by M. D. Massey
We headed out early the following morning, leaving the Facility and all its current inhabitants under the watchful eyes of the Doc, Anna, and Mickey. We left an obvious trail for the deader dog pack, knowing full well that once we had them in pursuit, it was going to be a race for our own survival. For that reason, I let Bobby carry most of the gear, figuring that I’d need to move fast to keep from becoming puppy chow.
Two hours later, the deader dogs had picked up our scent. They were, of course, eerily silent. The only way we knew they were following us was because Bobby was pulling rear guard. When he came running up on us at werewolf speed, we knew the game was on, so we hauled ass toward our intended destination.
My plan was to lead them several miles southeast of Camp Bullis and the Facility, to the once heavily-populated outskirts of north San Antonio. My bet was that the suburbs and commercial areas around Loop 1604 and Highway 281 would be crawling with deaders. And, I figured that we could use their scent and movement to confuse the deader dog pack until they lost our trail. We’d hide out and observe them from an elevated position, then we’d follow them back to whoever had been making the damned things.
It was a simple, straightforward plan with few moving parts. Run like hell, don’t get eaten, and follow the bastards back to the source. Piece of cake.
Or, at least, it would have been—except for one thing. As we headed into a neighborhood just a mile or so outside Camp Bullis, Gabby was the first one to point out the error in my plan.
“Where are all the deaders?” she asked between breaths as we ran down an empty, somewhat overgrown suburban street.
She was right; there weren’t any deaders around. I’d expected to start seeing a few stragglers or small groups by this point, but there weren’t any to be seen anywhere.
“Shit,” I gasped. “Just keep moving. We’ll run into some eventually.”
They did exactly as I asked, and we kept running through the neighborhoods of north central San Antonio. Unfortunately, even though we were well inside the boundaries of one of the most densely populated areas in South Central Texas, we didn’t see a deader once. Not a single soulless, rotting, walking corpse.
But what we did start seeing were body parts. Or, more specifically, dismembered deaders. At first, it was just a random body part here and there—but the further we ran, the more I realized my mistake.
It wasn’t just living humans these deader dogs had been attacking. They’d been taking out the deaders too. And apparently, we’d run right into their hunting grounds.
“Bobby, how far back is that pack?”
The werewolf looked back, squinting his eyes. “Lead dog is roughly one hundred yards behind us, and closing.”
“Um, Scratch?” Gabby said, as she pointed ahead of us and to our left, at a gap between a couple of commercial buildings in a strip mall. “Look.”
It was another pack of deader dogs running parallel to us, moving into position to box us in.
Colin spoke up from my left. “There are more on our other flank, and gaining fast.”
I looked to our left and behind us, and hell if there wasn’t another, smaller pack shadowing us from the other side of the highway. Damn it.
“There must be fifty of them, at least,” Bobby said, his voice getting higher with stress. “What are we going to do?”
I looked around the area as we fled, searching for a way out of the trap I’d led us into. “We’re dead meat out here in the open. New plan—find higher ground, something with choke points we can defend.” I pointed to a tall building nearby. “There, that hospital. Go!”
Bobby and Gabby changed course, heading for the multi-story building I’d pointed at, while I drew my sidearm and started shooting on the run, plugging holes in hounds that got too close. Colin produced a pistol from somewhere—I had no idea where, since he hadn’t been carrying one earlier—and began taking hounds out with careful aim.
I knew they’d simply heal and get back up again, but that didn’t matter right now. All we needed to do was clear a path to the hospital. From there, we’d make it to an upper floor, then barricade the stairwells to keep the hounds out. That’d give us time to figure out an exit strategy.
I looked back to see that the three smaller packs had now merged into a single, loping mass of canine fury that was nearly nipping at our heels. As I fired random shots behind me, Colin pulled something from his jacket. It was a beer bottle, of all things. Fluid sloshed inside, and the tip was stuffed tightly with a cloth wick.
“Molotov?” I shouted.
The big swordsman nodded. Somehow, he managed to light the thing. I couldn’t see how, because I was too busy shooting hounds that were trying to cut us off. He tossed the bottle over his shoulder, and I watched it arc through the air and land in the midst of the dogs behind us. It shattered on impact, lighting half of them on fire and scattering the pack.
“Nice work, David Blaine,” I huffed.
He chuckled and wheezed his reply. “They’ll regroup soon—only bought us a little time.”
I shot two more of the big black dogs and watched them tumble away from us. We ran on, following Gabby and Bobby through the parking lot of the hospital to the emergency entrance.
BEDS
The glass entry to the emergency department had been shattered, but I wasn’t concerned about that. Glass wouldn’t hold those things back anyway. We needed to put some concrete and steel between us and them.
“Look for a stairwell,” I shouted, hoping that the final occupants of this building hadn’t barricaded themselves in from above.
Bobby took the lead, following signs that indicated the way to the elevators. As we ran down hallways filled with desiccated corpses—the non-moving kind—I turned over crash carts and gurneys in hopes of slowing the pack of black dogs down. It was pretty much a wasted effort. The creepy bastards jumped over everything I threw at them like they were running schutzhund or something.
I shot a wolfhound right between its pale, glowing eyes as it skidded around a corner behind us. The clicking of nails on the tile floor was the only indication that more were coming. Lots more, in fact. The sound reminded me of a horror movie I’d once seen, where a swarm of scarab beetles overtook some unlucky soul and picked his bones clean. The sound effects used in the movie had sounded a lot like the noise made by the pack as they pursued us through the hospital.
“Bobby, find us an exit, now!” I yelled.
“I am, boss, I am—there!” He ran to a metal doorway that was marked “stairs,” and tried the latch. Whatever was behind it, it was locked or jammed tight. Bobby backed up and made as if he was going to bust it down.
“Don’t!” Gabby yelled. “If we break it, they’ll have the run of the stairwell, and we’ll still be screwed.”
I searched around frantically, then saw a possible exit. “Bobby, open the doors to that elevator shaft, now.”
The kid looked at me like I was crazy, then he grinned. “Ah, we’re going to do a John McClane—good thinking, boss.”
Bobby shifted form just enough to get some claws on his fingertips, then forced his fingers into the gap and began pulling the doors apart. The space between increased to a few inches, then a foot, then two. The werewolf wedged himself in between the doors and pushed with all his might until the doors were wide open.
The clicking noises were getting closer. I unslung my rifle and set up on one side of the elevator doors, and Colin on the other. I tossed him my Glock, figuring he’d need the extra firepower.
“Look for the pit ladder,” I said. “Rungs built into the wall of the elevator shaft. Gabby, jump on Bobby’s back.” She gave me an exasperated look. “Just do it!”
The kid jumped on Bobby’s back, wrapping her legs around his torso and her arms around his neck. The werewolf didn’t need to be told twice what to do—he leapt into the elevator shaft and disappeared into the darkness above, just as the first hounds appeared.
Colin and I both started firing at once, droppin
g undead dogs like flies, only to have two or three more scrambling over the bodies of each one we shot. The noise from the gunfire was deafening, standing in sharp contrast to the silent, undead animals we were fighting. I missed a dog as it jumped at me, and was saved as a clawed, furry hand swiped it out of the air with a solid crunch.
Bobby was standing there beside me, in his full ’thrope form. Colin was still firing away on the other side of the door—then I heard silence.
“I’m out!” he shouted.
I fired a few shots past Colin, while Bobby pushed me toward the elevator shaft. “Scratch, go,” he growled. “I got this. I’ll hold them off until you guys are free, then I’ll follow after.”
I hesitated, because even in werewolf form the kid’s voice was all nerves. Before I could protest, he picked me up by my shirt collar and belt and tossed me across the elevator shaft. I crashed awkwardly into the side wall, barely managing to catch myself on a rung of the pit ladder. Soon I saw Colin flying at me, so I swung myself to the side and grabbed at him with a free hand while my rifle clattered into the shaft below. Colin managed to grab a rung, and soon he was climbing up the ladder.
I hung in place, watching Bobby cussing, ripping, and tearing at the pack of undead hounds as they attacked him from all angles. I pulled my pistol and fired at the damned things, but it did little good. Soon, the kid was nearly pulled down by the weight of the pack, and I watched as he stumbled backward and fell down the shaft.
“Bobby—no!” I yelled as I watched him fall away into the darkness, still clawing and snapping at the undead dogs who had latched their jaws onto him as he fell.
Colin called to me from above. “Scratch, c’mon. There’s nothing you can do for him, and trust me, he’ll be fine. He’s a fucking ’thrope, for goodness’ sake. It’ll take a lot more than a short fall and a few mutts to do that kid in.”
I peered down into the complete darkness below, and although I could hear sounds of fighting, I couldn’t really see a damned thing. I looked at the open elevator doors nearby, where the remaining hounds stood silently watching us from just a few feet away. A shaggy German Shepherd mix with a matted coat jumped at me and I batted it away, causing it to bounce off the wall and tumble into the darkness.
Above, Colin was already climbing toward an opening one story up. Wisely, I decided to follow him, writing off my rifle—and all the ammo Bobby had been carrying for me—as a loss. I looked back as I climbed, only to see a dozen or more pairs of glowing yellow and red eyes staring back at me in the gloom.
“Where’s Bobby?” Gabby asked as we crawled through a narrow gap, squeezing through a pair of elevator doors just beneath the permanently stalled elevator cab above.
Colin answered her, since he was the first one through the doors. “He stayed behind to cover our exit.”
Without hesitation, Gabby lunged at the doors just as I was coming through, but Colin stopped her with an arm around her waist. “Relax, he’ll be fine. Unless those things have silver-coated teeth, I doubt they’ll be able to do enough damage to slow him down. Trust me, I’ve known a lot of werewolves in my time, and they’re damned hard to kill. He’ll be along shortly, don’t you worry.”
I rolled over onto my back, catching my breath as I hugged my arm to my side. My bite was aching like a son of bitch, and in the back of my mind I feared I’d start having seizures again from the venom. I pulled my shirtsleeve down to hide the gangrenous venom trails around my bite, then pushed myself to a seated position against the wall.
“You sure he’ll be okay, Colin?” I asked.
“As I can be. Hell, you’ve dealt with ’thropes recently, and you saw how hard they are to put down. It took high explosives and a twelve-story fall to take out most of the Corridor Pack. A twenty-foot drop and some zombified pups aren’t going to slow your boy down much.”
“Why do I get the feeling you know something about Bobby that we don’t?” I asked.
Colin looked down at me and shrugged. “Full disclosure? I think there’s a reason why Bobby isn’t with the Coastal Pack.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Can you be more specific?”
“The kid has ‘alpha’ written all over him. Sure, he kowtows to you because he practically worships the ground you walk on. But he’s a natural alpha if I’ve ever seen one. The way he shifts, it’s like it’s second nature to him. Not many young ’thropes can do that, Scratch. The kid is a hell of a strong werewolf, and my guess is that he left his Pack to avoid clashing with Samson.”
I stretched my neck and sighed. “So, Bobby’s not the average bear—er, werewolf?”
Colin sucked on his teeth and shook his head. “Not by a long shot.”
“Alright, but if he doesn’t show up soon, I’m going after him,” Gabby said, her eyes challenging either of us to disagree.
“I promise you, if he doesn’t come crawling out of that elevator shaft, I’ll beat you to it.” I stood and looked around. “Now, let’s clear this floor and make sure there aren’t any surprises waiting for us.”
A quick circuit revealed nothing more than a few dried up deaders that were standing around in a holding pattern. We quickly eliminated them using swords and blades to conserve ammo, then took stock of our situation. Clearly, we were momentarily safe from the undead hounds a floor below us, but we had no idea whether the other stairwells were secure. It looked like we were going to be staying some time, so our second order of business was making certain we wouldn’t be ambushed in the night.
“Colin, why don’t you and Gabby check the stairwells on the south and east sides of the hospital, and I’ll check the north and west sides. Let’s meet back here in fifteen minutes.”
I watched them leave, then headed off to check my sectors, passing by the elevator doors on the way. Just as Colin had said, Bobby was sitting next to the doors when I walked up. He was bleeding from multiple bite wounds, but alive.
“You look like shit, kid. I don’t suppose you happened to bring my rifle with you, did you?”
“Sorry, I was a little distracted, what with bleeding out and all.” He paused and smiled. “Hey, Scratch, you know what? I think I got over my wild dog phobia.”
I chuckled. “Age and time tend to give you a different perspective on your childhood fears. Well, that and becoming a full-grown ’thrope.” I dug around in my pack and pulled out a bundle of jerky and some hardtack. “Good job saving our asses, by the way. I have to go check the stairs, so while I’m gone, eat up so you can heal up.”
I tossed the food to him, and he caught it with a wince and a wave. I headed down the hall, finding the northwest stairwell door. I listened at the exit before opening it, and snuck downstairs to see whether it was open or sealed up tight. Thankfully, the door was closed, and a pile of office chairs and hospital gurneys were wedged tightly against the door and frame. No chance the dog pack could reach us that way.
For shits and giggles, I leaned out over the stairwell banister to get a good look through the wire-reinforced door window. Several pairs of yellow and red eyes stared back at me from the other side. I assumed that meant the deader dogs were guarding each of our potential exits, and couldn’t help but think there was a higher intelligence guiding their actions.
I went back upstairs and found Colin and Gabby conversing with Bobby, who was already leaking less blood and looking much better.
“Northwest stairwell is secure. What about the other exits?”
Colin spoke up first. “Locked up tighter than a nun’s undies. We’re safe, for the moment.”
I nodded. “I saw deader dogs camped out in front of the northwest exit. You?”
Gabby stopped conversing with Bobby to answer me. “A half-dozen or more. You think they’ll still be there in the morning?”
“I’d say the odds are good. But let’s not worry about that now. We’ll sleep on it, and come up with a way to make our escape in the morning.”
As it turned out, the solution found us in the dead of the night. Several hours
later, I’d just changed watch with Bobby and was drifting off to sleep when he roused me.
“Um, Scratch? We got company.”
“Of what sort?”
“Well… just follow me.” The kid led me to a row of broken windows overlooking the east parking lot. He pointed across the lot, to a line of trees on the other side of the hospital helipad. “There, you see them?”
I squinted to make out several shapes in the moonlight, just inside the tree line. “They look human. Are they punters?”
“Actually… no.”
I turned and looked at the kid. “Bobby, what aren’t you telling me?”
He rubbed the side of his face and looked at the ground. “Well, you know when I got bum-rushed by all those deader dogs? And you remember how I fell down that elevator shaft?”
“How could I forget?”
“Yeah, I guess I kind of freaked out and put out a distress signal through the Pack bonds when that happened.”
“What do you mean, ‘Pack bonds’?” I asked.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s kind of like telepathy, but a lot subtler. When you belong to a werewolf pack, you get these feelings whenever someone in the Pack is experiencing strong emotions. I guess it’s like a survival mechanism or something, so the rest of the Pack can help if one of us gets in trouble.”
“So, what you’re telling me is you sent a telepathic distress signal to the Coastal Pack, and they hauled ass out here in response.”
“Yup, that’s pretty much what happened.”
“So, why aren’t they storming the place already?”
He sniffed and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Well, I felt their presence when they got close, so I signaled that I was okay and that they should hang tight and wait.”
“Okay.” I thought for a moment. “Bobby, are these wolves friendly, or are they like the Corridor Pack?”