Wormwood Dawn (Episode VI) (9 page)

“This,” he said. “Is obviously Melanie. Or, it used to be. Look here, at the upper arm on the left side. You can still the remains of the tattoo she had there. Man… this is unbelievable.”

“How could she have turned?” Lena asked. “Dan shot her dead. And I didn’t see her get bitten. Ever.”

Travis shook his head, folding his arms across his chest. “I don’t know. It must be something else that spreads this mutative state. Obviously the first people to get infected weren’t bitten. They were infected by whatever fell from the sky. Maybe she was, too, but there was some kind of delay.”

“What about that big ass hole Dan put in her chest?” Cliff asked. “Right through her black ass heart.”

Again, Travis was dumbfounded. He was silent, as if contemplating many possibilities. Eric hadn’t said a word, and Toby looked like he was about to shit his pants. Only Lena seemed to be showing some signs of intelligence. She moved around the table next to Travis, cocking her head to get a better angle to look at Melanie’s chest.

She took Travis’ ruler and pointed it directly over her heart. “I can see the faint outline of a scar there,” she said.

Travis leaned in, nodding his head. “Yeah, man. That’s definitely a scar.”

“Dan said he’s run across these lots of times,” Eric said. “Even when they were still in their cocoons.”

Travis looked up. Lena looked at him, too. “Cocoons?” they both said.

Eric looked at Cliff for an explanation. Cliff wasn’t exactly sure about the whole thing, but he heard what he had heard.

He nodded. “That’s what the man said.”

Travis took the ruler back from Lena, using it to pry Melanie’s lips open. Inside were razor sharp fangs an inch long, and translucent. A small amount of grayish slime spilled out as he opened the jaw. From his angle, Cliff couldn’t see what Travis was looking at, but he knew there was a strange, snake-like tongue in there somewhere.

“This almost looks like the mouth of an angler fish,” Travis said. “You know, the ones that live in the really deep parts of the ocean?”

“Like the Marianas Trench?” Toby asked.

Travis pointed the ruler at him. “That’s right, man. The Marianas Trench.”

He leaned in to sniff around over the body, grimaced a bit, then stood up again. “Smells like fish, kinda.”

Cliff chuckled. “She probably smelled like that before.”

He could see Lena roll her eyes.

“This is serious, man,” Travis said. “If this thing can spread without a bite, and without the victim even knowing, then we’re in some serious trouble.”

“She
did
stay inside a lot,” Eric suggested. “She hardly ever came out in the last few days.”

“I would think her dog would have known something was up,” Cliff said. “Dogs know that shit.”

“That dog was a worthless piece of shit,” Lena said. “That’s why I shot it. But I do have a question. What did you guys do with her body when you took her away?”

“We threw her in the creek,” Cliff said, shrugging. “She was dead.”

Lena pursed her lips. “That wasn’t good enough,” she said.

“Right, right,” Travis said, wagging the ruler at Cliff and Eric. “From now on, if someone dies, we burn them.”

“Oh shit,” Eric said then.

Everyone looked to him for an answer.

“Mason and his men,” he said, looking at the floor. “We threw them in the creek, too.”

Travis leaned on the table, hanging his head low. Cliff knew what was coming before Travis even said it.

“We have to find and burn their bodies.”

Jake’s slumber was interrupted by the sound of glass shattering nearby. He slid off the counter immediately, grabbing his Henry, and looking for Toni. She was still at the front window, but was now standing with her revolvers drawn, and her brow furrowed as she stared out at the street.

“What the fuck was that?” Jake asked, going to her side.

She didn’t answer, but as Jake reached the window, he saw what had transfixed her gaze. Outside, a large number of creatures were spilling onto the street from the alleys and gravel lots. They seemed to be endless, and all going in the same general direction. Jake blinked just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things in the shadows, but they, apparently, were real.

“Oh, that blows,” he said.

Toni backed away. “We need to make sure they don’t detect us.”

Jake nodded, moving back to the first bins of candy. “Where did that glass break?”

“It was one of the shops down the street a ways. They knocked over a lamp post and it shattered the big window in the front of a store.”

Jake crouched down, trying to avoid the beam of moonlight that shined in the window. He watched Toni’s cool and collected demeanor, impressed with her indifference. Though he felt a large amount of fear, she seemed to be thinking of a battle strategy instead of an escape plan.

“Do you think we should sneak out the back door?” Jake asked.

Toni was about to answer when the horde outside suddenly became more vocal. Their growls and groans began to grow louder as they neared, and the whole lot of them sounded like rabid fans at a death metal concert.

Then, more glass shattered outside, followed by the crazed squeals of something other than a corpse. Jake knew that sound, and Toni seemed to as well. They stared at each other as the squealing became more evident, and they were both frozen in place.

Jake cocked his rifle, keeping his eyes on Toni as she pulled back the hammers on her revolvers. The
chik chika chik
sound was comforting, and he felt his heart ease its pounding as he watched Toni’s expression curl into a smile.

“Got your gear?” she whispered. Jake nodded.

“Alright,” she said. “Let’s go.”

They rose to a creeping position and made their way quietly to the back room. The clerk’s corpse was there, leaning against the wall—still dead, which was a good thing. Jake eyed it as they went by, fully expecting it to stand up and attack again. It didn’t. They went through the archway that led to another small storeroom with a mop sink, but no mop, curiously.

There, the door to the alley stood like a portal to Hell, which was where they were probably about to emerge. Toni pushed it open slowly; just enough to peek through the crack. The sounds of the horde outside echoed in, and Toni gave Jake a hunted look. He shrugged.

“It’s either this way or the front door,” he said.

She pushed it open farther and craned her neck around to look in the other direction. Satisfied, she stood and pushed it open the rest of the way. Jake followed her out, his eyes darting in either direction. He had a brief thought as he looked at his rifle. They would make way too much noise if they had to fire, and that would attract more baddies. Toni had apparently thought the same thing, as she holstered one revolver and drew her knife.

Jake shouldered his Henry and drew his own knife; a sleek little thing he picked up at the gun store. Toni then crept toward the end of the alley, on the same side as the horde’s origin. Jake peered around the corner, seeing the mass of stumbling bodies that moved down the street.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “There’s gotta be a million of them.”

“At least,” Toni replied. “Maybe even a jillion.”

“Or a brazillion.”

Jake grinned. That was a good one. “Alright,” he said. “Which way?”

“We parked on the street,” Toni said. “But that’s out of the question.”

“Damn,” Jake said. “I liked that car, too.”

“We’ll find another one. Come on.”

Toni went right, away from the marching horde. The alley widened a bit here, and it appeared as if it were some kind of pedestrian intersection. There was a wood plank pizza place with an outdoor dining area, and three other buildings.

“Man,” Jake said. “I could go for some pizza.”

“Me too. Let’s get as far away from those assholes as we can, though.”

Jake followed her as she turned left. He took one last look back at the pizza place, feeling his mouth water as he dreamed of biting into a thick, buttery, crispy crust with all the greasy shit that could be piled on it. His stomach growled.

Toni stopped halfway down the narrow alley they chose, turning to look behind them. Somehow, a few of the marchers had wandered into the alley, just missing the two of them by a mere second. Toni sighed, creeping forward. She held out her hand as if she heard something ahead.

Jake squatted, feeling apprehensive as he waited for Toni to give him the signal to move up. He caught himself looking at her ass, and shook his head to clear his thoughts. After a few seconds, Toni quickly turned and gestured for him to move back.

“What is it?” he asked in a harsh whisper.

The hissing and jingling noise that echoed down the alleyway answered his question. He turned and fled back the other way. He knew there were at least two of the deadheads waiting for them, and poised his knife in preparation.

As they emerged by the pizza place again, three of the rotting assholes caught their scent and began to give chase. Jake plowed his knife into the nearest one, grabbing its neck as he impaled it against the brick wall. He withdrew his knife and jammed it into the thing’s skull, dropping it like a sack of shit.

Toni kicked one of the others against a post, and turned to stab the other through the head. Jake rushed to grab the first one, jabbing his knife into its eye before it could reach her, and grabbing it by the skin of its throat. Toni turned back to him just as he hefted the rotting thing over his head and threw it, one-handed—against the nearby brick wall. Its skull shattered, leaving a splatter of blood and brains on the hard surface.

Breathless, he looked to make Toni was alright.

“Jesus Christ,” she said. “You just threw that thing like it was nothin’.”

“It weren’t nuffin’,” he said.

The jingling sound echoed down the alleyway again, prompting them to run back toward the candy store. They would encounter the horde again, but that was better than a galloping beast. They could dodge the dead ones, possibly escaping before the bulk of them realized they had even passed. But the stalker would require bullets, and they couldn’t take that risk.

But it looked like they had to…

The rotters had piled into the alley, blocking off their escape. They stopped, and Toni sighed with frustration. There was only one other way to go; back toward the stalker.

“Shit,” she cursed. “Get your shotgun out. We gotta blow that damn thing’s head off.”

Jake grinned, sheathing his knife and unslinging his shot gun. Toni drew her other revolver, and they looked at each other for a moment with their guns ready. Smiling, Toni nodded.

“Custer’s last stand,” she said.

Dan, Drew, and Max crept out of the gun store when the bulk of the horde had passed. A few stragglers remained, but Dan took them down before piling back into the pickup. Just as Drew was about to start the engine, they heard the sound of gunfire. They all froze.

“What the fuck?” Drew said, his face frozen in the appropriate expression.

“That was definitely a .44 Magnum,” Max said. “Two of them, in fact.”

Another, louder gunshot sounded, and Dan turned to Max. “Shotgun?”

Max nodded, “12 gauge autoloader. Probably a Mossberg.”

“Let’s find them!” Dan said.

Drew started the engine. “Are you fucking nuts, man?” he hissed. “We’re clear. We can get the fuck outta here.”

“We can’t leave whoever that is behind,” Dan hissed back.

“Fuck it,” Drew said. “It could be Mason’s other men, or some even bigger assholes!”

“Gentlemen,” Max said from the backseat. “I would suggest you make up your minds quickly. They’re coming.”

Drew slammed the truck in gear, stomping on the gas. “Alright, man,” he said. “We’ll find them.”

He squealed around the corner, going to the right. Max and Dan were both jostled by the bumpy road, and Dan grabbed onto the dashboard.

“Go right again,” he said, listening for the sounds of the gunfire.

Drew screamed around the next corner, flooring it through the next intersection. The gunfire seemed to change locations, sounding from somewhere behind them. Drew slammed on the brakes, and they sat frozen, trying to pinpoint the location.

“Try the alley behind us,” Max said. “To my right.”

Down the block, the bulk of the horde appeared. They came stumbling around the corner, focused now on the extended cab piece of Ford that made the pretty squealing noises. Drew slammed it in reverse, and floored it back, squealing, and screeching as he came to a rolling stop and slammed it into drive.

He skidded around the turn and into the alley, driving as fast as he could through the narrow space. They blew through crates, boxes, and even a few wandering corpses until they finally emerged into an intersection. The area was filled with the dead, and Drew plowed through them like bugs. They bounced off the bumper, onto the hood, and splattered onto the windshield.

They continued through the intersection to the opening ahead of them. Dan swore he could see two people moving backwards, firing at an unknown attacker as they fled. He blinked his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Then, in the headlights, a stalker appeared.

The truck plowed into it mercilessly, throwing it at least twenty yards into the next block. Drew slammed on the brakes right after the impact, coming to a stop right outside of the alley. Though there were hundreds of dead rushing to mob them, their concern was whoever had been shooting.

As Dan turned to find the two people he saw, his heart skipped a beat. There was a large man—a
very
large man—and a smaller, yet tough-looking black woman wielding two giant revolvers. They were backing away, staring at them wide-eyed and desperate.

“Jake!”
Dan shouted at the top of his lungs.

The woman’s eyes popped open as she heard the name. She turned to look at Jake, who was shocked and gleeful at the same time. The two of them ran toward the pickup, and Dan nearly twisted his own neck turning to Max.

“Open the fuckin’ door!”
he shouted.

“Hurry the fuck up,” Drew growled. “They’re coming.”

Max threw open the door, practically ripping it off the hinges, and jumped over to the driver’s side. Jake and his companion piled in, ladies first, and slammed the door behind them. Drew punched it, squealing the tires as he turned back toward the highway.

He plowed through dozens and dozens of dead along the way, swerving purposely to hit them while screaming at the top of his lungs. Dan turned around in his seat, struggling to keep right-side up while Drew drove like a maniac.

“Dude!”
he said, thrusting his hand into the back seat.

Jake grabbed it, squeezing it tightly, and pulling himself up to bear hug Dan against his seat.

“How ya been you crazy fucker!?”
Jake shouted through Drew’s screaming.

Dan, feeling crushed by the big man, simply laughed out loud.

“Jake!”
Drew shouted.
“How the fuck did you survive?”

“I’ll fill you in when we’re safe,” Jake said, dropping back into his seat.

Dan couldn’t stop smiling. He looked over at Jake’s companion. She was an attractive, athletic-looking black woman, wearing a scarf tied around her head, a black suede trench coat, and a warm, inviting smile.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked.

“This is Toni,” Jake replied. “She’s cool. She saved my life.”

Dan stuck out his hand. Toni took it graciously, still smiling. “I’m Dan,” he said. “This fella next to you is Max, and our chauffer is Drew.”

Toni grinned, nodding her head. “It’s good to finally meet you,” she said. “I’ve heard so much about you both.”

Dan smiled. “Drew,” he said. “Get us home, buddy.”

After narrowly escaping the horde, they were now on the road back to the camp. The country roads were calming in the headlights, and everyone felt a great sense of relief being away from the chaos of Nashville.

Dan and Drew had cracked open a beer, and Toni took one as well.

“Man,” Dan said. “I can’t believe you made it out of there.”

“I almost didn’t,” Jake said. “And I didn’t want to… at the time anyway.”

“So what happened?”

“I’m not sure, really,” Jake replied. “All I remember is tossing the grenade, and then waking up when Toni here found me.”

“But you were bitten,” Dan said.

He saw Jake shrug in the rear-view mirror. “Dunno, man.”