The Creepers (22 page)

“Praying.”

“But I thought you said you didn’t
believe in God?" Bobby’s flop of dirty hair covered his inquisitive eyes.

“Better safe than sorry. If he’s
listening, he owes me."

The wild men began to filter out of the
house and gather around the woman once again. She kept to her perch on top of
the car and the long-haired man joined her. He began to bark at the men,
gesturing with his weapon in several directions. The horde broke into three
smaller groups and fanned out.

Ecky didn’t like their chances but he
didn’t have a choice. They had to get to the station, and they had to get their
ahead of these lunatics. Too many lives were at stake if they failed. He tapped
his forehead in frustration. If they didn’t cut loose soon they’d be trapped.

“We leave out back window. Head north
into woods.”

“But I thought you said we had to go
south.”

“I did, but we have to circle round, or
would you rather go through them?”

Bobby shook his head. His small fists
balled up, jaw tense, waiting for Ecky to give the word.

“What I thought. We go, and we go
now." Ecky took point and opened the window without a squeak. He dropped
down into the thick brush, weapon ready, eyes searching. “Clear, Bobby, hurry.”

Bobby hopped down and crouched low
beside Ecky.

“I will cover you from here. You see
house across way?” Ecky nodded towards the wooden house about a hundred yards
away.

Bobby acknowledged the nod with one of
his own.

“You run, run faster than wind, faster
than ever, and get behind house and run straight to woods. I will be about
fifty yards behind. Go, go now!”

Bobby took a deep breath and bolted. The
rifle and pack thumping against his back as he drove his legs harder than ever.
Halfway to the house his foot caught on something hidden beneath the grass and
he stumbled, but he righted himself, and kept going. He could only hope that
nothing else lay in wait near his ankles, a half-rotted farmer clawing,
biting—he pushed the thoughts away. He was within ten feet of the house when he
heard the first shot.

He dared a look over his shoulder but
didn’t stop running. Ecky was backing away from the house, his weapon moving
from side to side to cover every possible angle of attack. Bobby couldn’t see
what he shot. As Bobby came to the side of the house Ecky turned to him and
started to run.

Bobby’s heart beat, his lungs burned,
his legs felt wrong, wobbly. The lack of proper food had taken its toll on his
body, and now he was paying the price. He had to override the urge to drop to
the ground. He kept telling himself if he could get to the woods he could cover
Ecky with the rifle. All he had to do was make it there without collapsing. He
was well past the house. The woods bobbed in front of him, as if someone had
upset the Earth’s axis. Bobby stumbled, fell forward onto his stomach. It took
every ounce of his will to get back up.

He fell into the sticky bark of a
swaying pine. His legs trembled. The over exertion sent spasms through them,
but he worked his rifle free, dropped low and sighted towards the wooden house.

Ecky came tearing around the house with
legs pumping, weapon held high.

Two wild men were not far behind.

Everything the engineer warned him about
went out the window, besides, Ecky had already fired a shot. Bobby thumbed the
safety off and steadied himself. The wild men moved fast, having already closed
half the distance to Ecky. Bobby took a breath, let it out, as he pulled the
trigger.

The Remington boomed, but his shot
missed the mark. It did cause the wild men to stumble, and Ecky flinched, but
he didn’t stop running, though, he did began to shout something in Russian.
Bobby chambered a round, accounted for the height and distance just like Ol’ Randy
taught him, settled his aim on center mass, and fired again.

He didn’t miss this time.

The bullet caught the wild man in the
chest, tore through his heart, and dropped him mid-stride, his lifeless body
sliding along for at least a dozen feet.

Bobby racked the bolt back, forgetting
everything but the target. He adjusted his aim to account for the man’s slumped
running posture. The wild man’s head was tucked down between his shoulders as
if he were running in mid-cringe, trying to make himself a smaller target. But
that act of self preservation only allowed Bobby to pull off a headshot on a
running target at nearly three hundred yards.

Bobby chambered another round. He had
only two bullets left. Ducking under the strap once again Bobby pulled his
knife free. Ecky was almost at the trees.

“Son of bitch, I felt last one brush my
cheek,” Ecky shouted with a smile. The adrenaline rush had him giddy, and for
the briefest of moments, the fear lay buried beneath it.

“What happened back there? I thought you
said no shooting unless—”

“—Unless,” Ecky gasped for air. “Unless,
we had to. Had to." Ecky started moving deeper into the woods. He didn’t
need to watch for the pursuit. He knew they were coming.

Bobby followed along close at hand. He
kept looking back over his shoulder, but he could barely make out the town now
through the dense pines. The sound of his shots scattered any wildlife in the
area, covering the hillside in silence. Which only made the crazed shouts of
the wild people seem louder.

Branches and roots slapped and grabbed
at him, cut his face, his hands, but he kept his weary limbs moving. He
concentrated on his breathing and tried to forget about all the pain that
thumped his body.

They ran for what seemed to Bobby like
hours, but the sun hadn’t moved. The woman’s shrill voice ripped through the
woods, echoing off the trees, as if she were everywhere around them. Branches
snapped, leaves crunched, but in the thick trees it was impossible for Bobby to
pinpoint a direction. Her cries, bolstered by those of the men, picked up tempo
like a beating drum.

A wild man came crashing through the
trees to Bobby’s left. The man lifted a long rusty blade, but never got a
chance to follow through on his swing, as Ecky’s weapon poked two holes in his
chest.

“Fucking, savages. I thought we ran from
undead, not our own people, fucking world is crazy, all crazy." Yannek
jumped over a fallen tree and continued to rant while he ran. “Is good place
this time of year, go to Colorado, take some time off, have fun he says. World
decided to go to shit on my vacation, and twenty years later . . . look at me,
running through woods from wild people.”

“Shut up and keep running,” Bobby
yelled, overtaking the lagging engineer.

“Cute.”

Bobby exited the stretch of trees first,
stumbling down a rocky scrub that served as a drainage ditch for the highway.
His ankle rolled underneath him in the loose rocks, sending him into a tumble,
and the heavy pack carried him the rest of the way. He smashed his jaw, his
nose, scraped his hands, overwhelming pain eradicated every sense of coherence.
Vibrant colors exploded before his eyes. Blackness creeping in, he tried to
scream as he fell into it. Every sound entered his ears through a
cotton-stuffed filter.

A pinpoint of white light drifted in
front of him. But before he could reach for it he was being yanked backwards.
No, not backwards, but up.

“On your feet, soldier,” Ecky said,
yanking the boy to his feet. The engineer dragged Bobby through the rest of
ditch and up the thick grass before he regained his footing.

Each time Bobby’s right foot hit the
ground it was like a bolt of lightning went up his leg and directly into his
brain. If it wasn’t for Ecky’s hand clutching his pack, he couldn’t have kept
up. He retched. His stomach roiling from the pain, Bobby lost the few scraps of
food in his belly. The world tilted.

Yannek did not let go of his pack. “Keep
moving, keep moving!”

Another lightning bolt, a thunderclap
rattled his head, but he kept moving. Bobby shifted his weight to his left leg,
hobbling along for dear life. With Ecky’s guiding hand they moved between the
abandoned cars on the highway. The woman was still carrying the choir of
psychopaths, but once they hit the highway, even with  Bobby’s ankle, they
managed to put some distance between themselves and the lunatics.

Bobby wondered if they stopped to mourn
their dead. Most of them were around Bobby’s age—on another world, in another
time, he might’ve played ball with them. Instead, he found himself able to
answer Ecky’s question from earlier in the winter. If it came down to acting,
to making the decision to kill another person, could he do it? He could, and he
didn’t even feel sorry about it. The pain shooting up his leg, blurring his
vision; the fear rifling through his system made it abundantly clear what was
at stake. It was simple really. Kill or be killed. And Bobby liked being the
one doing the killing.

They ran down the highway on the verge
of total collapse. Soon they’d have to stop and rest, and perhaps, to make a
last stand.

Ecky focused on keeping Bobby moving
despite the pain, and at the same time he had to keep an eye out for Creepers
while checking over his shoulder for pursuit. He kept to the highway because it
was easier on Bobby’s foot and it allowed them a little bit of speed. With
Bobby leaning on him for support Ecky followed the bend of the highway, putting
the hillside and Gainer out of sight. They still had many miles ahead of them,
and the possibility of life-ending danger increased with each step.

The pain left along with the cold
weather, but the itching had become maddening. If only he could scratch the
itch, give in to the temptation, such an easy thing . . . if he only had a leg
to scratch.

Pastor Craven leaned on his cane, Good
Book grasped tightly, staring out the window onto the Settlement’s grounds. The
winter had been long. They lost two young ones, and three others over those
trying months. All of the deaths could have been prevented, he was sure, had
Lyda been alive. And Randy still remained silent about the boy’s
whereabouts—the stubborn bastard wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t lie even after, at the
Pastor’s orders, his meals were withheld. It still amazed him how much weight
the massive man lost over the course of the winter.

For all he knew the disgusting child
died at the hands of one its own, but he couldn’t quite talk himself into that
scenario. Yannek was too capable a survivalist to fall at the hands of the
dead. Would he make for the Baylor’s train? Or would he head further north,
Wyoming perhaps, to carve out a new life? The Pastor dug his knuckle into the
rough pine of the windowsill, twisting until his dry skin cracked, bleeding
now, he ground the sharp point of bone harder, harder still.

Working his way through the pain
frustration continued to mount. Even the Lord offered no guidance when it came
to the matters of the engineer and the child. He must not fret—spring demanded
a clear head—there were matters to handle.

Jackson, Thomas, and a few of the
younger men were already on their way to Baylor’s stop to barter for whatever
they could. Pastor Craven dragged his knuckle across the wood, wishing he had
been able to travel with them, but his lame leg would not allow it, besides,
the Lord wanted him to remain with the flock. His orders, however, were quite
clear. If Jackson were to encounter Yannek and the boy he was to eliminate them
in the name of God.

Blood running between his fingers
filling the craggy wrinkles with tiny rivers of red. The Pastor swirled his
digits in a stiff glass of whiskey. He welcomed the pain. It allowed him to
communicate clearly with the Heavenly Father. Since Randy destroyed his leg it
was the only way he could hear the will of Heaven at all.

“I thank you for this bounty, Lord,” Pastor
Craven said, raising the blood-clouded glass to the sunlight. He clinked it off
the windowpane and sipped. The injury, along with his healthier drinking habit,
added years to his sagging face. His eyes found despair wherever he looked, and
to think, just a few short months prior he, not only saw, but knew hope on an
intimate level.

“Lyda . . ." A rare, wayward tear
navigated the uncharted territories beneath his eyes. “Lord, please guide me
through these dark days. I must keep our people on the path to Heaven. I must
avenge you, O’Lord, I must set things right. Allow me the chance to send that
demon back to Satan.”

A knock at the door interrupted his
prayer.

“Yes?”

“Pastor, sorry to bother you,” Cale said
from behind the door. He knew better than to open it without permission. It was
like breaking and entering the house of God.

No, you’re not,
the Pastor
thought sourly. His time with the Lord was a rare thing these days, and such
interruptions were . . . borderline blasphemous. “What is it, Cale,” he asked
in an irritated tone.

“Well, Pastor, it’s Randy again. He’s
refusing to eat. He doesn’t look good, Pastor." Cale’s voice shook as he
spoke. The young man made no attempt to cover the sincerity of his concern for
the aged veteran.

“We can’t have him refusing the bounties
of the Lord now can we?”