Death Springs Eternal: The Rift Book III (45 page)

CHAPTER 19

A HARD RAIN’S GONNA FALL

Dusk fell over
Virginia
, its ethereal near-darkness made even more substantial by the dark clouds billowing overhead. Moses Sumner sat on the hood of his automobile, an old Chrysler LeBaron, and watched them roll on by. In the distance, before the profile of the
Shenandoah
Mountains
, he saw flashes of lightning and heard the rumbles that followed seconds later. The storm was coming east, headed right for them.

He lifted his megaphone to his lips. “All right, people,” he said, his voice amplified through the plastic cone. “Time to pack things up. Work’s done for the day.”

The workers seemed to sigh in unison, shoulders dropping and heads hanging, exhausted from the day’s hard labor. Their faces and clothes were streaked with mud and grime. The utility truck pulled up and they began throwing shovels, pickaxes, hoes, and pitchforks into the bed before making their way to the service tent to get some water and a bite to eat, the last stop before they headed home for the evening.

Home
was
Richmond
, and Moses found himself overseeing the planting of corn in the vacant lands fifteen miles south of the city proper. According to what he’d been told weeks ago, he was to make sure they had all three hundred acres seeded before July. It was now closing in on the end of June, and none of the seeds had taken. Moses was an agricultural engineer by trade, studying at UMass Amherst twenty years earlier and was plying his trade for a produce distributor based in
Missouri
before the end of the world. He’d been with this strange army since April, and the general in charge of it all had been so impressed with his pedigree that he placed him at the head of the Agricultural Renaissance Project.

Though he was happy for the safety that being part of the group afforded, he wished the man had found someone else to run this endeavor. Most of the farmland they’d come across during the long journey north had been razed when the RF outbreak swept across the land. And in the months that followed, much of the valuable nutrients remaining in the soil were washed away by the constant rain and snow. That left acre upon acre of dead earth where nothing would take root. Moses found himself attempting to convert other areas, such as demolished towns, into usable farmland after the debris had been cleared. It seemed like a hopeful attempt at first, until the realization came to him that much of the soil beneath these homes was just as wasted and infertile as everywhere else.

Another flash of lightning, another rumble of thunder, and the first raindrop fell on the back of Moses’ hand. He wiped away the wetness on his pants and swung his legs off the roof of his car. His back cracked as he stood up, and he ran his fingers through his curly black hair. The guys were all in the huge service tent, which was really a big top left behind by a disbanded Ringling Bros. Circus caravan, retrofitted to fit a new purpose. The men laughed and clanked glasses while they stuffed their faces with freshly cooked meat from the newly constructed cattle ranch on the northern edge of the city, celebrating the end of their shift. Another raindrop hit Moses, in the head this time. Once more he raised the megaphone to his lips.

“C’mon, people! Time to move out!”

Begrudgingly, the farmhands exited the shelter of the tent. They made their way to the line of transports behind Moses, flanked by a number of soldiers from the
Church
of
Creation
’s military wing, who’d been given the assignment of overseeing the Agricultural Renaissance’s progress. The soldiers, dressed in jeans and button-up camouflaged shirts, usually stayed behind in the mobile home donning the name of their organization, only making themselves known when there was a problem that needed resolving or come quitting time, when they’d inspect the workers for signs of pilfering. Moses had almost forgotten they were there, as he tried to do each day. They were a surly bunch, with shifty eyes and blank expressions.
Religious fanatics
, he thought.
Nothing good can ever come from those sorts.
He shook his head. In no way did he understand how they’d come to possess so much power in the first place. If
he’d
been running things, they would have been left on their own and devoured by the wandering undead long ago.

Of course now those animated corpses were all but extinct, as was the rest of civilized society, and still the
Church
of
Creation
remained. Go figure.

Moses tossed his megaphone through the side window of his LeBaron, followed by the bag containing his ph testing kit. One of the soldiers—the one in charge, Grady—passed him a suspicious glance. Moses rolled his eyes, made his way to the other side of the car, and opened the door.

Another rumble in the distance, only it sounded wrong. Moses lingered by the open car door, cocked his head, and listened. It was the longest roll of thunder he’d ever heard, building up, growing louder, shaking the ground beneath his feet. He glanced up at the sky and realized there’d been no lightning preceding it. Craning his neck, he listened more intently. The sound came from the south, not the west.

He swiveled on the balls of his feet, facing that direction. The landscape stretched out before him, all darkened trees and black sky. In an instant Grady was at his side, the man’s beady eyes watching the same direction as he, a frown painted on his lips.

“What
is
that?” asked Grady.

Moses shrugged. “No clue.”

Grady took the field glasses that hung from his neck and lifted them. His frown became more pronounced as he scanned left to right, right to left, then back again. “I don’t see nothing,” he said, and tilted back his white faux cowboy hat with his finger. The rain fell harder, dripping off the brim.

The rumbling became all the more intense, and when Moses looked down he saw pebbles bouncing along the freshly tilled land. He glanced up, squinting in the sparse light, trying to see past the dark line of trees. He swore he saw something moving behind them—
lots
of somethings, squirming like insects in the walls of an abandoned house.

A loud crash sounded, and Moses jumped back. The foliage rustled, a tree toppled, and a large object came busting out of the forest. It was huge and tan, with a turret atop a boxy frame. It rolled across the land, coming in their direction, its treads tearing up the ground as it went.

It was the Bradley.

“No shit,” said Moses. “
Hawthorne
’s back.”

Moses remembered the Bradley more than the man who drove it, and the vehicle had been sent away on a “special mission” a long while ago. He hadn’t heard a single word of what had happened to the beast of a machine or its crew since then. In many ways he’d already forgotten about it, adding its disappearance to the long list of vanishings that had filled the book of his life since the world ended.

But now here it was, safe and sound, rumbling toward them at much too fast a speed.

“What the hell’s he doing?” asked Grady.

Moses pointed to the walkie hanging from the man’s belt. “Why don’t you get on the line and ask hi –”

The howl of a thousand lost souls filled the air, making any words coming from his mouth incomprehensible. Moses covered his ears and stepped to the side while Grady swung his rifle from behind his back. More COC soldiers had congregated by then, glancing at the approaching Bradley, and each other, with anxious faces, the first real show of fear Moses had ever seen from them.

More crackling from the line of trees, and then a mass of bodies burst into the open air. Even in the darkness, Moses could see they weren’t right. Their gaits were all wrong: hunched over, stumbling, clawing the Earth. Lightning lit up the sky, and he saw decayed, animalistic faces, too many to count. They surged forward like stampeding buffalo, a mass of coiling, screeching flesh. They grew nearer with each passing second, somehow keeping a steady pace behind the Bradley despite its high speed.

Memory surged into Moses’ brain. He saw his son attacked and dismembered by ghastly, inhuman beasts, creatures that had once been his neighbors down in Daleville. They’d ripped his little Joseph to shreds and turned their sallow, urine-colored eyes to him. He beat them off with a shovel while his brother David, who’d been hiding out in his basement with him while violence wracked their town, cut them down with his shotgun. They were the most hideous beasts Moses had ever seen—way more frightening than the zombies that came afterward—and he’d done his best to forget they ever existed. Yet here they were, thousands upon thousands of them, dashing across the field, stomping the ground with their clawed feet.

His body loosened, and Moses dashed for his car. He heard shooting behind him as the soldiers emptied round after round into the onrushing horde. Then came the screaming, inhuman shrieks of pain that followed the sound of tearing flesh. Liquid splashed against the ground, both rain and something more substantial. His legs pumped faster, his chest burned.

When he reached the LeBaron he leapt inside, slammed the door, and fumbled for his keys. They felt large and awkward in his fingers, but it only took a couple seconds for him to find the right one and shove it into the ignition. The engine rumbled to life. Moses threw the car into gear and slammed down on the gas pedal, rolling up the side windows at the same time. The tires spun, cascading loose stones against the undercarriage. Eventually they found purchase and he shot ahead, careening down the dirt road, sweat and rain upon his brow, breathing as if he’d just run a marathon.

The squeals of the dying intensified, piercing the car windows as if they were sheets of tissue paper. He rumbled down the road in darkness, swerving from side to side, and finally pulled the knob for his headlights. Twin beams of light shone out before him, illuminating a wall of flesh blocking his way. Moses screamed and, his taxed mind running on instinct, plowed straight into them. Bodies struck the vehicle, bouncing off the grill, crashing into the windshield. Moses was thrown forward, his chest crushed against the steering wheel. The side window shattered and pellets of glass rained down on him. Fingers like talons reached through the opening, seemingly hundreds of them, grasping his arm, tearing strips of flesh from his bones. Moses howled and tilted to the side. He felt like he was on a rollercoaster as the LeBaron rose up on its two side wheels, then came crashing down on the roof. He fell from his seat, his gashed arm stinging, and dizziness ensued. From every direction mutated beasts closed in, clawing at him, digging into his flesh, biting down, devouring him alive.

He screamed, joining the chorus of others who did the same, and then claws dug into his neck, ripping his head from his spine.

*
  
*
  
*

Night had fallen by the time Horace and Brian exited the hospital’s parking garage. They’d been hiding in there for hours after fleeing the birthing room. Kyra, the child’s mother, had given a tearful goodbye, one that caused Horace’s heart to sink in his chest. The woman seemed so strong, yet there was an aura of defeat about her. He promised her he’d find her again, that he’d reunite mother and child once more, and the whole time he spoke the back of his mind berated him with the words,
don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Horace held a bottle to the lips of the tiny child in his arms, watching it suck on the nipple. They didn’t have any formula or milk to give her, but they’d managed to find an old box of apple juice in the parking garage’s security office, like the ones Kelly used to pack for lunch. The thought of his old assistant brought back those surefire pangs of guilt, but he pushed them back and focused on feeding the baby, hoping the juice was enough to satiate her appetite. The last thing he needed was for her to start bawling and give them away.

The streets were strangely empty as they walked down the sidewalk, staying close to the buildings and the shadows created by faintly glowing streetlamps. The baby fussed, and Brian immediately pushed Horace into an alley while placing his palm over the child’s much-too-tiny lips. They stayed there for a few moments, made sure no one was around, and then stepped back onto the main street.