by W. J. Lundy
Jacob looked at the chaos in horror. Sounds of the things behind them grew closer while gunfire and destruction lay ahead. “You sure about all of this?” he gasped.
Murphy shook his head. “This city is lost and we’re in the middle of it. We have to get out now or not at all. Hug the storefronts; at the last corner, we sprint for the wall. Stay behind me, shoot anything that isn’t us, and do not stop!” He reached out a hand and squeezed Stephens’ shoulder before taking off to cross the street, running with his head down and rifle up. He briefly looked left down the near street then pushed ahead, crossing the intersection.
Stephens nudged Jacob in the back and told him to move. Jacob stepped off fast, running to keep pace with the Murphy. Still a hundred yards to the next block, he could already see the orange glow of fires and the blue smoke of gunfire. A pack of the Others cut across the street ahead; three continued across to move deeper into the city, the fourth stopped and looked in Jacob’s direction, catching the attention of the fifth.
The pair turned and took a step in Jacob’s direction. Before Jacob could call out a warning, Murphy had his rifle in action, firing at the one to the left as it moved toward them. Jacob took a step to the side and used a lamp pole to steady his aim then pulled the trigger and watched the man on the right drop. Jacob hit him in the chest—right where he was aiming. Grinning, he looked to Murphy for recognition. Stephens came up behind and smacked him. “Don’t stop running! Go!” he yelled.
Jacob cringed, realizing his error as the first three came back into view. After having seen the fate of their comrades, they charged around the corner. Two shots from Murphy and a stream of three rounds from Stephens cleared the route. Tyree ran ahead and planted himself on the corner. He pointed across the street to a tall, nearly eight-foot high, concrete wall offset from a wide sidewalk. Murphy nodded and rounded the corner. Taking a knee, he fired rapidly, drawing more to his position. “Get them over,” he shouted without taking his eye off the sights and the distant targets.
“You heard him… go!” Stephens yelled moving Jacob and Tyree ahead of him.
Jacob took a deep breath and ran into the street. He looked straight ahead to avoid the sight of danger to his left. He crossed the street and, recalling the last incident, deliberately threw himself at the wall, then turned away as Tyree came up behind. In a flash, Stephens was beside him; he knelt over and cupped his hands and Tyree stepped into the pocket. Grunting, Stephens lifted and nearly tossed Tyree over the top. Rounds impacted with the ground around them, popping as they skipped off the sidewalk.
Ignoring the incoming fire, Stephens again cupped his hands and looked to Jacob, who nodded and put a hand on the soldier’s helmet. Another grunt and Jacob was elevated upwards. He grabbed the top of the wall and pulled as Stephens pushed at the soles of his boots. Jacob strained and pulled until he was able to throw his leg over the top of the wall. Now straddling the wall, he looked out and saw a group of three charging from behind. Recognizing the danger, his eyes went wide. He raised his rifle and fired wildly, hitting two of the Others running toward their position. The third continued on and crashed into Stephens.
Jacob twisted on the wall, trying to get a new firing position and lost his balance. He flopped and tumbled off, landing on his head and shoulders into a thicket bush on the other side. In the dark, he couldn’t see but he felt hands grabbing at his clothing. Jacob lashed out with his fists swinging and feet kicking against the hands.
“Dammit! It’s me. Stop, you asshole!” he heard Tyree yell.
Jacob pulled back his hands and felt a wrist grip his ankle. He was yanked from the bush, the thorns catching and tearing at his clothing and scratching the skin underneath. He dropped from the bush to land on his face and his mouth grabbed a taste of grass and dirt. He crawled away from the bush, rolled to his back, and looked up at the top of the concrete wall.
The top edge seemed to glow and reverberate with the explosions on the other side. A gloved hand reached up and grabbed the edge just before Stephens’ helmet came into view. He climbed up and lay flat on the wall, gripping the top edge with his right arm as he dangled over the far side. Jacob watched the man strain as he pulled, and Murphy came into view before clawing and crawling directly over Stephens and tumbling into the same thorn bush. Stephens pushed up off the wall, dropped his legs, then fell the remaining distance to the ground and landed on his feet.
Stephens moved off from the wall and took up a spot a distance away to watch for trouble while Jacob and Tyree pulled Murphy from the bush. Once free of the entanglement, Murphy shook them off and motioned for them to watch the area. Unlike the violent activity on the city side of the wall, the cemetery side was still. They’d dropped in just short of a well-maintained walkway where heavy smoke blanketed the ground, just thin enough to reveal a number of crypts, tombstones, and monuments dotting the wooded terrain.
“We clear?” Murphy whispered as he exchanged magazines in his rifle.
“I can’t see shit in this smoke,” Stephens called back in a low voice.
“Tyree… which way?” Murphy asked.
Tyree pointed with the pistol. Murphy put down his goggles and scanned the terrain, then lifted them to look at his watch. “Couple hours till dawn; let’s get through here while we have cover.”
Jacob pulled his rifle in close to the vest and willed himself up to his feet. The gunfire and explosions still echoed off the wall to their backs, and the fires cast an eerie light that made the smoke seem luminescent. The tall tombstones and monuments cast optical illusions as their shadows moved in different directions with the strobes of the explosions. Jacob shivered but, knowing he had to stick with the team or he’d never find Laura and Katy, he urged his feet to move.
He cautiously stepped ahead until he was with the rest of the group. Again, Murphy directed Stephens out front and took the open side while keeping Jacob and Tyrell close to the wall on the opposite side.
They moved ahead slowly, creeping through the acrid smoke. Jacob pulled his T-shirt over his mouth and nose to block the stench. Gunfire raged close; the rounds cracked off the walls as aircraft flew over, attacking the city with their payloads.
Murphy called out just above a whisper, “Come on guys. Don’t bunch up.”
The team intended to stay spread out but continually grouped back together out of fear. Nearly shoulder to shoulder, they patrolled deeper into the graveyard; the dancing shadows and gunshots echoed off the tombstone, making it hard to focus.
They met a blacktop path and quickly crossed it, not wanting to stop in the open. The terrain sloped down on the far side, where it gradually leveled out as it met a small pond. Stephens moved ahead then suddenly dropped to the ground; without question, the others fell with him. Murphy low crawled past Jacob until he was at Stephens’ side. Jacob squinted and strained his eyes to see ahead. Then, with the flash of an explosion, a large crowd of figures were outlined where they gathered around the opposite shore of the pond—hundreds of them standing in a tight cluster.
“What are they doing?” Jacob whispered.
With a focused expression on his face, Murphy didn’t answer. Jacob crawled forward with Tyree toward the high grass and cattails that lined the shore, stopping when they were online with the rest of the team. The more he looked, the more his eyes adjusted to the light and Jacob saw that it wasn’t just a mob; all around the edges, there were more solitary figures. Looking closer, their posture revealed that they were armed and appeared to be standing guard over the Others. The group made noise and backed away to create a long opening for a group of men that ran through the gap carrying bodies to the water line.
The unconscious victims were dropped at the bank of the pond and their heads were submerged. All at once, the men huddled in the dark realized what they were seeing. The shoreline was awash with the bodies; only their legs— or just feet in some cases—were exposed. Occasionally, one would kick and spasm, inducing a random hand from the crowd to reach down and pull
the body from the water. The others would hold it upright until it could stand on its own. The newly removed thing would drift away from the pack under the watchful eyes of the sentries, stumbling around drunkenly like a new calf learning to walk.
Jacob watched as the new ones were guided to the outer edges, their stride slowly improving over a short span of time. Then they would move back to the mob and merge with it, becoming lost in the mass. Groups would break off and move away from the mass and out of sight as others returned, carrying more victims. The swarm again opened up to accept them and provided a path to the water line as the cycle continued.
“Fuck me… look at the water,” Tyree muttered.
Jacob lowered his view to the dark surface of the pond only feet away. The moon’s refection barely broke through the smoke to allow the blue steel ball to reflect light back. The closer they looked, the more the opaque liquid seemed to have motion. It swirled and turned over while the surface remained static. Unlike water, the upper layer appeared thick and dense to resemble the look of oil—the same as the blood spilt from the things on the street.
Stephens picked up a loose branch and pushed it forward into the water, scarring its surface. As he dragged the branch across the top, the scratch seemed to remain and then slowly repair itself. When he removed the stick, the liquid pulled off. Like a rod dipped into mercury, the liquid held together and none remained on the branch. Where the surface had been broken, the water suddenly began to bubble—slowly at first, then turning to a boil.
“We should go,” Jacob said.
Chapter 18
With their eyes focused on the oily surface of the pond, no one was watching the Others on the far side. Tyree let out a high-pitched yelp as he backpedaled away from the bank. Jacob looked up and saw it too; the entire mob had their heads up, and their dark eyes were looking in the team’s direction. The mass hadn’t zeroed in on their position, but it sensed them—somehow the mob knew they were there.
Tyree continued to scramble back until he was on his feet and off at a run. Jacob followed him back up the hill at a sprint away from the pond, desperate to increase separation from the mass. Tyree was out front, breathing hard and oblivious to his surroundings. He ran head on into one of the armed sentry and plowed through it. Both of them crashed to the ground, Tyree rolling headfirst to the grass and the black-eyed man falling back and landing against a tree. Stephens, who was close behind, maintained his course and ran directly at the thing lying dazed against the base of the tree. Like going for a long-distance field goal, he kicked it hard on the side of the head before falling to the ground himself.
Murphy jogged up and stood over the now unconscious thing, stabbing it once at the base of the neck for good measure. When he pulled out the blade, he paused, looking confused.
“What is it?” Jacob whispered.
“It’s different… harder or something.” Murphy grabbed a handful of the thing’s shirt and rolled the body. As before, he took his knife and opened the man’s arm. Instead of being filled with the black oozing gel, the limb now had thick fibrous flesh that extended bone deep. Murphy removed the blade and pulled at the creature’s neck; the same snake-like skin extended up to wrap behind its ears and the forehead appeared broadened and ridged.
Murphy wiped the blade on the thing’s shirt before returning the knife to its scabbard on his belt. Tyree and Stephens got back on their feet and moved closer. “Whatever is in the pond, it’s changing them,” Murphy whispered.
“Not changing… replacing,” Jacob responded.
Tyree turned the man’s head to look at the neck while asking, “What do you mean ‘replacing’?”
“Like a parasite, or those spiders that lay their eggs in their kills so they can eat them from the inside out. We’re just a host for whatever that shit is,” Jacob said, pointing at the black goo.
“Then we should stop it—put gas in the pond, set it on fire, or something,” Tyree said.
Murphy shook his head. “Wouldn’t do any good… not now; these things are everywhere. This can’t be the only pond. No… we stick to the plan. When we get to the lake, we can pass this information up the chain.”
The sounds of branches snapping and things passing through trees startled them. “Let’s move,” Murphy ordered. “And Tyree… slower this time.”
Stephens grabbed the younger man. “I got him, Sergeant,” he said, directing Tyree to his to his front and then moving them out.
Murphy looked over his shoulder as he turned away from them. “Go on; I’ll be right behind you.”
Jacob peeled himself from the damp grass and forced his exhausted legs forward. He clutched the rifle in his sweaty palms and listened to the sounds of the Others closing in from behind. Not wanting to lose sight of Tyree and Stephens ahead of him, Jacob moved quicker. Soon they were back at the wall, and they turned alongside it so that they were running parallel to the street. They worked their way north in the direction of the lakeshore while gunfire erupted from behind. It was more sporadic than before—quick shots of one and two rounds with long pauses in between, mixed with the explosive crack of fragmentation grenades.
Ahead of Jacob, Tyree and Stephens picked up the pace as Stephens looked over his shoulder. Jacob saw the look on his face. Stephens’ eyes showed fear, his mouth opened wide, and then he turned away and sprinted as the noise from behind got louder and closer. Jacob saw bark explode, wood splinter, and tree leaves rip apart as bullets tore through them.
Murphy overtook Jacob from behind and, breathing hard, said, “Pick up the pace; they’re all around us.”
Ahead, Stephens and Tyree had stopped near a section of a low four foot wall. Tyree was pulling back the wire as Stephens snipped it with a small pair of cutters. Tyree dropped the wire and pulled himself up and over the wall while Stephens turned back, firing to cover Murphy and Jacob’s approach. The rounds were so close to Jacob’s head that he could hear them zip past.
Jacob continued running, aiming for the breach in the wall. He hit it fast; without pausing, he outstretched his arms and thrust himself over the wall. He flew high and clear, sailing over the top edge and crashing hard into the pavement on the other side. Landing in a darkened area, he saw rows of railroad tracks that ran parallel to the wall. Beyond the tracks, he spotted another high fence.
Murphy cleared the wall next, and then turned around to fire over the wall into the mob. “A little help, guys!”
Tyree had his pistol up and was firing over the wall as Jacob scrambled to his feet and fell in behind him. He brought up the rifle and fired until his weapon was dry. He pressed the magazine release button the way Murphy had shown him then fumbled with his vest for a new one. He gripped the top and slapped it home, pressing the bolt release. Jacob heard the clunk of the rifle and, feeling satisfaction that he’d done it right under fire, he brought up the rifle and squeezed the trigger. Stephens pulled himself over the wall between Tyree and Murphy then took the loose strands of wire and quickly twisted the ends back together.
The mob hit the wall just as Stephens pulled back his hands. The wire screeched and stretched as the things slammed against it and more attempted to climb over them. Jacob stepped back when he spotted a shotgun-wielding, heavyset man with empty eyes trying to scramble over the mob pressed against the wall. Jacob leveled his rifle then fired into the man and the Others below him. The pile collapsed, but more quickly filled the space.
Stephens pulled the pin on a grenade and held it up. “Run!” he screamed as he tossed it rows deep into the mob on the far side of the fence.
Following Tyree, Jacob turned and bolted. Rounds zipped past their heads just before the grenade exploded. They were running across rows and rows of railroad tracks that ran into the city. Moving east now, they crossed the last set of tracks and came to the tall wall at the other side. Looking back, Jacob could see the things had already rebounded from the grenade blast and were pouring over the fence to charge toward the tracks.
Just beyond Mu
rphy’s reach, the wall had a deep shelf where maintenance workers could shimmy along the top. Murphy boosted Jacob up to where he could reach a high handhold. He held it tight to allow Murphy to climb his back like a ladder. Stephens and Tyree were similarly working together to scale the wall. Once they were all at the top, not wasting time, they dropped into deep brush on the far side. They were in a dark and empty residential area lined with tall duplexes and apartment buildings on both sides.
“It’s not far now,” Tyree said. “The golf course is just ahead, past that the harbor.”
Jacob could see that beyond the low wire fences was a long row of duplexes. Murphy directed them forward and into a backyard behind the duplexes. It was a tight-fit neighborhood where buildings stood close together with narrow strips of grass and parking structures between them. They now moved quietly, taking their time and trying to catch their breath as they traveled. Jacob focused on controlling his breathing; his heart was racing and sweat ran down his forehead and into in his eyes. He wiped his brow and looked up at Murphy who nodded back at him. Murphy then stopped and knelt down near an overturned trampoline.
He surveyed the backyard while his team rested. Murphy pointed toward an old, weatherworn one-car garage. The structure was pushed back against a clapboard fence; overgrown weeds and grass poked around the edges of the building. Normally not a welcoming spot in anyone’s backyard, this morning the forgotten and neglected structure would be a haven.
Murphy patrolled ahead, allowing the men to follow close behind as he guided them into the narrow space between the fence and old garage. He held up a hand to halt them before he crawled to the far end, peeked around it, and then pushed back. He concealed himself in the tall grass so that he was hidden from sight but still could see the approach. Jacob dropped beside Murphy under the cover of the building. He felt the old, warped wood against his back and, because he could smell the lake now, he knew they were close.