The Darkest Days (Death & Decay Book 0.5) Read online

  Wyatt fell in line with his comrades. “What’s going on?” His voice was low as he addressed Andrew. “The lieutenant wasn’t making much sense.” He rubbed his face wearily as he looked out over the crowd. “What I could make sense of…” He let the sentence trail off as the words roiled around his head.

  As a young woman approached the doors, Trevor instructed her to raise her arms out and spread her legs. Though the terrified fifteen-year-old hardly seemed like a threat, Trevor patted her down. As he did so, he quietly asked questions that Wyatt couldn’t overhear. The girl mumbled back yes or no, and eventually Trevor motioned her to the waiting arms of her mother just inside the station doors.

  Andrew shook his head. “I don’t know. I was having a nice relaxing day off when this shit started. I don’t know what’s going on, but it sure as hell can’t be good.”

  Day 1

  6:37 pm

  The sun had drifted down below the buildings to leave the crowd in shadow. As the minutes turned into hours, the crowd had become more agitated. The officers moved amongst the ever-growing crowd with bottles of water and small bags of trail mix that were kept at the station.

  As the officers walked through the crowd, they offered the small treats to any who would take them. They promised that they were moving as quickly as they could. Many of the folks accepted the small offering and information with gracious smiles. Others returned the hospitality with glares or sneers.

  Wyatt had heard whispers. Talk of loved ones who had suddenly started acting erratic and aggressive. Fighting in the streets. People being chased through their neighborhoods by gangs. It was hard to tell how much were firsthand accounts and how much was repeated chatter. Even more difficult was deciding how much of what was said was fact and how much was exaggeration.

  “Please.” A woman grabbed Wyatt’s arm as he turned to move to the next part of the crowd. “What’s happening?” Two children clung closely to her. The older child was a gangly, fair-haired boy who looked to be barely into his teens. A sloppy handprint stood out against his white shirt. A wide-eyed three-year-old with matching golden blonde curls nestled against his chest. The little girl clutched a small, lavender unicorn tightly in her chubby fingers. “Our neighbor, he…he…”

  Wyatt put a hand on the woman’s shoulder as she burst into tears. “I don’t know. I’ve heard all kinds of things, but I couldn’t tell you how much of it is truth and how much is rumor. Don’t worry.” He smiled and gave her shoulder a soft squeeze. “You’re safe here. We’ll get this sorted out.” The woman nodded as she pulled her children a bit closer and tried to collect herself. With that, he moved on and distributed more snacks to the endless sea of hungry mouths.

  An ear-piercing shriek cut through the air. The box of snacks fell to the ground as Wyatt’s hand flew to his gun. An unnatural hush fell of the large crowd for the briefest second before a chorus of shrieks joined the first. Suddenly, the mob erupted into a turbulent sea of screams as people rushed towards the police station all at once.

  Wyatt’s heart galloped as he maneuvered his way through the crowd towards the cries. He could still hear the shrieks over the screams and the thunderous sound of feet from the crowd around him. Along either side, he could see other officers as they fought their way in the same direction.

  As the mass of people began to thin out, Wyatt’s eyes fell upon a potential source of the hysteria. A woman lay in a disheveled heap on the ground, her face obscured by her long, dark hair. A man, his back to Wyatt, knelt over her and moved ever so slightly as his hands roved across her torso. A pool of blood pouring from a large gash in the woman’s neck gathered beneath them.

  As he approached, Wyatt slowed almost imperceptibly to give himself an extra second to assess the situation. Was this man a Good Samaritan trying to help the woman? Was he her assailant? The man never turned around. Never called for help.

  The gap between them closed quickly, and Wyatt had to make a decision. He held his weapon at the ready so he only had to raise it a hair to fire. Instead of directly approaching the man, Wyatt took a slight sidestep in an attempt to see what the man was doing.

  Wyatt could only stand with his gun pointed at the man when he finally got a glimpse of what was happening. His training had not prepared him for what his eyes were seeing. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. Like nothing he had ever wanted to see.

  The woman’s stomach had been ripped open and her entrails had fallen haphazardly from their place. The man lifted a giant fistful of the shiny, ropey flesh from the hole on the woman’s abdomen. Wyatt stared as he tried to understand why the man held the woman’s innards in his hands.

  As the man brought the viscera to his lips, Wyatt found his voice once again.

  “Stop right there and put your hands where I can see them!” He was glad that his voice came out clear and forceful and not as incoherent babble. The man whipped around and Wyatt took a fearful step back as his eyes fell upon the man’s face.

  What…What is this? He once again struggled to process sights that should not have been seen outside of a movie.

  Blood was smeared across the man’s lips. It ran down what was left his face. The right half of his face had been gnawed off from his scalp to jaw bone. This left him with an unnerving, perpetual smile created by teeth that were visible through holes in exposed muscles. The man opened his mouth wide and emitted the same guttural shriek that Wyatt had been following.

  “I said put your hands up!” This time his voice wavered as he leveled his weapon at the man. The words fell on deaf ears as the man leapt up and charged towards him. Two loud cracks of the Glock rang through his ears as he fired, each shot hitting the man in the chest. The man stumbled and his charge was halted. The shots were just shy of centered. If they hadn’t hit the man’s heart, they had surely punctured his lung.

  But he never fell.

  Instead, he shrieked again and continued to charge. This time, as panic flooded through him, Wyatt’s shot went wild and entirely missed the man. The gap between them closed and the man slammed into him at full speed. His fingers dug painfully into Wyatt’s shoulders and they both tumbled to the ground.

  The man’s teeth gnashed frantically just inches from Wyatt’s face as he struggled to keep the man at bay. With all the effort he could muster, Wyatt brought his weapon up underneath the man’s bloodied chin and pulled the trigger. Blood and brain matter erupted like a fountain out of the back of the man’s head and he suddenly slumped forward. Wyatt’s breath raggedly wheezed in and out as he tried desperately to catch his breath.

  Movement at the edge of his vision caught his attention. As he struggled to move the man’s weight off of him, he craned his head around to get a better look. On the ground, the woman’s arm cast about as if she were searching for something.

  She’s alive? he thought wildly. How could anyone survive that wound?

  Suddenly, the woman pushed herself up and let loose a horrible, grating scream. The sound was all the incentive he needed. Wyatt was able to shove the man off of himself. The movement drew the woman’s attention and her lips curled back into an animalistic snarl.

  This time his muscles seemed to react without the command of his brain. He swung the gun around and fired in one smooth motion. The woman’s head snapped back and she collapsed to the ground in a motionless heap.

  “Wyatt!”

  The call was distant and barely audible over the blood rushing through his ears.

  “Wyatt!”

  Trevor’s worry-creased face came into his view. His caramel-colored face was flecked with red. His short, combed, raven-black hair had already become tussled. All the sounds that had faded away in the moments of action abruptly flooded back like a tidal wave of chaos. Screams from the panicked people. The harsh howls. Gunshots. Dozens of battles raged around them as the people were forced to fight for their lives.

  “Come on!” Trevor yanked Wyatt up roughly. Though Trevor was a few inches shorter than Wyatt, his frame carried mo
re muscle and he had no trouble pulling Wyatt up.

  He stumbled to his feet and leveled his gun as he searched for a target in the dying light. But it wasn’t that easy. All the skirmishes looked the same. All the combatants looked the same. It was nearly impossible to determine who was an attacker and who was a victim.

  No sooner had he taken in the scene than people began to rush at him. Trevor was the first to fire his weapon at the attackers. His first shot hit the shoulder of a woman with an arm that ended in a ragged stump at the elbow. The second shot struck the abdomen of a snarling man who limped as he dragged the mangled remains of his right leg.

  “The head!” Wyatt shouted. A half a dozen brutally disfigured monsters converged on them at once. Others had noticed the commotion they had created. “Shoot them in the head!”

  Wyatt cursed as his first shot missed its target. The wild animals were a couple of yards away, but their unpredictable, staggering gait made it difficult to aim for such a small target. As the limping man moved closer, his arms swung up as he reached for Wyatt. This time, when Wyatt fired his weapon, the bullet found its mark.

  In the time it had taken for him to dispatch the one attacker, a handful of others had quickly joined their ranks. With each second that passed, their odds of any positive outcome became more and more slim.

  Suddenly he saw it. A small gap opened in their ring of captors.

  “Let’s go!” Without waiting, Wyatt grabbed Trevor’s collar and dragged him along. After only a few steps, Trevor turned to follow.

  As they dodged between the groping hands, Wyatt assessed their situation. Behind them, more of the deranged moved down the road towards the station. The front of the station was swarming with people as they tried to escape the vicious maws at their heels. Neither path would be easy.

  “Cover my back,” Wyatt shouted over din. “I’ll make a path towards the station. Move fast and stick close.”

  “Clear!”

  The shots rang out as they slowly pushed forward. The mass of bodies raged like a storming sea with the combatants shifting and moving unpredictably. Wyatt’s heart raced as his eyes frantically and impossibly tried to catch every movement. He fought down the urge to simply run for safety. More than anything, he wanted out of the expanse of snarling face and grasping hands.

  In quick succession, he fired four shots and cleared a relatively wide path. “Let’s go!”

  They stepped forward as a group of the ravenous monsters managed to tackle a man to the ground. The man’s screams cut off abruptly as the group tore into him. In the blink of an eye, the man disappeared underneath a pile of the gluttonous creatures.

  With the brief pause in their progress, the pathway closed up. Wyatt’s heart sank as their path disappeared.

  A cry just over his shoulder ripped his attention from their desperate situation. He whirled around to see Trevor’s forearm gripped in the teeth of a ragged, middle-aged woman. Without thinking, he brought his gun to her forehead and pulled the trigger.

  “Shit!” Trevor could only stare at his arm as trails of blood ran from the wound to drip off his fingers. “She bit me!”

  “Come on! We have to move now!” Trevor’s gun had fallen from his hand somewhere into the fray of feet.

  Wyatt’s shots became more erratic as he tried to cover both of them while they ran through the crowd. One down. The second target toppled as the bullet slammed into its shoulder and spun the body around. The action was enough to open a path. He no longer cared about whether or not they were down for good. He would never be able to end all the fighting by himself.

  The third shot hit a woman in the hip, causing her leg to collapse. The doors to the station were close now. Wyatt could see three people at the doors. Two of them were firing into the crowd, holding the monsters at bay, while the third was snatching up survivors and taking them inside.

  “Thomas!” Wyatt called out with relief as an older man with a small paunch and salt-and-pepper hair stumbled directly into their path. The relief quickly turned to horror as Thomas turned towards him. Blood was plastered across his face like a mask. Thomas sneered as he caught sight of them and charged. Wyatt backpedaled a few steps and ran into Trevor.

  How could he raise his weapon against a fellow officer?

  “Thomas, stop right there!” he shouted uselessly.

  This was a friend, someone he had sat and laughed with. Someone he trusted and respected. Someone he had gone to for advice when he needed an experienced opinion. No recognition showed in the man’s face. His eyes were blank and lifeless.

  How could he kill his friend?

  As the gap between them closed, taking with it the opportunity to react, Wyatt raised his gun and fired. The bullet grazed the side of the officer’s head, but he didn’t even flinch. Instead he pushed towards them, arms outstretched as he reached for them, teeth working in anticipation. Another scream tore from Thomas’s throat, and all traces of the man disappeared as the raging beast took control.

  Wyatt slowly breathed out as he squeezed the trigger again. This time instead of a deafening roar a sharp click emanated from the gun. His heart leapt into his throat as it clicked uselessly twice more.

  Empty. The magazine was empty.

  Thomas leapt forward to close the last few feet. Without thinking, Wyatt changed his grip on the gun, wielding it like a club. Even through the clamor, he could make out the crunch of bone as the man’s skull caved in.

  There was no time to reload. The closer they got to the station, the more intense the fighting became and the more of them there were. In one smooth motion, he holstered his weapon and pulled his asp, a compact, collapsible baton, from its place. With a quick flick of the wrist, it unfolded from its compact eight inches to nearly two feet in length.

  The weapon was short but powerful. Though it had served him well before, it was only meant for debilitating nerve and joint strikes. In fact, while being trained to use the weapon, they had been instructed countless times not to strike the head.

  His first swing was too rigid. To elicit a good strike, the arm had to be lose and rubbery. With each successive swing, the practiced rhythm fell into place. Now, the one place he was forbidden to strike had become his target as he forced his way through the snarling mass.

  “Wyatt! I’ve got you covered!” The cry revived his tired muscles, and for the first time since that afternoon he smiled.

  Tightening his grip on Trevor, Wyatt propelled himself forward. The monsters fell away as he bulldozed ahead. In mere seconds, they stood with Andrew and another veteran officer named Stephen Woodland. Andrew and Stephen continued to keep the monsters at bay.

  “Go inside.” Wyatt pushed Trevor towards the doors. “See if someone can look at your arm.”

  He turned and drew his weapon again. With practiced deftness, he reloaded the gun. Wyatt took his place in the opening between his two comrades.

  As Stephen paused to reload his own weapon, the vicious monsters took the opportunity to push forward. Wyatt swung around to cover Stephen as he slapped the clip into place.

  A half a dozen yards of empty space was all that separated them and the hungry, chopping maws of the deranged mass. The rule of thumb was that an officer needed twenty-one feet to draw and fire his weapon if he was incredibly accurate, further if he wasn’t. The monsters were much closer than that.

  The mass seethed angrily as they attempted to find any weak link. Dozens of rabid people snarled as they tried to clamor over the fallen to get their hands on the few who were unchanged. Wyatt could no longer see the small skirmishes that had played out while he made his way to the front doors. All that remained were the vicious howls and angry faces.

  As Andrew paused to reload, the monsters once again crept closer.

  “We need to get inside!” Wyatt reloaded his own weapon with his last clip.

  “These things aren’t just going to go away!” Andrew shouted back.

  “We can’t hold them off forever,” Stephen agreed. “We’l
l regroup inside and figure out what to do.” The three men nodded and simultaneously took slow, careful steps as they moved towards the doors.

  Andrew was the first to the door and he ducked inside. Stephen quickly followed. Each continued to lay down cover fire from behind the doorframe. Carefully inching back until he was through the doorway, Wyatt looked out of the large glass windows.

  As Wyatt hurriedly pulled the door shut, wide, terrified eyes stared up at him from between the mass of legs. Immediately, he threw the door back open. Three shots burst from his weapon, each followed by a thud as one of the deranged fell. He reached out and snatched a tiny wrist from between two of the bodies. Without waiting, he pulled the small figures into his arms and charged back through the door.

  “What the hell was that?” Stephen shouted as he pulled the door closed and clicked the lock into place. Wyatt bent down and deposited his charges on the ground.