Clickers vs Zombies (29 page)

Mary looked confused. “We can’t let it out, are you crazy?”

“Do as he says, Mary,” Richard said, his voice stern.

Mary turned to Richard and saw something in his face that helped her get the message. She nodded, turned to her brother with a sense of resolve.

“Okay,” Paul said. He stepped away from the door carefully and quickly positioned himself across from the door. The others had to work that much harder to keep the door to the basement from opening. They pushed and strained against the force applied against it, but with Paul no longer there that was becoming much harder. The door inched open further. Max yelped as the zombie’s fingers waggled between the edge of the door and the jam.

Paul raised the assault rifle. He set the stock against his shoulder and placed his right eye slightly behind the scope, taking aim. “On three,” he said.

Richard nodded and he knew the others had gotten the message. The zombie cackled again behind the door. “
On three I get to eat you!
And more of my brothers will be let forth from the Void to occupy your miserable sacks of flesh!
”

“One…” Paul began.

The door inched open more.

“Two…”

The pressure from the basement suddenly ceased and the door was slammed shut. Richard felt a momentary sense that the creature had a trick up its sleeve, but then he realized that maybe it was just anticipating what came next.

“Three!”

Richard, Max, Mary, and Melody scrambled away from the door, darting to either side of it. For a moment nothing happened.

Then the door was shoved open quickly. It banged against the wall and Sparky was there, his eyes blazing with a presence that Richard saw for a brief moment. Despite being the eyes of the undead, there was a sense of intelligent malevolence in them. Richard saw its brief grin and that grin turned quickly to surprise as Paul opened fire.

The gunshots propelled the zombie down the basement steps, where it clattered to the bottom with a rough cry. Paul stepped toward the doorway, aiming the rifle down the stairs. Melody called out from beside him. “Did you get it?”

From the basement, a mad cackle: “
You need to learn how to aim correctly, ese!
”

“You want me to aim correctly?” Paul muttered as he sighted on the zombie downstairs. “Fine. How about this?” He let out a series of shots that clattered in the condemned building. The sound of the rifle going off was enormous—his ears were still ringing from the earlier encounter with the zombie baby upstairs. Despite the enormity of it he could still hear the zombie cackling madly downstairs. Amid the barrage of gunfire, the laughter was cut off. “Got you, motherfucker!”

Richard’s ears were ringing. He took a cautious step away from the wall to get a better look at the doorway leading into the basement. Paul took a step back, giving them all a better view. For the first time since their ordeal had begun last night, Paul had a sense of victory. “Took care of that.”

They crowded close to him and peered down. The zombie was lying at the foot of the stairs. One leg was splayed out at an unnatural angle from one of its falls down the stairs. A large chunk of flesh had been ripped out of the right side of its abdomen. Its head was nothing but a mass of shapeless flesh. It looked like a pumpkin that had been smashed repeatedly with a hammer.

“Holy fuck,” Max said, his voice hollow.

They stood there staring down at the zombie for a moment. Richard found it hard to feel guilty about what they’d done. The man they’d met yesterday who’d once inhabited that body, Sparky, had died the moment the zombie baby bit his ankle. They didn’t kill him. Maybe they’d set him free. Richard hoped so.

“Sparky knew the plank on the cellar window was loose,” Mary said. “Why didn’t he just go out that way and come in through another door or something?”

“Maybe there are still some of those lobster things outside,” Richard said.

“What do we do now?” Max asked. His eyes were transfixed on the dead zombie.

“We can’t go back down there,” Melody said. She turned away, looking like she was going to be sick. “There’s no way…” She looked at her brother, at Mary and Paul. “We can’t hide ourselves back down there! Not now, with that thing down there.”

“It’s dead, Melody,” Richard said.

“I know it’s dead but what if there’s another one in here!” She said, her voice shrill.

Richard held his hands up to quiet her down. “Take it easy, Mel.”

Mary looked just as scared as Melody. She wouldn’t leave her brother’s side. “She’s right,” Mary said. “Even if it’s not going to come back, it’s still dead. It’ll rot.” Her face screwed up in disgust.

Richard nodded at Paul. “We should stay up here.”

“And what?” Max asked. “What if some of them heard the gunshots?”

“Oh God,” Melody said. She turned a fear-stricken face to Richard. She grabbed at his shirt, her knuckles white. “Dad’s coming, right? He did say he was coming—”

“He’s coming,” Richard said quickly. He put his arm around her, regarding the others in the enclosed space in the first floor hallway. “He knows where we are. I told him what street we’re on, what the building looks like. He’s on his way.”

“Should we wait here?” Max asked.

“It’s the only thing we can do,” Paul murmured.

For a moment all was silent. The ringing in Richard’s ears made it hard to listen for what was going on outside. He didn’t like the idea of being on the ground floor with the doors and windows all boarded up, unable to see outside. At least if they went upstairs, even to the second floor, they could peer out one of the windows and have a chance to see what might be going on.

“We should go back upstairs,” Richard said.

“What if there’s another one of those things up there?” Melody asked.

“We’ll conduct a more thorough search this time,” Richard said. He gestured to Paul. “Paul’s got that rifle. And we also have this.” He took his arm off Melody’s shoulders and rooted through the jacket Sparky had left behind. When he pulled the handgun out a collected gasp rose from the group. Richard held the gun with the barrel pointed up. “I don’t know shit about guns, but I know enough to keep it pointing away from you all. And that all it takes to stop these things is to point and shoot.”

“You have to shoot them in the head,” Max said.

“Yeah,” Richard agreed. He held on to the handgun, slightly apprehensive about how to handle it but knowing that he had to. There was a button on the side of it—that had to be the safety. It was probably on; it had to be, otherwise, Sparky wouldn’t have just carried it so casually in his jacket pocket like that, right?

As if reading his thoughts, Max said, “Are you sure you’re comfortable with that thing?”

“Fuck no, I’m not comfortable,” Richard said. “But it is what it is. What other choice do we have?”

There was no answer to that.

Max crept to the front door of the building and put his ear against the door. After a moment of silence he turned to the others. “Sounds quiet,” he said.

“What do we do if we have to get out of here in a hurry?” Mary asked.

“The place is boarded up from the outside,” Paul said.

“The back didn’t look boarded up,” Richard said. “Maybe the back door…”

They turned to the back door at the very end of the hall.

“I didn’t think there was a back door,” Paul said.

“I didn’t either,” Richard said, “but there it is. We must have missed it when we first came up here. It is kind of dark back here.”

“This door is along the same alleyway as that basement window we used to get in here, isn’t it?” Max asked.

“Yeah, I’m pretty certain it is,” Richard answered.

“I only remember seeing windows boarded up,” Melody said. “Not a door. What if it’s a false door and doesn’t open to anything?”

“You mean like a wall?” Richard said. “I don’t think so. I think we were just too rushed and panicked to notice it.”

“Okay, what if it’s unlocked and we manage to get it open. What if there’s something out there?” Mary asked.

“The apartments in the back,” Paul began, heading for the stairs, “their windows should look down on that alley. Let’s take a look.”

Cradling the rifle as if he’d suddenly gained military experience, Paul edged toward the stairs. “Come on,” he said. “I’m positive we won’t run into any other surprise. That zombie baby that got Sparky, we missed it due to its size and the fact that it was a baby. If there were others in here, we would’ve known by now.”

Richard realized Paul was right. If there’d been even one adult zombie in this building, it would have been camped outside the door to the basement since last night. “He’s right,” Richard said. “We should move upstairs. We can watch all corners of the building from any of those apartments. We’ll be able to see Dad when he shows up.”

This seemed to boost all their spirits. Max nodded vigorously. “Yeah, let’s do it!”

With Paul leading the way and Richard bringing up the rear, they headed upstairs to the second floor.

TEN

Mt. Shasta, California

“Jesus,” Michele muttered as they drove into town.

Clark eased the car forward slowly, weaving in and around the carnage. Mount Shasta rose over fourteen-thousand feet above them, deceptive in its beauty, for nestled at its feet was absolute devastation. Michele glanced around, but everywhere she looked, she saw one horrific scene after another. A sign for the Mercy Medical Center had a bloody handprint on it. Another sign for the Mt. Shasta Ski Park had been splattered with someone’s intestines. Carrion birds picked at the still-wet morsels. Michele couldn’t tell if the birds were alive or dead. Burning cars and buildings spewed smoke into the sky, and bodies littered the streets and sidewalks. Some of the corpses still moved—zombies, lacking legs, suffering severed spinal cords, or having their mobility hampered by other injuries. Other corpses lay still, each one having suffered some form of head trauma.

“It’s starting to stink already,” Clark said, closing the dashboard vents and turning off the air conditioning. “Try to breathe through your mouth.”

A severed head perched atop a mailbox glared at them as they turned onto Pine Street. Its lips moved, mouthing threats and curses. A dead cat with a broken back pulled itself along the street with its front paws. Clark swerved toward it. The cat’s head crunched beneath the front tires.

“Looks like most of the mobile zombies have moved on,” he said. “But we’ll still need to be careful.”

“What happens next?” Michele asked.

Clark parked the car in the middle of the street and turned off the ignition. Then he pocketed his keys and un-holstered his weapon. “Now?” He pointed at the snow-topped mountain looming over the town. “We head up there.”

“The mountain?”

He nodded. “Lonely as God, and white as the winter moon.”

“Joaquin Miller,” Michele said. “Right?”

“I’m impressed.” Clark grinned. “It was indeed Joaquin Miller. What else do you know about this area, Michele?”

“The mountain is a volcano. It’s also one of Earth’s power points. Ley lines converge here, just as they do at other power points such as Stonehenge and LeHorn’s Hollow. And much like those places, there are all sorts of paranormal phenomena associated with it. The Native Americans believe it’s inhabited by the godlike spirit of a chief named Skell. There have been a number of UFO sightings here over the years, as well as abduction reports, and eye-witness accounts of everything from ghosts to cryptids. Oh, and there’s supposed to be a hidden city deep inside the mountain itself, where a group of advanced beings who are survivors from the lost continent of Lemuria live.”

“Very good,” Clark said. “You’re right, except for that part about the Lemurians. That’s bullshit. As far as we know, the Nazis killed the last of the Lemurians shortly before the end of World War Two, when they were sending U-boats to Antarctica to set up bases there. But yes, it is a power point. Indeed, it’s one of the strongest. From here, we can not only access the Labyrinth, but open a door to the Void, consign the Siqqusim back into it, and then close the door again, sealing them off from this level.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Oh, it’s not. The ritual is extremely difficult. The strain…well, let’s just say that it would definitely kill you, and I’m not even sure I can survive it. Banishing the Siqqusim isn’t a job for novices.”

“Has anybody ever successfully done it?”

“Sure. Moses. Solomon. Jesus of Nazareth. John Dee. Even one of our own agents.”

“Who?”

“Director Kaine, long ago. Back when he still worked in the field and hadn’t become a desk jockey.”

Michele sat up straight. “Well, surely Director Kaine is still alive! Couldn’t he—”

“No,” Clark said. “The first thing the Siqqusim would have done was exterminate our group, along with the Seven, and anybody else they saw as a threat. And with everything else going on, we were blindsided by their invasion. We were focused on the Clickers. As a result, the breach was swift. They overwhelmed us. You saw for yourself what happened in San Francisco. I’m certain it happened everywhere else. Look how quickly they decimated this town, for instance. The bottom line is that they beat us. Black Lodge is no more.”