Coyote (30 page)

She looked at Bait and the Professor. “Back to the closet. Get everything out. After they get through here, that is where we will stand.”

Bait nodded, for once saying nothing, and turned, dragging the dazed-looking Professor with him.

Beast and the Mule again took the same formation in front of the fire doors: the Mule in front bracing the desks with his boot, with Beast and herself one step behind him and to either side of the hallway. The dog even stepped into its position behind them at the center of the hallway, seeming like it, too, knew the plan now.

“Chraň nás,” she told it, just to be sure.

Then she looked to the others. They, like her, were tired, sweaty, but as prepared as they would ever be. It was time to begin again.

The Mule looked to her. “Chraň,” he said.

She looked to him, bracing herself for the fight and giving him a small smile. “Ochráním tě. Now one step back.”

---

At first, this second stage of the battle went much like the first. The Mule stepped back, cracking the doors and letting a slow stream of thumpers in. He would smash those he could with his axe, leaving her and Beast to take care of those that escaped his axe, and the dog picked off any that escaped all three humans.

But they were already tired, and it soon told in their fighting. The Mule’s strokes with the axe seemed just a bit slower. More thumpers seemed to escape him. She and Beast took just a bit longer to deal with each Thumper, and occasionally had to lean across to the other side of the hall to help each other when one or the other faced two or three thumpers at once.

Even the dog had its struggles. At one point she heard the regular growling and tearing sounds behind her interrupted by a yelp, and turned to see the dog shaking one thumper apart while another was on its back, pounding against its vest. Before she could react, Beast turned, whipping his spear crossways just above the level of the dog’s back and knocking the thumper against a wall, where the dog quickly jumped on it. She had to turn back after that, as she had her own share of the creatures to fight.

They were holding their own for now, barely, but they were tiring, and they were each picking up their own wounds. She saw the Mule wincing every time he raised his axe over his head, and Beast had a bloody gash down one arm. For her part, she was pretty sure a few fingers on one hand were broken where a thumper’s claw had gotten a lucky hit, and one foot was someplace between painful and numb inside her boot, where a thumper had hit it several times before she could deal with it.

She realized they would not last—not nearly as long as they had at the first fire doors, at least, and perhaps not more than a few more seconds. If one of them fell, or slowed too much, the number of thumpers coming through the door would soon be too much to handle.

“Bait!” she yelled.

“What?” the voice came from right behind her, startling her. She realized that he had joined the fight, standing next to the dog and dealing with the increasing number of thumpers the others were missing.

“Is the closet empty?”

“Yes.”

“Completely?”

“Shelves and everything,” he replied while slicing into another thumper with his machete.

“Beast,” she yelled. “Close it now!” With that she dove for the desks, arriving at the same time as Beast. Their combined weight slammed the fire doors closed quickly, though they stuck on three thumpers unlucky enough to be in the crack at the moment. A few more hard shoves, and the bodies of those thumpers either fell out or were severed, leaving the doors completely closed.

The thumpers had not broken through the doors anyplace else yet, though there were several holes that would soon be big enough for the creatures to squeeze through.

Soon the members of the group had dispatched the last of the thumpers on their side of the hallway, and were looking to her for new directions. The emotions on their faces ranged from worried to determined, to just plain tired. She was tired as well, feeling like she had just finished a two-hour workout, rather than a five minute fight, but there was no time to rest.

“Mule,” she said. “Hold these doors.” He took her place, leaning against the desk as she stood to look at the others.

“We will make our stand in the closet. There is nowhere else to go.”

“What about the exit?” asked Bait, pointing to the boarded-up door at the end of the hallway. His mind was always more on running than on fighting.

“Can you get the boards nailed across the exit doors off, and get outside before the thumpers come through the fire doors? She does not think you can. And once you are out there, the horde will follow. They will surround you and take you down.

“No, here is the place to stand. In a small room they will not be able to surround us, and they can come from only one direction.”

“How many of them are left?” asked Beast.

“She does not know. More than us. You have seen how they act, and you know they will not stop. The only choice is to kill them all.”

He nodded, and as she looked at the others she saw no more disagreement.

“Mule, stay here until she calls. Everyone else into the closet.” She looked the Mule in the eyes. “When she calls, come running. They will be right behind you.”

He nodded at her, saying nothing.

The rest of them filed into the storage room. It was several yards down the hallway, so she hoped that would give the Mule enough time to put some distance between himself and the thumpers when it was time for him to join them.

Jogging to the storage room, she heard buzzing sounds from a few of the guest rooms she passed. The horde had broken past the boarded up windows in those rooms and was working on the doors to the hallway. She hoped the doors would hold a few minutes longer.

As she entered the storage room, she saw that Bait and the Professor had followed her instructions. The room was bare, with even the shelving removed and thrown into the hallway. What had once been a well-organized storage room was now a bare, square space—perhaps their final resting place.

“Even in this small room, we cannot let them surround us. We stand in a line, and let none of the creatures pass the line. As long as we keep them in front, we can fight them. If they can come at us from behind, we will die.”

“Oh, this sucks,” said Bait. She voiced no argument against him.

As she spoke, she pushed the members of the group into position. She placed Bait against the wall on the right, and the Professor against the wall on the left. They were the weakest fighters, and would benefit most from having the solid wall next to them. At first she moved Beast to stand next to the Professor, but then she changed her mind. Seeing the glazed look in the Professor’s eyes and the way he leaned against the wall, favoring one leg, she knew he would be the weak link. She placed Beast next to Bait and stood next to the Professor herself. If the Professor fell, the person next to him would have to fill the hole he left without leaving their own space. There was no one she trusted more than herself.

She left the center spot for the Mule. He was the most heavily armed and armored, and she judged he might be able to stand and fight the longest. If the center of their line gave, there would be no recovery.

The dog was placed behind the line. Once again, it would take care of anything that slipped through their defenses. The dog was to be their last defense against being surrounded and attacked from behind.

“Ještě jednou,” she told it. “Chraň nás.”

She looked up to see everyone staring at her. They were frightened, as they should be.

“‘One more time, guard us,’ is what she told the dog. Now you all must guard each other.” She looked at each one of them in turn. “All of us—together.” She saw them look at each other now, and saw them stand straighter. It would have to do. There was no more time.

“Mule!” she called. “Get in here!”

He did not respond, but she soon heard his footsteps running down the hallway. After that she could hear the sound of the fire doors slowly being pushed open and the scrabbling of the first thumpers to pass through those doors behind him.

The Mule came quickly through the storage room door, skidding to a stop as he took in the room and the rest of the group arrayed before him.

“Stand here,” she said, pointing to the spot at the center of the line that she had picked for him.

He moved to his spot as she stepped forward to close the storage room door. It would not hold for long, but it would give them time to prepare.

She looked at her ragged group, already tired from the work it took just to get here. She saw little hope in their eyes, but little fear either. The Professor still looked like he wasn’t sure where he was. Bait and the Mule looked worried but determined. Beast just looked angry, as if he were getting ready to take the frustrations built up over the past few months of inactivity and pour them out onto the thumpers. That would serve him well.

The dog, alternately panting and growling at the storage room door as the thumpers arrived and began their pounding, showed how tired they must all feel, but in its eyes she thought she saw the joy of battle as well—the animalistic ferocity they both shared. She gave the dog a small smile before turning away.

She turned to the Professor. She pulled him of the wall where he had been leaning, grabbing his chin and looking into his eyes.

“Are you ready for this?” she asked.

He just looked at her, his gaze sliding off her face to drift across the walls. Perhaps he was worse off than any of them had known.

She tugged the sides of his jacket together, zipping it up to give him what protection it could offer and shaking him around a little to wake him up. He grunted as he was forced to put weight on his leg.

“Are you ready for this?” she asked again. “Are you with us?”

At first she though he was not going to respond again. But then his eyes suddenly looked into hers, and for a moment he was back.

“Ready,” he said.

“You have to fight,” she said. “You have to stand—to hold this line. If you give in, we are all lost. Can you do this?”

He nodded, still looking at her. “I’m ready.”

It wasn’t much reassurance, but it was probably all she would get. She let him go, taking her place in the line.

The pounding on the door was greater now, as it rattled in its frame.

“Oh, shit, said Bait. “Oh this, oh shit, oh shit…” his cursing got softer and trailed off into an almost inaudible muttering.

The Mule spared him a glance and a smirk. “That’s it, man. ‘Do not go quietly…’”

He looked at the Mule. His face said he didn’t get the reference, but knew he was being teased. His muttering continued.

Soon she saw a few holes start to appear in the door, and through those holes she could see the flashing of the thumpers’ claws as they worked to enlarge those holes. Soon they would be in.

She looked down the line at these people who had chosen to follow her. This is where she had brought them. She should regret this end, but somehow she could not. There was a feeling inside her—a ferocious joy that left no room for doubts or for regret. They had chosen to follow her and now they would stand with her. They would fight what came through that door. They would not give up.

She could not help the smile that came to her face, as she felt the adrenaline coursing through her body.

“Now,” she said, her emotions making her voice tremble. “Now we will kill them all.”

The storage room door lasted much longer than she thought it would. The thumpers burrowed two, three, then four large holes in the door before they began pouring into the room, but neither the latch nor the hinges to the door ever gave way completely, so the thumpers couldn’t flood in all at once. That ragged door was the only reason the group wasn’t overwhelmed right away.

Still, the ones that came were enough.

She was tired already—they all were. But they all knew their only rest would come when all the thumpers were dead, or when they, themselves, were dead. It was this knowledge that kept them standing past the point where trembling muscles could still be expected to hold them up or to swing a weapon, past the point where heaving lungs could draw in enough oxygen to meet the demands of their bodies, and past the point where the traumatized mind could take in anything more than snapshots.

Searching her memories, only scattered sounds and images are left from that final fight. She remembers yelps of pain from the dog as well as from some of the humans as a thumper scored a blow. She remembers panting, growling, grunts, and the occasional curse word. No other words were traded, though. There was nothing to say—nothing to be communicated. Just stab, hack, kick, and repeat. Attack what came into range, and trust the others to do the same.

Her mind holds images of each of the group members, burned into those final moments. She saw Beast twirling his spear to strike down two thumpers that were leaping over his head. She saw sparks fly as the Mule’s axe severed the metallic claw of a thumper and bit into the concrete floor below. She saw Bait, bug-eyed and panting, looking in dismay at his machete, which had broken off half way up the blade as he drove it through a thumper and against the wall.