Liar's Harvest (The Emergent Earth) (27 page)

44

I
n seconds we were crushed against the doors. People were screaming and Scavengers were dropping out of the ceiling, their terrible jaws slicing into anyone they touched. It was only a matter of seconds before someone started firing a weapon in the crowded space.

I was crushed against the links of the chain. The pressure from the crowd hit me in waves, the plywood creaking and flexing under the strain. If I didn’t get the doors open soon, more people would be crushed or trampled to death than killed by the Scavengers. Unless, of course, the ceiling opened up enough for the main body of the swarm to fall on us.

The chain was taut and thrummed as it restrained the crowd, the simple knot locked tight. I could just reach the knot with my fingertips by shoving my arm between the door and the crowd, but there was no way that I could get close enough to try and untie it without hurting people. I had to work with the section of chain that I was pressed against.

I gripped the thick links with both hands and pulled. Cords stood out in my neck and forearms as I strained, but the steel chain refused to part. Gasping with the effort, I saw that the links were unharmed, they hadn’t twisted or stretched at all.

Even at my best this would have been difficult, but it would have been possible. What was happening to me? Was the Devourer’s body failing because I couldn’t keep it fed? How bad would it get? How long before the crippling hunger overwhelmed me like it had Valerie?

The screams behind me rose to a frenzied pitch and the smell of blood reached me for the first time. I drew Hunger out of its sheath, pulling it up my body in the cramped space. The end was too wide to fit between the links and there was no space to try and swing it at the chain.

I placed the blunt end on top of the steel links and pressed down, hard. Trying to communicate my desires to the weapon had been futile in the construction yard, but it had adapted itself to help me survive several times on its own. I hoped it could understand more than a direct threat. I pressed it to the chain again, working to keep it in contact with the steel as the crowd rocked me back and forth in its panicked thrashing. Nothing happened. Frustration mixed with pain and starvation and fear and I stabbed downwards one more time.

Hunger’s tip narrowed and slipped inside a link. The wider part of the shaft jammed against the steel, then thinned into a broad blade, shearing effortlessly through the chain. The doors burst open and I was thrust outside, the crowd behind me crawling and shoving to get out.

Anne and her group had kept the area in front of the cars clear. Two inert wooden men lay on the ground, blown to pieces by concentrated shotgun fire, but others were crouched behind cars, waiting. It was a good tactic. Before too much longer, we’d be pinned between the force in the parking lot and a tide of Scavengers pouring out of the hospital doors. All they had to do was wait.

The area behind the cars filled and overflowed as the ER emptied itself. Most people clung to the side of the building, but others ran blindly out into the parking lot and were quickly cut down as they passed cars harboring Prime’s wooden soldiers.

I heard Emily’s voice, loud and sharp, as she tried to gain control of the crowd. Leon had one arm around her, keeping her upright as people jostled her, and together they managed to restore some semblance of order.

My leg was able to bear some weight now, so I limped to the open doors and slammed them on the tide of Scavengers heading towards us. The last thing I saw inside was a carpet of bodies strewn across the ER floor, some trampled, others cut to pieces, all covered with the hideous wooden bugs. A steady stream of the things was now pouring out of the disintegrating ceiling.

Even as I leaned against the doors to hold them shut, I could feel the plywood against my back vibrate as the creatures attacked it from the other side.

“Emily!” I shouted. “Tell me the storm shelter isn’t in the main building.”

She walked over to me, arms still waving people towards the wall. “The shelter? No, it’s under the physical therapy building over there.” She pointed at a squat, single-story building on the other side of the parking lot.

“Concrete basement?”

“I think so. It was a bomb shelter in the fifties.”

Leon put one hand on the plywood sheet behind me. “You think it’s safe from those bugs in there?”

“I hope so. As sharp as the jaws on those things are, they’re still only plant material, like rose thorns. I doubt they’ll be able to dig into concrete. That means all we have to do is hold the entrance to the shelter and Prime won’t be able to finish his harvest.”

Leon scanned the parking lot. Dozens of wooden men crouched behind cars or darted between them, changing positions to widen their line.

“It’s long walk to the shelter, Abe. We have over a hundred people here and a lot of ’em are wounded. Those things will be all over us as soon as we’re exposed, so how are we supposed to get everyone over there without turning this into a massacre?”

The wood at my feet splintered as a pair of serrated jaws broke through. They immediately clamped down on the edge of the crack and began tearing at it.

“Leon, hold this shut. Mrs. Emily, I need you to round up every able-bodied person here that has a gun. I also need about twenty strong men with their hands free. Can you do that?”

She nodded and waded into the crowd.

I limped over to the cars we were using as a barrier. The Mercedes was a four-door sedan, so I headed there first. I reached through the shattered driver’s side window and popped the locks. The heavy door swung open smoothly as I pulled it open as far as it would go, exposing the hinges where it was attached to the body.

Hoping that I had still had the strength for this, I slammed Hunger down on the junction between the door and the car. Instead of the heavy impact I was braced for, Hunger sliced through the hinges, the end of the door, and into the concrete of the parking lot. I stumbled and the door fell to the ground with a loud clunk. Hunger was long and thin and razor sharp.

I handed the heavy door to Jamal, who took it from me slowly, eyes wide. “The nurse over there will tell you who to give this to, then come back for another one.”

Hunger continued to cooperate, I have no idea why, while I sheared off the other three doors, plus the two from the Honda. Each door that I removed was snatched up by Jamal or one of his men and then handed off.

When that was done, I limped back to Emily and Leon. My leg was on fire and stiff as hell. It should have healed by now, but at least I was mobile. I pushed the pain away as best I could.

One of the men was bracing a car door against the ragged, widening gap at the bottom of the plywood barricade. Frenzied scraping and clicking could be heard from the door as Scavengers gouged and snapped at the metal.

I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled across the crowd. “Listen up! Anyone with a gun or a door, come to me. Everyone else bunch up against the wall.” I caught Emily’s eye and waved her over as well.

People began shuffling around and I saw more than one family separate after a tight clutch, car door on the ground next to them. It was humbling to see them find the courage to split up in order to help the group, despite the nightmarish situation they found themselves in.

Emily stepped up to me while wiping her hands on her scrubs and leaving bloody smears behind. She had been helping the wounded right there on the sidewalk next to the building. It was going to take more than a bunch of monsters to keep her from doing her job.

She shook a finger at me. “I told that young man who to give the doors to like you asked, but I surely don’t know what for. When we get to that shelter, you and I are going to sit down and have a long talk about what’s going on here.”

“Yes, ma’am, I promise. But for now, I need you to keep everyone together and moving. Do we have anyone who can’t make it to the shelter?”

“I have two that are on gurneys, but we can move them. My problem is that all these people are terrified. They’re doing what we ask right now, but when you get them out in the open surrounded by those things, well, I don’t know what they’re going to do. I also have several people with bites from those bugs and they need to be closed up stat. I have them compressing the wounds, but they’re going to need blood if we don’t do something soon.”

“Just do your best to keep them together and moving. Once we start this, we can’t stop. I’ll do what I can to hold the ER doors shut, but the bugs are going pour out of there sooner or later and we had better be damn close to the shelter when that happens.”

“What about those things in the parking lot?”

“We’ll do our best to keep them away from your group.” I took one of her hands in mine. “I promise you we’ll do everything we can, but we’re not all going to make it to the shelter.”

She squeezed my hand. “I know.”

45

F
ive men were lined up in front of me, each holding a car door upright. I moved down the line shattering each intact window with Hunger, now back to its usual baton shape. Glass fragments showered down across the men’s shoes as I worked.

Both Jamal and Netty had traded their guns for car doors, for which I was grateful. They were by far the largest of the men assembled here and I could count on them being able to carry and wield the heavy doors until the end. If nothing else, they were some tough sons of bitches.

The man with the camo baseball cap was one of the other volunteers. Next to him was a bearded man in overalls and a man in a golf shirt with bulging biceps and a belly that hung over his belt. Good enough.

The sixth man was still pressing his door against the doors to the ER, holding back the tide of bugs trying to chew their way through. We were gathered close enough for him to hear, but he was going to have to leave that door where it was when we left.

I pointed at the physical therapy building two hundred yards away.

“That’s where we’re headed. Emily’s group is going to move in that direction as best as they can and we’re going to protect them. If one of the wooden men runs towards that group, you need to block them.