Part 19 (1/2)

The racket at the front grew as more creatures joined the fray. Emily held her hands over her ears and tears ran down her cheeks. Soo picked her up but looked just as terrified as the little girl. Tre's face was stone. He stood with his rifle pointed at the floor, staring at the creatures. Ann stood close by.

They went to the back of the store. The racks of shelves blocked the view from the front and the creatures squealed even louder once they lost sight of their prey. A door in back led to a storage room which led to a large set of double doors.

Dave opened one door a crack and peered out into a dark hallway. He turned on his flashlight and looked in both directions. All of the stores in the building complex shared the common hallway and he hoped for a main exterior dock door somewhere. There had to be a place to accept deliveries for all the businesses. There was no sign of daylight which was good news for now.

They quietly hurried down the corridor. Howard held the gun in his right hand and Emily's hand in the other. It was dark and hot. He couldn't believe how much time he'd spent recently in dark oppressive environments, considering he was on a sunny tropical island.

Just as Dave expected, they reached a dock door at the end of the hall, next to a smaller man door. He carefully unlocked the deadbolt as quietly as possible and opened the door an inch or so. The alley behind the building was clear. He held up his index finger to his lips and motioned to the others to follow.

They barely got down the stairs and into the alley when they heard something overhead. One of the creatures on the roof jumped off onto the top of a truck and then to the pavement. Dave raised his rifle and fired a single shot right through its head. More of them arrived at the edge of the roof as the report from the rifle echoed though the empty streets.

n.o.body had to give the command to run. Ann was the first to go and everybody else followed. Howard scooped up Emily, the surge of adrenaline making her feel light as a feather. More shots rang out behind him as Dave picked off a few more. Howard glanced behind him to make sure the marine was still with them. Four of the creatures were now in the chase and gaining ground fast. Dave stopped running, dropped to one knee, and opened fire.

He dropped two of them immediately, grazed the third before aiming at the fourth, which he missed entirely. It leapt from ten feet away and landed on Dave, slamming him to the pavement. In the meantime, the third injured creature limped in his direction.

Howard handed Emily to Tre and ran back to help. Dave was pinned under the creature and held the rifle sideways, jammed into the beast's mouth as it thrashed about. Fortunately for Dave, the creature's deadly appendages, one clawed and one with the deadly stinger, were too long and ineffective at close range, but the sharp claws and hooves on the creature's other legs were doling out plenty of damage.

Howard stopped and raised the gun but couldn't fire. At that distance he was just as likely to hit Dave as the creature. Instead he turned to the injured one that had lost interest in Dave and was now coming for him. Howard pulled the trigger but it didn't budge. He fumbled for the safety and tried again, this time the trigger worked but the gun didn't fire. The creature was just feet away. He pulled back the slide, finally chambering a round, and yanked on the trigger again. The gun bucked in his hand, annihilating the alien's head and spraying Howard with blood. The body crashed into him and he pushed it aside.

He scrambled to his feet and got close enough to the alien on top of Dave to risk a shot. It took three rounds before it finally went limp. Howard helped Dave push it off of him.

The front of Dave's s.h.i.+rt was shredded from the alien's sharp claws, and soaked with blood from dozens of lacerations on his torso. Howard asked if he could walk and was answered with a weak nod. Dave took a few steps and stumbled. Soo ran up and gave Howard a hand as distant shrieks grew louder. More on the way. Dave's rifle was mangled and looked broken so Howard decided to leave it.

”Leave me here,” Dave said. ”I'll throw them off your path.”

”Don't give me that macho bulls.h.i.+t,” Soo said. ”We're not leaving anybody.”

”We won't make it on foot, though.” Howard looked back the length of the alley. ”Not at this pace. We need to find another car.”

They came to the end of the alley and onto a side street. Dave was sweating profusely, his face twisted in pain with every step they took. They sat him down on a sidewalk bench to rest. ”Soo, stay here with Dave and the girls. Tre and I will try to find a car.”

Soo removed the rifle strap from her shoulder. ”Make it quick. I don't think we have much time.”

”Gotcha. Emily, you stay here. We'll be right back, okay?”

She nodded and sat down next to Dave.

They ran down the street, going from car to car but not having any luck. There were plenty of vehicles to choose from, but all of them were parked with no keys in the ignition. Despite his criminal past, Howard had no idea how to hotwire a car and doubted it was even possible in real life.

A taxi van down the block looked promising. Unlike the parked cars, it had obviously veered off the road with somebody behind the wheel before cras.h.i.+ng into a storefront. Howard could make out a body slumped over the wheel. The old van had been made back in the day when cars were still mostly steel, not plastic and aluminum. It barely looked scratched after smas.h.i.+ng into the brick wall.

They could smell the bodies even before getting close. The driver was still strapped in and badly decomposed. A woman in back sprawled across the rear seat, covered in flies. Tre gagged and lifted his s.h.i.+rt over his nose. ”Na, mon. Let's find anoter.”

”There's no time! Besides, any car with keys around here is gonna have a body to go with it.” Howard held his breath and reached over the man's lap to unlatch the seat belt. He grabbed the back of his s.h.i.+rt and pulled the body out onto the street. The keys in the ignition glistened in the sunlight.

Tre slid open the side door and made retching sounds under his s.h.i.+rt. Howard grabbed the woman's ankles and yanked, doing nothing more than pulling the skin off her legs. That was enough for Tre, who bent over and vomited. Gunshots from down the street rang out.

Howard cursed and grabbed the woman's shoes this time, succeeding in sliding her off the seat and onto the street. ”Come on, we need to hurry,” he yelled at Tre.

Tre wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and hopped in, slamming the side door behind him. ”Sorry,” he said from under his T-s.h.i.+rt.

Howard jumped into the driver seat and closed the door. ”Don't worry about it. Trust me, it's a miracle I'm not yacking right along with you.” He grabbed the keys and stomped the clutch to the floor. ”Cross your fingers.”

He turned the key; the van sputtered but didn't start. More gunshots from down the street. ”Come on!” Howard pumped the gas twice and tried again, this time the engine roared to life. Thick black smoke belched out the back as he revved the gas. ”Yes! Hold on, here we go.”

The gear lever was on the steering columna ”three on a tree” as his dad used to say, referring to the three-speed transmission. Howard's father had an old '64 Ford van he bought from a buddy when Howard was a kid. Once when Howard was twelve years old and they were on a weekend camping trip, his dad taught him the basics of driving stick, through the fields, in that van. It was one of his best childhood memories. Who would have thought those skills would come in handy twenty years later in a postapocalyptic Montego Bay?

Despite his three-on-a-tree experience, Howard ground through the gears, trying to find reverse, before finally slipping it into gear. He gunned it and backed the van out of the wreckage, unintentionally running over the driver's body with a sick crunch.

Howard sped down the road the couple of blocks to the others and screeched to a halt. Tre slid open the side door before the van stopped and jumped out. Soo pointed her rifle down the alley but Howard didn't see any of the creatures. They helped Dave into the back.

”s.h.i.+t, here they come.” Howard saw two of them sprinting down the alley.

Now that Soo's gun no longer posed a threat, they were going for it. The side door finally slammed home as everybody made it inside and Howard floored it. The creatures flew out of the alley and kept pace with the van for half a block before finally losing ground and giving up.

”I didn't hit any but they kept their distance after I fired a couple of shots,” Soo said. ”I think, after they saw their friends get killed by Dave, they might finally be learning about guns.”

”Well, that's something, I guess.” Howard weaved between a few stalled cars in the middle of the road and checked the rear view mirrors. No signs of any followers. ”How's he doing?”

”Stop talking about me like I'm already dead, dammit,” Dave mumbled. ”I'll be fine. Just try to keep it on the G.o.dd.a.m.ned road.”

Howard chuckled then starting to laugh. The intense mixture of stress, adrenaline, and relief boiled over and caused him to laugh like a lunatic. He had chalked it up years ago as some kind of internal defense mechanism. Most of the time when he fought with Gina he'd end up laughing, which used to p.i.s.s her off even more.

Laughter, even in the darkest times of times and in rickety old vans reeking of death, is contagious. Pretty soon everybody was joining in. Howard turned onto the main road and headed east while the Oswald Regional Hospital grew smaller in the rearview mirror.

Seven.

The van broke down on the A-1 about fifteen miles east of the city. Once it got up to highway speed Howard noticed a very unhealthy vibration coming from the steering wheel. That was accompanied by a temperature gauge in the red and a burning odor filling the cabin.

It was a shame, because once they got onto the open road Howard was actually starting to enjoy himself. It felt like forever since he'd driven anything, and after his long trek through the jungle the easy speed of tires on pavement was satisfying. Despite having to occasionally weave through or around pileups of corpse-filled cars, burned out buildings, and rotting bodies on the side of the road, Howard almost felt like he was on a road trip with friends.

That fleeting fantasy came cras.h.i.+ng to a halt when the van s.h.i.+mmied to a stop, let out a pitiful groan, and died. Howard tried the ignition a few times but it only stuttered and wouldn't turn over.

He turned around to face the others. ”Looks like we're on foot from here.” He nodded at Dave and asked Soo, ”How's he doing?” Dave's head was tilted back with his mouth open and his chest was a b.l.o.o.d.y mess.

”I gave him a few painkillers but I really need to clean these cuts. Who knows what kind of nasty bugs those things are carrying around.” She wiped off Dave's sweaty forehead with a handkerchief. ”The last thing we need is an infection.”

”Nasty bugs?” Ann asked. ”That's a good description for those f.u.c.king things in general.”

Howard wanted to tell Ann to watch her language in front of Emily, especially since she was a minor herself, but kept his mouth shut. They were reluctantly living in an R-rated world where he had just pulled the skin off a dead woman's legs. A little harsh language was the last thing he needed to worry about.

”f.u.c.king A,” he said, immediately feeling old and uncool. He looked out the window. ”We could have broken down in worse places though. Check it out.”

A brick driveway behind an elaborate gateway across the highway looked welcoming. A sign above the gate read ”Royal Gardens Beach Club and Spa Resort.” It was a typical sight on the coastal highway: multimillion-dollar resorts within walking distance of concrete peasant shacks that had no gla.s.s in the windows.