By the time Michael had made it over close to where the Mendoza mini-van now sat smoking, its front end crumpled where it had smashed into the tree, it was too late. And Michael quickly realized that it wasn’t people blocking the road, but biters – lots of them.
The scene was chaotic. Biters had immediately swarmed the Mendoza vehicle. There were at least a dozen already clustered around the van. Several dozen more were approaching in the street, drawn by the sound of the accident and the squealing tires of the Hines vehicle as it avoided the Troves. A few biters were on top of the mini-van. Several had even managed to get inside when the Mendoza children had made the mistake of opening their doors, seeking to escape the smoking vehicle.
As he approached, Michael aimed his .45 at the biters closest to him, two that were clambering up onto the van’s hood, and fired. He hit one in the back, and another in the shoulder. The one he’d hit in the back fell to the ground where it lay motionless. The one he’d shot in the shoulder immediately slid from the hood and ran screeching down the street.
Seeing the situation unfolding around him, and the number of biters on the scene, Michael quickly realized that it was a lost cause to try to kill them all. There were far too many. But he couldn’t just leave the Mendoza family to die. He could hear screams inside the van, screams that urged Michael to further action.
By this point, Josh and Manny had joined him, and together, they managed to clear several more of the biters from around the Mendoza mini-van as well as about six of those who were approaching. But for as quickly as they managed to shoot or wound one biter, it seemed like two more replaced it. The only bright side of the situation was that the smoldering mini-van seemed to have captivated the attention of the biters, distracting them enough that the men could get off clean shots. Otherwise, the groups of biters now converging on the van could easily have overwhelmed the three men armed only with handguns, one of which was a revolver that had to be reloaded without the aid of pre-loaded magazines.
“This is no good, guys!” Michael cried. “We’ve got to get the rest of the group safe!” he called to Josh and Manny as he ejected the magazine from his .45 and replaced it with a fully loaded one.
Patrick, having been delayed in getting to the fight while grabbing his father’s shotgun from the back of the Suburban, joined the group. He leveled it at an approaching biter and laid waste to the fang-bearing creature that was only feet from where the other men stood firing.
The screams from inside the Mendoza vehicle continued. The cries of the children, Jeremy and Natasha, were the most heart wrenching.
Suddenly a smaller figure broke from inside the vehicle, darting out into the street. The men recognized it as little Jeremy.
“Give us covering fire!” Michael yelled as he and Josh moved to help the boy.
But their efforts were in vain. At least four biters got a hold of the child and dragged him to the ground. They were on top of him almost instantly, tearing into the boy’s tender flesh with their jagged fangs. And with 30 yards and almost as many biters between the men and Jeremy, they knew their assistance would be too little, too late.
“We have to fall back!” Manny cried. “There are too many of them!”
The herd of biters was beginning to turn its attention toward the men. Michael knew it wouldn’t be long before they began attacking the rest of the convoy.
“Where is the Hines family?” Josh yelled as he reloaded his own weapon.
“Don’t know!” Michael called back, firing at a new group of approaching biters, taking down three of them and wounding another. “Lost them on the other side of the road! We’ve got to get the rest of the group to cover!”
“Where?” Patrick yelled over the sound of their gunfire. “Do we lock ourselves in our vehicles?” he blasted another set of biters who had gotten too close with his dad’s shotgun.
“Vehicles are no good!” his father called back. “We need somewhere better…somewhere where they won’t be able to smash through the glass!” he paused in his firing to look around them.
Biters were everywhere. They were on 39th Street. They were on Joliet Avenue. They were filtering through the parking lot in which the Blenders stood. They were beginning to move onto the bridge.
Michael realized they didn’t have long. The longer he waited to make a decision, the greater the chances their group would be completely overwhelmed by the growing mass of biters. There was a sports complex across the street, but the street was mobbed with biters. The condo buildings behind them looked promising. But biters were sprinkled throughout the parking lot between where the Blenders had stopped and the first condo building. And more of the rabid beasts seemed to be filtering out from between the parked cars like water seeping through cracks in a dam.
Michael had to think and think fast. Another minute or so, especially if the biters began to lose interest in the smoldering Mendoza mini-van, and the rest of the Blender convoy would be done for. There’d be no place to hide and no escape.
* * *
Monte was a salesman, a salesman who tended to see the greater good in people. And he believed that American society was not so dark and divided as the media portrayed it. Given half a chance, many of the people committing crimes in America could be something productive, do something productive. Therefore, when the other Blender men went off to buy guns and ammo, and shoot their guns at the range, he typically stayed behind. It wasn’t that he had anything against firearms, but shooting just wasn’t a hobby for which he had an inclination. Plus, he was too busy traveling and wasn’t around for most such outings anyway.
But now, as he found their family van mired in some wintry slush where it’d come to rest in the gravel river access beside 39th Street, biters fast approaching, he wished he was more heavily armed.
“Grab the handgun out of the glove compartment!” he told Victoria sternly as he threw the van’s transmission back and forth from “Drive” to “Reverse” in an attempt to rock the vehicle free. “This isn’t working!”
“Where’s the rest of the group?!” Victoria cried, rummaging inside the glove compartment and coming out with a .38 revolver and a small box of ammunition.
“I don’t know,” Monte shook his head as he gave up rocking the van and put it in park. He looked into the rearview mirror, but all he saw was what appeared to be several biters headed toward their van.
“Daddeee…I’m scared!” Rebecca whined from the backseat.
“Me too!” her sister, Patricia chimed in through her tearful sobs.
“Just hang tight,” their father instructed. “Everyone get their seatbelts off. I think we’re going to have to make a run for it!”
“A run for what?” Victoria cried.
Monte shook his head, taking the .38 from his wife and quickly ensuring that it was loaded.
“For somewhere other than here. We’re sitting ducks, and it looks like we have biters headed our way.”
At Monte’s mention of the biters, the Hines children, who had previously been occupied with unbuckling their seatbelts, swiveled in their seats to look out the rear window.
At the sight of the approaching biters, they all began an ear-splitting cacophony of high-pitched squeals and screams.
“EVERYONE STAY CALM!” Monte shouted over the din of the kids’ cries. “Be ready to go when I come back!” he told Victoria.
“Come back?” she cried. “Where in God’s name are you going?”
“Just stay put and get the kids ready to move. I’m going to see if we can link up with the others,” he opened his door, climbed out, and locked the van doors behind him.
Victoria scrambled around in her seat to assist their youngest, Rebecca, unbuckle the seatbelt holding her in her booster seat. “Anthony,” she instructed their eleven-year-old son and oldest of their four children, “grab that backpack on the floor at your feet and put it on.”
“Okay, Mom,” he nodded bravely as he scooted forward and bent to retrieve the pack.
; “Kids, be ready to move when your father returns!” Victoria did her best to instruct the fearful children. But her efforts were negated by a heavy thump against the side of the van.
The children in the backseat all screamed and lurched away from a set of gnarly biter fangs pressed up against the van’s rear passenger-door window.
Suddenly, gunfire erupted outside the vehicle, although Victoria couldn’t tell where exactly it was coming from. Victoria found herself praying for Monte’s quick return. She was concerned about his having ventured out amidst what appeared to be a sizeable number of biters. Not only this, but he’d taken their only firearm, and should he not make it back to the van, she and the kids would be left largely defenseless inside the vehicle. She hoped that the gunfire she heard was the other Blenders clearing out the biters so that they could come and help them.
Meanwhile, in the backseat, the kids were all still screaming and had pressed themselves up against one side of the van, as far from the leering biter as they could get. Victoria squeezed her way into the backseat in an attempt to comfort them. But her effort seemed to do little other than agitate the biter outside who began pounding on the van’s window glass with its fists.
Victoria’s children clung to her, nuzzling their heads in against her to hide from the horrors outside. As the biter continued to pound against the window, the glass reverberated with dull thuds. Only brave little Anthony moved up in front of his mother and sister, fighting through the fear and taking over as the man of the family.
“Go away!” he yelled, clapping his hands fiercely at the biter. “Go! Go away!” he slapped back on the glass at the biter outside the window. It was all he could think to do.
Suddenly, the biter reared back, its fists high in the air as if ready the strike at the vehicle window again. Anthony moved away, fearing that this time the biter’s blows might be successful in breaking through. But the sound of a nearby gunshot jolted the biter violently. It slumped forward, bloody teeth clattering against the window before it slid to the ground. Replacing the biter’s hideous image was Monte, gun in hand. He rushed up to the van and pulled on the sliding side-door’s handle. Victoria pushed her kids aside and quickly moved to unlock the door, unsure of whether her husband was being pursued by more biters.
Monte yanked the door open. “Come on, we have to go! Biters are all over the place, and the others are across the street!”
“But Daddy, we’re scared!” cried Rebecca. “It’ll be okay, sweetie,” he put his gun in his coat pocket and reached for her.
She flung herself into her father’s arms and he lifted her out of the car.
“Come on, we have to move, otherwise we’ll be cut off from the others,” he coaxed them as he hefted Rebecca up closer to him. She wrapped her arms and legs around him tightly. “Let’s go, big guy,” Monte smiled at Anthony. “You have to be brave for your dad now.”
Anthony stepped from the van followed by his mother. Victoria held Sarah and Patricia each by a hand.
“Okay, now we have to…”
“Dad!” Anthony cried, pointing behind where his father stood.
Monte whirled to see a biter moving toward them. Its pace was quickening as it approached.
“Shit!” Monte hissed, fumbling for his gun. But his .38 was shoved in his coat pocket, its handle caught awkwardly within the pocket fabric. Holding Rebecca was making it even harder for him to extract his weapon. He tried to let his daughter slip from his arms so he could move easier, but she was clinging to him a like a baby monkey, refusing the release her father from her grasp.
“Monte? Monte!” Victoria urged as the biter approached. She could hear it snarling and the click-clacking sound of its teeth as they chattered in anticipation of finding their way into the temptingly fleshy treats before it.
“I know! I know!” Monte said, finally freeing his .38. But just as he began to raise it to fire, the biter hit him hard in the side. The blow knocked him off balance and caused him to fall awkwardly. Holding Rebecca with one hand and his gun with the other, he had no way to brace himself. Monte landed on his back so that Rebecca landed against his chest rather than the ground. His head knocked back hard against the gravel-laden access road, and he heard Victoria scream as the biter toppled over them.
A million things shot through Monte’s mind. Had he been bitten? Had Rebecca been bitten? Was Victoria okay with the other kids? Were more biters on the way? Could he shoot the biter that was now pinning him to the ground? Was this how he would die? Was this how his family would die?
Chapter 6
Wendell watched with interest the melee unfolding in their condo complex’s parking lot. He snorted and shook his head disapprovingly as he commented to himself on the action. “Idiots,” he muttered as he watched several men get out of their parked vehicles and begin shooting at the growing group of biters massing in the streets below. “Gunfire’s only going to draw more of them. Good,” he nodded to himself. Maybe it would draw the biters in their building out onto the streets. “Go have a midnight snack,” he smirked, hoping their hallway would be biter-free by morning. Maybe it would be if the biters became fixated on this group of people who had foolishly fumbled their way into the fray below.
Wendell watched as the group shot several biters in the street. It appeared as though the people were trying to make it to a mini-van that sat smashed and smoking against a tree where biters were infiltrating it, pulling the occupants from inside and chowing down on them.
Across the street, he could see a second van, larger than the smashed mini-van, where it looked like another small group was also being attacked by biters. From Wendell’s vantage point, it appeared as if a biter was atop someone who was lying on the ground by the van at the river access. But in the darkness, he couldn’t tell much more than that.
Wendell wondered just how this small convoy of vehicles had gotten themselves into such a predicament, and more to the point, how they were going to extricate themselves from it.
He glanced from the mess unfolding on the streets below and over to Hofmann Tower that bordered the river on the other side of their condo complex parking lot. It stood looming in the darkness, its base lit by large spotlights strategically situated in the park. The aging tower was the river’s silent sentry of stone and steel, quiet, dark, massive.
Charla came outside. “Whatcha doin'?” she asked, moving up beside where Wendell stood at the balcony’s edge, arms propping him against its rail.
“Watching these idiots get themselves eaten,” Wendell scoffed, nodding down to the scramble of activity taking place in the parking lot and streets around the bridge.
“Oh my God…that’s horrible,” Charla put a hand to her heart as she took notice of what was going on below. “I heard the gunfire, but sadly, the sound of guns is starting to become second nature lately.” She watched for a moment as Michael and the other Blender men tried unsuccessfully to reach the Mendoza mini-van and then were forced back as the growing number of biters on the scene began to surround them. “Those poor people,” Charla shook her head. “We have to help them.”
“Help them?” Wendell snorted. “How are we supposed to do that? We can’t even help ourselves.”
Chris made his way from inside the condo and out onto the balcony to join his temporary new roommates. “What’s going on out here?” he asked. “Who’s doing the shooting now?”
“Group of idiots,” Wendell pointed to the parking lot. “Got themselves into a real bind down there. It’s like watching reality television…unscripted, unedited.”
“Jesus,” Chris made a face as he saw the scene below. He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled “Hey!” Then he waved his arms up over his head.
“Shut up!” Wendell hissed. “The biters will hear you!”
“That’s the point,” Chris said. “Come on and help me,” he nudged Wendell’s arm with a hand.
Wendell looked down reproachfully at where Chris had made physical contact with him.
“Hey!” Chris called again. “Up here!”
“Hey!” Charla waved her arms up over her head, joining Chris in his calls of distraction. “Hey biters! Up here!”
Wendell just stared at his wife and this unwelcome guest, mouth open, in awe of their audacity and the danger in which they might be putting themselves all for the sake of these foolish strangers.
Chris started jumping up and down on the balcony and then grabbed a set of metal tongs from Wendell’s grill. He began banging it against the grill top, the metal balcony railing, and anything else that would make noise as a distraction to the biters below.
Wendell turned and went inside, making sure to close the balcony door securely behind him so that the biters still in the hallway wouldn’t hear.
Moments later, Chris came barreling inside, almost knocking Wendell over as he rushed to where he’d left the aerosol spray canisters on the kitchen counter.
Five seconds later, he was back outside with Charla doing who knew what to distract the biters.
Wendell went to check the barricades in place before their own front door, gritting his teeth at the fear and angry frustration he was feeling at the situation unfolding around him.
Wendell didn’t like not having control, and the spreading Carchar Syndrome was anything but within his control. And so was Chris – at least for the moment.
* * *
Everywhere Michael looked there were biters, everywhere but directly behind them. The river blocked a complete retreat to the rear. But between the parking lot where they stood, and the river, was a small park area with a massive, eight-story structure. Michael, having grown up in the area, was familiar with the spot as a local landmark – Hofmann Tower.
The Last Bastion Box Set [Books 1-5] Page 24