Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (21 page)

“
Understood,
” Eric replied almost absent
mindedly as he watched Max’s odd behavior.

“What is it?” Michelle whispered.

“I’m not sure. Max is acting strange.” After a
momentary pause, he added, “Get ready.”

As quietly as he could, Eric snuck over to Max’s side.
Thumping the broad muscular chest brought an additional burst of confidence,
and he stood and crept toward the door. A silent hand motion was enough to
bring Max next to him. Five feet from the door Max began to rumble.

“What is it, buddy?” Eric reached down and rested his
palm on Max’s thickly furred neck. Dense vibrations quivered through the coarse
coat of hair, and he could feel the powerful cords winding up and tensing as
Max picked up on . . . something.

Michelle and Sam glided past them and took up positions
against the metal-skinned, sliding bay door. Over Max’s low growl, Sam
whispered, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure. He’s definitely sensing something, but
it’s odd.”

“Odd how?”

“How much time do you want me to spend right now
giving you a lesson in wolf psychology?”

“None . . . just tell us what you want to do.”

“Let’s pull back a little bit and reevaluate.”

Sam nodded. “OK.”

Eric pulled the radio off his belt and talked softly,
“
Thompson, we’re going to step back for a minute and reconsider our plan of
entry. Keep a sharp eye out
.”

“Eric wai . . .” Michelle started to whisper but was
cut off as their radios broadcast Thompson’s reply.

“
I got it. Your team is pulling away from the
warehouse to reevaluate
.”

Max’s ears twisted and shifted again as he continued
to focus on the warehouse and growl.

From the corner of his eye, Eric caught Michelle
leaning flush against the sliding door.

Their radios blared again as Walter’s voice sounded. “
Eric,
is everything OK? Do you want me to send Dave or Mike down there to help out
?”

Both Max and Michelle tried to get his attention
simultaneously. Max by increasing his growl to a lip curling snarl, and Michelle
by flapping her hand to draw his eyes.

“Easy, Max . . . wait,” Eric whispered as he turned to
focus on Michelle, “What?”

Michelle held a finger up to her lips for silence, and
then sent a hushed whisper back at them.

“Turn your radios all the way down.”

“Off?”

“No, just all the way down.”

They reached down and rotated the knobs. Michelle
followed suit, and then brought her radio up to her lips.

“
Walter, I have a strange request for you . . . as
soon as I stop transmitting this message, I want you to reply on the radio by
counting to ten slowly and clearly
.”

A leaden silence followed for the space of three
heartbeats, and then from somewhere behind the sliding door, Walter’s faint
voice could be heard.

“
One . . . two . . . three . . . four
. . .”

The three of them exchanged looks as they listened to
the ghostly count piercing through the metal door. When it ended, Eric motioned
them back toward the office.

“It’s got to be Alton’s,” Michelle said.

“How many of the Fish and Wildlife radios do we
have—total—and where are they?”

“I brought back six of them from my office, plus the
two portables that I’d already had—one of those I already gave to you—and the
base unit in my Tahoe . . . so that’s eight, plus the base.”

“Minus the one you gave me. It’s still sitting in the
back of the broken down Gator on the logging road above Uncle Andy’s cabin. And
. . . I, uh . . . kinda broke it.”

Michelle frowned. “OK, seven then, plus the base.”

“They’re all out,” Sam added. “Us three, Walter, Amy,
the roof guard, and the gate guard. The only one were not using right now is
the base unit in Michelle’s truck.”

“So if they’re all accounted for, the one we’re
hearing in the warehouse has to be Alton’s.”

“Yep.”

“He could still be alive in there,” Sam suggested.

Eric reached a weary hand up and pinched the bridge of
his nose in concentration. “That had to be why Max was acting squirrelly—he was
hearing the radio from inside the warehouse.”

“Yeah, but he was also growling, wasn’t he?” Michelle
asked.

Eric nodded.

“So how do we want to do this . . . didn’t you say you
had some kind of an idea?”

“To be honest, I was toying with the idea of using
Walter’s tractor to seal the warehouse from the outside. It wouldn’t be too
difficult to push some dirt around any openings or gaps in the wall, and then
park the tractor out front against the sliding door to keep it wedged shut. I
figured we’d be better off tackling the warehouse in the daytime.”

Sam frowned and shook his head, “I don’t think that’s
going to be a great option for us. Logistically anyhow.”

Eric nodded, “Yeah, I came to the same conclusion
pretty quick. Too few people, too many places to watch, too much noise, and too
much time.”

“So what then?”

“Let me think about this for a second,” Eric sighed.

After a long minute’s silence, Eric turned to
Michelle, “How do you access the private channels on these things?”

She gave him the code and showed him how to punch it
in.

Eric turned his volume back to normal and brought the
radio up to his lips, holding it there for a few seconds as the last few
baggage cars were attached to his train of thought.

Dropping the radio slightly, he looked at Sam and
Michelle, “Does everybody know how to switch to a private channel on these?”

“No, only the people that have them right now—or the
people that had them already—like Crowbar Mike and Preacher Dave. Why?”

“But Alton would know how to do it, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’m just wondering . . .”

“What?”

Eric paused again, a frown of concentration evident on
his face before he answered, “Do we have any reason to think, or suspect, that
these things—the infected I mean—act with any sort of thought process higher
than a base level . . . ‘drive’ . . . I guess would be the word?”

“We know practically zilch about them, other than the
fact that we’re apparently their favorite food source. What are you getting
at?”

“Well, I’m just thinking out loud here, but if I call
Walter on the radio and ask him to switch to a private channel, and Alton is
one of ‘them’ . . . well, is there any reason to suspect that he’d change the
channel to listen in?”

They exchanged glances, but nobody spoke for a moment.
Finally Sam broke the silence, “Eric, I think the honest answer to your
question is that we don’t know. We’re not sure if Alton is inside the
warehouse, or if somehow it’s just his radio. If he is inside, we don’t know if
he’s dead, alive, or one of them. We’re also missing the original target of
this little expedition, and we’re ‘assuming’ that he-she-it is inside the
warehouse . . . but we really don’t know. Does that answer your question?”

“Not at all.”

Sam grinned, “Disorder, anarchy, and chaos—my job here
is done.”

Eric and Michelle chuckled. “You’re still on the clock
until after we clear the warehouse.”

“Well let’s do it, then.”

Eric nodded, “That huge metal door slides on a track.
From a closed position, it only slides to the left. It’s not a powered door,
either, which is good since there’s no power. But even for its size, one person
can move it pretty easily—it’s not that heavy—just sheet metal over a tubular
frame. Since we don’t have any other brilliant ideas, I’d say we go with what
has worked in the past. One of us will open the door, and the other ones will
handle potential contact.”

“What if we slide it open just a few inches and shine
our lights through? I mean, it would really suck if we fling the door wide open
and there’s another pile of infected just waiting for us,” Michelle questioned.

“We’d lose any chance of surprise that way.”

“I don’t think surprise is much of an option at this
point.”

Eric nodded, “I agree. Let’s get this over with. You
two have the heavy artillery, so I guess that means I get to be the doorman.
Are you ready?”

They nodded.

“Don’t forget to turn your radios back up,” Eric said
as he called on his.

“
Thompson, Amy, Walter . . . we’re heading back
over to the warehouse. Please maintain radio silence unless it’s an emergency
.
Walter, we may ask you to count again—we’ll let you know
.”

Three replies came back in the affirmative.

They moved back over to the warehouse, and Michelle
and Sam took up positions forty feet away from the door. Eric positioned Max
off to the left, and then stalked up to the leather-wrapped grab handle of the
big door. Another look at Sam and Michelle confirmed their readiness. Taking a
firm grip, Eric pulled the door slightly backwards. Overhead, the series of
metal suspension wheels rotated slightly as the door slid open six inches,
revealing the inky blackness beyond. With his shoulder braced against the door,
Eric peeked around the corner, flashlight leading the way. The echoing
stillness of the vast storage area stared silently back as the beam from his
light danced through the narrow opening. The long wall opposite the door was
covered in a triple layer, wooden framed chessboard grid. Each rise in
elevation corresponded with a reduction of the grid dimensions—the largest
boats being stored at the bottom. Scanning the light to the left brought the partial
silhouette of a propane powered forklift into view. To the right, the cement
floor followed the grid and was lost into darkness with the limitation of
Eric’s viewing angle. Eric pulled back and flattened his shoulders against the
metal door. Miming the ‘I don’t know’ gesture, he pointed to his eyes and shook
his head. Sam and Michelle both nodded, and then Sam pointed at the door,
motioning for Eric to throw it open.

Eric grasped the door handle with the bottom three
fingers of his left hand, maintaining a grip on the flashlight with the other
two. The 10mm was welded in his right hand. With a low rumble, the door slid
open as Eric walked backwards and pulled. After four heaving steps, he let go
of the door—its momentum coasting it another yard before stopping—and backed
away. The twin lights from Sam and Michelle poured through the twenty foot
opening, casting long and shifting shadows into the void beyond.

Nothing came out.

“Moving up,” Sam uttered as he shifted forward and
molded himself to the outside, right door edge.

Michelle skulked closer and crouched down—fifteen feet
out and dead center in the door opening.

Eric trotted up and merged against the edge of the
open door, angling his light into the recesses of the grid to the right of Sam.
He saw nothing moving except Sam, who was walking his shotgun in a slow zigzag
pattern, searching with the mounted light to Eric’s left.

“I don’t see anything,” Sam whispered.

Eric nodded and then dropped his elbow down, covering
his radio’s speaker with the inside of his forearm. Sam followed suit.

Michelle picked up her radio, “
Walter, please count
to five slow and clear
.” She muffled her own speaker and waited for the
reply. Almost immediately it came, ringing out from the front side of the
forklift.

“Cover my right,” Sam whispered as he sidestepped to
the center of the opening.

Michelle moved up and positioned herself to Sam’s
right, searching high and low with the 12 gauge.

Eric shifted around the door and smashed his back
against the inside wall. Almost straight ahead was the back end of the yellow
forklift. Countless scratches and dents spoke of the machine’s long service
history before moving into the semi-retirement of an aquatic season that lasted
barely two-thirds of the year at this latitude. The very top of the roll cage
dipped into a shallow ‘V’ in memory of some ancient battle fought—and
won—against the forces of mass and gravity, although judging from the missing
windshield and innumerable other scarring, the victory may have been a hollow
one.

Sam drilled his gun toward the forks as he stepped
quietly forward. Halfway to his target he began alternating—one step forward,
one step to the right. After two more steps he froze.

“Contact,” he hissed.

Eric watched as Sam bobbed and stretched his neck for
a moment before creeping closer. Five steps away from the business end of the
forklift he froze again.

“It’s Alton . . . I think.”

“You think?”

“He’s pretty tore up.”

A hollow, reverberating
thump
echoed from the
recesses of the warehouse to Eric’s left, and Sam immediately raised his
shotgun, jumping it back and forth searching for a target. Michelle sprinted up
next to Sam, adding her light to the area momentarily before Sam yelled, “THERE
IT IS!”

Eric scuttled around the back of the forklift and came
up beside Michelle, gun and light following the direction of her shotgun barrel.
It was pointed at a short row of blue metal drums that were lined up against
some empty spaces in the storage grid down the left hand wall.

Crouching behind the metallic cylinders, the partly
visible form of a scrawny teenage boy stared back at them. Angry yellow eyes
blinked like a trapped barn cat in the glare of their flashlights.

“Don’t shoot those barrels.”

Any risk of that happening was immediately dispelled
when the feral ghoul leapt straight upwards and clung to the grid section that
separated the first and second rows, momentarily pausing before launching
itself like a missile towards them. Twin blasts from the shotguns slammed into
the aerial target and the creature crashed to the ground ten feet in front of
them. With an unbelievable resilience, it flipped onto its side and tried to
gather its legs underneath for another leap. Blood poured out of a horrendous
neck wound as the boy scrambled and clutched at the cement floor of the
warehouse. Another double blast from the shotguns tore into the ghoul’s head,
shattering it in a cone of pink, red, and white fragments.

“Son of a gun—did you see that thing jump straight
up?” Sam exclaimed.

“I’ll bet it cleared almost six feet vertically . . .
what the hell is going on with these things?” Michelle answered.