Entropy (The Countenance Trilogy 3) (29 page)

I grip him by the collar and pull him in. “Stop the fucking music!” I scream it in his face, and he doesn’t flinch.

The music magically cuts out. I look over to find Laken holding a cable in her hand that she pulled from a laptop.

“That works.” I jump up on the nearest table and blow the shit out of that whistle from my pocket. I spot Ms. Paxton and Edinger flying in this direction as if they’re about to tackle me. A group of guys from the team spontaneously begin to chant my name. “I need everybody to leave the building. There are Spectators,
zombies
, on their way, and they’re going to try to kill you.”

Some dude in the back barks out a laugh. “What are they going to do? Eat our brains?”

“Yes!” Laken shouts. “That’s exactly what they want to do.”

Half the room breaks out into cackles while the other half shifts around nervously.

“Everyone, calm down!” Ms. Paxton tries to clap the room back to order. “This is a false alarm. Absolutely nothing is wrong.” She shoots me a look that could slice my balls off. “Mr. Flanders, I suggest you be careful getting down. Your sobriety is obviously an issue.”

Edinger points to the floor, and, for the first time since I’ve met him, he looks genuinely pissed.

The table shakes. I can hear their primal grunting. They’re getting closer.

I pull out my Ruger and point it in the air as the room fills with gasps. “I’ve planted bombs all around the fucking vicinity, and in two minutes I’m going to level the shit out of this place.”

Bodies rush toward the doors. The fire exits burst open as the room clears out in record time.

I jump down, and Laken wraps an arm around me.

“Nothing the threat of a little domestic terrorism couldn’t cure. Good job.” She presses a kiss onto my lips.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“Not so fast.” Edinger steps in our path.

“Jen and Fletch aren’t leaving.” Laken breaks away and heads over to them.

“What? Speak fast.” I don’t take my eyes off Laken.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to be a hero, Mr. Flanders. You’ve broken the rules by tampering with the Spectators. You had no authority to warn them in advance.”

“Yeah, well, you can take your rules and fuck ’em. I’m sick of the Counts and the rules they keep trying to shove up my ass.” I pull him in by the shirt and get nose to nose with the wicked bastard. “I want the Spectators to live—every single one of them.” I push him away with a violent force and head toward Laken.

“Flanders.” His voice echoes through my bones, solid and hot as a brand.

I turn to find his eyes glowing a peculiar shade of crimson.

“That offer I made?” He imprints the words he spoke that night into my mind.
If you succeed in maneuvering Laken from Wesley, you win a supervising spirit for life. If Laken chooses Wesley, you’ll spend the rest of your days in the tunnels.
“It ends at dawn.” He stalks off toward the exit and brazenly evaporates as he strides out into the night.

My body solidifies. Marky and Dad flash through my mind. I hadn’t said goodbye.

“Coop.” Laken swings around my waist. “Fletch went to find Wes. He’s going to die.”

“He should be okay. I know for a fact he can handle himself out there.” I’m not entirely sure Fletch won’t do anything boneheaded, but I leave that out for now. “Where’s Jen?”

“She went to get Blaine.”

Her I worry about.

We head out to the front as the ground jumps beneath us. A fire escape leading to the roof catches my attention.

Arms and legs, an entire army of struggling Spectators make their way out of the woods, thick as bees. They’re coming at us from every direction at once, plodding on with their ever-quickening speed.

I help Laken jump up on the ladder as the swarm grunts its way toward us. They straggle forward at a clip I’ve never seen before. It’s as if they’ve saved all of their fucked-up energy for this very moment.

A pair of bony hands clasps onto my neck. One of them hugs my legs like a vise as another claws my jacket right off my body.

“Cooper!” Laken screams as she reaches down to me with her hand.

I clasp on, and she gives a weak attempt at pulling me up.

“Use your strength!” I shout trying to break free from the Spectator camping out on my thighs.

Laken lets out a roar. The veins on her neck protrude like cords as she reels me up to the ladder. I latch on and kick the shit out of the Spectator hanging on for dear life until it falls on top of the others and drifts up and down in a bobbing sea of zombies.

Laken and I make it up to the roof, and I turn back to find three of them already climbing their way up. I reach down and take my own advice, using all of the angelic strength I have to pluck the ladder from the side of the building. We watch as it sails to the ground, keeping us safe for now.

We run across the connecting rooftops until we hit the Science Building at the far end of campus. I pull Laken in close as we look out at the sea of Spectators tearing up Ephemeral, reducing it to ruble. Asterion floats over their bodies while being passed around on the giant mosh pit the campus has become as if to annunciate the fact our world as we know it is over.

“What now?” Laken clasps onto me with both hands.

“We need to find Wes.”

“What for?”

“We need to find out exactly what he plans on doing.”

Wesley

The Spectators have spread out over campus like a plague, like head lice, multiplying their misery over the landscape exponentially.

Fletch catches up to me just as I duck into the Ephemeral library.

“What the hell, dude?” He outruns a small herd of fucked-up once upon a humans and heads inside with me.

“Are the girls safe?”

“Carter took off with Jen and your brother. Laken’s with Coop.”

“Good.” And for the first time, I want her to be. If anyone can keep her safe in this madhouse, it’s Cooper.

I speed down the dark hall, with Fletch bobbing around like an unwanted child. I don’t particularly want him to see what I’m up to, not that I don’t think I can’t trust Fletch. “You’re my best friend, you know that, man.” I slap him over the back as we descend the final flight of stairs.

“You pick now to do some male bonding? Dude, we have a war on our hands out there. You think we should call Jones?”

“Who do you think’s behind this shit?” I unlock the chamber and hold the door open for Fletch.

“Jones?” He looks as if a truck is about to hit him in the face, and it sort of is.

“There’s more.” I don’t bother with the lights, just turn on my phone and flash it at the table. A duffle bag waits for me just like Edinger said. I unzip it and give a quick inspection. Dozens of grenade-like canisters stare back at me, and I’m quick to seal it up again. I duck down to the bookshelf facing the eastern wall and pluck all the books out of the way.

“What’s back there?” Fletch asks while unzipping the bag.

“Don’t touch that.” I pull out an AR 15 with a hundred round magazine—ready and willing to blow the heads off dozens of half dead Celestra in a five-second span. And I’ll be more than glad to do it.

“That’s a fucking assault weapon. Where the hell’d you get that?”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” I toss the duffle bag at him. “Just follow me.”

We head back up the stairs only to find the library teeming with them. The furniture is toppled, the gorgeous windows smashed to shards with bodies dangling from them, crying out their broken moans. Books are splayed out with their pages floating through the air like oversized confetti, and a surge of sadness comes over me. For so long this place was like home. It was a thing of beauty, a place of refinement, and here Celestra and their crapfest have ruined it all.

“Dude”—Fletch pants backing down the stairs—“I’m not going in there.”

I reach into the bag and pull out a small, metal canister. I pull the pin and toss it into the crowd as a plume of smoke gushes from it like a mushroom cloud.

Fletch and I bolt back down to the round room.

“There’s no fucking exit!” Fletch kicks a chair in a panic.

I bust out the window above the bookshelf with the butt of my rifle, and we climb up the shelves like a ladder, out the window, out of hell.

The air outside is thick with the scent of death as an army of Spectators swarm the buildings. The sound of windows breaking, of glass crashing to the ground, fills the night. Screams go off like a demonic choir from every direction, and I can’t help but think of what might be happening out there.

Fletch and I toss as many of those damn gas grenades we can as we make our way toward the dorms. A small herd of Spectators ambush us from the front of the English Building, and I don’t hesitate blowing their heads off. Nothing but brains spraying out over the sky, and I don’t feel an ounce of remorse as I watch their dried out grey matter litter the landscape.

We make our way over to Austen House, the shrill screams light up the vicinity as if all of Ephemeral were on some wild roller coaster.

Fletch bolts inside, and I follow him. The furniture is upturned. The damn place is crawling with groaning, screaming corpses that belong in a cemetery more than they ever do here.

I pluck another dirty bomb out of the duffle bag and toss one into the common room without thinking twice.

“Wait—I hear something.” Fletch takes off for the kitchen while I pluck the pin on another one and send it flying upstairs.

“We need to go!” I shout over the choking moans.

“I need help! Jen’s
turned.
She just bit through Jax Easton’s skull.”

I head over in time to see a small stampede topple Fletch and the girls over. Jax Easton’s blood spills across the floor in long, crimson blades.

Fuck. I pick up my rifle and pluck a few off on the outskirts, scaring the shit out of a few more before knocking them out, too. A butcher block full of knives catches my attention. I pull out the longest one I can find and start hacking my way through the mountain of walking corpses, severing their heads off at the neck. Two jump on my back trying their best to take a bite out of my skull. I buck them off and don’t hesitate putting some shrapnel in their skulls.

“
Wes!
” One of the girls screams my name from the bottom of the pile, and it sounds like Carter.

“
Shit
.” I kick the crap out of the Spectators one by one then pump their heads full of lead before moving on. “Strong little fuckers,” I say as I make my way to the final layer of long deceased crap. “Fletch, get up!” I roar as I pluck one off him. The Spectator’s eye is already gone. Her lid is inverted, exposing nothing but a bloodied mess.

Shit, it’s Carter. I slash my way through the final layer of soon-to-be corpses until I come upon Jen nursing a thick carbuncle of a wound over her neck—Jax by her side, foaming at the mouth.

Both Jax and Carter start to twitch. Fletch sits up, his face sliced to ribbons.

“
God
.” My voice cracks. “They bit you!” I put my hand out to help him up, but his body seizes right along with the girls. “
Shit
.”

They’re all turning, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop it.

I do the only thing I can think of—kick them into the pantry and barricade them inside.

The only thought floating through my mind, as I walk boldly through a crowd of Spectators, is why the hell aren’t they after
me
?

My blood runs cold. My body is still numb from the shock of witnessing my friends turn into a pile of Spectator crap, and I’m not sure whether or not to be pissed at myself because I didn’t have the balls to put them out of their misery.

I bump the shoulder of a tall, grey Spectator with his torn up suit, his tie wrapped around his neck like a noose.

“Look at me!” I roar into his gruesome face with his nose cleanly swiped off, nothing but a black hole staring back at me. “You fucking
shit!
” I scream it at the top of my lungs. “Why aren’t you coming after me?” I latch onto the loose skin of his arm and give a squeeze until his brittle bones crumble beneath me. He gives a roar and slaps me in the eye with his fingers before staggering off.