“You really need to keep the ice on this for a while,” Thorn said.
“I don’t think we have a while,” Devin said. “How’d you make out in the lab?”
“All set, but took a little longer than I expected.”
“Trouble?” Nick asked.
“Sort of. Have you ever tried to kill a zombie with a chair? It’s a lot of work.”
They all laughed, and then a severed female head crashed through the window and rolled across the floor.
The Queen of Pentacles
Pam kept watch over the little ones. It wasn’t much of a job. They weren’t wild and unruly; in fact, they were unusually quiet for children, and that saddened her. She had seen the shallow smiles, the haunted eyes, and the sleepwalker movements in many towns where she had conducted operations for the CIA and for Special Ops. The faces of children that were worn by the horror of war and civil unrest. Children traumatized to a point of near silence. She knew it was the same survival mechanism observed in animals when peril was imminent. She had seen the expression on her own face a lifetime ago when her stepfather had conducted his reign of terror on her family. Her sadness became anger.
She looked at her watch. Ten minutes to go-time. She wasn’t sure she could actually do it. She had never left a man in the field, and the man in question right now was her husband. They’d be back. Well, Bob would be back; he always returned. They had met a long time ago, when they were in their twenties. They had killed a lot of people who deserved it, but they had saved far more than they had killed. Bob and she had never lost a fight, never suffered more than a few cuts or nonlethal wounds. She wondered if all that luck had run out. As she looked at the small faces that stared back at her, she could not believe that God would turn his back now, not when so much was at stake for these little ones.
She heard the whisper of movement to her five o’clock, but she gave no indication she was aware of their presence. She stood in the van’s open door and looked at the children. She smiled at them and said in a low voice.
“Okay, kids, Aunty Pam has some stuff to do, so I need you to stay in here.”
A small girl with big brown eyes, Emily, Pam thought her name was, looked as if she knew this was good-bye.
“Now, I’m gonna lock these doors,” Pam said in a whisper, “and no matter what, I don’t want you to unlock them for anyone but me, okay?”
They all nodded.
“Good kids,” she said and pushed the electric lock button.
She stepped away from the door and casually closed it.
She spun quickly, and with a magician’s sleight of hand, a throwing knife appeared in each of her hands. With equal speed, she targeted two of the ten approaching men and let the knives fly with deadly accuracy. The two blades found two throats, and the two men dropped like stones.
“Hello, boys, hope you came to party.” Pam laughed and spun away from the van in a series of cartwheels that held the men in stunned disbelief. These men knew her as the slightly crazy and somewhat lazy, retail woman. None expected the fluid motion, the mesmerizing speed, and graceful agility of her escape. She came down on her feet, and two more knives had appeared in her hands. The knives flew with the same deadly certainty of the first and found two more men.
“Come on, guys, this is pathetic,” Pam mocked. “I might also remind you that it is now four down and six to go, in case we’re keeping score. Perhaps you should have brought a few more guys along to keep things even.”
Her taunting held purpose, and it worked. A man with whom she had often talked over coffee charged at her with a large wood club.
“Seriously, Steve,” she called, “this is a dumb move.”
Steve kept coming. She sidestepped him, reached for her boot knife, and brought the blade up and into his stomach. Steve screamed and fell over, holding his bleeding gut.
“Yeah, fuckhead, that’s gonna hurt a lot more before you die,” she said.
Two more men charged her, and the remaining three circled. She spun in a manner that Annie would have envied, and she cut the first man’s throat. As the knife slashed, her leg came up, and she kicked the second attacker in the jaw, satisfied with the loud crack the bone made when it broke under her boot. The three others were working their way behind her, and she cartwheeled away from them to gain some distance. As she spun, she heard gunshots.
Damn, she thought, I was hoping they didn’t have guns.
She felt a sharp sting as a bullet grazed her arm, and then a second bullet pierced her side. She kept moving but now changed direction and worked toward the men. Twenty feet from them, she ended on her feet and extended an arm as she threw her knife into the gunman’s chest. He went down hard, and the two others took a step back. They both had guns, and she was out of knives.
Bart stepped from behind a tree.
“Okay, Pammy, or should I say Commander, the show is over.”
“Not yet, it isn’t, Bart,” she said, but she felt her shirt soaking with blood from the gunshot wound and knew time was against her.
“Just give me the children, and then you can go bury your dead husband.”
“Fuck you, you liar,” she yelled, but she couldn’t help but look to the spot where Bob had gone through the woods.
“Yes, I’m afraid it’s true, Pam. And all for what? A few children? Come now, let’s end this before anyone else dies.”
Pam had worked her way to one of the fallen men. She did a one-handed cartwheel, and her free hand pulled the blade from the man’s throat as she passed. She landed on her feet and looked at Bart.
“You’re next, fucker,” she spat.
Bart smiled at her.
“I’m glad you want it that way, Pammy. Really. I would have killed you anyway, of course.”
“I think I’ll kill you first, dickface.”
“Then you’ll need more than that knife,” he said and pointed to her left.
A few yards away stood another man. He held a long pole in front of him. The pole had a noose at the end and the noose was secured around the throat of a large Creeper. The creature was wild and strong, and it struggled against the pole.
“I think he’s hungry, Pam,” Bart said and laughed. “They do so love the smell of blood.” He smiled at her.
“Let it go,” Bart called, and the man released the creature.
It charged Pam. She fought hard, but it wasn’t enough. She knew that it wouldn’t be.
The Queen of Swords
She didn’t need the GPS after all. The route back was easy to find. She passed the driveway to the house where they had stayed, and it seemed that it had all been a lifetime ago. A sense of time was lost to her still. Not lost in the hourly tick of the clock, but more so in her sense of her own movement through space. Time had become an event, a place, or a music track from her iPod. Each moment a singular thing. The moments did not connect like the flow of a river. Instead, they seemed as a series of deep lakes connected by some unseen cord. The “now” was clear; the “then” and the “yet to be” were just ghosts and dreams. Reality remained something that she could not fully grasp: snippets of conversations that may have been real or were perhaps just imagined, a past that may or may not have existed, and a future that seemed pointless since only hope propelled us forward—and of hope, she had so very little.
The escape from the machine shop had launched them back into a world of uncertainty. They had first driven with fear’s recklessness and then slowed to uncertain caution. The distance between the machine shop and the house had felt large, as if it might have encompassed a day’s travel. The GPS seemed to argue against that perceived distance, but uncertainty remained, so she pushed the Escalade to dangerous speeds. Her loose grip on time did not diminish her understanding that each minute was critical even if she herself struggled to measure it. She understood that without a quick return to the fort, her fri
ends and family were lost. The danger of rolling the Escalade was of a lesser concern. In truth, if she couldn’t get back to them in time, then her death would hold little consequence. She had embarked on an all-or-nothing drive, and she pushed the accelerator farther toward the floorboard.
The Escalade shot through the woods. Each bump and dip threatened to dislodge it from the road and send the black SUV twisting and rolling into the woods. She sped around a curve and almost missed the machine shop’s entrance gate. She had not expected it to be so close or she would have slowed. She had planned at least some stealth in her approach, but rather than miss the turn, she stomped the brake and turned the wheel into a hard left. The tires cried angrily against the blacktop, but they caught and propelled her into the parking lot in a spray of gravel.
Her entrance was not the quiet arrival that she had envisioned. She dismissed her concern when she considered that if the infected cats still prowled the shop, then her mission ended the moment she stepped from the SUV. A pile of guns and ammunition sat in the shop, and no matter the number of cats, she intended to get those weapons or die in the process. There was no second option and certainly no backup plan.
She let the SUV continue its tailspin until the ass end almost aligned with the open garage door, and then she cranked the wheel in the opposite direction and touched the accelerator to end the slide. She looked in the rearview mirror, but the interior of the shop was dark. She pulled the Escalade forward, straightened it, and then placed the shifter in reverse. The backup lights came on and illuminated the shop’s interior. There was no movement. She cursed herself for trying to delay the inevitable. She growled, released the brake, and thumped the accelerator. The SUV shot into the garage, and she jammed the brake again before she hit the pile of weapons on the back wall.
She pulled on Bob’s shoulder holster. It was a terrible fit and not made for a girl of five feet two inches. There were adjustment straps, and she yanked them as tight as they would go, but still the guns hung to her waist. She checked each weapon to ensure they were loaded. She had made that mistake once before, and it cost Bob his life. She would not make it again, ever. The first gun was fully loaded, and a gold-jacketed bullet winked from its chamber. The second gun was missing the three bullets she had used on Carl. She put the fully loaded semi-automatic into one holster and held on to the second gun.
Twenty-seven bullets between life and death. Better odds than her friends faced right now. She opened the door and jumped into the garage without further hesitation.
The rain had stopped, but the water dripped from the trees and the awnings. It sounded like little claws scratching on the metal roof. Golden squatted and closed her eyes. She listened for a few seconds. She waited for the cats to appear around her. A few more seconds ticked away, and still just the drops of rain. She opened her eyes. The garage was empty. She stood and looked around. The place echoed with memories that began to surface from the depths. The dark mist crept around her, and she slid into it as she always did. She could see her brothers, her sister, and her friends all around. They were ghosts that moved through the building. She wondered if perhaps they were already dead and that their spirits had returned here to be with her one final time. She saw Brittney and Vanessa, but not as they had ended but instead as they had been when there remained a chance to find safety and happiness. She saw the cat that had flown through the air to scratch Austin. Sadness swam among the mist, and she wondered if Austin would live long enough for the infection to overtake him.
She pushed hard against the mist, and it relented, drifting back to some deep place within her mind. She was alone again in the silent garage.
She moved quickly to the Escalade’s tailgate. She lifted the hatch and found the dead man inside. It was Brother Paul. The three men who guarded the SUV had either not noticed him or had decided to leave him where he lay. She holstered her gun, grabbed his waist, and pulled him from the cargo space. His body was stiff and heavy, and when she rolled him onto the floor, he made a loud wet thump. Something tore open on impact, and dark fluids leaked from his body and pooled along the cement floor. The smell was terrible. She grasped his ankles and dragged his body to the open door in hopes that the smell would drift outside. Brother Paul continued to leak, and a large wet smudge created a trail from the back of the Escalade to the door. She was careful not to step in any of the thick vile fluid as she loaded the weapons and boxes of ammunition into the rear cargo space of the SUV.
In the far corner were several more boxes. These were filled with canned goods and water. She was impatient to leave but reconsidered abandoning the supplies. If they escaped the fort, then these supplies would provide them extra time to find the next safe place to rest. The cargo area was full, so she closed the hatch and opened the back passenger door. She would take what she could fit in the backseat, and then Devin could decide whether to keep the stuff or not. She went back to the boxes and decided to load the water bottles first. She made two trips. She imagined that she heard sounds outside the garage. After the second trip, she realized the sounds were not in her imagination and that they were not the raindrops she had heard at her arrival. She pulled her gun from the holster and listened. It was quiet again. She looked back at the food boxes. She considered how to carry the last box without having to holster the weapon. None of the scenarios her mind created seemed to work. She holstered the gun again and went for the last box. She had to decide upon which to take, as there was room for only one more. She selected the carton that seemed to hold the most cans and lifted it with a groan.
She turned back toward the SUV, with her hands straining to keep a grip on the heavy container. At the garage door stood the Creepers. They stared at her with their insane, hungry eyes. Black bile drooled from several mouths, and the smell of their rotting and dirty bodies filled the garage. Goldie glanced at the SUV. It sat thirty feet away. The rear and driver’s door stood open. She might make it.
She dropped the box, and it made a loud crash as its contents spilled onto the gray cement floor. A single can of tomato soup rolled across the floor and then stopped. A Creeper screamed. She drew her guns, and the Creepers broke into their awful gallop. She charged the Creepers, and her guns blazed.
Just twenty-seven bullets between life and death.
Twenty-six …
Twenty-five …
Twenty-four …
She stopped counting.
Then a familiar voice yelled to her through the dark mist.
“Goldie … slide!”
The Queen of Wands
Susan screamed.
The head rolled across the wood floor and came to rest at her feet. The dead eyes looked up at her. The face was badly torn, but Pam’s features were still unmistakable.
“Play time’s over, children,” came the sound of Bart’s voice. He was speaking through something that sounded like a bullhorn.
“Oh shit,” Nick said.
Thorn hugged Susan, and she looked away from Pam’s dead stare.
Nick grabbed a towel and covered Pam’s dismembered head. “This guy is a real fuckin’ psycho,” he said.
Devin evaluated the expressions on his friend’s faces. He saw shock, horror, anger, and cold calculation. He glanced back at the shattered window. From the alley on the opposite side of the central street, he saw the Tahoe as it made the tight drive between the buildings. It came out of the alley, made a half turn in the street, and then stopped. A man slid to the passenger’s side, opened the door, and got out. The driver took a quick look at the window and then ran toward the sound of Bart’s voice.
“I have a very simple proposition for you,” Bart said in the loud bullhorn voice. “You throw out your guns, you get in that truck, and you leave.”
“What, no option B?” Brandon said in a low voice.
“Or,” Bart continued as if he had heard Brandon, “you can play the heroes and wind up like Pam and B
ob.”
Devin’s head spun toward Annie.
“I thought you said Goldie was with Bob?” His voice was harsh, and his cheeks flushed with anger. Annie took a half step backward.
“She went ahead of him. I-I don’t know,” she stuttered.
“Like I said, my brother”—Austin’s flat, even tone matched his cold stare—“we will be getting her back even if I have to tear apart every one of those fuckers.” Austin headed to the door with his bat across his shoulder.
“Wait,” Devin said and regained his composure. His hand gently grasped his brother’s shoulder and Austin stopped.
“My patience grows thin, my friends,” Bart called. “Perhaps you should come out and see the big picture before you decide on anything foolish.”
“Perhaps we should,” Devin said and limped toward the door. Thorn had braced his leg with a couple of wooden chair legs and duct tape, but the pain was evident on Devin’s face.
“Devin, that might not be the best idea,” Thorn said.
“Can’t stay here,” Devin said, but he didn’t look back. He grasped the door handle, pulled the door open, and stepped out onto the small porch. The others followed him down the porch steps and into the street.
They all looked to the end of the street. Devin said over his shoulder. “Caroline, get behind the Tahoe.”
Bart stood at the intersection in front of the school. He had the bullhorn in hand, and a smug look of victory on his face. Members of his congregation, people who had once seemed friendly and helpful, stood beside him. Most stared at them with open hostility, but a few looked down at their feet with less conviction. Behind Bart was the parked van. In the windows, they could see the children’s faces staring out at them.
“Well, so much for trying to get a shot at him,” Nick said. “He knows we won’t risk shooting one of the kids.”
“Throw those weapons into the street,” Bart called.
“Or what, Bart? Seems like a standoff,” Adam yelled.
You and Me against the World: The Creepers Saga Book 1 Page 26