by Rod Little
“Or a dozen creatures could show up,” Shane warned. “I think it's better to just shut him down fast.”
“If he keeps firing, he's gonna attract a lot of attention to this place,” Sam agreed with his brother. “Not the least of which is those psycho Grinners. If they hear it, they'll turn back.”
The man below fired another shot. It took a bigger chunk off the roof corner. This man was decidedly a fool. Each shot gave his position away.
“Come on down,” the man growled. “And I won't kill ya. Just need to take ya back to Dexter.”
“What an idiot,” Jason said. “He's in the middle of the damn street, telling us he can't kill us.”
Sam smiled wryly. “Dexter wants us alive. This guy can't kill us.”
“He wants one of us alive, not all,” Shane said. “He might only want to hear what Walter said to me and Jason.”
“Who?”
“It's a long story. Anyway, be careful. He might not need you alive.”
Shane stayed on the roof with his bow. Jason and Sam crept down the fire escape, softly making their way to the bottom rung. They needed to find another way back to Mark, Lucy, and Camila, while Shane tried to keep Chuckles busy – that was what they nicknamed him: Chuckles, the clown with a gun. With Chuckles wearing a flak vest, only a shot to the head or neck would stop him. That's not easy with a longbow.
Jason and Sam couldn't see any way back to the others, except by going right in front of Chuckles. Instead, they sneaked back to the drugstore, and formed a new plan to distract this man, so that Shane could take him out. This plan required quiet moves and finesse.
They heard Shane's voice from the rooftop.
“If you make some more noise, a few lizards might take you down for us.”
The thought hadn't occurred to the nitwit gunman, but now it did. He looked around at the ghost town, and lowered his voice. “Just come down peaceful-like. Dexter just wants to talk to you.”
Shane sent an arrow down in response. It landed in the man's left arm. Not a deal breaker, but it hampered the man's ability to shoot. He cursed softly to himself, and backed onto the bar's porch, so he couldn't be seen from the roof.
As Jason and Shane crept out the front door of the drugstore, broken glass crunched under their feet. They stopped, but the man hadn't noticed them. He was focused on his bleeding arm.
“Wait here,” Jason mouthed.
Sam waited, and wondered what was happening. Jason disappeared in the shadows and was gone. Another arrow came down from the roof and nearly pierced the gunman's right boot. “Dammit,” the man said and backed away further toward the end of the porch.
Just then, Jason popped up and shoved his knife under the flak vest and into the man's side. He dug the blade in deep. The man turned and they both fell off the porch in a roll, right in the middle of the road. Jason pulled the knife out and pivoted his body on top of the man, then slit the Grinner's throat. Blood pooled around them in the dirt
Sam ran to help Jason up. “You can do that? I mean... how did you learn to do that?”
Jason shrugged. For a long-haired loser, he still had a few secrets. They gathered the supply bags and hopped into the jeep. Shane climbed down, and the three of them drove to get the others.
Lucy was unconscious when they arrived at the alley, but she was alive. They put her in the back with Mark and Camila, and headed out of town. They hadn't collected all the supplies they wanted, but that wasn't the priority anymore. They needed to reach the Peak before the Grinners found it.
They diverted from the main road, shut off the headlights, then veered across a flat field. They crept along the back roads like rats scurrying around the baseboards in the dark, avoiding the house cat.
Chapter 14
Ken studied the vehicle advancing on the road. Still an hour before the sun would start to shed any light, the morning was misty and dark. In his mind he begged the sun to hurry its rise; he desperately needed some illumination. The road was far too dim to guard, and strange things were happening again.
They had already confronted one unexpected guest tonight, now dead in the garden, and he wasn't sure he had the stomach for more. This new movement on the road had him on pins and needles.
“Something's coming,” he told Tina. “But I can't see what. It's some kind of car.”
He switched from binoculars back to the scope on the rifle, and aimed it at the vehicle fast approaching their gate. Tina grabbed the binoculars, pressed them to her eyes and prayed it would be their friends. She was in luck.
“It's the jeep!” she cried. “Come on. The gate!”
This time Shane drove the jeep through the gate and parked inside the walls. The courtyard wasn't meant for vehicles, but he barreled across the lawn anyway and found a space over a flower garden.
Lily ran to her mom. “Mommy!”
But Lucy was still unconscious. They carried her into the lobby and laid her on the red couch. Tina and Ken examined the wound. The bullet had gone all the way through, which was incredibly good news. Ken applied iodine and antibiotic ointment to the open wound, and Camila wrapped it up tight with gauze. The bleeding had stopped, for now.
“When she wakes up, she needs to eat and take these.” Sam held out a bottle of antibiotics from their supply-run bag.
“What's wrong with mommy?” Lily sobbed. She craned her neck and stared up at the tall Sam as if looking up at the top of a redwood tree.
“Mom's tired,” Mark told his sister, holding her tiny hand. “After she sleeps, she'll be okay.”
“Is that her daughter?” Shane asked.
“Hey, is that Lucy Loop?” Ken wanted to know, stunned and a bit star-truck. “From the Honeybees? Wow. It's really her.”
“She's a singer. I told you,” Lily said, wiping a strain of tears from her cheek.
“That you did,” Ken remarked. “That you did.”
“She's gonna be fine,” Mark whispered in his sister's ear, even though he wasn't so sure. Lying for his mom was a big part of his job as big brother.
As the morning unfurled, they introduced each other and ate a breakfast of peaches, apples and carrots. They also had more prepackaged snack cakes lifted from the drugstore, and water was passed around. During their feast, they got Ken and Tina up to speed about the Grinners and Walter. The new world was getting crowded with enemies, in some ways worse than the big lizards.
Mark carefully sorted his deck of cards, which turned out to be Magic: The Gathering, and explained to Tina that “No it's not like Pokemon!” with some indignation.
“More like D&D, or kinda Game of Thrones,” Sam explained to her, casting a wink to the kid.
Mark smiled knowingly, as if he had just shared a private joke with the older boy.
“Lizards can't climb walls, but Grinners can,” Shane said. “Now more than ever, we need a guard in the watchtower at all times!”
“Starting now,” Jason agreed. “My turn. I'll be up there if you need me.” He grabbed a rifle and an apple and headed up the stairs.
Lucy still slept. Lily climbed onto the couch and napped next to her with the fuzzy frog in hand.
“We have another problem,” Ken said darkly. “A new problem.”
“What?” Shane asked. What now?
“We had a new guest last night, sneaked over the wall. Here, follow me. I'll show you the body.”
Ken led them outside and into the courtyard. The sun was up, round and full, unfettered by even a single cloud. The garden looked beautiful, approaching surreal. He pointed to the ground next to a row of orange and yellow marigolds.
A giant hairy spider had been crushed into the grass, impaled by a hunting knife. Its legs stretch out at least three feet long, and the body itself was almost a foot in length. A cross between a fishing spider and a wolf spider, it was a horrifying sight – even to those who are not gripped by arachnophobia. It looked like it might eat small dogs for lunch.
“They've started coming out of the west woods, ov
er there,” Ken pointed to the treeline. Up until now, everything scary had come from the east side. “And unlike our lizard friends, these spiders can climb walls. They can get in.”
“Awesome,” Shane said in his trademark tone of sarcasm. We're screwed.
“That might be what carried the dead carcasses away,” Sam speculated. “Spiders eat meat. Usually insects, but at this size... they would need larger prey. They might have taken our lizards.”
“What, to their web?” Camila shuddered.
“I think wolf spiders don't spin webs,” Sam explained. “They make nests. They'll carry their food back to the nest. Of course, these are mutated types, so... yeah, maybe they do spin webs.”
Ken said, “We saw maybe half a dozen outside from the tower, but only this one came in. I shot it first. The knife was... later.”
“Wow, good shot.”
Mark joined them, and was very impressed by the spider. “Cool,” was all he said. He stared at it, mesmerized.
Jason spotted the spider from the tower and shouted down at them: “Dudes. That is so messed up.” Shane gave him the thumbs up.
Snowball had followed Mark and now rubbed against Sam's leg. He meowed at the dead eight-legged intruder, but soon lost interest. Cats only like things that move, Sam mused. But it was more than that; Snowball didn't seem threatened by it.
“Hey, we've seen a couple cats. And on the road back there we saw a cougar,” Sam reminded them. “And birds are everywhere. So I guess cats and birds are immune to whatever is mutating everything else into lizard creatures.”
“And dogs and other animals are not immune,” Shane said. “Humans, most humans, are not. Those of us outside the city escaped the mutation, but not many others did. And Walter said there are multiple strains of mutations. That they don't all have the same genes. Is this what he meant? I thought he meant different lizards, but...”
“Maybe the spiders and lizards are both mutations, different kinds.” Sam guessed. “And I have a hunch more types of creatures are hatching, or will hatch, out there. Either now or later.”
They let a moment of tense silence pass on that scary note, as they stared at the grass.
Then Shane said: “Awesome!”
Lily and Mark spent the morning helping Camila and Sam fill the bird feeders in and around the courtyard. They also spread seed out on the grass. Seeds were in good supply, as huge bags of bird seed lined the garden's storeroom. Birds had been an attraction for the resort's guests, and today it was a positive distraction for the kids, as well as the adults. Hundreds of birds came down to eat. Blue jays, cardinals, finches, larks, orioles... large crows also bullied their way in.
Snowball seemed uninterested. He didn't chase any of them. He just lay on the grass and basked in the sun's warm rays.
“It's a long shot,” Sam said. “But the birds might help protect us. Warn us about invaders, the spiders and such, if any come over the wall.”
Camila didn't sound convinced. She pulled her long black hair behind her head. “I don't know. At night that won't really work.”
“I said it was a long shot. But they might at least be able to warn us in the day – if we see them scatter.”
“Regardless, I like the birds. They just fly about as if the world hasn't changed.”
Camila was at least five years older than Sam, but he noticed how beautiful she looked in the light of day. Her tan skin and ample form, barely contained in her tight shirt, her smile – tantalizing to any young man.
“So how long have you been able to... you know...” she asked?
“Oh. Uh, I passed puberty years ago.”
“What? No, I don't mean... I mean... the electricity thing.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Sam smiled. “Well, my whole life. But I didn't start to control it till I was eight or nine. By fourteen, I could do some more things with it.”
“And now? Looks like now, you can really pump up the volume.” She stopped spreading seeds and touched his chest. “There would be a hole right here, if not.”
“Sometimes I can do things,” Sam said. “But only on instinct. Like a protective mechanism. It's not so easy to just do it by will. I can, but not so much. I don't like to talk about it.”
“You mean you can't do it now, to show me?”
“It's not a magic trick.” Sam sounded perturbed, but he wasn't.
“No. I know. I just asked.”
“Besides, it drains me. I get tired afterwards. I need a few hours to recharge the batteries. No pun intended.”
She laughed. It was a nice laugh.
Shane had noticed her, too, and joined them in watching the birds. “Sammy, why don't you go inside and help with Lucy and Lily. The adults will handle the birds.”
Sam could take a hint. He made a gun with his thumb and forefinger and clicked it at Camila. “See you later.”
“Later? Why is he seeing you later?” Shane asked.
“I think it's just an expression,” She said with a wide, honest smile. There was no guile in her heart. “So you're the handsome older brother.”
“In the flesh. Let's get these sweet little birds fed, shall we?” His flirting was never very smooth.
The group worked all afternoon stringing empty cans and pieces of tin on wire to form a fence around the perimeter. They hoped it would serve as a warning bell against unwanted guests. Most likely the spiders could crawl under it, but the lizards would surely set it off. Men might set it off, too.
The watchtower guards were doubled at night. Two people from midnight to six, and one guard during the day. Shane knew that Dexter would be coming. He was surprised no attack had come yet; he thought they would have heard from the maniac by now. If Dexter's men had actually found them, one or two men might be watching the lodge now from a distance. Dexter was a shrewd man. Whatever he had planned, it wouldn't be good for Sam and Shane's group in the Peak Castle Lodge.
It will be bad like a jilted woman with a six-string guitar, he thought, echoing one of his dad's old sayings.
“We need to watch the back too,” Shane told Jason as they sat in the tower.
“Yeah, we gotta walk the wall, all around. Regularly. But the back is hard for anyone to reach. I think it's the front road he'll have to use, or maybe through the woods.”
“We also need more weapons,” Shane said. “We'll have to try St. Marks. We need a lot more guns and arrows for what's coming our way.”
Jason nodded and silently agreed. He watched the night descend and wrap itself tightly around them. Nowadays he hated seeing the sun go down. It meant darkness, and darkness was not their friend.
And then a light, bright orange and red, streaked across the sky, someplace off in the distance. They watched it sail in an arc, glowing and beautiful like a small bit of fireworks, and then it dissipated and let the black sky close back in.
“Is that a signal flare?” Jason asked.
“Yeah, I think so. But it's pretty far off.” Shane watched the sky until the signal faded, then stared at the place it had been. “Might be a trick. Dexter's men trying to lure us out. Or it could be other people... good or bad. Regardless, we're not going out there to find out.”
“I hear that.”
Sam walked halfway up the staircase and shouted to them, “Hey, come down and look at this!”
They briefly went back down to the lobby, where a light was on. Except for Lucy, who was sleeping again, everyone gathered around the single light bulb.
Ken flicked a switch, and another light went on. “Solar panels,” he explained. “They're installed on all the roofs, even on the clubhouse. They charge batteries connected in here to a circuit board. I flipped the circuits on today.”
Sam clicked the light off, then on again.
Ken continued, “We should have enough power for hot showers, cooking, and lights... if we are careful and ration it. On sunny days the batteries should be able to recharge all the way. Cloudy days might give us half a charge. My guess is that the
resort was getting a third of its power from solar. And being so far from the grid, I'm sure it came in handy during winter outages.”
“Sweet,” Jason said. “If we can cook again, I'm all for it. I'm getting so damn tired of raw apples.”
Ken nodded. “As long as we ration it. Don't overuse it. Just the essentials.”
Shane was still worried, and it showed on his face. “No lights on the second floor and higher. Okay?”
“Why not?” Tina asked. She did not favor darkness. It allowed her mind to conjure up too much thought: guilty memories of her family, her days in the hospital. She loved that no one here knew anything about her past. Even Ken knew very little.
“Because we don't want to attract attention. Until we get more weapons, we need to stay hidden. This place needs to look like it's empty. Our best protection right now is to be invisible. No lights on at night, except here on the ground floor. The walls should hide any light down here. I think.”
“Makes sense,” said Ken.
It was a relief to have electricity. It was a comforting connection to the old world they once knew.
Tina picked up a can of Ma-Made brand stew. “I'm willing to try cooking this. Anyone else up for eating it?”
Shane snapped his fingers, pointed to her and winked. He never turned down hot food.
While they ate, the wind howled against the castle walls like a wounded ghost. The windows rattled, but held firm. And as the night wore on, the group talked, drank, and no one paid any attention to the ghosts outside. No one, except Sam.
Part II
“...Against such forces as have been loose tonight... Even with a modern rifle it would be all odds on the monster.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World
Chapter 15
Bohai Chen was the sole survivor of a plane that crashed en route from Toronto to Pittsburgh. It met the ground in an underpopulated area near the Pocono Mountains, so sparsely populated that no one was around to witness its fiery demise. The jet separated into three distinct pieces, intact, except for the tail section, but the force of the impact killed everyone on board – everyone except one. By a miracle of fate, or luck of the draw, Bohai lived and only suffered a wrenched back and neck. The sole survivor was able to climb from his section of the cracked plane and stumble onto the side of the mountain to live another day. And to view the horrors of the wreckage around him.