The Dark Trilogy (53 page)

Megan had not thought much about Michael, Cindy, and Frank since the accident, but she guessed they were involved with the gunplay. She couldn’t help feeling a twinge of guilty pleasure at whatever predicament they had gotten themselves into after they had so willingly abandoned her and the others. As a small grin of satisfaction found its way onto her face, she spied a ghoul staring at her.

A startled scream escaped Megan’s lips as she watched the monster stumble out of the McDonald’s they had just passed. The rotting figure’s neck was broken, its head dangling from a bloated tube of flesh with split marks running down its length. It was like some over-ripened melon whose insides had burst free from the rind. A badly soiled uniform with a nametag pinned to it completed the picture. Megan could see that the teenager was named Jamie, and he was missing several fingers from the hand that reached out to her.

Nathan and Joey began to cry, tugging hard on Megan’s hands, urging her to run. She remained frozen as she watched Jamie approach, fascinated by whatever dark magic was keeping him upright.

Jamie’s skin had gone from gray to an almost brownish black. Though his neck was broken, his equilibrium seemed adequate enough to close the gap between him and Megan.

George rushed past, with Teddy and Jason close behind. Teddy let loose with one of his heavy chunks of metal, grazing Jamie in the shoulder. It did no visible damage, but served to knock the walking corpse off balance, and he stumbled before getting his uncoordinated feet back underneath him.

Jamie stepped out onto the street, stumbling between two crumpled cars with matching flat tires and shattered windows. As the infected boy moved beyond the wrecks, Megan noticed the way his sneakers flopped loosely around his ankles. The shoes had burst at the seams as Jamie’s feet swelled with fluid. The canvas was like some sort of tent covering the huge blackened feet.

The thick piece of wood George wielded came crashing down. A spray of soupy gruel splashed up as Jamie’s head popped free of his neck like a swollen tick. The boy’s hands stayed elevated even as his body followed the trajectory of his detached head toward the ground. They finally flopped to his sides as the former McDonald’s employee hit the asphalt.

“Is everyone okay?”

George wiped splatters of fluid off his face as he glanced around at everyone. They all seemed okay, but Megan had a dismal look on her face.

“I’m so sorry I screamed, George. I won’t do it again, I promise,” Megan said with remorse.

George shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Your scream warned me he was coming.” He nodded toward Jamie’s corpse. “We’ll be fine as long as we keep moving.”

Before Megan could say anything else, they heard more shots off in the distance. George strained his ears to ascertain from which direction the gunfire was coming, but he knew it was a pointless task.

Dismissing the sudden distraction, he patted Megan on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s get going.”

George moved back to the middle of the road, and the others followed suit as their eyes searched every doorway and window for more trouble.

Less than a minute later, two shapes separated from the shadows near a small shop and limped out into the open. Before George could react, the two teenagers leapt into action, darting in opposite directions. It was clear almost immediately that this tandem of rotters was even slower than normal due to a lack of muscle mass. They had been thoroughly mauled before turning, and only a few shreds of meat and tendon remained on their torsos. The boys lured the slow-moving creatures in separate directions, giving George the chance to take care of them individually with a few efficient swings of the heavy plank he carried.

Jason and Teddy were still high-fiving one another when Lydia spotted another group of stiffs coming out of a vacuum repair shop nearby. She was ready to yell to George, but he saw them only a split second after she did.

The leader was clad in motorcycle gear, and his left leg was chewed down to the bone. The remains of his torn chaps slapped against his leg as the monster limped toward Jason, his closest target. The biker reached for the boy and let out a froglike croak.

In his euphoria at his and Teddy’s success, Jason didn’t hear the low sound right away. It was only when the ghoul gave an excited squeal that he whirled around. Jason’s eyes went wide as the biker grabbed his arm and leaned in to take a bite.

He screamed and tried to back up as the stiff lunged forward. The monster’s teeth snapped on empty air, but it tightened its grip on the boy’s elbow. Jason’s scream changed from terror to pain as he felt something tear under his skin. The infected man pulled the twelve year old closer to his gaping maw, insensible of the boy’s struggles to break free. The ghoul gurgled in anticipation.

George crashed into the biker, causing the rotter to release his grip on Jason’s elbow and slam into the sidewalk. There was a snapping sound as several brittle bones broke in the monster’s arm from the force of the blow. George kept rolling, avoiding the stiff’s claws as he bowled into the other three creatures that had also come out of the vacuum repair shop.

Teddy rushed up and launched several chunks of metal and rocks at the bodies struggling to grab at George. He threw the missiles one by one as he steadily slid forward, focusing most of his effort on a particularly decrepit creature. George was throwing punches and landing kicks on the other two from where he lay on the ground, but the one on which Teddy had zeroed in had escaped the burly man’s attention and was rising up to strike. As a sizeable stone bounced off the slug’s head, it turned and hissed at Teddy. The boy’s eyes were wild as he growled, “Come on!” and continued to taunt it.

Jason shot a glance toward the biker as he struggled to slide backward on his butt. It was clear his friends were too busy to help him, but the blinding pain in his elbow was making him dizzy. His movement was hampered as he cradled his injured arm protectively. Jason had no idea what was damaged; all he knew was that his arm felt as if it were in the steel grip of a vice. He could barely move it, but fear helped him ignore the jolts of pain as he inched away from the battle. The leather-clad ghoul’s arm may have shattered, but unlike the twelve year old, the inhuman monster felt no pain. Its tongue licked the air in anticipation as it closed the distance between it and its prey.

Jason tensed, preparing to kick out at the looming figure as it got closer. The hand that had damaged his arm reached for him, and Jason bit down hard on his tongue, forcing himself not to scream. His eyes narrowed, and he waited for the right moment to strike.

There was a sudden blur of movement as Megan crashed into the biker. Jason could only gape in amazement as she lashed out with a thin, whip-like sliver of metal, jabbing it at the ghoul’s eyes.

Before the biker could respond to the surprise assault, Megan was able to drive the broken car antenna she had picked up off the street through one of its eyes and deep into its brain. Wrenching it up and down, she screamed like a madwoman until the antenna broke off in her hand.

Rolling off the inert body, Megan popped up into a crouch as Jason watched in stunned silence. She scanned the area and saw that Teddy was in danger as well. He had whipped the last of his rocks at one of the ghouls that had been harassing George and was now preparing to go toe to toe with the rotter as it advanced on him.

Megan charged in like a halfback, plowing into the female ghoul’s chest with the full force of her ninety-pound frame. She landed on it with a heavy thud, and there was a whip-crack sound as its skull hit the pavement. Raising her hands to the leathery, tight skin of the monster’s forehead, Megan slid her fingers into a tangle of hair. She drove the skull into the asphalt several times, her palm forcing the forehead forward even as her fingers yanked up on the scalp. She only stopped when a small spatter of liquid covered the pavement underneath the fractured skull.

As she rose, Megan felt the buzz of adrenaline dying inside, leaving her aching and exhausted. When she looked back to make sure the boys were okay, Megan’s eyes widened. Teddy had already dragged Jason several yards away, and they were screaming for her and George to run. Turning to look past the vacuum shop, she understood why.

The screaming Megan had done as she attacked both ghouls endangering the boys had blasted her eardrums to the point where she could hear nothing else. Not Teddy’s or Jason’s warnings, or the screeching howls and moans as a second wave of infected rolled down the street toward them. All the noise the group had been making, all their screams and shouts to one another as their battle raged, had drawn a crowd.

George had also just stood after rubbing the second fiend’s face into the sidewalk like sandpaper and snapping the first’s neck. Aware of the moans and caterwauls coming from down the street as he fought, he’d done his best to make quick work of his two opponents.

He’d also heard the boys screaming and spotted the impending attack. There was no time to count how many ghouls were coming. All he knew was that there were too many. Megan was standing next to him with a dazed expression on her face and blood on her hands. The body at her feet told the desperate man all he needed to know. Jason and Teddy were still waving frantically at them as they followed Lydia and the children between two small office buildings across the street.

Making a quick decision, George pushed Megan in their direction.

“Go! Get out of here! NOW!”

His words snapped Megan out of her daze as she stumbled back. George knew that was all he could do for her as he turned to face the first attacker. The big man’s meaty fist shot out, dislocating the nurse’s jaw. The cannibal jittered sideways and fell to the ground. As three more monsters lunged at him, their teeth gnashing, George let out an enraged howl and body checked them into the next group of ghouls coming his way.

As he waded into a mass of monsters, he screamed at the others.

“Get them the hell out of here. I’ll hold these things off as long as I can!”

His arms were a blur as George drove his elbow into the temple of one of the people tearing at his clothing. He whirled around, bumping another malnourished form to the ground.

As more of the townsfolk of Manchester closed in on him, their howls and screeches filled with inhuman rage, George spied Megan backpedaling. Lydia and the children were already out of sight, along with Teddy, but Jason was standing near the opening of the alleyway, his eyes filled with horror as he watched what was happening to George.

“I’m right behind you!” George shouted as he lashed out with his foot and turned away from his friends. He tried to repeat the words, but they were cut off as a small wriggling body smashed into him. The big man lifted the rancid child above his head and launched it at two more stiffening forms coming straight at him.

George growled as he twisted away from another set of shattered teeth that snapped and gnashed at him. All he could see was gray, putrid flesh and milky white eyes as more and more hands tried to pull him to the ground.

As he continued to fight, images of his family flashed through his mind. They seemed farther away now than ever. The people he’d met over the past few days were all too real, but his wife and two daughters seemed like nothing more than a dream.

Shaking away the despair that threatened to take hold of him, George gritted his teeth as he landed another punch and broke free from a throng of bodies.

“I’m still coming for you, babe. No matter what, I’m still coming for you and the girls.”

It was all he managed to say as he barreled into another pile of corpses.

Chapter 8

Megan picked up her pace and urged Jason to keep up. He kept looking back as if expecting George to come running up behind them. She urged the kid on, but was careful not to jar his injured elbow.

They caught up with Teddy and Lydia, and Megan took hold of the two small boy’s hands as she slowed her pace to match the others. She refused to think about what George had done for them. She had already lost Jeff, and thinking about both of them being gone was too much to bear. Instead, she needed to focus on the task at hand: the remaining survivors had to get off the street and find a place to hide as soon as possible.

The others slowed down and bunched up behind Megan as they hit the end of the alley. They were looking out on another street. Taking a deep breath, the new leader of the group motioned for her charges to follow. Noise was cascading down from all sides, distant cries mixed with closer sounds from where they had left George.

The street onto which they moved was lined with low-slung buildings of various configurations. Several free-standing offices and storefronts made of wood, aluminum, and brick dotted the road. Megan spotted a door across the way that appeared to be made of steel and looked sturdier than the rest. It was one of several entryways in the building, but the others were all made of decorative glass or wood. The gold-trimmed paint on the steel door spelled out a name, though much of it was covered in filth and was hard to read. All Megan knew was that if it was unlocked, the sturdy door and what lay beyond might present the desperate group with a secure hiding place.

The seven human shapes scurried across the street, their panic not lessening when they saw no one nearby, since the echo of agonized moans still surrounded them.

***

As the frantic refugees moved out of the alley and onto the street, a shadow separated from one of the walls behind them and followed. Its excitement was palpable as it narrowed the distance to its prey.

The creature had been following them for some time. It ignored George as he was swarmed and kept tracking the group now composed exclusively of women and children. They were a far more tantalizing target.

It hissed in anger as the small group entered an abandoned office on the opposite side of the street. As the last of the survivors stepped inside and shut the door, the shadowy figure licked its lips greedily.

There was noise coming from farther down the alleyway, behind it. The others were getting close, but that didn’t matter. They would not get there in time to interfere.