light shone between the running creatures. The sun was rising. There weren’t so many of them anymore. At least not on the sides. Molters were falling further a
nd further behind.
It was then that Doreen allowed herself to weep.
CHAPTER 28
The erratic chaos of their hunched and darting movement hadn’t been spotted through binoculars in days. The horde likely deviated from heading north and were on a different hunting trail. Maybe different survivors were being hunted.
Doreen hoped not. She’d always hoped there were other survivors of course. But also the creatures got lost somewhere. And fell into some mysterious chasm forever. And none of them would ever see Molters again.
Or Behemoths. Or Infectors. And everything about them would end.
The rising structures of the port stood out as she’d imagined. She’d never been to this one in particular. All of what she saw was meant to transport people all over the world. Or locally for pleasure. Symbols of hope. Hints at a brighter future.
During the drive, she considered why they hadn’t come here earlier. It seemed the safest place to be. But she remembered Jonah had learned about its potential safety while he was in grave danger, something he’d never had the chance to explain.
Before, the drive north wasn’t the right time. And so many of their people were scattered once they’d left Henrytown for the cabin. If they’d made the drive north years ago, they would’ve abandoned loved ones. They probably wouldn’t have made it.
Her father put the truck in park and pulled the emergency brake. Bernard parked the UV behind the truck.
About ten meters, Doreen noticed.
Salgado stretched and yawned over the grenade launcher.
It seemed the infested mountains and forests and cities of Europe would be in the past for good. Maybe everywhere, it would be as under control as they all hoped.
But even if it wasn’t, what remained of mankind would unite to eradicate Molters once and for all. Doreen was sure of it.
They were hoping to find the massive cruise ship Jonah had described, even expected to. For some reason, Doreen imagined a line of survivors waiting to board safely, waving and welcoming them with human recognition and a natural hospitality for strangers.