Eric S. Brown (10 page)

“
You killed him!” Lori shouted.

“
He killed Jacob!” Helena screamed. She fell to her knees beside Jacob’s corpse, cradling his head in her lap. Bright red blood was still bubbling out of the hole in his neck. It ran over the tanned skin of her thighs and stained the long T-shirt she wore.

“
I sure hope so,” Thomas yelled at Lori. Some sort of smoke grenade popped as it rolled onto the floor from Elijah’s hand. The fog-like cloud it produced burnt Thomas’s eyes. He fired off two more shots at where he thought Elijah had to be. Lori and Helena were screaming bloody murder.

“
Get to the kitchen!” he shouted at them, even though he couldn’t see them. He hoped visibility would be clearer in the other room. He heard them banging and bumping around as they tried to make their way there. He whammed his wounded leg on the coffee table as he spun to make a run for it himself and went sprawling onto the floor, his eyes tearing up even more from the pain. Thomas didn’t attempt to get up. Instead, pulling himself along with his hands, he crawled out of the smoke onto the house’s front porch. Gulping in the fresh air, he used the porch’s railing to haul himself to his feet, favoring his wounded leg as he stood.

Duke and Hunter met him as he limped down the porch’s steps into the yard. “Go get him, boys!” he ordered them. They charged into the house through the open front door, barking and snarling as they went. Thomas hoped the dogs would buy them some time. His plan was to head around the house to the backdoor and join Helena and Lori in the kitchen. He prayed that they had made it. Elijah wasn’t human, that much was clear. Still, three point blank rounds to the chest surely would slow him down some. As good a warrior as Elijah appeared to be, what if the man had been holding back so that no one would suspect what he really was? That thought really terrified Thomas.

He heard one of the dogs cry out with a high pitched whine. It cut deep to his soul. Those dogs were his best friends, but they were also trained guard dogs and they would put up a fight as was their duty. Then there was no sound but his own ragged breathing as he rounded the corner of the house, nearly colliding with Helena and Lori. They were as startled as he was.

“
Oh, Thomas!” Helena flung herself into his arms. He saw Lori had the shotgun he kept by the kitchen door in her hands.

“
What the Hell are we going to do?” Lori asked.

“
I don’t know,” Thomas shrugged, “but you can bet Elijah’s going to be coming after us.”

“
L-O-R-I! T-H-O-M-A-S!” they heard Elijah calling to them, “Where are you? Don’t you want to play?”

“
That guy is one sick--” Thomas started.

Lori stuck up a hand, telling him to shut up.

“
I’m not going into the woods,” Helena whispered into Thomas’s ear as he held her to him.

The second floor window above them exploded outward as Elijah came leaping through it. Glass rained over them. Thomas raised an arm to block it and keep it from hitting Helena.

Elijah landed like a cat, a few feet from where they stood. Lori slung her shotgun around, squeezing the trigger. Elijah sidestepped its blast, closing in on them. Thomas shoved Helena away from him. “Run!” he ordered her as Elijah drew his swords. Lori’s shotgun jammed. She was still struggling to chamber another round as Thomas opened fire. His Glock spat four shots at Elijah in rapid succession. Elijah swatted the bullets from the air like they were moving in slow motion. A shower of sparks dancing on the blades of his swords. Elijah grinned as Thomas stared at him in awe. Elijah sprang forward. One of his blades sent the Glock flying from Thomas’ hand. His other sword was streaking towards Thomas’ neck as Lori’s shotgun thundered again. It blew a gaping hole in Elijah’s side and sent him rolling into the dirt. Thomas stood watching him writhe in pain as Elijah tried to reach one of his throwing knives. Lori’s hand clamped on Thomas’s wrist, pulling him out of his shock, as she tugged on him, trying to drag him into action.

“
We have to move!” she shouted in his face. Thomas took off after her as she sprinted for the house’s backdoor. She led him inside and up the stairs to his bedroom. Slamming its door and locking it, Lori rushed to glance out the window at the yard below. “I don’t see him. He’s gone,” she said, but Thomas was only half listening. He ripped the closet door open.

“
I never thought I would have to use this,” he told her as he produced a well kept AK-47 from its depths and checked the rifle’s magazine.

“
Thank God for rednecks and their toys,” Lori said.

“
Wait,” Thomas said, “Where is Helena?”

***

Helena ran down the driveway towards the gate heading into the road. The gravel poked at and scraped the bare soles of her feet making her wince with each step. The truck wasn’t too far away. She remembered that Thomas had left a rifle in it. If she could just reach it and get the gun, maybe she could work up the courage to go back to the house and see if Thomas and Lori were okay.

The gate, unlike the rest of the fence, wasn’t electrified. She thanked God for that fact as she tripped and stumbled into it. Cold fingers reached through it to stroke the skin of her cheek. Helena screamed, flinging herself backwards onto the ground. She had been so focused on running away from Elijah, she hadn’t realized what she was running towards. Dozens upon dozens of rotters were pressed against the outside of the gate and along the length of the fence, trying to force their way through it. Dozens more fried, crispy corpses lay at their feet. The first wave of rotters had shorted out the fence and soon these new ones would tear their way inside using the strength of their sheer numbers. There were so many of the things, and even more coming, staggering along the road to join the throngs at the fence. The rotters had followed them home. Their moans were hungry, desperate, and loud.

“
Hello, Helena,” Elijah said from somewhere behind her.

She pushed herself to her feet, turning around to face him. Elijah looked to be hurting. One of his hands was held tight against a wound on his side that oozed yellow blood, dripping onto the rocks of the driveway.

“
Elijah, please. . .” she begged him. “I don’t care what you are. You saved me.”

“
We seem to be drawing quite a large amount of unwanted attention,” he commented, glancing at the rotters.

“
Please,” she whispered again.

“
I can’t have them getting in yet,” he said, “and there’s too many to simply kill alone.”

He stepped to her. “Looks like I need a, what do you call it, a distraction, eh?”

“
What?” Helena asked, not knowing what he meant. Elijah grabbed her, lifting her from the ground. Helena screamed as Elijah tossed her through the air over the fence into the waiting mass of dead men and women. Fingernails tore at her flesh and teeth ripped chunks of meat from her body. She felt waves of teeth sink into her muscles. She kept right on screaming until a gaunt, teenage rotter leaned over her, as if to kiss her mouth, and bit out her tongue.

***

“
I don’t know where Helena is,” Lori answered Thomas. “You told her to run.”

“
We’ve got to go find her,” Thomas said, starting for the bedroom door.

“
You do that and we’re all dead. Think about it, Thomas. As fast as Elijah is, out there we’re sitting ducks.”

“
And we’re not in here?” he countered.

“
In here, there’s only two ways he can come at us, the window and the door. At least we know where to watch for him. Out there, he could take us both with a little luck before we even knew what was happening.”

Thomas took a seat on the edge of the bed, defeated. Lori’s logic was too sound to argue with. “What is he?”

“
Weren’t you listening?” Lori snapped at him. “He’s a freaking alien like from the X-files or some crap.”

“
What’s the X-files?”

“
Forget it.” Lori reloaded her shotgun from a box of shells that was sitting on the night table beside the bed. “He’s an alien, an E.T., whatever you want to call it and he’s trying to go home.”

“
How?” Thomas asked.

“
Based on what he said, he left something here years ago that he needs to get home. That’s why he brought us all here. Maybe some kind of emergency beacon to call for help. Heck, for all I know his ship could be buried under this farm.”

“
If that’s the case, then aren’t we already screwed? It’d tear through this house like rocks through paper as it took off. Wouldn’t it?”

“
I’m just guessing, Thomas. I’m just as lost as you are.”

“
I don’t think he has a ship,” Thomas said after a couple of seconds. “He said something about bright lights falling from the sky. I bet he crashed his ship when he got here. Besides, if he had a ship, wouldn’t he be gone already? I know I would.”

“
You mean aside from the fact that he wants us dead?” Lori pointed out.

“
Yeah,” Thomas managed a weak grin, “Aside from that, you figure he would be gone.”

They stared at each other in silence again.

“
I hope Helena’s okay,” Thomas said.

“
Me too,” Lori agreed as the screaming started outside.

***

Elijah stood watching the rotters feasting on Helena. Two of the things were fighting over a strand of her intestines. He felt a pang of guilt at killing the girl but he reminded himself that the humans were expendable and now that they knew what he was, they needed to die. He had only gathered them and brought them along to be used as cannon fodder against the dead anyway. A moving shield whose purpose was to help him get this far unharmed. In this respect, Helena was serving her purpose very well. He spun and ran with the speed of a cheetah towards the house. The transmitter had to be in its cellar somewhere. He had to find it and send a call for extraction. Elijah refused to die on this primitive and worthless world. Humans were a vile, selfish, confused, and violent race that deserved to be extinct. The rotters would surely see to it that they would be too. He’d seen viruses like this one in his travels before. It was a rare and miraculous thing for any species to survive this type of plague. Far more advanced races had already fallen to things like this virus. Humanity was no match for it.

Elijah stumbled as he reached the porch. The woman had hurt him more than he had thought. The tissues of his body were weaving together and closing the wound quickly, like they had the ones to his chest, but not fast enough for his liking. He could smell the remaining two humans above him, upstairs, but there would be time for them later. The sooner he found the transmitter and sent out the call for help, the better. It might take some time for a ship to arrive and time was something he was running out of. It wouldn’t be long until the fence gave way to the rotters’ sheer numbers and he didn’t relish the thought of making a last stand in this house. If it came to that however, he would seal himself in the cellar and hope its thick wooden doors would hold the creatures at bay long enough for his trip home to arrive.

He pushed through the house, stepped over the two lifeless dogs, leaving drops of yellow blood in his wake. The cellar was damp and musty. There was no source of light, only total darkness, but he didn’t need one. The blackness was as bright as the mid-day sun to his eyes. He sniffed the air, searching for the transmitter’s bitter, metallic scent. At last, he found it. His fist punched through the cement blocks of the cellar’s wall and he removed it from the dirt behind the wall. A smile parted his lips as he flipped it on, heard its familiar hum, sending a desperate cry for help into the stars. He carefully placed it in the center of the cellar’s floor to keep broadcasting its signal, then headed upstairs to finish things with the humans while he waited.

***

“
We can’t keep just waiting here,” Thomas complained.

“
You got a better plan?” Lori asked.

“
That was Helena screaming a few minutes ago or don’t you care?”

“
I didn’t exactly see you running to help her.”

“
You told me to stay here!” Thomas leapt up from the bed. Lori looked like she expected him to hit her. Thomas reigned in his anger and tried to calm himself. “If she’s dead, Lori. . .”

“
I am sorry, Thomas, but you know she is. She didn’t stand a chance out there alone and we wouldn’t either.”

A chorus of moans arose from the yard below them. Together they rushed to the window.

“
Oh, my holy. . .” Thomas muttered as they stared at an army of rotting bodies shambling up the driveway towards the house. There was a hundred or more of the things and there was no doubt as to why they were coming.

“
They must have broken through the fence,” Lori said.

“
Really?” Thomas snapped, fully losing what control he had left. “You think? I figured Elijah must have just let them in.” He said cruelly, knowing Elijah was threatened as much by the monsters as they were.

“
Well, this certainly changes things.” Lori started grabbing handfuls of shells for her shotgun and ramming them into the pockets of her jeans. Thomas loaded up on ammo and other weapons too, tucking a pistol under his belt and slinging a high powered hunting rifle onto his shoulder by its strap. He kept the AK-47 as his primary weapon. There wasn’t a lot of ammo for it. He only had the clip in the gun and three other mags for it but if Elijah came calling, they would need its firepower.