Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (2 page)

Darkness Ascending

Tap . . . tap . . . tap
. The measured staccato drumming was cold and hard
against the crystalline safety glass. Once flawless and free of imperfections,
its surface was now spider webbed with a bewildering jigsaw puzzle of fractures
and fissures that radiated from the central impact zone. A magnified example of
what could happen if you didn’t heed the ‘stay back 100 feet—not responsible
for road objects’ sign so often found barely legible yet plastered to the dump
gate of heavy trucks. Only the impact on this windshield didn’t come from the
exterior. Embedded in the heavily damaged center core of the spider web was a
haze of mostly coagulated blood. More than a few strands of hair remained
wedged as well, along with innumerable flecks, some microscopic, others
definitely larger, of human skin. Eric’s skin.

Tap . . . tap . . . tap
. The hollow pulsation repeated. His eyes seemed
welded shut, either by swelling or dried blood, probably both. There was no
pain. No blinding white streaks of agony thundering through his head. No grating
of splintered bones that jockeyed for their position in the new order of
things. No searing flesh or torn muscles. There was nothing.
Tap . . . tap .
. . tap
. Except that. Whatever had happened hadn’t affected his hearing.

What had happened? Eric called a temporary truce in
the battle he was fighting to open his eyes and tried to recall. Something
about a scouting mission to . . . somewhere. Where? Was he alone? No, someone
was with him. It was . . . Michelle? Maybe.

TAP . . . . . TAP . . . . . TAP
. The rhythmic pulse intensified and slowed,
momentarily scattering the threads of memory he had been grasping for. A brief,
sharp odor of gasoline burned in his nostrils and caused an involuntary wince.
Something was wrong. His face felt . . . nothing. No, that wasn’t right. His
face felt . . . numb, like the time in grade school when he had been pummeled
by two sucker punch snowballs that were thrown by junior high school bullies. He
hated bullies. They were immature life forms that got their daily nutritional
needs met, along with some form of macabre enjoyment, out of tormenting the smaller,
younger, or weaker kids at school. True to character, the ammunition employed against
him that day wasn’t your typical fresh packed and recently hand molded
snowball. He had been pelted with globs of translucent slush scooped from the
already compact pile where the plow had thrown it that morning. The ammunition
in question often contained bits of gravel and road debris, and would be
further compressed and left to freeze solid until it was needed, usually right
after school let out. Hard . . . cold . . . frozen. Numb. That was the feeling
that mimicked the semi-nothingness he felt.

Another acrid whiff of gasoline kicked his sense of
smell into high gear, and the resulting mental jolt released enough adrenaline
to force his eyelids partway open. Iridescent, swirling lights leapt at the
opportunity and shot through the gateway, sending ragged bolts of white hot
pain roaring into Eric’s head. His fragile systems, already damaged and in
shock, mercifully shut down and sent him into blackness.

Tap . . . tap . . . tap
. He stirred groggily, still trapped momentarily in
the thickening ooze between oblivion and perception. Slowly, like a great whale
rising from the darken depths of a primal ocean, awareness began to return.

And with that awareness, a small, dull cherry ember of
a growing terror.

What had happened? It was . . . on the way to the
campground? Yes, that was it . . . the campground. Michelle? Yes, she had been
with him. She had been driving his truck for some reason. Why? He couldn’t
remember. There had been hands reaching for them through the open windows.
Grasping, tugging, tearing. The thunder of gunfire and the jarring acceleration
and heavy braking as Michelle had sought a way out of the swarm.

The ember blazed incandescent.

He recalled with now unwelcome clarity the vivid, red
eyes of the ghoul that latched one corded arm onto the steering wheel as the
other tried to pull Michelle’s head through the open window. But there was
more. Something . . . terrible. His gun. He had lost his . . . no wait, it
wasn’t lost, the slide was locked back. He had been out of ammo but still
blindly pulling the trigger as Michelle screamed for help. Hungry, rabid snarls
accompanied heavy thumps as more and more of the infected piled on, trying to
slow the hard-skinned truck enough to get at the meat inside.

A momentary flash of a child in pajamas seated on the
floor in front of a television broke through. His view was directly behind the
child, and the supernaturally bright screen flickered the scene into a photo
negative. Indistinct, animated stick figures sang and danced in the penumbra of
illumination as the child leisurely swayed in time with the commercial jingle.
“
Crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside . . . crunchy on the
outside, soft and chewy on the inside
. . .”

The ember burst into flames.

The memory of his truck rocketing blindly across the
uneven terrain cascaded in a snapshot series of images—the steering wheel locked
on an unchanging course by the ghoul’s vice-like grip. Eric remembered dropping
his gun on the floorboard and reaching, scrambling for Michelle’s Glock that
was still secured in her holster. He had managed to jerk it free as the
accelerating vehicle hit a series of large objects. Rocks, holes, infected; he
couldn’t tell. Michelle was thrusting her right shoulder towards him as the
wheel-gripping menace seized her ponytail with his other hand and yanked. Eric
watched the nightmare unfold and replay as Michelle’s head was wrenched
sideways. The red-eyed ghoul leaned backwards like a sailboarder
counterbalancing a strong wind as Eric fought to bring the gun on target.
Crimson eyes locked with his own, and the ghoul’s lips crested in a bloody,
knowing smile. Daring.

“SHOOT,” Michelle had screamed as she thrashed against
the beast latched onto her hair.

The wildly careening truck bounced and slammed blindly
over the landscape as his finger tightened on the trigger.

“SHOOOOOOOT,” Michelle yelled, drawing it out with the
effort of resisting.

With terrible, inhuman strength, the grinning monster
began to drag itself through the open window towards Michelle.

“ERIC!” Her strength finally fading, Michelle’s green
eyes briefly met with his and pleaded for deliverance.

At that moment the truck ricocheted over a large,
unyielding object, jerking Eric’s aim down and sideways as the muzzle blast
silently exploded. Salty tears welled up and ghosted down his unfeeling face as
he relived the terrifying vision. One hundred and fifty-five grains of 40
caliber jacketed hollow point had slammed into Michelle’s rib cage. In slow
motion, both her and the ghoul had somehow rotated and stared into his eyes.
Michelle’s expression was one of incredible disbelief, disappointment, and
fear. The ghoul’s was a horribly accusing “
I told you so
.”

And then, with a quick and effortless tug, Michelle
was pulled through the open window of the speeding vehicle. Not quite two
seconds later, 3500 pounds of metal collided with twenty times that weight of
solid, immovable oak. Blackness descended upon Eric again.

Tap . . . tap . . . tap
. Slowly, with the vaguely distant memory of the last
attempts blinding pain, he creaked his eyelids open to slits. Dull, ocher light
unhurriedly crept into his vision—slowly dissolving into a filmy, awkward
angled view.

His chin was resting on his chest, and he could see
one of his legs crammed beneath the center console of his truck. It looked odd,
like someone had thrown an old pair of blue jeans at the floorboard following a
hard day’s work. He tried to wiggle his toe, but there was nothing. No
connection, no communication. Nothing. Panic beginning to rise, he slowly
dropped his eyes toward the seat. In the filtered, tawny glow that trickled
through the shattered windshield, he could see his left arm resting, or maybe
wedged, in the slight hollow between the seat and backrest. It looked OK, but
another moment’s unsuccessful attempt to move it brought failure. And fear.

“Please God, don’t let me paralyzed…”
he whispered through dry, cracked lips.

Tap . . . tap . . . tap.
The drumming clatter rang softly again. It was
accompanied by the metallic, vinegary scent of cold, wet campfire ashes. The
sound was coming from his right, out of his vision range with his head at this
angle. Forcing down the mounting panic, he began to test his extremities.
Legs
. . . no
. The icy cold, gnawing spark of dread appeared in his stomach.
Left
arm again . . . still nothing
. Sending out tendrils of alarm, the spark
grew and reached.
Right arm . . . empty, void, nothing
. There was
nothing. He couldn’t even connect with them. The frozen horror of his condition
took hold and rooted around his now racing heart.

TAP . . . . TAP . . . . TAP.
Louder, slower—that sound again. His eyes shifted
right, but the source of the taping was beyond the angle of his peripheral
vision. Choking against the fear, he tried to move his neck.
Contact
.
The momentary flash of relief with the connection was rapidly washed away by
the heavy, vague pressure he now felt in his head. Worse was the muted
“feel-sound” of gravel crunching underwater as his neck slowly turned.
Sluggishly responding to his command, his head began to rotate against the pull
of injury and gravity. Approaching the pinnacle of its arc, the forces began to
shift. Push became pull, resistance became acceleration—and with a slow,
grating twist, his head came to rest against his right shoulder.

Eyes looking downward, Eric almost laughed at the
unreal sight. In college, his vertebrate zoology professor had posed a question
to the class on day one. “
What would a chair look like if your knees bent
the other way?
”

Well now he knew. His right leg was folded in half.
Backwards. The dim light magnified his mental haziness, and with a slight lift
of his eyes, he almost casually noted the severe, compound fracture in his
right forearm.

TAP . . . . TAP . . . . TAP.
The thuds against the glass shook his awareness
again. He could hear his own irregular, agonal gasping as his body struggled to
function. He could taste the sharp, coppery flavor of blood in his mouth. And
with each ragged, involuntary muscle contraction that signified another breath,
he could feel the terrifying, malevolent specter of decades that would now be
spent trapped in a useless body.

Tap . . . . . . . . . . tap . . . . . . . . . . tap
. The drumming slowed; focused . . . became almost
sinister. Another salty tear gathered traces of dried blood and sweat as it
descended through the maze of stubble on his unshaved face.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap
. Bursting with rapid-fire quickness, the tapping rang
out again, this time just above where his head now hung limp. Eric closed his
eyes and focused. With a monumental effort, still accompanied by the shocking awareness
of shifting bones, his head began to rise. Up, up . . . and up. The feeling was
not unlike trying to balance a basketball on a pencil, and his head finally came
to a slow, unsteady stop in a vaguely upright position.

Tap
. . .

Lubricating tears settled in the creases of his
swollen, gritty eyes.

Tap
. . .

Tiny muscles and nerves searched for missed
connections, finally reaching a tentative agreement as Eric’s eyelids began to
rise.

Tap
. . .

Eyelids now up, he peered unsteadily through the
fractured lines of the passenger side window. Michelle stood there. Beautiful, dark
strawberry blonde hair silhouetted by the final golden-violet rays of the
setting sun. Her head was tilted slightly down, veiling her face in the
deepening shadows. Her fingers rested near the juncture of a lightning bolt
shaped crack in the glass.

Tap
. . .

A single cardinal red, manicured and filed fingernail
descended with the authority of an iron gavel.