THEM (Season 1): Episode 4 (8 page)

As I anticipated, the deaders heard the commotion as well. I soon heard their moans and groans as gunfire rang out down the hallway. Without pausing to consider my work, I continued following the hallway as it turned and headed toward the center of the building. I was working at a disadvantage not knowing the layout of the building, so I had to be careful that I didn’t run smack into a bunch of punters. Even so, most of these pre-War buildings were designed to be easy to navigate, and soon I was able to follow the hall away from the sounds of commotion and fighting right to the area where the punters had bunked out.

They’d chosen to shelter in a weightlifting room and were using some old mats and benches for cots and beds. I waited around the corner for the last punter to head out to face the Z’s, then crossed the hallway and ducked into the room to start searching for the maps Pancho had promised would be with his gear.

Unfortunately, it looked as though his former friends had already divvied up his stuff.
Shit.
I quickly started rifling through various backpacks and rucks at random, looking for the maps that Pancho claimed would be here. The only documents I turned up were some photos I wished I could unsee. Some sick pup had found an old Polaroid and taken nude photos of slaves, many of them involving abuse and worse. If I felt an iota of guilt for springing the Z’s on these punters, after seeing those pics I felt zero remorse for turning the dead loose on this crew.

Making a mental note to kill any of them who survived the deaders, I scanned the room once more for possible hiding places and came up with diddly. If those maps were to be found, they were going to be on someone’s body. Living or dead, I needed to find them and get the hell out of here. I cocked my head to listen to what was going on down the hall, and it didn’t sound good for the punters. Like I cared. My main concern was that whoever had the documents might escape and make a beeline for the ’thrope compound. If that happened, we might never get through Austin safely. I cautiously headed down the hall toward the sounds of violence with my tomahawk in one hand and my pistol in the other, hoping to stop any runners before they escaped the building.

As I turned a corner I came upon a gruesome scene. Four Z’s were eating the guts out of a punter on the floor, and he was still moving. His eyes searched around as he cried out in agony, his low moans getting more and more feeble as the deaders snacked on his innards. As I gingerly walked up to the group, one deader turned to look at me, sniffed once and then returned to its meal. I let out my breath nice and easy, kneeling at the punter’s feet and reaching up to check his cargo pockets.
Nothing.
I picked up my weapons and backed away, keeping an eye on the deaders all the while.

Side-stepping down the hall toward the front entrance, I could still hear some gunfire and the sounds of hand-to-hand fighting. The gunfire was becoming more sporadic; apparently there were still a few punters holding out. The hallways were pitch black, but I had no trouble navigating through the deaders and the dead as I moved toward the front of the building.

I heard a small movement down a side hall, the scuff of a boot on tile floor. I went to investigate, moving as silently as death in my mocs on the hard smooth surface of the facility floor. Moving in the direction of the noise, I came upon a group of offices. Only one door was closed. It was a solid wood door with a wire-reinforced glass window. I tried the knob to find it locked, and heard a voice whisper from inside.

“Deke! Is that you. Oh holy Jesus…Say sumthin’, man!”

I ignored his pleas, and crept over to an adjacent office. I climbed up on the desk, pushed a ceiling tile out of the way, and prepared to lift myself up into the drop ceiling. After I’d pulled myself up with as much stealth as possible, I threw a glass paperweight that I’d picked up from the desk out into the hallway, waiting for a response. Soon there were multiple deaders milling around the hall and banging against the office door where my mark was holed up.

Using the ruckus outside to cover the sounds of my movement, I used the metal roof supports above the drop ceiling to pull myself over to the adjacent office, right above where I thought the occupant might be hiding. Carefully sliding a ceiling tile away, I looked down into the room and spotted him, a lone punter, maybe 16 or 17 years of age.
Just a kid.
I didn’t let that affect my decision-making process at all. I knew from vast experience in dealing with sociopaths that they started young. I dropped from the ceiling on the kid, slamming him to the floor and soliciting a loud “whuff” from him as I knocked the wind from his lungs. I clamped a hand over his mouth and pinned his arms down to the floor as he struggled, placing the cold hard muzzle of my Glock against his temple.

“You know what that means, correct? Nod once if you understand.” The kid nodded, and in the dark I could see tears forming at the corners of his eyes. Unsurprising. All bullies and many sociopaths turn to jelly when the tables are turned on them. They’ll beg and plead for their lives, promise to turn over a new leaf, swear they’ve found Jesus, and say whatever it takes to beg a reprieve for their miserable lives. Then they go straight back to screwing other people and victimizing the weak after you let them go. Every single time.

“Now, kid, I know you’re with this group of punters, and I know you’re not some slave they’re taking to market.” He started shaking his head in protest, so I kept my hand clamped over his mouth and pistol whipped him. “Ah, ah, ah—no need to lie to me, son. I happen to know that your crew came up empty on your last run.” Realization and resignation dawned in his eyes at that. I cleared my throat.

“So here’s the deal. I have some questions to ask you, and you’re going to answer them, quietly. If I get the answers I want, maybe I’ll just knock you out and leave you here in the room with the door closed. But try to trick me, or lie, and I’ll know. And I’ll toss you outside that door without the least hesitation. Understand?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Good. I’m going to pull my hand away, and if you scream I’ll gutshot you and leave you for the deaders.” I pulled my hand off his mouth and watched him.

He just stared up at where he thought my face was, then his eyes darted around in the darkness. He licked his lips, whispering softly, “What do you want to know?”

I rolled my eyes, realizing it was a wasted gesture since the kid couldn’t see my face. “What the hell do you think? I want those maps, with the safe house routes into the city.”

The kid screwed his face up for a moment, then he spoke. “Deke has them—I’m sure of it. He said after Jimmy disappeared, he was in charge. He took most of Jimmy’s stuff, and the maps too. No one said anything, because nobody messes with Deke.”

“What’s Deke look like?”

The kid swallowed with some difficulty, so I eased up on the pressure I was putting on his windpipe. “Well, he’s big, real big. And he has a big bushy beard.”

“What was he wearing last you saw him?”

The kid’s eyes looked up and off to the side. “Jeans. A plaid overshirt. And one of those pre-War Harley shirts.”

“And which way was he headed when you last saw him?”

“I don’t know, I swear it! I was asleep and woke up with all the commotion, and then I came and hid in here!”

I shook my head. “Some kind of hero, huh? I bet you’re just a valued team member on your way up the corporate ladder.”

“Huh?”

I ignored him. “Sleep tight, kid. I’ll make sure the door is locked behind me. The rest is up to you.” I could see the spark of fear in his eyes, right before I tucked my sidearm back in my waistband and grabbed his lapels to choke him unconscious.

He’d come to in a few, but his chances of getting out of here were slim to none. I was feeling short on sympathy at the moment. I’d been ignoring the possibility that Kara was being badly used, but dealing with these slavers was bringing some nasty thoughts to the forefront. I knew couldn’t let myself think that way, or else it would cloud my judgment. I needed to be thinking clearly; it was bad enough that I was having some impulse control issues that I could only assume were due to the Doc’s treatments.

Tucking away my worries, I waited silently until the deaders were distracted by more gunshots in the distance. Then I slipped out of the office and crept down the hall toward the direction I assumed I would find this Deke asshole. Better if he were dead when I found him, but I’d take those maps off of him either way. I placed my battle axe in my strong hand and my Glock in my off hand so I could take out any punters in relative silence, and crept toward the front entrance of the building.

Turning one last corner, I could see moonlight and the light from the punters’ watch fires streaming in through cracks in the boarded up front doors. One door had been left ajar, which meant that they’d probably split every which way once the deaders got in.
Great.
The only thing left to do was to check the dead and hunt down any of the lucky bastards who may have escaped.

I started checking bodies, being careful not to aggress toward any of the Z’s that were feeding on them. I got a few half-hearted grunts and growls out of them, but they pretty much ignored me. That knowledge did nothing for my confidence, considering it probably meant the Z venom and my new and improved immune system were likely locked in a dead heat to keep me from second-life-ing it.

Just as I was kneeling down to check the last corpse, all the deaders went stock still. Then they all got up and shambled ass off in a rush, practically bowling me over in what I could only call a panic to get the hell out of Dodge.
Now, what in the great googly-moogly could’ve caused that?

Within moments, I had my answer. A ragged figure soon appeared in the doorway, almost as if he’d popped in out of thin air. He was much thinner than when I’d last seen him, almost bone-thin, and his skin was hanging off his bones like cake fondant in summer. But despite the differences in his appearance, there was no mistaking that creepy duotone voice. And the stench; it was like rotten corpses, fecal matter, fresh blood, and fish guts, all mixed together.

“Scratch…” the thing that wasn’t quite Donnie whispered as he did a vaudeville side-shuffle through the doorway. “Miss me?” He was carrying a dismembered arm and using it as a prop, mimicking holding a cane as he made his entrance.

I backed off a step and leveled my Glock at his face. “Not in the slightest, especially considering the state in which you left me last time we spoke.”

Donnie stopped and stood in a grotesquely comical pose, almost like a circus clown, tapping one foot and a finger to his temple in perfect time. His clothes hung off him, and if it weren’t for the glow in his eyes and the nasty set of teeth he’d grown, I’d have called him Cloony in a heartbeat. But no doubt, this clown had a darkness in his heart far worse than poor old Cloony ever did.

It spoke. “You know, you could be just a little more…grateful. If it weren’t for my presence, you’d have made a lovely snack for some of the local fauna that night. In fact, I’d say that you owe me…your life.”

That last part came out as a slithering hiss, and that I did not like at all. I kept all reaction off my face and played along like I knew I should. “Let’s just cut the shit. What is it you want from me?”

Donnie danced and pirouetted around, and frankly it creeped me the hell out. Then he paused in mid-spin, a virtually impossible feat under the laws of physics as I knew them. He turned his head backward in an owlish manner and looked me dead in the eye. “What does anyone want, Scratch, but to know the truth?”

He plucked a finger off the dismembered arm he was carrying with a loud
snickt-POP!
and then started gnawing on it as if he were a frat boy gnawing on a chicken wing. He gestured at me casually with the finger as drops of blood dribbled and splattered around. “Don’t
you
want to know the truth?”

I had better things to do than listen to this thing rave and rant, but I was curious as hell as to how it was tracking me and what it wanted. So, I decided to play along. “The truth about what, Donnie—or whatever the hell you are?”

“Have you so soon forgotten? I told you who I am, or at least the names I’ve been known by. Is such information so trivial to you that you should discard it as random nonsense?”

I’d pretty much figured out what it was, but figured I’d play dumb. It never hurt to let a potential enemy underestimate you, and I had no doubts I was going to have to put Donnie down eventually. I shook my head slightly and chuckled, despite the chill the thing’s voice sent up my spine. “I was a little under the weather last we spoke. Enlighten me.”

He waved a hand at me backhandedly, like some Victorian-era dandy waving a handkerchief at a distasteful remark. “Some other time, perhaps. We have other matters to attend to presently.”

I bristled at that. “What’s this ‘we’ shit? You’ve taken over the body of someone who, though I didn’t much like him, was at least someone I might call an acquaintance. And frankly, knowing that he’s still floating around inside there somewhere, like a passenger on a carnival ride through hell, is just about putting me off any notion of aligning our causes; never mind the cannibalism thing.”

The thing that used to be Donnie paused and clucked his tongue. “Tut-tut, Scratch. You assume too much. Your—ahem,
acquaintance
—virtually signed his soul over to me ages before you two met. Of course, I could have had my pick of any number of skin-sacks to ride once I got here, but I like the fat ones, the ones who always stuff their faces so they never have to feel the
hunger
again. As if that could erase their sins.” He sucked off the last bit of skin and meat from the finger bone, then crunched it between his teeth. The sounds echoed off the tile and drywall inside the building.

I held it together and rolled the barrel of my sidearm in small circles. “Get to the point. I have places to be and things to kill, and if you don’t speed it up I’m putting you on that list.”

The thing ignored my threat and raised a grimy finger, one long translucent claw-like nail pointing to the ceiling. “Ah, but that’s just the thing: I already retrieved the package you were searching for.” He pulled a sheaf of papers from a back pocket, wiping them down his pant leg before sliding them across the floor to me. As I knelt to pick them up, I noticed they were slightly damp with blood. “Pardon the mess, but the owner simply wasn’t in a cooperative mood.” He covered his lips with the tips of his fingers and giggled coyly like a little girl. It made me want to vomit.

I cocked an eyebrow as I pocketed what I assumed were the maps I’d been looking for. “You had something to tell me?”

“Ah, yes.” He paused, crossed his arms and rested his chin on his thumb. “Let me put this in language you’ll understand. You’re headed toward a shitload of trouble.”

I rolled my eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

The thing shrugged, and I could see loose bags of skin flapping lazily under its arms and along its torso as it did so. “Okay then, let’s, shall we? The…parties…that I represent would like you to know that they would be most grateful if you stopped the wolves and that horrid vampire from tearing a hole between your world and ours.”

I screwed my face up in legitimate WTF fashion. “Say what?”

Donnie sighed and cleared his throat, which sounded a lot like he was blowing through a harmonica that had been tuned several octaves too low. “Let me explain. In short, the creatures you are going to attempt to kill are trying to bring more of—well—of
us
over here.”

“Over here from where?”

“Well, from whence we came, of course.”

I tossed my hands up in the air in exasperation. “Right. That’s just flipping clear as mud.” Donnie looked at me askance and waited for me to stop my pissy fit while the implications began to seep in. “Wait. You’re telling me that there are more of you assholes, just on the other side of some quantum gateway or some shit?”

He appeared to process what I’d just said for a moment, then nodded once slowly. “Yes, I believe that sums it up nicely.”

“Alright, so enlighten me, Donner Party: What’s your stake in this game?”

He giggled like a little girl again and curtsied. “Oh, you do know how to flatter me, don’t you? Well here’s the thing, Scratch—my kind have been crossing the Veil and coming to your world since time immemorial. For as long as you monkeys have been smashing each other’s heads in with rocks, we’ve been feasting on your flesh and having a damned good time doing it. You see, we are not corporeal beings, at least not on this side of the Veil. So whenever we come over here, we have to hitch a ride before we can have our fun.”

I’d often suspected something similar to what Donnie was telling me, but without any way to be sure, I’d kept my thoughts to myself. I wondered how much of this the Doc already knew and had been keeping secret from us. I decided to keep my trap shut and just let him spill as much info as he wanted. Donnie cocked an eyebrow at my silence, and continued.

“Those of us strong enough to cross the Veil have always enjoyed experiencing your world, preying on and inhabiting your flesh, and causing your kind to suffer. You know, you people have really never had a clue how good you have it here; your world really is wasted on you. But here’s the thing: The wolves and the bloodsuckers see things differently than the faction I represent. They want to invade and inhabit this world. So shortsighted.” He tsked, then squatted and pulled another finger off the dismembered arm he carried. Soon he nibbled at it like a child trying to make his final Oreo last.

I stifled my gag reflex and nodded slowly. “I think I see your conundrum. If the ’thropes and vamps take over, eventually there won’t be any humans left. Your playground will be ruined, and you’ll no longer have any sport to pursue.”

Donnie shook the finger once at me. “Exactly! Those Neanderthals think they can create some sort of dynasty over here and farm your kind, or some such idiocy.” He paused, then punctuated each sentence by jabbing the finger at me. “They can’t see that eventually their food supply will run out, as more and more of our kind hop the express bus over to your world. And honestly, we just can’t have that. No, it won’t do, not at all.” He shook his head ruefully, as if disapproving of the actions of a small child.

“Alright, let’s just say what you’re telling me is true. How are they planning to do it?”

Donnie chuckled, a low menacing sound. “You mean you really haven’t figured it out yet? C’mon, Scratch, you’re smarter than that. We have always been here—your legends are proof of that. But when did my kind start to appear in force?”

I didn’t even have to think twice about my answer. “After the bombs fell.”

Donnie’s melted-wax face lit up like Roman candle. “Exactly! Your war-mongering leaders had no idea the Pandora’s box they were cracking open when they pressed the button. They were quite literally crashing down the doors of reality. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!” He yelled maniacally and struck a nearby corpse’s chest in time, once, twice, and then on the third strike his hand went straight into the corpse’s ribcage with a loud cracking and splitting sound.

Donnie discarded the arm he’d been snacking on, then dug around inside the corpse’s ribcage and came out with what I presumed to be the poor bastard’s heart. I supposed the dead punter wouldn’t be needing it anyway. He held it up like a trophy and eyed it greedily before he began tearing off chunks with his teeth. I wanted to vomit, but I distracted myself by wondering how he’d become so skinny with his appetite.

Donnie continued speaking between bites. “And trouble ensued. Your technology weakened the Veil in places where the bombs fell. Did you know that the American and Japanese governments had an infestation of
tengu
to deal with in the years following Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Nasty little bastards, and hell on wheels with a sword.”

He took another bite, chewed for a moment, and then swallowed the rest in one large gulp, unhinging his jaw like a snake to do so. I could see the huge bolus of meat travel down his throat in a manner that no human esophagus could manage. He stood up and wiped his hands on his pant legs, picking up where he left off. “That’s why your government created Area 51, to put a lid on all the supernatural happenings that they’d unleashed in the desert with their nuclear testing projects.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “What you’re saying doesn’t add up. There were over 2,000 nuclear detonations worldwide prior to the Great War. If what you’re saying is true, we’d have been overrun by your kind a long time ago.”

Donnie waggled a grimy, gore-splattered hand and smiled. “Doesn’t work that way. The effects aren’t cumulative, and the weakening only lasts a short time. Not only that, but it takes a tremendous amount of energy for us to come through. It can take time to harness enough…resources…to make the crossing.”

“So what you’re saying is that the ’thropes and vamps have figured out a way to make another bomb?”

Donnie giggled. “No, silly, not a bomb. They’re going to create a doorway between your world and ours using a nuclear reactor as the power source. In other words, they think they’ve found a way to cause a permanent weakening of the Veil. In two days, they’re going to test their theory. And your girlfriend is the person who is making it all possible.”

I leaned back against the wall and rubbed my forehead with the barrel of my Glock. It was all just a little too much to take in. “So how in the hell is my Kara wrapped up in all of this? She’s just a bartender; she wouldn’t know fission from Fuzzy Navels.”

Donnie laughed loudly, and it echoed off the walls in the YMCA entryway. “Oh, how little you knew your woman. She had a life before the bombs fell, Scratch. Your girl was once a nuclear physicist. That’s the whole reason why the ’thropes came all the way across the badlands and into the safe zones to raid your settlement. They’d found records indicating that there was a former employee of the facility they’re currently using who lived out your way. Your friend Jimmy confirmed it for them. Shot in the dark, but they seem to have hit pay dirt.”

I sighed and breathed deeply, trying to calm my nerves. “So what do I have to do to stop them?”

Donnie shrugged. “The only thing you can do. You have to kill your girlfriend.”

I stopped rubbing my face and turned to look at him. “I’d say that’s a non-starter, right there.”

Donnie shrugged again and gave me a sheepish grin. “Well, I thought it was worth a shot. I mean, you’ll have to agree with me that it does seem to be the simplest solution.” He looked at me from beneath a brow darkened by sagging skin. “Not a chance you’d do it, as a favor to me? Oh well, I tried. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He made a funny face and bobbled his head side to side. “Alright, so Plan A is out the window. Plan B it is, then. You’re going to have to infiltrate a compound that’s crawling with lycanthropes, rescue the girl, and potentially kill a master vampire.” He started whistling the theme from
Mission Impossible
.

I screwed up my face and squinted at him. “I don’t suppose I can expect any help from you with this? You know, from those interested parties you represent?”

Donnie stopped whistling and looked at me with a shocked expression on his face, slapping both hands to his cheeks and splattering the walls and his face with tiny flecks of blood and gore. He dropped one hand to his heart, and took a step back. “Well, Scratch Sullivan, this is simply beyond the pale. And here I thought you were a fine upstanding young Southern man with a pleasant disposition and an even temper, with manners to match. What exactly do you think this amounts to, me telling you all this and getting you those maps?”

I gestured with my Glock at him. “Well, it seems suspiciously like you and your friends getting me to do your dirty work. Also seems to me that a creature with your abilities could round up a bunch of your buddies and play hell on that pack of ’thropes. No pun intended.”

Donnie clicked his tongue twice and snapped his fingers, making a toy gun with his hand and pointing it at me. “Well, chief, you got me there.” Then he mimed looking at a watch on his arm and made an O with his mouth, covering it with his other hand. “I’m terribly sorry, but I have other engagements at the moment. It’s been fun chatting with you, Scratch ole’ buddy, but it’s time for me to say my goodbyes.”

He tipped an imaginary hat in my direction, then ran like a cat on all fours out the door. I stood there stunned for a moment until he popped his head back around the corner and winked at me. “P.S.—Have fun raiding the castle!” Finally, my anger kicked in and I chased him outside at a sprint, but he was long gone by the time I reached the front walk.

About that time, Bobby came out from behind some bushes and strolled up. I gestured toward the front entrance to the Y. “You take care of the sentries on the roof?” He nodded. “So, I guess you caught all that?”

“Pretty much. First off, what the hell was that thing?”

I screwed up my face and squinted. “Once it was the local constable for the settlement. Now, I’m pretty sure it’s what Native American tribes called a wendigo.”

Bobby didn’t say anything, which surprised me considering he didn’t ask me what a wendigo was. Maybe his pack had dealt with others in the past; that was something I’d need to ask him later.

He tilted his head and looked thoughtful. “What’re you going to do about it? Or rather, what are you going to do about what that thing told you?”

I stood there for a moment, pretending to be listening for any sounds of returning deaders while I gathered my thoughts. “Assuming we can even trust anything that thing says, this changes nothing. We still have the same mission and the same goals: destroy the Corridor Pack, get the settlers back, and save Kara in the process.”

Bobby laughed. “So, save the girl, save the world?”

I shook my head. “Honestly, Bobby, I’m not even thinking about things that broadly. I’m pretty much just fed up with feeling like a pawn in somebody else’s chess match. And I think it’s high time I shook up the board, starting with the Corridor pack.” I holstered my pistol and pulled out my tomahawk. “Now, let’s go gather up Gabby and Pancho, and do what we came here to do.”