He would not fail them. Not this time.
He cut the strap holding the leather pouch. It fell, landing with a splash in a small pool of water on the floor. He quickly sheathed the knife and weaved the leather strap through the eyelets on the steel trolley, wrapped it around the rope, and tied it off. He yanked down on the line, checking to see if it would hold. It remained tight and seemed strong enough.
The door boomed again, causing the desk to scrape on the floor. He had no choice. Time was up. The strap had to hold.
“What about you?” Eve asked.
“I’ll be okay. Just go. Get her to safety.”
The doors banged loudly against the desk trying to keep them shut. This time they burst open and threw heavy pieces into the room. Raptors fought their way through the newly made gap.
He shoved Eve and the girl over the edge, praying the rope would hold. He watched with anticipation as they sped away, accelerating down the wet line, streaming out into the pouring rain, and racing for the building across the street. He had done everything he could. Now it was up to fate. Eve and the girl would soon hit the low part of the line and put maximum stress on the harness. If it failed and broke there, they would both fall to their deaths.
Please, come on. Please, let them make it.
He pressed his hand against the windowsill. Tiny shards of glass dug into his flesh, puncturing it, drawing blood, but he welcomed the pain as he continued to watch. He glanced to the doors to see how much time he had left. Three raptors had made it inside and now stood on the desk, two small ones and one large one almost five feet tall.
When he turned back to the line, he saw Eve and the girl disappear into the darkness of the building across the street. A small part of him cheered inside. They had not fallen to their deaths.
They had made it.
Maybe, just maybe his streak had finally broken.
-35-
ZIP A DEE DO DA
JESSE HAD LITTLE time to celebrate. In unison, the three raptors that had joined him sprung off the desk and landed in the middle of the debris-strewn room. Burnt papers and black soot swirled around them. The trio moved toward him as if they had all the time in the world. They knew he was cornered with nowhere left to go but seven stories down.
The two smaller raptors were smoldering and covered in charred, peeling flesh. Flaps of skin jiggled on their bodies like scorched gelatin. The large raptor appeared almost untouched, except for a series of pick scabs covering most of its body.
I hate those things. Shaking from pain and exhaustion, he lifted the shotgun to his shoulder, knowing he had only the two shots left, maybe three. His left arm was numb, and he was having trouble aiming. If all of them charged him at once, he would be dead before he could reload. He wasn’t sure he would even be able to pump the gun at all, given the condition of his shoulder. His best option was to shoot the biggest one with his first shot and hope to kick the others to death, or somehow knock them out the window.
They all charged at once.
He fired. The first shot connected, but instead of killing the raptor, only a few pellets hit it. Not enough to kill it. Struggling, he tried to pump another shell into the chamber, but he was too weak. Pain drove him onto one knee.
The three closed in.
The jolt from the last shot and effort to reload caused the pain in his shoulder to flash white-hot. His vision blurred, and he screamed out, almost dropping the shotgun. Somehow, he held on through the mushrooming agony. Somehow, he got it reloaded.
He lowered the gun to his hip and aimed by pure instinct, knowing this was his last chance to save his life.
He fired.
Steel pellets streamed from the gun and smashed into one of the smaller raptors, dropping it to the floor. The shot missed the other two completely.
The large raptor charged, slamming into him, knocking the shotgun out of his hands. He fell forward, and the gun spun out of reach. Snarling teeth and grasping, hooked claws reached for him. He raised his arms to protect himself and squirmed sideways. A raptor missed and bit down on air instead of his arm. Momentum carried it up and over him, where it flew past and tumbled when it landed.
He flashed back to his football days. He no longer felt pain. All he knew was that he had been tackled after making a run up the middle. Thoughts of what to do came back to him in a burst of memory. He’d practiced it many times before. That had been over twenty years ago, but it all came back to him in a flash.
He reached out for the large raptor’s head as if it were a fumbled ball and rolled over the top of it, pinning it underneath him. As he did so, the smaller raptor recovered and came at him, jaws open, shrieking horribly, spraying him with foaming spittle. Desperately, he held the head of the other raptor down and sprawled his legs, using them for leverage along with his body weight to pin the thing against the floor and block the new threat. The smaller, charging raptor hit him right as the other one pulsed upward. The smaller one flipped over, went spinning past, and tumbled twice before crashing into a pillar. Barely a foot to the left and it would have gone sailing out the window.
Jesse rolled again, and again, not letting go of the snapping jaws of the raptor he had locked under him. He pushed his feet on the floor, using his toes to scoot them both closer toward the edge of the building, nearer to the window. He was intent on throwing it out and down to the streets below, where it would smash and burst when it hit. The raptor twisted and squirmed, trying to get to its feet and lift it hind claws to strike, but Jesse remained on top of it, keeping the razor sharp claws from coming near.
A nail caught, ripped his shirt open. Then another opened a gash on his leg. Still, he crushed himself against the thing, not giving up. The smaller raptor came at him again. With his boot, he kicked at it with everything he had. Its leg crumpled where he had connected, causing the thing to flip over and end up by his feet. It came at him again, but this time he was ready.
With one swift kick, he sent it flying out the window. It screamed as it fell.
Two down, one to go.
But suddenly the world around him dimmed, and part of his mind began to question why he was fighting. There was no way he could get across to his shelter now. More raptors would soon arrive. He was trapped, so why not just let it all end? If he could make it a few more feet, he and the raptor would fall together to the streets below. It would be over. He had saved those people. They could get away now. Maybe, it was finally his turn to die, and his would be a good death, a clean death. He could go out having sacrificed himself to save three lives. He could not think of a better way to go.
Death had finally come to collect him.
Rolling closer to the missing window, he kept the raptor pinned down by the neck, holding it there with his only functional hand. Another roll and they would both be dead.
He glanced at the building across the street. The others were watching him. He could see them silhouetted in the missing window. The girl would be safe, or as safe as she could possibly be given how screwed up the world was. Those others seemed as if they could look after her better than he could. They didn’t need him. Nobody needed him.
It came almost as a relief, wanting to embrace Death. After so many years of separation, it was finally time to let go and join his wife and daughter.
Lessening his grip, he allowed the raptor’s clicking jaws to come closer to his face. Yellowed teeth gnashed and snapped. Foul breath washed over him.
All he had to do was to roll over one final time.
He closed his eyes, hoping for the final burst of strength that he would need to kick them both out of the building.
“No!” a voice suddenly shouted.
He stiffened. It was her! The voice rang out loudly in his head, sounding like a thousand church bells all ringing at once.
“Why? Why? Why!” he yelled out in frustration, spitting it into the raptor’s maw. He had thought he had finally let her go, but she hadn’t gone away, not really. He knew for sure then, at that si
ngular moment, that she would always be a part of him. She was inside him, and he could not let her go no matter how hard he tried.
Everyone he had met and known, everyone who had died alongside him, had all become part of him, never to truly vanish. If he would not live for himself, he would live for them. Death would come to collect him someday, but that day was not today.
He spoke one word, “Hannah.”
Energized, reborn, and filled with renewed purpose, he rolled over on top of the raptor and began to beat its head against the shards of glass sticking up from the window frame. It fought back, clawing, scratching his arms bloody in the process, and tearing away layers of flesh. He rammed its head down, over and over, smiling as it shredded his arms with its flailing claws. Down he pushed, hard, harder, pulling its head back up and smashing it down again then again then again. He pressed on its neck, trying to strangle it with his bare hands, focusing all his hatred, his anger, his wrath, all into a single squeeze. He wanted nothing more than to wring the piece of shit’s vile life out of it.
But, it broke free from his grip, wriggled away, stood, and began to circle. Blood and pus oozed out of the open sores covering its body. It moved unsteadily, wobbling as it stepped sideways.
Then, it opened its jaws, outstretched it claws, and lunged at him. He jerked backward, and its teeth snapped shut less than an inch from his face. Grabbing it again with both hands, he knew he couldn’t let go this time. Even in its dazed condition, he knew it could tear his face off if he let go. It was trying to get its rear legs up. Its forearms thrashed and tore his shirt to ribbons. His fingers dug deeply into the fleshy growths on its neck. His thumbs sank through the putrid sores, deeper and deeper into its flesh, probing, and then they found meat and began shoving tendons and muscle aside.
The raptor fought desperately for its own life. It wanted to live as much as he did. He was not going to let that happen.
He rolled over, still closer to the window. He looked next to him, watching the thing’s forearms, trying to pin them down.
Then he saw it, the pouch containing the single bullet meant to end his life. It was lying in a small pool of water. It was right beside him.
A split second later, the raptor’s thrashing legs kicked it, and it went spinning out of the missing window.
“No!” he yelled, holding onto the raptor, watching in horror as the only thing left that connected him to Hannah fell away.
With one hand, he jammed the raptor’s snarling head down against the floor. While keeping the thing pinned down with his body, he drew his serrated hunting knife, and sliced across the neck of the creature, peeling away layers of flesh and nearly severing its head with the first cut. Red gouts of its lifeblood gushed from the open wound, covering him in the slimy fluid. He didn’t care. His muscles trembled from the exertion. His teeth were clamped together in rage. His anger was so great that the pain in his shoulder was nonexistent.
With one final blow, he slammed the thing’s head into the floor and pushed until he felt its neck bones pop. He held on until its body went limp.
He stayed on top of the dead creature for a moment, not knowing what to do next. It didn’t feel as though he had reaped the vengeance he had desired for what had been taken from him. If he felt anything at all, it was a hollow emptiness inside, a void. But he now knew that he must survive. Death was easy. Life was not. He didn’t want easy. He wanted to live. He wanted to set things right. He wanted to find a way to restore humans to their rightful place at the very top of the food chain. But as great as his desire was to set things right, he had no way to get to his shelter on the opposite side of the street. He had his belt, but even with the wet cable, the friction would be too high. He would end up stuck at the low point between the two buildings.
The shotgun. He could use it to get across.
He got to his feet and looked back at the double doors. Five more raptors emerged from the stairwell. None of them had been damaged by the fire, which meant more would be coming soon, many more. The shotgun lay on the floor about fifteen feet away. He wanted to get up and flip them off and run to his gun and pick it up and blast them all back to hell.
The raptors moved at him cautiously, carefully, as if they were expecting him to trick them. He saw something that caused him to grin. Standing in the midst of the pack, as if she owned them all, was his daughter, Hannah. She held her teddy bear up by one arm. She was pointing at its head.
Behind him, a lightning bolt flashed, bathing the interior in brilliant whiteness. Each of the raptors stood out in stark contrast to the room. Rumbling thunder followed, and then exploded like a bomb, leaving behind ghostly afterimages of the raptors.
She was gone, but he had understood what she meant.
He ran to the large raptor he had killed and knelt before it. Jamming the knife into the base of its head, he carved around the spine, staying above the topmost bone in its neck. He dropped the blade and tugged, ripping away the remaining connective tissues. The head separated from the creature’s body with a wet, sucking noise.
He held it out like a prized trophy for the other raptors to see. “Yeah, bitches. See that! See it? This is you! This is what I’m going to do to all of you. Every last goddamned one of you.”
The detached head felt much like a football in his hands, a big, bloody football, something he was intimately familiar with. Warm lifeblood trickled from it, coating his already bloodied arms.
Raptors piled through the doorway and into the room, too many to count. The ones immediately surrounding him let loose and charged.
He had only a split-second before they were on him. He used that time to sprint the three steps it took to get to the zip line. When reaching it, he placed the raptor’s head on the line with one hand, and with the other, reached over to the opposite side and held on tightly. His thumbs plunged into its eye sockets, displacing the raptor’s eyeballs and causing watery fluid to squirt out and dribble down his arms.
Keeping the thing’s skull clamped between his hands, he locked his thumbs inside the brain cavity and jumped off the edge. Fresh spikes of pain ripped through his shoulder, exploding into a thousand tiny needles of agony, but he held on with his last measure of strength.
Blood and brain matter lubricated the rain-soaked line as he crossed the expanse between the buildings.
Lightning flashed. Thunder roared.
Opening his mouth wide, he screamed out a primordial scream of rage, fear, and triumph. As the building across the street raced at him, he had the sudden realization that he was in no position to stop once he got there. He was going way too fast.
Crossing the threshold through a missing window, he zipped past the blurry figure of Cory, who was running to get into place to catch him.
But he was going to be too late.
Jesse was too weak to stop himself. Too tired. To spent. He closed his eyes and simply let go of the raptor’s skull.
Tumbling into the room, he rolled along the floor like a thrown doll. Then he hit something, hard, and the world went dark.
-36-
GROUP HUG
JESSE EXITED THE cab of his beloved Ford F-250 diesel pickup truck. The sun felt warm on his neck. His Texas home was in the background. Cheryl stood in the open doorway, and Hannah ran in circles on the green lawn, weaving between the trees. She was barefoot and wearing a yellow T-shirt with silver sequins glued to the front and a pair of tan shorts. Her arms were outstretched like airplane wings, and she giggled while she ran. The laughter was pure joy to his ears. In it, he found no worries, no complications, no jobs, no bosses, no money woes, no conflicts, nor any other dark, horrid thoughts. Just the blissful innocence of a little girl playing in the warm sun.
Someone down the street had cut their grass recently, and the smell of exhaust and fresh-cut lawn hung in the air. He felt worn out, tired, and wanted to go inside, take his boots off, lie down on the couch, and watch the football game on TV.
He was happy.
A gentle b
reeze blew past, lingering just long enough to tingle his long hair and beard. He couldn’t quite remember why he had let his hair get this long, nor could he remember when he had grown the beard. He liked to stay clean-shaven.
Glancing down, he noticed he was holding Hannah’s teddy bear by the arm. When he looked back at her, she had stopped running in circles and was standing right in front of him. She was smiling. Her big eyes sparkled an icy blue, deeper in color than Lake Arlington, one of his favorite spots to take her fishing. He reached out to hand her the teddy bear.
She giggled again, then snatched it greedily from his hand, held it up like a dance partner, and ran off to circle around the trees again and again, all the while continuing to laugh.
He felt himself smiling at her.
Then he detected an odor.
First, it came at the far edges of his perception, but it continued to grow stronger, sharper, more defined. It seemed to have landed on him. He brushed at his skin, attempting to wipe it away. He had to do so before Hannah noticed.
But it wouldn’t come off, and the stench was growing stronger. The rotten, putrid smell enveloped him, sticking firmly to his body like wet mud. It clung to him, weighed him down, and it was starting to pull him away.
Hannah didn’t seem to care. She continued to laugh and play. Cheryl had gone back inside the house.
He wondered why he was the only one noticing it. Looking down at his arms, they swelled and moved as if something were crawling below the surface. He fell back on his heels in astonishment, looking up at Hannah, then back at his arms. They swelled further, then cracks formed and his skin split open, forming deep furrows that started weeping blood. He could see his own bones beneath the red muscle. He could see his tendons flexing and quivering. The blood flow increased, and it pooled and ran out over his hands and down along his fingers. On the tips, it formed into thin streams and dripped off and spattered like red starbursts on the dark green lawn. He recoiled as if someone had stabbed him in the shoulder. Falling to one knee, he grunted under the weight of the budding pain.
Raptor Apocalypse Page 24