Breeds (16 page)

He got to his knees and threw his weight onto the elbow of the extended arm, breaking it like a meaty icicle. The
Were
freaked, thrashing so hard that Kirk felt his numb grip weakening. The Halifax warden released the beast, scampered backwards to his feet and into a fighting stance.

The
Were
stood, its evil eyes burning in the failing light, mouth split into rows of fangs. Its left arm hung like a broken length of wood, a jagged point protruding from the crook of the elbow. It shrieked. Kirk reached behind his back and flinched with shock.

Ross had his knife.

The monster lunged.

It flew through the air, sweeping both arms for Kirk’s head. The warden ducked under the flailing limbs, utilizing strength and speed he didn’t think he possessed in his current state. He stumbled towards the front of the house and spotted Ross wrestling with a naked figure, just as the Newfoundlander pulled the shotgun’s trigger and blew the
Were’s
head apart.

Kirk flinched at the blast.

Behind him, the other
Were
screeched.

That sound spurred Kirk forward. “Ross!”

The man turned around at his name and his eyes widened. Kirk knew what he saw. Ross pumped the shotgun and aimed as Kirk dove in a splash of powder. The gun barked, catching the rushing
Were
full in the chest, flinging it back as if it had been yanked from behind.

The creature landed in a heap. It groaned, rolled over, and struggled to rise.

“Shoot it again!” Kirk yelled.

Ross considered this with a look of horror, but primed the shotgun once more, the ejector spitting the spent cartridge into the snow. He braced himself for the firearm’s kick.

The
Were
rolled over and sat up, grinding its teeth.

“
Shoot!
” Kirk shouted, shaking with effort.

Ross blinked, hesitated. The
Were
stood, further defying the killing blow. A crater spilled blood from its chest, the body heat sending a wispy plume of steam into the frigid air. The beast cradled its wound, its arms covered and glistening with sticky scarlet. It opened its mouth and a whistle of insanity piped from its throat and ruined lungs.

And stepped towards them.

Kirk freaked. “
Shoot, Goddam–
–”

Ross fired again, his arms absorbing the kick of the weapon. The
Were’s
midsection exploded and it backed up a pair of steps.

Kirk crawled to a stunned Ross. “Knife!” he cried, and pulled the blade from the horrified man’s boot. The Halifax warden got up just as the
Were
charged them, bleeding every step of the way.

The warden set his feet and punched his blade through the thing’s eye. The monster’s feet flew out from under it, ripping the knife from the warden’s grasp, and crashed on its back. It bucked once where it fell, claws clutching at the hilt but unable to pull the weapon free, and relaxed with a softening grimace on its face.

Breathing hard, Kirk retrieved his blade and staggered back, taking in the grisly scene, just as the Newfoundlander sank to his knees.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Ross moaned, staring at the dead thing. “Jesus H.
Christ.
”

“You okay?” Kirk asked.

Ross’s head turned about as if possessed. An expression of shocked revulsion marred his woodsman’s features. He didn’t answer and his eyes blinked and sparkled like a shorting fuse box. His snowsuit had been rent about the sleeves. Kirk slowed down, dread flooding his chest upon seeing the mess covering his companion. The
Were
had been looming over Ross when he blew its skull apart and a considerable amount of dark matter had splattered the man.

“Hold on,” Kirk said. He stumbled to the headless body. The carcass lay off at an angle on its side. Kirk dropped into the snow to study it. He needed to be sure, so he cleared away the white flakes already coating the torso before stabbing his knife deep into the ribs, hunting for the heart.

“The fuck you doin’?” Ross asked in horror.

“Makin’ sure it’s dead.”

“I blew the goddamn
head
off the fucker.”

“Yeah, so––” Kirk grimaced and shrugged. “Gutting it won’t hurt, right?”

Ross didn’t answer. Kirk twisted the knife and held the pose for a moment. Then he withdrew the silver and stuck it into the snow. He studied the Newfoundlander, noting he’d dropped the shotgun by his leg. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“What about your arms?”

As if awakening from a dream, Ross held up his forearms and inhaled sharply. “Oh Christ.”

“All right, don’t lose it,” Kirk coaxed. “Let me see.”

“That thing,” Ross muttered, “had claws. Just tore through the sleeves.”

“Hold them out for me.”

Ross did as he was told. The snow swirled savagely around them as Kirk rolled back the sleeves, revealing deep, bleeding lines. For a moment, the Halifax warden could only stare, shocked at the implications.

The solemn pause was not lost on Ross. “What?” he demanded.

“Nothing.”

“Fuck nothing, y’look like you just took the world’s bloodiest shit. So you tell me.”

Kirk felt his companion’s arms tremble. He took a deep, sobering breath and lied through his teeth. “These should be… disinfected. Soon as possible.”

“Or what?”

“Or you risk infection.”

“You mean
die?
I could
croak
from this?”

“Only if we don’t clean them up. I mean, look at those things.”

Ross did. “Fuck. What the fuck
are
they?”

Kirk couldn’t answer.

“Are they zombies?” Ross wanted to know. “Oh Jesus, tell me they aren’t zombies.”

“Zombies?” Kirk cocked an eyebrow and almost barked a laugh. “No, they aren’t
zombies.
”

“The fuck you know? They
could
be zombies. Oh shit! Holy shit, shit,
shit
. Look at me! They got me! That means I’m gonna turn into one of them
things
. Oh my sweet Christ. This is unreal. All I need is to be runnin’ around with my junk hanging out, tryin’ to fuckin’ eat people.”

“You ain’t gonna turn into a zombie,” Kirk grated, avoiding a much worse possibility. “Look, those things jumped us. Can zombies jump people?”

“Depends on the fuckin’ zombies.”

“There’s more than one kind of zombie?”

“Course there is. I mean, you got your dead Romero-type, slow-moving sonsabitches. Then you got––”

“Okay,” Kirk interrupted, “but do they
look
like zombies to you?”

A mortified Ross blinked and shakily answered, “No.”

“Well then, there you go.”

“I blew the head offa one to stop it.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. Anyone will die after a round to the head.”

Ross seemed to consider that. “They moved pretty fuckin’ fast, though. There’s fast moving zombies.”

“Jesus Christ, they’re
not
fucking zombies,” Kirk snapped, stunning Ross into silence. He picked up the shotgun and knife and held the firearm out to Ross. It took him a moment, but the other man grasped the walnut grip.

“Come on, before I freeze my balls off out here,” Kirk said and walked towards the rear of the house with the knife in hand.

“Where you goin’?” Ross asked.

“To check on something.”

Ross caught up just as Kirk rounded the corner. In the dark blue, the outline of a back door could be made out. At its base was a dog’s door. Kirk stopped before it and peered into a kitchen. It didn’t surprise him that the dogs were nowhere to be seen. That revelation sent another chill through his guts.

How long?

“How long from the time we saw that first dog to when those things jumped us?”

“I…” Ross shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

“Thirty seconds?”

“Maybe.”

Way too fast
, Kirk mulled, eyes darting around the dark kitchen. He tried the back doorknob and found it locked. Not caring in the least now, he jabbed his Bowie knife through the pane with a tinkle of glass, noting that Ross seemed to be fine with him having the weapon. He put his elbow through the hole, widened it, and stuck his hand in, wondering if something would leap from the shadowy interior and bite it off. It seemed like the run of luck he was having.

Nothing did, however, and the door opened with a soft click. They entered the house.

“That thing loaded?” Kirk asked Ross.

“Huh? I don’t know.”

“Well, make sure,” he ordered and stepped around a table. Outside, the wind screamed, making the house cringe on its foundation. The place felt like a meat locker and that stink of something, which Kirk suddenly realized might mean
Weres
, permeated throughout. Kirk flicked a light switch on, revealing the interior in a flash. Kirk gripped his knife and held it close, ready to stab, and proceeded down the hall, turning on lights as he found them.

“I’ve seen these things before,” Ross said from behind, to the rhythm of shells being fed into a tubular magazine.

“What?”

“Yesterday. I think… I think I came across the tracks of one of those things while in the woods. Tracks of bare feet out in the snow. Wicked. But––but where did the dogs go?”

Kirk ignored that question for the moment, concentrating on making sense of it all. He peered into a near dark living room. A pair of slept-in bed rolls lay next to a sofa and an easy chair. Paperbacks lined a small set of shelves. The single television was the old kind with a fat ass. Seeing it was clear, he checked out a bedroom with its single queen-sized bed, neatly made. The whole house appeared quite clean. As crazy as he was, Borland kept his house in order.

“Anything?” Ross asked, shotgun pointed at the floor when Kirk stepped into the hall.

“No, nothing. Hold on.” Kirk went into the bathroom and checked the medicine cabinet. “Come here.”

He pulled out a box of cotton swabs and a bottle of peroxide, which he prepared to dab onto his companion’s wounds.

“You think this’ll work?” Ross asked as he placed the gun down and pulled his sleeves back.

“Better than nothing,” Kirk replied. He saturated one swab before applying it to the claw wounds.

“What’s your name, anyway?” Ross asked.

Kirk hesitated. “Doug.”

“Thanks, Doug.”

Kirk glanced at his earnest face before getting back to work. “Listen. Once this is done, you and I have to head back out there. There’s something we need to check on.”

Ross nodded, making a face at the peroxide’s pinch when pressed to his flesh.

“All right,” Kirk declared once finished. “Give me a minute.”

He went into the bedroom and tore into a chest of drawers, pulling out white undershirts and even a sweater, all of which he sniffed. Clothing in hand, he returned to the kitchen and found a pair of scissors and got to work cutting the shirts up, knotting some together, and making pads with others. His coat came off then, as did his shirt.

“Okay,” Kirk said, grimacing as he peeled away his blood-soaked shirt. The charred line across his chest looked worse in the light, like an unwashed grill after a weekend of barbecuing. “Ross, get over here and help me patch this up.”

Ross had just completed his first knot on Kirk’s chest bandage when the lights flickered and died.

Alvin sat in near total darkness.

He glanced up from his monitor which, only seconds before, had served as a first-person window to a beautifully rendered, post-apocalyptic world ruled by aliens, and he was the cleaner, delivering mini-gun justice to the invaders. Or at least he
had
been delivering. He’d been slinging hot tracers at a particularly troublesome knot of attackers, coming close to finishing them all where he’d failed a dozen times earlier, focused entirely on laying down a hail of punishing fire into the multi-tentacled fuckers, and just about to send them packing with a bon voyage of lobbed frag grenades…

When the power went out.

Leaving him with a black screen and the lingering after-aroma of the three cheeseburgers he’d consumed for supper.

“Well…
goddamnit
.” He hadn’t even gotten the chance to
save
the game. That pissed him off. The thought of having to replay the whole damn episode made him fume right down to his short n’ curlies. Alvin sucked in a great, clarifying breath from his air tubes and realized then that the concentrator had stopped as well.

“Shit, fuck,
damn
.” He stood up from what he affectionately called his captain’s chair, and immediately rapped the small toe of his right foot into the corner of the desk. The sudden crackle of pain bent him over at the waist.

“Shit,” he squeaked, mentally transporting himself to an internal panic room to dampen the hurt. When it finally passed, he suppressed the urge to softball pitch things around the computer room. The last time he’d done such a thing had cost him a monitor, and no matter how hard he’d played the sympathy card, PC Land hadn’t been convinced the damage had occurred during delivery.

Snow caked the smaller windows, so Alvin limped to his living room and peered out at the shivering scene. He had the best view of the hillside, he figured, and right at this moment, he couldn’t see shit. Not another house could be seen beyond his picture window. There was the main road out there somewhere, a mere forty feet from his front door, and the mailboxes another fifteen feet behind that. He couldn’t see that asshole Shea’s place or his buddy Walsh’s house either. All gone. A complete whiteout in the dark, which made him wonder if there was any irony there. He discovered seconds later that the land line had no dial tone and his cell phone was just as dead.

All of this was not to his liking.

Grumbling and recovering from his limp, Alvin went to his back porch. He’d grab a portable air tank, suit up, and head out to his work shed, where he had a small four-thousand-watt gasoline generator hooked up to the house. It would keep the concentrator going, as well as the computer. Oxygen wasn’t a huge concern as he also had reserve tanks in his bedroom closet. Heat, well, he had a wood burning stove in the basement and vents cut into the floor.

He’d be rocking in less than thirty minutes.