Resurrection (Eden Book 3) (22 page)

It started to make squealing noises as they came nearer, and it raised a limb almost as if to wave. It had three fingers on the hand, two of which were fused together.

“The hell is that?” Evan stopped walking forward. He looked like he wanted to light the Molotov cocktails and throw them.

“The baby?” guessed Riley. The guy out in the field had mentioned a baby. His nipple…

“Hey little baby,” Anthony called out to it. “Anybody home?”

“
Hey little baby
?” Evan chided. “Anthony, you gotta be kidding me!”

“Hello!” Riley called out. “Anybody home?” Then, more quietly, “We’ve got something for you…”

There was a rustle from within the house.

“Get ready for this…” Anthony sighted down the barrel of his M7.

The screen door flew open, disgorging fiend from within.

“Holy—” Evan spat as Anthony’s Geiger meter spiked into one long, continuous click.

Like the baby on the chair, this thing vaguely resembled a human being, with its two arms and two legs. Unlike the child, it had a fully developed skull. In fact, its head was enormous, but did not appear so at first because of the thing’s girth. It was tall and it was wide. Curly dark hair covered its scalp and arms and the parts of its chest they could see beneath its apron. The apron looked to be made of some leathery-material and it dripped blood. The creature had a straggly beard grown out almost to its stomach.

“Should we shoot?” whispered Troi.

“Hold on,” said Riley.

“Hey,
uh
,” Anthony called to it. “This your house?”

The man, or whatever it was, looked at the five people standing outside and chortled—a raspy sound. It cupped one hand in its palm and cracked its knuckles, then did the same with the other hand.

“What’s going on around here, dude?” challenged Evan.

The creature chortled again, turned, and disappeared through the screen door.

“Way to go, Ev,” said Riley. “I think you pissed it off.”

…click…click…click…

“Why’d we even try to talk to it?” Evan muttered, patting down his pockets, searching for his lighter. “You can’t talk to mutants.”

“Let’s go!” Troi backed down the path, her Model 7 shaking. She couldn’t get over that woman in the barn.

“I’m with Troi.” Anthony listened to his Geiger meter as he stepped backwards.

“This isn’t right,” said Riley.

The little thing on the rocking chair was squealing and waving its appendage at them.

Evan lit the rags that were stuffed in the whiskey bottle.

…click…click…click—click—click—cliiiiiiiiii—

“Here it comes!” Anthony screamed.

The screen door flew back violently—

“Oh no!” cried Troi

—almost torn from its hinges, as the huge man-thing burst from the house, trundling across the porch and down the stairs at them. It had what looked like an old car battery strapped to its chest with a bunch of wires attached to it. The wires connected to a circular saw which it wielded in two hands. The thing screeched at them, revving the saw as it reached the grass in front of the house. Its little brother or child in the rocking chair bleated in a frenzy.

No one had to be told what to do.

Three Model 7 rifles opened fire as one, catching the lumbering thing in mid-stride. It came to an abrupt halt and started to convulse as rounds impacted its flesh. Sparks flew as rounds richocheted off the circular saw. The car battery around its neck exploded, dousing its upper body with lead-acid.

Evan threw one of the Molotov cocktails and it broke against the beast, enveloping the monster in flame. The thing unleashed an agonized bellow and was swept off its feet in the bursts of lead.

Their magazines emptied, the four friends stood there. The mutant on its back was enveloped in fire. The little creature in the rocking chair emitted a high pitched squeal and shook both arms furiously in the air over its deformed head.

Evan ran ahead a few meters and launched the second Molotov cocktail. His aim was true and it pitched through an empty window to shatter inside the house. The fire crackled as it caught, then black smoke poured out of the window. The little thing shrieked.

As his friends reloaded their M7s, Evan brought Bertha up and into play. The first projectile he fired zipped over the porch and through the gaping doorway. The windows lit up as the grenade exploded within the house. The little creature in the rocking chair was livid.

Evan fired one round after another from the MM1, the fragmentation grenades detonating inside and against the house. He turned and sent his last round back down the way they had come, through the barn. It exploded, igniting the gun powder Troi had sifted around inside.

The burning home collapsed, burying the porch and the screeching baby on it.

“Well?” Evan asked.

The men and women looked at each other.

“Okay then.” Evan raised his Model 7. He hadn’t had a chance to fire it yet. He emptied a magazine out into the flaming wreckage of the house. Riley, Anthony, and Troi, having reloaded, did likewise.

“Damn,” said Anthony.

“Damn
right
.” Evan nodded.

“What the hell were they?” asked Troi. Immense plumes of smoke roiled into the afternoon sky from the barn and the caved-in house.

“You think the little baby survived that?” asked Riley.

“Heck no,” said Evan. “Those were the last of the fragmentation.” He reloaded Bertha’s cylinders with buckshot rounds.

The thing they had shot up—the thing that had been doused with battery acid and set afire with a Molotov cocktail—sat up and growled at them through its melted, steaming flesh.

“Bertha.” Evan fired once, and the thing disintegrated from the waist up in a shower of blood and viscera that decorated the area behind it. “Good girl.” He patted the weapon.

“Nice shot,” said Anthony, taken aback.

“I think we should get out of here.” Riley looked around at the trees nervously.

“Those things weren’t alone...” Troi thought of what the bloodied man they had encountered had said. About
them
. “Were they?”

“I think we’re being watched.” Riley spoke above the crackle of the fires. She said it casually, but inside she was frightened.

Troi turned and sprayed a magazine of three round bursts from her Model 7 into the trees surrounding the fiery barn. Anthony followed her example, firing into the trees past the house.

“No-No-No!” Evan raised his rifle to join in when Riley yelled at them all. “
Don’t
!”

Anthony and Troi had fired themselves out.

“
Stop
!” cried Riley. “Don’t do that!”

Anthony looked at his sister and lowered his voice. “They’re out there!”

“I can
feel
them,” seconded Evan.

“Shooting into the trees isn’t going to do anything.”

“Can we go…” Troi asked warily, “…
now
?”

Looking into the trees, Evan breathed hard.

Anthony looked at his sister.

“Yeah,” said Riley. “Let’s.”

They hustled back towards the meadow where they had encountered the man earlier in the day. As they ran, they cast concerned looks over their shoulders, back towards the plume of smoke marking the remains of the house, the barn, and the horrors known and unknown within.

“Troi,” Evan told her on the way. “You did good back there.”

“Me? You saved my life in the barn.”

“The way I remember it, you beat the hell out of that thing.”

“I froze. But thanks.”

“Do you think they’re human?” asked Anthony.

“They’re human,” Riley said.

“But did you see the size of them?” Anthony didn’t sound convinced. “They’re huge.”

“They’re mutants,” said Evan.

“Krieger called them munts,” said Troi. “I’ve seen one or two, stillborn at the hospital.”

“What causes that?” Anthony puzzled. “The radiation?”

“Sure,” said Riley. “Why not.”

Anthony thought of the conversations he’d had over the years, inside and outside of class, about the efficacy and morality of PL-422—the law that had taken mutated kids away from their parents. What kind of life had those things had? Well, Anthony knew what kind of life they’d had now. He’d seen the evidence up close. And it wasn’t any life he’d choose to help prolong. He wondered if, and how, things could have been different for the monsters back in that house, and then decided it didn’t matter. They were murderous freaks and they were dead, and they were dead because he had helped kill them. He had no qualms about that.

Riley thought about the baby she had lost, about how she could never birth anything like one of those things they’d encountered. She had friends who’d received news from their doctors that the baby inside them had deviated from the normal developmental pathway—that congenital disorders would result in malformations and dysplasias. Each of her friends had decided to end their pregnancies rather than see them through. To a one. Riley had understood why then, and she more than understood why now.

They reached the meadow.

“Okay, which way do we have to go now?” Evan stared up at the sun, which had moved further west.

“This way.’ Riley made to lead them northwest.

“You sure?” demanded Evan.

“Yes I’m sure.”

Anthony still had the volume on his Geiger meter turned up loud enough for all of them to hear.

…click…click…click…

Now that Krieger was gone, they’d have to be careful that they did not wander into a hot zone. Anthony wondered if they hadn’t had the Geiger meters how they would know they were in areas with higher than normal radiation? Would the plants and trees be dead? Would there be no animals? Would the animals be similar to the things they’d killed? Creatures none would recognize?

As they walked, Anthony wondered why they weren’t seeing any animals at all. He thought about how, a week before, the only thing that had been weighing on his mind was Nicki’s breaking up with him. That felt so trivial now.

“Oh…” Troi stopped at the front of their short column and the others grouped around her, looking down upon the wet yellow leaves and what lay there.

It was a human hand, severed at the wrist.

“Is that that guy’s?” Anthony wondered.

“He was missing some fingers.” Evan remembered, or thought he did. “Wasn’t he?”

“Yeah,” said Riley.

“On which hand?” Anthony tried to recall. “On his right hand?”

“His left.”

“Then that’s not him.” Evan wasn’t sure he was right, but he said it as firmly as he could. They needed to maintain their poise and keep their heads straight.

“It
might
be him,” replied Riley.

“And it might
not
—”

“That’s a right hand, not a left hand.” Riley considered the trees about them. “Come on…”

“How’d it get here?” Troi looked back towards the hand as they moved on.

A kilometer later they found two arms cleaved from their owners, attached to each another with handcuffs.

“Okay,” said Anthony. “This is
definitely
him.”

“Yeah.” Evan’s offered a grim affirmation.

“Where’s the rest of him then?” Troi beseeched the others, obviously distressed.

“Where are they?” Evan asked Riley.

“Maybe they killed him,” said Anthony. “Went back to their house.”

“They’re gonna find it…” Evan didn’t relish the prospect. “They’re gonna be pissed.”

Riley said, “Maybe. We have to keep going.”

They didn’t need to be told twice.

…click…click…click…

When they found the dismembered torso, they almost didn’t stop. Riley made them. “Wait.” She prodded the torso with one foot, flipping it over.

“One nipple…” Troi said.

“That’s our guy,” said Evan, exhaling.

They picked up their pace and hoofed it for another hour, speaking little amongst themselves. The steady, intermittent clicks from Anthony’s Geiger meter continued unabated. As they walked, the sun began its final descent. They stopped to rest and drink from their canteens and water bladders.

…click…click…click…

“You think they’re out there?” Troi sat on a rock, looking ready to spring off it at a moment’s notice.

“Yeah.” Riley wouldn’t sit. “I think so.”

Evan needed to urinate. He considered walking off on his own where the women couldn’t see him, but decided that, given the circumstances, no one would mind. He lay Bertha down on the pine nettles behind the rock Troi perched upon and walked a meter past it, unbuckling his pants and beginning to relieve himself, his Model 7 slung on his side.

“We have to start thinking about where we’re going to spend the night,” said Riley.

“I don’t want to sleep out here…” said Anthony. “Not if any more of those things are out here.”

…
click
…
click
…
click
…

“Yeah, well maybe…” Evan finished his business and readjusted his pants. “Maybe we can find a house or building or—I don’t know—a friggin’ cave or something to sleep in.”

“Sleep?” Troi laughed nervously. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

…
click
—
click
—
click
…

“Wait a…” Anthony looked down at the LCD read out on his Geiger.

Evan stopped what he was doing and stared off into the trees. Troi popped off her rock.

…
click
—
click
—
cliiiiiii
—

“Here they come!” Troi cried out, firing her M7 into the forest around them repeatedly.

“I see them!” Evan called, firing three-round bursts at the shadows he thought he saw. “I see them!”

Riley and Anthony couldn’t help themselves, and joined in the salvo. Each fired in a different direction. Evan and Riley fired short bursts into the trees and had just swapped out magazines when Troi and Anthony, firing on semi-automatic, emptied their magazines.

“Wait!” Riley yelled over Troi and Anthony’s gunfire. “Wait! Wait! Wait!”

But they didn’t. It wasn’t until they’d fired out a second magazine apiece, the smell of cordite hanging heavy in the air, that they listened to what she had to say.

“Save your ammunition,” Riley implored them. “They
want
us to fire ourselves out.”