He was a priest.
Will fired off a round, hitting it in the shoulder just above the heart. It shrieked and rocked to the left but kept coming. The wound barely slowed it down.
He pulled the trigger a second time. This time he brought it down. The snarling priest-thing crumpled and slid in the snow, stopping ten feet from them with a loud exhale of final breath. Will wasn't a particularly religious man, but shooting a priest was a hard one to shrug off. He had to remind himself that this thing was no longer the man it had once been. Now it was nothing at all.
"Good shot," Stan said. More infected screams rose up from the trees. They were hard to locate, but they seemed to come from the direction of the road.
"Please tell me you found something we can use," Will said.
Stan held up a set of keys. The tag read PennDOT Sand/Salt.
Just then four infected came into view on the road, running at them like a pack of wolves. Just as Will had suspected, they'd been following the small road through the forest. Even wild animals will take the easier path if presented with one, and these things had recently been human beings, people accustomed to using roads. Who knew how much of that programming was left, and how much of it had been whittled down to base instinct.
Again, there was no time for questions. They ran past the dead priest-thing and toward the storage building, following the tracks it had just made in the snow. Will didn't look back until he reached the building's sliding garage door.
The infected were close, and only getting closer. "Come on," he yelled to Stan as Stan reached him. There was an electrical box next to the door with two buttons, one over the other, and a metal keyhole. The top button was green, the other red. It was the one and only way to open the large door in front of them.
Stan fumbled the first key he could get a grip on into the keyhole. Surprising both men, it fit. He turned the key and the two buttons lit up.
Will was so happy to see the lights he almost shouted. Instead he jammed his thumb into the top button, engaging the motor. The large, corrugated metal door began to lift up and reveal the darkness on the other side. Meanwhile, the infected had nearly closed the distance, all four of them coming in like a stampede.
Stan and Will looked at each other. They both had the same idea. Stan pulled the key out of the electrical box and the two of them dropped to the cold ground to crawl under the rising door, practically clawing at it as they forced their way inside.
"Over here," Will called to his brother, pointing to the box over his head. He pushed down on the sliding door, trying hard to force it closed as Stan scrambled to his feet. Stan reached the box and groped in the dark to fit the key in.
He found it. The key turned and the buttons glowed to life.
Will glanced out the space between the door and the ground. The infected were just a few feet away now, pushing each other to reach the meat first. The motor kicked on a second time as Stan engaged the button. The door descended, but not quick enough- the infected in front reached a clawed hand out just as the door pressed down on it.
The sliding door couldn't close all the way with the shaking, writhing hand blocking its way. The others used the chance to push their dirty hands underneath, but the door was too heavy for them to lift with the motor still pushing against them.
Will stomped on the arm, pounding it again and again with the tread of his boot, but the infected didn't retreat. It kept trying to claw at him as the others shrieked and slammed into the metal door. If he didn't do something soon, the four monsters would get in and make quick work of them, murdering and eating them in the cold dark.
A large hunting knife stabbed down on the hand. The creature screamed in agony and pulled back, allowing the heavy door to close the rest of the way. Three fingers danced and twitched in a puddle of infected blood.
Will looked up at his brother holding the hunting knife. "You took that from the hardware store," he said.
"Yup." Stanley was still out of breath.
"I told you not to."
Stan grinned. "Oops."
"Give it to me."
He handed it over handle first. Then he stumbled over to the massive pile of sand, pulled his backpack off and collapsed onto it.
-18-
The lights were dim. Ryan was asleep, or at least pretending to be. The poor kid had spent a lot of the past day curled up on the couch with his eyes closed. He'd retreated from the world a bit, understandable considering what the world had become, but it was important he came back soon, before he was gone for good.
Tanya sat at the kitchen counter and scribbled on the notepad, trying not to fall asleep. TV was pointless. All the channels had gone dead hours ago, and though Donegan had a respectable collection of movies in his closet, she didn't want to get too comfortable and lose her focus. As much as her eyes could use the rest, she refused to let her guard down. She and Ryan were alive mostly by luck, and she wasn't about to break their streak by doing something as stupid as falling asleep to a movie.
The two guns sat in front of her on the kitchen counter. Will didn't believe in keeping guns in the house, which she agreed with, especially once Ryan came into the picture, but luckily he'd still believed in knowing how to handle one. He'd shown her how to shoot so was comfortable around them. Will believed in being cautious and level-headed, but he also believed in being prepared.
She missed Will. God, she missed him.
Tanya jumped. Something passed by the window. It went by so fast she nearly didn't see it, a shadow moving in her peripheral. She stared at the window waiting for it to happen again. It could have been a play of light, a vision brought on by lack of sleep and post-traumatic stress. She considered all the varied and wonderful ways her mind could be playing tricks on her.
Then it happened again.
It was the unmistakable shape of a man, except it was crawling on the outside of the building. There wasn't even a fire escape out there. What she'd seen was impossible, but she was sure she'd seen it.
She crept over to Ryan and shook his arm. Slowly his eyes opened. "I wasn't sleeping," he mumbled.
"I think we should go," she whispered. He saw the spooked look in her eyes and sat up. They gathered their few belongings silently, adding some of Donegan's things that he wouldn't be needing anymore. Food. Water. The guns.
Tanya thought about giving the revolver to Ryan and keeping the shotgun for herself, but she decided he was too young to carry a gun just yet. Infection was a very real threat, but so was Ryan shooting himself. She shoved the revolver into her waistband and took up the shotgun in both hands. Both were fully loaded and ready for action.
"Mom."
"What?"
Ryan didn't answer. He was frozen stiff, staring across the room. Tanya followed his eyeline to the window.
One of those creatures was out there. It had a circular sucker-mouth, and it licked at the glass like a snake tasting the air for mice.
Its yellow eye-slits suddenly slammed into focus like a camera lens. It screamed at them in a hungry, baleful voice. Tanya grabbed at Ryan's sleeve and pulled him toward the door as a second monstrous face appeared at the window.
Before they'd reached the door, one of the creatures smashed its head through the window. A hard thump sounded behind them as it landed in Donegan's living room in a shower of glass. Tanya and Ryan ran out the door as the infected began pouring into the apartment.
They reached the dim stairwell. No sooner had Ryan closed the door behind them than the infected started to beat against it, trying to smash it down. They ran down the stairs and back to the store, closing that door, also. If they were lucky, each one would buy them a little time.
"There's nowhere to go," Ryan said. Tanya looked around. The large windows at the front weren't keeping anything out for long. In the stairway above them, Donegan's door was already giving out.
No matter how much she wished it, the bail bond store held no safety for them. Donegan's door gave. The sound of splintering wood e
choed through the small stairway, followed by the trampling of infected hands and feet. They reached the second door in mere moments. Luckily, that one was newer and stronger. It resisted their attack, but it wouldn't hold forever.
Tanya and Ryan had to make a difficult choice. Donegan's apartment had kept them alive for a little while, but it wasn't safe anymore.
The street would be dark for a little while longer, which would hopefully give them some cover. The eyesight of those monsters could be the same as a healthy human, maybe even worse, but after seeing that infected through the window, the way his eyes picked her out and focused on her in the dimmed apartment, she wasn't putting a lot of faith in that theory.
With the shotgun at her side, Tanya stepped out onto the street. Ryan followed just behind her. The sounds they'd escaped for a while came right back to their ears. Fire and screaming. A proud city broken and bleeding. Before they'd taken ten steps, the first infected noticed them. Then another.
Back in the bail bond shop the back door was beginning to break down. In seconds they'd be surrounded. Tanya raised the shotgun. "Stay behind me," she said.
The door inside the store gave. The infected came pouring into the store like blood from an open wound. They stampeded out the front door as the others down the street closed in from the opposite side.
It was time to accept the truth- they most likely weren't going to make it out of this.
A red tour bus came roaring around the corner, turning so tightly its tires chirped as they barely held onto the street. Tanya and Ryan froze in place. At the last second it turned and missed them, running over a cluster of infected. Their bodies cracked and squished under its tires. Tanya told Ryan to turn his head away, but he didn't.
Gunfire followed. Three or four people fired down from the bus' second deck, mowing down infected on either side, but there were still more on the way.
A rush of air hit Tanya and Ryan as the bus' door swung open, revealing a young black girl holding a machine gun. "What're you waiting for," she said, "a permission slip?"
They ran up the small stairs and onto the bus. A bored Pit Bull looked up at them from the floor as the door closed behind them.
The bus had been modified. Half the seats were ripped out, and the windows had been secured with hunks of scrap metal soldered over them, everything from car doors to the underneaths of school desks. A handful of people stared back at them.
"Your gun, give it to me," the black girl ordered.
"Why?"
She got in Tanya's face. "Because I said so."
The man in the closest seat leaned in. "It's just until we know we can trust you. You'll get it back."
Ryan touched her on the arm. "It's alright, mom."
Tanya frowned. She slowly handed the shotgun over.
"And the one in your back pocket," the girl said. Tanya handed the revolver over, too. The girl handed the guns off to someone else. "See? Now we can be friends."
They took a seat. The man in the next seat saw the look on her face. "I know it stings, but just swallow it. It's better than being out there."
Tanya nodded.
The driver leaned around to look at Tanya and Ryan. He was in his late twenties, with a black jacket and dark hair. "Are they infected," he asked loudly.
The girl with the machine gun looked in their eyes. Outside, continued gunfire took down more infected. "Doesn't look like it," she said.
"Then welcome to the party!" He laughed as he threw the bus into drive and pulled away. Everyone lurched but held on.
"His name is Max," the girl said.
It was early enough that the sun wasn't awake yet. Stanley's muscles were sore from laying on the cold sand. Will was still sitting against the wall by the main sliding door, listening to the morning. He saw Stanley coming back from taking a piss and gave him a nod.
"How's it going," Stanley asked quietly.
"They're asleep, but they're still out there."
Stanley shook his head. "They don't give up easy, do they?"
"They don't give up at all." He turned something over in his hand, regarding it with concern.
"What do you have there," Stanley asked
"Come look."
Stanley went to his brother. Up close, he saw it was a bloody finger, one of the digits Stanley had chopped off the infected. He backed away, disgusted. "What the fuck? What are you doing with that?"
"Just look at it."
Stanley hesitated, but he got closer. Will handed him the finger. He took it with care, trying not to touch the bloody end. The skin was blueish, the nail cracked and pointed into a claw. "What am I supposed to be looking at?"
"The tip."
Stanley immediately saw what Will was trying to show him. The pad of the finger was covered in tiny hairs. They had flattened, hollow tips with an oily sheen.
"So this is how they crawl on walls."
"The same way spiders do. It's like they've devolved."
"Some will say they've evolved."
"Not me," Will said. Stanley handed the finger back.
"So what's your plan? Open the door and gun them down?"
"I got lucky the first time. It won't happen again, especially if they come at us all at once."
"I have an idea about that." Stanley pulled out his phone. "Those things are hunters, right? Pure killing machines?"
"Absolutely."
He cued up a video and showed it to Will. "So we give them something to hunt." On the screen was one of his favorite horror flicks, filled with puzzle boxes and plenty of shouts and screams. Will looked uncomfortably at the paused video, like he'd seen a ghost. "What's the matter," Stanley asked.
"Nothing."
"It doesn't look like nothing."
"I'm fine," he snapped, "what's this plan of yours?"
Stanley stripped his coat off, then his thermal. He removed his undershirt before putting the other layers back on. Then he wrapped the t-shirt around the phone to demonstrate his idea. "We press play, we throw it in one direction, and we run like the goddamn wind in the other."
Will's brow wrinkled. "It won't buy us much time."
"It's something."
Will nodded. "What about a baby?"
Stanley paused. "Come again?"
"The sound of a baby crying. Defenseless food. It might be more effective."
Stanley's eyes widened. "I mean, it's fucked up, but it could work."
"Then do it."
The networks were so screwed up, it took a while for Stanley to get online. He found his way to a cache of Halloween sounds. He figured it was safer to download a sound file than to rely on a video playing.
"It's done," he said. "I set an alarm to go off in ten minutes."
Stanley wrapped the phone inside his shirt, touching it to get his scent all over it. He threw in the chopped-off fingers for extra measure, hoping the blood would attract them. Will used the hunting knife to cut a clump of hair off the back of his head and added that, too. Then Stanley spit in it. They wrapped it up tight with a length of rope they'd taken from the hardware store.
Stanley held up the package. "Well, if that isn't the world's nastiest bowling ball, I don't know what is."
The tour bus had been driving around for a while. Now Max had parked it under the trees at Lincoln Park. He was taking pictures with his phone of the statue at the center of the park, chuckling to himself about a joke only he understood. One of the other people on the bus had mentioned something about him being a writer, but Ryan had never heard of him. He definitely didn't act like a writer.
A younger guy seated across from them had been listening to updates on a small radio in his lap. He pulled a headphone bud out of his ear. His eyes looked hollow and teary. "The President is dead," he said. "So is the Vice President."
People gasped and muttered. A few of them started to pray.
"We don't need a president anymore," Max said, taking another picture.
Ryan's mom leaned forward in her seat. "What did you say
?"
Max checked the photo. "We're better off without those clowns. We all know it."
"How can you be that cold? I've met those men. They were good men. They cared about this country."
"People die, lady. They die all the time. They're doing it right now." He pointed out the window. "Care to join them?"
"No."
"Then smile a little. You're very tense."
She shook her head. "Can you take us to the National Mall?"
"Hell no."
"Why not?"
"Because it's completely overrun with those fuckers, that's why."
"You know that for a fact?"
"More or less."
She squinted. "So you don't know."
He chuckled. "Listen, Tanya was it? I'm from New York. I came here on vacation to visit our nation's capital, and I have to say, the reception has been less than hospitable. First everyone's all pissy about Herman, because apparently Pit Bulls are the worst thing ever. Then people start eating each other, which is fine by me except everyone left alive is puckered up so tight about it."
Ryan's mom stood up. "Are you mentally ill?"
"Yeah, what's your point?"
"My point? My point is we're all upset because we've lost people close to us." She glanced at Ryan. "Or lost contact with them. We're upset because we don't want to die."
Max smiled. He put his phone away and approached her. "You're a fighter, huh? That's good. Really, it is. We need people like you. They're the ones manning the upper deck." He looked around. "Anyone want to take their place? Anyone at all?" Someone coughed. No one said a word.
"You're scaring these people into submission," his mom said.
"I'm saving their lives, lady. Do you think you can do better?"
She leaned in, looking like she was about to slap him across the face. A small growl rose up. She looked over at Herman. The dog was on his feet, his usual wide smile gone. He didn't like people getting in Max's face, something he was very clear about.
Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds): Extinction [Isolation] Page 13