“Got it.”
After another quick look around, I dropped my binoculars down to my chest and began the charades. Apparently it was the only party game I didn’t suck at, because almost immediately Michelle reported that the binoculars in the window disappeared. Fifteen seconds later, the front door cracked open.
“Wait for me right here until I call for you on the radio, OK?” I said to Michelle.
“Who said you get to go first this time?”
“I thought you were afraid of cannibal midgets.”
“Rock, paper, scissors?” she asked.
I hesitated for a moment, and then rolled onto my side. “OK, rock, pap . . .”
Halfway through paper Michelle bolted to her feet and trotted across the road. Through my headset I heard a whispered, “Scissors.” I twisted back onto my stomach and stared as she crested the porch, glancing at the trio of bodies off the side before pausing momentarily at the front door. Michelle’s tentative “hello” came across the radio, and then she disappeared through the door. Five seconds later, I heard a heavy, thumping BANG followed by a muted scream, and then the sound of gunfire exploded from the cabin.
Chapter 59
I vaulted to my feet and sprinted across the road, bypassing the double step with a leap and using my momentum to shoulder through the door. It crashed aside and I skewed into Michelle’s back, almost knocking her down a long narrow staircase that descended into the basement of the cabin. A blur of movement from my right jerked my aim that way, and Michelle’s frantic cry of “ERIC, WAIT!” was almost lost as I swung the .22, locking the crosshairs onto the face of a young girl with bright blue eyes and long, frizzy red hair.
Michelle shouldered into me, knocking my aim towards the ceiling as she screamed, “NO . . . IN THE BASEMENT!” Her AR flared with rapid fire muzzle blasts in the dim light of the cabin as she fired down the stairs, and as I reoriented myself from her jarring, the young girl turned and ran. I shifted towards the basement opening and crouched, raising my rifle and pointing it down the stairs as Michelle continued to fire—each of her shots flashing the darkness into a stop motion strobe effect. It was enough for me to see several figures clawing at—and over top of—each other as they fought their way up the stairs. I steadied my aim and fired at each hint of movement in the knot of limbs as they wrestled against the incline, the barrage of high velocity bullets that Michelle was dropping on them, and each other. A microscopic pause in her thunder indicated a magazine change, and as it picked up again, my Ruger ran dry. I dropped it to the side and drew my CZ and flashlight. With one click of the tail cap, the dark basement stairs flooded into brilliant white, and my arms went stiff as I held the 9mm at the ready, searching for any motion. There was none.
In the stillness that followed the thunder, I twisted to the left and right . . . my eyes frantically searching for a target. I found none. The sound of Michelle switching to another fresh magazine registered deep in my subconscious, but the adrenalin coursing through my system tunneled that away as my senses were flaring into overdrive. I shot to my feet and kicked the front door closed, but it rebounded off of the frame and swung back a few inches. Michelle was now up and holding her own flashlight toward the dark basement, and I shifted to the left and peeked into a room that was obviously set up as a combination kitchen and small dining room. It looked like it had been ransacked, but there was no movement.
“Clear on the left,” I called out, “passing behind you.”
A series of quick sidesteps carried me behind Michelle who was still directing her flashlight’s entire radiance down the stairs, and I shouldered into the front door as I passed. It shut with a slam, but immediately creaked open again. Apparently some moron had recently broken the latch. My footsteps ended underneath the threshold of the small living room where the red-haired girl had disappeared. I saw nothing.
“Clear on the right.”
“No movement from the basement,” Michelle yelled over her shoulder at me, “but I can’t see anything but the stairs.”
I holstered my pistol, but kept my flashlight on and ready as I reached down and grabbed the.22. After inserting a new magazine and cycling the action, I stepped into the living room and looked out of the same window that had been used to watch me. My stomach clinched tight with what I saw.
“We have more on the way . . . at least four that I can see from here. They’re probably coming to the sound of our guns . . . well, your gun.”
Michelle swore out loud, and then glanced briefly toward the front door. “Won’t that stay shut?”
“No, the latch is broken . . . now.”
I took my eyes off the approaching ghouls long enough to register that the door to the basement was splintered and mostly torn from its hinges. No help for that.
“Where did the little girl go?” Michelle asked.
“Somewhere this way. Is she alone?”
“I don’t know . . . she’s the only one that I saw before the basement door exploded in my face.”
“Son of a . . .,” I started, but cut myself off.
“What now?” Michelle's exasperated hiss reflected my own frustration.
“I can only see three of the infected right now, but I’m almost positive it’s three different ones than I saw a minute ago. Where the heck are they all coming from?”
“Three more? That makes seven? I told you we should’ve got back on the boat.”
“And what about ‘mini Michelle,’” I asked with another glance into the living room.
Michelle said nothing, but she didn’t have to. I knew she’d never leave the cabin without the little girl. I couldn’t resist a poke, though. “Ten bucks says she’s a cannibal.”
A giant eye roll accompanied the shake of her head at my words, but my amusement was short lived when the first footsteps thumped onto the porch.
“Wedge the door shut with the side of your foot—you’ll still be able to see if anything tries to move up the stairs. Stay in contact. If things get worse, head to the boat and pull away from the shore.”
“Wait . . . where are you going?” Her green eyes were wide with alarm at my statement.
I matched her gaze, burning it in to my memory as something . . . everything . . . worth fighting for. The silencer on the end of the barrel rose into the air, and my finger settled on the trigger as I answered her with a grim face and one word.
“Hunting.”
Chapter 60
Michelle’s expression froze for a moment, and then she nodded slightly. “Hurry back Eric, I’m not leaving without you.”
I returned her nod, accompanying it with a quick wink as the first dull thump landed on the cabin door. Gritting my teeth and taking a deep breath, I spun and bounded through the living room, searching for a back exit. I glided through the area, dodging the cushion-less skeletons of a pair of Mennonite style rocking chairs, and the food-family-pet stained mess that used to be a sofa in another lifetime. Its faded goldenrod color reminded me of the first couch my roommate and I had acquired in college. We had found it resting quietly at the edge of the curb next to a pair of overloaded trash cans, and aside from a two semester long off-gassing of mysterious and highly variable odors, it had served us well. We’d even found enough change in the seams to do a load of wash. Not enough for the dryer, though. At the end of the semester, and partly as a joke, we returned it to the exact place we had found it. Its wobbly legs hadn’t even fully touched the sidewalk when a pickup truck loaded with the college groundskeepers slowed down on the road. Thirty seconds later it had been adopted, and its new family was already sunk deep in the cushions, weed whackers held high like pirate flags.
When I slid past the couch, the mirror image of the cabin front came into view, only the stairs slanted upwards and had no blocking door. Then again, neither did the stairs to the basement now. At the top of the stairs, curly tangles of red peeked around the corner, and I held a finger to my lips as her blue eyes stared down at me.
“Shhhh . . .
Stay upstairs and hide, OK. I’ll be back in a minute to get you.” I didn’t know if I was lying.
The back door was a standard deadbolt and doorknob affair that could be unlocked without a key from the inside. I turned the deadbolt latch and the center nub of the doorknob, and then after a brief glance outside, stepped through and pulled it shut behind me.
“I’m outside . . . and the girl is upstairs.”
“I heard. There’s at least two at the door Eric . . . still nothing else from the basement yet.”
I immediately turned left and went to the corner. It was another lesson from the academy, although it had been drilled into my head by Uncle Andy for years before that. “Stealth or combat, if you have a choice, choose your approach around an obstacle so your weapon and eyes lead the way, not your shoulder.” I was right handed and right eye dominant in shooting, so going counterclockwise around a building would always give me a better chance to hide the majority of my body mass at the corners. I peeked around and found myself staring at a pair of crimson eyes less than eight feet away. Instinctively, I snapped the .22 into position and squeezed off a shot. At first I thought I missed, but then a dark purple circle appeared above the ghoul’s left eyebrow, and a steady trickle of ruby dark blood evolved to a spurt against the cabin wall. His cheek dropped against the siding and followed the blood trail down to the ground. My tunnel vision widened, and I saw three more infected within range. Two of them were out on the road and stumbling towards the cabin; the other one was already at the corner of the porch near the pile of bodies. A single shot into his temple dropped him down to join them. I steadied myself and lined up the reflex sight on the lead ghoul at the road. It took three shots before he dropped, with my first two attempts striking him low in the neck. His partner fell with one.
“Eric!” Michelle's voice was strained with effort, and I could hear pounding from the front of the cabin. It was followed by the shatter of glass.
“On my way—two seconds and I’m there!” I darted forward to the next corner and spun left, molding myself against the corner trim as I pushed the rifle into position. There were two ghouls battering against the front door, and a third—a chunky teenager wearing the tattered remains of full length footy pajamas—reaching through the now broken window that lead into the dining room. I sent a volley of five rounds smashing into the side of his head, and he collapsed into the window, gruesomely impaling himself on a long sliver of glass through the bottom of his jaw. My crosshairs leapt to the door just in time to see it flex wildly inward with a concerted push by the two attackers, and I flung away several rounds in my haste to take them out.
“I’m outside at the corner and firing. Hold on Michelle!” I’m almost positive my words were directed more towards me than her.
All that came through my headset in response was strained grunting, and the pounding reverberation of the red-eyed monsters beating at the door. One of them had managed to wedge his arm through the door jamb, and was practically stepping on the back of the other; a scrawny lady on her hands and knees dressed in an expensive fur coat and broken high heels. Movement on my peripheral tried to draw my eyes away from the door, but I forced myself to focus on the glowing red holographic cross.
Ftackk-ftackk.
I drove two rounds just above the high collar of her mink jacket, and she seized immediately before dropping flat onto the porch and laying still. Her companion, his platform now taken out, became unbalanced and slid downwards. Halfway down, his wrist got wedged in the narrow crack of the door as Michelle heaved back against the pressure. Blood red eyes angled to face me, and the monster began to thrash violently in his attempt to get free. It took seven hurried shots from the silenced .22 before one finally connected with a fatal area. My sense of alarm was screaming at me, and I managed to jerk my head toward the road just in time to see a gut chilling sight heading my way. A group of nine North Dakota state prisoners—still wearing the orange and white striped jumpers that signified a work release crew—were surging in a wavy, undulating line across the yard. They had all been handcuffed, and then further tethered to a long, metal transport chain, the trailing end of which was still attached to the dragging body of the corrections officer. Two of the nine—one at the front end, and one almost dead center—were hanging limp. The other seven were lunging in a series of uncoordinated heaves, trying to reach at me with their grasping hands and slobbering mouths. The ghoul at the end of the line closest to the deputy was spewing frothy pink bubbles that seemed to congeal in a tumor-like mass underneath his throat, and as I spun away in shock, the first wave of rotten fruit smell slammed into my nose. I ran.
“Stay inside and keep the door shut!” I yelled into the radio as I sprinted through the back yard of the cabin.
I heard Michelle say something, but I couldn’t quite catch it as I huffed past a tractor tire sandbox outfitted with pink, plastic construction equipment. My acceleration took me over the sandbox and into a sparse growth of mixed hardwoods just as the line of convicts fought themselves into a rhythm of sorts and howled in pursuit. I cut hard left into the scrub, and then immediately one-handed a sapling and spun to the right, trying to set up the chained pack of ghouls for a snag as they snarled in rage and crashed after me. It worked. The dragging body of the corrections officer caught against the sand filled tire and jerked the rest of the line to a halt. All seven of the monsters shrieked in a frenzied struggle against the anchor, and I hopped back another five yards before switching out the almost empty magazine in the Ruger. My chest was heaving with exertion, and my first three shots went somewhere besides my intended target.
“Eric, are you OK? . . . are you OK?” Michelle’s voice cracked out of my headset, and the vision of her emerald green eyes staring back at me as she braced against the door sent a needed measure of focus through my brain. I took a quick set of calming breaths, and then closed my eyes for a long heartbeat. When I snapped them open, I leaned forward and let instinct take over—firing double taps at the row of chained fiends.
Kthack-kthack . . . kthack-kthack . . . kthack-kthack . . . kthack-kthack . . . kthack-kthack . . . kthack-kthack . . . kthack-kthack . . .
Fourteen shots fired, seven infected put down. I stepped out of the brush and into the backyard, answering Michelle as I lined up the rifle on the prone figures. “I’m OK . . . I’ll be there in a minute. Are you still good?”
“Shaken, but not stirred.”
“Hang tight,” I replied. Maybe it was a waste, but I took the time to send another slug into each of their heads just to be sure. When I turned to go, I saw a fluff of bright red hair looking down at me from a narrow window near the peak of the cabin’s roof. I dropped in a new magazine and tried to meet the position where I estimated her bright blue eyes would be. A smile didn’t seem appropriate for me to display after I had just slaughtered seven people in front of her, infected or not, so I just nodded and stalked out towards the front. I located three more confirmed ghouls on the road, but all of them were out of easy range for the .22, and none seem to be making a beeline our way, so after pulling the corpse out of the front door, I retreated around back and came in.
Michelle was still bracing against the door, and I walked over and dropped my arm around her shoulder, pulling her close as my breathing still worked its way downward.
Apparently sensing the question at the forefront of my mind, she nodded toward the basement. “Nothing that I’ve seen or heard so far.”
“We still need to make sure.”
“Why, are you planning on staying here very long?”
“No, but until we leave, I don’t want either of us stuck with the job of watching and waiting for something to crawl out of there.” My head inclined toward the descending steps, and she automatically followed with her gaze.
“Can we move some furniture to block it instead? Maybe it won’t seal it up entirely, but it should at least slow anything down and give us some warning,” she suggested.
I cocked my head to the righ
t and studied the dilapidated couch, crunching the mental geometry and logistics required to fit the square peg into the not quite so square hole. It was possible, and a few minutes later with Michelle’s help, it was done. Both of the rockers and one end table had been incorporated into the design, and we ended up with a barrier that not only blocked off most of the basement, but also wedged itself tight against the front door. It wouldn’t last forever, but anything trying to get through would be forced to make enough noise to alert us.
We circled around to the back of the house and went up the stairs. They were made from unfinished wood planks, and each step we took creaked noisily as we ascended. There was no door at the top, and the heavy smell of sickness and decay permeated the air. After silently nodding at each other, we stepped cautiously into the single room, adding the light from our flashlights to the growing shafts of morning sunlight that poured in through opposing sets of small paneled windows. The top floor had an angled ceiling typical of A-frame construction, and it was sparsely yet functionally furnished as a bedroom. In the center of the room against the wall, there were two single beds laid out with a shared night stand between them. Both beds were occupied with covered forms, and our little blue-eyed angel stood defiantly next to the far bed, her white hand grasping a mottled purple and black forearm that protruded from underneath the bedspread. She was dressed in a pink and white ballerina dress complete with a tutu, and held a glitter sparkled wand capped with a foam cutout in the shape of a star. Hanging around her neck was a pair of child-sized binoculars made out of red plastic. Michelle immediately slung her AR over her shoulder and stepped forward, crouching down to one knee at the halfway point.
Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending Page 54