I’ve been scared before. Maybe not with the frequency, or to the same degree as a lot of other people . . . or maybe I’m just too dumb to know when I should be afraid. Let me tell you something—up in the loft of that barn I used up my entire lifetime supply of bravery just to breathe. The stomp of multiple feet, the snarls and hiss’s and moans . . . the rabid animalistic growling . . . the stench of putrid flesh . . . it was too much for me to process, and I . . . just . . . . . . . shut . . . . . . . down. I couldn’t move. I mean, I literally found myself paralyzed. I’d probably still be there if it hadn’t been for something else. The kids. I could hear at least two of them still alive and screaming, and the vision that my mind created of them suffering at the hands of the fiends below boiled every ounce of terror out of my blood instantaneously. Before I could even comprehend my actions, I was up and moving towards the edge of the loft—rifle barrel pointed and leading the way. At the edge I stopped and looked down into a churning vat of the raw source material for nightmares. There had to be at least two dozen ghouls on the lower level, and they were feeling their way around and gathering in small groups of threes and fours, tearing at the tiny corpses that were scattered on the floor. The sound of a crying girl to my right was abruptly stilled as a pair of swiftly moving ferals—almost as small as the child was—converged on her with bone snapping ferocity. But even as the entire scene began to knit together to beat at the doors of my sanity, I saw something else . . . something dead center in my sight below . . . and it turned my burning blood into streams of ice cold horror. It was the lady from outside. She was stunningly beautiful and barely dressed in the shredded remains of camouflaged overalls, and almost every square inch of her body below her gorgeous face was flooded with bite marks. She was grasping a struggling young boy in an iron grip . . . and her eyes were looking straight at me.
Her dazzling, malevolent lips smiled up at me, and she lifted the child higher, placing his body as a shield. And then she squeezed and shattered his neck, ending his life with an audible crack. I fought through the shock and shifted my aim to the right, sending a pair of double taps to the foreheads of the ferals that I knew could outrun me, and they both dropped to the barn floor and spasmed violently before laying still next to the remains of the little girl. I jerked the Ruger back towards the monstrosity and fired off a half dozen shots, but most were absorbed by the boy’s limp form in her arms. If any passed through and affected her, it didn’t show. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying she didn’t react, it’s just that what happened next is so far beyond my comprehension that I don’t even know if I believe what I saw. But I know what I saw. The twenty-odd infected that were fumbling around in the darkness below . . . they could apparently sense that something was wrong, but they couldn’t see each other, much less me up in the loft. But after my bullets smacked into the corpse that the bite-marked lady was using as a barrier, she cut loose with a screeching hiss and all of the ghouls froze for a split second . . . and then like the heads of a hydra, every single one of them turned their red eyes directly towards me, and I knew . . . I just knew that they could see me. As one, the entire swarm began to scuttle forward. There were too many to track with the scope, so I flung the rifle across my back and drew my CZ and flashlight. One press of the tailcap was all it took to shatter the darkness and reveal the full color terror below. The swarm—red, rage filled eyes, bloody hands, and snapping teeth—recoiled momentarily from the blast of white hot radiance, and as they stumbled away shielding their eyes, I lined up my pistol on the unearthly beauty standing at the core. My mind shivered in abject revulsion and terror as the bright beam from my flashlight shocked the memory of my nightmare about Michelle straight to the forefront. The beautiful-cruel dark angel was staring up at me with soulless, ebony black eyes . . . just like in my dream. My fear frozen trigger finger jerked once and the CZ barked, sending the 124 grain Speer Gold Dot bullet blasting out of the barrel at over 1200 feet per second. It slammed into her left shoulder and she let out an inhuman wail, and the sea of ruby-eyed ghouls howled in fury and charged toward me. I emptied my magazine at the ones surging up the ladder, and then reloaded and kept firing as others began to climb the walls and posts. It was a battle that I knew I was going to lose in just a matter of seconds. That’s when the truck came crashing through the barn wall.
The impact of the heavy vehicle on the barn timbers knocked me off of my feet, and almost off of the loft. It was the flatbed from outside, and someone had set it on fire and driven it, or steered it toward the ghoul’s retreat . . . and me. It smashed through the right corner of the wooden structure, crushing and squishing several infected as it careened to a stop against the center pillar—a fifteen inch square post probably made from oak at least a century ago. It missed the raven-eyed beauty. The flames leaping from the truck revealed even more ghouls scrambling to climb the ladder and stalls, and I blew the faces off of at least eight of them before the first one crested the rim of the hay loft. My last shot in that magazine caught it on top of its head, and the brains and blood exploding backwards peppered the hands of the next three that were clawing up in its wake. I holstered my weapon and bolted for the chicken wire, crashing through and snagging my hand into the mesh as I shot straight out into the blackness of the night air. In the blink of an eye the fencing jerked me to a stop when it reached the limit of its rusty fasteners, and my outward momentum rapidly shifted to downward—swinging me back toward the barn and slamming my shoulder and face into the rough wooden planks of siding. My chicken wire rope held on for one final millisecond before dropping my ass—along with the rest of me—into a pile of old lumber, tires, and shingles. I felt the stitches in my ankle tear, and my shin was in agony over its impact with something hard in the landing pile, but I forced myself to get up and run.
My flashlight was miraculously still on and in my hand, and I managed to draw my pistol and flip out the empty magazine as I sprinted for the vet office. I could hear the snarls of my pursuers as I pounded across the parking lot, and I grabbed the last loaded magazine from my belt and slammed it home, dropping the slide as I charged for the door. I was almost there when the wildly bobbing beam of my flashlight caught the movement of a pair of ghouls coming around the corner of the veterinarian’s office on an intercept course. I flung several chaotic shots their way as I huffed and puffed toward the back corner of the building, and one of them stumbled and rolled. The other one, a gray-skinned man in his twenties dressed in the uniform of a flight crew member, reached towards me with outstretched fingers and managed to snag a pocket on my backpack. The weight of the tackle twisted me in a full circle and hammered me into the ground, and I remember kicking my heels into his face as he clawed towards me with one arm—his other still entangled in the backpack. I pulled away as hard as I could, but his grip wouldn’t break, so I yanked my shoulder sideways with as much force as I could muster and managed to roll out of my backpack. That maneuver also deposited my rifle on the ground next to it. I came to my knees in a crouch and shot at the backpack thief several times before adjusting my aim toward a line of five infected that had followed me from the barn. Two of them crumpled to the ground, and I surged to my feet and leapt for the door as the other three howled in anger and thudded forward with maniacal faces and clutching hands. I threw the door open and vaulted inside, pulling it shut behind me with less than a half step to spare. As the multiple impacts crashed against the door, the reflected light from my Quark almost made me pee myself. Standing next to the coffee maker was a tall, skinny woman dressed in light blue scrubs. She had a stethoscope hanging from her neck, and the partially eaten remains of one of her coworkers dangling from her hand. I couldn’t help it—here I was . . . about to die in some back-assed vet’s office with a pile of infected beating at the door, and the only thought that came to my mind was a commercial jingle that reminded you to “share a little dark Peruvian blend with your coworkers after a hearty meal.” Especially if the hearty meal was your coworker, I guess. Her red eyes s
quinted at my light, and I drilled her through the bridge of her nose.
The pounding fists beat against the door, and I maneuvered the flashlight into my mouth so I could dedicate the full strength of one hand to holding the knob. My other hand gripped the 9mm pistol, and I swiveled my head toward the door that led to the hallway and waited. Another high powered rifle shot boomed into the night, but it didn’t seem to affect the three ghouls scratching and clubbing against the door. Ten seconds of my life flashed past in stop frame slow motion, and I was blitzed with images of my uncle, and little red-haired, blue-eyed Faith. I saw the faces of friends that I hadn’t seen since grade school. I saw Max as a puppy—his eyes still closed and his belly full of milk as he clumsily rolled over his brothers and sisters. I saw my mother in her casket. I saw the glossy black eyes of the dark angel looking up at me over the flames of the burning barn. And I saw Michelle. Her brilliant emerald eyes locked with mine as she gave her body . . . her self . . . to me in the tent just a few nights ago. And then, as the visions faded, I began to get pissed. I had fought so hard at every turn, always thinking, always planning, always running and gunning. I had come so far and risked so much. I had saved my loved ones, and in turn they had saved me. And the aggravation inside of me festered into cold, silent anger. Through the haze of my growing fury, I became keenly aware on some level that the ghouls were so focused on reaching me that they couldn’t comprehend the door pulled towards them. That thought cascaded into action, and I dropped the flashlight into my hand and reared back, kicking the door open and slamming it with meaty whomp into whatever was behind it.
My flashlight lit up the doorway and revealed the other two monsters standing there—bloody hands shielding their eyes from the intense light—and I half stepped to the threshold and dropped the hammer on both of them. One of them fell like a sack of rotten potatoes with a bullet hole above her right eyebrow, and the other one took a pair of rounds in his throat. A huge cone of bright red blood sprayed backward with the second bullet’s impact and he dropped to his knees, and then his face hit the ground hard enough to leave a dent—a sensation that was delivered back to me with a vengeance as the metal door exploded forward and smacked into me with the force of a runaway freight train. I was bounced into the room with the impact, backpedaling momentarily before tripping over a lunch room chair and crashing against the refrigerator. I remember seeing a tunnel vision of stars as I fought to remain conscious, and I struggled to my feet, firing the CZ in the general direction of the outside door as I stumbled toward the hallway and into the grooming room. My entry was punctuated with the deafening metallic clash of my 6 foot 4 inch frame colliding with some type of grooming table loaded with shears and combs. Both the table and I fell together, tumbling to the ground in a symphony of angry curses and loud bangs. I was on my side, panting and gasping for air as I struggled to line up my flashlight and pistol with the door that had somehow closed itself, and that’s the last thing I clearly remember until just a little bit ago.
I guess I was out—either unconscious or asleep, maybe both—for about eight hours. OK, that’s not really correct. I may have passed out initially, but I remember waking while my flashlight was still shining. I remember dragging myself behind another grooming table. I remember stuffing the still lit flashlight into my jacket pocket for a moment. I remember seeing the three faintly glowing dots of the tritium night sights on my pistol. I remember reaching for the mouthpiece that led to my water bladder, only to discover that it was missing along with my backpack. I remember . . . remembering . . . what happened to the backpack. I remember finding a plastic garbage bag filled with pet hair, and squishing it into a roll. I remember hurting just about everywhere. I remember whispering a prayer to God that He would keep Michelle and Faith safe after I was gone. I remember laying my head on the hair filled roll and feeling my body shut down with exhaustion. I remember lifeless black eyes dripping with evil as the flames danced higher.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I got here. When I woke just a short time ago, I’ll admit to panicking—just a bit. It was pitch black and silent, and I thought that I was . . ., well, you know. When I realized that I was still a card carrying member of the living, I pulled myself into a sitting position as quietly as I could and began to breathe. Michelle told me that Uncle Andy taught her and Thompson some basic techniques on their way to Fort Hammer. I’ve been doing them for twenty years. Not religiously or even regularly, but enough. I focused my breathing and began a series of stretches, gradually working my way to the point where I could visualize the storm candle.
“Focus on the candle, Eric. The flame should be alive, but unwavering. Living, but under control.”
I stared at the golden yellow fire that burned on top of the long taper of the holly green Christmas candle. It was July, nowhere near the Christmas holiday, and I was sitting on the floor of Uncle Andy’s cabin. I was fourteen years old, I think, and I had just been stung by about thirty wasps when I had accidentally destroyed their nest while moving a pile of firewood.
“Pretend you’re on the roof of a tall tower at the ocean, and the waves are dashing against the rocks 500 feet below you. The wind and rain are howling all around and whipping your hair against your face. But there is a single candle standing in the darkness in front of you. Its flame is snapping back and forth, threatening to go out at any second from the power of the storm.”
I could see the vivid imagery that my uncle was painting in my mind, even as the perfectly still flame of the green candle stood unwavering on the floor.
“Now concentrate on the flame, Eric. Bend it to your will. The storm does not control it, you do, and the taller and straighter you make the candle flame, the weaker the storm becomes.”
As I focused on his words and the picture in my head, the throbbing, burning sensations on my arms and neck began to ebb.
The storm candle now in focus, I held the flame perfectly still as I began a mental checklist of my situation. No backpack, which means no water, or resupply of ammunition among other things. I had fallen asleep with my flashlight still turned on inside my coat pocket. The batteries were absolutely shot. As quietly as I could, I dropped the magazine from the pistol. The flame of the candle definitely sputtered when I felt only one cartridge. That, plus one more in the chamber brought my grand total of available ammunition to two. I have five loaded magazines for the .22 in the pouches of my tac vest, but that’s not going to help since the only weapon that takes them is laying down outside. I still have my Buck knife, and in the pocket of my cargo pants I found my recorder, but the earbud cord was dangling partway outside and one of the tiny speakers was missing. Oh . . . something else. My watch is gone. This time probably for good. I have no clue where it went, but my best guess puts it somewhere in the pile of debris that I landed in when I jumped out of the barn. As far as I’m concerned, it can stay there.
So now you know everything. I’m trapped here with only two bullets left. There’s still at least an hour of darkness left. I’ve killed maybe a dozen of the red-eyed ghouls. That’s less than half. I only saw three ferals, and they’re all toast. But to be honest, there could be fifty more that I didn’t see. And then there’s the black-eyed fiend. I don’t know what to think about her, other than it frightens me to think about her. Do I wait in here until the gray ones find me? Or do I go out in a blaze of two bullets fighting my way to my backpack? Either way the result will be the same. I need to think.
*click*
OK, this is it . . . the last recording I’ll probably ever make. Whoever finds this, if you have the ability, take it to Walter’s Marina near the shore of Ghost Echo Lake. If you see a tall, beautiful redheaded girl there, tell her I love her. It’s 4:55 AM according to the clock on the phone, and there is definitely something in the hallway. Time to man up and go down fighting.
Chapter 71
I got to my feet as quietly as I could, and the stiffness of my multiple bruises, cuts, and abrasions all woke up and had a welcom
e back party at my expense. The noise sounded again from the hallway—a scraping sound from the right—and I crept up to the door using the blue light of the cell phone screen. As quietly as I could, I lifted away the pair of rolling carts I had placed as a barrier. Unfortunately, one of them had a loose metal tray that I thought was attached to the cart. It wasn’t . . . and when I moved the cart out of the way, the tray slid off and banged against the floor. I cringed and held my breath. A moment later my already hammering heart kicked up another notch as the dim sapphire glow of the phone showed the doorknob in front of me starting to turn. The only ghouls that I knew could do that were ferals. I braced myself and got ready as the door opened.
Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending Page 59