I looked into the old warrior’s eyes and found myself wishing he was up to the adventure too. “Well, mostly we’re just in a real hurry to get back to our apartment in the old part of the city. We’ve come into some important information and it’s vital that we contact our other roommates as soon as possible,” I cut my eyes away and ducked my head apologetically. “I’d tell you more if I could, but it’s probably safer for you and your friends if you don’t know anything else about it.”
“Well have it your way, Miss.” he winked and turned when Duke hobbled into sight.
“Got ‘em,” Duke announced breathlessly as he laid a large black case on the ground in front of Ben.
“Good, now let me show you what we have here.” With a flick of his wrist, Ben popped open the lid of the case, exposing three beautiful swords strapped into place against a background of red velvet.
“Here, you each take one of these with you. I know they aren’t much use against guns and things, but then these ghouls don’t use guns, either.”
I felt a little in awe of the rare weapons but we all took one as instructed. When we each had one in hand, Ben reached under the velvet and removed the harnesses that had been designed to carry them.
“Years ago, I had these swords and harness custom made to be a little shorter and lighter weight than normal, this way they’ll lay under a jacket or such without being so obvious. Here, let me help.” He reached to show Carl how to arrange the straps and harness across his back.
When all three of us had the swords strapped on he stepped back, grinning in satisfaction. “Now test them out. Pull the sword from over your shoulder. That’s right, just like that.”
Carl reached for the hilt of his sword and it was swinging in a wide arc, light flashing from the blade even in the pale light. “Wow! That is sooo cool!”
Jen and I watched him repeat the action several times before deciding to give it a try. It took us only a couple of practice swings before we were as proficient as Carl in whipping the weapons free of the scabbards on our backs.
Taking note of the three younger children who were observing the practice session with wide eyes, Ben and Duke exchanged nods. Without explanation Duke returned to the shadows of the porch. When he reappeared he was carrying three stout walking canes.
“You younglings might want to give these a try,” Ben chuckled as he took the canes and passed one to each. “They’re not sharp or anything, but you can do a good amount of harm with a well-aimed blow if you try.”
“I don’t know what to say, except thanks.” I stood on tip-toe and hugged Ben’s neck. I was a little surprised at how solid the old man’s body felt under the bulky shirt. I was blushing when I stood back and adjusted my rumbled shirt. “We don’t have anything of equal value to trade for this but, well, if there is ever anything we can do for you—” I stopped and blushed again when I realized how meaningless my words were, for I might never cross paths with these kind men again. With everything that was going on I didn’t even have a place that I could safely call home right now.
It took several more minutes and words of reassurance before my friends and I were able to break away from the elderly gentlemen. As we hurried along the sidewalk, I cast a last glance over my shoulder at them. It made me feel sad, knowing that we would probably never see them again or have the chance to hear some of the tales I was sure they could have told.
A cold gust of wind ruffled through my hair, reminding me that the day was passing and we still had a long walk to reach home. I shrugged my shoulders to settle the unaccustomed weight of the harness and sword a little better but I soon forgot about them. Whatever metal the sword had been forged from, it was lightweight and well-balanced.
I didn’t realize how cold it was getting until I saw Jennie helping Merry into the jacket that had been tied around her waist. Untying my own, I slipped the denim jacket over the top of the sheathed sword and shrugged it into place so that only the handle protruded over my left shoulder.
“How much farther,” moaned little Jon as he let Kelly help him put his jacket on. “I’m really getting tired.”
“Yeah, and I’m hungry,” complained Merry.
“Here have one of these,” Kelly offered as she rummaged around in her pack. “They aren’t great but they’re better than nothing.” She passed each of the smaller children a cereal bar and kept one for herself. “Sorry guys, that’s all there is,” she said apologetically.
“That’s okay, we can wait until we get to the apartment,” Carl assured her, managing not to let her see the grimace of distaste on his face. Carl hated those pre-packaged food bars that the food banks handed out to any who would take them.
As we approached the end of the sidewalk we’d been following we were forced to step into the street to avoid a thicket of over-hanging branches. Walking clear of the obstruction, we all came to a stop at the edge of the walk and stared, overwhelmed, at the other three corners of the intersection.
A multi-lane highway intersected our small side street. One end seemed to emerge from the mass of concrete high-rises, and the other stretched away into a horizon of scattered roof-tops and dreary sky. Directly across the wide street from us, a field of cracked concrete that had once been a parking lot lay before a tall wood and chain-link fence. A ticket booth stood sentinel before a pair of tall gates that had been left standing open and leaning precariously from rusty hinges. A rambling collection of buildings that still bore signs boasting of hot popcorn and cotton candy and various souvenirs for sale were visible through the chain-link fence that ran along the open area at the front of the park.
“Okay, there’s the zoo, now where do we go?” Carl queried impatiently.
I paused, studying the landscape before us. It had been a long time since I’d been here. “Well, if I remember correctly, we have to cross the parking lot and follow the fence around to the back of the zoo. There we’ll find an alley that follows the old railroad tracks which will, in turn, take us to the trestle over the river.” My eyes were still on the buildings before me as I raised my foot to step into the street—and I was on the sidewalk again, gasping for breath and trying to regain my balance with Carl’s hands on my waist. Without his quick reaction, I’d have been standing in the street in plain view.
“Take cover! Something’s coming!” hissed Carl as he urged us all back into the cover of the over-hanging limbs behind us.
Still disoriented, I stumbled into the greenery with my friends, but it took me a moment before I was able to actually focus my eyes and ears enough to locate the hissing roar of the approaching hover-craft.
A vehicle marked with the bold emblem of the city police swooshed past the drooping limbs that were concealing us from the street and cut into the parking lot where it hissed to a stop before the main entrance. The driver’s side door popped open and a uniformed officer emerged from the cruiser. Moving with slow determination, he strolled past the ticket booth and through the main gates, where he began prowling from door to door, stopping periodically to rattle the rows of locks and chains securing them against trespassers.
“Come on, hurry it up, man,” Carl whispered impatiently. “Who does he think would possibly be interested in invading the ruins of an abandoned zoo?”
“Um, maybe what would be a more appropriate question,” gasped Jennie as she pointed at the building to one side of the policeman and the door standing ajar by several inches, and the black, rat-sized creatures that were slipping through the crack.
“He doesn’t see them,” gasped Kelly.
Jennie leaped into the street, shouting, “Hey, Mister! Watch out!” Waving her arms, she ran toward the parking lot, trying to get the police officer to look her way.
“There’s something behind you!” We all joined in the shouting as we ran behind Jennie. The sound of our cries must have finally reached his ears for he stopped and turned toward us, looking for the source of the call—and saw what was stalking him.
I stopped yelling and sav
ed my breath for running when I saw the policeman draw his energy-weapon and begin firing it at the small, wiry creatures that had risen to their rear legs and were creeping after him. There were way too many of those things for him to deal with.
The creatures struck by the blasts of energy crumbled to the ground, writhing in pain, melted tar leaking from their wounds, but their fate seemed to have no effect on the others. Visibly frightened, the policeman continued firing his weapon and walking backward until he was backed up against the wall of a building.
By the time I’d gotten half-way across the parking lot, my mind had absorbed enough of the danger that I slowed my pace, trying to decide how to deal with the situation without getting any of us hurt. How were we going to stop creatures that were not even afraid of the piercing pain caused by a taser?
With nothing else to defend myself with, I reached for the cool hilt of the sword strapped to my back. It slipped from the sheath with the slightest touch, sighing softly as it cut through the air. I turned my head to be sure that Jennie and Carl were also drawing theirs.
Using my free hand for balance, I jumped over a low metal rail barring the entrance at the ticket booth. When I looked back again, I caught a glimpse of my sister and the two younger children running a short distance behind us.
“Kelly, go back!” I shouted, even though I knew it was already too late to stop them.
“No way!” Kelly shouted back. “We’re going to help too.” She and the two little ones were gripping the short, stout walking canes they’d been carrying as if they were steel swords instead of wooden sticks.
Jennie slowed, waiting for me, but Carl’s longer stride took him flying past us.
“Hey! Get away from him!” He swung the blade, bringing it down on the back of the nearest black shape. The creature shrieked in pain and scrambled sideways, leaving behind what appeared to be an appendage of some sort. Carl quickly finished the wounded creature off before pursuing the next.
I took a step to join him but one of the tar creatures sprang at me, reaching for my face with long black claws. Without even thinking about it, I brought the blade of the sword gripped in my hands up and jerked it sideways. My stomach lurched in revulsion when I felt the tug of something solid against the edge of my blade. The dying creature emitted a pathetic cough and gurgle but my sense of pity for the unidentified creature was short-lived when it lurched along the ground, sliding in its own fluids to snap at my foot with bared teeth.
Disgusted, I raised my blade to strike it again but little Jon was suddenly there, smashing in the skull of the creature with his walking stick.
“Take that!” he shouted as he smacked it one time more just to be sure it was dead.
I was about to thank the boy for his help when another of the black things sprang at us, reaching its claws for the smaller child. I grabbed little Jon with my free hand and spun him to one side even as I kicked the creature in the chest. I nearly puked when my foot sank several inches into the black mass before it encountered enough resistance to throw off the creature’s attack.
“Stay out of the way!” I ordered the little boy a little sharper than I meant when I dropped him into a pile of old leaves that had collected against the wall of the building.
With both hands free now, I used them to grip the hilt of the sword and bring it around to slice into the neck of the creature scrambling back to snap at my leg. The blade slid through its body like a knife through a bowl of thick pudding. This time the head was neatly separated from the short neck and the two sections of the creature were left twitching on the ground in a small pool of thick, black blood.
I wanted to look away but my curiosity won, drawing my eyes to the corpse of the slain creature. Its head and fore-quarters lay to one side of the narrow sidewalk and the other lay a few feet away. On closer examination the creature resembled a hairless rat—except for the jaws filled with double rows of jagged teeth.
“Hey! What are you kids doing out here, don’t you know it’s not safe?” demanded the police officer as he staggered toward the open hatch of his vehicle. “An-and thanks for the heads up,” he stammered as he reached for his radio. Placing his back against the security of the hover-craft, he quickly punched up the codes that put him into contact with his home base.
“This is Officer Casey, I have encountered a swarm of tar-babies and need rodent-control units at the Mid-Town Zoo stat!” he ordered tersely. “I repeat, back-up units requested immediately.” Returning the radio unit to its cradle, he reached behind his seat and withdrew, not another of the energy-tasers normally used by the police, but what appeared to be a sawed-off shotgun and a box of shells.
He quickly slipped a handful of shells into the breach and raised the rifle. “Get down!” he ordered as he swung the barrel around, pointing it toward Carl and the small swarm of ghouls that he was stabbing with his sword in an attempt to keep them from overwhelming him.
Startled by the sudden shout, Carl took his eyes off the snarling little monsters stalking him and looked up. “Damn!” he growled as he threw himself sideways and to the ground.
The shotgun pellets ripped large holes in the black, gel-like flesh of the tar-babies and left them floundering on the ground, squealing in pain. Carl rolled to his feet and cast an angry, sick look at the policeman.
“Hey man, don’t you know they don’t die when you wound them like that?” he snarled as he began cutting the heads from the grievously wounded creatures.
The policeman lowered his rifle and stared at Carl in surprise. He’d taken a step in his direction when there was a deep rumble from the ground beneath us.
“Quake!” someone yelled.
The buildings shook and the trees showered us with leaves and small limbs as the pavement of the parking lot began to disintegrate. In moments the grey concrete resembled a giant jigsaw puzzle and we were slipping in the bands of the thick black tar leaking between the pieces. Even the nasty little tar-babies were forced to dance frantically from one chunk of paving to the next to keep from sinking into the ooze.
“Everyone head for the buildings and the higher ground beyond,” shouted the police officer. Abandoning his sinking hover-craft, he turned and ran for the entrance. The floating chunks of pavement bobbed and slid under his weight but he was nearly to the ticket booth when the slab of concrete he’d jumped to flipped, and dumped him into the tar. He was sucked under the black ooze before anyone could return to help him.
Little Jon’s arms were wrapped tightly around my waist, his face buried in my jacket. If I’d thought there was someone else to save me, I would have done the same. “Come on, Jon, let’s get out of here.” I grabbed the little boy’s hand and dragged him between two of the buildings and toward the archway leading into the zoo. I could only hope that the quake was not affecting the higher ground beyond it.
I threw a quick look over my shoulder to be sure that the others were close behind. Jennie had Merry by the hand and was only a couple of strides behind me as was Kelly. I didn’t see Carl until we were all huddled together on a small grassy area. He was already there and searching for a safe path out.
When Kelly spotted him, she looked up at me and shook her head in disgust. “Nice of your boyfriend to slow down and help us all out of there, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it was,” I agreed sarcastically.
The distant rumble of an approaching flitter made us look in the direction of the parking lot that was mostly concealed behind the buildings now.
“I’ll bet those are the cops coming to back up the guy that got killed,” Carl decided. “Maybe they can get us out of here.” He’d jumped from the solid ground we’d taken refuge on to a solid looking chunk of concrete before we could stop him.
Jen and I exchanged worried looks. We really didn’t want help from the police or anybody else right now. We both released breaths of relief when Carl returned to us without shouting to whoever was piloting the flitter.
“Not a police cruiser,” he gasped breath
lessly. “A-agency! What did you two do?” he glared at us.
“Jen, we’ve got to get out of here! What if they’re looking for us?”
“You’re right, we can’t stay here.” Grabbing Merry’s hand, Jen and I began walking along the path that would take us deeper into the park.
“It looks like the ground in the main part of the park is safe,” Jen said hopefully.
The ground had stopped shaking under us now, and silence, as thick and intimidating as doom, surrounded us. Nervous and afraid of what kind of creatures might still inhabit the old zoo, we all kept our eyes on the thick growth of brush that had taken over every possible space between the pathways that wound between the animal compounds.
“Which way should we go?” gasped Kelly when we reached an intersection of four pathways.
Before I could give her an answer, Carl lost patience with our lack of action and pushed past me. Pointing to a half-rusted sign, declaring SERPENTARIUM / EXIT, he said, “You told us that the street leading to the trestle is to our right? Then if we take this path and head for the side exit, we should be able to reach it without returning to what’s left of that parking lot.”
Without waiting for my answer, he jogged ahead, following the cracked remains of a walkway winding between tufts of tall pampas grass and overgrown bushes that might once have been a flowering landscape.
Jen and I exchanged glances and shrugged our shoulders. “Guess he’s right,” I said as I pushed aside the drooping fronds of a fern and followed.
Several times there were rustlings of something moving around in the underbrush and when we passed a low wall, crumbling with age, something hissed at us from the shadows of a large briar patch, but nothing felt bold enough to step from hiding or openly pursued us.
We caught up to Carl at the entrance to a large building that straddled our path. A pair of doors covered in heavy wire mesh was locked with a rusty but effective padlock looped between the door handles. He slammed his shoulder against one of the doors and fell back, cursing. “Damn! Figures that the only thing not completely rotted through in this place is this damned lock.” He rattled the gate in frustration.
Cry For Tomorrow Page 12