Hellifax (33 page)

They had chewed their way through.

A sudden quivering of the back door brought him back to the present, and Scott watched for a few seconds before Vick shouted from the living room.

“What’s it look like back there?” he asked.

“Bad. We’re surrounded.”

Scott returned to see Buckle and Amy on the main floor in full gear, lifting their outerwear over their heads. The walls of the house groaned and softly crackled under the pressure of the undead siege. Scott glanced at Amy tossing the poncho over herself. He stooped and threw on his own. In seconds, all four of them were dressed and ready to move.

“Now what?” Buckle wanted to know.

As if in answer, the distinct sound of something puncturing through wood made them turn toward the front door. Claws clicked off glass.

“That was the door,” Scott said.

“The table’s next,” Amy stated.

“Options?” Vick asked.

“We can stay and fight,” Amy said, “or we can bust out of here and run for it.”

“Bust out,” Buckle voted.

“They’re ankle deep out there,” Scott informed them. “Maybe more.”

“Well, then, what?”

Scott looked to the upstairs. “Come on.”

They raced up the steps, following Scott as he went from one room to another. After inspecting them all, he stopped and shook his head in disbelief.

“What?” Amy asked him.

“No attic,” Scott burst out. “Who doesn’t have a fucking attic in their house?”

Buckle went into one room and ripped the curtains from a window. Perhaps twelve feet across the way and below them was another window. “What about this?”

“What about that?” Vick asked him.

“Oh, sweet Mary and Joseph,” Buckle said, peering below. Scott crowded inside, mouth hanging open. It was a driveway with a car parked just underneath, its white roof luminous. Surging around it was a black river of rats, stretching from the street and into the backyard, flooding everything.

“Can’t jump twelve feet, you idiot,” Vick snapped.

“Didn’t say jump across, Vicky,” Buckle said. “But I’m looking at that.”

The car between the two houses was well above the rising moat of flesh-seeking vermin. Just above that, and much closer, was a wide, old-fashioned window.

Vick pulled back and smiled at his friend.

From the first floor, a crackling of wood and glass reached their ears, startling them all.

“Who goes first?”

“Your idea, Buckle,” Amy said.

“Right on.” With that, the Newfoundlander smashed out the window with his Halligan. He lifted one leg outside and then the other, sitting briefly on the sill.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Then he pushed off.

With a roar, Buckle landed hard on the roof of the car, squashing it inward and cartwheeling his arms for a brief second before getting his balance. He righted himself, arms outstretched, while rats gushed around his island.

“Holy fuck! They stink as bad as Moe!”

“Watch yourself!” Vick yelled back.

Buckle waved and leaned toward the other house. He smashed out the window with the Halligan bar, swiping it around the frame to clear away any remaining shards of glass. Once done, he tossed the tool through the window, made two test swings with his arms, and leaped.

He hit the window too hard.

Buckle slipped, latched onto the windowsill, and managed to hook it underneath his armpit. He hung there for a moment, feet scrabbling against the side of the house as rats nipped at his boots. Slowly, he pulled himself up and through the window, snagging his body armor before yanking it free. In seconds, he popped back out the window and waved the others down.

“Amy,” Vick directed, getting out of the woman’s way. Amy got her legs over the sill, dropped out of the window, and onto the roof of the car without any trouble. She jumped for the window and landed against the lower sill with a solid clap. Buckle grabbed her torso and hauled her inside.

“You go on,” Vick said to Scott. “Watch your feet.”

“Watch your ass,” Scott answered, hearing more wood splinter from the first floor. He wasted no further time and jumped out the window, crashing down on a roof that was looking more like a crater. He landed hard, clanging his bat off the edge of the car’s roof and grabbing for the shotgun slung over his shoulder. Buckle took the shotgun and bat from him and gestured for him to jump. The rats swamped the lower part of the car, as if sensing the meat just above them. Scott focused on the window and sprang toward it, crashing into the sill and holding on for dear life. Buckle and Amy pulled him in and dumped him on an open living room floor.

“Move your fat ass, Vicky!” Buckle bellowed.

There was a crash as Vick landed on the car. He teetered on the roof and fell forward with a grunt. Holding onto his steel pipe, his arms shot up and slammed awkwardly against the house.

“Take the pipe,” Vick gasped.

Buckle reached out and pulled the weapon free of his friend’s hands.

With a groan, Vick shuffled along the wall until he reached the window. Seconds later, they hauled him through and deposited him in the living room.

“Well, this place looks nice,” Scott said, picking up his bat.

“Smarten up,” Amy said, slapping his helmet as she moved past him, toward the windows.

“I’ll check out back,” Buckle said and got moving. Scott got to his feet and righted his helmet.

Amy pulled back a set of white drapes and looked out the windows. “They’re out there, but maybe not as thick. Clustered around the other house.”

“Not for long, then,” Vick said.

Scott agreed.

Buckle came back into the living room. “They’re out back. Ankle deep.”

“Out the back, then.”

They piled into the kitchen, banging against a round table and chairs, and gathered at the back door. Scott glanced out the window there and saw the rats were indeed thick on the ground, but they were still clustered about the previous house in greater numbers. Vick slid the bolts across on the door, unlocking it.

“All right, we get out of here and run to the right. When I get some space, I’m going to cut out to the road again.”

“Why?” Scott asked.

“’Cause I don’t want to be jumping fences and ducking through swing sets out there. They might be infected rats, but we have the longer legs. You all ready?”

They were.

“Let’s do this,” Vick said and threw open the door.

They spilled out into the backyard, and Scott was momentarily stunned by the assault upon the house they’d only just occupied. The baseboards were gnawed down to fibrous white, while a black river continued to pour around the foundation.

So many
, Scott thought in awe.

“Come on!” Buckle roared at him. Scott felt rats scrabbling over his boots and Nomex pants. He pawed them off in disgusted reflex, turned, and bolted after his three companions. They crushed several rats underfoot as they ran, but the backyards of the houses were choked with searching rodents.

After running through the backyards of three more houses, Vick led them toward the street. They passed through another narrow driveway between the houses, stomping through streamers of rats. They pressed through dead things and emerged at the side of the street.

The moon was high in the night sky, and its light illuminated a tenebrous layer of pulsating vermin, surrounding the nearest houses and the road. The creatures filled the street, a seemingly unending carpet in the stark moonlight. They swamped Scott and the others’ ankles, clawing and biting at the protective material. Scott danced on the spot, crushing several underfoot before Vick started jogging away from the creatures. He stopped killing and followed.

“Where are the damn things coming from?” Buckle huffed as he caught up to Vick.

“Waterfront.”

“We were on the waterfront for almost two weeks! Never saw anything like this before.”

“Something brought them up,” Amy panted nearby. “Maybe it was a lack of food?”

“Or they wanted something fresh,” Vick said, as they tromped through the thinner outer rim of the swarm.

“Maybe they just got braver,” Scott threw out, feeling a chill as he said the words. The thought of the virus making rats hunger for human meat and driving them above the surface to hunt wasn’t something he wanted to consider.

He glanced over his shoulder.

“Well, shit.”

The rats pursued them. The outer edges of the mass scuttled up the street while far behind, drifts of blackness crawled through the houses where they’d sheltered. Scott thought the rats were massed knee-high at points. What would they do to a person if they caught one? The image of the disappearing granny zombie on the front porch appeared in his mind. Another image followed, the detached arm turning in the tide of ragged hair before slipping under, as if swept away by a savage undercurrent.

He felt his balls draw up in fright.

The mystery of the disappearing dead down in Annapolis.

Well, shit!

He turned back to face the street, seeing tendrils of rats scurrying across the surface.

And ran.

The sound of boots on ice and snow-covered asphalt split the night’s silence as they quickly outpaced the swarm. Vick kept them on South Street, periodically coughing and wheezing as he chugged along the road made eerily luminous by the moon. The cold air had gotten into Scott’s lungs as well, and he knew from experience he would be hacking later on. It had been ages since he’d had to do any lengthy running, but since coming to Halifax, it seemed it was all he did. He was quickly running out of gas.

“Wait,” Scott gasped and halted. He bent over and held his knees, hissing in air through his nose and letting it out through his mouth. “I need a break.”

The other three stopped in the street and regarded Scott in silence, breathing hard, but not out of breath. Vick lifted the visor of his helmet and spat.

“We should get off this street,” he said.

“We can do that,” Amy nodded. “We can cut in right here if you want.”

“Wait,” Buckle said, holding out his hand. “Listen.”

It didn’t take long to hear it. The low rustling noise crept along the curbs and crawled into their ears. It wouldn’t be long before the rats caught up to them.

Up ahead lay a T-intersection, cutting across South Street. It was too dark to see the sign, but Buckle gestured for them to stay where they were while he investigated. He walked a dozen steps, cutting to his right and placing his back against a stone wall. Scott watched the man peer around the corner.

He straightened.

And ran back.

“Run!” he whispered in a harsh voice and raced across the street and behind a house.

The others followed, but were slow to pick up speed, not understanding what had driven Buckle back. Then the foremost rank of rats poured around the corner in a wide sweep that forever cut them off from South Street. They tumbled across the road like a rush of spilled apples, sensing fresh flesh and turning in their direction.

The living bolted after Buckle and caught up to him at a high wire fence in a backyard gleaming in moonlight. Buckle kicked the mesh twice, trying to bring it down; when he couldn’t, he decided to climb it. He flipped himself up and over at the same time that Scott reached the fence and practically dived over it.

Scott landed hard and struggled through a deep drift of white. The shotgun slid off his shoulder, and he snatched it and his bat. He drove the bat into the snow and readied the shotgun.

“I’m getting tired of running, man,” Buckle said as he straightened up alongside Scott. Amy and Vick cleared the fence, and they all looked back the way they had come.

The rats came though the driveway, filling it from one house to the foundation of the next.

“What the hell?” Buckle burst out in exasperation.

“Come on,” Vick roared and started racing through backyards. Scott snatched up his bat and ran after him. They followed in a close line, looking over their shoulders every few seconds. They crossed one backyard and came out into another driveway and onto a smaller deserted side street. Vick led them up the road before cutting into another driveway. He repeated this twice, attempting to get the rats off their trail.

At the corner of one house, they stopped to compose themselves, placing their backs to the wall and staying in the shadows.

“What do you think?” Buckle asked, breathing hard. “We lose them?”

“We zigzagged a couple of times there,” Vick answered, gasping.

But they could hear the hum in the distance.

“Lord Jesus,” Buckle whispered.

“Man up.” Vick punched his shoulder. “Amy’s handling these things better than you.”

“Actually, I’m about to defecate myself,” Amy deadpanned. “Sorry if that’s too much information.”

“I see them,” Scott whispered, pressing himself harder against the side of the house and willing its shadow to hide him. The others did the same and waited, hoping the rats would go around them. The white noise of the rats’ approach grew. The crackling of wire fences reached their ears.

“We were going in and around houses, trying to be cute,” Buckle whispered. “And they’re just
coming on
.”

Scott stuck out his head and blinked. At the edge of his vision, rats flooded the entire street and homed in on their position.

“We gotta go,” Scott said.

“This way.” Amy took the lead. The others followed her silhouette, a black wisp against snow banks of ghostly white. They passed behind several houses before she slowed and started testing doors, plunging inside the first one that opened. Scott went straight to the kitchen. He unslung his twelve gauge and placed it on a dark table while the others spread out, searching for deadheads. Buckle found a set of stairs, and he and Vick headed up to the second floor. Moments later, they reconvened in the kitchen.

“Empty,” Vick reported.

“Let’s lay up here for a bit,” Scott said. “I need to catch my breath.”

“We put some distance between us and those little fuckers anyway,” Buckle said. Still, he went to the back door and locked it.

“What the hell?” Vick said in disbelief. “Never seen anything like that before.”