Don’t lose count. Don’t forget to save one.
He fired at a dead soldier, a grandmother, a man who’d had both hands chewed away down to the wrists, and not every bullet a first-time headshot. Sitting upright on the couch with his legs extended, all this twisting back and forth had been excruciating only moments ago. Now the adrenalin had blunted the pain. Even if it hadn’t, he knew, the agony waiting in all those teeth promised to be far worse than what he was doing to his leg; one more reason to save the last bullet.
A woman in a tattered yellow sundress made it through the front window and crawled toward him, her cold flesh slashed by broken glass. Sallinger shot her in the forehead.
Twelve.
A rotten, older man in a checked shirt reached the couch and grabbed for his boot. The Ranger shot him in the ear, knocking him back.
Thirteen.
Across the lobby over the back of the couch, a blond woman in a Red Cross T-shirt, her lips bitten away and her chin torn down to the bone, broke into an awkward, arm-swinging gallop, eyes locked on the Ranger.
Sallinger fired. Fourteen. The bullet punched into her cheek, rocking her head, but failed to hit brain matter. She kept coming, her skeletal-looking teeth parting in a wheeze.
Been a lovely, fucking war.
Sallinger shoved the barrel of the nine-millimeter into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Skye holstered the big revolver and leaped down the stairs to the fourth floor, gripping the M4 slung against her chest, working in a fresh magazine as she raced down a hallway lined with guestroom doors. The sounds of breaking glass had been replaced by the quick, single shots of a pistol.
Stairs. Third floor. Another hallway.
How had any of them believed that the dead wouldn’t find them, wouldn’t force their way in? Everything they knew about the enemy, and still they’d allowed themselves to believe that the hotel was a safe place, even Skye, who’d permitted herself to indulge in the fantasy. Maybe it was the human desire for a permanent camp, or the need for a place of respite in this hostile world. The truth, Skye knew, was that there were no safe places, not anymore. The dead would always find you, would always get in, and they would never stop coming. Not until one species or the other was completely destroyed.
The thought of her own kind becoming extinct, and the passion she had for extinguishing the other, caused a rage to burn inside her.
Stairs. Onto the balcony overlooking a lobby lit by gray storm light. She saw it all; creatures scrambling in through open windows, the man on the couch, and a dead thing in a T-shirt reaching for him. From the top of the stairs, a burst from her M4 blew the woman’s head apart, and Skye leaped down to the lobby three risers at a time. She stood and fired, emptying her magazine as she took down ghouls that were already inside, then stopped those climbing through the windows.
She ran to the couch. Sallinger was sitting upright, staring at the black pistol in his right hand.
“I did lose count,” he said.
Skye saw that he was still wearing one boot. Good. She looked around, saw the captain’s camouflage jacket draped over a chair beside the fire and grabbed it. “Put this on,” she said, helping the man into his coat. “We’re going outside.”
“I’m empty,” the Ranger said, tossing the handgun onto the couch. “Outside? Are you nuts?” He looked toward the doors, both of them shaking from incessant pounding and pressure, then at the hungry corpses once more clawing over the twice-dead and through the broken windows.
“Not that way,” the young woman said, helping him stand. He kept his weight on his good leg, throwing an arm around Skye’s neck so she could support him from the broken side. He hissed at the pain.
“We’re headed to the roof,” the young woman said, getting them moving toward the wide stairs to the second floor balcony.
“This is going to be fun,” Sallinger growled through clenched teeth.
Hopping and stepping, the two of them ascended the carpeted steps. Behind them, the dead dropped from the windows, struggled to stand, and pursued. They moved just a bit faster than the two hobbling figures.
Only four levels to go.
The Alpha moved back and forth behind the mob of moaning corpses, driving them through the wind and snow toward the windows. The sharp sounds of the prey’s weapons were still going off inside, and the lesser dead were crumpling at the openings, immediately replaced by others.
Just as she had intended.
Those weapons, she sensed, would soon be exhausted. After that she would be able to inflict pain and horror at her leisure.
Through the storm she caught the scent of one of her Hobgoblins, the one that had been savaged by the big animal, but there was a subtle difference to the odor. He had been destroyed. No matter, he had served his purpose. It was the other scent that drew her attention.
The Skye.
The female still lived, and this gave her a ripple of both pleasure and fury; rage that this human aberration existed at all (a potential rival) and wild anticipation at ripping the Skye apart one bite at a time.
The Alpha could wait no longer. She pushed through the groaning herd, heading for the front doors.
They reached the top of the third staircase and moved down the fourth floor hallway. One more flight before they reached the roof. Every riser was difficult, with Skye stepping up and lifting as Sallinger hopped on his good leg. Although he did nothing more than grunt, the tight look on the Ranger’s face told her he was in agony. Not once did he beg to stop and rest – not that they could, the sounds of the dead coming after them were far too close – but it was wearing him out, and Skye wondered how much more the Ranger could take.
She hung on tight and encouraged him. “Another step, almost there, you’re doing great.” Sallinger’s face was flushed and beaded with sweat. “Keep going, just a little more.” By the time they climbed the last set of stairs to the little room with the snow-blower, she was certain he was done, that there would be no way he’d be able to handle what was coming next.
“Good to go,” he whispered, giving her a thumbs-up.
“Tough guy,” she said. “Stay right there.” She ripped the plastic tarp off the snow-blower, then grabbed it by the handles and muscled the heavy machine to the top of the stairs. Then she heaved, tipping it out over the top step and letting go. The snow-blower tumbled down the narrow staircase in an explosive series of crashes and splintering wood, ending up wedged sideways about two-thirds of the way down.
“Should slow them down a little,” Sallinger breathed, and then Skye was supporting him again, heading out into the cold and wind. They moved through the snow, forging a new path across the roof at an angle toward the far, front corner. Sallinger saw the dead Hobgoblin, then the still body of his soldier quickly vanishing under a blanket of white. The new snow wasn’t quite enough to conceal the spray of red near the boy’s head, however.
“Rooker,” the captain said softly.
She almost told him that the boy hadn’t suffered, but she had seen it happen. The last seconds of Rooker’s life had been the kind of pain and torment reserved to those consigned to Hell. Instead she said nothing, and kept them moving.
When they reached the far end of the façade, Sallinger leaned against it and rested as Skye quickly pulled up the anchored rope Cribbs had used earlier to descend to the street. There were at least a hundred pale corpses visible below, still pressing forward to get into the hotel.
“I’m in no shape to do any rappelling,” the Ranger said.
“I’m going to lower you.”
Sallinger looked down at the dead. “Into that? You’re going to feed me to them…what did I do to piss you off?”
“Maybe another time. No, dumbass, not over the front.” Skye reached the end of the rope and quickly wound it several times around the captain’s chest under the armpits, tying it off tightly. “Over the side down to the next roof. Then we’ll cross over a few and go down through one of the stores.” When she had been
sniping from the roof of the RV the other day, she’d seen a shop not far down from the hotel that interested her. It was a place that would have proven useful in her plan to stay in Truckee to wage her solo war against the dead. That plan had now gone sideways, but the store might still have what she needed for Sallinger. The question was; two roofs over, or three?
A crash came from below, the hotel’s double front doors being smashed open. The sound was almost immediately followed by the unholy shriek of an enraged Hobgoblin, only louder and with more baritone.
Another one?
Skye helped the wounded Ranger over the low brick wall on the roof’s left side, braced her boots against it and with both hands started to lower the two-hundred pound man as slowly as she could. If she dropped him, the two-story fall would shatter his other leg, hopelessly cripple the already broken one, and they would be finished. She wouldn’t leave him to die helpless and alone, so they would go out together.
The rope slid slowly through her hands, and his weight tugged at her, threatening to pull her right over the wall to free-fall to the bottom.
The Hobgoblin shriek came again, this time from inside the hotel.
The Alpha stood in the lobby, surrounded by the lesser dead clumsily moving toward and up the staircase. She screeched her frustration. The scent of her prey was strong here, and nowhere more so that at the couch. The prey itself had fled, however, up the stairs where the dead were heading.
With the snap of one powerful arm she sent the couch spinning away, knocking down several corpses. Then she leaped to the fireplace and with both hands clawed the embers and burning wood out of the hearth, screeching as she flung them across the lobby. Where fire and coals met the damp hair and soggy clothing of the dead, it merely sizzled and steamed, but the hotel’s rugs, furniture and curtains quickly caught, and soon the flames were spreading.
The prey had retreated. It had gone up, and so would she. The thrill of the hunt, so near the end now, gave her a shudder of dark pleasure.
Surging forward through the burning lobby, sweeping the lesser dead aside and sending them tumbling like rag dolls, the Alpha bulled her way up the staircase.
The boot on Sallinger’s good leg touched down and he tipped over, sitting down hard in the snow and biting back a cry as the edges of his broken bones grated together. It could have been worse, he thought. He’d been certain the entire way down that she was going to drop him.
Two stories up on the adjacent roof, Skye swung herself over and started climbing down the nylon rope, not at all sure that her muscles, quivering from the effort of lowering a full-grown man, retained enough strength to keep her from falling. She quickly realized, however, that her mutated left hand was more than strong enough to hold on all by itself, that she could dangle by it if needed, and so she went down the rope quickly, a series of fast, jerking descents. Before she could worry that her talons would sever the rope or lacerate her palm, she was safely down and helping Sallinger to stand once more.
They hobbled across the roof and climbed over another low brick wall to the next building, ducking their heads and turning their faces away from the worst of the wind and stinging snow.
Second building over or third?
Skye hoped she was right, and once they were over another wall and onto the next roof in line, started moving them toward a small structure set with a door. It was locked, so she set Sallinger down and threw her shoulder into it three times before it popped open. Then she lifted the Ranger again and a moment later they were hop-stepping down a narrow stairway. Skye dug her small flashlight out of a pocket to lead the way.
The stairs emptied into a second floor stockroom, and she realized at once that this was the right building. Skye guided the Ranger through stacks of boxes and rows of shelving, hunting with her light. She spotted a red knit ski hat poking out of the top of an open cardboard box and snatched it up, handing it to Sallinger. “Put this on.” She didn’t know what had become of the Ranger’s ski mask. She also found a pair of men’s heavy wool socks, and quickly pulled one on over the captain’s bare foot, snugging it up around the bottom of the leg brace. His skin from the ankle-down had gone bloodless and looked a little blue.
“Better?” she asked.
“Much.”
More searching until the light eventually picked out a long, wooden object leaning against a wall. She’d had something else in mind, but this would do. Telling the captain to hold on, she found a doorway opening onto stairs leading down to the first floor, and let the object slide to the bottom. There was nothing to be done about the noise. Then the two of them hop-stepped down after it.
The main floor of High Country Outdoor Sports was still set up for the summer season, the gloomy main sales floor packed with fishing and camping gear, kayaks and hiking boots, shorts and T-shirts. All the winter merchandise had been stored away upstairs for a season no one would ever enjoy. The fact that the store was empty, quiet and untouched by looting was testament to just how fast Truckee had fallen. Skye swept the flashlight around, hoping to see signs that High Country also sold firearms, but there was no indication of that. Truckee no doubt had several gun shops, but this wasn’t one of them.
They moved to the front of the store, Skye now dragging her prize across the floor by a long loop of colorful, braided rope. Sallinger had immediately seen her plan once she took hold of the object upstairs. “Are you up for this?” he asked. “Do you want to rest first?”
Skye looked at him. “Is there time for either of us to rest?”
“Negative.”
“Then off we go.” Skye moved to a window set in the front door and checked the street beyond the plank sidewalk. “Looks like most of them went into the hotel,” she said. Only a few frozen corpses were wandering around out there.
“Any sign of the Hobgoblin?” He also knew their sound, knew what was hunting them.
“I don’t see it. It must still be inside. I hope.”
Sallinger nodded, then reached up and took down the small brass bell hung over the door, one that would jingle every time it was opened or closed.
Skye chuckled and looked at him.
“What?”
“We blast away like bullets grow on trees, and you’re worried about a little bell?”
He grinned at her. “That was before. We’re being stealthy now.”
She grinned back. “Yeah, we’re like a couple of ninjas, thumping around and throwing shit down stairways.”
She unlocked the door and they eased outside, moving into the street. A few corpses saw them and immediately began shuffling in their direction. Skye knew she’d just have to move faster than they did, even with her burden. “Climb on,” she told the Ranger.
Sallinger lowered himself onto the six-foot-long toboggan, positioning himself so that he would be sitting upright and facing backward, his legs stretched out before him. Skye handed him the M4 and bandolier containing the last of their magazines. “Anything behind us is your problem.”
“Copy that.” The Ranger checked to ensure he had a full magazine. Skye moved to the front and looped the pull rope across her chest, casting a quick glance at the half dozen drifters approaching from the left and right. She replaced the spent round in the .357, gripping it in her right hand as she started pulling.
The heavy toboggan moved slowly across the street on an angle toward the intersection, Sallinger watching the dead and the entrance to the hotel, holding his fire. He’d hold off as long as he could, until they got really close, he told himself. Announcing their presence on the street and alerting the Hobgoblin that its prey was slipping away was the last thing he wanted to do.
Leaning forward, Skye brought them to the road that Cribbs and Bracco had used, following the path their boots and the shuffling feet of the dead had made. Their destination, a cluster of hazy gray rectangles barely glimpsed in the storm, looked like distant mountains, the kind that no matter how long a person traveled never seemed to get any closer.
Nothing c
ame at them out of the storm, but Skye knew that wouldn’t last. And if the weather worsened, turned into a true white-out as it appeared it would, the dead would be able to attack without warning.
Sallinger watched the hotel slowly falling behind them. Even through the curtain of blowing white he could see black smoke pouring from the first floor windows, an orange lick of flames visible within.
And then something dark and massive appeared on the roof, leaping to the top of the façade and crouching there. It was misshapen and monstrous, and it seemed to be looking right through the storm, directly at them.
A chilling Hobgoblin shriek cut through the violence of the storm.
Skye leaned in and pulled harder.
THIRTY-TWO
Pulling Sallinger and the toboggan had become a singular, focused effort for Skye, and she put everything into it. Keeping her eyes on the shapes of the sheds ahead, putting one boot after the other, she strained against the weight. It was an additional effort to watch for drifters to the front and sides. Behind her, Sallinger fired the rifle at figures appearing out of the storm, a few isolated shots at first, then increasing in frequency.
Skye saw a few of the creatures around her, but they were distant enough to appear as shadows, and none close enough to spend a bullet. As she’d feared, the storm was gaining strength, cutting visibility and causing temperatures to plunge. Even behind her ski mask, Skye’s face hurt from the cold and the inside of her nose was crystalizing and burning. It was painful just drawing air into her lungs. She and Sallinger were getting close though, and they needed to be. She didn’t think she could keep this up much longer.
You didn’t think you could climb that rock face to the train tracks, either, but you did.
Omega Days (Book 5): The Feral Road Page 30