Ashton Memorial (43 page)

“Go go go!” yelled Angie to
those gathered behind her. They rushed over and climbed onto the
table. One by one, as quickly as they could manage, they grabbed
hold of the rope and Park and the others above hoisted them up and
out. Angie kept her eyes on the doors.

Another corpse slammed into the glass. The
cracks spread and the glass shattered inward. The frontmost
corpses, tearing themselves to shreds in the process, pushed
inside, groaning and gnashing their teeth. Angie cocked her rifle
and carefully fired. A dart embedded in the forehead of the closest
one, a young man with organs spilling from large wounds in his
torso. The man jerked and fell. Angie shouldered the rifle and ran
to the table.

She climbed up as the
corpses drew nearer. Rain pounded on her face and shoulders. She
sputtered and looked around for the rope. The corpses were close.
She could hear them. She found the rope and grabbed hold with both
hands. “Pull!” she yelled.

Park did, wrenching her up as hands closed
on her legs. She kicked downward, feeling her foot connect with
skull. Something groaned, gurgling in the rain, and let go. Angie
was pulled up and onto the roof.

Angie rolled onto the roof and stood, dropping her
end of the rope. Rain pounded down everywhere as she looked around.
The group she'd assembled stood huddled together, looking nervous.
Below, Angie saw the corpses stumbling around the Bites. Those
directly under the skylight looked upward, reaching and grasping at
the falling rain. They blinked their dead eyes as water pooled in
their rotting skin. Angie looked back to those on the roof. They
all looked back expectantly. Park looked like he wondered what she
had in mind next.

“Okay,” she started.
“Everyone just give me a second and...”

A woman at the back screamed as two dark
shapes swooped down from the gray sky. Screeching sounds echoed
around through the rain.

“The fuck?” yelled Park.
People stumbled around in panic. One fell, screaming, from the
roof.

Angie ran, pushing her way through the
crowd, to the source of the panic. A young woman lay bloody and
dead. Rain pattered on her bloody skin, streaking red across the
roof.

“What the hell happened?”
Angie yelled.

Screeching came from above. Angie looked up
and saw the two dark shapes circling, preparing to dive again. She
squinted into the rain. Two hawks, now freed from their exhibit,
sped toward her and the others.

“Get out of the way!”
yelled Angie, ducking aside and pulling those closest with her. The
hawks dove into the crowd, screeching and clawing. People stumbled
to each side, desperate to get away. Several fell. Angie heard them
scream and thump onto the pavement below. She heard bones snapping
and people screaming.

Angie pulled her rifle from her shoulder and
leveled it at the closest of the two birds. She fired. The dart
just missed, grazing the hawk and knocking it off course. The hawk
screeched in fury as both birds raced forward along the roof. They
clawed at everyone who stood close. Angie cocked and fired again.
The dart thudded into the underside of one of the birds, sending it
into a long spiral. The bird spun away from the roof and collided
with a nearby tree. The remaining bird barreled on ahead, clawing
and screeching.

“No no no!” yelled a young
man, backing away from the hawk as it raced toward him.

“Look out!” yelled Park
from behind him but was too late. The young man stepped backward
over the edge of the skylight. He fell screaming, into the
Bites.

Angie rushed to the edge, kneeling so fast
she almost slipped over the side. She picked up the rope and was
prepared to toss it down to the man. She was too late. Corpses had
him. The man screamed from the table. He lay flat on his back, arms
and legs held down by corpses. They bent over his torso, biting and
tearing. He screamed, blood pouring from his mouth and bubbling in
the falling rain. The corpses pulled hunks of meat and organs from
his twitching body. Angie dropped the rope and held out her arms to
stop those who were rushing up behind her. She shook her head
silently and looked up at Park.

Park's back was to her. He had his rifle
pointed to the sky, moving slowly to follow the path of the
remaining hawk. The hawk screeched as it turned, coming back around
for another attack.

People started backing away as the hawk drew
near. Park didn't move. He kept the rifle trained on the hawk.

“Park,” said Angie from her
kneeling position. She slowly stood, moving to grab him and pull
him aside.

“Not yet,” said
Park.

The hawk drew closer, screeching and
clawing.

“Now,” said Park, and
fired.

The dart thudded into the hawk's chest. Park
stepped aside as the hawk plummeted past him, spinning round and
round. It crashed to the roof, sliding forward in the rain until it
came to a stop inches from the crowd.

“Fuck,” said Park. “We
could probably eat that if it wasn't full of tranqs.”

“We gotta get off this
roof,” said Angie, running to the front edge and looking
down.

The paved area in front of the Bites was empty. All
the corpses were inside. No animals there either. She looked around
as Park and the others moved up behind her. Then she saw it.

“There!” she yelled,
pointing to a large dumpster to the side of the building, obscured
by bushes. The top was open and it was stuffed with bags of
garbage. Angie hoped they were soft.

“It's too far!” yelled the
red-headed young woman in the crowd. The one who'd seen the Keepers
leave the Bites.

“I'm working on it,” said Angie. She ran back to the
skylight and grabbed the rope. She turned and ran back to the edge,
heading for the corner. She tossed one end of the rope to Park.

“Hold on to this for me,”
she said, and leapt off the corner of the roof. For a few seconds
she flew through the air, wondering if she'd lost her mind. Then
she landed in the dumpster. The bags were wet, slimy, and smelled
worse than she would have guessed, but they were soft.

She turned over in the
dumpster to lie on her back. She put her feet against the side of
the dumpster and wrapped her end of the rope around her forearm.
“Pull!” she yelled.

Park nodded and motioned to a group of
nearby people to help. They all grabbed Park's end of the rope and
pulled. Angie strained as the rope pulled her against the side of
the dumpster. Park and the others heaved harder and the dumpster
slid, screeching across the pavement, toward the Bites. It came to
a stop against the corner of the building and Angie let go of the
rope. She climbed from the dumpster and looked inside the doors.
The corpses were stumbling around inside, oblivious to her for the
moment.

“Come on!” she yelled.
“Hurry!”

Park led one person after another to the
edge and they leapt into the dumpster. Several cried out in disgust
as they hit the rotten trash, but each one climbed out unhurt. As
they jumped, Angie ran around to either side of the building to
check on those who had fallen earlier. None had survived their
injuries.

She ran back to the front as the next to
last person climbed from the dumpster. She watched as Park looked
over to check his aim, and jumped.

She heard him muttering as
he hit the trash. He climbed from the dumpster and jumped down to
stand in front of Angie. “I'm so glad I got to smell that,” he
said.

“I was too,” said Angie,
looking over the others. They all looked unhurt and still had the
weapons she and Park had given them.

“You know,” said Park.
“Some day one of your batshit ideas isn't going to
work.”

“I know,” said Angie,
nodding and adjusting the rifle on her shoulder. She surveyed her
arm, noticing rope burns. “I'll worry about that once my kids are
safe and we have some sort of home again.”

Park nodded. “Speaking of
kids, we need to be getting to Lori.”

“That we do,” said Angie,
nodding. She looked back to the Bites. Corpses stumbled around
inside, many still staring dumbly at the skylight. Angie knew she
and the others would have to leave soon or the corpses would spot
them. She looked back to Park. “That we do.”

Nineteen

Maylee sat at the long table in the
zookeeper breakroom. Her bat was on the table in front of her. She
held a black marker she'd found in another open locker. She dragged
the tip of the marker along the metal of the bat slowly,
deliberately. The smell of the marker stung her nose.

“What the heck are you
doing?” said Dalton, coming in from the other room. Rain beat down
on the roof.

Maylee considered saying
nothing at all. “Naming my bat,” she said.

Dalton frowned.
“What?”

“Just leave me alone,
Dalton,” she said. Dalton frowned bigger, made a mocking face, then
turned and left the room.

Maylee made one last line, the marker
squeaking as it dragged across the metal. She put the cap back on
the marker and set it down. The fumes from the marker made her
blink. She was exhausted.

She put her head back and stared at the
ceiling.

It is years ago. Maylee is a little girl and
can't sleep. Mom and Dad are yelling in the front room. The yelling
stops and Mom is crying. Maylee stares at the dark ceiling of her
bedroom, trying to ignore the sounds coming from the living room.
She can't.

She sits up and climbs from her bed. She can
hear Mom saying something, too low for Maylee to make out the
words. She hears Dad respond. His voice sounds tired, cold. Maylee
feels scared and doesn't know why.

She walks to the door of her bedroom. The
door leads out to the hall. She opens it and hears the front door
open at the same time. She hears more talking, then the front door
shuts. Maylee walks out into the hall and toward the front room.
The floor is cold on her bare feet.

She walks into the living room and sees Mom
sitting on the floor, crying. Mom hears her come in and turns. She
wipes her eyes and smiles.

“Hey baby,” says Mom.
“What are you doing up?”

“What's going on?” says
Maylee. She hears Dalton crying from his crib.

“Nothing, honey, nothing,”
says Mom, climbing to her feet. Mom wipes her eyes again and looks
down at Maylee. Maylee looks back. She is little, but she can see
the fear in Mom's eyes. Maylee wishes she could help. Maylee hates
herself for being too little to help.

Maylee jerked back to
awareness when something in her pocket buzzed. She sat up straight,
blinking and looking around the breakroom. “Shit!” she
said.

“What?” said Dalton, coming
back in from the viewing room.

Maylee dug around in her
pockets. “I completely forgot.”

“Forgot what?” said Dalton,
stepping up to her.

“Ella's phone,” said
Maylee, finding the phone and pulling it out. “I can't believe it
didn't get ruined when I fell in the bear pool.”

“You fell in a bear pool?”
said Dalton. Maylee noticed a jealous element to his
voice.

“It wasn't fun, Dalton,”
said Maylee. She flipped open the phone and saw a text message from
Lori.

“Lemme see,” said
Dalton.

“Shh!” said Maylee, feeling
guilty for how harsh she sounded. She read the message. It was
hurriedly written and full of typos. But she got the gist of it.
Gregory and Lori were moving. It gave the location. It said it
would be soon.

“We gotta call Mom,” said
Maylee, standing and dropping the phone back in her pocket. She
grabbed the communicator from the table and clicked the button on
the side.

The whole room went dark.

“Shit,” said
Maylee.

“Think you blew a fuse?”
said Dalton.

“I didn't blow a fuse,
Dalton,” said Maylee. “The power went out.”

She clicked the button on
the communicator again. “Mom?” she said.

Nothing.

“Dammit.”

“What?”

“This stupid thing runs on
batteries, but apparently it needs all that shit out there to
work!” She motioned toward the viewing room. “Who designed this
shit?”

“The crazy man who
kidnapped Park's daughter?”

Maylee nodded, tossing the communicator on
the table. She stared at her bat. At what she'd written.

“How's your ankle?” she
asked.

“Better.”

“Good. Don't tell Mom, but
we're going to rescue Lori. We just became the only ones who know
where she's going to be and we have to do something.”

She sighed and looked at Dalton. He looked
back at her, like a scared little boy trying to look brave.

“I'm sorry,” she
said.

“For what?”

“I'm putting you in danger.
I promised Mom I'd protect you.”

Dalton looked insulted.
“You aren't that much older than me, Maylee.”

Maylee picked up her
bat.
Ella
, it
said.

“Actually I am,” she
said.

* * *

Maylee fumbled with the rifle on her
shoulder and looked around. Her bat was in her other hand, lowered
toward the ground. Dalton stood next to her, sputtering in the
rain.