by D. F. Noble
The sound drew closer.
“Double-time this shit!” Dean yelled, and rushed out, tossing the rifles into the back seat.
They moved frantically, constantly checking the street, but the smoke was almost a wall now, and so thick it stung their eyes and singed their lungs.
“Swords,” Dean yelled, “everything! Grab it!”
Alex hacked and spat. The loogie caught in the face guard of his football helmet, but he ignored it. Reaching up, Alex plucked several bows off the wall. When he looked down, there was a box below them. It was filled with tubes; tubes full of dozens and dozens of arrows.
“Hey!” Alex said. “Do we have room for these?” He lifted the arrows into sight. Dean tossed his shield into the back seat on top of the rifles, and weaponry peered back through the doorway. “Yeah!” he bellowed. “Hurry it up! They're coming!”
Alex had so many bows and tubes in his hand that he was nearly tripping over himself. Dean smiled for a moment. He was excited: somehow, in all this, he was actually having fun. Watching Alex stumble towards the door, Dean almost laughed.
That's when he caught movement out on the street. Through the swirl of ashy white, he could see glimpses of the grownups. The street was packed with them shoulder to shoulder. Somehow they sensed him too, for their cries grew so loud that the ground and buildings began to tremble.
“Shit...”
Dean drew the revolver. It was a massive Smith and Wesson .500, a 50 cal. He gripped it tightly, with both of his hands, cocked it and locked his elbows. He thought, for just a split second before he fired, that if the thing kicked back and hit him in the head, at least he was wearing the helmet. He leveled the bead of the pistol chest-high into the crowd and pulled the trigger.
KAA-BOOOOOOOM!
The round cut the sound barrier like a thunderclap, and the pistol jumped up. But it was heavy, and Dean was expecting something worse, like trying to hold onto a kicking mule. Down range, the massive bullet punched through the chest of an adult dead-center in the crowd. It made a hole the size of a nickel and exploded out of its back roughly the size of a basketball. The force knocked it off its feet, and still the bullet went on, puncturing the stomach of the adult behind it. They sank out of sight as they fell, only to have more fill their place.
Jesus! Dean thought, relishing the power, and cocked the hammer again. The sound of it was so loud it made his metal helmet ring like a bell. Beside him, Alex stumbled out of the pawn shop doorway, trying not to drop the armful of arrows and equipment. Alex shoved it into the backseat and ran around the front of the car to the passenger side and drew his 9mm. Dean fired off another shot into the crowd. Flames almost a foot long spat out of the massive gun , and Alex's eyes went wide. A head exploded like a water balloon down the street.
Alex raised his own pistol and pulled the trigger. It was the first time he'd ever fired a gun, and... nothing. What the- Alex thought and looked it over. Fucking safety, shit! He raised it again and fired. The 9mm was loud, but sounded like a pea-shooter compared to Dean's cannon. Pow! There was hardly any recoil, and instantly, Alex felt confident with it. Pow-Pow-Pow! His shots zipped through the crowd. At first he thought they had no effect, but a moment later he saw a couple psychos stumble and disappear into the crowd. He fired again, aiming for the bodies and no place in particular. The grownups were together like sardines, so missing wasn't an issue.
They're getting too close, Alex thought, there's too many.
“Dean,” Alex bellowed over the static cries and ringing gunshots, “let's go!”
Dean looked over and nodded, then fired one more shot into the crowd. The bullet powered through a neck and sent the head shooting up an easy ten feet into the air. Dean cried out, “Wooooo! Did you see that!?”
“Get in!”
“Okay, okay!” Dean went to get in the car, but his helmet and the massive two-handed sword stopped him and clanged against the door frame. “Jesus,” Dean blurted, “can't fucking get in!”
Alex's voice broke into a high pitch.“Take the fucking helmet off! Take the fucking sword off, jackass! Come on!”
“Goddammit,” Dean muttered, and untied the chinstrap for the helmet and tossed it in, then slid the sword off his shoulder and did the same. A second later he was in the driver's seat and pulling away while Alex fired through the missing back window.
“Wait till Jake sees this shit!” Dean cackled. “He's going to shit big ol' poopy turds!”
C hapter 11
As The Crow Flies
Jake had almost taken his mom's car, but it occurred to him that his neighbors were always riding dirt bikes and four-wheelers. Their kids were younger then he was—maybe the oldest in the 6th grade—so they didn't really hang out much. When Jake was younger, though, when his dad was around, they would occasionally go next door and barbecue. The neighbor, George, showed Jake how to ride, and much to Jake's joy, the field was big enough behind George's house that he could really open up on the thing.
Jake had found the bike out in the shed with a full tank of gas, there were just no keys. I'll have to go in. He realized then that neither of their cars were home, George or his wife's, and maybe, if he was lucky enough, he wouldn't have to fight George (George was a big guy).
He found the door was locked. Jake knocked with his hatchet and then listened closely. When he heard nothing, he took a couple steps back on their porch and rushed forward and kicked the door just under the handle. Wood splintered, and it flew open, handle dangling. He'd been here before, and he knew their house fairly well. They always kept a key rack in their kitchen. If there were keys, they'd be there. Cautiously, Jake stepped in.
“Hello?” he called out, drawing his knife and readying his hatchet. There was no reply. He stepped into the kitchen, spied the rack and keys, and found a set marked “bike.” He took some extra time scouring George's bedroom. George and his dad would sometimes go shooting, so Jake knew he had guns. Flipping over their mattress in the master bedroom, he found a black automatic with a spare magazine staring back at him. Jake picked it up and looked it over. Browning Hi-Power was written down its side. He ejected the clip, saw it was loaded and popped a bullet out from the magazine. It read 9mm. He didn't know how many rounds it took, but if it was anything like the 9mm he had taken from Chris—the one that was now waiting for Randy at Tree Top—it carried anywhere from ten to seventeen rounds. Jake shoved the pistol into his belt and slid the extra clip into his back pocket, then made his way out to the bike.
There were more guns, certainly, but time pressed upon Jake. Each second he wasted could mean another cut, another bruise, another stab that his friends endured. Thirty rounds, and twelve arrows, Jake thought and climbed up on the dirt bike. Forty-two shots and a knife, a hatchet and a machete; and what's the population in town? 3200? How many of them are adults? And that's just this town, on the outskirts of a bigger town? Good odds. No, great odds. Fuck it. I'm coming, you guys.
On the second kick, the bike roared to life. It vibrated beneath him, purring like a mechanical beast. Let's make you growl, Jake thought, and pulled out of George's garage. He opened up on the gas and tore through the field full-throttle. The wind beat at his face and whipped his dark locks back like a horse's mane. Jake rode through fields and through wide open yards of outskirt citizens like himself.
Closer.
Town was only a mile away, maybe a mile, and the high school a couple more after that. He threw up a rooster tail of dirt and grass roaring into a yard. A grownup, a guy with a Cardinal's jersey and hamburger for a face, had come out from behind a plastic playpen carrying some bleeding mess in a pillow case and wielding a gore-soaked garden spade. He left the grownup in a cloud of dust and hopped across a street with his ass bouncing on the seat.
Dead ahead was a field of wheat, and over it you could see Wolf Ridge, the town's pre-k and kindergarten. Seeing the building, Jake almost let off the gas. Thoughts, flashes of brutality swept over his mind's eye. All those kids, he thought an
d powered by on the edge of its property, the little ones didn't have a chance. Then he remembered, pre-k through 5th grade got out earlier than the middle and high school. The little ones were home when it happened, Jake thought, blazing through the field, they were home or in the car, maybe playing a video game, or playing outside. Playing jump rope, and drawing crap on the sidewalks with chalk. That school is just an empty shell, maybe teeming with the staff, wandering the halls looking for children.
Looking for them... Jake shivered and thought,
without eyes in their goddamned heads.
Jake passed the school. From here on out, it was pure suburbia and business districts.
I'm riding into Hell itself. Maybe...maybe this is a nightmare. Maybe I'll wake up.
***
“They flanked us!” Alex yelled. Him and Dean had just pulled away from a horde—only god knew how strong—of murderous freaks and escaped a wall of smoke from some burning building, only to find themselves confronted by another wall of adults.
“Shit!”
Dean started backing up and Alex cried out. “What are you doing!?
“There's gotta be an alley back here!” Dean retorted. “We can't go through that!”
“Shit-shit-shit!”
Alex turned to the backseat and pulled out the biggest, meanest looking assault rifle he could find. It looked like the one the military used, the M16. Alex knew from many hours spent on video games that the thing probably wasn't full auto, and he wondered as he looked it over if the thing had a kick to it, and how you even loaded the thing. It took a second, a frantic oh-we're-gonna-die-now second, and he spied what looked like the rifle's bolt. It took some strength, but Alex managed to load a bullet in. Cha-chink.
Now for the safety...
Dean continued backwards, then clipped a stop sign. “Shit!” They'd driven back into the smoke now, and only hazy, dangerous shapes could be seen in the whiteout.
“Does this thing have a kick!?” Alex coughed.
“Fuck if I know!”
As Dean dropped the car back into Drive, a figure emerged to his left and shattered the driver's side window with a sledgehammer. Glass exploded. A piece slid across Dean's cheek and drew a line of blood. “Aaaah,” Dean cried out, and slid the .45 from his shoulder holster. He fired point-blank, two shots—Boom-Boom—and the figure fell back out of sight. He slammed on the gas, shot forward, thinking, Fuck it, if they're gonna kill us, at least let me get where I can see the fuckers.
A smoky figure appeared before him. Its legs smashed against the grill and its body tumbled over the hood. It cracked and dimpled the windshield and disappeared over the top of them. Alex screamed out as an arm reached in through his window and tried to grab him, only to be broken and shattered as the car screeched forward. Dean hit another adult, clipping it and sending it out of sight, and then they were out of the smoke again.
“DEAN!”
They were surrounded, and Dean smashed right into them, sending a wave back like bowling pins full of sacks of blood and intestines. A burly ghoul of a man swung in with a pickax. Its thin, spiked end pierced the windshield and came to a stop inches away from Alex's wide, terrified eyes. Alex's heart stopped for a moment, his breath caught in his throat and he felt a sudden wet warmness sprout in his crotch. Jesus, Alex thought, staring at the spike. Jesus Christ!
The burly ghoul pulled his weapon back to swing again, and the windshield came with it. Alex watched his rifle come up. There was no thought, no calculation, no words: it was action, pure and simple. As soon as the assault rifle touched Alex's shoulder, he squeezed off a round.
The gun only kicked slightly, and somewhere back in the far reaches of Alex's mind, he was glad for that. The ghoul on the business end, however, was glad of nothing, for his head disappeared. Everything above his bottom lip exploded in blood, bone and brain.
Alex roared with fear, power, and excitement. Some distant little voice told him, you just screamed so hard you shit yourself. But Alex didn't care. He pulled the trigger as fast as he could, pumping round after round through the open windshield. Bullets ripped through bodies, twirled dances of death inside organs, ripped heads apart.
A knife snaked in and sliced Alex across the forearm. He cried out, turned and shoved the rifle towards the window, and let loose a barrage of bullets. Dean screamed beside him, slamming the pedal down, and tried to crumple the crowd with the old boat of Mr. Ottoman's. Grownups willingly threw themselves on the car, with no concern in the slightest to themselves. Bodies sank beneath, others tried to crawl up on the roof. Tires, with grownups below them, peeled faces from skulls in a blur of smoke, hot rubber and gore.
Dean didn't let up. He pushed forward, revving the car's engine.
An eyeless old woman slid across the hood and came in through the windshield fast enough that she was able to grab Dean's face. Just as her thumb cut into his cheek, Dean shoved the .45 in her mouth and exploded her skull. A fresh layer of gore covered them, spraying both Dean and Alex with brain matter. A tooth zipped out and stuck into Dean's bicep like a tiny dagger. He screamed as her body sank into the car with them, screamed when her ass literally pointed in his face as her lifeless body twitched between the boys. Her dress had hiked up her hips, and her buttocks and camel toe pointed at him like a loaded weapon. He caught a glimpse of her bowels evacuating into her panties, and then something hard hit the back of his head and the driver’s side rear window shattered.
Dean saw black around his vision for a moment; he knew he was screaming, but couldn't hear himself. There was only the chatter of Alex's rifle and a swirl of static. He turned and saw a man with an ax beside him getting ready to swing. Dean's .45 went off. The bullet cut the handle in two with a shard of splinters and punched into the man's sternum. He flew back into the crowd, only to have two more fill his place.
Dean dropped the car into second gear, and the tires squealed blood and gore. They were moving, but the sheer weight of the adults around them weighed them down. He fired his .45 till it clicked empty, its barrel smoking. He dropped the clip out and slammed another home and fired through the windshield, trying to break their numbers.
A blade came down through the roof between himself and Alex, and an eyeless naked old man, wrinkled and thin with liver spots, pulled himself in the back window. He was shoulder-deep when Alex spun in his seat and shot him. The bullet tore through the ghastly thing's cheek and cleaved the side of its face off as if its head were just a dinner plate.
We're gonna die, Alex thought, and fired another burst.
***
Jake roared into town at sixty miles per hour. He expected to be met with adults, swarming like ants, but instead he found only desolation. It looked like a ghost town, a war zone. Chunks of meat and puddles of blood covered the sidewalks. Big red handprints plastered some of the houses and buildings. Cars were abandoned in the street, some of them tied together in twisted, crumpled heaps of metal, some of them in yards and buried in houses.
He passed a van that had crashed into a smaller foreign car. The van's driver hung from his seat by the seatbelt, blood and phlegm dripping from his mouth. A bird was sitting on the back of his head, reaching down and nibbling pieces of his cheek off and gobbling them down. The foreign car he'd hit was a metal accordion that looked like someone had stuffed a bunch of raw meat in and then started doing a polka. It was bad; Jake could barely look at it.
Ahead, he could see that smoke was not just pooling up into the sky, but it was covering the streets as well, settling down like thick rolling walls of fog. Maybe it just isn't one building on fire, Jake thought, maybe it's a whole block of buildings.
He ran over a teddy bear drenched in blood; it was either that or ride through piles of guts and intestines discarded in the road.
He saw, but he didn't see. He smelled, but his mind replaced the smells. Every fiber of his being told him this place was a graveyard, a little plot that rested right before the gates of Hell.
Street by street
, and it got worse. Trails of gore and red footprints that congealed like wax stamps on letters stuck to the road. There was just so much blood, so much gore. A loop of intestines would just lie on a sidewalk, and a few feet away would be a pile of what looked like ground hamburger, but it was yellow. Jake knew what that was: it was fat, just pure fat. He saw it when he used to butcher deer with his Dad.
Jake took another turn and jumped on a main road that would lead closer to the high school. Please, let me find them. I hope they stayed inside and hid. That would have been the best thing to do.
Jake tried to imagine a thousand eyeless freaks barreling down the street like a wave. Not an ocean wave or anything beautiful or natural, but a wave of thrashing limbs and gnashing teeth—and that sound. That goddamned static machine sound, coming at you like a train, and those goddammed things looking right at you, you knew they were looking at you, but they had no fucking eyes. Jake stopped thinking and cranked on the gas. He was starting to get creeped out. Where the fuck are all the adults? Doesn't make any sense-
And then Jake heard it. Gunfire, and not too far off. At first it was just a few small pops, and he slowed his bike down to hear it better and find which direction it came from. Then the shots escalated. The sound grew till it was like a string of Black Cat firecrackers going off.
Maybe not all the adults are crazy, Jake thought. Maybe that's the police! The army coming to help!
Jake revved the 250cc engine and shot off again, trailing the sound.
***
When Jake turned on the next street, he almost lost control of the bike. There, just a block away, a group of grownups were bashing at a car. They swarmed even though whoever was inside surely had to be armed to the teeth, for the sheer number of gunshots was earsplitting.