Dead Stop (35 page)

Marisa looked
back up from the knob to see Harley still looking at her. Unable to talk under
the current circumstances, she settled for giving him a fatalistic half smile.
It probably came off as more of a grimace than anything, but he must have
gotten the meaning. He gave a conspiratorial wink back before indicating the
direction of the mechanic’s shop with the faintest nod of his head. They had
business to take care of.

It was time to
take a walk.

###

Resurgance – Rachel

Ignoring the
lightning, Rachel clutched a pipe leading from the air conditioning unit for
balance. The roof was every bit as bad as she feared it would be. Up here, they
were fully exposed to the storm with absolutely no cover. Especially here at
the back edge. And the rain still fell in buckets. She wiped her eyes to clear
them of the wet hair plastering her forehead.

 Marisa’s
raincoat hung a little long on her, and the hot pink was definitely not her
style, but she knew she was probably the driest one up here. Stacey and Deke
huddled under Marisa’s umbrella nearby, and Grandpa Tom stood beside her with
nothing but a plastic tablecloth slung over his shoulders while he acted as a
tent pole to keep the injured janitor’s head dry. They were a drenched and
sorry looking lot, but that didn’t concern her right now.

Right now, she
held her breath as the two shadows moved away from the back door below.

They moved
slowly, using the odd gait of the zombies as they went. It turned out that
Harley had also been paying attention to the way the things moved while
drinking coffee earlier in the night. He said he had done so in order to better
recognize the things at a distance under bad visibility. Instead, he ended up
putting the observation to use in mimicking their movement, and teaching Marisa
to do the same.

But would it
work?

Rachel had no
idea how the dead identified each other as “not prey” or if that were even the
way they functioned. Their behavior had a decidedly animalistic feel to it, but
she had so little to go on.

What triggered
these things to attack?

What senses were
functioning, and at what capacity?

Why did they
consider humans food yet ignore the food on the store shelves?

These questions
now badgered her in a relentless stream. The answer to any one of them might
give them an advantage they didn’t have before. Now that she had an answer to
what actually caused these monstrosities, it almost drove her crazy to think
how little she understood them…mainly because she suspected that understanding
them was going to be the difference between life and death in the long run.

These things had
a logic of their own, and knowing that both relieved Rachel and drove her
crazy. They made sense, in their own ghastly way. She just needed time and
opportunity to figure out how they really worked. If she ever got the chance.

For now, all she
could do was watch in helpless silence as two kids risked everything to buy her
a few more days on the planet.

“Good,” she
murmured as she watched the pair advance unmolested another ten feet.
“Goooood…”

Yet something
was wrong.

She could tell
it just by watching them. They were doing the gait right, but somehow it wasn’t
quite
right
. Something was different. Something she couldn’t quite put
her finger on, but whatever it was made them just ever so subtly different than
the creatures they imitated. Rachel got an ugly premonition as she continued to
watch, and a quick glance down at the two nearest corpses confirmed her fears.

The dead were
watching them too.

Neither had
moved, or assumed an attack stance, but both had now turned their heads to face
them. Grinning jaws and hollow sockets pivoted ever so slightly as they tracked
the pair.

Rachel didn’t
dare make a sound to warn them. A scream on her part might rouse the zombies to
a higher state of alertness, causing them to attack just on instinct. Even
worse, it might bring more from around the side of the building to investigate
the noise.

A desperate look
back at the two showed their advance to be agonizingly slow. She couldn’t
imagine how hard it must be for them not to break out into a run. Death smiled
at them from all directions. Yet somehow they kept the same steady pace as they
moved together towards the back.

Moved together…

Oh shit!
That’s what they’re doing wrong. They’re working together. Moving as a team.
The zombies don’t really do that. Not in that fashion.

It was a subtle
difference, but now that she knew what it was it stood out in a way that seemed
to scream “different.” And she wasn’t the only one noticing.

Rachel looked
back down and detected a definite new alertness on the part of the two nearest
zombies. They had now shifted their stances so their bodies faced the pair as
well. Worse yet, the distant one at the showers ahead also tracked them with
its gaze. Even the one drawn a ways off by Deke’s glow sticks now followed
their progress.

She could sense
the countdown starting, and knew it was only a matter of time. With this much
attention on them they couldn’t hope to get there without doing something
“unzombie-like” enough to provoke an attack. That one single mistake announcing
them as prey.

As it turned
out, they never got a chance to even make the mistake.

“Marisa! RUN!”

Stacey’s scream
almost caused Rachel to jump out of her raincoat.

She whirled to
see the girl pointing off to the right, towards the store side of the parking
lot. A sick feeling of certainty gathered in her gut as she followed the
waitress’s gesture to the asphalt below. There was one other zombie that had to
be accounted for…one that functioned on a higher level than the others…and it
was him.

Buddha Boy.

The mangled
giant lumbered into Rachel’s view from the right, still taking bites from
something she didn’t want to identify as it went. Even from its greater
distance it had spotted the two, and recognized them as not zombies. The
detached, clinical side of her mind immediately drew the conclusion that, if
nothing else, this monster had superior eyesight compared to the others.

At least it
didn’t seem in a terrible hurry.

But that didn’t
matter now, either…because she turned her head back in time to see all the
other corpses had gone into their attack postures and were starting to charge
as well. The race was now on.

Harley and
Marisa must have either heard Stacey’s scream or figured it out for themselves
for they had started to run as well.

“Go!” Rachel
whispered as she watched the pair flee.

In the distance,
she could see Harley sprint out ahead of Marisa. Only the knowledge this was
part of the plan helped her fight down the urge to yell at him to wait for her.
Even knowing that, she still felt relief when she saw him veer off to intercept
the predator running at them from the direction of the showers. Now she
clutched the AC pipe and prayed he could pull off what he planned.

The distance
between the man and the monster disappeared by the second.

Then, at what
seemed the very last instant, Harley brought himself to a controlled stop. The
distance and lighting made seeing his face impossible, but Rachel noted he
pulled off the next maneuver with the same degree of near nonchalance she found
so irritating earlier in the store. It looked like something out of a movie.
The man calmly raised the pistol, aimed, and blew the monster’s head to pieces
as it closed the last of the space between them. They couldn’t have been more
than three feet apart.

At least that
left them an unobstructed path to the shop door. But they weren’t out of
trouble yet. The creatures were still racing up from behind…

…and Marisa was
struggling.

Although the
young woman still ran at a good clip, she had also developed a noticeable limp.
And the horrors chasing her looked even faster than they were earlier tonight.
Rachel realized to her dismay they were actually gaining.

Dammit,
Marisa! I warned you about that toe! I told you to be smart!

Rachel raged in
despair at the stubbornness of the girl. Whether broke or not, Marisa’s toe
hadn’t been up to this kind of punishment. The veterinarian had to admire the
determination that allowed the other woman to push herself through what must
now be real agony, but the sheer foolhardiness of it pissed her off. Now the
dead closed in behind her and she lost ground by the second.

 Still, she
had nearly reached the door. It was going to be close, but it looked like
Marisa had enough of a head start to make it.

Then things got
worse.

Another horror
joined the chase.

And this one had
an angle on the waitress.

Small and quick,
it darted out from the gap in the cornfield on the left where Gerald’s car had
plowed into the tall stalks. Tiny jaws gaped and pigtails flew as the feral
shape raced across the front of the mechanics shop on a collision course with
Marisa. The girl must have seen it at the last second for she tried to raise
her bat at a dead run.

But it was too
late.

The filthy thing
leapt and landed on her just as she reached the door.

Rachel and the
others could only watch in horror as Marisa struggled with the monster in the
shop entrance. The two were silhouetted against the light from inside the shop,
with the little atrocity practically up on the tall girl’s shoulders. She
tumbled against the doorframe under its ferocious onslaught. Then Harley
slammed into the pair of them, knocking them both inside, before rushing inside
himself.

A second later
the door slammed shut and the shooting began.

Rachel held her
breath, praying to any higher power listening to make everything work out okay.
One look at the others showed they were doing the same. But only the thunder
answered from above.

The night fell
silent, other than the hiss of the rain falling on the asphalt.

Then the sound
of Marisa’s scream reached them from clear across the flooding parking lot.

Chapter
Ten: Maelstrom

Maelstrom –
Marisa

“
Pinche puta!
Get
off
me!”

The moment
Marisa had feared all night had finally come.

 A monster
had caught her.

 One of its
filthy talons clawed her side while the other tangled in her hair.  The
horrid little skull snapped in her face, and only the bat she had up under its
chin kept it away from her. It dripped with mud, it stank like roadkill, and
the ferocity of its assault threatened to unbalance her.  Her foot hurt
horribly, and after the impact with Harley it was all she could do to keep from
falling as she struggled with the little demon.

All around them
crows flapped and squawked, creating a maelstrom of black feathered bodies that
filled the air of the mechanic’s shop.

Marisa and the
child-sized horror whirled through the feathery chaos. Despite its size, the
little monster’s strength was terrifying. The frenzied relentlessness of its
attacks gave her no chance to do anything but struggle to keep it off her face.
Only its light weight gave her any advantage at all.

With a strangled
snarl of desperation the tall young woman slammed the creature against the
wall, trying to pin it against the cinder blocks with her bat. If she could
just free herself from the little monster’s clutches for a full second she
intended to beat its brains out all over the concrete floor. At least she hoped
she could bring herself to do it if the opportunity presented itself.

A gunshot
blasted somewhere to her left, and she knew Harley must have his own hands full
at the moment. She had caught sight of a couple of red drenched skulls rising
from the other side of the car when she stumbled into the building. Another
shot almost deafened her, and the faint sound of Harley cursing caused her to
look over to see what danger loomed from his direction.

That was when
the monster managed to bite her.

As Marisa turned
her face to see what the problem was, the rotting imp yanked her head closer by
her hair. She reacted in an instant, pulling back hard enough to lose almost a
handful of the ebony strands, but it was too late. The vile thing had also
managed to work the bat a little lower down its throat and lean its head
towards her…and a split second later its teeth sank into the top of her ear.

Marisa’s scream
cut through the garage like a ripsaw.

White blazing
agony exploded as the horror bit down. Blinded by both pain and panic, instinct
took over and Marisa pulled her head back with all her strength. This elevated
her anguish to a searing new level as the monster bit harder and pulled back as
well. Things held for one long, torturous second. Then the inevitable happened.
Skin severed, cartilage tore, and a hot torrent of blood gushed as she tore her
head free.

For a frozen
moment in time, the girl stared in mute astonishment at the creature. The thing
briefly stopped its struggle to focus on the piece of flesh between its teeth.
Its staring eyes remained fixed on her face, but the little monster’s attention
appeared to relocate onto its new meal. It almost seemed to leer as it gnashed
the small piece of her between its bloody teeth. Then, after a few seconds, it
gulped the grisly morsel down.

That was when
something inside Marisa went
sproing.

Her coworkers
were dead. All of her friends were either hurt or dead. Her family was most
likely dead. Her dead sister was waiting outside to kill her. Hell, she had
been living with the knowledge she could die horribly any minute for the entire
night. And now this. Now she had been bitten. Now some half-pint, stinking,
little pigtailed punk of a zombie had maimed her.