Beyond the Barriers (Novella): Ghouls (7 page)

The one tending the fire was in his fifties and had a long black and white streaked beard that swept down the front of his shirt. He wore a black skullcap and red and brown checkered flannel. The other man was half his age and similarly dressed but he had on an olive drab jacket like you’d find at an Army/Navy surplus store.

“What do you think?” I asked.

Thomas didn’t take his eyes off them. “I say we avoid them. No telling what they’re up to. A little too convenient just sitting out there cooking a meal.”

I nodded.

“We see you. Don’t want no trouble,” the man with the heavy beard said.

“So much for the element of surprise,” Scott muttered.

I stood up and showed both of my hands. The M4 was slung in front of me from the two-point harness. I kept my hands away from the gun. Sloane broke away from us and moved backward a few feet before fading into the woods.

“Not looking for trouble,” I said.

About twenty-five feet separated us. If one of them went for a gun I’d be able to reach mine faster.

“We’re not either. Just cooking a little food before we find a place to sleep for the night,” the younger man said.

They’d dug a small pit and put wood in it then gotten a couple of chunks of wood good and hot. There was no flame, just bright red coals to cook the meat. I wondered if they had a bag of charcoal. Damn but I wanted a cookout, and some ribs. While I was fantasizing about food some fresh pineapple and tequila would go a long way toward making my day.

“We’ll leave you to it,” I said.

“Fine,” the older man said.

“Don’t go in them woods over there,” the younger one said and pointed in the direction we were headed.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Cause they went that way. Whole mess of them.”

“What did you see?” I asked.

“That’s a good question. Why are you asking?” he said.

“Because we’re looking for someone. Some of our friends.”

“Might as well mourn them now and be done with it. All you’ll find in there is death. They’re setup real nice with a camp and everything. They bring people in and send green eyes out,” the older man said.

I looked at my companions. Thomas shrugged.

That’s when I noticed something. All morning we’d heard the rustling of trees, branches on leaves and a lot of birds chirping away. Now it was quiet.

“Who brings them in?” I asked.

“We do,” the older man said.

I barely got my hands on my M4 when they rolled for cover. Someone started shooting behind us. I dropped to a crouch, then rolled to my right and kissed the ground. A large branch was the best I could do for cover so I went for it. Thomas got his handgun out and his radio to his mouth at the same time. He didn’t wait for the two men to open fire and, instead, shot at them.

“Five on our six,” Sloane called from somewhere behind us.

“Got more at three o’clock,” Scott said from somewhere to my left.

I got a bead on the younger guy and could have taken his head off but something stopped me. He looked scared. The older man, may have been his father, grabbed him by the collar and yanked him into some bushes. I fired over their heads to keep them running.

More guns poked out from the woods on our right flank. I shifted aim but stopped myself from shooting because the new enemy hadn’t fired first and they outgunned us quite a bit.

Sloane had moved away and covered our butts. She didn’t even hesitate and opened up. Then someone fired at her. She let out a scream and stopped shooting.

“Stop it!” I yelled. “Tell us what you want. No one needs to get killed today.”

“Drop `em and come out with hands way over your heads. Way over. You don’t and we’re gonna wax each and everyone of you,” a voice said.

Thomas spoke into the radio, then he pushed it into the backpack.

“Helps on the way,” he said.

“Can we hold them off long enough?” I asked.

“No. Give up. Lisa is bringing firepower. If we can stay alive they’ll save us,” he said.

“Fuck that. I played the prisoner game once and it wasn’t any fun,” Scott said.

“Don’t do anything stupid. We got a sharp shooter with us. He can take you out at any time,” the voice called out.

“Bullshit,” I called back.

The ground in front of my face exploded as a high speed round impacted. It threw dirt into my eyes forcing me to blink rapidly. Shit!

“Next one’s in your head,” a different voice called.

“Sloane, are you hit?” Thomas called.

“Son of a bitch.” I said and pushed my rifle away. Someone was a very good shot indeed. I didn’t want to find out how good.

“I don’t like this, Erik.” Scott said next to me. His eyes were pinched up in fear.

“Sloane!” Thomas called again.

“I’m hit, but not bad. I think.” She called back from behind our location.

“We didn’t kill your friend. Just took her shooting privileges away,” the voice again. I wanted to wrap my hands around the owner and throttle them.

“All right!” Thomas yelled.

He was first. He tossed his handgun in front of him and slowly stood up with his hands in the air. I was next, but Scott looked like he was ready to fight. His face was flushed and he looked like he was about to do something stupid. Then he must have come to some conclusion because he lifted one hand into the air and then his other. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Luckily he didn’t take a bullet because the minutes we took our hands off our weapons at least a dozen guns came into view and they were all pointed at us.

T
hey bound
my hands in front of my body with a piece of frayed rope and did the same to my companions. The men stripped our weapons, ammo, and supplies. What food we had they passed among them and it was eagerly eaten. I’d had a few protein bars stashed in the bottom of my backpack but they disappeared into someone’s jacket. The guy took one, ripped the packages open, and devoured it like he hadn’t eaten in days. I guess there hadn’t been enough rabbit to go around.

Then I took another look at the campfire and realized it wasn’t an animal at all. It was someone’s arm on a spit. I turned away and fought down bile.

Sloane was in pain but our captors ignored her with the exception of placing a rag inside her shirt sleeve to stop the bleeding. She’d been hit in the upper arm and cried out when they worked on her. She cursed but they ignored her. They kept us in single file and walked us farther into the woods. I tried to engage with the man we’d initially seen, the one with the younger guy I’d taken to be his son. He told me to shut the fuck up.

The men and women were dressed much like him. They wore thick jackets with flannel shirts and jeans or overalls. They’d been doing this for a while because they worked well as a team. Something my new group didn’t have experience with yet. The way things were going, we might not get that chance.

One thing that caught my eye was the little symbol each of them had affixed to their clothes. Whether painted or stitched on it made me shiver. When Scott noticed he gave a little gasp and moved closer to me.

“You see that?” he whispered.

“Hard to miss,” I said.

“Ya’ll want to make it to our base you need to shut the fuck up,” the leader craned his head around and said.

Scott looked like he was going to offer a retort but common sense must have gotten the better of him.

They escorted us down a path until we came across an old road that led to a farm house. They cut into the woods and led us deeper and deeper. I was fairly certain this was some kind of a preserve or even a national park but we hadn’t come across any signs. Then we broke out of the foliage to stand in front of a series of streets that led up a hill. Homes, boarded up but mostly ransacked, lay before us. Corpses of long dead people lay in various positions of woe in yards and on the streets. Someone had strung up a man and woman from a sign post and left them to rot. Crows must have gone to work because there was very little left except for rot covered bones.

“Why don’t you let us go,” Thomas implored the leader.

He didn’t say anything. Just stepped in front of Thomas and planted the butt of my M4 into Thomas’s midsection.

Thomas keeled over and nearly went to his knees but managed to stay upright.

“Hey!” I yelled in protest and got a cuff across the face.

Someone grabbed Scott before he could surge forward.

That was how the next half hour went. We were hit, prodded, and guided past abandoned buildings, gutted neighborhoods, and a few strip malls that had been cleaned out. Doors busted in. Graffiti paint. And bodies. Always bodies. Then there was the mass of vehicles that had been left behind when people fled the undead.

We came across five cars that had been pushed together in the middle of a cross street and set on fire. Bodies lay on the ground blackened from the flames.

Then we were back into a wooded area again and heading into some kind of park. There was a small stream that was clogged with more bodies. Water had pooled around them and created a small dam. I gagged on the smell but pushed on because if I fell behind I would likely get a gun stock to the back of my head or back. Not enough to knock me down but enough to ring my bell and consider ways to hurt the person if I ever got loose.

We pushed into another area that was heavily wooded.

I was starting to lose hope and whatever energy reserves I’d had would soon be depleted. My legs were leaden and my head swam. Still, I struggled on step after step.

We were knee deep in a copse of trees. Our captors pushed us onward while keeping large branches out of our faces. As we came out from around a group of sequoias, I noticed a pair of faces peeking from between a bunch of branches. They studied us and, just as I made eye contact with a white guy, they disappeared from sight. The other man was black and he had a hard face that was shadowed by a dark blue ball cap. As they faded from view, I caught sight of an assault rifle.

If anyone else noticed the men they didn’t say anything.

We were pushed onward until we came to a clearing in the trees. A large duplex was setup next to a well and there were several tool sheds placed around the home. A small fence, which appeared to have been used to hold livestock, held a bunch of shambling undead. They moved from one side to the other, milky white eyes looking dull and lifeless.

Then I noticed the cart and gave a gasp.

It was like something out of an Amish village. Wooden, and clearly built in the last twenty years. It was attached to five people who looked close to death. They were dressed in rags and they were kneeling on the ground while a guard stood over them. He had a shotgun in one hand and kept it pointed at the bunch. In the back of the cart were about a dozen bodies in various states. Blood dripped from the wooden floor and soaked into the ground. This is what we’d been sent out to investigate.

I felt like throwing up.

The front doors to the duplex were shut and chained. Through the dirty windows I observed a few faces but they were indistinct.

Of the horror movie that the world had become, this was the most horrifying thing I’d seen yet.

Then it got worse.

Among the men and women who worked the little camp, a couple of ghouls moved. One of them was a large woman who moved around on all fours. Her eyes were bright green, and when they settled on me, my scalp itched.

Anger burned in her gaze as she moved across the ground until she was before the head captor.

He leaned over and waited as she hissed something into his ear.

I waited, hoping against hope that they weren’t talking about me. He nodded and then she was off and moving toward one of the big tool sheds.

The man turned and approached our pitiful group.

“You,” he said pointing at my face. “You’re first. Bring him.”

I struggled as my arms were grabbed. I fought as they dragged me across the ground. Someone hit me in the gut and another guy knocked me across the back of the head.

“No!” I yelled.

“Shut up and this will be over soon,” another guy said, then there was another blow.

They took me into the little toolshed and the door slammed closed.

“
P
ut him on the table
,” the leader said.

The room reeked of blood and misery. Chains and knives hung from the walls. There were a few limbs tossed in a corner as well as a pile of bloody clothes.

With four of them it wasn’t that hard. I was already exhausted and they’d beaten the shit out of me. I played it safe and pretended like I was giving in. If there was any kind of opening I was going to take as many of these fuckers out as I could before they killed me so I conserved my energy.

The ghoul stood hunched over the low table waiting. Her eyes burned into me.

They held my arms and dragged me before her.

“Let me tell you what’s about to go down, Chief.” the leader said.

“Fuck you,” I said.

“We’re going to strap you down and she’s going to change you. I don’t know what you did to piss them off but she wants you bad,” he said.

Two men had my arms in a tight grip and they tried to turn me around, presumably to lay me flat on my back. The man on my left was scrawny but strong. The guy on the left was a beast with a huge black beard running down his face so I named him Grizzly Adams. They were efficient with the rope and got my wrists bound tightly together.

Grizzly Adams smelled like a dead bear and I told him as much. When I turned my head to the side and tried to hold my breath, he leaned over and open hand slapped me.

The blow rocked my head to the side. I blinked away tears and thought about what it would be like to press my thumbs into his eye sockets.

“This isn’t right!” I protested and tasted blood on my lip. “Why are you working for these fucking things?”

“You’ll know soon. Just give it up. You’ll either be one of them or you’ll be chopped to pieces. We got a whole pen of them out there to feed. Your choice,” he said.

I noticed there was a small bucket on the ground and it was filled with rancid chunks of meat. Like the cages we’d been kept in, it had to be the diseased flesh of the twice dead. I knew the score. Once feeding on the meat, whatever virus from hell was contained would change me. I’d join the ranks of the ghouls.

Would I be able to fight it and hold back its effects?

I had a feeling they were going to end up killing me instead because there was no way I was going to ingest that shit.

The lifted me and dropped me on the table. The ghoul leaned over and picked up something that looked like it might have been a tongue.

“Chew and swallow. Easiest thing in the world,” the leader said.

She leaned over and proffered the meat.

The guy on my left must have felt cocky because his grip loosened as they deposited me on the table. I used the chance to twist my wrist swiftly while yanking away. My left hand came free and I swung my body to the right and hit the Grizzly Adams in the face. One of my digits got a lucky shot and caught him in the eye. He howled and dropped away.

I got my legs up, rolled back, and kicked the ghoul in the face before she could leap away.

The leader fell on me and pressed me back down. He lifted his arm and drove his fist into my side. I tried to roll away but the blow blew the breath out of my lungs. The guy on my left, who’d been holding my arm, got back on his feet and shook his hand. I slammed my knee upward, and then again, catching my assailant in the thigh. I’d been hoping to get him between his legs but he slid away.

The ghoul recovered and leaned over me. Her green eyes burned with fury. She lifted her hand to strike me but I shoved the guy on top of me into its path. She caught him upside the head and he let out a gasp of pain. I went with it, ignoring the ghoul to concentrate on the greater threat. I wiggled my hand up and shoved it into his throat trying to crush his windpipe, but he shook the blow aside.

I didn’t have much left. My body simply refused to obey my commands to fight back. I was beyond the point of exhaustion, and they were about to win.

There are many places on the human body that can be used as striking points. Elbows, knees, feet, calves, and everything in between. I used one of my last ones by grabbing Grizzly Adams by his hair, then slammed my forehead into his face. His nose cracked and blood poured over my face. He screamed in pain and fell away.

I was free! I pushed myself up, intent on finding a corner to put my back against.

But the ghoul and the other man leapt on me. The leader staggered back against the side of the little building, cursing all the time. His eyes blazed with hatred and he had a knife in one hand. Not just a knife, but a big hulking slice of razor sharp pain. At least ten inches long, it looked like my death was imminent.

The ghoul shoved the meat into my face trying to get it between my lips.

I fought back as the guy whose wrist I’d snapped struggled to hold me down.

The rancid meat hit my lips again and I clamped them shut like a little kid being force fed creamed peas.

The man with the knife swam into view. The knife rose and I knew I was about to die.

Then a gunshot sounded outside.

The guy spun to seek the sound, as did the ghoul. I grabbed her around the neck my hand sliding around her cold skin and squeezed while I dragged her close. She fought but I closed my hand as tight as I could. The thing about ghouls was that, as far as I could tell, they barely breathed. They did need oxygen but they didn’t need a lot. The weird virus had altered their bodies so that they were close to dead. No one understood the virus or the altered state it caused in the ghouls.

I was intent on ripping her goddamn throat out.

But she got her hands around my wrist and pulled my hand loose. She was so strong it was freakish.

A full blast of bullets echoed from outside. The leader slammed open the door and suddenly my path was almost clear.

More bullets ripped through the air. Someone screamed in pain outside.

The leader I’d clawed in the eyes rubbed at his head but drew a handgun from beneath his jacket. He perched next to the entryway.

“Keep him back. Kill him if you have to,” he called over his shoulder.

The ghoul hopped on top of me. I slugged her and she rocked back from the blow.

A round passed overhead and struck the wall. We both looked up and I took the opportunity to buck my back so she flew off me.

I didn’t know how Lisa and her crew had found us so quickly but I was grateful. If I survived this, I was going to give her a hug.

Bullets hammered through the wall of the little shack, causing us to drop. I landed on the ghoul and she slithered away. I found a wall shrank into it. Grizzly Adams came at me on his hands and knees. He had that big blade in one hand and hatred in his eyes.

I caught his wrist as he dove in with the blade. The ghoul grabbed me around the waist and pulled me close to her. She got her mouth next to my neck. I freaked out and slammed my head back as I kicked at the knife wielder. If she got a piece of me I wasn’t going to die easily. I was pretty sure I’d become one of the undead within minutes.

“We have need of you in our ranks,” she said close to my ear as she pulled herself on top of me.

“Fuck you and your ranks,” I said while I gasped for air.

I slammed my head back again, but she slipped aside and held on tight.

Then a huge shape appeared in the doorway. He was at least six foot two and had thick arms. He had a short and badly maintained growth of beard. He wore overalls and a dark jacket. He had a pistol in his left hand and a huge wrench, of all things, in his right. He stormed into the little building and commenced to kicking ass.

The leader of the group who’d captured us came to his feet and swung at the guy. The big man slammed the gun into the side of his head and the guy dropped. The ghoul shrieked in rage and suddenly I was free and could breath.

She came off the ground and launched herself at my rescuer.

The man on my left side recovered and came at me with a knife. I rolled to the side and barely missed getting slashed before the man turned and made for the door.

The ghoul landed on the table and reached for the big man. He wasn’t having any of that and hit her with the wrench so hard it turned her head inside out. She dropped to the ground and didn’t move again. The smell, like rotted fish and old blood permeated the little room. I backed myself into a corner and hoped the big man wasn’t going to kill me next.

“You okay, man?” he crouched in front of me.

“Uh. No. Yeah.”

“Shit. I blew it this time. Joel’s gonna give me hell. You ready to move?” He said.

I stared at him in confusion. I was sure I was about to die less than a minute ago, and now this guy had suddenly appeared and smashed the ghoul to the ground.

He turned and shot at the guy who was fleeing. The bullet caught him in the leg and he stumbled, screaming in pain as he went down.

More bullets ripped into the camp. I got into a half crouch and fought my swimming head. I needed to sleep for a week but that wasn’t going to happen.

“Who are you?”

“Jackson. We didn’t plan on a rescue operation. We were just checking things out when one of those shufflers caught wind of me. They came at us and we, well, Joel started shooting. Truth is, I saw them drag you in here and it pissed me off. Gets me into trouble every time. My temper, know what I mean?” Jackson said.

“Thank you,” I said, and then stumbled toward the doorway.

I gasped for breath and nearly collapsed.

The camp was in chaos as the men and women who’d captured us ran to different corners of the compound. They probably had no idea what to do so they acted like headless chickens.. I spotted Scott, Thomas, and Sloane. They huddled next to a low fence.

“Sure. We need to haul ass. You know how to handle a gun?” Jackson asked me.

“Yep.”

He slung a Remington shotgun off his shoulder and handed it to me, but before my hands closed on the stock he turned to look me in the eye. “I don’t know you from Adam, brother. You turn on me or my friends and you’re not going to like the results. We cool?”

Jackson was a big man and his gaze was intimidating. More importantly, I understood where he was coming from. It was hard to trust anyone these days.

“We’re cool. We came out here to investigate these guys when they captured us. They want to turn us all into ghouls,” I said.

“I know. We were doing the same thing, reconnoitering, when we found this bunch dickless and mindless camp. Fuck those guys,” he muttered.

I took the gun and checked the load and found it was ready to fire. It was a pump action and I suspected a model 870. If it was fully loaded I had four rounds plus one in the chamber. I quickly moved to the other side of the doorway to cover Jackson. He didn’t seem to like that idea and gestured for me to take the lead. I guess he didn’t like putting his back to an armed stranger.

One of our captors ran from the field of battle toward the big house. A pair of ghouls appeared and came toward us. I was too far away for an accurate shot with the Remington but it didn’t matter because a shot rang out from the woods and one of them dropped with a hole in their head. The second ghoul figured out he was in someone’s gunsights and dove out of the line of fire.

I moved toward the fence as quickly as I could. Someone opened fire from the house so I lifted the shotgun and fired back. It hammered against my shoulder and nearly took me off balance. I stumbled and almost went down but managed to keep moving. I hit the dirt next to Thomas and put the gun down. The fence was six feet tall and made of Cedar, the kind of thing you see in every other yard in the Pacific Northwest.

It provided threadbare cover but it was better than nothing. At least we were out of sight.

“Can you cut us loose?” Thomas asked. He turned and showed me his hands. I went to work on untying the knots. I could have dug out a knife but I’d probably cut his hand off in the process. My mind reeled and my body wasn’t exactly in the best shape. My hands shook so badly I thought I was having a seizure. Amped up adrenaline will do that to you.

Scott and Sloane were busy, butted back to back, on their sides, trying to undo each other’s bindings.

I got Thomas free and he moved over them, using his body as cover.

I closed my eyes and took a couple of steady breaths. When my head stopped spinning I got back in the fight.

I leaned around the side of the fence and fired at a man who’d gotten brave and moved out of the little home. He fired back at me so I got the hell out of his way. I wasn’t sure where the shooter in the woods was but my guess was that his line of sight was blocked.

I counted to three, then dropped to the ground and slid out from the behind the fence. I fired the shotgun and the blast went wide but it made the advancing man kiss the ground.

That’s when I noticed several faces pressed to a window in the home.

One of them was Katherine.