There was another crash and more sounds of struggle. Danielle saw someone run toward the front door, but the barricade placed to keep others out served double duty and became a barrier to escape as well. Desperate to get out, the person tried to move the display, but was tackled violently. The teetering rack, upended and now on its side, and the two people wrestling with one another all became entangled. The frantic struggle that followed was loud and messy. Bags of chips, loose greeting cards, and other sundries spilled and scattered across the floor. Shadows again engulfed the melee as the battlers slid further into the dark.
Then there was quiet again. Danielle focused her eyes and tried to turn off her other senses the way her father had taught her when she was younger. It was no less difficult than it had been in her past. She squinted her eyes into narrow slits and then opened them wide, inviting in the scant light in a rush. She thought maybe she could see someone or something. Then she was worried that it was a body. It might have just been a pile of merchandise, but the legs emerging from under it convinced her otherwise. If it was a body, then it was likely a man judging by the size of the boots and width of the legs. But who was it? Suddenly, she knew. It was the father in the red, down-filled jacket. It had to be him, but she wondered what had attacked him. He was a big guy; as big as or bigger than anyone else who had ventured into the drug store with Danielle and everyone else.
Besides, why would anyone be acting that way? They had all just run away from the people doing those kinds of things. She wondered what was going on down there.
Worried by the events unfolding in the store below and concerned for Kameron, probably vulnerable to being victimized again, Danielle decided to venture downstairs. The heavy club helped steel her nerves to her decision. Even so, those first couple of steps were tentative and difficult, her feet as reluctant as a condemned prisoner’s making that last, fateful walk.
She stepped out of the office and hadn’t yet started down the steps when the store clerk who had given her the keys ran screaming into the back room. Fast on her heels was someone wearing Kameron’s clothes. It couldn’t possibly be Kameron though; because this person was running with more urgency and vigor than her stricken friend could possibly muster in his current state. Danielle wasn’t sure what to do, so she merely watched in stunned horror. Despite the weapon now at her disposal, Danielle’s fear was beginning to take hold.
The pursuer caught the female store clerk moments before she was able to make a hurried escape out the back door. Danielle was finally able to determine that it was Kameron attacking the woman. Confused by his inexplicable aggression, Danielle screamed, “Kamerrrr-onnnnnn! Stop!”
Danielle’s desperate voice echoed in the cavernous storeroom, momentarily distracting Kameron from his assault. He fixed his feral eyes on her while he chewed a glistening, flopping flap of skin dangling from his chomping jaws.
Terror and disgust filling her chest, Danielle tried to scream but the shriek was aborted prematurely. The sudden appearance of the father wearing the red jacket bursting through the swinging doors stifled Danielle’s voice before it could take flight. The man leapt through on a wave of urgency but stopped to survey the room. Danielle wanted to get his attention and warn him about the danger but again found her voice absent behind a steady dripping sound coming from the man. She then realized there was a spreading puddle of thick, dark fluid forming at his feet. It was blood. She felt the lurching nausea rise to the top of her throat, the burning odor tickling her nose.
Danielle, far out of his sight, looked more closely and realized that the sound and the puddle grew when the red-jacketed man leaned forward on the balls of his feet. Then she saw that his throat had been flayed open to the bone. From the ghastly wound, all the sticky, syrupy fluids from his head spilled like water through a drain.
“Oh dear God,” she whispered in horror.
It was just loud enough to catch the man’s attention and send him into a furious, boiling rage. He threw his head back and tried to scream, but his windpipe had been severed and partially crushed. Instead of a bellowing, thunderous yawp, he produced a raspy, wet gush of rushing breath and spraying red spittle.
It was perhaps the most horrible thing Danielle had ever seen. She was retreating involuntarily before she realized she was doing it. Her survival instincts backpedaled her toward the open office behind her.
She slammed the office door before the father had taken his first aggressively clumsy steps up the stairs. Despite his uncoordinated gait, he leaped up several steps with each bound. Danielle was just barely able to move a bookcase in front of the door before he stomped his feet onto the top stair and was in the hallway.
Danielle waited behind the door, not sure what to do next. She was breathing quickly and shallowly, which was making her dizzy. She couldn’t afford to lose her wits. She didn’t want to end up like that poor woman down there.
What was happening? What was wrong with Kameron that he would do that?
The one hopeful thought she had was that maybe the man would just go away... forget about her and leave her alone. A second after that thought struck, the door shuddered on its hinges. The man on the other side was throwing himself against the door again and again. The repeated impacts toppled some books from their shelves on the bookcase set against the door.
There was a short pause, and then he started again. This time, it sounded like he was hitting it with some kind of a ramming tool. After the third such strike, a shower of splinters was produced in the middle of the door. With each successively louder crunch in the same spot, Danielle found herself jumping in fear. Horrified tears filled her eyes as she backed away slowly, never taking her watery eyes from the rapidly disintegrating door.
When a hole large enough for the man to force his head through was created, Danielle came close to wetting her pants. The wood around the hole was wet and maybe a little slimy. He was still only able to fit the top of his head through the hole, but it was enough for Danielle to realize he had been using his head as the battering ram. His scalp was covered with dark red blood and bits of wood. Danielle was already pressed firmly against the desk, and had run out of room into which to retreat. Pulling his head from the hole and peering through, he fixed his ravenous glare on Danielle, whose heart wilted.
He wiggled and squirmed, forcing his face further and further through the expanding fissure.
The moment robbed Danielle of her confidence, of her balance, and of her adulthood. In her mind, she felt deconstructed and unfamiliar. She was a child again; teased and taunted by her older brothers and cousins for her fears. She felt small and vulnerable, emotions which had long been absent for her.
The sense of helplessness and fear triggered something that caught fire in some dormant recess of her heart. She flushed a deep, angry crimson, the emotion sweeping through her like a coursing jet of magma, scorching as it spread.
The man’s gurgling, hacking growls sounded, similarly to all the noises around her, like they were originating from under water. She could hear everything, but only in muffled, distorted hints of reality.
Without realizing she was doing it, Danielle very nearly flew across the room, driving her wooden club into the face in the door. Its forehead was buckled and crushed, a channel cutting down the middle. When she pulled the club back, Danielle could clearly see the instrument’s bulbous shape in the deep trough between the man’s full eyebrows. His nose hadn’t merely been broken; it had been driven inward into his face.
When the man started struggling again, Danielle didn’t allow her amazement to stall a second, lethal swing. His face, now crushed into a stew of blood, broken teeth, and shorn skin, fell from the head-sized hole, following his body to the floor. She looked through the opening to make certain he was not moving. She had no idea what to expect. A dead man had just attacked her after all.
Through the fog in her head, Danielle heard loud, angry footsteps coming up the stairs. Someone else was coming up...was coming for her. She didn’
t know if she could repeat her fatal swing, and she had no intention of waiting around to see. She needed a way out.
The window leading outside was her best option. She unlatched it and then cranked it open, which took a torturous amount of time. In her breathless panic, she considered breaking the glass, but thought if she did so that it would make following her that much easier.
The footsteps were at the top of the stairs and charging down the short hallway to the compromised door. The footsteps were accompanied by a vaguely familiar series of grunts and growls that sent a prickly, tingling fear up her spine.
A sudden, terrifying thud against the outside of the door solicited a scared squeak and startled jump from her. Tears were streaming down her face, forming a vibrant, salty delta on her cheeks. The window was as open as it was going to be, barely wide enough for her to slip herself out and onto the sheet metal roof of an awning below her.
As she dropped, Danielle saw a muscular arm reach through the opening in the door. She was heartbroken at the realization that it was indeed Kameron’s arm, which meant that Kameron was on the opposite side of the door. He was now her attacker. He had been kind and gentle, despite his strength, and so patient. She was seeing none of that now. He was murderous fury incarnate, devoid of even an echo of humanity.
Once down and out of immediate harm’s way, Danielle hesitated on the uneven corrugated roofing, kneeling to catch her breath. She couldn’t allow herself to hyperventilate and lose consciousness. She shuddered to think how that might end.
From overhead, there was a loud crash and glass rained down all around her. Following the glass, a flailing and out of control Kameron flew by her. He hit the pavement of the driveway below with a wet, bone breaking crunch.
Danielle was too frightened to look, but in very short order she felt compelled to peek over her short ledge. Kameron, or the thing that was once her friend, had hit the dark, paved loading area face first. He lay there motionless for a second, a pool of blood spreading in every direction on the wet ground. His neck was as twisted as a pretzel, having been turned nearly completely around. She wasn’t too terribly high above the ground, but she couldn’t take her eyes from Kameron’s broken body.
Watching for several moments, Danielle assumed the shaking legs and body twitches were Kameron’s last nerve impulses communicating with dying limbs. Thankfully, she realized differently before she jumped down. Without warning, Kameron, his head still cocked and bobbing in an impossible position, leapt to his feet. He looked around, desperate to find his prey. He growled angrily, the blood filling his throat spewing forth from his mouth like red bile. The thick red fluid, the consistency of oil, ran down his chin and into the new folds of his misshapen neck.
The unfolding terror on the roiling streets of the small town of Whittier caught his ears. Newly invigorated and rippling with rage, Kameron ran off in search of new quarry.
Danielle, meanwhile, was immobile on the awning. She couldn’t move. She likely would have stayed like that for hours and perhaps longer if not for two things.
The first thing that shocked her from her gathering stupor was the rising violence on the other side of the drugstore. To the horrified howls of people running for their lives had been added a growing volume of gunfire. It seemed like the whole world was screaming in terror at once. The tumult filled the air until she felt like she was breathing it and seeing it.
Danielle gathered her legs against her chest and rocked herself slowly the way her mother used to do. She hummed some long forgotten tune in a futile attempt to hide herself from the terror. It was no use. As soon as the noise started to become an amorphous din, a discernible voice would cry out in agony, pleading for succor or at least a quick end. Children, women, and men, none capable of escaping. Danielle sat and listened, tears filling her eyes.
In her fear and confusion, Danielle almost didn’t see the Ford truck idling just outside of the building’s loading area. It must have come around from the back of the processing plant next door. Her eyes narrowed and came back into focus. She saw a person leaning out of the passenger window. Danielle realized then that the woman in the truck was gesturing...to her.
She was struck with panic at the prospect of jumping down from her safe perch. She couldn’t see under the awning. What could be waiting below? A shiver shook her and put her hair on end. Danielle looked at the woman in the truck whose arm was losing its vigor. The two made eye contact and Danielle found herself nodding.
Leaning forward, she chanced a peek below, almost losing her balance and toppling headfirst onto the pavement like Kameron had. She caught herself before she fell and sat upright so quickly that her vision faded and her head swooned. She thought to herself that she needed to get something to eat soon or she would regret it. She shook the backpack still over her shoulder and felt some sense of reassurance.
Another scream, a woman’s Danielle thought, and a series of gunshots propelled her over the edge. She hung for just a moment with her feet many inches above the ground, surprised at her own sudden decision. She dropped down and froze, thankful that nothing was there. Her heart was starting into its normal rhythm again when her club, still on the awning above her, rolled itself off the roof and landed heavily on the pavement behind her. The thick crack of its impact sent Danielle into a dead sprint across the lot toward the truck.
She leapt into the back seat of the waiting Ford without a word. There was barely room for her as most of the seat was covered with boxes and boxes of food and other sundries. She spied a box with oranges in it and grabbed one of the aromatic fruit.
The woman in the passenger seat leaned back toward Danielle and said, “I’m Rose. And this handsome devil here is my brother Pete. Is there anyone else back there? Anyone else need any help? This may be the last train outta here.”
Danielle heard the woman speaking, but was finding it difficult to understand the words. She felt like a dog being chastised by its owner about some misdeed. She looked into the small lot and saw the sickening pool of red where Kameron had fallen. She couldn’t shake the sight of Kameron, caked in blood and other matter, from her mind.
Danielle shook her head.
Rose, a tough looking character with a head of wiry gray hair that was threatening to break free from the red bandana holding it in check, said to Pete, “Okay then. Let’s get this freight train a movin’ while the gettin’s good.”
Tall and thick, with an equally tall and thick black beard, Pete didn’t wait to be told a second time. He shifted the big truck into gear and sped away.
Behind them, the murderous mayhem continued to multiply and build. Up the hill toward the Begich Towers like a tsunami of terror, people flooded, both those fleeing and those feeding. The handful of police officers housed at the main office in the tower stood at the two main front entrances of the building and fired their sidearms desperately at the oncoming throng, hoping to stop the chaos. They saw both familiar faces and complete strangers in the packs.
A couple of trucks pulled away from the back parking lot and tried to make their way down the road and away from the building only to be stopped in their tracks by the crowd. The drivers and passengers were ripped forcibly from their seats and torn limb from limb, feeding the blood frenzy.
A few men working on repairing a drydocked fishing boat in one of the lots climbed atop the boat and tried to use whatever tools were at their disposal to fend off anyone trying to follow them. In very short order, enough pressure was applied to the braces supporting the boat to snap them and set the boat perilously onto its side. The men inside were quickly set upon and butchered ruthlessly, their blood adding to the rivers of red coursing down the slight incline away from the tower.
Locals, fearing for their lives, shut and locked their doors to the rushing waves of tourists, transforming the Begich Tower’s corridors into fast running canals full of streaming people with nowhere to go but forward and up. More than a few windows were broken and some doors were battered from their hinges
as desperate, crying souls sought places to hide, especially on the first floor where offices and shops were located. Like an unrestrained storm surge, the human wave spilled into every nook and cranny along the path. Eventually, with nowhere else to run, many people found themselves on the roof of the fourteen story building with their only options being to jump to certain death or face being devoured by people who had possibly been their friends or family only minutes before.
Soon the crowds were filling the slick docks of the small boat harbor until skidding, sliding to a halt on the edge with nowhere else to run. Like lemmings running over a cliff, those at the tail end of the massing group pushed those at the front off the end of the piers and into the murky, cold water below.
Screams were lost as throats filled with the salty, oily water. Scrambling to the surface quickly, many found themselves pushed once again into the brine as the next wave of frenzied people plunged into the dark.
The lengths of the piers were littered with bodies, some motionless and others writhing in pain having been trampled by the herd. Those still moving were quickly and viciously set upon with gnashing, hungry, pitiless jaws. Fast on the heels of the fleeing mob was a growing pack of wild beasts, which had been human beings not long ago. The unmistakable transformation from man to demon was no more apparent than in the creatures’ eyes. The fires of oblivion burned in their dark, perpetually dilated eyes. The black flames consumed their eyes, leaving no room for pity or remorse. The weeping woman with a broken leg and unable to run was no more off limits than the little girl separated from her mother and too scared to run. Both were easy prey, as were the several others cut off from the main body of fleeing people.
There were more than enough pursuers to continue the chase, however, and into the water they went as well. The cold Prince William Sound became a roiling, churning soup as teeth and nails proceeded to seek flesh to satisfy the insatiable hunger that burned within. Lacking the faculties to swim, the ghouls sank along with their drowning victims and disappeared into the murk.
Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution Page 7