TORMENT (22 page)

All eyes turned toward her. When the guide met her eyes, he looked away, cowering. She slowly raised her weapon toward him.

“What are you doing?” Austin asked.

She nodded toward the man.
“Delights in pain.
Two thousand eight.
Boston. Ringing any bells?”

Collins was the first to place it.
“Dwight Cortland.”

The name caused everyone in the room to shift away from the man. He didn’t notice.
Just kept biting his nails, which had begun bleeding.

“I covered the story,” Mia said. “He killed eighteen women in five states. Said they all asked for it.
Said they delighted in the pain.”

Dwight gripped his chest, digging into his own flesh. He whipped his head toward the exit, breathing rapidly.

“Gonna make a run for it?” Garbarino asked, taking aim with his weapon.

Dwight shook his head and didn’t stop. When he spoke, his voice sounded like it was being filtered through a guitar wah-wah pedal. “No, no, no. They’re coming.” He stopped suddenly and looked Mia in the eyes. “They’re here.”

26

A half hour passed in nervous silence, listening for the voices that would herald the arrival of the horde. Dwight the Delight, the serial killer from Boston, reacted first, detecting something the rest of them couldn’t. At first, he whimpered quietly with each shift of the breeze through the metal cage walling in the storefront. But his control over his emotions grew more tenuous with each passing moment. He grew agitated, shifting from one foot to the other while squatting behind the aisle. He hummed. He licked his dry lips. They could all see the tension in his body.

As panic claimed whatever self-control the man had left, he seemed about to bolt.

As the first distant call of the horde reached them, he turned toward the blocked exit.

That’s when Garbarino pistol whipped him from behind.

No one complained.

Had to be done.

They all knew it.

“Thanks,” Mia said.

Garbarino nodded.

“Here they come,” Austin whispered. “Stay down. Stay quiet.”

The voices grew louder, accompanied by the shuffling of hundreds of feet.

At first, the sound was like a choir of sobbing voices. The infinite sadness of the sound broke Mia’s heart. The people outside would kill her. She had no doubt about that. But listening to them; they were pitiful. To be pitied.
Horrified.
Sad.
Tired.

Individual voices emerged from the din as some walked past the small convenience store.

“I can’t stop it,” a man said to himself. “Why can’t I stop it? God...”

Between sobs, a woman spoke.
“The blood.”
Her body shook. “All that blood.”

Several more people spoke in other languages, some easily recognizable—French, Japanese, German—but others sounded older, and some Native American, or at least what Mia thought sounded like Native American.

“I’m so sorry,” a woman said.

Everyone in the room tensed. The voice belonged to Vanderwarf. She and White had joined the mob. Two more voices, two more mournful killers in the army.

Liz covered her ears, blocking out the voices. Her elbow struck a can of soup on the bottom shelf. It only fell a few inches before striking the linoleum floor, but to the group hiding behind the food aisle, it sounded like a gun shot.

Tension knotted Austin’s back as he slowly peeked around the end of the aisle. The orange sky flickered outside the store, darker than before as night fell. But that didn’t hold his interest. Standing at the window, fingers interlocked in the metal links of the barrier, was Vanderwarf, her eyes locked on his.
Those beautiful eyes.
Those full lips.
Both expressed immense sadness.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Slowly, she began shaking the barrier. “I’m so sorry!” The shaking became violent, attracting attention.

“No!” someone shouted.

“Run away!” said someone else.

“Make it stop!”

The shaking grew louder as more bodies joined the assault. A loud squeak of metal on linoleum shot through the store. The front door! Austin bolted out from his hiding position and threw himself at the blockade. A group on the other side was pushing it in. Garbarino joined him, wanting nothing more than to shoot a few rounds into the group outside, but worrying that would attract even more attention. Right now there were ten people outside, but in the distance he could see hundreds more shuffling through the flattened ghost town.

Paul joined them a moment later. “What’s the plan?”

Austin grunted, pushing against the heavy barricade. “Find the back door. Be ready to run.”

Paul nodded and returned to the back of the store.

“What about the roof?” Garbarino asked.

 “They’d starve us out,” Austin said. “We need to move.”

“We could pick them off one at a time.”

“Not enough ammo,” Austin said. A jolt pushed them both back a few inches. They were losing the fight. “Besides, they come back to life after what, sixty seconds?”

Garbarino placed his feet against the checkout counter and shoved hard. “Good point.”

“Paul found the back door,” Mia said from behind the isle. “Didn’t hear anyone back there, but he hasn’t opened it yet, either.”

“Don’t open it!” Austin shouted. If just one person made it in the back, they’d be screwed. “Get everyone ready. When you hear the gunshots, open the door and run. We’ll be right behind you.”

“What about Dwight?” Mia asked.

“The man’s a serial killer,” Austin said.

Garbarino nodded. They were thinking the same thing. “Fuck ’im.”

Mia nodded and slid back behind the aisle, coordinating with the others and moving them toward the back of the store.

“So that’s the plan, eh?” Garbarino said. “Pop a few of them in the face and make for the hills?”

“That’s about it,” Austin said.

Garbarino offered a nervous smile.
“Works for me.
On three?”

Austin nodded.
“One.”

“Two.”

A roar blasted through the store like a fog horn. The muscles in Austin’s and Garbarino’s arms and legs turned to Jell-O. But the door didn’t budge. The sound had effects on the mob too.
For a moment.
Both sides regained control of their bodies at the same time.

The people at the door pushed.

Austin and Garbarino stayed focused. “Three!”

Both men launched to their feet, took aim and just as quickly dropped back down. Not a shot fired.

“Did you see it?” Garbarino asked.

Austin nodded. They were in serious trouble.

“What the fuck is it?”

He had no reply for the question. What could he say? The thing outside was all muscle and stood several feet taller than anyone in the horde. A tattoo of an eagle, wings outstretched covered the chest. A banner, clutched in the eagle’s talons read: PEACE.

 If Austin had to guess, he would say the monster was a man because of the build—thick torso, broad shoulders—but it had no hair and from what he saw of the naked beast, no sexual organs. But the girth and power of the man-thing wasn’t its most offensive feature. That had been reserved for its face. The eyes were small and sunken beneath a brutish brow. There was no nose or ears, just four jagged holes. A lack of lips and cheeks exposed its thick, brown teeth. Drool hung from the side of its open mouth, spraying with each hard breath.

Austin chanced a second glance as the pressure on the barricade eased up. The thing was headed straight for them, drawn by the noise of those trying to get in. It sniffed at the air like a two legged dog. The horde in front of it parted like the Red Sea before Moses. One woman wasn’t quick enough and it lifted her by one leg, took hold of the other and tore it away. A tearing of skin was followed by a slick pop as the joints separated. With pieces of the woman in both hands, it tossed them to the sides, discarding them like old rags.

The woman didn’t scream. After hitting the ground on either side of the monster, she pulled herself away, while her severed limb kicked in the road, spinning in circles.

The thing continued toward the store. It had no real interest in the woman. She just got in the way at the wrong time.

It stopped in front of the store. Each breath the thing took sounded like an engine revving.

Austin held a finger to his lips.

Garbarino nodded. He knew the score. The slightest sound might set it off and neither doubted its ability to smash through the storefront.

They heard a deep inhalation of breath and then the thing roared again. At point blank range, the deep rumbling
sound made both men vomit
, consuming their bodies with fear. But the creature’s own voice kept it from hearing them. When it began sniffing at the air again, Austin realized it wasn’t trying to hear
them,
it was trying to smell them.

It could smell their fear.

Austin held his gun up for Garbarino to see. The man nodded. The giant knew they were there, but it didn’t know they were packing. The plan might still work. He held up his fingers in a silent countdown.

One.

Two.

Screaming.
Mad screaming.

After hearing the giant turn away, Austin looked up. Dwight was outside, running away in clear view of the horde, his panic blinding his good sense.
As the horde turned toward him, so had the giant.
Then it charged.

Austin and Garbarino stood and watched. The thing charged on all fours, smashing through anyone in its way. Bodies flew through the air, trailing streams of blood. The thing roared again and everything outside fell to the ground. It crushed several more people before reaching Dwight. And when it did...

The attack was unlike anything either man had seen before. One hand took hold of Dwight’s head and squeezed. It burst like overripe fruit. Holding him by the legs, the monster swung him up and then slammed him into the ground.
Over and over.
Arches of blood sprayed through the air. It threw him on the ground, limp and shattered, and stomped on him.
Crushing his body into the earth, pulverizing him.
Liquefying him.

Garbarino vomited again.

Austin would have, too, if he hadn’t remembered the others.

A fresh roar turned him back to the monster. It stood above what little remained of Dwight the Delight.

Austin took Garbarino’s arm. “Let’s go.”

The thing raised its head and sniffed the air.

“Now!”
Austin led the way to the back of the store. They didn’t have long to get everyone out of the store and on the move. The trouble was
,
everyone else was already gone.