As soon as it swung halfway, I flipped the phone open to light the screen and thrust my gun around the door frame. My finger was on the trigger and ready to fire as I aligned the front sight on the corrosive yellow eyes staring back at me. Only they weren’t yellow, and they were pointing the very large looking bore of a handgun right back at my face. The shock of the situation froze both of us for an instant, and we stood there in stunned indecision as the seconds ticked by . . . him bathing in the blue light of my phone, and my own face reflecting a dull rainbow from the screen image on the phone that he held up for light.
I tilted the muzzle of my CZ skyward, and he followed a moment later with his, now obvious to me as a stainless steel .45 caliber automatic.
“Your battery’s low,” he whispered in a slow, easy voice that carried a faint southern drawl.
“What?” I replied in confusion.
His head, mostly balding but with the remains of a crew cut still visible, nodded toward the phone in my hand. “You’ve only got one bar left. Better charge it up.” He accompanied his jab with a smile and a spit of tobacco on the floor of the hallway.
The beginnings of a grin crept on to my face and I nodded. “Yeah well, I’ve noticed the cell coverage has been kind of spotty around here, so I’ll probably just wait until I get home.”
He nodded and smiled again. “I’d shake your hand, but unless we get out of here pretty damn soon, neither of us are going to have any hands left to shake.”
In the dim glow from our phones, I gave him a quick once over. Medium height, maybe 5 foot 10 inches, early to mid thirties, thickset neck that sat on muscular shoulders, and a face that studied me back with the same scrutiny that I was giving him. My gut said I could trust him.
“Got any 9mm ammunition you can spare?” I asked.
He shook his head no. “I got seven rounds of .45 left, and one full mag of 308.”
The pistol he was carrying was obvious, but I didn’t see any rifle. He noticed the question in my eyes and bobbed his nose over my shoulder. I turned to look and saw the figure of a young boy bracing against the wall. A scoped AR type rifle was held across his chest, and the steady look in his eyes convinced me that he knew how to use it. The screen on my phone timed out and dimmed, so I mashed a random button and brought it to life again. It revealed a blood soaked bandage wrapped around the young man’s upper thigh.
The look on my face when I turned back was answered without any fanfare. “That’s my son. He got hit by a stray round two days ago. The town is overrun by those things, but the owner of a fishing cabin we were renting told me about this place before he got yanked out of the window and torn apart.”
“You came here for some medicine?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, his leg is getting infected, so I figured we might be able to find some antibiotics here, but it looks like somebody already beat me to it.”
I swiveled to look at the boy briefly before turning back towards the man. “Can he run with that leg?”
From behind me I heard a young, but firm “Yes.”
The father’s eyes flicked towards his son for an instant, and then turned back to me. “He’s tough, but he’s hurt pretty good. I was hoping maybe to hole up here for a few days, but the guy that rented the cabin to us didn’t tell me about the airport across the road.”
“What about the airport?”
“It’s ground zero for those freakin’ bastards,” he answered. “It took us almost a full day to sneak from the fishing shack to here—less than two miles. We hid ourselves in a thicket of scrub by that sewage plant yesterday afternoon, but we never had a clear shot to run over here. There were always groups of those things breaking off from the horde at the airport. Then just before nightfall, it looked like they’re all beginning to assemble close to one of the hangars, and even the roamers were shambling that way. I told my boy that we’d wait until after dark and try to sneak over. About then a couple vehicles came barreling down the highway—zigzagging like they were drunk or something. They turned onto the road out there, but when they figured out it was a dead end, they tried to turn around and got tangled. Of course that attracted some attention and ruined our chances for getting over here. One of the vehicles was a school bus, and when we saw what was happening, well, we decided to just hang around and help out, even though it probably meant we were going to buy the farm.”
The events of last night were coming together with his story, and I looked behind me again at the rifle in the boys’ arms. “You were the ones that shot the feral?”
“The what?”
“The fast one out by the wreck. When they dragged the kids out of the bus and were heading toward the . . . lady . . .”
His eyebrows rose. “Yeah, that was us.” His face tightened in realization and he continued, “Was that you that dropped the other ones . . . the ones that were holding the kids?”
I nodded. “What seems like a lifetime ago, I had a suppressed .22.”
“Where were you shooting from?”
“I was up in the barn loft . . .”
He cut me off. “No shit . . . really?”
I could tell he was genuinely surprised, but also rather congratulatory in the typical southern redneck fashion that I had been initiated into while at college in Tennessee. Kind of like, “Dang Rusty, sorry you were in the swimmin’ hole when I threw in the stick of dynamite, but hey, look at all the fish we caught.”
“I’m guessing that you’re the ones that torched the barn,” I said with a chuckle.
“Sorry, I had no idea anybody was in there. When we popped the fast one, that whole little herd hot footed it to the barn, and I figured maybe we could toast them all. And before you say anything, it would’ve been a lot cleaner death for any of the kids that were still alive.”
The tone of his words convinced me that he was still struggling with that decision, so I laid it on the line for him. “None of the children were still alive in the barn when the truck crashed through. You did the right thing.”
He took a deep breath, and then nodded at me.
“How’d you end up making it here?” I asked.
“When the barn caught fire it lit up the whole area, so we just dug in and waited for it to burn out. That took almost three hours. Since then we’ve been hunkered down and waiting for an opportunity, but little pockets of those sickos kept getting nearer and nearer to where we were hiding, so about an hour ago we decided to risk it. We made it to the side door, but it was locked so we snuck around and lucked out with the front door. Unfortunately, at least a few of those things saw us come in.”
A bang from down the hallway startled both of us, and he looked that way and said, “I found a dog leash in the waiting room, and I’ve got it tied across the latches of the double doors out front, but one of the glass partitions on the doors is already cracked pretty bad. It won’t hold for long.”
“How many are out front?”
“Probably seven or eight by now. Do you know if there’s a back door to this place?
“Yeah, that’s the way I came in, but it’s probably swarming with them as well.”
He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe not. When the barn torched, I had a pretty good view of most of the area. I couldn’t see the back wall of this building, but I could see a lot of the area behind it. There were only two or three of those things back there. Of course, a lot of time has passed since then. But I guess it doesn’t really matter, because there’s no way we’re going to make it past the horde at the airport.”
That was the second or third time he’d mentioned the ones at the airport, and I was curious about his choice of the word “horde.” My phone dimmed again, and I let it stay there as I asked. “How many are at the airport?” I’m not sure what I was expecting. Maybe fifty or sixty . . . maybe even hundred . . .
“Rough guess . . . probably about two thousand.”
My eyes bulged at his answer, and he closed with, “I hope you’ve got a lot of ammo.
”
I closed my eyes for a few seconds, forcing the survival instinct to kick in one more time as I digested all of his information. When I opened my eyes again, he was staring straight at me with a grim look on his face “You feel like making a stand with us?” he asked.
“Hell no, I feel like getting out of here, and with all three of us and a lot of luck, we might just make it.” My whisper seemed almost like a shout in the shadowy hallway, and his eyes narrowed at my words.
“Just tell us what we can do.” The sound of breaking glass punctuated his answer, and he capped it off with, “But you better make it fast.”
I holstered my gun briefly and stuck out my hand. “Eric Coleman.”
He shifted his gun to the phone hand and shook. “Shawn Allen, and that’s my boy Mack.” I spun and clasped hands with the young man, then drew my CZ and darted across the hall into the lunchroom. Both of my bags full of medicine were where I had left them. “If we make it out of here, your boy will have all the antibiotics he’ll need.” I patted the duffel.
“That’s great,” Shawn said, “but just how do you plan on not getting eaten?”
“We’re going to call the cavalry.”
Chapter 72
“OK, are you ready?” I looked at Shawn and Mack as I shouldered against the door to the outside.
They both nodded.
“Remember,” I said, “the fence is only about a hundred feet away, and once we’re inside, it’s about 300 yards to the lake . . . and the boat. I’ve got to grab my rifle. It should be just outside on the ground.”
“And I’m grabbing your backpack,” Mack said.
“And I’m shooting anything that tries to kill us.” Shawn hefted the .308 rifle now in his hands.
I was carrying both the large duffel and the stuff bag. “And once I get the 22, you’re taking both bags and I’m taking over as guide and guard. Everybody understand?”
Everybody did, and I began to push the door open as the sound of shattering glass and squeaking metal came down the hallway. Groans and snarls accompanied them.
“They’re inside . . . we’ve got to move now! Go-go-go . . !” Shawn hissed.
I took a deep breath and pushed at the door. It resisted my effort for a moment, so I pressed harder and felt something sliding across the ground near the door’s kick plate as it opened into the darkness. The cool slap of night air chilled my face as I stepped through onto the small gravel landing. Mack was right behind me with his hand on the duffel, and Shawn came through last, linked to his son by a hand on his shoulder. As soon as our modified human chain had our boots on the ground, Mack flipped open the cell I’d given him and cast the blue glow towards the yard. About eight feet away near the edge of the gravel were two piles of bodies. I guided our chain to the one on the right and knelt down next to the corpse of the man in the flight suit. Mack followed my lead and went for the backpack while I dropped my load and searched in the dim light for the silenced .22.
My exclamation of “Got it” occurred almost simultaneously with Shawn’s warning curse.
“Shit . . . Look out!” The heavy rifle tore apart the stillness of the night as he fired off three quick rounds almost right next to us.
I grabbed the .22 and turned on the night scope as I pushed to my feet. The landscape came alive in vibrant green, and my immediate impression of our chances of survival was bleak. At least twenty of the infected were close by and converging on the light from the cell phone. I fired a round at the closest one and he collapsed, but my second shot into an approaching fat lady ended with nothing more than a dry click. I didn’t know what else to do in the spur of the moment, so I held the night scoped rifle against my eye with one arm and reached for the barrel of the .308 with the other, yelling as I attempted this last ditch maneuver. “Shawn . . . let me aim for you!” My hand snagged the barrel on the first try, and after his reflex action of trying to jerk it away, my words must have sunk in. I pulled the barrel through the darkness and pointed it at the lady who I was sure had never jogged before tonight. “Mack—stay down! Shawn—five rounds now!” The big rifle jumped in my grasp and I steered it toward the obese jogger barely ten feet away and closing. With every muzzle flash that blasted into the darkness, I felt the weapon’s aim being fine tuned by its wielder. Rounds three, four, and five connected solidly in her chest, and she stumbled and rolled. Her legs were still churning feebly against the dirt, but they were insufficient to move her bulk. I dropped the hot barrel of Shawn’s battle rifle and swept my hand along the bottom of the .22. The extended magazine was missing—probably lost somewhere in the gravel when I pulled out of my backpack—so I grabbed another one off my vest and ran it home. One of the modifications I had made to the Ruger was an extra large charging handle that allowed easier access for my big fingers than the standard factory model. I flipped it back and let it drop to chamber a cartridge, and then put three rounds on target at a ghoul that was fast stepping our way. Behind him was a line of at least thirty more, and skittering at the rear of the pack were several fast moving figures. Just to make things worse, the door to the vet office was beginning to spill out ghouls in a solid line.
“SHAWN, GRAB THE BAGS NOW!” I yelled at full volume, no longer concerned if it gave us away . . . they knew where we were. I heard the grunting and exertion as Mack’s father slung his rifle and heaved the bags into his hands. It was time for the last gambit. “Mack, throw the phone now and link us up.” With a cast iron bucket full of more discipline under fire than anybody his age should ever have to possess, Mack threw the glowing blue cell phone towards the veterinarian’s office and then grabbed on to my vest with one hand and the duffel with his other.
“I’m hooked to both of you . . . let’s go,” he whispered loudly.
I began to trot for the fence backwards—pulling-guiding them along through the darkness. In the bouncing image of the night vision, it looked like the main line of infected were veering towards the bait. I turned around to get my bearings on the fence, but came up short when my back slammed into one of the posts and warbled the strands of wire. They jangled with a metallic, teeth clenching clatter. I muttered some not so kind words under my breath, trying to clear the stun and get my bearings as Shawn lifted his son across the thick mesh fence. It took another eternity of almost fifteen seconds before I managed to shake off the effects from the stupidity of my distance misjudgment. By then Shawn was across as well, but the wires on top were now pinging like a cheap aluminum wind chime caught in a gale. I shoved the scope to my eye and saw a throng of infected keying in on the noise as they moved this way. Leading the pack was a hulking brute wearing nothing but his birthday suit and tennis shoes. I half wondered what he was doing when he’d become infected. They were less than fifty feet away and I was moving the crosshairs toward the giant, naked jogger when I felt Shawn’s hand on my shoulder.
“Eric . . . move your ass . . . I can see them!”
I dropped the scope and squinted, confused for a split second at the meaning of his words. It all became clear in a heartbeat as I realized what Shawn meant. The first beginnings of dawn were approaching, and the pitch blackness that for once had been our friend was starting to creep away. I threw the rifle over my shoulder as I stood and vaulted the fence. The wires sang with musical abandon at my crossing, and the pack launched forward.
“Give me a bag!” I reached towards Shawn as I yelled, and he thrust the nylon stuff bag into my grip.
The fence wire was shaking with the impact of countless clawing hands, and I grabbed onto the barely visible shadow of Mack. “Shawn, hold on to Mack and follow me . . . RUN!” We took off at a trot; both Shawn and I carrying the weight of a bag full of medicine each with our outside hand, and supporting the limping figure of his son between us. The pounding stomps and wild snarls of our pursuers sounded behind us, and I risked a quick look over my shoulder. The big man wearing nothing but tennis shoes had crossed the fence along with five or six others, and they were charging our way rapi
dly. I knew we’d never make it to the boat in time, so I shifted to the left towards the solid mass of shadows. “GIVE IT EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT . . . MOVE IT!” The ground churned under our feet, and Shawn and I practically lifted Mack as we ran forward, increasing our speed but still losing the gap with the maniacal pack of ghouls chasing us. In front, the low mountain of darkness began to shift and stomp with our approach. My breath was coming in ragged gasps, and I drove my feet into the ground straight towards the herd of bison as Shawn cut loose with the standard southern boy war cry.
“ShhhhiiiiiiiiiTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!”
Loud, heavy blasts of air were being huffed by the bison as they stamped the ground in agitation, and at the last second I shot forward and pulled Mack and Shawn to the left, crossing in front of the herd of buffalo.
Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending Page 60