Matt counted twelve of them. Not good odds. “We’re getting out. I’ll go first and cover you. Can you drag her to the truck? Harry didn’t put it as far back as he said.”
“Yeah. They’re afraid of the fire, aren’t they?”
“I think so,” he said.
Matt backed out of the rear driver’s side door and aimed the M-16 over the Lincoln’s roof. Jill slipped out the front passenger door, the nine millimeter still in her hand.
She ducked around Matt and hooked her arms under Donna’s armpits. Then she grunted and dragged her from the car as gently as possible.
“She’s got a few minutes. Her shirt’s soaked. She’s lost a lot of blood and she’s way beyond shock,” Jill said.
Donna’s shirt was blotted red and damp. Jill was right; she would be dead very soon and there was nothing any of them could do to save her life.
Jill rested Donna’s head in her lap and then did something that Matt thought crystallized Jill’s essence. She kissed Donna’s forehead lightly and brushed a strand of hair away. When she looked up at him, there were tears in her eyes.
Donna’s body jerked, her eyes fluttered; she lifted her head and said in a gurgle, “I got two of them.” Then her head lolled to one side and she stared up at the sky permanently. Jill closed her eyelids.
I’m sorry, Donna. Why the hell did they let her go down that hill by herself?
Matt clenched his fists hard, the nails digging into his palms. They would have to leave her body.
He focused his attention back on the beasts, who began to creep toward the cabin, all of them low to the ground. If they all charged at once, Jill and Matt wouldn’t have a chance against them.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Matt opened fire with the grenade launcher, aiming into the left side of the circle where they had clustered together. The ground shook and dirt exploded into the air. Two of them were torn in half, and the other one dragged itself along the ground, its legs two scorched stumps. He fired the M-16 at it, catching it in the side of the head, and it stopped moving. He retreated to the pickup truck.
Jill reached the truck. “Go get Harry. I’ll wait for you.”
“Yeah, but
they
won’t. Start driving!”
“Not without you and Harry. I’ve got a gun to protect myself.”
Matt shook his head in exasperation, and then loaded the last grenade into the M-16’s launcher. Jill started up the truck and swung it around to the side of the cabin.
“Since you’re so goddamn stubborn, take this and use the grenade on them. Just point and fire. Give me that.”
He took the nine millimeter from her and handed her the M-16.
He thought it near impossible that he could pull Harry out of the burning cabin and make it to the truck before they closed in for good. He hoped Jill would put herself ahead of Matt and take off in the truck so at least one of them would live to tell about this little adventure.
He took off, running to the far window, the one with less smoke coming from it.
He climbed over the sill, sucked in smoke and immediately starting hacking. He dropped to the floor on his hands and knees knowing that it was smoke that did most people in and not the actual flames. He had minutes to find Harry, maybe less.
Crawling forward, he yelled, “Harry!” The only hope was for Harry to be alive and able to answer Matt, because smoke made seeing impossible.
Something creaked in the roof, and there was a sound like a tree crashing after a lumberjack chopped it. He looked up and saw the flames advancing across the ceiling. The roof was on the verge of collapsing.
The flames roared and crackled around him, making it difficult to hear, but he could make out another sound; thudding followed by a screech of pain. It was directly ahead of him.
He scurried like a roach toward the noises and purely by instinct threw his hand up in front of him as a fireball rocketed at him, knocking him on his side. The flaming thing landed five feet from him. It was one of the beasts, its arm and chest in flames, beating at itself wildly to extinguish them.
Before it could move again, he fired six shots into it, and it fell back into the smoke, howling.
“Did you get the fucker?” Harry’s weak voice.
“Harry! Make some noise!”
“Here!”
Matt crawled ahead and stuck his hand out, reaching until he made contact with lumpy flannel. He moved forward until they bumped heads, Harry on one knee, trying to get up.
“Can you walk?”
He nodded and hacked like a twenty-year smoker. They started out of the cabin.
C
HAPTER
29
They were getting ready to charge.
The remaining nine monstrosities spread themselves out, twenty feet between each of them, until the two on the end were parallel with the cabin. They were trying to outflank the cabin, the flames no longer a deterrent to them.
She stood at the open truck door with the M-16 ready to go in case they rushed her.
Two of them on the left started forward, and she fired the grenade launcher, rocking the earth and reducing the monsters to flaming body parts. That was the last grenade, so she tossed the weapon on the seat and climbed in the truck, feeling better in the cab than standing outside with them.
She started up the Chevy and put it in reverse. Three of them darted toward her.
One leapt and got a chest full of the tailgate as the 1500 slammed into it, slapping it to the ground and running it over. The truck thumped as the wheel crushed the beast.
One down. Hopefully.
She braked hard, put it in Drive and sped forward, over the lawn and toward the cabin. A quick check in the side mirror showed two of them in pursuit.
She pulled up to the cabin. No sign of Matt or Harry. They were almost out of time.
“Put a hole in my back,” Harry said.
Matt had one arm around Harry, gripping his belt to hold him up while he held the gun in the other. Sticky wetness pressed against his forearm where it came in contact with Harry’s back. Harry sucked in air hard with each step, then coughed it right back out as his lungs took in a breath of smoke.
“Almost to the window, Harry.”
“Thank Christ,” he whispered.
Outside he had heard the grenade launcher plowing into the earth and wondered how Jill was faring. He hoped she was at least able to take out a few of them with the grenade launcher, but they were probably spread out and would be hard to get in a group.
They shuffle-dragged themselves across the cabin. They had been in the cabin only minutes and it already felt as if someone had rubbed salt in Matt’s eyes and blowtorched his lungs. If they didn’t get out of here pronto one or both of them would pass out.
They staggered to the window, Harry retching. It was like dragging ten sacks of concrete. He started to slide and Matt yanked him upright and shoved him toward the window.
Harry bumped the sill then threw his leg over it, losing his balance and falling out of the cabin. At least he was out of the smoke.
Popping sounds came from the roof, and it took Matt a second to realize it was the ammo from the M-60 going off from the heat. It would be a cruel twist if he survived the attack and bought it from one of his own stray bullets. Good old fate could be a real hoot sometimes.
Matt straddled the sill, ready to exit when he was yanked backward like a fish being plucked from the water on rod and reel. A steel grip crushed his chest and he kicked furiously to free himself, but the grip only strengthened. It lunged forward, still holding on to him, and after a moment he passed out, the air in his lungs stolen by constriction and smoke.
Harry flopped out of the cabin’s window.
He staggered to his feet. Dazed and soot-stained, he wandered in a small circle.
Jill reached over and opened the passenger door, yelling, “Harry, get your ass in here!”
He looked at her, befuddled, eyes narrowing before recognizing her. Then he climbed up into the cab, slipping and then gaining his balance before landing on the seat. His red flannel was spotted with soot and smoke.
“Where’s Matt?”
“He was right behind me. Saved my big fat butt in there,” Harry said.
“We have to get him out.”
The yard turned as black as a coal mine as the fire shorted out the electrical system in the cabin, killing the spotlights.
Jill gripped the gun, ready to leap out of the truck and storm into the cabin, when she saw one of them leap from the window. It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing.
It had Matt in its clutches, carrying him across the yard where it was met by the largest of the creatures. The big one tore Matt from the smaller one’s arms and threw him over its shoulder.
It made a clicking noise in its throat and growled, whipping its head around in the direction of the truck, obviously giving a command. Then it pointed at the truck, turned and ran down the hill.
Jill flipped on the truck’s headlights and the twin beams speared the darkness. Then she backed the truck up so it was facing the road. She surveyed the situation.
She counted five of them, standing in the darkness and looking like grotesque shapes cut from black construction paper. Their eyes shone like lanterns.
To hell with them. I’m going after Matt.
“Hang on, Harry.”
“My back,” Harry groaned.
She cranked the wheel hard and gave it gas, pulling the truck toward the driveway, the steering column whining. Behind them lumber crashed and crackled as the cabin’s roof gave in.
She accelerated, and the attackers moved together in a cluster, trying to block the road. The truck gained speed, humming. Jill was intent on splattering them all over the road, thinking that this was what a bowling ball must feel like.
She rammed them, sending two off to the side, limbs broken and twisted. One of them managed to cling to the side of the truck, hanging on to the mirror. The other two had leapt out of the way, and she was glad, for if she had hit one head-on, the truck might have suffered the same fate as Harry’s Lincoln.
Jill felt reckless and frenzied, her thoughts whipping past like Indy cars at top speed.
It clutched at the truck, snarled at her and bared its teeth like an angry Doberman.
“The hell with you,” she said.
She sped up, and there was a towering pine tree coming up fast on the driver’s side. She eased the truck over until they were almost off the road.
Even in a daze, Harry looked concerned. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Watch.”
The truck sideswiped the tree with a bang-screech, flinging the creature and mirror off the truck with a
thock!
The truck swerved left, wanting to continue off the road, and Jill cut it back to the right, nearly tipping the Chevy over.
Harry said, “Where’s Donna?”
“Lost her. Neither one of us wanted to leave her body behind for them, but we had no choice. She killed two of the bastards, you know.”
“We shouldn’t have let her go down that hill. God, I feel sick.”
“I know, Harry. But I have a feeling she would’ve gone whether you wanted her to or not. She had something left to prove to herself.”
“Still.”
“I know.”
“Keep an eye out for Matt. That big one took him down the hill.”
“Any weapons left?”
It hadn’t crossed her mind what they would do if they actually did catch up to Matt’s captor, for all she cared about was getting him back. Would they yell at it? Kick it in the shins? Taunt it until it cried and gave up?
She scanned the woods on both sides but saw nothing. There weren’t even any tracks on the road visible in the headlights.
Was he really dead and gone, or would the beast keep him alive for a while? She refused to accept the possibility of Matt’s death, instead hoping that they would keep him alive, at least until Jill and Harry could attempt a rescue.
Harry groaned again.
She looked at him and saw blood smeared on the seat near his lower back. In her haste to escape down the hill, she hadn’t noticed Harry’s wound.
“Where are you hurt?”
“It poked a hole in my lower back. Hurts like hell.”
Looking in the rearview mirror, making sure nothing was following them, she put her blinker on and pulled over on the shoulder of Route 16.
“Let me see.”
Harry turned his back to her and she lifted up his shirt. He had a round red puncture wound the size of a quarter three inches above the waist. It didn’t look too deep, but she had to get him to a hospital anyway. If it went too deep, it might have got his kidney and then he would be in serious trouble.
“You’re going to the hospital. Can you hang on until we get to South Buffalo Mercy?”
“Yeah.”
She pulled the truck off the shoulder, taking one more look in the mirror. The woods glowed orange, as if a giant sun were setting in the center of the forest. Sirens whooped and fire trucks blatted their horns in the distance. She hoped for the firemen’s sake that all of the attackers were dead. If not, they were in for one hell of a surprise.
They drove the rest of the way in silence, arriving at South Buffalo Mercy in half an hour, Harry shifting his weight back and forth the whole time, trying to keep the pressure off his back.
She pulled up to the main doors where a statue of the Virgin Mary stood, arms splayed, palms up, as if inviting all to come. The inscription on the statue’s base read
Mercy For All
. Two women in bland hospital scrubs sat smoking on a bench.
Harry stumbled out of the truck and the women in scrubs gave him a funny look. But they continued smoking. Both of them looked fresh out of nursing school, much like Jill.
She leaned across the seat so they could hear her.
“How’s about giving my friend a hand into the ER?”
“We’re on a break,” the pudgy one said.
“Well, end it right now. This man needs help.”
The pudgy one rolled her eyes, flicked her cigarette to the ground and got up as if it were the biggest chore in the world. She took Harry by the arm and led him through the automatic doors.
Jill parked the truck in the neighboring parking ramp and walked back to the main entrance. She entered the lobby; a white sign with a blue arrow said
EMERGENCY ROOM
.
She walked down a corridor and into the waiting room, where a sallow girl of about sixteen rocked a wailing infant back and forth. The only other people in the waiting room were an elderly man and woman, the man holding an ice pack to his head while the woman thumbed through a
National Geographic
.
The nurse sitting at the desk in triage stood up and asked Jill if she needed help. She was tall and bony, with curly red hair packed tight by barrettes.
“They just brought my friend in. Harry Pierce.”
“You two were in a fire?”
Jill wondered for a second how she knew that then remembered Harry looking like he just came out of a coal mine.
“Yeah. There was a small barn fire. He’s also got a puncture wound on his back. Pitchfork fell and got him.”
“We’re treating him right now. Why don’t you have a seat and we’ll let you know when you can see him.”
“Thanks.”
Just then a dark-skinned doctor with a heavy mustache poked his head through the set of double doors.
“Are you Jill?”
Jill came out
Jeel.
“Yes.”
“How did your friend injure himself? The wound on his back? He says he does not remember.”
“It was a pitchfork. He got hurt in his barn.”
“Okay. Thank you. He will need a tetanus shot then.”
The doctor disappeared through the doors.
She sighed in relief and then took a seat in the waiting room. Her head throbbed, her body ached and all she could think about was Matt.
She buried her face in her hands and cried softly, the tears coming against her will. If anybody noticed, they didn’t say anything to her, and she really didn’t give a shit if they did.
The hospital treated Harry for smoke inhalation, cleaned and dressed his wound, and released him five hours later.
While Harry was being treated, two auto accident victims and a stabbing were brought in to the ER. She knew the scene well; doctors and nurses in a frenzy, wheeling gurneys around, hooking up IVs and cutting away clothes. Harry was all but forgotten, and no one second-guessed the story about a barn fire.
When they walked out the main entrance, daylight had broken.
Both Harry and Jill agreed they needed rest, and despite being only ten miles from Lincoln, they agreed to stay in the city. Even though it was closer than they wanted to be to Rafferty and Lincoln, they could disappear in the city, affording them some security.
They wound up checking into a Best Western. Harry used his Visa to pay for two single rooms against Jill’s objections; she was trying to save him money by getting one room.
They took the elevator to the fifth floor and found their rooms, Jill in 515 and Harry in 517.