A Shepherd's Calling (What Comes After Book 2) (20 page)

It took one breath to find where the marine had fallen. Ten yards away, before anyone could say or do anything, Davis began to push himself up. The arrow sticking out from his left shoulder would have made belly-crawling difficult, so perhaps he had intended to stand and resume his run. Perhaps it was a more traditional, hard-wired response to being hurt so badly, so quickly. Whatever the reason, the military man would never be able to tell them why he had done it: a shot rang out and Davis fell on his right side before the report of the rifle echoed away.

Clear the shot had come from above, and that meant at least one person was firing from the roof or a second floor window. Tom turned and began sliding along the wall. He'd taken one step when he found himself standing at the corner of the house. No stranger to urgency and the demanding fluidity of combat, he glanced over his shoulder to check that the others were following.

He had no sooner done this when Nadeau clapped him on the shoulder. The Sergeant shook his head and pointed at the corner. Tom stepped back from the corner and several inches away from the wall, providing first Nadeau, then Vargas room enough to stand. When Chris slid behind them, Tom fell in behind his old mentor. A quick look down the line ensured Turner and Janessa were still there. Then they were moving.

Tom rounded the corner in time to see Nadeau stow his pack and the bag containing his sniper rifle beneath the porch. Vargas did the same with his pack, and Chris with his. Understanding the need for quickness and ease of movement as critical to success, Tom did likewise. While Janessa was stashing hers, Turner dropped his bag beside Tom, passed them both and moved directly to the door. Once there, he placed something on the thick, rough surface before returning to his place in the line. Tom saw Nadeau and Vargas look at each before the Major raised his right hand on level with his shoulder. The officer held out three fingers, then lowered one. A second later, he lowered another and a heartbeat after that, the last. Since the three men in front of him had their hands pressed against their ears, he thought it prudent to do the same.

The porch lurched and Tom turned away from the door, blinking quickly. He looked back in time to see Nadeau throwing something into the room beyond, now exposed through the remnants of the door. Ears ringing slightly, Tom closed his eyes and lowered his head, hands still over his ears. A couple of seconds passed before he felt a thump from within the building. Opening his eyes, he could smell gunpowder and something else, acrid and totally unnatural. The ringing in his hears was more pronounced, but he could still hear the Major yell: “Go, go, go!”

Nadeau was a blur. He moved through the door and vanished when he stepped inside. Vargas had been half a step behind the Sergeant, but paused before going in. This seemed unorthodox to Tom, who watched the other man carefully.

The Major was looking where, only a moment earlier, Nadeau had been standing. It wasn't until Vargas took a wide, angled step forward that Tom understood what the officer had seen: a hole, cut neatly in the floor. Just inches inside the door, it was at least a couple of feet square. Easily large enough to swallow a man. Tom's stomach clenched and he saw the Major's mouth moving, no doubt using his personal radio to call for the missing marine. Then the officer was fully inside, cut from view by the wall of the house.

Chris stepped away from the wall, clearing the way for Tom. Gesturing to the rest of them, he spoke emphatically. “Hole in the floor, watch the floor.”

Tom moved to the door and glanced in before looking down, which confirmed his suspicion about Nadeau: since the man was nowhere to be seen, he must have fallen victim to the pit trap. Also of note, the room was filled with Turned. Some were standing still, quivering in place. Some were lurching around and howling. Some clawed at their eyes or tore at their ears, leaving bloody streaks. One was running into the wall, repeatedly. It would surge forward, only to bounce off the wall and try again.

With the Major sliding to the left, carbine popping off round after suppressed round, the Shepherd stepped into the room. He risked another glance at the hole in the floor, but only a sliver of sunlight reached the bottom of the pit, and that shown on rough, dirt floor, swirling with motes of debris and dust. If Nadeau had not already met his fate in the pit trap, then it was up to the sniper to hold his own for at least a while.

The Shepherd returned his full focus to the room he stood in and saw, barely four feet to his right, was an alcove with a flight of stairs. Between the alcove and the main room, a fiend stamped about at the base of the stairs, tearing great rents of flesh from around its eyes. His .357, now in hand, brought low the horror. It collapsed in a limp coil and as he stepped over it, the Shepherd noticed two more monsters. One was at the top of the stairs at a door, crouched and sniffing at the space between the door and the floor. The other was desperately trying to scramble out of an opening in the floor, inches from the wall and nearly identical to the hole that had claimed Nadeau. The Shepherd looked up the wall near the hole and saw a layer of boards and planks that, if he remembered correctly, corresponded to a window he had seen while circling the clearing.

Noting the clamoring beast was close to escaping the trap, he put a round into its temple, decorating the wood of the window barricade behind it with a thick, jelly-like spray of red and black. Glancing down, he saw the monster come to rest when it landed below.
That must be eight feet down
, the Shepherd thought.
Maybe nine.

Another Turned stepped into view beneath him. The Shepherd brought the sights of his revolver to the face of the standing beast. It cocked its hairless, misshapen head to the side in an inhuman fashion before it was temporarily lost from view by the muzzle flash of the pistol. The sidearm barked, told it's operator the task was done, and when the Shepherd moved his weapon, he saw the second horror was now sprawled atop the first.

Behind him, the Shepherd heard more gunshots. Knowing that the others had entered the house, he checked the creature at the top of the stairs and found it taking an interest in matters closer at hand. It was laid low before it could completely turn away from the door it was crouched beside, however. The first round struck it on the cheek, directly beneath the left eye; the shot forced the eye free of its socket, shattered the cheek and tore the beasts jaw completely free, so that it hung loosely by strips of flesh and ligaments. While that considerable, gruesome wound would have brought the monster a slow, painful death, it was not what was needed at the moment. Half a second later, another round was sent forth and entered the Turned's ear. An explosion of gore splattered on the wall and door beside the beast before it fell and lay still.

Having dealt with the fiends, Tom left the alcove. He stepped back into the main room and quickly looked around the walls. The search confirmed it: beneath the windows, mere inches from the wall, more holes were cut in the floor.

“
Stay away from the walls!” The Shepherd's voice boomed throughout the room.

The others gave no indication of having heard him, but as they proceeded further into the structure, they remained well away from the walls. Janessa remained just inside the door, watching the yard and what little of the tree line was visible around the other buildings. She stood with rifle ready, leaned against what was left of the door frame and near the first trap. Seeing the Shepherd watching her, she gave him a thumbs-up and mouthed, “I'm good.”

Rejoining the others, the Shepherd saw Turner following the Major on the left side of the room, so he moved to the right side and joined Chris. Looking over his shoulder, back toward where Janessa stood, he saw a door at the left corner of the wall. Since the stairwell would be on other side, he gathered that must be the basement door, and it's heavy, secure covering lent support to that theory.

The long room they passed through was unfurnished and lacking decoration, save for the rugs beneath several of the barricaded windows they passed. The four men reached a long wall, with an open fireplace in the center and an open doorway on either side; one close to the left exterior wall and the other close to the right. The Major and the Corporal swung through the left portal while the Shepherd followed the Hunter through on the right.

They came into a narrow room more like an over-sized hallway, that connected one wall to the other. The men experienced a moment of tension when they entered the room and saw movement on the far side. The marines and men of New Mont faced each other with weapons ready before they realized the others for who they were. On the wall to the Shepherd's left, separating this chamber from the one they had just left, another open fireplace dominated the central portion of the divide. The remains of a large table suggested that this had once been a dining area, but other than that, it was every bit as devoid of creature comforts as the front room.

A pathetic whimper near the fire place revealed a fiend curled within, hands sliding about its head and face. Two 'pops' from Turner silenced the ghoul and the men resumed their sweep of the downstairs.

This far into the house, with the windows completely covered, it had become dark. The sole illumination was sunlight coming through the front door, and that was many yards behind them and on the other side of a wall, now. The Major tapped the other marine on the shoulder and pointed to where the Shepherd was standing. He then pointed at the Shepherd and gestured to the space Turner had just vacated. The two men crossed the room, the Shepherd behind the Major and the radio operator moving in front of the Hunter. Before either of the displaced men could inquire after the nature of this adjustment, both marines switched on tactical flashlights, attached to the rail mount on their carbines.

Seconds later, the Major and the Shepherd found themselves in a kitchen. They passed a door immediately on their right, as they entered. Unlike the other portals they had seen, this one was merely closed, not covered over. Grabbing Vargas' shoulder, Tom pointed to it when the older man turned around. Nodding, the marine kept his carbine on the door while the Shepherd opened it.

Light shone on a white sink, glinted on the faucet above and pipes beneath, moved to the old, empty toilet on the other side of the sink. No mirror, no cabinet or cupboard, no standing shower. Nothing but those two porcelain-colored utilities, dry and dusty with both age and lack of use.

Returning to the kitchen, the Shepherd quickly found himself before a blocked door.
That would be the rear door
, he thought, remembering their reconnoiter.
Almost directly across from the barn.

Light flashed wildly as Vargas finished checking the rest of the kitchen. The Shepherd saw the device illuminate a stove, another fireplace, a lot of stripped wall space and a great white tub of a sink. There was another window over the sink and on the wall behind the Shepherd.

“
Nothing,” the Major said. “Let's see what Turner found.”

They met the other men in the dining room, each looking to their longer known companions.

Turner: “Empty, sir.”

The Hunter: “Nothing there, Shepherd.”

Leaving the dining area, the men returned to the front room. Following Vargas, Tom took the opportunity to look down at the bodies of the Turned: each one bore a cross. His curiosity began to take a darker tone.

The Major did not slow while the Shepherd made his check. Rather, he continued on until he reached the stairs to the second floor. Passing Janessa, he asked the young woman a question. “How's it look out there?”

“
Okay, so far,” she replied without turning from her post.

Tom saw that she cut a distinct figure: late morning sunlight, faded from the cloud-cover, fell on her darkened complexion. Her eyes open, face alert but features composed. The lack of light behind her offered an image of being half concealed in shadow and half revealed by the light of day. It was striking and the young man felt the contrast of light and dark not only suited the young woman, but made her seem remarkable. In another time and place, he might have thought it stirring, or even beautiful.

In the here and now, however, he could only banish the thought the moment it rose in him. Vargas began taking the stairs two at a time the moment he gained the stairwell. His movement changed slightly when he was nearly halfway to the top. The light thumping sound he had been issuing when taking a new step suddenly ceased, but the marine himself had not stopped. On the contrary: he continued to move, but now seemed to do so in near silence, as though he had simply dispensed with the need to offer any sound of his passage. He reached the top and came to a halt before bowing his head. He seemed to be waiting for something or listening very intently.

Either he heard what he was waiting for or he grew tired of waiting, because he began to move again. With the same silence he used to ascend the top half of the stairs, the Major retrieved something from a pouch on his L.B.E. and carefully placed it near the doorknob. Then he turned and, with nearly the same speed he'd climbed them, he came down the stairs without making a sound. If Tom had not seen Chris and Sam do the same thing during his years of training, he would not have believed such a thing was possible.

Vargas stopped close to the bottom of the stairs. He pointed to Tom, then to a step beneath him, then himself. Pointing next at Turner, then at a step even closer to the floor, then forward. Finally, he pointed at Chris and indicated the old teacher should follow the Corporal.