Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (11 page)

“We’ve already been down this road, Doc. It ain’t
now—and wasn’t then—your fault.”

“I know, it’s just that . . .” He shook his head and
sighed, “Anyway, I didn’t hear the gunshots. But I did see Jason’s truck tear
off. That’s when several people came in all at once and started telling me that
they could hear screaming. So I got up and went outside.” Doc leaned slightly
towards Eric and said, “By the way, you were right, I do feel warmer.”

Dave took over, “We were in Jason’s Blazer tearing across
the grass—Scott was pointing and yelling ‘ZOMBIES!!’—and, well, you’ve already
heard what happened when we got there.”

Mike stood up and began pacing. “So after we took care
of the ones that came for the kids, we piled into the Blazer—all of five of
us—and headed down towards the group camp field,” he stopped and looked at
Michelle and Eric, “It was a bad choice, but we didn’t know . . .” he trailed
off.

“Didn’t know what?” Michelle asked.

“Anything . . . everything . . . we weren’t ready for
what was happening.” Mike looked around the circle, “You know, it’s one thing
to tell people at a meeting that they need to be on guard . . . but how do you
tell them to protect themselves from a threat that can’t even be imagined . . .
that they can’t even comprehend. I mean, holy shit, we were giving people
tennis rackets as a weapon. What does that tell you?” He frowned, shaking his
head in aggravation or disgust—Eric couldn’t tell which. It was probably both.

“Like you said, we didn’t know,” Dave affirmed.

“We still don’t know.” Mike heavily emphasized the
word ‘still,’ dragging it out for a long measure.

“What happened next?” Michelle steered the
conversation forward again.

“We drove down to the field, and it was just . . .
crazy. People were screaming, fighting . . .  running. Tents were down, there
was a car half in the lake . . . it was like the parade scene at the end of
Animal
House
, only with blood . . . and we were just sitting there. Stunned, I
guess. Right about then this guy slams—I mean really slams— his head against
the truck. Only he wasn’t alone. He had this little child—girl I think—clutched
against his chest. He was like an animal, all screaming and spitting at the kid
as he was beating her against the truck. I must have swore or something at him,
‘cause if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s people that hurt kids. Anyway,
I grabbed my crowbar in one hand and the door latch in the other, and I was
just about to hop out and give the red-eyed bastard a dose of heavy metal when
Scott said, ‘Hey Mike, wait a minute. I don’t think it’s him.’ Something in his
voice made me stop and take another look, and sure as shit, as I’m sitting
there watching, the kid twists around like a spider monkey and shimmies up the
dude’s face. I can see his muscles bulging as he’s trying to get her loose, but
she wasn’t budging. Then she slides around onto his back, locks her legs around
his neck, and proceeds to rip his cheeks wide open. This dude got turned into a
skullface right in front of the truck. And the whole time—as she’s flaying his
skin apart with her bare fingers—the little ghoul is grinning like she’s on
some ride at Disney World.”

“Somebody . . . I don’t know who,” Dave interjected,
“suggested that we make a hasty exit from Dodge City.”

“That wasn’t what they said,” Mike grinned.

“Well, their choice of words may have been a bit more
colorful, but the point was well taken. We did see several vehicles blitzing
past us, so some of the people must have made it.”

“Then we heard some more gunfire. Full auto gunfire.
It was coming from Golden Eagle loop,” Mike added as he stopped pacing and sat
down, kicking his legs out in front like he was trying to warm his boots by the
glow of Callie’s headlight campfire.

Dave, Mike, and Doc exchanged knowing glances. Callie
powered down her tablet and said, “That was the calm before the storm, right?”

All three of them nodded.

Eric cut in, “OK, wait . . . were you there too?” He
indicated Callie.

She shook her head, “No, I was sailing.”

“Sailing?”

Callie grinned and said, “You don’t remember me, do
you Eric?”

In Eric’s experience, that was never a good question
coming from a female. He quickly searched his mind, trying to locate her face
somewhere in the archives of his memory, but he came up empty. He also felt
Michelle’s hand begin to loosen its grip on his waist.

“I used to be in love with you,” Callie beamed.
Michelle’s arm began to pick up speed as it withdrew.

Walter started to chuckle, and Callie laughed out
loud, “Guys are so dumb. Eric, it’s Calista . . . ‘Callie’ for short. I was
Jules’ friend from back in grade school. When I was eleven years old, you were
what, maybe sixteen, and I had such a crush on you. Don’t worry though, I
ditched you for Benny Peterson that fall, because he looked like Justin
Timberlake . . . and he let me ride his skateboard.”

Recognition tumbled back into Eric’s memory. Jules . .
. Julie . . . was Walter and Bernice’s youngest daughter, and he vaguely
recalled some of her brat friends that would circle and bother him when he was
trying to fish during the summer vacations he spent with Uncle Andy. Michelle’s
arm stopped its retreat momentarily.

“Anyway, I got laid off, or ‘downsized’ as they called
it, about a month ago from my job in the PT department at Richland General, so last
week I decided to spend a couple days sailing. Walter lets me take out Jules’
little skiff anytime I’m up here, and Bernice always insists that I stay at the
house.”

Eric reached down and grasped Michelle’s hand, pulling
it back around his waist and holding it there. After a moment her fingers
interlaced with his and squeezed gently.

Walter added, “She was out on the boat the last time
you were here. I didn’t even think to mention it.”

“OK, well, good to see you again,” Eric said.

Thompson broke the momentary distraction and got them
back on track. “What happened with the kid who was rippin’ that dude’s face
off?”

“I don’t know,” Mike replied, “Jason cut the wheel and
headed back up the road.” He looked around the circle, waiting for a response.
When nothing came, Mike finished, “By the time we got back to the front gate,
people were already leaving. I don’t know where they went.”

“I’m sure that—some of them at least—made it to
safety,” Dave said.

“Really? Because I’m not. Hell, I’m surprised any of
us made it out of that campground.”

“Did a bunch of those red eyes charge after you?” Sam
asked.

“No. It was . . . weird.” Mike reached into his pocket
and grabbed an already opened roll of Lifesavers, offering it with an extended
arm around the circle before popping one in his own mouth. “When we got to the
top, Jason said ‘get out.’ Brenda was still hacking and wiping her face, so I
helped her out the door. Dave and Scott got out as well. After that, Jason took
off down towards the loop where his camper was. I didn’t see him again.”

“I did,” Dave added quickly, “it wasn’t good.”

A stillness drifted over the circle as they waited for
Mike to continue. Instead, Doc began to speak. “So by now, word has gotten out
that something bad has happened, and it’s like a stampede of lemmings heading for
the cliff. I ran over where Dave and Mike were, and we got Brenda—she had sank
to her knees—up on her feet and over to the little clinic in the office. At
some point Amy showed up. She looked a little green around the gills, but I
remember her asking us what to do.”

Mike started again. “I’m no soldier, but I understand
that you need to either circle the wagons and make a stand, or run for the
border. We should have run.”

“But we couldn’t,” Doc said, “because people started
coming in with family members that had scrapes and scratches . . . and bites.”

Walter looked at his watch. “We need to speed this up
a bit.”

Doc sighed, “Once we got the wounded people laying
down, we had a quick ‘come to Jesus’ meeting. The group . . . I guess there was
about thirty of us in there at the time . . . voted to try and use the PA
system to let everybody in the campground know to make their way toward the
office. Once we had as many people as we could, we were going to caravan over
to the marina.”

Mike thumbed another candy into his mouth. “OK, this
is where it gets even weirder. It took us maybe twenty minutes to get the
people in the clinic ready to go. The whole time we were doing that, Amy was
announcing over the loudspeakers, ‘Anyone that can hear my voice in the
campground, we are preparing to evacuate, please make your way as quickly as
you can to the campground office. Bring your vehicle if possible.’ Nobody came.
Nobody.”

“Nobody at all?” Thompson asked.

Mike shook his head. “So we started moving people out
to the vehicles, a couple at a time. But while we we’re doing that, the
campground was . . . eerie . . . no birds singing, even the breeze had fallen
away to nothing. I swear it felt like the grim reaper was scratching his
fingernails on the back of my neck.”

“Almost,” Leonard said.

Eric shifted his gaze towards the chubby man, waiting
for more.

“You were closest when it happened,” Dave nodded at
Leonard, “tell them what you told us.”

“Yes, well . . . we had eleven people with some sort
of injury—most of them what I would consider to be very minor. Scrapes and
scratches mostly. There were a few cases of what I would call panic, as well.
When nobody came to the PA announcements, we decided to pack up and leave. Some
of the guys had their vehicle just outside, so it wasn’t going to take us that
long to load and go. We tried to make it somewhat orderly, and I believe we
might have been successful . . . but right about then one of the patients had a
seizure. It was a young boy who’d had a bite mark on his wrist.” Leonard looked
over at Mike, “If you don’t mind, I’ll take that piece of candy now.”

“Here ya go.”

He popped the offered piece of candy into his mouth.
“Mmmmm, butterscotch! Where was I? Oh yeah . . . So Dave’s wife and Doctor
Collins were telling people to ‘Back up and leave him alone.’”

Doc interjected, “Not because of what was about to
happen—we didn’t know that—but because that’s how you treat a seizure patient.
You let the seizure run its course without restraining them, and just try and
keep them from hurting themselves.”

Eric and Michelle nodded simultaneously with
understanding.

Leonard continued, “The young boy was violently
thrashing on the ground for at least a solid thirty seconds, and then he just
stopped. I was right there. I saw him go limp . . . just collapse. So I reached
down and felt for a pulse on his neck. It was there – rapid, but strong. And
then he opened his eyes.”

Leonard looked at Eric, “They were bright blue, like
yours . . . and then they changed. Almost instantly. It was like looking into a
crystal clear glass of water at the exact moment that somebody pours in a cup
of red food coloring.”

“That’s when the second person started to seize,” Doc
said.

“The young boy—the first one who seized—he sat up all
of a sudden. Scared the fire out of me,” Leonard said with his eyes widened,
“and then he looks straight at me—straight through me—like he could see all of
my sins and was counting them one by one. I’m sorry, but that was enough for me
and I scooted back.”

Doc cleared his throat, “I remember what happened with
Mr. Hardison at site nineteen, and as soon as I saw that boy sit up, I screamed
at everyone to get out.”

“I heard Doc screaming,” Mike said, “so I busted ass
back inside just in time to catch a face full of Lenny’s forehead when he came
charging through.”

Leonard smiled and shrugged innocently.