Patrick D'Orazio - Into the Dark

Knowing he had shot the last shell, Jeff flipped the shotgun around so he could wield it like his baseball bat. It was lopsided and uncomfortable, but would have to do. He was tempted to demand the handgun from Ray but didn’t want to leave the boy unarmed.

“Nail whatever you can, kid.”

Ray looked up and saw the woman. Jeff was blocking his chance to shoot at her with the Beretta, so Ray looked for another target. There were plenty to choose from. He raised the gun and gripped it in both hands. The shaking and his blurred vision made things difficult. They would have to be right on top of him before he could do any good. So the dying teenager waited.

Jeff resisted the urge to turn and see how close the stiffs moving up the sides of the building were getting. The woman he had shot had already recovered and was nearly on top of him. He swung the shotgun in a wide arc toward her head and was tempted to yell out to Ray to watch his back, but instead grunted as the butt of the long gun connected with the woman’s skull. There was no satisfying crack, but she fell to the ground, out of his way. He swung the weapon back around as another pair of hands grabbed for him. One of the new monster's arms blocked his swing, and he could not connect with its head. It stumbled to the side and growled in frustration.

Jeff crept backwards, ducking from more grasping hands, but one clutched his arm. It felt cold and clammy, and he reacted as if a tarantula had landed on him. Squealing in fright, he jumped backwards, his sweat serving as a lubricant, which allowed him to break free of the compressing hold. He tried to get the shotgun in front of him, but his foot twisted beneath him, and he toppled over.

That was the opening Ray needed. When Jeff dropped to the ground, the boy finally had a clear target. His shot created a perfect circle under the jaw of the closest rotting figure. The bullet traveled up through the ghoul’s brain and mushroomed, leaving a large exit wound that took out the top of its skull. Ray gasped as it fell backwards into the arms of another one of the creatures.

The teen’s next shot targeted a woman in a coverall and utility belt who was already stooping toward him. The shot went wild as she leaned forward and opened her mouth. Ray saw her jagged, broken teeth, but could not raise the gun high enough to point it at them. Her hands were in the way, blocking the gun as they pressed down on his arms. All he could do was desperately fire bullets into her chest. She jittered, but kept pressing down, teeth getting closer. Ray could smell the fetid air that hissed up from her throat as he looked at her wide and excited eyes. He screamed.

Suddenly, the moaning stopped and a shaft of wood burst from the utility worker’s right eye. There was a small popping sound as its eyeball ruptured. Ray had no time to wonder what had happened as the woman collapsed on top of him. With her no longer grabbing at him, he was able to wriggle his arm free and slide it up against her chin, pushing her away. Her mouth was shut, but her one eye remained open as her body twitched, convincing him she was still alive. The fiery pain in his ankle was all but forgotten as he weakly fought to get out from under her. The boy froze when he saw another ghoul trying to pull her away to get at him.

All Jeff knew was that he had avoided landing on Ray and needed to get up before another pus bag tackled him. The shotgun had fallen beneath him, and there was no way to reach it. He got to his knees and instantly felt fingers clutching at his hair and his head being wrenched around. Another hand yanked Jeff’s arm backwards as he gagged and tried to twist away.

There was a jarring motion, and Jeff was knocked sprawling. It felt as if a tank had slammed into him, and there was a sharp pain as a clump of his hair was pulled out by the roots. He tried to tuck and roll, but the breath had been knocked out of him, and all he knew was that someone was screaming nearby.

“Fuck you! And fuck you too!”

It was the first time Jeff had heard Ben speak. He watched the giant smash his elbow into another walker trying to attack Ray. There were already three crumpled bodies at his feet as his elbow plowed into the temple of another ghoul, which dropped like a rock, its neck broken. Jeff watched, amazed, as Ben lashed out with a large combat boot that lifted a frail old man off his feet. Its arms flailed, and it landed a few feet in front of Ben.

Ray was still trying to work his way out from underneath the woman’s corpse when Jeff ran to him, nearly slipping in a puddle of blood. When he got to the teenager, he helped lift the dead body off the boy and saw the arrow that had penetrated the utility worker’s eye.

“You okay?”

Ray was looking at Ben, and Jeff’s words did not register. Jeff snapped his fingers in front of Ray’s eyes. “I said, are you okay, kid?”

Ray nodded, but his eyes never left Ben. Jeff couldn’t resist turning as well to watch the behemoth in action.

Ben used his bow like a samurai sword, swinging it in a wide arc. It cracked against the skull of one marauder as another tried to jump on him. He was surrounded, but it didn’t seem to faze him, even as one of the infected was somehow able to wrap its arms around his waist and sink its teeth into his overalls. As Ben kicked out at another creature that had gotten too close, he barely paid attention to the biter latched to his hip. It was only after he bowled over two more stiffs that he dealt with the hanger-on. He wrapped his fingers in its wispy hair and, in one fluid motion, snapped its neck. It fell, boneless, to the ground.

Ben was fast, far faster than Jeff imagined someone his size could be. He turned quickly, not even looking down at where he had been bitten, and moved to Ray. The boy stared at him, tears in his eyes.

Ben glanced down at the tightly bound wound on Ray’s foot. “How you doing, kiddo?”

“Ben,” the teen gasped. The relief was palpable on his face as he smiled weakly.

Ben returned the smile, but his had a tinge of sadness to it. He leaned in and slid one arm underneath Ray’s legs while the other went around his back. “Grab my neck.”

Ray laid his head against the big man’s shoulder and followed his command. Jeff watched in amazement as the man easily lifted the heavy teenager without so much as a grunt. There were still several arrows in the quiver slung over his shoulder, and Jeff stared down the broad expanse of Ben’s back to where the man had been bitten. There was no blood. Instead, there was a bit of tar-like saliva on the fabric. The tough material Ben wore had not been penetrated.

Ben looked at Jeff. “Grab my bow and follow me.”

Jeff nodded, picked up the thick bow, and glanced behind him. The infected were not in awe of Ben like he and Ray were, but the ogre-sized man had knocked enough of them silly that he had given the trio the few seconds they needed to get moving.

Jeff glanced back at the shotgun and Beretta. Both were empty and useless. He resisted the temptation to pick them up as he took off running, following Ben between the buildings, back the way he had come.

Almost immediately, Jeff heard a bloodcurdling scream and looked over his shoulder. The crowd was surging forward, bodies tumbling to the ground as more and more plague victims crammed into the narrow gap between the buildings in an effort to reach their prey. Most were hobbled, hindered by physical traumas that slowed but did not deter them. Jeff spotted far faster movement flickering in the depths of the crowd. Something out there was moving at a tremendous speed.

It dawned on him where he had heard that scream before, and it had happened more than once. The first time was when he was standing on the porch back at his house, looking out over a crowd of corrupted neighbors. He’d heard it again when he’d stepped out of the van to deal with an infected teenage girl in his neighborhood. Also, just before the man who had mauled his own family nearly strangled Jeff after charging across his bedroom.