Patrick D'Orazio - Into the Dark

He adjusted, shifting their angle of movement. Ray hopped, nearly stumbling, but Jeff supported him until he regained his balance. They moved over to a building on their right, the one with the long green awning they had passed earlier. The front door was still shut, which was a good sign, and Jeff headed for the building, hoping no one was inside.

The building had definitely seen better days. Shaped like a T, it was fairly narrow at the front, perhaps fifteen feet wide, with the door in the center underneath the awning. It went back about fifty feet before the two wings spread out to both sides. Someone had used its walls for target practice. Smears of dried red liquid ran down from the bullet holes, making it look like the building was weeping blood. As they moved closer, Jeff saw a bright red ‘X’ spray-painted on the door. It was as crimson as blood, but had a high gloss to it and reflected the sunlight.

Their journey from the general store parking lot to the doorway of the building had taken just a few minutes, but felt like an eternity to Jeff. After testing the door to confirm that it was locked, he gingerly slid Ray off of his shoulder and eased him to the ground in front of it, propping him against the wall.

“I am not leaving you,” Jeff’s said in response to Ray’s unspoken question. The tears were already beginning again as the teen shook his head in protest.

Ray slammed his head against the door. “Please,” was all he said as he dropped the gun in his lap and lifted his bloodstained hands to cover his face.

Jeff bit his lip. There was no time to comfort the boy. Instead, he shoved his hand into his pocket and dumped the remaining shotgun shells into Ray’s lap next to the Beretta. Ray moved his fingers away from his eyes to see what he was doing, and Jeff shoved the shotgun at him then knelt down and picked up the nine millimeter.

“Reload the shotgun for me, okay? When I’m done with this, we’ll trade.”

As he stared at the pimply-faced boy, Jeff could see that Ray’s brown eyes were getting cloudy. His breathing was shallow and sounded like there was a gallon of mucus trying to work its way into his mouth from his throat.

Ray nodded and raised his arms, taking hold of the proffered shotgun. Jeff turned away as he saw Ray grab one of the shells and surveyed the street. The handgun felt as light as a feather compared to the other weapon. Though his vision was cut off by the front of the building to his left, he could see several persistent forms creeping into view. He moved away from the doorway and into the small parking lot.

“What are you doing?”

He ignored Ray as he picked his first target.

“Over here, assholes!”

Some of the rotting forms had spotted Ray and were moving in his direction before Jeff spoke. He drew their attention back to him and braced his arm to prepare for his first shot. The weapon kicked, but compared to the shotgun, it was nothing. The bullet traveled fifteen feet and punched a hole through the jaw of an armless stiff. It flopped to the ground, immobile. The empty cartridge shot clear of the weapon and bounced off the hardtop as Jeff took aim again.

He moved back slightly, pulling the trigger and nailing a short-order cook wearing a grungy white apron. Arms that were riddled with tattoos did a little pinwheeling dance as the shot blew off the back of the heavyset man’s skull.

Jeff lined up a shot on a mailman. There were already three bloody bullet holes in the rotter’s chest, and several fingers were missing from the thing’s hand. Jeff could also see that one of his kneecaps had been shattered, and there was a groove above one of the courier’s ears that creased his scalp. Dry, crusted pus leaked out of the wound.

“Jesus, pal, I almost feel sorry for you.”

Jeff took careful aim and pulled the trigger, clipping the mailman in the shoulder. Grumbling, he aimed again, and his second shot went wide.

“Fuck!”

As he tried to steady himself, Jeff wondered if the bastard were charmed or something. His next shot put that fearful notion to rest as it tunneled through the postman’s forehead and knocked him to the ground.

For about a minute, Jeff had the ghouls confused. He would dart in one direction and then quickly move in another before lining up his next shot. But for every stiff he brought down, there were ten more behind it… and twenty more behind those.

“What the hell are you doing, Jeff?”

Ray couldn’t decipher what Jeff was thinking, but his best guess was that the man had flipped his lid.

Jeff responded by picking off two more pus bags in rapid succession. The slide locked back on the gun, and he yelled, “Out!” as he scurried over to Ray and swapped the overheated Beretta for the shotgun.

Ray didn’t let go immediately. He looked up, his eyes full of confusion as he resisted Jeff’s attempt to pull the weapon away. Jeff sighed and looked over his shoulder to be sure he had a few seconds, then stared down at Ray, exasperated.

“Listen, I don’t plan on just standing here so a whole shitload of those bastards can gangbang us. When I move, they follow me, and if I’m careful, they don’t bunch up.” Jeff looked over his shoulder at the approaching crowd again and then turned back to Ray. “Now let go of the damn shotgun.”

Ray relinquished his grip on the Mossberg. Jeff moved back out to the street, whooping and hollering to regain as much attention as he could. Ray shook his head as he reached for the last clip and slid it into the Beretta. He racked the first bullet and watched as Jeff danced in front of his audience once again. Quivering, the teenager turned the gun around until the barrel was pointed at his face. He shivered as a whimper escaped his throat, but did not slide his finger into the trigger guard. He would wait a little longer… just a little bit longer.

Jeff looked around and knew there were too many stiffs to hold off. The swarms of creatures coming for them were stumbling over the bodies he had already laid out and would overwhelm him and the boy in a matter of moments.

Tossing a quick glance over his shoulder, Jeff tried to spot where his minivan had been parked. He had no delusions that it was still there or that it would make a difference if it were. Getting Ray back to his feet and moving again was not feasible, and even if it was, he knew they wouldn’t make it ten feet before they were torn to pieces.

As he pulled the trigger of the shotgun, Jeff tried to refocus on his hopeless task. They had stirred up the whole town. Hell, they had probably stirred up two or three counties with all their gunfire. The dinner bell had been rung, and everyone was coming to get them.

He fired and took out a little girl plus the adult standing directly behind her. The pellets blew off the top off the girl’s head and neatly sliced the torso of the bigger ghoul in half. As he fired once more, he backpedaled toward Ray. The sound of the shotgun drowned out his thoughts, which were turning toward the seductive possibility of a less painful death for him and the kid.

He finally turned and ran back to the boy. As Jeff glanced at the teen, he spotted a shadow off to the left, creeping up the side of the building. He clenched his teeth and skidded to a halt next to Ray. There was no time to worry about rotters coming up from behind the building. Not yet at least. Jeff turned back toward the road and saw a blur of motion in front of him.

It was a young and formerly attractive woman wearing a leather miniskirt and silk blouse moving past the sidewalk toward them. Amazingly, her outfit was fairly clean. Her pantyhose had several runs, but were relatively intact. Somehow, her hair was still pulled back in some sort of scrunchie contraption, though several strands had fought their way free. Jeff pulled the trigger and she hissed at him. He caught a glimpse of her blackened teeth, which-along with the milky eyes-were the only thing that shattered the illusion that she was normal. His shot hit her shoulder and spun her sideways, but she remained standing.