She paused to reload a fresh magazine. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a pair of blackened, gnarled fingers reaching over the edge of the roof. Oh God! Where’d he come from? How’d he get up here? “Aidan!” She screamed as the fingers reached for the toes of his boots. He looked down just before the hand reached his ankle, and he kicked the lopsided skull before the creature was able to grab him and knock him off balance.
Cheryl glanced over the edge where she was standing and saw the scalps of two more Eaters nearing the eaves. “How are they getting up?” she shouted. She figured it out as soon as she saw the third one’s bare, mangled feet leave the ground. Some of the more emaciated Eaters were climbing the walls like spiders by digging their fingers into the grooves of the mortar between the bricks and hoisting their skeletal limbs up inch by inch. It was hard to pick them off before they reached the roof, because she had to get close to the edge to get them in her line of sight. She had to wait until a head breached the roof line, and that was perilously close for comfort.
As she pondered a solution to that problem, the sound of breaking glass came from somewhere inside the building.
“Somebody go down,” Diego yelled. “Check the windows. Don’t let them get in!”
“I’ll go,” Vinnie said, leaping toward the opening in the roof and nearly losing his balance. He did a jig and righted himself, preventing a slide down to the open mouths below.
This is chaos, Cheryl thought. She could barely keep up with the numbers climbing now. How the hell are we going to stop this many?
As more Eaters reached the top of the roof, her friends seemed to reach the same conclusion. In unison, they edged away from the perimeter and formed a circle, facing outwards and firing wildly at the onslaught. When Zach and Jordan ran out of ammunition, and it was obvious to all of them that they were not going to be able to prevent the roof from being overrun, Diego commanded the retreat. He motioned with his gun, “Down. Down. Down. Down!”
Most of them continued to fire at the heads popping up above the roof line as they did a backwards shuffle towards the trapdoor. Only one person could descend the ladder at one time, so there was a bottleneck until each of them could take their turn going down. Kai went first, then Jordan, Zach, Diego, Cheryl, and then Aidan. When Aidan reached the mid-rung, he slammed the trap door shut, smashing a set of spindly gray fingers just as they reached over the edge.
They were running into the hallway when a man’s high-pitched scream came from the sanctuary.
Vinnie.
They ran towards the sound and found Vinnie backed up against the wall. There was a very tall Eater cowering over him. The monster wore thread-bare shorts stained with blood, and the skin was ripped off his face just below the crooked protrusion that used to be his nose, so his blackened teeth were bared and looked abnormally long. Vinnie’s gun, either accidently dropped or empty was at his feet, and he was trying to fight off the attacker with a piece of broken board that looked like it had come from the breached window.
Zach took the zombie down with a single bullet.
Vinnie sunk down the wall mumbling something intelligible.
There was no time to console him or try to get him back in the game, because another Eater starting coming through the broken window next to the front door. When Aidan fired at it, the sound was drowned out by the cacophony of fists beating on the outer walls and fingernails clawing at the brick.
Cheryl worried about how long the building would hold. The brick was nearly impenetrable, but the windows were vulnerable. They were boarded up except for a break in the slats to allow a view outside and let a little light inside. Fueled by insatiable hunger, the Eaters were using their gnarled fingers to pull the boards off, and their rotten fists were making the panes rattle.
A second head started to push over the corpse, wriggling its way through the opening.
“Block the window!”
Aidan fired at the second invader, and Zach and Cheryl grabbed one of the pews and hoisted it to the open window. They lifted it to a vertical position and shoved it against the opening. With Aidan’s help, they put all their weight against it, but it wasn’t a solution for the breach, because they couldn’t hold it for long against the writhing limbs that were shoving their way in. They needed something wider to cover the width of the window frame.
“Get the table!” Cheryl yelled.
Kai and Jordan ran to the kitchen.
“We can’t hold them back for much longer,” Zach said as he pressed against the pew, trying to stay out of reach of the grabbing hands fluttering around it. “We could use some more help. Where’s Diego? Where’s—”
Gunshots rang out from the kitchen.
Cheryl winced. Another breach? The window above the sink? She was trying to pinpoint the location of the sound when a gruff shout came from behind them.
“Where is Jeremiah?”
She turned her head and stared down the barrel of a gun inches from her face. With the muscles straining in her arms as she pressed against the pew, she stared back at Erik with disbelief. You’ve got to be kidding me. You freaking idiot…
Erik fired at the ceiling, causing a shower of plaster and paint to rain down on him like snow. He shouted his question again.
Aidan and Zach looked confused. When Erik threatened to fire again, Zach yelled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and this is not the time!”
Over Erik’s shoulder, Cheryl could see Diego a couple of yards behind him, inching closer. His arm was still hanging limp by his side. What’s he going to do? She didn’t know, but she had to keep Erik talking so he wouldn’t notice Diego’s approach. She stalled him by saying, “He thinks Jeremiah is still around here, hiding somewhere. You guys have any idea where he might have gone?”
“What?” Aidan asked as he ripped his arm away from a grimy hand that was grabbing for his sleeve. “Jeremiah is long gone…probably dead.”
Zach saw Diego approaching now and caught on to the game. “The shed… I saw a candy bar wrapper in there earlier today, and there were footprints in the dirt. I really didn’t think it could be him, so I didn’t think much of it at the time.”
Erik’s eyes narrowed, focusing on him. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you if you’re lying to me.”
“I swear it,” Zach said, trying to sound honest though the look in his eyes was one of frustration, because he was too tied up to do anything about the gun-toting maniac threatening him. “I swear…I didn’t say anything to anyone earlier, because I wasn’t sure it was him and didn’t want to get their hopes up.”
The wheels in Erik’s head seemed to churn as if he was contemplating the futility of trying to get outside to the shed during the attack. When he opened his mouth to say something, Diego attacked.
With one fluid motion, he whipped around to Erik’s right side, kicked the gun out of his hand and tackled him to the ground. The two of them wrestled, Diego making up for his injured arm with knee thrusts and head butts.
As they struggled and more dead hands came through the window frame, Cheryl realized they were out of options. It was either find a way to get out of the confines of the building or become a meal for this relentless horde. “We need to get to the van!”
Aidan looked towards her, his green eye wild with fear and desperation. “How the hell do we do that?”
Jordan walked back in the room then. There was a vacant look in his eyes, and his gun hung down by his side. His expression was so distraught; Cheryl wondered what happened to Kai. She’d heard gunshots in the kitchen a few minutes ago. Were they ambushed by some Eaters who’d already broken in? Oh Kai…no…
“I’ll go.”
“You’ll go where?” Zach asked.
There was a glimpse of radiance about his Jordan’s face now, almost a slip of a smile on his lips. It was either insanity or the expression of a martyr who was ready to sacrifice himself in the face of a hopeless situation...
“I’ll knock enough of them down to give you a
couple seconds head start to run to the van.”
Cheryl looked at Aidan. It sounded crazy, but what other choice did they have? In a matter of minutes, Divine Sundaes would be completely overrun.
The van was parked on the east side of the building, a few yards away from the kitchen door that led to the garden area. The Jeep was closer, but it didn’t have much gas left in it. A few yards was not a long distance, but it was a long way to go with a hungry horde bearing down on them.
It would be a longshot. A Hail Mary.
You’ve done it before, she told herself. Without a few Hail Mary’s, you wouldn’t still be here.
“Vinnie!” Zach yelled across the room. “You got the keys? Come on!”
Vinnie was still sitting on the floor against the wall, but at the command he seemed to snap out of it and leapt to his feet. He sprinted to the front of the sanctuary and leaned down to pick up Erik’s gun just as an Eater shambled from the hallway into the sanctuary. It was four feet away from him when he pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Vinnie tossed the gun on the floor and ran towards the kitchen.
Jordan took out the zombie pursuing him.
“They’re getting in the bedroom! We gotta go!” Aidan yelled.
“Okay…” Cheryl said. “On three, we let go of this pew and run.”
At the count, they left go. The pew landed at an angle, partially blocking the window, so the encroaching Eaters were stalled for a couple of seconds.
Zach glanced down at the two men still scrappling on the floor. He grabbed the back of Diego’s shirt.
“What about him?” Jordan asked, looking down at Erik who was curled up on his side like he was either injured or had completely given up.
“Bring Looney Tunes?” Aidan asked. “Why should we?”
Cheryl didn’t have a lot of good reasons, but she could think of one. “We save his life. He might know something about O.N.E. that could help us later.”
Aidan rolled his eye. Then, he grabbed the back of Erik’s shirt and yanked him upright. “Let’s go!”
Jordan led them towards the kitchen and fired at two more Eaters crawling through the window above the sink. Cheryl’s heart lurched when she saw Kai’s body on the floor next to the table. One of the chairs was on its side next to him; it looked like he’d been trying to defend himself with it before he was surprised from behind. Jordan had taken his attacker out with a bullet to the scalp, but not before the Eater had managed to take a bite out of Kai’s neck. As she passed by his body, she choked back a sob then fired one round to make sure that Kai wouldn’t come back to life to do anyone else harm. She hoped someone would do her the same favor if it ever came down to it.
Vinnie was just ahead, huddled by the wall next to the kitchen door. He held a set of jingling keys in his hand as violent tremors coursed through his body.
Everyone froze for a moment, listening the sound of moans and pounding on the outside of the kitchen door.
“How are we going to do this?” Zach asked.
Jordan went to the door, and Aidan shoved Erik ahead of the rest of them. “He can go first.”
Erik looked dazed, completely checked out. There was a bruised swelling underneath his left eye, and his lips were bloody where Diego had given him some well-deserved damage.
“Erik!” Cheryl slapped his cheek. He looked at her, stunned, but with some amount of recognition. “After we open that door, Jordan’s going to shoot a clear path, and we run to the van. Got it?”
His head bobbed up and down, but he stared at her with vacant eyes.
“Run to the van,” she said repeated.
After one long second, Jordan unlocked the deadbolt. This is it, Cheryl thought. Either this works, or we’re all dead.
He turned the knob and threw the door open. A ghoul with opaque eyes, mushroom-colored flesh and yellowing teeth that had once been an elderly gentleman lumbered on the step. He growled, revealing blackened gums. Jordan fired, and he fell forward into the kitchen. Right behind him, there was a young woman with blood-matted hair and a mangled face. A shot between the eye sockets knocked her flat. He shot three more and yelled, “Go!”
Aidan pushed Erik over the first fallen body and out the door. He stood there for a half second as more Eaters approached. Then, he sprinted towards the van.
There were lightning flashes of gunfire as Jordan knocked down Eaters left and right. With everyone he felled, more came from around both sides of the building.
“Let’s go!” Aidan yelled, motioning for Cheryl, Zach, and Diego to follow him.
They ran out the door, climbing over the fallen bodies. Cheryl tried to ignore the sickening feeling of soft flesh and splintering bones under her feet with every step. She looked ahead towards the van. Erik was there. He’d opened the sliding door on the driver’s side, but he was just standing there…looking towards the shed.
Oh no…
Instead of getting in, he bolted towards the shed.
A few Eaters changed their trajectory and went after him; the distraction gave Cheryl and her group a momentary advantage. After firing a couple of zombies blocking their path and kicking a few more away, they made it to the van.
Cheryl crawled in behind Aidan, followed by the others. Then, she turned around and looked back, hoping that Jordan was on their heels.
He wasn’t. He was still standing next to the door, shooting at the lumbering figures coming towards him.
“Jordan!” she yelled. There were too many Eaters now. He had to move…
Before she could scream again, a skeletal figure, emaciated to the point of being a giant stick figure, appeared from behind the reddish, twisted limbs of a manzanita tree next to the building and wrapped its long, bony fingers around the searing hot barrel of Jordan’s gun. As he tried to fling the thing off, a squat, corpulent creature came up behind him and sunk its teeth into Jordan’s leg.
His screams cut through the air like shards of glass.
There was nothing they could do to help him now. If they tried, they’d all meet the same fate, because there was a large crowd converging towards that side of the building, lured by the gunshots and the screams.
They were all in the van now with the doors shut. Zach ripped the keys out of Vinnie’s hand and made his way to the driver’s seat. He started the engine as many pairs of hands started to pound on the windows. He put the vehicle in reverse, running over a few corpses before he reached the parking lot and was able to crank the wheel around and point them towards an escape route.
In the rearview mirror, Cheryl saw a couple hundred Eaters and numerous Beasts with black boxes affixed to their rotten scalps stumble towards their wake of dust with outstretched hands and agonized expressions as their prey escaped.
PART II
Chapter 8
Light cracked above the eastern horizon like a crooked, bleeding smile as Zach drove north on 77. Vinnie sat in the front passenger seat, staring blankly out the windshield. And the rest of them—Cheryl, Aidan, Zach, and Diego were in the middle and rear seats in the same silent state of numbness.
Cheryl buried her head in her hands, desperately trying to find some foothold in reality, some crumb of sanity to hang on to. During the attack on Divine Sundaes, they’d lost three people, two of their own they knew and loved—Kai and Jordan—and Erik, the traitor in their midst. At the moment, she couldn’t bear to think about all of the other losses that had happened before them.
“Where are we going?” Aidan asked
“I don’t know,” Zach said. “I’m just driving.”
Diego craned his head forward to see the dashboard. “How much gas is there?”
“Half a tank. Probably enough to get us two hundred miles. Maybe less, depending on the tank size.”
“We should look for some place more fortified,” Diego said. “Fewer windows. A second floor.”
“Not looking promising at the moment,” Cheryl said after lifting her head. As the sun peeled back the darkness, it revealed mountainous sc
rub to the east, and an unforgiving desert filled with cactus, snakes, and scorpions to the west. There was no sign of civilization at all, much less a new and improved version of Divine Sundaes for shelter.
The other seemed to think things were looking just as bleak, because they were sullen as they stared out the windows, watching the scenery pass by.
After another few minutes, they passed through the small town of Orville. All of them craned their heads to size up the buildings as they drove down the main street and then into a residential area. There were plenty of abandoned houses and businesses, but nearly every one had broken windows, and more than a few had charred walls or roofs. Graffiti was everywhere. Most of it was illegible, but the words that were readable seemed to follow one of two themes. They were either gang symbols marking territories or a simple plea: HELP or AYÚDANOS.
Cheryl figured anyone who had been foolish enough to mark their location with the word HELP was probably already dead or in worse shape than they were. This late in the game, there were only a few kinds of survivors that hadn’t been absorbed into the umbrella of O.N.E.’s control: hardcore survivalists who would refuse to take strangers in, roving gangs ready to plunder, rape, and kill anything that moved, and starving lunatics. None of them could be trusted. So, wherever they landed next, it was going to have to be a place they made their own, not part of someone else’s charity.
“We need to get away from towns,” Aidan said. All the supplies in towns were probably looted a long time ago. I think it’s time to get serious about starting over somewhere more remote.”
She knew he couldn’t get over the idea of starting life over in the wilderness, despite his past failures. His former cabin in the Rocky Mountains hadn’t turned out to be a safe retreat, and Camp Vulture, the outdoor campground he’d created with Diego and the other members of a biker gang had been just as vulnerable to the influx of Eaters. She reminded herself that just a couple days ago, she’d daydreamed about roughing it somewhere alone with him…but now she was beginning to wonder if that was a good idea. It felt like there was some sort of safety in numbers, even if casualties were inevitable. An idea was brewing in her mind. It was one she thought Aidan and the rest of them might go for, but she was going to have to set it up properly to have any chance of swaying them.
Eaters: Resurrection Page 10