by A. J. Sikes
The Ma deuce open up at the back of the convoy, chopping at the air in a steady rhythm.
Jed kept his eyes on his zone, leading the monsters as they raced along the girders, and timing his shots as best he could. The bullets sparked and splattered on the metal. Jed thought he might as well be tossing pennies or pieces of candy, like he was on some kind of fucked up parade float. Then one of the monsters leaped down toward the side of the truck where the other guy had been pulled out. Jed tracked its arc and lit it up with three to the face.
Upper East Side, Manhattan
Eric had the hose at full throttle, directing the stream at the side of the plywood Rex and Rachel had nailed up. The monsters were scrabbling to get around the wood that they’d shoved out from the wall. The boards were split down the middle and it was only because Rachel and Jason pushed against them that the monsters hadn’t completely broken into the floor.
The survivors had all crowded together at the very back of the floor, in the corner where the punk girl had been sitting. She was wrapped up in a turnout jacket now, and had a mask on. Only her blue hair gave her away.
Abeer, Dayone, and their children, were crowded together around Mrs. Cannady, who stood tall and with her feet firmly planted, like she’d see hell before she let anything happen to the others.
The cots made an obstacle course for anyone wanting to get to them.
Or for them to get out of there.
Meg grabbed a pair of gloves and her axe from where she’d set them down by the staircase and ran to help Rachel and Jason.
Eric kept his aim on the space the monsters had broken through, and it was working for now. They couldn’t get past the stream of water.
Unless they make a bigger hole.
The boards shuddered and Jason nearly lost his footing on the wet floor. Rachel was crouched down beneath him and only just held the boards down as clawed arms occasionally reached through the space, swiping at the air and trying to grab either Jason or Rachel. So far, they’d kept themselves clear by kicking at the arms the instant they came through.
“Axe!” Jason yelled. Meg ran behind Eric and came up to the wall opposite Jason and Rachel’s position. The heavy stream of water roared between them, and Eric stepped a little closer to put more force into keeping the things back.
Meg swung down with her axe at the reaching arms and connected with two. Shrieks sounded from behind the boards and the arms retreated immediately. But they were just replaced by more a second later. Meg swung again and missed, slamming the axe into the concrete floor. The blow sent a ringing pain through her hands and she had to fight to keep hold of the axe handle.
The boards shook and creaked again with another blow from the other side. Jason screamed for Rex to bring a hammer and nails.
More arms came reaching through and Meg swung at them, hitting one and taking it off. The thing on the other side roared, and Meg paused with her axe at the ready. She felt guilty for what she’d done, like she’d just maimed a helpless animal.
A second later and she regretted her hesitation as one of the creatures rocketed through the gap in the boards and skittered through the pooling water on the floor. It slid across the floor and to the opposite wall where it quickly scrambled up and twisted its head around to look at Meg. Its ugly yellow eye slits opened and closed and it gave a horrific hiss.
Meg had her axe ready to swing down in case another one came through, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the one on the wall. It stared at her with its bloody yellow eyes and popped its sucker mouth, making a disgusting web of saliva in front of its needle teeth.
The survivors screamed at the back of the floor. Jason yelled for Rex to bring the hammer again. Rachel yelled for him then, while Eric kept spraying into the gap in the boards. The thing on the wall moved its gaze from Meg to Eric.
Oh shit!
She moved a second too late. The thing leaped, and not for Eric. It landed on the floor a few feet behind him, and next to the hose. Before Meg could reach it, the monster slashed a clawed hand at the hose and ruptured it.
Water sprayed out as the severed hose went haywire, spinning and flipping like a sea serpent. And the monsters came like a wave through the gap in the boards. Rachel was thrown backwards as the boards bucked and were shoved aside. Two of the monsters crawled in and immediately up the wall beside the boards. Jason reeled away and grabbed an axe off the wall.
Eric backpedalled, dropping the broken hose.
The people at the back of the floor added their screams to the din around Meg. She raised her axe as she approached the one that slashed the hose, but it leaped around her. She tried to pivot and her feet went out from under her on the wet floor.
Meg landed hard on her hip and cried out. She rolled to the side and used her axe handle for support to stand up. When she got to her feet, she nearly fell backwards again. The monster leaped for Eric. He had his arms up, but without a weapon he was a sitting duck. Meg rushed forward and used the axe to shove the monster back toward the boards.
But it was too damn fast.
It sprang forward and tackled Eric, pinning him to the floor.
Behind her, Meg heard Jason and Rachel yelling, and the unmistakable sound of an axe splitting a skull. She raced toward the thing that had Eric. It had one clawed hand holding Eric’s head to the floor and with the other it swiped and raked at his coat until it made a hole and reached in.
Eric howled in pain right as Meg reached them and swung her axe into its neck. She shoved it aside and leaned down to help Eric, but he stayed curled up in the fetal position, holding a hand against his ribs. Blood stained his coat and spilled onto the floor, mixing with the water.
“Rex!” Meg yelled. “Trauma bag!”
She turned to see if he’d heard her and felt her throat clench up tight.
One of the things that got in leaped from the wall and tackled Rachel from behind. She’d been helping Jason kill the other one. Jason rushed forward and grappled it. He put his hands around its neck and squeezed. It scraped a clawed hand at his trouser leg and ripped through the material, but Meg didn’t see any blood. And Jason didn’t let go. He gave a jerk and lifted the thing off Rachel, then swung it around in a headlock and twisted his upper body.
Meg heard a loud crackling sound and looked at the boards, expecting to see more of them coming in. But it was just the sound of Jason snapping the monster’s neck. He threw the body away from him. It landed in a heap near the stairs.
A haunted silence spread across the bay. Water trickled and dripped from the walls and across the floor. Eric rolled and groaned beside Meg.
“Rex! Goddammit, bring the trauma bag!”
He was by the hose valve with his hand still on the lever. He must have shut off the water after the monsters got in.
At least he’s good for something.
“I’ll get it,” Jason said.
“Behind the staircase. The cupboard there,” Meg told him, pointing.
Jason helped Rachel to her feet and went to retrieve the bandages and other backup gear from the cupboard. He and Rachel had both taken some scrapes. Their turnout suits had rips and tears in places. But Meg didn’t see any blood.
While Jason dug through the cupboard for the trauma gear, Rachel grabbed a hammer and some nails off the cart and set to repairing the barricade.
“Eric,” Meg said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You’re going to be all right.”
He nodded, and she could see he was holding his face tight against the pain. Whatever the thing had done to him, it had to be serious. His face was pale.
Oh shit, is he turning into one of them?
Meg gripped her axe tighter and held it ready. She couldn’t believe it, though, that her best friend was going to turn into . . .
“Eric?”
“Yeah, Meg. I’m—I’m fine. Losing blood, but—”
He coughed and Meg began to cry. She put her axe down next to him and slowly rolled him to his back. Jason came up beside t
hem with bandages. Meg undid Eric’s jacket and carefully peeled it from the wound. Blood flowed steadily from his side. His shirt was one big wet mess, stuck to his skin. Meg ripped her gloves off and snatched up a pair of neoprene ones that Jason had brought. He already had a clean pair on and slapped a compress against Eric’s side.
Eric’s face went tighter still and he grunted against the pain. Then his legs shook and he whipped his head side to side. Jason kept pressure on Eric’s wounds while Meg held her hands on his shoulders.
A thud broke Meg’s concentration. She looked to the barricade just as Rachel was thrown backwards and the boards came down on top of her.
Long Island City, Queens
Jed watched the monster fall away from the truck as they sped down the roadway. A few of them were still scrambling around up above, sometimes racing ahead and hanging upside down, like they were taunting Jed and the other guys, daring them to take a shot. Jed did once or twice, and the SAW gunner kept going cyclic every chance he got. Finally Sergeant Kuhn called for a cease fire.
“Wait until they’re on the ground or making a jump for us. I think they’re testing us, trying to get us to waste ammo.”
“You think they’re that smart?” Sergeant Townsend hollered up from his position. “I say that’s bullshit.” Jed turned to see the man scanning the gridwork of steel above them, popping off a round here and there. He hit one, but didn’t kill it. The thing just skittered up and around the girders so it was out of view.
“I think—” Sergeant Kuhn started to say, but the SAW gunner opened up and the man’s words were lost behind the chatter of gunfire. Another pack of the monsters crawled from beneath the roadway and began pouring over the sides in jumbled piles of pasty white skin and ugly yellow eyes. Jed popped one with a burst to its chest. The SAW gunner lit up the pack on the right side, and Jed heard the guys over there taking shots just like him. Short bursts, quick and clean.
Jed let out a quick sigh of relief when Sergeant Kuhn yelled something and the SAW gunner got his shit under control. Now he just sent bursts at the monsters coming over the sides of the roadway. Jed went between firing at those and trying to pick off the ones that still dropped from above. They’d got most of the ones up there, but a few kept trying to come down on them. Between him and Rainey, though, they’d nearly cleared the monsters off the girders.
“Gonna get ‘em, Welch. Gonna get ‘em. Yeah!”
Those were the last words Jed heard from the corporal. A monster landed in the truck behind them and everyone seemed to spin at the same time to try and take it out. Two of the guys on the other side of the truck opened up on it, sending a spray of blood into Rainey’s face and mouth. He wiped at it and spit. Then he screamed and dropped his weapon and started digging his fingers into his mouth, trying to scrape the blood out.
Sergeant Townsend put a hand on Rainey’s shoulder, like he’d hold him together, but Jed threw a butt stroke at Rainey’s face, knocking the man backwards and almost out of the truck. He went down on the truck bed and was still spitting and trying to claw his own tongue out.
“The fuck is wrong with you, Welch?” Sergeant Townsend yelled. Jed heard the guys on the other side of the truck still firing and taking out monsters up top. The SAW gunner was rattling off bursts at the front of the truck. Jed heard Sergeant Kuhn up there shout Townsend’s name.
“Your man okay?”
Jed looked down. Rainey had gone still; his eyes were closed and his fingers still jammed into his mouth. Spit and blood covered his lips.
“Welch,” Sergeant Townsend said, stabbing a finger into Jed’s shoulder.
He looked ready to kill, and he probably would have put Jed down if Rainey hadn’t grabbed his lower leg and bit into it. Rainey’s face was twisted into a snarl and his teeth dug into the NCO’s uniform until they drew blood. Sergeant Townsend screamed and smashed the butt of his rifle at Rainey’s face, but he only struck the side of the corporal’s helmet.
Another monster dropped from above and landed in the truck, raking its claws down Sergeant Townsend’s back as it came down.
Jed watched as the NCO was ripped apart by the thing behind him while Rainey kept grabbing at his legs and trying to bite into them. Sergeant Townsend dropped his weapon and arched his back, flailing as the monster tore into his flesh with its clawed hands.
Shrieks and howls echoed under the El tracks, and the truck still raced forward. Jed brought the butt of his rifle around in an arc and put Sergeant Townsend down and out of the truck. The monster behind him went out, its claws still embedded in his back. They toppled to the pavement and were instantly run over by the bus.
Rainey was lying in the truck bed with a crazed look in his eyes and blood dripping from his mouth. He puckered his lips like he wanted to suck on something.
One of the guys on the other side of the truck shouted at Jed. “Kill it!”
“Go on then,” Jed said, lowing the muzzle of his weapon to point at Rainey’s face. In the second before Jed fired, whatever was left of the man who used to be Rainey seemed to understand what was happening. He lifted a hand to hold the muzzle of the weapon steady while Jed squeezed the trigger.
Jed shoved Rainey’s body off the truck and kicked Sergeant Townsend’s weapon out. Blood coated the truck bed and flowed steadily from the wounds in the dead thing that had nearly taken Jed and Rainey out together. Sergeant Boon was just a sack of daed meat underneath it.
The other two guys in the truck were watching the tracks above them. Jed shook himself and did the same. It looked like they’d made it through the worst of it. Nothing else crawled around up there. The SAW gunner had cleared their path from the ones coming over the sides of the road. Sergeant Kuhn nodded at Jed before he told the other two to keep their eyes open. They both acknowledged the order, and Jed had his mouth open to say something. But Kuhn had his back to him already.
☣
The convoy rolled through the city, still moving fast as they could. The driver had to slow down to navigate around a mess of tangled up cars at the first intersection after the railyards. Finally they were into the next neighborhood and following the boulevard out to Queensbridge. They still had to get through a maze of girders and bridges and shit, but Jed knew they’d make it. The things weren’t crawling up top anymore. They got through. And that boy on the SAW, he knew how to do it.
At the ramp up to Queensbridge, the bus behind them roared forward and nearly crashed into their truck.
“The fuck?”
Jed waved the driver back. The man flipped him the finger and kept trying to get around the truck.
Abandoned cars up ahead gave them only one lane to use.
“Sergeant,” one of the other guys said. Kuhn looked over his shoulder. He slapped a palm on the truck cab and leaned down to shout in the passenger window. They sped up and got through the single lane path. The SAW gunner kept his eyes on the road and Jed tried to do the same on his side of the truck.
But the damn bus kept revving up and coming closer like it was going to ram them.
Sergeant Kuhn leaned down to holler at the LT again. The bus driver picked up a walkie talkie. Whatever he said, it didn’t have much effect. Jed’s truck stayed at the same speed and would swerve to block the bus when the driver tried to get around them.
“What’s that about, Sergeant?” Jed finally asked.
“It’s about an asshole who doesn’t know when to shut up and do his fucking job. He a friend of yours?”
Mother—
Whatever Jed did to get these guys pissed at him, he was through with it. Fuck ‘em. He’d keep an eye out and do his job, sure. And once this truck stopped, he’d move out with a purpose.
Just like before. It’s the Jed show now, twenty-four seven and three sixty-five.
The truck passed a bunch of industrial places coming up to the river. That’s what Jed got to look at anyway. He turned his head to see what was coming up for the guys on the other side of the truck. Nice high rise apartments
and some parks and shit. And probably all of it crawling with them things.
A second later, they were on the bridge, on the bottom deck, and it got dark as night around them.
“We got any lights, Sergeant?” one of the other guys asked. Jed was glad he didn’t have to open his mouth.
“Just the ones on the front. Eyes out and mouths shut unless you see something.”
They crossed over a park right at the river’s edge and Jed was looking at some kind of power plant. Two smoke stacks sat quiet and cold next to a yard full of pylons with power lines. Then he spotted the barge in the river hugged up against the edge of the yard like it had run into the shore. Bodies littered the area down there, hanging off the edge of the barge and lying around the yard. Spatters of blood and other shit were everywhere.
He should say something. That’s what they’d want him to do, right? Report signs of enemy movement. He had his mouth open, but the bus driver was at it again, and Jed couldn’t resist the urge to put the guy in his place. First he threw him the finger with a smile and then he aimed his rifle in the dude’s direction.
That got the guy’s attention, but not the way Jed wanted to. The bus roared up and came alongside them before their driver could push over and block the lane.
People inside the bus were screaming like crazy and banging on the windows. Every face was wet with tears, but Jed didn’t see any blood.
Sergeant Kuhn shouted something at him, and Jed turned to see the SAW gunner aiming at the bus.
“Get back, Welch. If they’re infected, we have to take ‘em out.”
As the bus passed them, Jed knew the people inside were going to die. Nobody looked infected, at least not that he could tell. They all still looked human anyway. But at the back of the bus, the emergency exit was open, and a spray of blood coated the inside of the door.