Breach (The Blood Bargain) (4 page)

Without another thought I set my sight on the closest one and fired again.

Then I just kept firing.

I didn’t count them, I fired till my gun clicked then reloaded and started anew.  The weight of it was heavy in my hands, so different than the bow I was used to.  Three clips in we didn’t even seem to be making a dent.  They were getting really close to the wall, dead arms starting to reach up too close to dangling feet.

There was a guy about ten feet down from me who had gotten his leg snagged on a piece of exposed metal, the pouring blood drawing them to him like piranhas.  He saw the crowd assembling beneath him and started to panic.  The more he tugged, the worse his injury became.

S
hifting my sights to right below me, I expelled my clip into the closest six dead one at a time. The first three I made the headshot, but on the fourth I nicked it in the shoulder.  The bullet going through some uniform patch on his tattered shirt.  I couldn’t tell if he was with the sheriff's department, fire department or department of natural resources, the cloth was muted brown.

When I went to reload, movement caught the corner of my eye.

The injured man had fallen off the wall, but some part of his clothing had snagged. Upside down he hung there, utterly defenseless and bleeding out while his head and arms dangled just over five feet above the ground.

Within reach of the dead.

He didn’t scream long, one set to work on his throat almost instantly.  Some of the guards started shouting, trying to shoot at the ones who were devouring their friend.  Rylie was hollering for them to stand down and focus on the immediate threats in front of them.  As morally obtuse as it was, the deadheads that occupied themselves with the guard’s remains were just cut through the number focusing on us or the wall.  It was a time distraction.

We needed all of those we could get.  I found myself oddly relieved, almost smiling as the man was eaten alive.

“They are starting to stack!  Shoot back further.”  I recognized that voice.  That was Cole.

“It’s harder to make a shot!”

The sheer volume of the onslaught had started to overwhelm us, I sincerely started to doubt we would make it to sundown.  The dead-for-good had started to pile up, making an easy access ramp for their brethren that still had the required limbs to crawl forward. Sweaty, my arms aching from the weight of the gun I focused on keeping my balance on the wall. Something that became increasingly difficult with each discharge of my weapon.  My eyes flipped to the location of the man we lost for but a moment. There was nothing left but shredded flesh stuck to a board.  The things had managed to dislodge the body about half an hour earlier, finishing off the legs they had been unable to reach previously. That grotesque moment acted as inspiration for my continued balancing act.  Whatever pain I was in, it beat the alternative.

As time crawled by we did the best we could, the sun was a semi-circle peeking over the horizon when we someone was screaming last clip, and at least I thought that’s what he was saying. There was so much noise underfoot.  The moans joining in a loud choir coupled with the banging against the wall.  Three bullets left in my .45. I debated saving one for me, in case-

The wall shook.

What
the?  The motion startled me so badly I almost fell forward.  I grabbed on to the wood and steel with both hands to steady myself, dropping the gun. It bounced off the head of an old man with torn out cheeks below me.

Before I could even process that I no longer had a weapon the wall shook again, the sound of gunfire stopping and being replaced with male shouts.

“Get Down!”

“Everybody off!”  Shouts of down
down down chanted from every direction. I scrambled to comply.  Not sure why we-

The wall bent like a piece of tinfoil.  It was coming down.

Be it our weight on top, or their weight pressing at the bottom, the wooden barrier that had protected us for a decade cracked and bent.  The sound of gunfire ceased, replaced with shouting as everyone scrambled to back up.  Bodies poured down from the top of the wall and scattered over the grass.  There were arms flailing, mouths moving.

A section of the wall toppled clean over with a loud thump.

The living were
quiet as gravity did its job, staring in shock as figure after figure began to shuffle through the opening.  The dead had entered Junction.

The mere sight of
their approach struck terror through my very being.  This was real danger, not only to me but to everyone I knew and cared for.  Wait.

Dad...

Cole...

I didn’t see them, everyone was running backward in
the grass toward the town. 

“F
orm rank and hold the line!” Rylie shouted, his voice barely carrying above the chaos.  My head whipped around while I got in formation.  Why didn’t I see my father?  Cole should stick out like a sore thumb with his dual katana yet in the dark night I couldn’t make him out in the line.  Where were they?  Had they been bitten?  A thousand questions poured through my mind, each a picture of countless horrors I couldn’t put to words.  I saw the man on the wall, his face replaced with Cole’s eaten alive.  No.  It couldn’t...

Stop it
Liv.

I took a deep breath.  Whatever their fate, I would know soon enough.  Now I had to deal with what was in front of me.  The deadhead’s had begun to spread out as they left the breach, coming at us in a V formation.  Due to their various injuries the things seemed to be joining into three strong waves; those with nimble legs, the stiff and the dragging. Good. The more spacing between them the higher our chances with hand to hand.

Sliding in beside Ben I pulled the borrowed machete from my hip.  Testing the weight in my tired hands.  My fingertips quivered around the hilt willfully denying my steady command.

Somewhere on the line a war cry was born. 
I don’t know who started it, I only felt my own mouth move to join the call.  As they poured toward us, we countered their moan tenfold.  A sound not to intimidate them, the dead can’t be intimidated, but to rally our will.

This was our house.  We built it, shed blood for it, and died for it.

Our house was not falling.  Not now.  Not ever.

As one, we charged.

In the heat of the onslaught, my mind shut down the sections of reason and emotion. Existing for the singular purpose of slaughter I became the emissary of true death.  The knife in my hand met flesh upon flesh, black blood flew through the air, splashing my clothes and the grass beneath.  My blade focused on only the quick retract target areas; eye sockets, soft flesh under the chin.  At my feet they crumbled, released into whatever peace awaited them off this earth.

Then they began to stack.

I backed up from the deadheads at my feet, my maneuver room was getting limited.

Last thing I needed was to trip over an arm and leave myself vulnerable. Something cut through the air to my left.

“Shit!”

One of the guys I didn’t know looked horrified as he raised his rapier.  He had missed my arm by a fraction of an inch. 
Dumbfounded, I stared at him for a moment while I steadied my footing.  In that brief moment of clarity my brain registered every detail of the strangers face in high definition.  The stubble on his squared chin, the thick wave in his blood matted mahogany hair, heavy circles under mud colored eyes.  His mouth that was moving to ask me if I was okay.  Managing a nod I chastised myself for being so immersed in my element that I had paid no attention to my surroundings.  I guess I was damned lucky he didn’t slice through my shoulder.  Still I wondered, where did he find a friggen rapier?

The moan in front of me snapped me back; six foot two, nose less with torn lips and a butter knife with a starburst patterned handle stuck in its shoulder.

Knees bending I crouched down, its arms lowered and the deadhead leaned in giving me the proper vantage for attack.  Moan cut off into a gargle as I thrusted up through the neck into the brain.

The blood from th
at fatal wound was cold, pouring down over my hands in a black river as I removed the blade.  The thing crumbled to the ground, right atop of a crawler who desperately reached out to me despite the weight on top of it.

Uttering
a deep growl, I flipped my hold on the machete, pointing it down.  With both hands, I drove the thing into the crown of its head.  Milky eyes stopped moving, its arm dropping to the grass like a branch cast from a tree.

A younger Evelyn
used to pity them, see them as victims in this whole tragic world of ours.  I had so hated getting up close, seeing who they were and where they had been.  Now standing in this field between the dead and the living staring at my machete protruding from the skull of this thing I came to the curious realization that I didn’t wonder anymore.  Staring at the dead thing I felt nothing but anger.  They weren’t victims anymore.  We were.  Screw whom they had been, who they were was death. Using my foot for leverage against the body, the machete came free of the skull with a sharp pull.  Perhaps I had lost a hint of my humanity more likely I’d found a way to put to bed the part of me that was overly nostalgic.

Time only moves forward.

Frustrated by the fading light I squinted trying to determine the distance to the next deadhead in my path, instead I caught a glimpse of the horizon.

The sun had set.

No sooner than that realization planted in my brain did the field grow severely windy, like we had just wanted into the center of a tornado.  The gusts whipped my hair into my face, blurring my vision and stinging my skin.  I raised my hands to cover my eyes from any debris that got kicked up, brutally aware that lowered my defenses.  The strong current chilling the already frigid air to the point where it became unbearable.

Then as soon as it had begun the air was calm.  It was quiet...just the soft crunching of boots shifting on the rough grass.  My teeth were still chattering when the cheer started. The field that had been enveloped in darkness was littered with corpses, ones that were no longer moving.

It was done.  We had held out long enough.  I had lived.  I had lived and we were safe.  Realization set in slowly, an echoing of it’s alright that unmasked all of the aches and pains I felt in my limbs. I’ve heard people talk about an out of body experience, what I felt at this moment was the complete opposite.  It was a heightened internal assessment of my every cell and ailment. My nose was running, ears were ringing, skin covered in a thick spray of dead blood, my legs wobbled, wrists were sore, the gloves I had borrowed from Rylie chafed my hands and I was wheezing like an asthmatic who lost their inhaler.

“Hey.”

I whirled around, finding myself eye level with a broad chest covered in blood splattered black cloth.

“Cole!”  I wrapped my arms around the big guy, dropping my machete to the side as my arms swung wide.  Neither of us spoke, I buried my face in his chest listening to the beating of each his heart.  The soft confirmation that we had both lived through that onslaught.

When he spoke I felt the rumble on my skin.  “I guess dinner is off tonight.” I forced a chuckle, which came out sounding like a small dose of mania.  I pulled back, his eyes looking somewhat distant.

“We can
rescheg, tomorrow maybe?”

“It’s a date.”  I met his gaze for a fraction of a second before I started scanning the crowd again.  Not finding the person I was searching for.

“Have you seen my Dad?”  In the corner of my eye I saw Cole’s head shaking left to right. The cheering had ceased and folks were already breaking up into cleanup squads, piling bodies to burn and evaluating our team for wounds.  In total it looked like there had been almost forty of us engaged in hand to hand.

“He was by me before the wall went down, then he ran off with
Shive to ready the construction crew.  Think they’re going to be at this till well after the sun comes up.”  He exhaled sharply. “Nailing by candle light is going to suck.”

“Staying?”  I put my attention back to Cole, knowing he had seen Dad alive and well and probably further into town really settled my nerves.  I was able to put down the mental imagery of him being devoured from the inside out.

“I’m going to try to help, no way I can sleep with that breach.”  I opened my mouth and he cut me off before I even made a peep.  “No.  Go home, clean up and get off that leg.  I can see it in your face that you're exhausted.”  He was right, as the adrenaline faded, screaming pain had replaced it.  My limbs throbbed, my breath continued to come out in a wheeze and I think I was drifting to the side.  Or perhaps the ground moved.

“See you tomorrow alright?”  I think he nodded, then I went looking for my father.

I found him at the first building on the edge of town, barking orders to four men who looked like someone had slapped them in the face with a wet chicken.  Those poor lads were in an utter state of shock, holding some boards, buckets of nails and hammers.

When he noticed my approach I saw my relief mirrored in his tired eyes.  An order barked
at the wide eyed men behind him got them moving away at record speed, giving Dad plenty of time to fuss over me.

“Are you injured?”  He put a hand on my shoulder, I steadied myself against the weight.

“Nah, I feel like a million bucks.”

“
Thank Heavens. Please go home dear, get some rest. I’m going to be at this all night.”  I nodded and we exchanged a few more words, it was a conversation that stayed in my short term though.  Moments after my mouth shut I dare say I couldn’t remember anything that had come out of it.  Regardless of the shortcomings in my subiculum, my cerebellum appeared to still be functioning. Legs swung one foot in front of the other putting me on autopilot to home.

The town seemed so surreal after everything that had
just happened.  I felt like I had just flipped TV channels from a horror movie to the Amish hour.  Everything here was, just as it had always been.  Tra la la, happy happy and all that.

I was still in a daze when footfalls fell in place beside me.

“I’ve been looking for you.” I’d know that voice anywhere, no point in turning my head to look at him.  I concentrated on walking.  One foot.  Other foot.  Repeat.

“Holding up okay?”  Adam King asked me, his tenor voice laced with genuine concern.

Even in the darkness his eyes had probably picked up my uneven gait.

“I was supposed to meet Candice at the garage, but I want a shower.  I need a shower.” I muttered.  One foot. Other foot.

“Hey.”  A familiar hand on my shoulder.  “Stop for a sec and talk to me.”

I turned toward him, looking into those familiar big brown soulful eyes that topped off his warm smile.  A grin decorated with fresh fangs.

I couldn’t hold that stare, his eyes were too kind.   It was enough I was going to boil over, instead I stared at my black goo covered shoes.  I knew it was blood.  I could smell the iron in the air...there had been so much of it tonight I wasn’t sure I’d ever get it all off me.  I couldn’t do compassion at the moment, I didn’t deserve it.  Not when I had been grateful.

“Someone died Adam.  I didn’t know him but it was...brutal.”  He shrugged.

“Just one with an onslaught like that is a pretty good ratio.”

“I don’t think he would have considered it a good ratio.”

“I know...Sorry Liv...just trying to cheer you up I guess.”  It didn’t cheer me up, it popped the lid off my temper.

“What the hell happened?”  I snapped.  “I thought you had been clearing farther and farther?”  Arms came up in defense, open palms raised like I pointed a gun at him.

“I have no figgen clue where all those things came from, I’ve been doing my job.” I was still having a hard time picturing Adam sweeping anything.  The guy was the least intimidating vampire on the planet, his thin frame covered in a ratty flannel shirt and torn jeans.  Hardly the kind to be exploding corpses and shredding guts with his bare hands.  Perhaps that was the point, his appearance made him easily dismissible which in fact made him a greater threat than his best dressed vampiric brethren.