Stage 3: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (25 page)

"Sounds of the drums beating in my heart…..The thunder of guns tore me apart…..You've been….thunderstruck!"

It was a hail of gunfire unlike anything Mason could have imagined. There was no fire-discipline among the men, but there didn't have to be. They all shot at once, and the sheer power of the weapons cut the creatures down like wheat under the scythe. Those closest to the vehicle were literally blasted to pieces by rapid-fire bursts of assault rifles set to full-auto, then those farther back were targeted. Some fell immediately, but others absorbed enough lead to sink a tugboat and kept on coming. Mason saw limbs torn away and bodies stitched with bloody craters of gore, but on the wilders came. It was only when their bodies could finally take no more that they crumpled to the ground, but others would quickly appear from out of nowhere to take up the offensive.

As difficult as it was for the shooters to take down the wilders, the slow, shambling creepers were even more problematic. There seemed to be no end to them, and their lifeless bodies could take an awesome amount of abuse before they went down. Mason watched as two men emptied entire clips into a single creature and barely slowed it down. On it came, like a silent spectre. Only when another bullet in a haphazard spray of lead managed to hit it in the head did the creature fall, but for every one they dropped, two or three others would invariably appear from some other quarter to take its place.

The battle went on and on and on. The dead came from everywhere at once in a ceaseless swarm, and every round fired drew more wilders in. It was butchery on an endless loop, and Mason began to wonder if there would ever be an end to it. At last, one of the rounds pinged against the wall of the building directly behind him, and he finally abandoned his vigil, ducking low and cradling Mackenzie tight against his body. The girl wrapped her arms around his neck, tucked her head under his chin, and there they huddled while the war raged on and on and on.

As the last beats of the guitar pounded from the speaker and the song ended, the gunfire petered out into sporadic bursts. Mason chanced a quick peek over the bush and saw the men in celebration. There were high-fives and back-slaps and a choruses of
"Fuckin'-A!"
and
"That's what I'm talkin' about!"
and all the other things tough guys consider to be clever banter. More than a few cans of beer were snapped open, and a couple of bottles made the rounds, but Mason's attention was fixed on the good ol' boy with the AK. The idiot was so fueled with adrenaline and testosterone and alcohol that he didn't realize his jeans had been torn sometime during the battle. It wasn't much; just a little rip, slightly above one knee. The widening little circle of red was barely even noticeable.

Mason ducked back down and hushed for Mackenzie to stay perfectly still. The last thing they needed now was for one of the half-drunk fools with a gun to see the rustling of a bush, so they hunkered down close to the ground, and didn't move a muscle. The music started up again and the occasional gunshot echoed through the street, but the party was quickly winding down. At last, the vehicle flared to life and began to pull away. One of the men threw an empty bottle at one of the corpses with a,
"see you in hell, motherfucker!"
, and the other men cheered and laughed and lobbed a few more bullets, then the pickup growled away, south down Market Street.

Mason didn't move for a minute or more. He cradled Mackenzie in his arms and whispered into her delicate little ear, "Wait, Mack….. not yet…..wait….."

At last, the roar of the engine and the music was no more than distant thunder, and Mason chanced a peek. The vehicle was gone. He waited another thirty seconds to make sure, then he unfolded himself from Mackenzie and climbed cautiously to his feet.

Around him was mayhem on an epic scale. Bodies and bits of bodies covered the ground from one side of the street to the other and far down both ends of the block. Apparently, what the good ol' boys lacked in discipline, they more than made up for in bloodlust, but both qualities were clearly evident. Yes, they'd mown down dozens upon dozens of the enemy, but even now there was movement among the corpses, and at least four creatures climbing awkwardly to their feet.

"Okay, Mack," he helped Mackenzie to her feet and took her hand in his, "Let's go."

"Who were they?" Mackenzie held his hand tightly, "Police? Army?"

"No," Mason said, "Maybe a group of guys trying to take back the city. Or a bunch of yahoos looking for kicks."

"
Bad
yahoos?"

"Dunno," Mason told her truthfully.

The girl turned her blind eyes up to meet his and shook her head, "Not everyone can be bad, Mace."

Mason tenderly picked a few errant leaves from her big tangle of hair. "I don't trust people with guns."

"We're
people with guns," she reminded him, "They were probably just scared."

He picked away one last leaf and gave her mop an affectionate little tousle.

"They didn't look very scared to me."

"People act funny when they're scared," she reasoned, "Some hide in a closet, some run straight into a burning building, and some do stupid things that seem brave so no one knows they're scared."

Mason considered the truth of the statement and finally harrumphed, "You should be on a debate team, Mack."

"Hey! That's what Sarah says!" Her face lit up, but then some of the light dissipated as she confessed, "Course, she usually says it when I do something wrong and try to talk my way out of it.….."

Mason laughed aloud, but he quickly caught himself and stifled the noise.

"I can't wait to meet her," he said through a grin, "We can compare notes."

Mackenzie blushed and smiled demurely, then the smile faded and her eyes dropped to the ground. Mason instantly regretted that they'd stumbled down this path, but it was too late to go back. A pall descended over the pair, and they both stood in abject silence as if mourning the uncertain fate of dear Aunt Sarah. At last, Mason looked to several dead things appearing from far up the block and broke the uncomfortable silence.

"Well, Mack, whether the yahoos were good or bad, they did us a favor by thinning out the herd. I suggest we follow in their wake of destruction as far as we can."

The girl nodded gloomily and said nothing more as they set off again.

With the advent of the good ol' boys in their little-dick monster truck, the going was suddenly a thousand times easier than Mason could have imagined. They walked. They assumed a path down the middle of the wide open road and they walked. They didn't run, and they didn't fight; they simply walked, and despite the gruesome sights all around them, it was heaven. Mason had to divert them from time to time around a line of parked cars or into a doorway to let a wildman hurtle past after the distant sounds of AC/DC echoing through the streets, but mostly he simply walked hand in hand with Mackenzie and rested his weary body.

Two miles,…..
he thought to himself.
Three at the outside. …..Get to the dog park, find out one way or the other about Aunt Sarah, then a bee-line straight out of the city. After all we've been through, ain't nothin' gonna stop us now…..

CHAPTER XXVIII

He could hear Becks' voice in his head as plain as day.

"You wanna make God laugh, Mace? Just tell him your plans.……"

As the dome of the city hall came into view, and the street opened up into the vast United Nations Plaza, Mason could see the way ahead literally teeming with the dead. They shuffled, they stumbled, and they crawled in a dozen different directions, but as these two new humans entered the range of whatever sense it was that drove them, they slowly but surely reoriented themselves toward them, and on they came.

He wanted to reply to the voice with something like
this is what I get for hoping, Becks…
..but a quick glance at Mackenzie forced the defeatist words from his mind. Still, he couldn't shake the image of a bearded old man, rocking back on his throne and laughing his ethereal ass off.

He'd intended to swing them south down 7th Street for a straight shot to Mission Creek, but now they'd have to find another way. With a solid wall of buildings all along the south side of Market, they would have to retreat all the way back to 6th Street and try a parallel course. He turned Mackenzie in an about-face, and his heart suddenly rose into his throat.

He held a hand to Mackenzie's shoulder to stop her in her tracks, and she hushed, "Trouble, Mace?"

"Too many," he told her flatly, "Too many ahead, and too many behind."

"The yahoos went that way. I can hear them," Mackenzie pointed in the general direction of the Hibernia bank across the street and started to sing along to music Mason could almost imagine he could hear, "Are you ready for a good time…..then get ready for the night line….."

"That's opposite where we're going, babygirl," Mason corralled her onto the wide cobblestone sidewalk, "We're surrounded. But on the bright side, it's only creepers. It looks like the yahoos took all the wilders with them."

"Can we get around if we run?"

"No room," he said simply, then a Tennyson poem came to mind and he idly mumbled an updated version, barely under his breath, "…..creepers to right of them, creepers in front of them, creepers in back of them, neared and threatened….."

Thirty or more were closing in like a quickly tightening noose, but they hadn't come all this way to give up now. Maybe he could run across the road and draw some of them that way. If the swarm split enough to create a path……. But no. He'd have to leave Mack alone, and there was no way he'd do that.
Damn!
  Well, if he couldn't find a way around the goddam swarm, he'd bloody well go
through
them! But even with no wilders in the swarm, there were just so many claws and teeth to worry about. All it took was a single scratch and…….
Damn!

He hefted his pike-staff and began to plot a path that might offer them the best chance to barge through the swarm, but every time he decided that one group or another might be fractionally slower or smaller or older or frailer than the others, the entire swarm shifted and surged, and whatever advantage there may have been melted away. He had almost made up his mind to hitch Mackenzie to his back and charge into the crowd, come what may, but his own words suddenly came back to him.

If you can't go
around
, go
through!…..

He looked to the buildings forming a solid wall along the south side of the street, and it finally dawned on him. Of course! They couldn't go around, so they'd go through. Straight through a front door and out the back where the swarm would never be able to follow.  But where? The federal building on the corner? Not a chance. The bar right beside it? Impossible. Steel shutters closed and locked. Chinese restaurant? The glass front would be easily breached, but he could see shadowy movement inside. The squat little hotel? Possible, but dangerous. Strip joint? Hmm…. The so-called 'Market Street Cinema' had long-since gone out of business, and the doors were supposed to be locked and gated, but the place was notorious for having a virtual revolving door. What with kids looking for cheap thrills and self-professed 'ghost-hunters' plying their trade, he doubted any padlock had lasted more than a few days on the old stripper bar.

The swarm kept closing in, removing one option after another as the noose tightened. The closest creeper was only a dozen yards away; a young female in a short red cocktail dress, her dangling earrings tinkling like little bells to mark every clumsy step.

Ting….ting…ting….

There was no more time for debate. Either take on the swarm or attempt an end run. Both had their risks, but the choice was an easy one. Mason gathered Mackenzie under his wing and hurried them to the front of the garishly-painted Market Street Cinema.

As he'd hoped, the padlock on the security gate was broken, but when he gave the glass doors a pull, he found them locked and a red flag immediately went up in his mind. Was someone home, after all? He shielded his eyes to peer through the glass, but it was too dark to see anything other than his own reflection. Well, it  didn't really matter either way. This was their exit. With the swarm so close, they were absolutely committed.

He broke through one of the doors with the end of the pike-staff and quickly hoisted Mackenzie in his arms. He squeezed the girl carefully through the broken shards of glass and had barely lowered her to her feet when the attack came.

The creature had once been a young man, barely out of his teens. Now it was a wild, snarling beast that appeared out of the shadows of the dark lobby like magic and threw itself at these two intruders with the ferocity of a jungle cat. It ran at them, gnashing its teeth and raking the air with its claws, and Mason barely had time to raise his pike-staff and step in front of Mackenzie before it was on them. The wilder slammed into Mason, but it was held at bay by the weapon held across its chest. It snapped its jaws and howled like an animal, but for all of its fury, it could only flail against the unseen barrier. The howl turned to a roar, and red drool frothed at the corners of its mouth, but however it thrashed and fought and clawed, it couldn't quite reach its prey.

Mason outweighed the creature by fifty pounds, but he could barely contain it. He felt himself being pushed back by the insane fury of the wilder, but whatever he did, he couldn't counter it. He was being shoved backward, step by clumsy step, and as soon as he and the girl clinging to his back came up against the door they'd just broken through, they would either be cut to ribbons on the remaining shards of glass or forced bodily back into the swarm. He tried to kick at the creature's legs, but when he tried to lift a foot, he lost his balance and almost fell. He then tried to wrestle the weapon into an angle to force the creature off to the side, but the wilder was simply too strong. And then, just as he ran out of ideas, the situation worsened.

A second wilder emerged from out of nowhere. Mason had a quick glimpse of long blond hair tangled around what had once been a pretty face, brilliant blue eyes glazed over and tainted red, and thick full lips curled back to expose a double-row of snapping, glistening teeth, and then the thing charged.

It hurled itself across the room, and Mason barely had time to shout, "Mack! Left! Go!"

The girl skittered out from behind Mason's back, came to a wall and huddled against it, low and out of the way, and now that Mason had a little more room, he acted. Before the female could close the distance, he took a step back and pivoted his upper body, throwing both he and the male off-balance. Then, as the male lurched to one side, Mason flung his weight to the opposite side and simultaneously shoved back with one end of the pike-staff while releasing the other end entirely. Already unbalanced, the creature pitched forward and fell awkwardly to the floor.

And just in time. No sooner had he rid himself of the male than the female was on him. He brought up the weapon horizontally as before and allowed the wilder to slam into it, then he pulled it quickly away like a toreador's cape. The female crashed headlong into the male, and they both tumbled together in a tangle of limbs, but it was only a brief reprieve. Within seconds, they were both clambering back to their feet, snarling and howling and raking the air like feral beasts.

Mason pulled the pistol from his waistband, flicked the safety, and fired once into each of the creatures. The first shot hit the female directly in the center of the forehead, and she slumped in a heap to the floor, but the second shot was too hurried. The side of the male's skull opened and splashed gore against the wall, but the creature didn't fall. Instead, it emitted a horrible, screeching howl, climbed to its haunches, and leapt at Mason like a jungle cat. Mason shot once more, saw a jagged hole appear between the creature's eyes, and watched as the back of its head exploded in a spray of red. The creature seemed to hang there for a long, pregnant moment, then it finally canted backward and dropped to the floor with a resounding
thud!

The wilders were dead, but the delay they'd caused had been costly. The vanguard of the advancing swarm was already at the smashed door. As the first of the dead things squeezed itself through broken shards of glass, ripping flesh from one arm and tearing a big enough wound in its side to expose bone, Mason grabbed Mackenzie's hand and ran her toward the far end of the lobby.

"This way, Mack! Run!"

He half-guided and half-dragged the girl through a black rectangle into the main auditorium and quickly found himself in pitch blackness. He brought out his cell phone and clicked the button, but to his horror, the screen flickered once and went dead. He cursed to himself as he tucked the useless device back in his pocket, and now with nothing so much as a match to light the way, all he could do was grope his way to the back of the theatre and hope to find a door. He knew that every place like this had fire doors, usually one to either side of the stage or screen, but this old wreck of a building had been gutted years ago. There were no neat rows of seats to form a convenient aisle, so with nothing to help guide them, all he could do was slow to a walk, try to orient himself in his mind's eye, and hope he was going in the right direction.

Barely had they begun their way through the darkness when Mason felt something brush his leg. He kicked furiously and felt his foot connect with something small and soft, and a little squeal echoed through the open space. Then he felt something alight on his arm, and it startled him enough to shake his hand loose from Mackenzie's and flail at the thing. He felt something moist and bristly against his skin and felt a chill run up his spine, then whatever it was hit the floor with a wet
slap!
and a skittering sound dissolved into the distance that reminded him of nails on the edge of a bathtub.

What the fuck?…..

He groped about for Mackenzie's hand and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt her fingers embrace his, then the girl gave a gasp and thrashed excitedly at her head. Mason tried to help by running a hand through her hair, but he felt something moist  and fleshy brush against the very tips of his fingers and he couldn't help but shudder as he heard a
slap!
on the floor and felt a skittering across his foot. Mackenzie uttered one last sound, somewhere between a shriek of terror and a cry of disgust, then she remained silent, save for the occasional clipped mewl of revulsion as she flailed an arm or kicked at some unseen menace.

At last, they came to a wall and found themselves with nowhere to go.

Shit! …..End of the line.……

No, it wasn't a wall. As Mason groped about, he realized that the impediment came only as high as his chest. It had to be the stage. That meant they were near the back. Okay, so which way now? Mason made a decision, gave Mackenzie's hand a quick squeeze, and wordlessly led her off to the left.

More sounds, now. Beyond the scrabbling and chittering and clicking of whatever it was that called this dank cavern home. Footsteps. Shuffles. The jingling of keys in someone's pocket. The musical
ting…ting…ting
of dangling earrings.

The swarm had found their way in, and in the pitch blackness, the advantage was entirely theirs.

Mason ran his pike-staff along the edge of the stage to keep his bearings. He felt something fall on his shoulder and let go of Mackenzie's hand to sweep away something soft and pulpy, and fought against a shudder. Then, when he reached for the girl's hand again, he inadvertently brushed her side, and she jumped back from the touch with a squeal of alarm.

"That was
me
, Mack!" he called out in a hush, groping the air where she'd just been, "Where did you go? Where are you? Mack!"

Ting…ting…ting…

The swarm was getting closer. Twenty feet. Maybe less.

"Mace?" Mackenzie hushed from somewhere in the darkness, "Mace?"

He moved toward her voice, sweeping his hand blindly before him and calling out in a hush, "Mack! This way! Follow my voice! Come this way!"

For one long, interminable moment, he felt nothing but air, and a very real panic started to take hold. He heard the girl yelp and reached out toward the sound, but there was nothing there.

"Mack!" He was shouting now, "Mack! Come this way. Now!"

Ting…ting…ting…

He could almost feel the air pressure change as the swarm drew near. Ten feet. Almost within arm's reach. A few more seconds and they'd be on top of them. He groped for Mackenzie and felt warm flesh kiss the very tips of his fingers, but they receded again before he could take hold.