The Survivor Chronicles: The Risen (26 page)

They had almost made it to the middle of the
electronics aisle when John spotted the shadow coming at them from
the direction of the home goods section. Carl moved far faster than
John had thought possible as he changed directions and sprinted
toward the circular counter area in the middle of the electronics.
There was only one small opening near where they were and three
cash registers set up on top of the counter.

John grabbed hold of Josh and pulled him
back, they were never going to make it behind the counter in time.
Xander rolled into the shelter of the counter area behind Riley.
Riley's head popped back out, her eyes were wide with worry as she
gestured frantically to him. John shook his head at her, and pulled
Josh toward one of the DVD aisles instead. Josh hesitated for a
second, apparently torn about which way to go but he gave way to
John's grasp.

John wanted to press his back against the
rack in an attempt to hide himself even more but he would only
knock the DVDs to the floor. He bit his bottom lip as he struggled
to get his breathing under control before he laid down on the floor
and wormed his way toward the front of the aisle in order to look
out.

Memories of being trapped within the gas
station assailed him as he met Riley's gaze across the way. They'd
gotten out of that mess, he reminded himself; they'd get out of
this one too. His gaze drifted away from hers when the first of the
pack stepped into view. John felt like he'd just flipped over the
handlebars of his bike and slammed chest first into the ground as
all of the air rushed out of him.

His fingers flattened on the cool linoleum,
his chin pressed against it as the creature's head swiveled back
and forth. And creature was the only word he could think of for
this once human being standing fifty feet away from him. Its head
moved like a snake on the hunt as it passed within feet of the
counter where the others were hidden. A large gash on the side of
its head had peeled back to reveal the bone of the skull beneath.
Its eyes had sunken into its head, making it seem like a walking
skeleton moving through the store in search of the prey it had
lured in like a Venus flytrap.

Its head turned toward John but he remained
immobile as he watched the creature walk by. Eyes that had once
been human, and had color, were jaundiced now and would have been
better suited on a corpse. Even the irises had a yellowish hue to
them. Its skin had taken on a grayish tint that made him think of a
dress a serial killer would have created out of human flesh.

Not zombies,
he reminded himself, or at least not zombies in the way that they
had always believed them to exist. These things didn't come back to
life and they hadn't climbed out of any graves. They didn't do any
of those things but they were looking more and more like walking
corpses every time he saw them.

Nothing human should look like that and
still be alive. He fought the urge to slink into the shadows and
look away from the monstrosity creeping through the store, but he
didn't dare make any movement. He couldn't even remember the last
time he'd breathed as his lungs began to burn. Exhaling through his
nose, he barely took another breath through his lips.

Another one stepped out behind the first. He
could clearly see its upper and lower teeth on the right side as
part of its face had peeled away to reveal them. It moved toward
the counter and rested its hand upon it. The tips of its bony
fingers could be seen poking out through its jagged and peeled back
skin.

Were they becoming walking skeletons? He
couldn't shake the idea as those bony fingertips made a clicking
noise against the top of the counter. A bead of sweat slid from his
hairline, down his temple and across his cheek to his eye. It stung
his eye but he didn't dare to blink in order to clear it away.
Another annoying trickle began to make its way down his cheek as
the incessant clicking continued.

He didn't know why they were making noise
now, when they had been so silent before, but he didn't like it. He
could feel Josh's leg against the bottom of his foot but the kid
was like a statue behind him. John's gaze went to where the others
were hiding behind the counter but he couldn't see them within the
shadows. All the one clicking its fingers would have to do is lean
over the counter in order to see them, but it continued onward.

His forehead furrowed as that clicking
continued and another one stepped into view from behind them. The
noise…

Something wasn't right. He was trying to
figure out exactly what it was when a flash of motion to his right
caught his attention. His first instinct was to try and push
himself even flatter to the floor but he knew immediately that
would be the wrong move as something rushed out of the darkness at
them.

Too late he understood that the noise had
been meant to keep them focused on those creatures and not on the
ones stalking steadily closer to them.

Josh leapt forward in an attempt to get away
at the same time that John rolled onto his back and lifted his gun.
The index finger wrapped around his trigger froze as Josh's
lurching body blocked whatever shot he may have had. Josh let out a
startled cry when a hand wrapped around his ankle and jerked him
back. His body fell on top of John's, pinning the gun in between
them. It pressed against his stomach as Josh kicked desperately at
his attacker.

"You have to get off!" John grunted. He
tried to rid himself of the weight pressing him into the floor but
he was unable to dislodge Josh. If Josh didn't get off of him they
were both going to be sitting ducks, there was no way to keep their
location a secret anymore.

Josh attempted to roll to the side but the
creature that had grabbed his leg leapt forward and pounced upon
him. Finding himself at the bottom of the pig pile was a sure way
to guarantee his death, but that was exactly where John was. The
weight of the bodies on top of him made it increasingly difficult
for him to breathe as he grappled to get his gun free.

Yellowed eyes that still faintly held a
brownish hue, briefly met John's. Those eyes made the world fade
away from him as he was confronted with the most terrifying reality
of all.

Within those eyes was Hell.

It wasn't the Hell of spitfire and
brimstone, with Satan ruling court that many had always considered
it to be, this was the
real
Hell.
This was a person trapped within a body and mind that was no longer
theirs. Once a normal human being who was now unable to control
themselves or no longer cared about their actions. This was a Hell
on earth: the likes of which no one had ever dreamed of before in
books, or legends, or paintings, except for maybe the Devil
himself.

Those eyes held his for a full minute before
the person reared back. John flung his free hand up in an attempt
to stop it from attacking Josh. He pushed his palm into the thing's
cheek. The skin beneath his hand brought to mind a rotten peach and
bugs beneath the surface as he pressed relentlessly against the
creature's face. Teeth clacked together as they snapped at him like
a rabid dog. John's hold on it was loosened when it suddenly jerked
its head to the side and his hand slipped.

Before John could react the thing's teeth
sank into the fleshy part of his hand. A startled shout escaped him
but it quickly became one of agony as teeth pierced through his
skin, clamped down and tore free a chunk of his hand. Disbelief
lanced through him as he stared at the bloody mess left behind,
then rage tore through him. Fisting his brutalized hand, he pulled
it back and drove it savagely into the hideous face above him.

His flesh flew from the thing's mouth; its
eyes were full of fury when they came back to his. Above him, Josh
continued to squirm as he tried to get away from the thing on top
of him. It reeled back again but this time it didn't come for John,
it sank its teeth deep into Josh's shoulder. The boy cried out as
those teeth dug into his shoulder and the creature jerked back. The
crunchy and wet sound of flesh being torn from bone and skin caused
John's stomach to turn.

Josh swung back, he tried desperately to
beat at the attacker behind him, but he failed to hit anything
other than air. The motion allowed John to finally free his hand.
The creature swallowed the chunk of flesh he'd torn from Josh. It
lurched back at them, pinning Josh down like a crow on carrion as
it went back for the hole it had already created in his skin. There
was a time when he would have hesitated, but that time had passed.
John swung his arm up, pressed the gun against its temple and
pulled the trigger.

Blood and brain splattered over the DVDs
across from them, John could feel the wetness of it on his face,
but he didn't bother to wipe it away. The sound of the shot echoed
through the store but it didn't matter, they had been found out
long before he'd fired his weapon. The body fell limply over Josh,
a dead weight that they both labored to get out from underneath.
Another shot sounded in the store, followed rapidly by three
more.

He'd never been so happy to see Carl in his
life as he appeared over top of them. Carl grabbed hold of the body
on top of Josh and hauled it off of him. All color had leeched from
Josh's face, his head wobbled like a bobble doll's as he looked
around dazedly. Xander jerked off his shirt as he stepped forward,
pulled back the sleeve of Josh's t-shirt and pushed his shirt
forcefully onto the blood seeping from the hideous wound in his
shoulder.

"Hold it there," he commanded and lifted
Josh's limp hand to press it against the shirt.

Carl and Xander hauled Josh to his feet as
Riley held her hand out to John. "Are you ok?" she demanded.

Blood trickled from his brutalized hand and
plopped onto the floor. Despair filled him as he realized the bite
might have just signed his death certificate, that something might
be invading his body, changing and warping it into something
unrecognizable. There was no way he was going to die in this place
and at the hands of those
things
.
"Yes."

"We have to go," she said urgently.

A part of him still felt as if he was
staring into Hell but he took hold of her hand and climbed to his
feet. He spotted the two creatures that had been in the lead at the
counter lying dead on the ground, but he didn't know where the
third had gone. Josh had his arm draped around Carl's shoulders as
they hurried through the back aisle of the electronics section past
the large screen TVs.

From somewhere nearby the laughter of the
hunters pursuing them rang through the store.

Mary Ellen,

Her breath was loud in her ears as she
sprinted across the clearing on Donald's heels. The laughter
continued to issue from the woods; the birds above them screeched
and flew higher into the sky. She would have given anything to be
one of those birds, to be able to take flight and flee the laughter
that would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life. Her heart
hammered in her chest, her feet moved so fast she nearly tripped
over them as they plunged into the forest.

She'd assumed the shadows of the trees, and
the thick trunks that provided them some cover would make her feel
better. They did nothing to ease the terror pulsing through her
veins. Leaves and pine needles kicked up from underneath him as
Donald skidded to a halt and grabbed his backpack from where he'd
left it.

"Go!" he panted when she hesitated to wait
for him.

She didn't need any more encouragement; she
turned and fled into the woods. She tried to be quiet but it was
impossible with the leaves and sticks crunching beneath her feet
and the tree branches slapping at her hands and face. Al tried his
best to keep the branches from hitting her but there were too many
for him to keep them all away.

A branch slipped from his grasp, she threw
up her hand to try and deflect it but it slapped across her face
with a resounding thwack. Her hand flew to her face; she took a
staggering step back and tripped over a tree stump. Her arms pin
wheeled but they did nothing to help her keep her balance.
Sprawling inelegantly to the ground, the breath rushed out of her
as she fell on her ass. It wasn't the lack of breath that caused
her panic to escalate, but rather the fact that her gun had been
knocked from her hand when she'd caught the side of a fallen
oak.

Struggling to catch her breath, she rolled
to the side to search for her weapon. She'd managed to close her
eye in time to keep it mostly protected from the branch but it had
caught the corner of her lid and it was already swelling. The
hindrance to her vision was making her search even more
difficult.

Donald knelt at her side, grabbed hold of
her arm and helped to lift her to her feet. "My gun," she
panted.

He glanced around before leaning over to
grab something from under a pile of pine needles and leaves. She
caught a flash of metal before he wrapped her fingers around the
cool butt of her gun. Relief filled her but she knew it wouldn't
last; it couldn't when those things were in the woods with
them.

Donald wrapped his hand around her elbow and
propelled her forward. Mary Ellen struggled to see through the
increased swelling of her eye and the sweat that ran into her good
eye. It didn't matter; she'd run blindly through these woods if it
was in the opposite direction of
them
.

Looking over her shoulder, she realized that
they weren't running in the opposite direction of the sick ones.
The laughter had trailed off but birds were still rising from the
trees behind them, they flew in the same direction that they were
running in. She didn't think those things knew where they were but
it felt like they were being pursued.