by Maxey, Phil
“Josh! Run!” he screamed to the darkness, as he made an effort to use his throbbing limbs, failing as he collapsed back to the floor. As he crawled towards the safety of shadows, boots crunched fragments of glass which littered the sidewalk and more laughter rang out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
12: 01 p.m. Highway 287.
Jess’s eyelids fell across her eyes with a weight she was powerless to resist, but resist she did.
“Sleep,” said Landon, sitting by her side, both on the floor against the inside of the trailer. A single flashlight shook with the motion of the wheels on the highway below.
“I’ll sleep when we have Josh and we are safe.”
“There’s nothing we can—”
“Did you know?” Both parents looked at their daughter who was sat to their right near the rear door. Lachlan appeared asleep by her side.
“Did I know what?” said Jess.
Sam looked away, her eyes full of memories. “She told me… told me about how my grandmother died giving birth to—”
“What? No, she died shortly after you were born, not when I was born, you’re confused.”
Sam’s head flicked back to her mother, her eyes large. “I’m not confused!” she shouted. Lachlan jolted awake. “That’s what Joan told me and I believe her! She said there’s… something inside us, in our genetics that we got from my grandmother and she was special. Your father met her when he was working for the military. Rackham was also working with him! So did you know?” Sam looked away again. “All of this… the whole world dying… all our friends, it’s all because—” She flicked back to Jess, who was now getting to her feet. “— of us! Because of our family!”
Jess moved towards her daughter whose eyes were glossy in the dim light, but Sam stood and threw out her hand. “Stay away from me! You… we… We did this… It’s all our fault!” Landon tried the same but she rebuffed his advance as well, falling against the metal side wall, making a noticeable dent in the panel, then turned away.
Jess took another step towards her as sobs came from the girl in the shadows. “I didn’t know any of what Joan told you. Maybe it’s true, but what Rackham did…” She cleared her throat. “Is not our fault, Sam. Not your fault…”
Sam spun around with a speed that made everyone other than Jess lean back for what was at the back corner of trailer was not the teenager they had gotten to know but something else. An angular face with deep inset eyes, sat atop a thick neck and shoulders with belonged to someone twice her size. “Look at me mom!” shouted a deep voice. “Look at what he did to me!” The rest of the occupants in the trailer were now standing, some even resting a hand on their weapons, but Jess moved forward regardless, tears streaming from her eyes.
“I know, baby… and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—” She placed her arms around her daughter whose form visibly shrunk and the cries returned to that of a fourteen-year-old girl.
*****
12: 23 p.m. Amarillo.
Josh tried not to look at the oozing rags that were tightly wrapped around Arlo’s limbs, especially the one that cut into his mouth, but he felt bad. This man had tried to rescue him and failed. At the time, he had been angry at how stupid Arlo had been. Even if they escaped the creatures, the soldier would catch them. There’s no escaping the soldier. But Arlo wasn’t to know any of that and as the forty something computer guy breathed heavily, unconscious, up against the seat to Josh’s left, the boy felt sympathy for him. He even hoped Arlo wouldn’t wake. Better to die within whatever dream Arlo was having than to awake to the nightmare and be tortured by the soldier and whatever was traveling with them.
Josh looked at the restaurant and the shadows beyond its windows. What were the two human looking monsters doing in there?
Something buffeted the back of the sedan, rocking the car on its wheels and making Arlo groan. The first time it had happened Josh almost screamed but now he was used to the hideous things that were patrolling the parking lot, nudging the rear fender, their meanderings bringing them too close. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at them though. They were visions from the kind of movies he wasn’t allowed to watch, but sometimes would catch glimpses of through gaps in the door to the living room when his parents were up late. Monsters that stalked the night looking for humans to devour. But Josh knew these particular mutants were once like him, once normal. That was worse because it meant you could become one as well.
A clatter of door on frame came from the darkness around a corner of a wall he couldn’t see and was soon followed by the soldier. He walked with a swagger that Josh hated, but that wasn’t what drew the boy’s attention for behind him walked another man, slightly taller. This man, older, walked with a limp. As they moved through the headlight beams Josh noticed the scaring on the other man’s face. Who was he? And where’s the monster that they came… with…
A strange idea pinged in Josh’s mind. Was this individual the monster? Had the monster become a human?
Finn pulled open the drivers’s door and got in, immediately turning around in his seat and throwing a bottle of water and a packet of chips at Josh who caught the former. The soldier then looked at Arlo and frowned as the passenger’s door opened and this other person, awkwardly got in, closing the door. He started to talk but Finn beat him to it. “I don’t know why we couldn’t just let the things have him.”
Josh caught the man’s sardonic expression as if he had just been asked the dumbest question he had ever heard. The man let out a long breath.
“Whoever this person is. The boy is obviously important to him. He must have been following you from the school, which means he probably knows the boy’s mother.”
Josh took a gulp of the water, looking at the soldier’s reaction which was to shake his head and turn the key in the ignition.
“So, Josh!”
Josh jolted in reply, seeing the man smile in the rear mirror.
“As I told your sister, there—”
“You know my sister?”
The sedan drove back onto the road, weaving around the things lurking in the gloom.
“Indeed I did, and I helped her.”
“You… helped her? How? Did you know Joan?”
“Alas, I did. She was a good soldier.”
Josh noticed the driver’s snort but kept his eyes on the strange man in the seat in front.
“I made your sister much stronger. Made her like myself and Finn. Unfortunately—”
“Where is my sister now?” Josh almost didn’t want to know the answer, but this man whoever he was, seemed… reasonable, although the smile which appeared plastered to his face was a little unsettling.
“She is with your mother and father.”
“She is?” The words spat from Josh’s mouth, such was his excitement.
“Yes, of course! My name is Arther Rackham. I worked with your mother and before her, your grandparents.”
Confusion replaced a cautious relief within Josh. “I… don’t understand. Why did… Finn kill all my fiends at the school?”
Rackham’s smile faltered. “They were not your friends. You only thought they were. You are special Josh, as is your sister and mother. Finn saved you. And we will make you strong like him as well one day. We still have a long way to go. But do not worry, you are in safe hands.”
“Are you taking me to my mother?”
“Yes, I have no doubt we will be seeing her soon.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
12: 46 p.m. Highway 87.
Jess looked down to her side at her daughter, seemingly asleep on a makeshift pile of clothes. It had been less than an hour after Sam’s outburst and the sobs which broke her heart, but soon after, once in Jess’s arms they transitioned to heavy breathing. Landon dug through some of the boxes finding what was required and moved his daughter gently to the softer surface, where she continued her rest. She looked up towards the back of the long trailer, and the two soldiers then across to Andy opposite, Landon to her right and fin
ally Lachlan near the door. Everyone had their eyes closed and she wanted to do the same, but couldn’t. Wouldn’t. But at least the travel time had given her time to think up a plan. What would she do once she caught up with Rackham? He obviously couldn’t be killed, at least not without endangering Josh. Despite how hard she tried to think of an alternative, there appeared to be only one route out of the madness. She looked again at her husband and then daughter and sighed, hoping that one day, many years from now they would understand the risk she needed to take.
She jolted forward as the truck slowed, then completely stopped. Landon’s eyes flicked open. He started to stand, but she held her hand up, beating him to it. “I’ll see what’s happening,” she whispered, walking to the rear door then waited as footsteps came from outside, followed by the latch being lifted on the other side. Most inside the trailer were now sitting up, apart from Sam. Jess glanced back at her, then pushed open the door as it was pulled from the other side and jumped down onto the road, trying to make out the shapes of buildings around them. “Where are we?” she asked Vance.
A light bobbed around the side of the truck. “There’s a lot of destruction up ahead,” said Millar. “I don’t think what we’re chasing is too far ahead.”
She walked with him and Scott and Luci, who caught up, past the cabin and stood just outside the scope of the headlights at the guard rail which ran along the raised piece of highway they were stationary on. At first she couldn’t see what he was referring to. The darkness was all encompassing the ten or so feet beneath her, and stretching for miles in front of her, but as her eyes adjusted she realized the small darker bumps were in fact piles of what used to be.
Millar looked back up at the cabin and the open driver’s window. “Steer a little to the left so we can see out there.”
Sanchez did just that then stopped again, the powerful twin beams giving just enough illumination to the crumpled vehicles, ruins of walls and roofs, pylons and fragmented advertizing boardings, laying scattered across the roads, sidewalks and parking lots.
“Why do you think they’re not far ahead?” said Jess to Millar without turning away from the destruction.
“You can’t smell that?”
Her olfactory senses had been hinting at something but she just put it down to being exposed to the city air after being cooped up for hours. She leaned over the wall and sniffed. There was no denying the odor which hung in the air.
Luci looked up at the sky. “Maybe they’re watching us.”
“We want to avoid meeting them out here,” said Scott. “But if they’re maybe thirty minutes ahead of us we might actually get to Dallas first. Let’s get out of here.”
*****
3: 35 a.m. Highway 287.
Jess sat in the passenger’s seat in the cabin of the truck as it charged along the desolate highway. Her hands raised, clasping a set of binoculars loaned from Scott, she scoured the moon-like landscape for any sign of danger, but the scattering of electricity pylons and farm houses still stood, appearing undamaged. She rested the eyepieces on her lap, shaking her head. “Where are they… Three hours and no sight of them.”
Scott was sitting between the seats, Sanchez driving with Luci and Millar in the cabin, everyone else in the trailer behind.
A green sign mentioning Wichita Falls flashed by.
Sanchez glanced to his right. “You want we stay on this road and go through the city?”
“Yes,” said Jess.
At the edge of the illumination provided by the headlights, dark silhouettes of trees and advertizer boardings moved past.
“Maybe they headed further east,” said Millar.
“Wherever they are, if we can get to…” Scott leaned forward.
“What is it?” said Jess, trying to see what he had.
He shook his head. “I thought I saw something move or take off from the top of the water tower coming up on the right.”
Sanchez eased off the gas, applying the breaks as they approached the hundred foot of white painted circular tower with a ‘Welcome to Wichita Falls’ painted onto the side.
The focused view through the binoculars didn’t help Jess see any better as she slid it across the top of the tower and then higher until she found herself looking at the top of the cabin. “Can’t see anything up there, but it’s so dark.” She looked at Sanchez. “Keep going.”
The truck sped up as hotels and dealerships selling motorhomes passed by. As the highway began to rise Jess slid her window down and the occupants all winced in unison at the stench that was sucked inside.
“They’re close!” said Luci.
The four-lane road was now a good twenty-feet off the one below, with the multi-storey dark blocks of the city’s modern buildings visible on both sides.
Scott leaned forward, trying to better see through the front window. “Is that movement? Pass me the—”
A dark mass swept through the air, so close to the windshield that Sanchez thought they were going to collide, instead he momentarily slammed on the breaks making Scott fall forward, his hands bring thrown out just in time to stop his face from hitting the gear stick.
Jess leaned slightly out of the side window, her eyes quickly adjusting to the night. She could now see the movement in the parking lots and roads below them. Shapes that were darker than their environment, creating the illusion of a sea of movement. All of which were headed towards them. “They’re below us!” Sanchez responded by pushing down on the gas, but she was more interested in scanning the cityscape for any sign of light. The double points that would tell her whoever took Josh was nearby.
“Oh shit!” said Luci. “On the road!”
All eyes flicked to fifty-yards ahead and the car-sized thing which was just visible at the far edge of the headlights. It lumbered forward, a central mass with spindly legs holding it and the gaping mouth, upright.
“No problem,” said Sanchez as the truck’s engine roared. Everyone braced for impact but just as the forty-thousand pounds of steel reached the creature it shifted to the side.
“Where’d it go?” asked Luci, trying to see out of the small window in the back of the cabin.
A crackle came from a radio on the dashboard, then Landon’s voice. “What’s happening? Over.”
“We found them!” said Jess, answering. “They’re all around us! Over.” The highway began to slope downwards.
“Can you see a vehicle? Over.”
She looked again, but all she could see were black forms amongst the night. “I…”
Screeched and roars bellowed out, almost as loud as the straining engine.
“They’re coming from all sides!” shouted Miller in the back.
“Jess? Can you see—”
“No, I can’t see any sign of the car! Over.”
“Incoming!” shouted Luci as she pushed open the small rear door in the cab, immediately firing her M4 at the closest frenzied shadow, which wailed in reply.
“They’re getting close!” shouted Miller, looking out the window on the opposite side.
Jess watched in disbelief as the metal and glass of new cars, just visible tens of feet to her right, were smashed aside, others being crumpled as the horde rolled over and through them. In the moment of destruction, her mind imaged what must have befallen those at the school and she felt sick.
Glass broke behind her, as Miller forced the barrel of his own weapon through the small window and began firing at glimpses of claw and teeth.
A green sign mentioning Fort Worth flashed by above and as the highway once again began to rise, the sound and smells began to fade.
“I think we’re losing them!” shouted Luci.
“Yeah!” shouted Millar, but Jess couldn’t keep her depression from deepening. She was moving away from her son.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
4: 27 a.m. Highway 287.
Silence had long since returned to the cab which Jess hated and welcomed in equal measure. She could feel the numbness growing inside her with e
ach mile further from Wichita Falls. They were going the wrong way… and the right. She knew if they had stopped as they were going through the city, they wouldn’t have escaped alive. That was obvious, and yet she still regretted not crying for Sanchez to stop and let her out. Let her find her son who was out there amongst the creatures. Her logical mind though knew they made the right decision to keep on going. That the only way to reclaim Josh was with help, massive amounts of it from whoever could provide guns, and lots of them. And then even that might not be enough. But that was okay, she had her own plan to gain freedom for Josh if everything else failed. The sooner they got to Dallas though the happier she was going to be.
“I just realized…” said Luci in the back.
“I’m sure I keep seeing a dark shadow above us,” said Millar, looking out the broken side window and ignoring her question.
“We did it… it’s the seventh day… the virus has gone…”
“Tell that to the few hundred things we passed through in Wichita Falls,” said Sanchez.
“Yeah but we haven’t seen any others on our journey.”
She was right, thought Jess, but it was no solace to her. She looked to her left and Scott. “What’s the plan when we get to Dallas?”
“First we check out the army base. See what’s cooking there. If it’s still abandoned, we head to the tallest building in the city and we start broadcasting for all we’re worth… then hope someone hears us.”