Clickers vs Zombies (10 page)

“Yes,”
she said.
“This body will suffice, for now.”

“What are you doing?” Michele backed up against the wall.

“I told you. My brethren wait at the threshold. I must get about the business of finding them hosts.
We are free to walk the levels again, as we did long ago. As your kind dies, we replace you here. When your spirit departs, we enter your bodies. We reside in your brain. We control your flesh. But to do that, you have to die. And so, without further ado…”

Abigail circled the other remote viewers, studying each of them. She paused in front of Thompson. Then she leaned forward, as if to kiss him.

“A search of my host’s memories tell me that this man is named Thompson. Did you know the one you call Abigail had a crush on him? Probably not, nor does it matter. What does matter is that according to her memories, this Thompson is monitoring a renegade occult group known as the Kwan. I have interest in them, so we’ll start with Thompson first.”

Then Abigail leaned even closer, undid the top buttons of Thompson’s shirt, opened her mouth, and bit into his throat. Thompson immediately came out of his trance. His eyes snapped open. He tried to scream, tried to sit upright, but when he did, Abigail shook her head like a dog and his throat ripped free. Shreds of flesh hung from Abigail’s crimson mouth. Blood jetted from Thompson’s throat. He clawed at the wound with his fingers and more blood sprayed between them in geysers, showering both Abigail and himself. Laughing, Abigail raised his arms, turned her face to the flow, and bathed in the gore. Then Thompson slumped over, dead.

Michele screamed, but Abigail ignored her. Michele glanced around for something to defend herself with, saw nothing, and opted to escape instead. She ran for the door as Abigail opened Morgan’s throat in a similar manner.

“Where are you going, Michele? Don’t worry. Stick around. I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

Still screaming, Michele dived for the controls to the door. Before she could jab the button, the door opened from the outside, and Clark dashed into the room, holding a fire extinguisher over his head. He slid to a halt, gaping at the carnage taking place. As he and Michele watched, Thompson and Morgan’s corpses sat up and ripped the wires from their bodies, while Abigail killed Colbert and Atkins.

“Hail, Lord Ob,”
Thompson croaked, raising his hand in greeting.
“I await your orders.”

“Engastrimathos,”
Morgan said.
“Du aba paren tares! Hail!”

“Welcome brothers,”
Abigail roared.
“We are in the base of operations for a division of Black Lodge. You know what to do.”

“The hell you will,” Clark said. He charged at them, extinguisher held high, and tried to bash Abigail in the head. She ducked the blow and stepped to the side. Morgan backhanded Clark, knocking him off his feet, and leaving a bright-red handprint on the supervisor’s face. As Clark toppled to the floor, the newly resurrected Colbert climbed out of his seat and picked up the fire extinguisher.

“Kill that one,”
Abigail told Colbert, pointing at Clark.

“Lord,”
Thompson said,
“my host body was conducting psychic surveillance on the Kwan. I have their location.”

“Excellent,”
Abigail replied.
“We will need to target them next, as well as Genova and the rest of the Seven, Levi Stoltzfus, all divisions of Black Lodge, and anyone else who might disrupt our destruction of this level. As always, if we destroy them first, this world will fall just like the others.”

While the others talked, Colbert squeezed the handle on the fire extinguisher and blasted Clark in the face with a stream of foam. Sputtering, Clark crab-walked on his hands, trying to escape. The others surrounded him.

“Leave him alone,” Michele shouted from the doorway. She was terrified and felt helpless and confused.

“I’ll see to the girl,”
Abigail said.
“The rest of you finish with this one. I know you are hungry, but remember to leave enough of him intact that the corpse has no mobility difficulties when it reanimates.”

Abigail took a step toward Michele. Michele backed out into the hall. The others began raining kicks and blows on Clark. Just then, Michele heard booted footsteps thundering down the corridor. She turned to the right and saw a security detail bearing down on her. They were armed with rifles and wore black body armor and helmets.

“Move,” they bellowed, shoving Michele aside, and charging into the room. “Down, down, down! Everyone down now.”

“More meat,”
Abigail laughed.
“Brothers, let us feast!”

“Don’t move,” one of the security officers shouted.

The emergency response team ventured further into the room, and Michele backed down the hall until she could no longer see inside. A moment later there was gunfire, followed by screaming. The shots echoed loudly, making her ears ring, and the corridor filled up with smoke. More screams, and then Clark crawled out into the hall on his hands and knees. He glanced over his shoulder, back into the room, and his eyes widened.

“They’re Siqqusim. You’ve got to shoot them in the head, god damn it. The head! Center of mass shots won’t work.”

Another round of staccato gunfire greeted this, followed by more shrieks and then a terrible, cruel laughter.

“Look,”
Abigail called.
“Don’t his intestines make a lovely necklace?”

“Damn it,” Clark yelled. “They are incorporeal spirits and reside in the brain of their host body. The only way to stop them is to destroy the brain. Shoot them in the fucking head!”

There was another short burst of gunfire, but then it was overwhelmed by shrieks and the sounds of tearing flesh.

“Mr. Arroyo,” Michele called.

Clark turned to her, then jumped to his feet and rushed to her side.

“Come on.” He grabbed her hand and pulled.

“Where are we going? What’s happening in there, sir?”

Before he could answer her, one of the security men stumbled out into the hallway. Shrieking, he rolled around on the floor, clawing at his face. Michele noticed that his eyes and nose were missing.

Clark urged her forward, pushing and pulling until they reached the lobby. He ran over to the receptionist.

“Seal the building. We’ve got a Class Zulu emergency.”

“The entity, sir? Do we have a name?”

“More than one.”

The receptionist blinked. “Pardon?”

“Siqqusim. We’ve got Siqqusim inside the fucking building.”

“Oh my God…”

“That’s right. Worse, Ob himself is here. Now seal the goddamn thing and alert the other divisions. Tell the council that I’m on my way to try to shut the door.”

“Absolutely, Mr. Arroyo. Right away.”

The receptionist simultaneously spoke into her headset and pressed some keys on her computer. Michele noticed that the woman’s hands were severely trembling. That scared Michele more than anything else she’d witnessed. The receptionist was a fourth level adept. For her and Mr. Arroyo to be so afraid…

“Come on,” Clark said, ushering her out onto the sidewalk.

The heat and sunlight felt strange on her face. People bustled by, oblivious to what was going on inside the building. They were clueless. Michele knew how they felt.

“I parked in the garage a block down,” Clark said. “We’ll have to hurry.”

“Where are we going?” Michele asked.

Clark paused, as if thinking about it. “I’m not sure, yet. Mount Shasta or Bodega Bay. Whichever is closer. I’ll find out once we reach my car and turn on the GPS. If it’s still working.”

“Why wouldn’t it be working?”

Clark turned to her. His expression was grave.

“Because, Michele, unless somebody acts quickly, civilization will begin to collapse within the next few hours. And that’s just the beginning. Within a few short weeks—maybe even sooner if the Siqqusim have improved their methods—we’ll be looking at the absolute certain extinction of every life form on Earth.”

The Pacific Basin

Three hundred miles south of Fiji, the USS Sterling was moving at a north east trajectory heading toward Hawaii. First Lieutenant Dan Pearce noticed the blip on his radar screen and called out to Seaman Lance Fisher. “Got some unusual activity out there!” Meanwhile, a hundred feet above deck, Second Lieutenant Kerry Richards was the first to confirm visually what Lieutenant Pearce had just reported over the system. He couldn’t tear his eyes off his binoculars. “What the hell is this shit?” he muttered.

One thousand miles east of Hawaii, Boatswain’s Mate First Class Aaron Miller made visual confirmation of the phenomenon after Radioman Byron Mace made the announcement that there was a large mass of sea life barreling toward the ship.

The luxury cruiser Wild Grapes was currently on a tour of the South Pacific Islands and was hours from its first stop in Tahiti. As one of the largest luxury cruises in business, Miller didn’t think the large mass of fleeing fish and other wildlife would pose much of a threat, but it was better to be safe than sorry. He put in a quick call to the luxury cruiser’s Captain. “At the rate this mass of sea life is approaching, do you think you can veer a hundred nautical miles due south?”

The Captain replied. “Not without going wildly off course. What’s the deal?”

“Check out the radar on screen two.”

A moment later. “Oh shit.”

Scattered around the Pacific were hundreds of buoys. Many were planted in cooperation with the governments of Australia, Japan, China, and the United States to monitor sea levels, help predict tsunamis, gauge ocean temperatures, and record the activity of sea life. Similar buoys were in place in the South Pacific, also planted in cooperation with various world governments. Starting in the north Pacific, the buoys began recording and transmitting activity to various scientific centers around the world. The activity was chaotic, unpredictable. One marine biologist stationed in Guam was convinced she was witnessing a malfunction in the equipment. Another in Hawaii could only sit by his machine in nervous anticipation, wondering what it all meant. Still another in Monterey, California deciphered the activity for what it was—something catastrophic was about to happen.

That scientist, Gerald Dunning, placed a call to his supervisor. “I’m getting increased readings of migration patterns all across the board,” he said. “This isn’t from the tsunami. Migratory patterns from the tsunami dissipated as expected about a week ago. This activity happened spontaneously and it appeared to start fifty miles from the epicenter of the earthquake from two weeks ago and is spreading outward. I anticipate the first wave to Hawaii in about four hours—”

“First wave?” his supervisor asked. “First wave of what?”

Gerald paused. “Well…I don’t know. A mass beaching of fish, of whales possibly?”

“Is there any visual confirmation of any of this?”

“Absolutely. We have reports coming in from all over.”

“But what’s causing this? What’s driving them?”

Gerald ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, but I think we’re about to find out.”

Ivory Coast

A group of fishermen casting heavily-wound nets from the shore reeled back in horror as dozens of giant lobster-scorpion creatures crawled onto shore. As the creatures clicked their claws in a mad cacophony, the fishermen dropped their nets and ran screaming at the top of their lungs.

One of the fishermen had an infected foot. He’d cut it on a piece of coral only days before. He limped along behind his friends, who, overcome with terror, ignored his pleas for help. Those pleas turned to screams as a Clicker seized him with its claws and squeezed, cutting him in half. His upper torso fell to the sand. The last thing he saw was the monster looming above him, sucking the blood from his own severed legs.

Moments later, while the Clicker was still feeding, the dead fisherman opened his eyes and attacked it. His teeth shattered on the creature’s hard shell, but that didn’t deter him. Hissing, the Clicker tried to back away, but the dead man worked his fingers into a crack in the creatures shell, heedless of how the sharp edges flayed the skin from its hand. The corpse reached the soft meat beneath and burrowed deep. Then the predator became the prey.

Cochin, India

Along the coast, beach goers scrambled in fear up the beach as the Clickers moved inward. A few unlucky ones fell in the sand, barely having time to scream as the horde swept over them. Claws and tails lashed out, severing arms and legs, lopping off heads, and impaling bodies. The air was filled with shrieks and screams and tearing sounds—and the noise of the Clickers’ claws clacking together.