THEM (Book 0): Invasion (9 page)

The kid’s route up was really simple, to be honest. If I’d have thought about it, I would have gone in that way instead of messing with the doors. Almost all of these places had some sort of roof access, and it wasn’t a stretch to think that they might have external and internal access routes. We walked around the side of the building away from the street, and the kid showed me a makeshift ladder he’d made out of three of old shipping pallets. Nothing fancy, but it’d do.

After he showed me how he planned to get on the roof, I pulled my truck up to one of the pumps, just in case I needed to make a fast getaway. Then I followed the kid up to the roof. Once we were topside, he steered me to an access hatch with a huge hardened lock on it. “Tell me that you have the key for that, kid.”

“Duh. Who do you think put that lock on there, one of those things downstairs?” He held up a set of keys that looked like they once belonged to a janitor. I knew immediately what I was looking at; there were a ton of keys for soda machines and other vending machines, which would make it easy to steal change and the contents of any such machine, whenever and wherever you wanted. I knew, because I’d done the same thing when I was a kid. I also saw some bump keys, and a small case that I assumed held a set of lockpicks.

I smiled and shook my head. “Well, you’re just full of surprises. So, how did you like juvie, kid?”

He shrugged. “It was okay. Once the older kids figured out that I could get them anything they wanted, they pretty much left me alone.”

“Sorry I asked. Why don’t you go ahead and pop that thing open so I can gas up and get the hell out of here?”

He smirked at me. “Alright, alright‌—‌chillax, dude.” He selected a key from his keyring and opened the hatch. “After you.”

I sighed and headed down into the darkness of the store, whispering to him before I dropped. “You could have left some lights on in here.”

The kid looked at me like I was nuts. “What, and attract attention to the place? No way, man. This stuff has to last me a while, at least until I can figure out a way to get it all to our trailer.”

I didn’t even bother gracing that with a response, thinking hard about some deader sneaking up and gnawing on my dangling legs. I lowered myself as far as I could, then I dropped down inside the place, landing on a stack of boxes and making enough noise to wake the dead, literally.

“Sorry about that!” I heard the kid whisper from above. I heard a chorus of groans and moans coming from the front of the store, so I ignored him and switched on the taclight I had mounted to the front rail of my rifle. Dead or not, I didn’t want to shoot anyone if I didn’t have to, so I decided to see if they’d come looking for me. Sure enough, the first one popped around the corner in short order, a girl of about 17 wearing a black and red polyester smock that said, “Traci” in cursive red letters. The predatory look in her rheumy eyes and the way she snapped her jaws at me allowed me to instantly overcome any hesitation I might have about killing these poor bastards.

“Sorry Traci, but I think you’d probably thank me for this if you could.” Feeling a slight twinge or regret, I planted a round right between her eyes and she went out like a light. As she dropped I moved forward rapidly, remembering seeing three of them through the window and wanting to avoid getting boxed in. I rounded the corner toward the door where the kid had attracted them earlier, and saw one still rocking back and forth and banging lightly on the glass. I shot him in the head, and then scanned around to see where the third one had gone.

Nowhere to be found. Shit. I started to pivot around to scan my six, but before I could make the turn I felt a hand grab my shoulder with a near superhuman grip to pull me backward. So, I went with it and struck back behind me with the butt end of my rifle, making contact with the thing square in the face and knocking it back a bit. Unfortunately, it somehow managed to snag my one-point sling as it stumbled back, wrenching the rifle from my hands as it fell.

I staggered back away from it, backpedaling as I drew my Glock. The thing discarded my rifle with a clatter, then it stood and rushed toward me faster than I’d seen any of these things move so far. It was almost human-like in its movements, and definitely not the garden-variety deader I’d been accustomed to. I drew a bead on it and fired, but it zigged right and scuttled off sideways down the cooler aisle.

The kid shouted down at me from the hatch. “Are you done in there yet?”

“I’m little busy kid, so zip it!” I shouted back, scanning left and right and listening for movement, while also trying to spot it using the anti-theft mirrors in the corners of the store. Unfortunately, it was getting dark outside, so there were a lot of dark spots where the rapidly fading light outside couldn’t reach.

I squatted down so it couldn’t spot me and backed up to the shelves behind me, figuring it’d have to come at me from the left or right. I waited and listened, but this thing had either been a ninja in its former life, or it was sitting just as still as I was and waiting for me to make my move. After a minute or so I got tired of waiting, and reached back to grab a can of Fix-a-Flat off the shelf. I tossed it over to the corner, just to see if the thing would react to the noise.

Sure enough, I soon heard the soft squeak of a rubber-soled shoe on linoleum. I snuck around the corner of the aisle toward the sound. As I turned the corner in a low crouch, I sliced the pie rapidly‌—‌only to find nothing there.

I caught just the flicker of a shadow cast from behind me, and did a forward roll to avoid being caught like the last time. I felt something brush my shoulder as I rolled, and came up in a shooting crouch while pivoting to face my assailant. He was almost on top of me as I fired, blowing brains and blood all over the drop ceiling in the store. The deader immediately collapsed on me, his momentum carrying me down underneath him. I was pulling myself out from under the corpse as the kid walked up and squatted down next to us.

“I was wondering what took you so long, but I guess you were humping them after you killed them. That’s sick, man.”

I gave the kid a dirty look and rolled the corpse over toward him, enjoying the look of betrayal on his face as he scuttled and scrambled away from the thing.

I stood up and offered him a hand. “C’mon, let’s get me some gas. Daylight is burning.”

The kid turned to look back at me over his shoulder as he led the way to the front counter. “Rayden. You never asked my name. It’s Rayden.”

“You must be shitting me. Like the character from
Mortal Combat
? Either your parents hated you, or they were some dumb, country-ass sumbitches.” He looked back at me with hurt in his eyes, which I knew was mostly for show. “Oh, c’mon‌—‌you think I’m buying that doe-eyed bullshit? Please.”

“Well, at least it’s better than having some stupid city-boy name. What, I bet you’re probably a Tanner, or a Gavin, or a Tristan. I bet the girls must love that.” He made smoochy noises at me over his shoulder. “Ohhh, Tristan, read some poetry for me.” He sniggered as he jumped up and butt-vaulted the counter.

This kid was annoying the shit out of me, for sure, but I had to admit he was a funny little bastard. “It’s Aidan, I’ll have you know. But most folks call me Sully.”

He laughed. “Oh, like Aidan is any better than Rayden. Heck, our names practically rhyme. Here you are making fun of my name, and yours is just one consonant away from mine. Not to mention that Aidan is pretty gay for a boy’s name.”

“Alright, alright‌—‌point taken. And you could have stopped at the rhyming bit. No need to get all personal and start talking about people’s sexual preferences and what-not. I admit, my name’s as goofy as yours.”

He held up his hands in protest. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn’t say nuthin’ about my name being goofy. Goofy it ain’t. Chicks dig Rayden, believe me.”

“I’m sure, kid. Now go flip on that pump number one so I can get the hell out of here.”

As he reached for the gas pump console, the sound of multiple motorcycles surrounded us like a chorus of cicadas. I immediately squatted and duck-walked to the front so I could look out the windows. I spotted at least six headlamps circling the parking lot in the encroaching twilight.

Then, the bikes stopped moving. I saw someone dismount and head toward the front of the store, so I ran and jumped over the counter to hide. Rayden was leaning over a side counter next to the clerk’s window, crushing empty cigarette cartons and other debris as he peered outside. “Aw shit, it’s Cody and his goony friends.”

“And just who in the hell is Cody?” I asked.

He turned to look at me. “Well, he’s sort of my dad‌—‌stepdad, really. Sorry mister, but they’re going to take all your stuff for sure, and they’ll probably beat your ass too.”

I grabbed him by the back of his Corey Feldman vintage Army jacket and hauled him off the counter, flipping him around and bringing him down as I squatted to get him at eye level with me. “You set me up kid, didn’t you? Damn it!” I hit the counter next to his head, and regretted it when I saw him flinch away. I could recognize genuine fear when I saw it, and this kid wasn’t afraid of me; he was afraid of the guy outside for sure, who was now banging on the window glass and yelling at us from the other side.

“Rayden, you little piece of shit! Open that gawdamn door right now, or I swear I’ll beat your ass from now until doomsday when I get in there.” He kicked the wall for effect. “Open this place the hell up!”

I let go of the kid and slid back against the opposite counter. “Well, he sounds like a candidate for dad of the year.”

The kid slouched down to the floor with a look of resignation on his face, his shoulders slumped in defeat. “You don’t know the half of it. “

“He hit you?”

“What do you think? Since mom left, suddenly I get all the attention. Not like I blame her, but she could have at least taken me with her.” He paused, and looked at me. “So, what’re you going to do?”

“I got parents in Austin I need to get to, and no time to screw around with this shit. Are these jokers armed?”

He nodded. “Yeah, mostly pistols, knives, brass knuckles, and the like. One or two might be carrying shotguns.”

“Well, that’s wonderful news.” I checked my rifle to see how many rounds I had left. Almost a full magazine, so roughly 25 rounds. The Glock and Kahr were also carrying nearly full mags, and I had spares for each on me. So, I wasn’t in bad shape, but a shoot-out with a half-dozen armed men was going to be a pain in the ass. I needed to come up with an equalizer, fast.

After taking a quick glance around, I grabbed a couple of bottles of lighter fluid from behind the counter and motioned to the kid. “Come on, I have a plan for taking care of these clowns. Help me, and I’ll take you someplace better than this once we clear the way.”

He screwed his face up at me, and I could see he was nervous, even in the dim light. Even if I couldn’t see it, his voice would have betrayed his emotions to me. “You aren’t going to kill him, are you? I mean, I hate him, but I don’t want him dead.”

“Not if I can help it, kid. But if I have to put some holes in these guys, I will. So no promises. Sorry, but I’m no victim. Question is, are you?”

He stood up and brushed himself off. “C’mon, there are some empty glass bottles in the back. You are planning on making Molotovs, right? There’s some dish soap and a small gas can back there, too. I’ll show you where.”

EIGHT

RIFLE

WITHIN A FEW MINUTES, I had put together everything I’d need for a diversion and a way to even the odds. I could hear Rayden’s dad yelling from outside about how he was going to beat him bloody and kill his new queer friend or some such. The guy was really starting to get on my nerves, and truth be told I didn’t think I’d mind busting the proverbial cap in his ass.

Still, this kid seemed like he’d suffered enough trauma in his life. He didn’t need to see his stepdad get blown away by some stranger, no matter how much of an asshole he was. So, my goal was to get these guys neutralized and get us out of here, safe, sound, and without a single shot fired. I told Rayden the plan, and he snickered as he heard me out.

The downside to this plan was that I was going to have to gas up using the siphon hose after all. The upside was that I wouldn’t have to kill this kid’s dad. So, all in all I’d say it had more drawbacks than benefits, but such is life. And, I was taking all the cigarettes left in the store so I could use them for bartering later. Rayden’s dad could suck it.

I got everything ready and sent the kid to the front of the store. I could hear his dad yelling and cussing as I scrambled up a short aluminum stepladder the kid had found in the storage closet. We’d quickly cleared out the boxes he’d been using before, and thankfully this proved a much easier way to get to the ceiling hatch and on the roof. Since the kid’s dad and his buddies were too lazy or stupid to figure out how to climb up on the roof of the gas station, chances were good we’d be able to pull this off without a hitch. Probably.

I listened carefully at the roof access opening for the kid to let his dad inside. I heard the click of the deadbolt being turned, and the change in pitch and volume of the blowhard’s voice as he walked inside the place. I also heard the wet smack of meat on bone as he walloped the kid a good one.