Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (22 page)

“I don’t know, but that was some nice shooting—both of
you.”

Eric turned and illuminated the area between the
lifting arms of the forklift. Crumpled against the machine was a vaguely human
form. Torn muscles and shredded flesh still steamed lightly with heat loss in
the cool night air. Huge chunks of tissue had been ripped from the thigh area,
and most of the left arm from shoulder to wrist was exposed to the bone. The
missing radio was face down near the corpse. Eric whistled for Max, and the
giant black canine trotted through the doorway—hackles raised and golden eyes staring—pissed
that he’d been left out of the fight.

Eric moved his light back and forth between the feral
and the remains by the forklift. As he did, an uneasy feeling began to settle
in his gut.

Snapping around quickly, he looked down both stretches
of the long warehouse before turning back towards the forklift. Max began to
grumble and sniff the air.

“What is it?” Sam asked.

Pointing his flashlight at the ragged cadaver between
the forks, he said, “There is no way that kid,” he indicated the practically
headless ghoul, “ate thirty pounds of raw meat in the short time he’s been in
here.” Focusing the beam on the outstretched arms of the boy brought a cold
chill to Eric’s stomach, “Look at his hands . . . they’re clean—no blood.
Whatever tore Alton to pieces, it wasn’t him.” Max began to bristle and stare
into the shadows down the long warehouse as Eric finished, “You’d better reload
. . . I don’t think we’re done here.”

The metallic
sproing
of shotgun shells
compressing tubular magazine springs coincided with Max’s straight-tailed
snarl.

“Tight Max . . . stay tight.”

“Loaded,” Sam yelled as he moved forward, passing by
Eric and sliding a little to the left behind Max.

“Sam . . . STOP!”

Sam skidded to a halt just as Max turned and
lunged—slamming his jaws shut with a bone shattering snap just inches from his
face.

“MAX . . . NO!”

Eric leapt forward and wedged himself between Max’s
teeth-bared, furrowed-eye crouch, and Sam’s perfectly still, wide-eyed, blood-drained
face.

“Max . . . no.”

Eric turned to look at Sam, “Are you OK?”

“As soon as my heart starts beating again I’ll let you
know.”

“Sorry, I should have told . . .”

Sam interrupted with a continual shake of his head,
“No-no-no . . . it’s my fault—I know better than to get between a K-9 unit and
its handler.”

“Multiply that by ten and you’ll come closer to what
happens when you get between a wolf pack and its prey.”

“It won’t happen again . . . I can damn sure promise
you that,” Sam exhaled slowly as he backed away several paces.

Eric reoriented Max forward and then took up the lead
position of their small triangle as the warehouse settled once again into eerie
silence, broken only by the low rumble from Max’s throat.

“Go get ‘em, Max,” Eric whispered.

Max took a half dozen stiff legged paces forward
before freezing again—growling and sniffing the air towards the far left
corner.

Three flashlight beams sliced through the darkness as
their triangle moved closer to the shadowy recesses. When they had closed the
gap enough, Max trotted ahead another twenty feet before halting—hackles raised
and lips curled back in a teeth baring threat display.

The very back corner of the warehouse was occupied by
a cornflake brown colored, semi-V hull, fish and ski boat that still rested on
its trailer. The low topside, as well as the short, highly angled dual
windshield had been decorated—badly—with attempts at hand painted cattails.

Eric leaned down and shined his light underneath the
trailer.

“I don’t see anything,” he whispered.

“Maybe it’s inside the boat.”

Eric looked at Max’s shaggy black, snarling head. It
was focused almost dead center toward the boat.

“Do either of you have an extra shotgun shell in your
pocket?” Eric whispered.

“I do,” Michelle hissed.

“Toss it in the boat.”

Eric crept forward another half step before Michelle’s
soft voice halted him.

“Get ready, I’m gonna throw it in three . . . two . .
. one . . .”

The corner of his eye caught the rotating brass and
red plastic shell as it arced skyward, cresting momentarily about twelve feet
above the ground before tumbling down and thumping noisily on the fiberglass
topside of the boat.

Immediately the boat thrummed and shook violently on
its trailer. Max lowered his front quarters and snarled a warning as a huge
figure seemed to flow and unfold from the shadowed recesses of the craft.
Taller and taller it stood, towering into the arc-white illumination of the
three flashlights. Burning red eyes gazed down at them with insatiable hunger.
Corded muscles shifted and throbbed under the tattered remains of an expensive,
long sleeve business shirt. Blood—some drying, some fresh—stained the figure’s
mouth, throat, arms and hands. And axe. Welded in an iron grip, the tainted
steel, razor edge of a woodsman’s felling axe glittered crimson against the
glare. The gigantic ghoul that was formerly
Victor Wayne Chapman howled
an ear-spitting cry and vaulted out of the boat, landing half crouched with a
thump in front of the three shocked figures.

“Oh shit,”
Eric and Michelle echoed simultaneously as the figure stood fully upright,
stretching well above their own considerable height.

BOOM
.
. .
BOOM
. The rapid double tap of Sam’s 12 gauge shattered the night as
the two rounds slammed into the massive abomination’s chest. With a lunge
belying its gigantic stature, the ghoul shot forward toward the trio, bare hand
and axe hand leading the way.

Eric thrust
the Delta towards the monstrous figure and managed to get off three quick shots
before Max tore into the fight—slamming his iron jaws shut in a bone crushing bite
around the ghoul’s axe wielding arm. With an almost nonchalant look, the huge
ghoul stopped and lifted his arm—Max still attached—clear off the ground and up
high before jerking him sideways and down, slamming Max into the ground and
dislodging him momentarily. The impact sent Max rolling and skidding across the
warehouse floor, but also cleared the field of fire. Sam, Michelle, and Eric
poured round after round into the monster, each hit smashing into VW and making
him jerk and spasm like a giant marionette controlled by an insane puppeteer.
In a flash, Max charged back in and ripped the ghoul’s left ankle off the
ground, teetering it momentarily before it fell like a giant oak. Snarling and
growling with VW’s ankle locked in a death grip, Max dug in and pulled, moving
the still writhing ghoul backwards. Another burst of gunfire from the trio
finally shredded the head and neck, and at last colossal ghoul lay still.

The echoes of
gunfire were still ringing in their ears as they illuminated the body lying in
front of them. Max trotted over to Eric’s side and traded a few head scratches for
a series of enthusiastic victory licks.

“I guess this
is where it starts to become personal,” Michelle mumbled.

“What do you
mean? Do you know this guy?” Sam asked.

“Not really, I
mean not personally. He was from the campground, and he was on my team when we
cleared the loops. He also saved Doc with that axe the very first night when
everything started.”

“Who was he?”
Sam focused his flashlight on the badly damaged head of the ghoul. “It’s hard
to tell, but I almost want to say that I’ve seen him before.”

“VW . . .
Victor Wayne Chapman . . . was the name he told us. I think he said he worked
in real estate in Fargo or Bismarck. Amy thought there was more to his story,
though. Why,” Michelle added, “do you know him?”

Sam shook his
head and squinted, pausing for a moment in recollection before answering. “No,
that name isn’t ringing any bells, and with all the damage we did to his head
and face, I can’t be certain. It almost seemed—at least when he first came out
of that boat—that I had seen him before. I just don’t remember where, or when .
. . or even if.”

Eric lifted
his hand away from Max’s heavy tongue and pointed at the blood splattered axe
still locked in the corpse’s death grip. “Did you catch what he did with
that—or rather, what he didn’t do with that?”

“Yeah, it was
just in his hands, almost as an afterthought. Like he wasn’t even aware of what
it was or how it was used. In any event, he didn’t try and chop us.”

The silence
that permeated the warehouse lasted a full minute as each of them pondered
unspoken thoughts.

“Eric,”
Michelle called out softly.

Shaking out
the cobwebs of heavy contemplation, Eric turned.

“You should
wash that. Right now.”

Following
Michelle’s gaze, he locked his own on the hand that had been scratching Max. It
was covered with sticky traces of saliva and blood.

“Crap.”

“There’s a
sink against the wall near the forklift, let’s get you over there and cleaned
up.”

Eric nodded,
“Keep an eye out; there may be more of those things in here.”

The trip to
the sink was uneventful, and Eric spent several minutes scrubbing the drying
blood from his skin. Only the cold water faucet worked. Next to the sink was a
half gallon pump dispenser of hand sanitizer, and Michelle practically bathed
his hand and forearm with the liquid.

“I don’t see
any cuts. It looks like your skin is intact.”

“Yeah . . .
um, I guess we should still let Doc know that I might have been . . .
contaminated.”

Michelle and
Sam both had their faces frozen in neutral as Eric continued. “Do we have any
information, or a guess as to whether this contagion is zoonotic?”

“What’s that
mean?” Sam asked.

“It means,”
Michelle answered, “can whatever bacteria or virus that’s causing this sickness
jump to a different species.”

In unison,
three flashlights swiveled towards the dark silhouette of Max who was crouched
near the forklift. Almost on cue, his huge, pink tongue scalloped against his
furry muzzle, making several passes through the blood drenched hair before
disappearing back in his mouth.

Stiff springs
bounced over yet another obstacle—pothole, speed bump . . . he couldn’t tell
from inside the cargo area of the box truck. It didn’t matter. All that he cared
about was his girls. All three of them. Two daughters and a wife. They were all
asleep—somehow—in this frigid, jarring nightmare. Perhaps for the ten
thousandth time since he had traded their Escalade for a promised safe
transport back to the United States, the man had asked himself the same
questions.
Did I do the right thing? Will they keep their end of the
bargain? Are any of the other people in here sick
? The truck had stopped a
half dozen times since they had boarded. On four of those occasions more people
were loaded into the back with them. The first was a group of three frightened
looking Spanish ladies. Two of them were older, with graying hair and shaking
hands. The third one, younger, but not young—maybe in her forties—escorted her
companions one at a time up the metal ramp that pulled out just below the
truck’s rear bumper. All three of them wore similar khaki colored long skirts
emblazoned with a hem of tiny dark airplanes. Some logo was stitched above the
hemline, but the darkness of the late night combined with the swishing motion
as they passed made it impossible to read.

The second
time the vehicle slowed to a bumpy, grinding halt, they had sat there idling
for almost ten minutes with the rear door closed. Distant, muted voices seemed to
be arguing—some in English, some in the heavily accented Russian—until with a
screeching grind, the door was rolled up and the ramp pulled down. A baker’s
dozen procession of figures marched up and into the cargo area. Men . . . women
. . . no children that he saw. Tourists, vacationers, stranded college
students—who knew. Outside, he caught a glimpse of two people huddled near the
front of what looked like a hotel’s courtesy shuttle. Standing next to them was
the same cigarette smoking Russian man that he had dealt with in what seemed to
be a lifetime ago. The footsteps on the metal ramp combined with the engine’s
low rumble blocked most of the conversation from his ears, but he did catch the
repeated words “Not sick, just a flu . . . not bad sick . . . please”

“Nyet.”

It was
punctuated with a cloud of exhaled smoke, and the metallic slide racking of the
pump shotgun in the second Russian’s grip.

The ramp was
slid back and locked in place, and then the shotgun wielding guard vaulted into
the back, pulled the door shut and took up position on a low, wooden stool. Igniting
a cigarette of his own, he kept the lighter’s flame burning long enough to gaze
at the assembly.

“No talking .
. . cross border soon . . . Shhh.  You talk, I throw off truck, yes?”

A muffled
cough accompanied the nod from the younger Spanish woman.

The third
loading of passengers brought nine more people on board. Most of them were so over
bundled against the cold that he couldn’t tell ages or sex. All of them were
adults, though. Two more stops occurred moments later, but no one got on at
either location. The last loading brought seventeen more riders. Two adults—both
of them young women—and fifteen children, all dressed almost identically. Black
pants, black shoes, and heavy, expensive looking woolen parkas. One of the
ladies pleaded softly—it was English but heavily accented with French—with the
shotgun guard, begging to be allowed to bring some blankets. Several drags on
the cigarette pulsed the guard’s face bright orange as he considered.

“You give
kiss, I give blanket.” A trail of sparkling embers raced through the open
doorway as the stub was flicked to the ground near a large pile of suitcases.

“What?”

“You give
kiss, I give blanket. One kiss, one blanket.”

A momentary
shudder, visible even through the heavy parka, passed across the woman’s
shoulders.

With his free
hand, the guard reached up and grabbed the door, pulling it down a foot before
stopping.  “Da sveedanya . . . Goodbye to blanket.”

“Wait . . .
please . . .”

The door
dropped another foot.

“OK . . . Oui
. . . OUI!” The girl stood on tiptoes and leaned toward the Russian guard,
aiming for his cheek. At the last second the guard shifted his stance and
locked his right arm behind her neck, crushing her lips to his. Her muffled
struggling didn’t seem to concern the guard, and he held her there for a solid
ten seconds.

His grip
finally relaxed, and the young lady pushed away from the guard, almost tripping
over another passenger in an effort to maintain her balance.

“You are
animal,” she spat. It had come out in three syllables,
an-NEE-mal
.

The guard
chuckled and lit another cigarette, gesturing down the ramp. “You go get
blanket.” A quick glance at the luminous dial of his watch preceded several
taps of the timepiece with his cigarette laden fingers. “Leave . . . one minute.”

The woman’s
boots stomped hurriedly down the ramp toward the pile of luggage. As she
defiantly gathered up an entire armful of blankets, the gloomy darkness slowly
lightened with the approach of another vehicle. It was coming from the opposite
direction, and when it finally neared, its headlights pushed the night back far
enough to illuminate a large road sign. It was marked as Canadian Highway 2,
Red Coat Trail. East. That meant they were heading west, not south towards the
United States. At his side, his youngest daughter tossed fitfully in her sleep.
An instinctive caress of his hand through her hair encountered a burning fever
erupting across her forehead.