Stage 3: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (6 page)

How are the kids?
Mason thought witlessly.
Or should I say, how
were
they?

The woman pressed her face against the glass and gnashed her teeth. The door was inches away and would open easily, but she made no move toward it. She'd lived in the building for over a year, so surely, even if she was blind, she should be able to find the door. Clearly then, whatever had invaded her body hadn't just taken her sight and given her a taste for human flesh; it had robbed her of her intelligence, too. These people tearing through the streets weren't people anymore. They were animals, with no higher brain function than that which told them to hunt and to kill and to feed.

Mason wondered idly how the nameless woman had managed to escape her apartment. If she couldn't manage to push open a lobby door, how did she figure out the intricacies of a doorknob? Someone else must have let her out, he reasoned. Did one of her children run? Did they make it as far as the lobby? At last, he realized that pondering such things was a futile exercise and only succeeding in creating a horrible image in his mind, so he abandoned the train of thought and took a few quick steps into the doorman's secret alcove. Once tucked away amid the scattered cigarette butts, he felt somehow safer, so he slowed his breathing and concentrated on making as little noise as possible.

There may have been a dozen creatures on the street. Those that weren't actively gorging themselves were alternatively stumbling blindly, listening with head cocked, or charging headlong toward some sound or another in a blind frenzy. And in among all of those homicidal lunatics were the consequences of their savagery. The dead were everywhere. One man was hanging halfway through the driver's window of a car that had piled into the back end of a parked SUV. Another poor bastard had actually been pinned between the vehicles, and what was left of his upper body now lay splayed across the hood of the car. Other corpses lay huddled up against the curb or spread-eagle in the middle of the road or in crumpled heaps amid drying pools of mire. Some were being feasted upon even now, while others had already been stripped to the bone and abandoned. It was a scene of which Dante himself could never have dreamed. And here was Mason, rudely thrust into the nightmare with no idea how to make some kind of sense of it all. He huddled back in his alcove and put his analytical mind to work in trying to make sense of the utterly incomprehensible.

The wild things were blind; that much was obvious. Blind and insane. But what of the others? From what he'd seen, it looked like the whole city had gone blind. Was he the only one who could see? No. Obviously not. Blind men can't drive, so at least he wasn't entirely alone. But why was everyone else blind? Was it more of that blue lightning? Possible, but unlikely. That new flu he'd heard about before shutting out the world? More likely. But could a simple flu turn otherwise normal people into mindless savages? It seemed impossible, but maybe it was
more
than a simple flu. Maybe it
was
a terrorist plot, after all. Some new strain of rabies cooked up in a lab in North Korea or Iran and set loose on an unsuspecting American public. Hell, maybe it was even a home-grown nut-job with a PhD and an access card to Plum Island messing around in his basement. Ultimately, though, the cause didn't matter. In a city gone mad, the only thing that mattered was survival.

The building across the street was an apartment building just like Mason's. Twenty stories of glass and stucco. Maybe a thousand residents. He gazed up at row upon row of windows and saw movement behind many. But how many of those shadows were wild creatures, and how many were like him? There was no way to tell, but if the sickness was a recent thing, there would be a lot, and many of them would be as clueless as he'd been about what was going on down below. Like him, they would awaken in complete ignorance and go about their day as usual; getting ready for work, packing a lunch, getting breakfast for the kids…..

Christ!
  The kids! Any time now, parents would be bundling their kids together, preparing to take them to Grandma's for the day or to soccer practice or day camp or wherever else parents unloaded the kids when there was no school to run herd while the parents worked. Mom and Dad would make sure that their little snowflakes had their bagged lunch or soccer gear or box of crayons and coloring book, and then they'd march them out the front door, straight into the mouth of the beast. Literally.

Was there any way Mason could warn them? Short of shouting at the top of his lungs or running from door to door, he couldn't imagine how. He entertained grandiose visions of spray painting a warning on the roadway or throwing rocks through windows, but every ridiculous idea was more preposterous than the last. Finally, he admitted that there was nothing he could conceivably do, and he assuaged his regret by assuming that not everyone was bound have quite his level of complete ignorance on the subject. If he hadn't been so adamant about closing off the world, a quick peek at the nightly news might have let him avoid the situation altogether.

The irony was not lost on him, but once he silently heaped an impressive array of curses upon his own misanthropy, he only added to the absurdity by thinking again of those faceless shadows in the windows and concluding once and for all,
every man for himself
.
…..

Just as he came to that determination, one of the neighbors in his own building awoke. One of the newer residents. The discordant wail of a crying baby bellowed through an open window a few floors up, directly above his head. Mason didn't even give it a second thought until he saw the two crazies across the street stop feeding on the grisly remains of the fat man and raise their heads. They hovered over the corpse for some seconds, then they crawled to their feet and gaped sightlessly across the street, growling like animals. Suddenly, both creatures abandoned the corpse and launched themselves toward this new sound at a frantic run. One of them tripped over a newspaper box and fell hard, but he was immediately back to his feet, completely disregarding the fresh wound on his forehead and charging headlong after the other.

Mason saw both men racing toward him and froze in fear. Should he run? If he did, they'd hear him. But if he stayed, they'd run right into him. No choice. He had to make a break for it. But even as he made the decision, it was already too late. That single moment's hesitation was enough. Both creatures were suddenly there, barely five feet away from him, snarling and clawing up at the unseen baby like wild dogs baying at a treed raccoon.

Just like that, he was trapped. The alcove that was supposed to be his sanctuary had become his undoing. The horrible creatures dripping gore and snorting blood were barely more than an arm's reach away, gaping up at that open window. He slowly drew in a deep breath and held it, moving not a muscle. There was nothing else he could do. If he tried to run now, they would be on him. Fool that he was to not flee when he had the chance! He should have seen what was going to happen. As soon as the baby started crying, he should have done the math.
Stupid!
  Even as he stared out at those two murderous creatures covered in another man's blood, he made himself a promise. If he somehow got out of this
damned
booby trap, he'd never let himself slip up like this again. If he was to survive this….…
whatever
it was…….he had to think fast. Any action was better than no action at all, so from now on, he had to make decisions on the fly and act without hesitation or second-guessing.

But first, he had to survive this predicament. He couldn't hold his breath much longer, and as soon as he released it, they'd be on him before he could draw another. He had to get out of there. He had to move. Now!

With agonizing slowness, he lifted one foot off of the ground and inched it forward. He lowered it as far in front of him as he could and settled it to the ground as softly as he could. One of the creatures flicked his head toward the whisper of sound and Mason froze. Several harrowing seconds passed before the creature finally snorted its frustration and turned back to the crying baby, and Mason moved again. He shifted his weight onto the forward foot, raised the other, brought it forward, settled it to the ground, and shifted his weight again.

Now, he was clear of the alcove, but he was nearly face to face with the man with the lacerated forehead. He was close enough to look directly into the crazy blank eyes and smell the metallic tang of blood dripping down the man's face. The man's eyes flicked down and settled on Mason's chest, and for one horrible moment, he thought the creature might have actually heard his pounding heart. His lungs were burning, but he forced himself to remain absolutely still as the creature gaped his way, snarling uncertainly. Several eternal seconds passed, then the creature finally returned its attention back to the wailing baby, and Mason moved again. He took a single step to the side, away from the creatures, and then the worst thing that could possibly happen, happened.

The crying stopped.

Shit!

Mason froze in place, close enough to reach out and touch the two madmen. Both creatures looked stupidly up at the silence as if waiting for it to resume, then they ceased their growling, lowered their gazes to the ground, and held perfectly still.

By now, Mason knew what they were doing. They were listening. Listening for any sound that might be a dinner bell. With Mason close enough to smell the rancid stink of their breath, they were listening. And as soon as he moved, they would pounce.

This time, he didn't hesitate. He lunged forward and shoved the wounded man back as hard as he could toward the other, and without waiting to see if he'd been successful or not, he ran. He heard a crash from behind, and a pair of insane bestial howls, and he ran for his very life. Then there came a flurry of scuffles and a growling and a pounding of footfalls behind him, and he knew that it had all been for nothing. They were both after him, and quickly gaining. There was no way to disguise the sound of his shoes striking pavement, so he didn't even try. He ran as fast as he could, panting heavily and tearing headlong down the sidewalk. He'd bought himself a second or two, but they were close now, and still gaining. Twenty feet, by the sounds of it, maybe less. Mason was in decent shape, but his strength was already ebbing. Those creatures were fueled by pure adrenaline and rage and would never tire. They'd keep after him until they had him. How could he hope to…….

Idiot! They're blind!

Without missing a beat, Mason cut across the street. The madmen followed and continued to gain, but Mason headed straight for a line of cars parked on the far side of the street. He leapt onto the hood of a big sedan, pounded across it in two steps, and jumped to the sidewalk on the far side without breaking stride, then he heard muted thuds behind him and chanced a quick look behind. Both men had run headlong into the far side of the sedan, and now they bumped along the side of the vehicle like moths against a lampshade as they followed the sound of his retreated footfalls,.

He had eluded two, but the street was full of wild things. Another appeared directly in front of Mason, attracted to the tumult, and Mason stopped in his tracks, looking about himself in desperation. There was nowhere to hide, no way past the madman, and now there were two other crazies tearing toward him from the rear. He was quickly running out of real estate. They would be all be on him in seconds. He had to move!

The car parked beside him had a tiny red light flashing on the dashboard. Not pausing for a second, Mason grabbed a metal garbage can from the curb and hurled it at the side window of the car. The glass shattered in a spray of pellets, and the street was suddenly filled with the screeching wail of the car's alarm. Those creatures running toward him immediately changed course toward this new sound, but then a more insidious aspect of the ploy made itself apparent. The alarm was so loud that it was attracting others into the street. They appeared out of doorways and from around corners and from inside alleyways and from everywhere at once, and every last one of them was running headlong directly toward the sound.

While those close to him were distracted and before the others arrived, Mason threw himself into the street and sprinted back across the road, planting himself between a lamppost and a mailbox. A middle-aged woman tore past and clipped the mailbox with her foot, but Mason held the box to keep it from falling and watched the woman stumble on with the jagged tip of bone protruding from her ankle.

This spot was safe for the moment, but he couldn't stay. The alarm was echoing through the streets, and more were coming from all sides. A dozen. Twenty. More still. In moments, there would be nowhere to go. Mason stepped out into the middle of the road and watched a loose mob rushing directly at him. He took a deep breath and held it, then he engaged in a desperate, deadly game that would either prove his downfall or his salvation. As each beast ran headlong toward him, he dodged to one side or another as quickly and quietly as he could manage, hoping that the harsh wail of the siren would cover any scuff his shoes might make on the pavement. As one creature raced past him, he would take a few steps away from the gathering swarm, gauge the speed and direction of the next in line, and deftly deke to the side to let it pass.

At last he reached the intersection, and the rushing crowd thinned, but Mason didn't stop to congratulate himself. He'd managed to extricate himself from the mess, but it had been a mess entirely of his own making. From here on, he'd have to be smarter. It would take all of his wits to survive this hellscape, but as he stepped gingerly over the destroyed corpse of a young child, he knew that he'd either survive or die trying.