Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (60 page)

Something about his words crinkled at my gut, and I
furiously began spinning the fuel pump as I grasped for the meaning behind the
warning. Realization came too late, and the distant sound of an engine starting
matched with the faint, but rapidly growing intensity on top of the pole lights
around the parking lot.

“Eric . . . this is not good!”
Michelle's voice, although not panicking, had a
definite edge of concern attached.

“Shit . . . there’s a generator unit in the
maintenance shop . . . it’s got a remote start. He must have hit it.”
My hand spun the crank as fast as I could, but I was
limited by the volume of gas it could push with each rotation. Four complete
circles equaled one gallon of gas. My mental arithmetic estimated I had
transferred around seven gallons when the
ping
of a bullet ricocheted
off the fuel tank.

“Damn it, he shooting at me!”
I shouted as I dropped the handle and vaulted over
the low retaining wall.

One of the lights near the boat ramp went out, and a
sideways glance around the corner of my cover showed Michelle twisting to line
up on another. I took the opportunity to unsling the rifle and turn on the
night scope. Another bullet zinged against the fuel tank as I steadied the
crosshairs and waited for a target in the green night scope. The illumination
from the pole lights peaked, and the entire parking area was bathed with a
dazzling intensity as the distant hum from the generator smoothed out. I didn’t
need night vision to see the drunk maintenance man step out of the doorway and
lift the revolver toward the fuel depot. I also didn’t need to remind myself of
what would happen if he managed to hit a vulnerable component, especially the
component known as Eric the human fuel pump. That thought, combined with
Michelle’s aggravated shouting sealed my decision—along with Chuck Tempsee’s
fate. I adjusted my aim and sent a single round into his chest. He immediately
dropped to his knees, and I followed up the single with another triple just to
be sure. The rifle’s quadruple explosions seemed extraordinarily loud, even
through my protective headgear.

“Say again . . . I didn’t copy that last message,”
I shouted through the microphone as I stood and
wormed my way back to the fuel pump.

“I’m hitting the lights, but the distance and the
angle that I’m shooting at isn’t breaking the glass covers. Crap, we’ve got
incoming.”

I ducked to the inside of the retaining wall and took
a rapid assessment of the situation. There were three ghouls scampering around
the far corner of the office, and as I watched, one of them crumpled to his
knees before face planting hard into the dirt. A second one followed moments
later, and I could see Michelle lining up on the last one as it turned its red
eyes towards her. I made a decision and went for the lights. Half of a thirty
round magazine later, I had managed to knock out three more of the nearest pole
lights in addition to the one at the peak of the shop. The dock and boat launch
area descended into shadows, but were still visible from the reflected
illumination of the remaining lights. So was the fuel depot.

“Reloading,”
Michelle called out as I searched the area for a target.

“Back in position and ready.”
Her voice was accompanied by several deep breaths,
and I took one more quick scan before dropping the rifle to a one handed grip
and using my free hand to spin a pump handle again. The noise of the fuel
transfer was a muted
whirr
as the pump’s impellers pushed the gas down
the long hose and into the tank. I got to a count of ninety-four rotations when
Michelle came across the radio—her warning tone carrying a sense of urgency as
she spoke.
“Eric, I’ve got multiple targets in a group coming through the
gap between the office and the shop, and I think at least one or two more passed
around the back side of the office, which means they might come out on your
side . . . and Eric . . . I’m almost positive at least one of these over here
is a feral.”

I dropped the handle again and scooted around toward
the front corner of the low fuel depot wall. Using the top of the wall as a
brace, I scanned towards the area she had indicated, watching a group of three
infected . . . then four . . . then seven . . . materialize next to the office.
True to her observation, one of the ghouls near the back of the group seemed to
move with darting quickness and deliberation.

“I see it . . . second from the back on your left.”
As I watched, the small pack shifted across the
bodies of their fallen companions, ignoring them completely, but seeming
somehow drawn to the front door where Chuck’s body lay. I whispered into the
microphone
. “Wait for your shot. I don’t think they see us yet, and if you
can take out the feral, we might have a better chance of getting through this
in one piece.”

“Just be ready to rain down with the heavy artillery
if this doesn’t work,”
her soft, even
voice came through my headset.

I kept my eye on the feral as the group nosed toward
the body of the maintenance man, and the faint
thack
of the Ruger
cycling came across the radio. Six ghouls now stood in front of the office.

“Nice shot. Now take your time and dust the rest of
them.”
I made a mental note to never piss
off Michelle as one by one, the remaining infected dropped—each accompanied by
a single, muted metallic cycle of the silenced .22.

“That’s all of them that I can see, but don’t forget
that some might have gone behind the building.”

“I’ll cover that area,”
I said,
“so head up here where you’ll have a
better angle to shoot from if they come from that direction.”

Michelle crept off of the dock and cat-footed to the
depot, taking over the position I had just vacated inside the front wall. “How
much more gas will it take?” she asked.

“At least a couple of hundred rotations to completely
fill it.”

“You better get busy.”

My best guess put me at about thirty gallons already
delivered, so I figured another 250 spins would put us pretty close to full,
and I got cranking. Michelle scanned both sides of the building the entire
time, but nothing came into view. It didn’t occur to either of us that
something may have already crossed our field of view during the firefight, and
as I finished my count, a low, throaty growl raised my hackles on edge. I spun
my boots on the cement pad just in time to see a pair of yellow eyes cresting
the retaining wall. In a flash, the feral crashed into me and sent us both
cart-wheeling over the wall and onto the gravel. 

The crosshairs wobbled slightly before skewing
sideways and off the target. It took several more deep breaths accompanied by a
series of infinitesimal nudges on the bipod’s left leg before the tapering
reticles hovered once again over their objective. At a range of almost 400
yards, even the slightest tremor would be magnified and cause the projectile—in
this case, a 168 grain boat-tail hollow-point—to veer wide off of its intended
trajectory. The laminated stock of the 300 Winchester magnum rifle in his
hands, however, remained steady. With the speed of a frozen snail, the pad of
his finger slid off of the guard and onto the trigger, lightly feathering the
polished metal curve that was the first mechanical link in the chain of events
that would send the bullet blistering on its way at over 3200 feet per second.
Light pressure . . . a steady pull . . . a half breath . . . and the hand loaded
cartridge would send its payload on a collision course, arriving in the blink
of an eye and transferring over 2000 foot pounds of energy to the chest of his
target. Ounce by ounce, his finger pressure increased on the trigger until it
reached the breaking point of slightly less than three pounds, and then the
pent up potential energy in the coiled firing pin spring was released, driving
the pointed and tempered end of the pin into the rifle’s chamber.

Clack

He let the half breath seep through his teeth, and a
moment later his gloved hand worked the bolt on the rifle, recocking it and
once again closing the bolt on an empty chamber. His eyes shifted to the left
at the walkie-talkie that sat propped against the trunk of a small willow tree.
Soon . . . the command would come, and he would strike the first blow. For now
though, he was content to wait and follow instructions . . .
stay hidden,
change out the batteries in the radio every morning, and keep watching
. He
was tired, and more than a little stiff from the lack of movement, but the
anticipation of the role that he knew would eventually come kept him focused
and on task. Well, mostly on task. He let the bipod balance the rifle while he
rolled to the right and off of the thick waterproof mat he’d been lying on.
Behind a low screen of camouflaged-patterned burlap, his soup simmered in the
heavy foil bowl that sat atop his homemade tuna can alcohol stove. The remains
of seven more similar, yet empty, “cook in the container” soup packages were
neatly stacked like Siberian nesting dolls behind the squat, round stove that
hissed with a good burn of blue flames. Five minutes later, the empty stack
increased in height by one, and he returned to the rifle. Finger again on the
trigger as he peered through the telescopic sight, he went through the motions
and made his 200
^th
one shot “kill” on the distant target. Cycling
the action for number 201, he stared through the scope and let the crosshairs
settle again. For once, his target was stationery—a radical change from what
seemed to be the usual pattern of constant movement. The stubble-covered cheek
that rested against the laminated stock smiled, and the finger tightened again.

Clack

Through the crosshairs, he watched as the old man on
the orange tractor worked the hydraulics, and the front end bucket lifted
another load of loose gravel from the large pile at the back edge of parking
lot across the road. After a brief two point turn, the tractor scooted back across
the highway and deposited the load onto the growing mound near the large metal warehouse.
With a barely perceptible shift, the scope’s crosshairs moved up and left,
wavering in transition before settling on the black face that popped up
infrequently, occasionally even with binoculars, over the short wall on top of
the roof. Target number two. Even with binoculars on the roof, the sniper was
sure that he hadn’t—and wouldn’t—be seen . . . after all, he’d picked and set
up the nest himself, and was confident in its invisibility. Dropping his eyes
out of the scope, he focused on the open nylon pouch that decorated the gap
underneath the rifle’s barrel. Twenty shiny brass cartridges, each in their own
narrow sleeve, waited patiently. Another identical ammo wallet held their twins
in his backpack. It was more than enough to take out the old man, the roof
guard, and most importantly, he’d been told, the tall game warden.

The speed that the feral crossed the short distance of
the fuel depot before slamming into me was stunning, and I barely had time to lift
the AR sideways as a makeshift shield before the impact sent both of us smashing
backwards over the short block wall. My boot heels caught momentarily on the
lip of the wall and worked as a fulcrum point that used the rest of my 6’4”
frame in a science experiment, the focus of which seemed to key in on mass and
acceleration. And abrupt deceleration.  My shoulder blades exploded into the
gravel with a jarring thump that knocked half of the wind out of me, and it was
all I could do to hold onto the rifle that was being wrenched inch by inch out
of my grip.

“Eric!” I heard Michelle yell as the creature shifted
one hand to my hair, knocking my ear protectors partially off and forcing my
head backwards. Incredibly, with only one hand now on the rifle between us, the
strength and resistance didn’t seem to diminish at all. My throat was being
exposed with every millimeter that the ghoul’s inhuman strength twisted into my
hair, and I could smell its fetid, carrion breath blasting into my face as it
inched closer. Amber yellow eyes reflected the maniacal grin that was chiseled
on its face, and they lit up with rabid anticipation as I pushed the rifle away
with all the strength I could muster. I moved it maybe one inch. Maybe. I could
vaguely feel my feet thrashing against the gravel, trying to find a purchase as
the ghoul crushed closer against my chest. In the soft illumination that was a
combination of the still functioning pole lights and my own fading vision, I
saw Michelle’s shadowy form moving behind the creature. A second, or maybe an
hour later—I couldn’t tell, and it seemed like both—I felt the grip on my hair
weaken momentarily, and then what seemed to be a double loop of rope dropped
around the feral’s neck. Its hand released the rifle barrier and reached for
the noose, and a familiar but distant
clicking
sound penetrated my
brain. I slammed the now free rifle stock into the ghoul’s temple as Michelle’s
frantic voice was screaming something at me. My blow seemed to have little
effect, but the rope around its neck now appeared to be the focal point of its
efforts, and the iron grip on my hair was forgotten as it began to twist and
tear at the thick loops.

“ERIC . . . MOVE!” Michelle's voice penetrated the fog
of my brain at the same instant that my eyes registered her waffle-soled hiking
shoe impact with the creature’s face, spinning it slightly sideways and
allowing me to roll free. I scrambled to my feet, gasping and wheezing like an
old coal fired freight train as the feral began to thrash and spasm violently.

Michelle’s hand grabbed me by the vest and pulled hard
towards the water. “Eric . . . that’s not going to hold it for long! We’ve got
to go right now!”

As I stumbled fully to my feet with her tugging me
toward the boat, my vision cleared enough for me to see that Michelle had
somehow handcuffed one of the creature’s wrists to the thick rubber fuel line
that she had looped around its neck. Even now the hose was whipping back and
forth in a frenzy, like a violent fly fishermen fighting off a swarm of gnats.

I lifted the AR and flung several wild shots at the
monster, but it showed no reaction, and Michelle’s forceful heave refocused my
momentum. There was just enough light to see by, and we thumped down the wooden
dock and leapt into the patrol boat. I handed her my rifle and then reached for
the key ring and my flashlight. “No sense in staying quiet now,” I said.

She grunted something that I didn’t catch as I was
searching for the right key, and then several rounds of 5.56 blasted into the
night from the AR-15. I knew the key I was looking for, and it didn’t take me
long to find it and put it in the ignition. I turned it in stereo with a quick
prayer, and the big fuel-injected Yamaha engines fired up immediately. Spinning
toward the stern, my flashlight showed that the fuel nozzle had already been
displaced by the creatures’ struggle, so I shifted into reverse and backed away
from shore as Michelle dumped round after round into the dark silhouettes of at
least a dozen more infected that were lumbering out of the darkness. Like a
baby whale following its mother, the bass boat slipped off the shore and
trailed after us, its anchor rope relaxing momentarily as I transitioned into
forward, and then stretching taunt as the deep bladed propellers dug in.

I used the night scope and the NauticStar’s electronic
compass to head about a mile southeast. The navigational GPS screen was
indicating that we were about seven miles away, and on land, so there was no
sense in relying on that. After about a mile, I shifted more to the south and
headed toward the wide passage where Oswalds Bay became Devils Lake proper. I
kept on that course for about five minutes before shifting to the southwest and
increased our speed out into the light chop of the big lake. Keeping the boat
steady at thirty miles an hour for eight minutes—if my math was correct—was a
simple equation should put us about four miles out into the center of the
western section of Devils Lake. When the indigo backlight of my watch showed
that time was up, I throttled back and let the boat drift to a stop. All of the
gauges showed optimal readings, and the fuel gauge was still showing full, so
Michelle and I both scanned several full circles, but saw nothing except empty
water. The depth indicator was reading thirty-five feet, and I dropped anchor
and shut the boat down. One of the modifications that had been made to the
patrol boats was to replace the livewells with onboard storage. Some of them
were filled with additional life jackets, others with rescue and first aid
equipment. I moved to the stern where two wide bench seats sat facing each
other on heavy, tubular aluminum frames. Another alteration in place of the
sport fishing seats, each was designed to hold four adults in handcuffs, and I
could recall several occasions when both seats were filled. For now though, I
lifted up the bench cushion and removed a double handful of surplus Coast Guard
woolen blankets. Michelle plopped on the other bench as I replaced the seat,
and she silently took the offered portion of blankets. A moment later I was
seated beside her, our shoulders touching underneath the multi-layered sandwich
of covers that draped across us from our outstretched legs to our chins. I felt
some movement between us, and her hand found mine and squeezed lightly.

“Are you OK?” she asked delicately, as if she was
afraid of the answer.

“Peachy keen.”

The boat bobbed in silence; the stillness magnified by
the slight quiver that coursed through Michelle’s grasp.

“Did it bite you?”

I could hear the worry, both spoken and unspoken in
her four words, and I beat back my usual inclination to give a sarcastic
answer.

“I’m fine . . . thanks to you.”

Her silence spoke volumes that I could read
instantaneously, and I squeezed her hand and leaned into her. “Seriously,” I
said, “I’m OK. No bites, no scratches . . . nothing. Well, I think my left ass
cheek is going to have a serious bruise.”

Her deep exhalation coincided with another tremor that
passed over her body as the bottled up stress began to dissipate. I felt more
than saw her nose edge skyward. “Thank you God,” she whispered.

I lifted my arm around Michelle, pulling her tight
against me as I echoed her prayer. In the skies above, the breeze was beginning
to break up the cloud cover, and the first, faint twinkles of stars were
becoming visible.

“We shouldn’t have come here . . . to Devils Lake, I
mean,” Michelle murmured into my shoulder.

“What . . . and miss all the fun and adventure, not to
mention the free cardio workouts we get running for our lives when we’re not
freezing our tails off in the cold. Plus,” I added with a wry grin, “if you act
now, we’ll include at no additional cost a fabulous cruise to a mystery
location that you may, or may not, be able to find.” Michelle elbowed me in the
ribs, but I heaped on a few extra spoonfuls anyhow. “And don’t forget, the
first thirty callers will also qualify for a return trip through a narrow, corpse-infested
creek that passes under a bridge where hundreds of bloodsucking, red-eyed ghouls
are waiting to welcome you with open arms, and mouths.”

“Thanks for making me feel even worse, Eric.”

“You know I’m just teasing.”

“I know, I just feel like . . . like . . .,” she
dropped off with a deep sigh.

I shifted under the blankets and pulled her even
closer. “Like you’re starting to wish that you were in a cult, and today was
the day they were going to serve that ‘special fruit punch’ for breakfast.”

I felt her chest jog a few low cycles as she chuckled.
“Yeah, kind of like that . . . where everything would just go away . . . no
stress, no responsibilities, no worries . . .”

I listened in silence for a few heartbeats before I
added, “No fears.”

“No fears,” she echoed softly.

I cleared my throat and pulled slightly away from her
as I sat up, rolling my shoulders to stretch out the cramps. “I think that both
of us are feeling a lot of the same things. Apprehension, anticipation, alarm .
. . fear of what might happen, fear of what has already happened, and the
absolute and honest dread that comes with the stark realization that we don’t
have a freaking clue about what’s really happening.”

“Yeah, all of that and a lot more, too. I mean,”
Michelle said as she spun to face me, “I feel so torn. This situation is just
so surreal I can’t wrap my head around it. Is this the end, Eric?”

“The end?”

“As in ‘the end of the world, thank you for playing,’
end.”

“Nope.”

“And how can you be so sure, Eric?”

“Fast food.”

“What?”

“Well,” I began, “aside from the more commonly known
signs of the apocalypse, I, being a scholar extraordinaire, have conducted
extensive research on my own and determined that there are lesser known but
equally important indicators of doomsday.”

I took a second to click my light on the lowest
setting and shine it at Michelle’s face. The scoff that hovered somewhere
between annoyed irritation and familiarity with my thought process was frozen
there. I kept the dim light steady and locked for a solid thirty seconds, and
then her expression broke and she groaned, “OK . . . I’ll bite . . . what the
heck are you talking about?”

“Well, I’m glad you asked . . . you see, the sky
raining fire and rivers turning red with blood are, of course, well known
markers that point towards the end times, but my research has concluded that
other signs are equally important, the most telling of these being the dreaded
‘box and sign’ conundrum.”

“Hold that thought,” Michelle said as she stood and
turned on her own flashlight, scanning around the boat. After a few seconds she
located the telescoping shepherd’s crook rescue pole, and unclipped it from the
brackets. The curved metal loop was delicately, yet deliberately placed around
my waist, and she guided me up and over to the edge of the boat deck. “Now,”
she continued, “you were about to tell me something that had to do with fast
food and a boxing sign. If it turns out to be something stupid, or in any way
relates to an episode of the three stooges, then you better pray you brought dry
clothes.”

I felt a series of not too light nudges toward the
dark water as Michelle reinforced a reminder of the consequences. “Seriously,
what I’m about to tell you is probably more classified then alien abductions
and Elvis sightings put together,” I said.

A particularly forceful nudge shifted me a few inches
closer to a cold bath. “OK-OK-OK, I’ll tell you, but it wasn’t a ‘boxing sign,’
it was the ‘box and sign’ . . ., uh, sign.”

She bent slightly at the knees, and her face took on
an almost gleeful look of anticipation as the hook shoved into my lower back
and drove me to the very edge. “Last chance.”

I spun against the railing to face her, throwing a
haphazard grip around the tubing . . . just in case. “It’s the fast food
conspiracy. Think about it Michelle . . . When you’re in line at the drive
through, all of the windows are plastered with giant posters that show these
artistic works of art in the shape of hamburgers, or salads, or chicken
sandwiches. And when you get to the speaker, assuming you can even understand
the 300 words per second that the mysterious voice on the other end talks in,
you attempt to place an order for whatever was on that poster. Now you’re
pulling ahead to where the kid making minimum wage—and having no talent for
foodservice except the uncanny ability to turn every single box of fries upside
down in your bag—hands you your order, along with incorrect change, and sends
you on your way. But you’re hungry, so you don’t even leave the lot; you just
slide into one of the parking spaces and open the bag. And after digging
through several layers of loose french fries, you withdrawal that brown
cardboard container and flip the hinged top backwards to reveal your own
culinary masterpiece. Only it looks nothing like what’s on the posters in the
window. Huge fluffy buns topped with a perfectly round, thick patty . . . garden
fresh onion rings and finely shredded lettuce that looks like it was just picked,
all of it crested with exactly the right amount of cheese, mustard, and ketchup
. . . and the whole creation visibly steaming with warmth—that’s what you
ordered. What you got, however, is a sad blot of ground something or other,
only partially contained within a bun that has the faded impression of the tile
floor and the cook’s lug-soled boot still imprinted. Most of the cheese is
attached to the paper wrapper that the sandwich was half covered in, and if you
want any lettuce, you have to make do with the triple helping of thick center
ridges that are large enough to present a serious choking hazard to a billy
goat. Your crisp, mouth watering onion slices have been demoted to soggy
circles that aren’t even on the sandwich, and yet from past experience at any
drive through in the world, you still feel lucky that they were even included.
And to top it off, your condiments have either been applied with an electron
microscope, or a seven cubic yard track hoe bucket. And then, as you glance
back and forth between the artwork in the window and the cheerless and
heartrending facsimile in your hands, you realize that all is right in the
world . . . all is well. Because the day that you actually get something in
your order that looks like the picture on the poster, well little camper,
that’s the day of judgment.”