Inferno (The Glitch Book 2), page 2
He walked forward, pushing open the door to the shop. Wind whistled around the wooden board covering the broken window. He shone his map on it and frowned on seeing the edges of the wood were darkened and the air smelled of damp.
He closed the staff door, then walked to a chair behind the counter and sat. Voices were apparent as soon as he increased the radio’s volume.
“This is a national alert. The date is the twelfth of November. This is not a test. Residents in the following states, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana should stay inside. Fallout from the nuclear detonations—”
Detonations? I thought there was only the one in North America.
“— is covering a large area, and is being dispersed by adverse weather conditions. Use bottled water if possible and under no circumstances go outside, when it is raining or snowing. If caught in those conditions rinse the damp area of skin with clean water and change into new dry clothes. Please do not call 911 unless absolutely—”
A scream rang out, making him jump. He looked at the radio, wondering if somehow the sound had been overlaid with another channel but then it happened again, this time being more of an anguished cry. Someone was outside, maybe a woman. He ran around to the second, unbroken window and looked out into the darkness. A point of light bounced up and down and appeared to be moving towards the lodge. He looked at the door. It was still locked.
He then looked at the latch on the window in front of him. The outside of the glass was being barraged by heavy rain, but there was no other way inside, and he wasn’t going to leave them out there, even if they were already doomed.
He grabbed a scarf from a nearby shelf and wrapped it around his face, then slid some gloves on and pulled the latch, rotating it and pushed the square window outwards. A world of sound and fury rushed into the gap. He did his best not to get wet, but the drops still managed to find a few bare pieces of skin. He pushed the window out further so there was enough of a gap for the person to climb through, then waved his flashlight left and right. “Over here!” he shouted.
The light was now a cone, which illuminated the ground around it and legs. A woman was running towards him, but then he noticed other lights. Not as bright, but strangely intense. Blue sparkles were someways behind the woman, but moving in the same direction. Others looking for refuge.
A face full of panic came into view through the sheets of rain and gloom, and her eyes met his. In that moment he knew something was wrong. She wasn’t merely trying to get out of the rain.
“Help me!” she screamed. Her feet wanting to move faster than her legs would allow.
“In here!” The blue glows behind her were getting closer. At the back of his mind a voice shouted for attention but he ignored it.
The woman crashed into the wall below the window. Mike reached out, grabbed her arms and shoulder and pulled her up and through the gap. They both fell backwards and she landed partly on him then fell to the side. She quickly stood and moved back to the window, desperately trying to close it.
“What’s going on!” he shouted.
“He’s coming!”
“Who’s coming?”
He could see her struggling, so got to his feet and went to move to help when he saw what the blue light was. A man’s eyes. Sparks fizzed and jumped from them as if they were alive with electricity and for a moment he was reminded of his dream when he first saw the AI version of his son.
“Help me!” shouted the woman breaking him out of his daze. He leaned forward and slammed the window closed then locked it.
The man, who he could now see had a beard but was bare chested, walked slowly up the steps to the front of the building. As rain pounded off his red blotchy skin, he smiled.
“Have you got a gun?” She looked around the store. “They must have hunting rifles here.”
“I’ve… got…” He couldn’t look away from the mans eyes that were lost in blue fire and his strange expression.
The staff door opened and in ran Alexis. “What’s… who are you?” she said to the woman.
The man was now standing completely still only ten or so feet from the window, the light from his eyes illuminating the slabbed ground, tables and chairs. The woman, busily ran from shelf to shelf, aisle to aisle frantically trying to find a weapon.
Alexis, ignoring the woman, walked slowly forward seeing the strange man for herself. “What is—”
The whole store lit up and moronic grunge rock started playing from a jukebox they had no idea was even there. Flat screen TV’s, three of which that were on the walls sprang to life with white noise and all of the flashlights, radios and anything else of electrical means switched on.
Everyone but Mike was shocked by the party of light and sound but he kept looking at the individual outside. He knew what was behind their cobalt eyes.
The man charged forward.
A boom and the sound of shattered glass rang out, and the man’s head jolted backwards. Before he hit the sodden ground, the whole place plunged back into darkness.
CHAPTER THREE
The rain had stopped, and the sky had taken on a dull glow on the eastern horizon, but nobody realized. Mike, Alexis and the woman looked through the window at a middle-aged man with a blood red hole where his forehead should have been. Alexis then looked at Mike, his eyes wide and bloodshot. She slowly let her hand cover his, and took the Glock from his grasp.
“You killed—” Before the woman could finish, their hearts raced again at something that was happening to the wound on the man’s head. In the glow of the flashlight a silvery liquid ran between ragged flesh and skin, streaming down the side of his cheek then neck, then dissipated between the flat stones. “You all saw that right?” she continued, her eyes not having left the dead man.
“Yeah…” said Mike.
The door opened behind them. Gary appeared, while putting a thick sweatshirt over his t-shirt. He looked from the new arrival to another smashed window. “What happened… to the lights? Everything came back on?”
Alexis looked at him. “We don’t know…”
“Yeah anyway, there’s something on the radio. We found a broadcast and you should all come and hear.”
They moved into the storeroom. Darlene was sitting on top of her sleeping bag, a bright yellow radio sat in front of her, and from its speaker came a concerned voice.
“As you have already heard, we—” Static noise briefly replaced the radio man’s voice. “— are getting quite extraordinary reports from multiple locations in Texas of attacks by rabid people.”
“Who are you?” said Darlene to the newcomer, who ignored her.
The radio presenter continued. “So far authorities have been unable to ascertain whether these individuals are, for the lack of a better phrase, insane, perhaps brought on by recent events, or if there is something else affecting them. We are also getting, and we can attest to this ourselves, here at the RAXM headquarters, reports of what can only be described as electrical phenomena. Folks have been calling us saying that their televisions, washing machines, and in some cases, even their cars have been switching on without any reason to do so. When asked about these events, an army spokesman just said, ‘we are looking into it.’ We continue this live twenty-four broadcast after a message from our sponsor.”
Gary turned the volume down and looked at the woman. “You are?”
Mike looked at her as well, fully taking in her features for the first time. She stood a few inches shorter than he with a mop of light brown frizzy hair, some of which was pasted to her mud covered face.
“I’m Flo McGuire, and the dead man out the front of your store is Dale McGuire my husband.”
Shock flowed through everyone and the walls and low ceiling of the stock room felt particular claustrophobic.
“What she mean out front?” said Gary.
“Go see for yourself,” said Alexis. “But don’t go outside.” The young man quickly left.
“I… he’s your husband?” said Mike, not being sure he heard her right.
Flo leaned back against a shelf of canned goods, looking down then back up to reply. “You didn’t kill him. He was already dead.”
“What happened?” said Darlene.
“We were driving along the old service road, coming down from our place up on the mountain, when it started raining. At first it was fine. Dale’s driven these roads for over ten years, never had a mishap, but then the engine cut out and we skidded to a stop. We heard the man on the radio tell people not to go out in the rain, but Dale wouldn’t have any of it. ‘It’s just water!’ he said. He wasn’t about to spend all night out on the road, so he covered up best he could, popped the hood, and got out. I sat there while he fiddled with the engine, going through the list of the supplies we needed in my head, when I looked up and he was standing about twenty feet away, looking away, into the dark, like he had seen something. He was lit up by the headlights and naked from the waist up…”
Gary reappeared, his youthful face reddened. “There’s—”
Alexis held he hand up and looked back to the woman. “Please go on.”
“And it was raining so hard still… it made no sense. I didn’t want to go outside, with what the news said… so I wound down the window and shouted for him to come back, but then he started like… shaking. It was if he was being attacked by bees or something. I jumped out and ran down the road trying not to slip, but a few yards from him, he whirls around and his eyes…” She looked at Mike. “You saw his eyes?” He nodded. “I didn’t see at first, but he had a tire iron in his hand, and he comes running at me, and got me in my arm good, but I managed to push him, and ran down the slope until I see the lodge, and made my way here.” She looked across the faces around her for answers. “Must have been the aliens had gotten him, right? The nukes didn’t work?”
Mike had seen people in shock who had been through traumatic events too many times and the forty something woman in front of him was showing every sign of that condition. She wasn’t emotional, just lost. The incident was a lightning flash and her grief would be the delayed crash of thunder. But his detective mind was already piecing together the night’s strange events. Whatever the AI sphere was made of, had been broken into an infinite amount of smaller parts by the explosion, all of which were now around them. In the air, the ground, the rivers and rain. He was sure Daryl or Reed would have a scientific explanation for what was happening, but he just knew it meant the world was infected.
*****
Mike looked at the steel-capped boots of Dale McGuire, and the sheet they had found to cover him with. He then looked at the slabs of stone and dirt between them and wondered if in the minuscule granules a tiny silver speck was looking back at him.
He shook his head. Those thoughts would lead to madness, and he needed to keep it together at least long enough to get to his next drink, when the alcohol would help dispel the paranoia. He had a quick search when everyone else was busy packing, but had not found one drop of the mind numbing liquid anywhere.
Gary was looking at the large clouds innocently drifting across the sky. “What do we do if it starts to rain?”
“Run for shelter,” said Mike, knowing that wasn’t much of an answer. He also knew if it came to that he would be the slowest, and therefore the most wet… or infected. Dale’s neon blue eyes came back to him and he resisted shivering. He hoped before the silver material made its way into his brain he would have time to unholster his gun and blow them out.
On his back was a trekking backpack full of as much supplies as they could squeeze into it. Bottles of water, fire making and cooking equipment. Warm clothes, maps, compass, food and even a small tent. Clara always wanted them to go camping, and he always refused. He smiled at the thought of her seeing him now.
Alexis appeared at the window, and he took her pack and placed it up against the wall, then helped her climb out and placed it back on her shoulders. He looked at his watch then the three others. “It’s 9 a.m. It should take us thirty minutes to get to Gary’s truck. If it’s running then it will be an hour’s ride to Pine Needles village, otherwise… we’ll be walking all day. If we see a good place to hold up before dark, we’ll take it.”
They all nodded and most started to walk down the hill towards the mountain road, but Flo held her ground, her bottom lip trembling and her gaze fixed on her husband’s body. Mike placed his hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you tell me about him as we walk.”
As they traveled along the concrete strip which weaved around the side of the mountain, he found out that they had met almost twenty years earlier, when Dale offered to change her flat tire. That they had no children, and had bought the mountain retreat five years ago to get away from the ‘big city.’ As she talked he was reminded of how he and Clara were together, and rather than the cool mountain air, they would have ended up in the heat of Florida. Similar outcomes despite the geography. But instead here they both were walking along an isolated but beautiful mountainous road, their past lives just a dream.
“There it is!” shouted Gary, then broke into a run, moving towards a black Ford truck with silver trim, parked in a small parking lot off the side of the road. They all watched as he got to it quickly, jumped inside, then a few seconds later slam his hands repeatedly down on the steering wheel. He then looked back at them, shaking his head from side to side.
“I guess that means we have a long walk ahead of us,” said Flo.
After a few more attempts to get the engine to spark, the young couple retrieved a few items, and they all continued along the route which allowed them to see for miles, over rich dense forest.
Mike stopped for a moment to take in the scene. He wanted to be reminded that the country was still out there, but then realized, apart from the wind he couldn’t hear anything else. No crickets, or chirps or whistles.
Alexis walked back to him as the others continued. “What is it?”
He shook his head. “Nothing… If the map is right we should be coming up on some cabins soon.”
It was longer than he thought, but eventually as the road dipped, a series of dark log built structures, and lighter block shapes could be glimpsed through the trees up ahead.
“I’m going to pay someone to take us into city, then I’m going to get a hot shower. Man, I need a hot shower,” said Gary. He looked at Mike who appeared to be weighed down by his pack more than anyone else. “What you think is going to happen, now there’s that silver stuff in the environment that makes people crazy?”
Mike had spent the last three hours trying not to think about exactly that question. His aching sore joints helped with that, but rather than the young guy’s plan of a hot shower, he wanted a cold drink and was hoping one of the residents of one of the cabins would help him out. “The government will take care of it.” He didn’t believe that, but it was the appropriate reply for a federal official to give, and even without his badge he was still that.
They walked around a sharp bend, the road continuously declining and started to slow. A pickup was parked across the road about twenty yards away, the driver’s door open. Mike instinctively moved his hand to his holster, then noticed a motorhome which was nearest the road, also had its door open.
“Something’s wrong here,” said Alexis, her hand in a similar position.
“What’s wrong?” said Darlene, concern on her face.
“Everyone stay—” Gary jogged forward before Mike finished. “— Hey!” But Mike was ignored and the younger man got to the pickup and looked inside.
“No one—” Gary interrupted his own thoughts, his eyes fixed on the slope to his right, where rows of cabins sat. From where the others were they couldn’t see what he was seeing, but he looked scared. They walked forward craning their necks to see around the small group of trees and finally saw what he did. Bodies. Scattered and in pieces with no discernible pattern to where they lay. Young and old, their arms and faces covered in crimson streaks, some appeared to only have dark red patches for eyes.
“It’s the aliens!” said Flo and ran past everyone.
“Flo!” shouted Mike, although for some reason he felt a pressure not to raise his voice. She ran past Gary, then the pickup, but he didn’t even notice her passing.
Mike threw off his pack and dropped it at Alexis’s feet. “Stay here, I’ll get her.” Alexis reached out to him, but he had already taken off and quickly started gaining on the slightly younger but heavier woman. Another bend was approaching. He would get to her soon after that, and then they would figure out what happened to the vacationers.
About twenty yards ahead, Flo stopped dead as if she hit a wall. Her gaze was on something around the bend. Something he couldn’t see, but was about too. She slowly started to back up, and he almost ran into her being so out of breath to stop properly. He kneeled, then just as quickly flicked his head back up to what was further up the road.
A sea of twitching, writhing movement. Black, browns, fur and feather, smothered the concrete of the road for what seemed miles. Thousands of animals, from tiny mice, polecats, beavers to mountain lions and large black and brown bears. All impossibly close to each other, all very much alive and apart from the occasional flap of a wing or scratching of paw, all completely resting in silence.
Then one by one, dark eyes, all turned towards the two humans.
He started to back up, taking Flo with him. “We need to get the hell—”
The creatures started to scurry towards them. As he ran, pushing his aching muscles as hard as he could, he thought about using his gun, but it would be like firing at the ocean, so he kept going. The air was now alive with a thundering sound, thousands of claws, feet and paws beating upon the concrete. If Mike had a chance to stop he would have known there was no squawks, shrieks of roars just the ground being pounded by predators.
