Beyond the Barriers Read online

  The ghoul’s head hit the ground so hard that it recoiled, and a mass of gray splattered the cold wood floor.

  “Stop,” someone called out. It was soft, but had the telltale dry rasp, signifying it was not human. It sounded like two old pieces of leather rubbing against each other.

  The shapes fell away and moved to the side of the room. There were a lot of them—more than I thought possible. Green eyes regarded me from all four walls. I didn’t know who had spoken. If I found out, I was looking forward to shooting that one in its glowing orbs.

  “Stop killing. We can talk like civilized men. You and I. Just put away your gun. I can promise you safety.”

  “You can promise me safety? I believe that about as far as I can spit. Talk fast so I can get back to killing all of you.” My lungs hurt from the night before, from running, from being lost in the woods. They hurt from falling, and they ached from the fight. I didn’t have much left. Hell, I hadn’t had much left when I woke up this morning. Here I was, letting the damned things I came to kill try to talk me out of it.

  “You are hurting us, hurting our kind. Go. Leave us. Alone.”

  “Fuck you and your kind. You are an abortion. I want every one of you dead.” Anger seared through me—a hot fuse that was going to explode. If I had a box of C-4, I would probably set it off just to spite these assholes.

  “But we are you. We are human,” the ghoul said. Why couldn’t I pick him out in the mass? I couldn’t even determine where his voice was coming from.

  The room swam before my eyes, and I didn’t think I could stay on my feet much longer. How many shots had I fired from the big gun? Did I have another one I could use on myself? Rookie mistake, losing count like that. Or the simple mistake of a man driven to the brink of his sanity and exhaustion. The whole last terrible month felt like it was crushing me with an ungodly weight. I wanted to sit down and babble about the evils of the world, find Jesus, slink away to a cave somewhere, and just die.

  But if these ghouls had their way, I would join them. It wouldn’t take much for them to simply hold me down and force feed me some zombie flesh. Then they could lock me up until I changed.

  What did I have? A few bullets? A knife? And I was faced with about fifteen or twenty of the glowing-eyed bastards. A pair of eyes from much farther away than the rest told me a tunnel stretched into the distance. Who knew how far back it went or what it contained? There could be a hundred more of the monsters.

  If I only had some last resort. Once again, I yearned for a brick of C-4 explosives; maybe that would shut this place down.

  Screams from above accompanied flashes against the dark of the stairs as bullets bounced around. I wished I were up there, able to fight with my friends, but they would do their best to finish the mission. They would kill every last one of the dead in the camp before leaving. They had assured me it would be done. Then they would lead the survivors out of the camp into freedom. Maybe take them to Portland.

  Wait. Explosives. These ghouls were mean, but they weren’t all that bright. I took one of the bags off my shoulder ever so slowly while trying to keep the gun trained on them. It had a couple of smoke grenades that I wasn’t sure what to do with, but the boy scout in me had said they might come in handy. I held it up above my head.

  “This explosive can level this place. If I pull the pin, we all go up. You, me, and everything in the room—every last dead one of you. Someone want to start negotiating?”

  Silence was their answer, while unblinking green eyes continued watching me. No one moved. It was a start.

  “You will die,” one of them said in that voice that made me want to rip off my own ears.

  “I don’t care.”

  Or did I? I missed Katherine terribly and wanted nothing more than to join her again. For all her problems, she was as close to the perfect woman for me as I had ever met. Allison had been pale and waifish, beautiful and flighty. She never knew what she wanted, and I never knew where I stood with her. With Katherine, there was never any bullshit.

  “Your sacrifice would be for nothing. We are everywhere. We are—as the old line goes—legion.”

  One of the green-eyed monsters stepped away from the wall with its hands above its head. He was dressed in the rags of his old life—a Hawaiian shirt that now looked ridiculous hanging from his dead body. It was torn and dirty, and I don’t think he cared one bit. He wore a pair of jeans that hung low and loose, the bottoms torn and frayed.

  His eyes regarded me in their lifeless way. The others moved around as he stepped toward me, and I expected one of them to pop out and try to take me while my attention was focused on the ghoul moving toward me.

  More gunfire from up above. Yelling, but the words were hard to make out. Ripples of fire rocked the ground as the big gun spoke.

  “Fine. You go first.” I gestured toward the stairs.

  He picked his way over the broken stairs. I followed close, the Desert Eagle aimed at his head and the ‘package of explosives’ in my other hand. As we moved upward, I kicked debris over the edge of the stairs.

  I squinted as we came into the light above. I worried that Scott or Jack would see the ghoul and shoot on sight, but they seemed to have their attention on taking out zombies.

  When I came into the light outside, I looked around. The vehicle was fifty or sixty feet away with Scott on the machine gun, firing toward the entrance of the camp. Jack was on the side of the truck firing in single-shot mode from an automatic. I grabbed the ghoul and thrust him in front of me. He nearly fell, but I didn’t help. Touching the thing was repulsive.

  “Look at all of your sheep dying.”

  “There are always more sheep—many more sheep. A whole world of sheep.” the ghoul said. “I was one once. My name was Warren. I was much like you, but now I am better.”

  “And dead.”

  The thing turned to look at me, his face a nightmare of bruised and mottled flesh around large green eyes that even glowed in the light of day.

  “As will you be, someday. I look forward … to it.”

  I could just shoot him here and now, be done with it, but then I would lose a bargaining chip. I needed him, but only for the time being.

  “Scott, Jack, you ready to roll?” I called out.

  Jack looked at me as he changed a magazine. Bullets whizzed by him, and one pinged off the side of the truck. Scott readjusted his aim and fired in the general direction of whoever was shooting. He was smart, for he didn’t pound the gun. Instead, he shot a short burst, moved his aim, and shot again.

  Who the hell was shooting at them?

  “Are there more ghouls out there with guns?”

  “Only your kind use guns. Mine use a much greater weapon.”

  “Blah blah. Why don’t you stick to simple yes or no answers?” I considered shooting the ghoul again, then I had a better idea. Besides, he was full of shit. I knew one of them had shot Katherine.

  I grabbed his cold neck, but shifted the remains of his shirt up so I didn’t have to touch his flesh. Then, with the warm barrel dug into his neck, I propelled him ahead of me toward the truck. There were a few hordes coming at us.

  Pushing the ghoul ahead of me, I used him as a shield. We walked as fast as he could, but his movement was wooden, stiff, and resistant, like he was on stilts or had boards strapped to his legs. The ground was flat, and I frowned when we passed a cage that was now empty.

  A zombie came at us; a large naked man covered in mud. There were two more behind; one was missing a foot and dragged the remains of his leg. I lowered the big gun and fired, but the shot went wide and only hit his shoulder. He spun around as the round ripped a path of destruction along its way. Stumbling, the zombie fell into one of the others, then they all went down like dominoes.

  Bullets kicked up clumps of dirt around me, but none struck the ghoul. He stumbled once, over the foot of one of the dead lying discarded on the ground. I stayed with him and guided him back to his feet so we both didn’t go down.


  Scott tore his gaze away from whatever he was aiming at and scanned the area. I followed his focus as I tried to keep it together. Just a few more feet. Then, once in the truck, I would rearm and shoot everything that moved. That was the plan now.

  “You got a new girlfriend?” Scott asked as we slammed into the side of the truck.

  “You run off and I’ll shoot you in the back of the head. Got that?” I said in the ghoul’s ear, but his dead eyes were unreadable. I wanted to smash the gun into his head, wanted to grind the barrel between his lips and blow the back of his neck out. The thing that was once a man disgusted me.

  “Who the hell is doing the shooting?” I ducked down as more fire rippled our way. Behind us, several hordes advanced in our direction. Ten shambled into view, then, or so it seemed, hundreds came. There were so many that I couldn’t count. They came from the woods, from the buildings. They crawled if they couldn’t walk. A couple of them moved faster than the others, in a way that was closer to a normal human gait, and they were snarling. Their eyes were livid as they got a look at us.

  Scott leaned down out of sight and came up with a bottle. He applied flame to the piece of cloth that hung out of the top.

  “Cover me!” he yelled.

  Jack sprayed the area ahead of us, emptying most of his magazine.

  Scott stood up and tossed the Molotov at a cluster of dead that had taken a liking to us. It splattered the ground and set their clothing on fire. One must have sensed his fate and walked away, but the others came on even as they burned.

  “We need to get the fuck out of here, now!” I yelled.

  Scott answered by ripping a blast of machine gun fire into a horde that came in at a fifteen-degree angle. They blew apart as rounds pounded into their mass. The carnage was horrific, but it was what we had come for. We had come to kill these dead and soulless things in their multitudes. I would not rest until I eradicated them.

  “That asshole from yesterday followed us,” Scott told me. “Waited until we got inside, then pinned us down. He won’t poke his head out, but he keeps shooting at us.”

  “What?”

  “Lee, that son of a bitch. He must have been waiting, because as soon as we got inside the perimeter, he started shooting. I recognized him as we sped away toward the center of camp.”

  “Ah Christ!” That was just great. Just great!

  “What do we have for wares?” I crawled in behind the back seat next to Scott.

  “An AK, I think. Looks beat up, but it probably works well enough.”

  Grabbing the ghoul by his shirt, I pulled him in. He went almost willingly. I grimaced as more of the dead closed in. They were everywhere.

  “Fuck it. Charge him,” I said as I looked over the mass around us.

  “What?” Jack teetered off balance as he slapped a fresh magazine home. His head snapped back, and then he fell flat on his back. A blast tore at the air. It shook like a plane breaking the speed of sound. Part of Jack’s head was gone.

  “Ah hell. Get ready to fire at anything that moves!” I called to Scott as I crawled over the passenger seat and into the driver’s seat. I waited to feel the blast of a bullet any second, wondering if I would see the glass of the windshield break when the bullet took me apart. Lee had a damn accurate rifle, and I didn’t want to be his next target.

  The truck was rumbling, so I slammed the stick into gear and hit the gas. Rocks shot out as it rocketed forward. Four or five zombies had been heading in our direction, and I angled the big front end so we sideswiped a pair of them.

  Scott went to town with the giant gun. It rattled away, picking off a few of the zombies moving in our direction, but he also shifted aim and sprayed the area that led into the camp. Dirt kicked up as he tried to find a target. It was too hard to see where the shots had come from, but he kept a steady finger on the trigger and sprayed anything that moved.

  Hot shells rained down on the hard metal floor, creating a staccato that sounded almost like rain—metal rain. The gun was immensely loud, and it battered away at my hearing.

  What a mess this assault had become. What was I thinking? I should have waited and come back with an army. Lee was a wild card, but if we had waited at the farm then moved on later, Jack would still be alive. Another death meant more blood on my hands.

  A glance in the rearview mirror showed me the ghoul sitting perfectly serene, as if we were heading to the store for groceries. Was he communicating with his brethren somehow?

  A green and tan vehicle lay near the line of trees, and a pair of giant wheels were exposed toward the front of what looked like a Stryker. Our HMMV was a big truck, but that thing was huge by comparison. If I hit the tires, I doubted we would do much more than piss off the guy lying on top of the vehicle. So I aimed for the front.

  I felt more than saw the bead of the gun as it drew on the truck. I jerked the wheel to the right, and sure enough, the windshield exploded where a passenger would have taken a bullet. It punched into the empty seat, and I wondered if it struck the ghoul that was cowering in the back.

  Fuck it!

  “Strap in!” I yelled as loud as I could, gunning the engine as I reached for the seatbelt. I dragged it up and over my lap, reaching awkwardly for the clasp, but it slipped in my hand. Dragging it back up, I tried to snap it in place. Scott dropped into his seat, yelling something at me, but I didn’t hear what he said. I tried to concentrate on getting the belt on.

  The engine roared. Fifty feet from the giant vehicle. Please don’t draw a bead on me.

  Forty feet. The metal buckle went behind the clasp.

  Thirty feet. I jerked the wheel hard to the left.

  Twenty feet. Breathe. Concentrate on the lock.

  Ten feet. A quick glance. There it is.

  It clicked into place.

  Impact!

  * * *

  A haze of thought came before the rending crash. The screech of metal and broken glass filled my ears as we crashed into the military-style vehicle that had a pair of men on the roof. The back of this transport was cracked open and hung like a lip. We hit it at about thirty-five miles an hour, which was more than enough to rattle my bones. I was already sore, but this made me black out for a few seconds. It might have been a few minutes, or hours for all I knew. Except I was still strapped in, and we weren’t being consumed by the dead.

  Steam shot out from the front of the truck. Probably punctured the radiator. I doubted the truck was ever going to be drivable again, and I wondered if I was going to be able to walk again. My body ached like I was thrown across a room, and my head rang from hitting the other vehicle. A large airbag was deployed in the seat, so I guessed I could thank my lucky stars for that.

  I looked in the back to find Scott in bad shape. He leaned forward, a trail of blood streaming from his nose to the floor. The ghoul was in a heap, curled up on the mat like a dog. If he was dead, it was just as well. I didn’t feel any pity for him, none whatsoever.

  A cough from the front of the other vehicle caught my attention. A haze of motion, as something interrupted the steam pouring out of the punctured hood. A shape came into view, and I thought it was a deader at first. I reached for the Desert Eagle, but it was nowhere to be found. The floor seemed like the likeliest place, but when I looked down, all I saw was darkness. I reached under the passenger seat, but the door was hauled open and a blood-splattered face met mine. One hand came in and pulled at me, but the seatbelt kept me in place.

  Weakly, I slapped the hand away and reached under the seat once more, but I couldn’t get my hand back far enough. I hit the release on the belt, and it popped without retracting into its shell. When I got my hand farther under the seat, my fingers brushed the gun. I leaned over more, my face pressed to the seat, which smelled like sweat and body odor. I grabbed the gun by the barrel just as I was pulled out of the truck by my shirt.

  The zombie was strong, and even though I got a hand on the roof of the truck to stop my momentum, I was dragged out and tossed on the ground,
losing the gun in the process.

  Getting my hand up stopped an incoming blow. I didn’t need this; I couldn’t fight back. At least it was a zombie, so it was slow and dumb. I could probably get it off balance and figure out a strategy, like how to crawl under the truck for the gun.

  A hand grabbed me and pulled me farther from the vehicle. The person was breathing hard and muttering under their breath. Not the typical undead actions, or so my addled brain told me. I almost giggled when I thought about talking zombies. Then a vision of the ghoul in the back of the truck blossomed in my mind.

  A fist blocked out the sun and aimed at my temple. I jerked aside, but it still caught me on the side of the head and made my ears ring. Feebly, I kicked and made contact with something. Then the hand holding me down withdrew, so I grabbed hold and helped myself up. This was no zombie I was fighting.

  The sun was bright and high in the sky. When I came to my shaking feet, I couldn’t make out the figure. It was like they had a big yellow halo around their head. A fast jab shot toward my head, but my body worked on instinct. My right hand came up close to my side then flattened, palm up to take the blow along my arm and redirect the force along the side of my body.

  My other hand snaked over and did a check, felt a shoulder, then I used my close quarters training to raise my right elbow up high and clock the attacker in the head. But it wasn’t where I expected it to be, and all I ended up hitting was the side of its neck.

  I pivoted on one foot and came around with my hands in the air to block. When the sun was at my back, I got a clean look at his bloody face.

  It was Lee, and he was pissed. “I’m gonna shit you into tomorrow.”

  He grimaced and threw a big haymaker that would have laid me out for the rest of the day, but I crossed my body with my right hand and barely deflected the blow from my head into my arm. My left shoulder went numb, and I staggered to the side. A left hook came next, and it wasn’t as strong or accurate as the first. That told me he wasn’t used to fighting off-hand. I turned my weary body just a tad to the side, and his punch missed. Then with what little strength I had, I whipped my hand up like a viper striking, first knuckle closed so that my hand formed a half-fist, and drove my hand into his face. Thank you, Katherine.