The Tide (Tide Series Book 1)

by Melchiorri, Anthony J

  “Stay here,” Joe said to his family.

  He and Kara ran back to the dining room. He kicked over the china cabinet and pulled back the table over the broken window. Kara used the stock of her shotgun to push one of the dead crazies out. A couple others tried to take the dead one’s place, their arms reaching into the house, grasping and clawing.

  Kara fired two shots as Joe lit the rag on his Molotov cocktail. When the two crazies fell, he threw the bottle onto the porch. It shattered, spilling flame. The resulting conflagration was nothing near as spectacular as Kara had seen in the movies, but the small blaze managed to catch on the fabric of the porch swing.

  The orange glow cast ghoulish shadows over the faces of the people outside. They were drawn to the fire like moths. For good measure, Kara shot off two more rounds into the nearest crazies. Their warbling cries drew yells and howls from the others. She figured the noise and burning porch would be enough to attract the crazies still prowling the shadows in the backyard.

  “Let’s hope we played our cards right,” Kara said, thumbing fresh shells into the shotgun. She fumbled one. Her fingers shook, and she wasn’t sure whether it was because of adrenaline or her nerves catching up to her.

  She and Joe joined his family and Sadie in the kitchen. After seeing no others in the backyard, Kara slid the glass door back and pressed a finger to her lips. She darted onto the deck, followed by Joe. She paused at the stairs leading into the lawn. The smell of smoke drifting on a night breeze greeted her as she listened to the cries of the crazies. It still sounded as if they were all congregated near the front of the house.

  When Kara inched off the deck and onto the grass, she signaled for the family to follow. They crouched and ran toward the hedges lining the yard.

  Kara pushed through the foliage. From her vantage point, she saw the side of the Weavers’ house, along with the front of her own. Flickering flames cast the ghastly shadows of the crazies along the asphalt of the cul-de-sac.

  None prowled around her house that she could see.

  “Follow me,” she whispered. Again they dashed forward, sticking to the shadows.

  One of the crazies howled in a high-pitched drone. Its voice raised above the rest, and Kara’s heart stopped. She motioned for the others to continue as she shouldered her shotgun, preparing to defend her sister and the Weavers against an oncoming horde.

  But none of the crazies charged her.

  A few fought between each other, scrambling to make it into the broken window of the Weavers’ home. Others scraped and pulled at the siding around the front door, desperately trying to burrow into the house. It seemed once they’d caught sight of something, they wouldn’t let up. Even the spreading tongues of flame didn’t dissuade them.

  Once Sadie, Joe, Nina, and the children safely had passed into her backyard, Kara followed. A cool wind blew across her back, bringing with it the scent of burning wood and melting plastic. The family waited on the back deck, crouched among the outdoor chairs and table pots of overflowing plants. Even the crickets seemed to have gone silent in anticipation.

  “I need to get in to unlock the back door,” she said. She considered going in through the broken window in the front, but she didn’t want to risk one of the crazies spotting her. The last thing they needed was to attract a stream of the violent people into her house after she’d liberated the Weavers from theirs.

  “Joe, can you help me?” she said in a low voice.

  He nodded.

  “Follow me,” she whispered. “Everybody else, wait here for now.”

  Kara crept to the side of her house with Joe and paused near the bush where she’d dropped down from the roof. She gestured, signaling she needed a lift up.

  Joe knelt and clenched his hands together. He gestured for Kara to step into them. Kara put one foot into his cupped palms, and he pushed her up. She grasped the gutter with her right hand and tossed her shotgun on the shingles with her left. Her hands scraped against the rough surface, finding purchase through friction alone, and she dragged herself above her garage.

  Once safely on the roof, she signaled to Joe to go around back and rejoin his family. He disappeared around the corner of the house.

  Across the yards, the crazies still ran amok. Their intermittent cries and howls echoed across the asphalt. The fire that began on the Weavers’ porch now enveloped the first floor. Orange flames danced behind the shattered windows, giving the house the appearance of an oversized jack-o’-lantern.

  The enraged people seemed to have finally lost interest in the flames. Those that hadn’t made it inside the house were beginning to wander away. It wouldn’t be long before one of them happened upon the Weavers.

  Kara slid her shotgun into the small window. It clunked against the sink, and she slipped in after. She entered the bedroom and moved the dressers away from the door. Bethany seemed not to notice her daughter’s heavy lifting and grunting, evidently still in the throes of her sickness. Kara wanted to check on her, but now five more lives were at stake, waiting for her to lead them to safety as she had promised.

  When she made enough room, she yanked the door open. The dead bodies from their earlier home invasion flopped before her. Blood soaked the carpet, and its coppery scent stung her nostrils.

  She leapt over the corpses and dashed down the stairs. Like the Weavers’ home, the rear deck was accessed by a sliding glass door. Kara took out the wooden security pole from the door’s track and flipped the lock.

  Sadie, Joe, Nina, and their children rushed in, and Kara secured the door again. Sadie threw her spindly arms around Kara and pulled her sister into a tight embrace. “I was so worried.” Tears wetted her cheeks. “I don’t ever want to be away from you and Mom again.”

  The look in her sister’s eyes was too much. “Never,” Kara said. “I promise, but right now I need your help.” She directed Sadie to take the children into the living room. While Sadie kept them occupied, Joe and Nina barricaded the broken window in the front room with a heavy office desk. They worked in the dark, avoiding the use of any flashlights or candles so as not to attract any undue attention.

  Nina peeked through the blinds over one of the windows. “Our house,” she said, her voice weak. “I can’t believe it’s gone.”

  “From what we heard over the radio, it seems like half the United States is gone.” Joe stood still for a moment as if in a trance.

  Kara figured she understood the sentiment. While they’d been terrified for their lives before, he hadn’t had time to let the full realization of the roaming crazies hit him.

  Without a word, he wrapped his arms around his wife.

  Backing away, Kara gave them a couple of minutes to gather themselves. “I’m going to get more weapons and ammunition from downstairs.”

  On her way to the basement, she grabbed a flashlight. The meager light pierced through the darkness as she crept down the bare wooden stairs. Unlike the Weavers, her basement wasn’t finished. A shiver snuck down her spine. She’d long since outgrown her irrational fear of the dark, but today’s events had brought it back. She didn’t have the luxury of being frightened. She had to load up on as much firepower as she could carry and then protect the people who were relying on her.

  Another wail, distant and inhuman, drifted into the basement.

  Maybe the crazies had discovered new prey. Someone else to terrorize. A fleeting thought nagged her, telling her she should investigate. She should assist whoever the hapless victim might be.

  But logic won out over emotion. She couldn’t leave Sadie, and she had taken the Weavers out of their home with the promise of safety. Her mother needed her too.

  And she was willing to admit that fear was the ruling factor in her decision to stay inside now that she had her sister and mother under one roof. She remembered the phone call she’d had with her mother a week ago. Bethany had offered to pick her up from the university, and Kara had almost declined, saying she had too much studying to do.

  Her though
ts meandered toward her friends and classmates back on campus. She wondered how they’d fared. I almost stayed in my dorm room, Kara thought. She shuddered when she considered where her mother and sister would be right now and where she’d be if she hadn’t come home.

  Tomorrow was her mother’s birthday, and Kara wasn’t even sure if any of them would live to see it. Kara’s stomach roiled, and she felt sick. She dropped the boxes of ammunition. The weapons fell from her hands and clattered on the concrete. She collapsed to her knees and pressed her hands over her eyes.

  -23-

  Meredith sprinted over the warehouse roof, leapt to the top of the bus, and jumped to the ground. Pain radiated up from her ankle at the impact. In a swift movement, she rose, unholstered her pistol, and ran back toward Eric and Shauna.

  A Skull was stalking them with arms outstretched. He didn’t seem to be as overgrown with bones and skeletal appendages like those Meredith had seen from the IBSL footage, but she knew it was only a matter of time before the Oni Agent finished this man’s transformation into one of those frightening beasts.

  Shauna jumped back, and Eric sidestepped away from the Skull’s talon-like fingertips. Eric slammed the stock of the Pack-Rifle against the man’s face as the Skull recovered from his pounce, but the carbon fiber glanced off it. The Skull swung a hand out, and Shauna fell backwards as she dodged, barely missing the attack. She crab-crawled away and screamed again as the Skull bent over her.

  Meredith ran at the Skull and pistol-whipped him. The Skull spun and backhanded her, landing a blow on her shoulder. She staggered backward, aiming her weapon at the beast as it swiped at her with his fingers splayed and his lips drawn back in a snarl, baring pointed teeth.

  She retreated, drawing him away from Shauna and Eric. Steadying her arms, she leveled the pistol into his face, pulled the trigger, and winced as the gunshot echoed against the corrugated metal sides of the warehouse. His body crumpled. A bullet-hole seeped blood from his forehead as Meredith stepped around the dead Skull. If any people nearby hadn’t heard Shauna’s scream, Meredith had certainly drawn their attention now.

  “We need to move,” Meredith said, keeping her voice low. She felt the spot where the Skull had hit her, relieved to find it was dry. He hadn’t even torn through her shirt. If he’d caught me with those talons instead...

  A couple of howls from the nearby shadows echoed around them. Adrenaline surged through Meredith, and she hoped Eric and Shauna shared a similar response. They wouldn’t survive if they were the type to be frozen in fear. Meredith’s concerns were allayed when the two hikers followed her in a hell-bent sprint back to the creek.

  One Skull burst from the dense undergrowth ahead. Two more followed. Meredith skidded to a stop. When another Skull charged from the foliage, any chance of escape through the creek was dashed.

  “To the buses!” Meredith said. Shauna and Eric twisted and ran back across the parking lot with her. A cacophonous chorus of snarls and growls chased them across the bus depot.

  Meredith knew their chances of making it on foot were slim, and every frenzied Skull joining the chase diminished those chances further. They needed to hide or find a way to escape. She threw herself at the folding door of the closest bus. Her heart leapt when it gave way, and she tumbled inside. Eric and Shauna jumped in behind her.

  But when Meredith reached to see if a key lay in the ignition, she was met only with disappointment. Her mind raced. The bus would buy them time, but Meredith knew that wouldn’t be enough. Without a way to start the bus, they’d only be good at delaying the inevitable when the hungry Skulls eventually broke through the windows or tore open the fragile doors. They needed more substantial shelter or a vehicle that would run.

  Meredith leapt out of the bus again. “Let’s go!”

  “They’re gaining!” Eric called. He slipped off his hiking pack, and Shauna did likewise, shedding their encumbering gear. Eric lost the Pack-Rifle as he dropped his hiking pack. He turned to retrieve it.

  “No, keep going!” Meredith yelled.

  The clattering footfalls of the Skulls picked up in volume, accompanying the inhuman cries threatening to drown Meredith’s thoughts. She knew she couldn’t run forever. Her legs burned, her joints sent shivers of pain up her limbs. She hadn’t been operating in the field in almost twenty years, damn it.

  Another building loomed ahead. Across its front were three retractable garage doors. One lay open. Moonlight glimmered off the grill of a bus in what appeared to be the depot’s service center.

  “There!” Meredith pointed at the structure.

  Neither Shauna nor Eric questioned her as they all sprinted to the left toward the open service bay. Meredith guessed all the buses on the lot would be without keys, and they would need to find the depot’s office and break in to find any. But if they were lucky, the keys for the buses in the depot would’ve been kept nearby for ease of transporting the vehicles under maintenance. She just hoped one of those buses in the service center actually worked.

  Their feet pounded on the concrete floor. Three buses lay dormant, one on each of the lifts. The lifts, fortunately, were all lowered.

  “Should I try closing the door?” Eric asked between breaths.

  “Power’s out, but if you can find a manual override, go for it,” Meredith said.

  Eric nodded and rushed to a panel with the service door controls.

  Meredith ran to one of the far walls next to a computer terminal and calendar. She scoured the nearby set of drawers for the keys to the three sleeping giants. Pens, notepads, and stacks of papers filled the drawers, but she found no keys. The cries outside grew louder and closer.

  Shauna was dumping the contents of the smaller boxes on a metal desk pushed against the wall. Eric joined them. Black oil stains covered his hands as he held them out. “Couldn’t get the damn door to budge.”

  “If we don’t find the keys in time, you two need some weapons,” Meredith said while pushing a notepad and pencils out of a drawer labeled Service Records.

  “But—” Eric started.

  “Now!” Meredith said.

  Eric and Shauna bolted to one of the bus lifts. Eric picked up a heavy lug wrench from a rolling toolbox. Shauna selected a foot-long pry bar. They joined Meredith’s search again.

  “Found them?” Eric asked.

  Meredith shook her head and upended the set of drawers with the computer terminal. “Damn it!”

  Shauna’s eyes went wide. At first, Meredith thought it was a surprised reaction to her outburst. Instead Shauna pointed to a door with a plastic placard that said OFFICE. Three hooks were nailed into a two-by-four near the door, and key rings hung from each of the hooks.

  Meredith cursed inwardly at her tunnel-vision focus. She should have seen that immediately. She sprinted to the other side of the service bay and snatched up all three.

  Footfalls and the scratching of nails against concrete resounded from the entrance. Two of the Skulls scrambled through the gaping garage door. One slipped on the slick concrete and fell forward, crashing against the ground. Instead of standing upright again, he was so caught up in his carnivorous frenzy that he ran at Meredith on all fours.

  Pulling out her handgun, Meredith stepped in front of Eric and Shauna. She took several measured shots, aiming at the center of mass of each Skull. Their limbs flailed, and their bodies went limp, sliding across the floor by pure momentum.

  Meredith leapt over the fresh corpses, hot blood already pooling around them. She ran to the middle bus. On its side, she could make out the dark letters: 86. She flipped through the paper tags on the key rings and selected the matching set of keys.

  The door buckled when Meredith pushed on it. She leapt up the steps of the bus and jammed the key into the ignition. Shauna and Eric followed as three more of the Skulls pounded through the open garage door.

  She twisted the key, but a grinding click met her attempt to start the vehicle.

  Shauna pulled the lever to close the door, but one of
the Skulls threw her body between the door and the rubber lining along the frame. As Shauna leaned her body weight on the lever, refusing to lose her grip, Eric swung the lug wrench at the woman’s head. An audible crack resonated from the impact. Eric drew his foot back and landed a kick that sent the woman out.

  The door snapped shut.

  Meredith tried the key again as two more Skulls threw themselves at the door. Their teeth gnashed, and they scratched at the glass. The bus still wouldn’t start. Another two Skulls pounded at the front door. The four climbed over each other, desperate to get at Meredith, Shauna, and Eric.

  Another jumped onto the hood. It was a young woman, no older than twenty-two or twenty-three. She clawed at the windshield and wrenched the wipers from their sockets. The skin across the woman’s forehead was bumpy, and her nails appeared talon-like. They were stained with a golden hue. A white shirt covered in dirt and blood revealed the woman’ shoulders. Already, strange nodules pressed up against her skin, stretching it taut. The Oni Agent was beginning to leave its mark on her.

  “Why isn’t it starting?” Shauna’s high-pitched voice rang out.

  Meredith tried the key one last time. “There’s a reason this bus was in the shop, and it looks like we found it.”

  Eric pressed his hands against the door. Sweat poured down his forehead as he helped Shauna to keep it closed. “What now?”

  Skulls threw themselves at the bus. Another climbed on the hood and rammed his head into the windshield. He reared back and head-butted it again.

  Meredith withdrew the keys from her pocket. She held out the first one, #95, to Eric. “I want you to get on that bus.”

  “Are you mad?” Eric twisted so his back was pressed against the folding door. He braced himself by pushing off the steps in the door well. His legs shook with the effort as the Skulls struggled to get in.

  “I’ll cover you two.” Meredith unholstered her pistol. She gestured to the rear of the bus past the brown vinyl seats. “Take the emergency exit. I’ll hold these assholes off while you try the other bus.”