“10-4”
He let off the brake and accelerated slowly. Twenty seconds later he coasted to a stop about fifty feet behind the RV’s. “Both of the guys in the RV’s are too good for us, if you know what I mean,” Michelle said.
“Where’s Alton supposed to be?”
Michelle pointed forward and left. “There’s a duck blind—one of those insulated box types—just off the road in the reeds.”
“Are you ready?”
She nodded.
“Sam, are you ready?”
“Good to go, just waiting on you.”
“Everybody stay alert. If you have to shoot, be sure of your target. Remember, we have potential non-hostiles in the area, and watch out for Max. If he goes for something, don’t get in his way.”
Eric opened the door latch and stepped to the ground. Drawing the Delta with his right hand, he crossed his left wrist underneath and held the Quark flashlight in the ready position. It was called the ‘Harries’ method for using a flashlight in conjunction with a handgun, and was especially suited for lights that had their pressure switches located on the tail cap.
Thompson and Sam joined them a moment later.
“Max, come here.” For such a large animal, he could move remarkably quietly, and Eric barely heard him hit the ground and pad up. It was obvious that he sensed the tension in the air, and Eric watched as Max bobbed his head and flicked his ears.
“Max, tight . . . stay tight Max.” Another quick check of their group showed no inconsistencies that they could change at this point, so Eric began walking—Max took lead about a dozen paces ahead.
Both RV’s were silent and dark as they passed. Michelle shined the bright beam of her flashlight off the left side of the driveway. “Over there,” she indicated.
Max had paused up ahead, and Eric flashed a hand signal for him to wait. As a line, the four of them approached the reeds where Alton was supposed to be hidden. It didn’t take long to discover the ground blind. It was empty.
“Let’s do a quick search. No more than fifty feet from the gate—stay in pairs.” Their brief investigation turned up nothing, other than discovering that the two RV’s were locked. There was no answer to their soft knocking. They took a moment to open the gate before walking back next to their trucks.
Eric holstered his weapon and unclipped the radio. “Scott, Alton is not at the gate, repeat, Alton is not at the gate. Is there any change from the road?”
“Not that I can really tell. I still see—at least I think so anyhow—somebody standing by the edge of the road. I’m not sure where the other one is. Like I said, they’re pretty far away and it seems like it’s getting darker.”
A swift glance upwards showed Eric the leading edge of wispy clouds that were beginning to move in.
“Scott, we’re coming up now. Sam and Thompson are going to join you on the roof in a minute, but don’t leave your observation point until they get there, OK?”
“Got it boss.”
Max jumped back in the truck bed at his command, and within a minute, their two vehicle convoy crept through the gate.
Behind them, the soft cherry glow of a cigarette ember momentarily pulsed orange inside the left hand RV.
Sam drove Walter’s truck to a point just below the store. He parked it but left it running with the headlights angled toward the broad, gravel lot that led to the boat ramp. He and Thompson exited the vehicle and trotted over to Eric. Extending the shotgun, Sam asked, “Wanna trade?”
“No, if this goes south we’re not gonna stand around and duke it out wild west style, we’re going to bust ass backwards and join you on the roof.”
“Just phone ahead, and we’ll leave the light on for you.” They turned and scuttled over to the ladder. In a few seconds they had disappeared over the roofline.
“Any ideas?”
“Whether they’re human or . . . not . . . they’ve got to know we’re here already,” Michelle answered. “So let’s be quick, but not unsafe. Just remember what I told you about how hard it was to stop them in the back hallway of my office.”
Eric nodded and shifted the truck into drive. Curving to the right, he circled around the store counter clockwise, bringing them out onto the highway near the bagged off diesel pump.
“Last chance to head west and drive to Hawaii.”
“I wish.”
He cut the wheel left and drove out onto the highway. Almost immediately Max’s growl rumbled in through the sliding window. Up ahead, a single figure could be seen standing at the far edge of the road near the weed line. A steady press of the accelerator brought the truck to twenty miles an hour, and they closed the distance in just a few seconds. The figure was wearing a puffy, yellow and purple ski jacket, and as they approached it began to turn towards them. Max’s growl resonated deeper.
“Eric, I think it’s infected,” Michelle said in a low, hushed tone.
“I think you’re right.” Eric drifted the pickup closer and closer, finally stopping about forty feet away. The headlights of the truck pierced the darkness of the road, but didn’t have the angle to show what was below the slight drop off heading toward the lake. The ski jacket-clad figure turned full-on towards them, and they could easily make out the smear of blood on his hands and face. Dull red eyes glared back at them, but it made no other move. Max’s rumble transformed into a hair raising, fearsome snarl.
“Max . . . wait.”
Eric mashed the brake and shifted into reverse. “Tell Sam to get ready with the spotlight, but not on this guy here. I want to see down to the left in the weeds where his partner is.”
Michelle picked up her radio and called out, “Sam . . . the one on the road is definitely infected, but we can’t see to the left down the slope. On my mark, we’d like you to hit that area with the spotlight, OK?”
Scott’s voice came over the radio. “Miss Michelle, this is Scott, I have the spotlight ready to go. Sam says that him and Thompson are lined up and waiting on your word. Wait a minute . . . OK, Sam wants to know if you want him to take care of the guy on the road first?”
Eric risked a short look at Michelle. “I can’t make that call. It just doesn’t seem . . . right.”
The figure on the road slowly cocked its head and stared at the truck.
“Do you realize what might happen if that thing gets close to you . . . or me?” Michelle’s question ricocheted back immediately.
“I know . . . I’m just still having a hard time making the jump from ‘what should be’ to ‘what is.’”
Michelle dropped a series of ‘F’ bombs in a manner that would make a drill instructor blush. “Not me, I’ve already sailed down that road. Think about it, Eric, in the space of just a few days, those ‘things’ out there,” she pointed towards the ski jacket, “have been directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths at the campground, for Miss Fran, all of Thompson’s friends in the Guard, for what happened to Samantha and Melissa—and what almost happened to me—and let’s not forget about your uncle, and Brenda, and Sally . . . do I need to go on?”
“I know, I just need a minute to . . .”
Michelle cut him off with, “I don’t.” She keyed her radio and said, “Sam, do the headlights give you enough light to shoot by?”
“He said it’s plenty.”
“Tell him to drop it.”
Almost immediately, the sharp crack of a high velocity 5.56 mm round shattered the night, and the red-eyed monster’s neck snapped up and backwards. The lower pitch boom reaching their ears a millisecond later coincided with the dull thump as the ghoul collapsed in a heap.
Michelle counted to five silently as she watched for movement. The ski jacket remained motionless.
“One down, one to go,” she mumbled half to herself.
“Scott, the area to the left of the road . . . light it up.”
The massive beam of light—diffuse and uneven around its perimeter but with a hot, white core—flooded a path thirty yards wide by the time it tra
cked from the parking lot of the marina to where it stopped at the left side of the roadway. In the nucleus of the blinding flare, an undulating darkness began to ripple. As Eric and Michelle watched, the darkness flowed and transformed as a single figure detached from the whole and stood, its vermilion eyes quickly locking on Eric’s truck.
“Oh-oh . . .” Eric and Michelle both echoed in unison as one by one, more figures separated from the mass and stood, their hellish gaze focused intently toward the road.
Chapter 12
“Get us out of here!” Michelle hissed as Eric let off the brake began to accelerate backwards. Instantly, the murky hub surged and fragmented—transforming itself into a swelling, rolling pack of howling infected.
Michelle grabbed the radio as Eric shot the truck backwards toward the marina, “There’s more than one . . . it’s a whole shitload of infected . . . fire at will—repeat—fire at will!”
Halfway to the store, Eric slowed enough to cut the truck in a ‘J’ turn before slamming it into gear and accelerating, this time forward. Max was spread wide and anchored on the rubber bed liner, growling and snarling at the pursuing throng of infected. In front of them they could see flashes of light as Sam and Thompson fired round after round at the horde.
“Get ready to get up on the roof!” Eric said to Michelle as he gauged the distance to the infected in the rearview mirror.
“What about you?”
“We’re all going to be on the roof—we’ll pull up the ladder and pick them off from there.”
Several orange tracers cut glowing lines from the rooftop to the road behind them as Michelle paused with a questioning look on her face. “Can Max climb a ladder?”
Eric swore to himself as he turned onto the gravel parking lot and cut down the side of the store, barely slowing down enough to make the left turn around the back.
“LOOK OUT!” Michelle yelled.
Fifteen feet in front of them stood a man—a staggered look on his face in the glare of Eric’s rapidly approaching headlights. He had the long extension ladder cradled in a curled arm hold, and a bulbous—almost comical—gauze band aid encasing his nose.
Eric slammed on the brakes and skidded to a gravel-crunching stop less than a frog hair away from the shock frozen man.
“What the hell?” Eric sputtered.
“That son of a bitch,” Michelle swore; astonishment blending with anger evident upon her face.
The small dust cloud of Eric’s skid washed briefly over the man as Eric searched for the right words, the right action—even the right thought process—to deal with the sudden comprehension of the scene in front of him.
Michelle swore again as gunfire echoed above them, and the man—shaken back to reality—dropped the aluminum ladder with a clang and bolted back in the direction that Eric had just came from.
“NO!” Eric shouted through the closed window as the figure scooted past—gaining additional speed at the sound of Max’s snarl and incisor slamming lunge.
Eric and Michelle both spun in their seats, craning their necks to follow as the man sprinted past the store, paused for less than a second in indecision, and then ran for Walter’s idling truck. In the wash of illumination, they saw at least a half dozen infected surge out of the weeds along the lake and enter the parking lot. Three of the ghouls angled toward the running man as more and more emerged from the weeds.
With surprising agility, the bandaged-nose man dodged around the closest threat, and using his momentum, he hooked the lip of the tailgate and shot himself toward the driver’s door. The second closest infected grabbed for the man, but was temporarily blocked and pushed back as the ladder thief threw the door open into its chest. By now, the first ghoul had reoriented itself and made a diving pounce as the man practically jumped into the driver’s seat. The third approaching infected made it almost to the front of the truck before a streaking orange tracer round burned a hole in its left temple.
Still entranced by the unfolding spectacle, they watched as the man fought both the red-eyed ghoul and the truck, finally yanking the pickup into gear as his attacker clawed and tore at his face. Walter’s truck sprayed rooster tails of gravel as it accelerated rapidly, careening in a slight left hand arc toward the boat launch. With a jarring double wallop, the front and back wheels jumped over the line of cement curb stops and bounced twice before the truck powered down the gradual incline of the boat ramp. A huge geyser of cold lake water exploded upwards as the heavy, steel and fiberglass vehicle buried itself up to its side mirrors in a watery grave. For a moment, in the faint map light of the sinking, open-door truck, the struggle could still be seen.
“Eric . . . Eric . . . was that you? Are you OK? . . . Can you hear me?” Scott’s burst of questions erupted from the radio.
“No, that wasn’t me. I . . . we’re . . . all OK.”
Behind them, several more pairs and trios of infected materialized from the weeds and scuttled across the lot toward the store. Eric spun and faced forward again, pausing only long enough to peek in the rearview mirror and confirm Max’s presence before tromping on the gas.
As his truck rocketed out of the parking lot, he grabbed the radio and called out, “Scott, the ladder is down, repeat, the ladder is down. Do you copy?”
The sound of gunfire poured through as Scott replied, “Understood, the ladder is down.”
Walter’s voice came across as Eric made it to the highway and turned right, “Eric, what’s the situation down there, do you need help?”
“Hold on a second.”
He sped away for a solid ten seconds before heavy-footing the brake and turning back around towards the store. A flick of the emerald green, illuminated toggle switch kicked on the truck’s off road lights and showered the roadway with a mixture of white halogen driving lights and brilliant yellow, wide angle fog lights.
“OK . . . Sam . . . I’m holding position about 200 yards west of the store. What’s your situation?”
It took a moment for Scott’s reply to come through, “Um . . . OK, I see your truck lights. Thompson says that they’ve put down at least ten already, but they think there’s at least that many more still out there.”
Amy’s hushed voice came over as soon as Scott paused, “Eric,” her forced whisper sounded urgent over the partially muted crying in the background, “there’s some right outside the door. I think at least two of them—maybe three.”
“Sam, did you copy that?”
Another pause—longer this time—before Scott replied, “Ahhh Eric, we have a problem. Sam and Thompson say they have no line of sight straight down, there’s a roof in the way . . . do you copy?”
“Eric, it’s Walter. Scott’s right, that wraparound porch roof goes from the front side by the pumps all the way around to the side by the boat ramp. It’s four feet the wide the whole way.”
Eric shook his head in disgust as he envisioned the outside of the store. He’d seen it hundreds of times before, but none of that mattered right now. A few muttered curse words escape from his lips as he sat in the idling truck trying to formulate a plan.
Michelle laid her hand on his forearm. “This isn’t your fault.”
“No,” Eric agreed, anger and frustration showing through in his response, “it’s not. But that doesn’t make me feel any less responsible.” After another breath he added, “Or any less pissed.” He keyed the radio, “Amy, you’ve got two shotguns in there with you, correct?”
“Yes but . . . right now, I’ve got one of them. Mr. Lee has the other one. He’s solid,” she added at the last moment.
“OK, hold on a second, we’re coming.” Without giving her a chance to reply he keyed to the radio again, “Sam, how many more targets can you eliminate before we try and make a run?”
The rifle fire died off, and then a moment later Sam’s voice came across, “Eric, we have zero, repeat zero new targets within visible range. The last minute or so we’ve been punching a few holes in the ones that were already down. And just to make it i
nteresting, the big spotlight is dying. What’d you do out there, poke a big stick in a hornet’s nest? . . . Wait, a sec . .”
Sam’s voice trailed off, and was immediately replaced with Amy’s frantic whisper, “They’re right outside . . . oh crap, they know we’re in here.”
“Amy, have everybody lay down on the floor right now, we’re coming in. . . tell them to get flat on the floor right now!”
Eric kept the transmit button mashed down to broadcast as he gave the truck gas. Turning toward Michelle, he said, “I’m going to pull around back and up close . . . when I get there, have your Glock ready to fire down the length of the building. I’m going to try and line it up so our shots won’t pass through the store if we miss. Don’t get out of the truck, OK? . . . ‘cause if things somehow get worse than they are—if that’s even possible—I want to be able to hightail it out of there and come around for a second run.”
Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending Page 13