A Shepherd's Calling (What Comes After Book 2) (23 page)

Silence fell on the room. The Shepherd took a breath before replying. “Interesting theory. We'll get back to it in a minute.” He turned to the Major. “Who's the better shot? You or Turner?”

“
I qualified expert.” Before anything could be added to Vargas' statement, the Shepherd continued.

“
That means Turner's at the top of the stairs. Someone should keep an eye on our guest while we're working.”

The Shepherd joined his former mentor and together, the two of them picked up the bed and carried it from the room, over to the stairs. Janessa saw them coming and vacated the top of the stairwell just as they arrived. Once in position, the Shepherd and the Hunter heaved the bed to the bottom of the stairs. It landed askew, the metal frame issuing a terrible, screeching crash while it skittered to a halt just shy of the boarded window and uncovered hole beneath it. The bulky, twisted metal occupied much of the stairwell.

Returning to the room, the two men found the marines speaking in low tones. As they were picking up the box spring for the frame they had just thrown, Vargas spoke to Tom. “Sounds like you've done this before.”

The Shepherd nodded, backing out of the room with the heavy, unwieldy object in both hands. “Haven't you? Your team has been out in the world for a while, right?”

The Major shook his head. “Not quite like this. We've always been able to withdraw or retreat, if we were on a green op. We had the equipment to deal with the threat accordingly, when the op was... darker.”

Tom and Chris went back to the stairs and after some deliberation, slid the box spring down. It landed with a much smaller crash, though what wood it contained cracked audibly on impact with the metal frame below it.

Tom turned to Chris. “One more bed frame ought to do it.”

The older man narrowed his eyes. “The bigger one, in the middle of that room?”

Tom nodded. “We'll put that desk on top of it. Kinda small, but it'll still ruin someone's day.”

While the two men did this, Janessa maintained her vigil at the top of the stairs. The marines continued their conversation, which grew louder by the minute. Darrow kept waiting by the window.

When Tom and Chris had finished moving those last two pieces of furniture into the stairwell, they returned for their companions. Making one last survey of the room, Tom moved about the chamber with deliberate, thorough care.

While he did this, Turner broke from conversation with Vargas. “Forgive me, Mr. DuPuis, but how much experience do you have with this kind of situation
specifically
? Shouldn't the people with military training and experience be making these decisions?”

Vargas put a hand on Turner's shoulder. “Corporal-”

The radioman wrenched himself away from Vargas. He looked back at the older man and spoke, his contempt clear. “Excuse me,
sir
. I think I have the right to ask what his qualifications are, given that it seems you're giving him command of the situation. He's a civilian at best and we're following his lead. It's inexcusable.”

The Major took a deep breath. “Corporal,” he began a second time, agitation creeping into his voice.

Turner interrupted again. “We're just planning on leaving Nadeau in the basement while the house is overrun, then? Let the guys in the barn deal with being swarmed? Sir?”

Vargas stepped toward his subordinate. The anger written on the officer's face made Turner blanch and step away.

Before either of them could speak, the Shepherd addressed them. He did this without looking at them, or even slowing his circuit. “You want to make the decisions? Then make them.” His footsteps sounded against the wooden floor, as measured and distinct as the words he spoke. “If you want to find out what happened to Nadeau right now, feel free to do so. You should still be able to make it down the stairs before too many more are in the house. But know this before you go: I will not put anyone in the path of the coming storm. Not even to help you down the stairs. You go. Alone. And once you're away, you're on your own until it's over, even if you find him. Two lives are not worth four.”

Turner laughed in disbelief. “You can't be serious.”

“
Quite serious,” the Shepherd replied.

“
Just how would you stop me?”

“
By any means necessary.” Even if the Shepherd's words had left room for debate, his tone did not.

When the marine made no other comment, the Shepherd spoke again. “As for qualifications, my Third Challenge and a life on the road are all the experience I have.”

Turner managed another question, this one with a half-sneer. “Your 'Third Challenge'? What was that?”

The Shepherd stopped in the doorway, just long enough to reply. “Surviving a convergence. There's nothing else we need in here.”

* * * * *

They waited in the hallway, just behind the rope that tied the storeroom door to the work room door. Tom had closed both doors and ran a rope between the knobs, tied that rope as taut as possible. The doors could still be forced open or broken down, but the precaution would still buy them time if something did try to come inside. Even if that time were measured in seconds, it was worth the effort. Other preparations were made as well, but here was where it would begin. Here was where they began their stand, where they showed the monsters outside that they were a tough nut to crack. Where they showed themselves they had the will to survive.

For all the ordeals to come, the struggle they now faced was the waiting. Waiting in the dark, with only faint, pitiful rays of gray light to keep them company, and that weakly filtering in through windows in a room many yards away. Tom and Chris watched the doorway to the stairwell and listened to the sounds of the beasts moving on the first floor. The men heard creaks and thumps as horrors clambered over or around the debris on the stairs, the wail as one got too close to a pit trap and fell into it.

Tom heard something different than the other sounds. A scrape; it sounded sharper. Closer. Nearly at the top of the stairs, well past where he and Chris had piled the furniture. Tom glanced at his former mentor, but there was too little light for even his sharp eyes to read anything on the other man's face. Chris did not appear to be moving, so neither did Tom. Eyes forward again, he continued the waiting game.

He heard it again and this time, he felt Chris's hand on his shoulder. The Shepherd and the Hunter were ready to slide under the rope and spring into action when the stairwell erupted in light. A fraction of a second later, there was a muzzle flash and the sharp crack of a rifle. And another. And another. Tom had told Janessa and Turner to wait until the last possible moment before turning on the flashlights, since their position would be compromised the moment they did so. They had held out longer than Tom expected, long enough for him to think the Turned had reached the top of the stairs.

He was wrong, and sorely pressed to think of when he had been happier to be in error. If the number of shots fired, the howls, thumps, screams and general unhappiness that poured from the stairwell door were an indicator, Janessa and Turner were pursuing the second part of their assignment with equal aplomb.
“Don't yield the stairs,” he had told them. “Even if you run out of ammo and there are only a couple left, use your knives on them, or use your rifle like a club. Do not leave the stairs until it is absolutely necessary. When we give up the stairs, it's the beginning of the end for us. We have other provisions and actions we can take, but they are all for naught if we don't hold them here as long as we can. When it does come time for you to quit your post, do it without regret. Turner first, then Janessa ON HIS HEELS. Duck the rope and DO NOT look back until you reach the next hallway. Chris and I will cover you that far. After that, we'll leap frog back to the chapel.”

The intermittent banging, ringing, staccato clapping and cracking coming from the cubby where the stair terminated offered an unusual, irregular but almost musical overture. Just as in a musical movement, silence was an integral part of the piece being played out here, informing the listener of a change to come. When the shots stopped, quite suddenly, Tom and Chris knew something was about to happen. Still poised and ready, they saw a cone of light swing in to the hallway, flooding the passage with artificial white brightness. Turner stepped into the hall, his flashlight pointed at the ceiling. Directly behind him, another cone of light moved, this one lower, slower and much more diffused. Janessa was backing out of the stairwell, so her rifle, and thus the flashlight taped to it's under-stock, was still pointed away from the others.

Turner ducked under the rope, moving between Tom and Chris. “LOTS of ghouls in there,” he whispered, probably louder than he had intended.

Chris pulled the rope up a bit for Janessa, who stopped when she passed the rope. She remained crouched between the two men, rifle still trained down the hall at the shadowed door from which she had emerged only seconds earlier.

Tom blinked at the young woman beside him. Peripherally, he could see Chris's face, barely visible in the dim light radiating back from the flashlight. The older man was grinning as he released the rope.

Janessa spoke just before Tom did, her tone firm. “You want me to leave you back-lit for those assholes? Now, we stayin' here, or we goin' back to the chapel?”

Tom wasn't exactly surprised, but he was certainly pleased. Janessa was proving herself admirably in Tom's eyes, and he wondered how even his former mentor would be able to doubt her, if they survived this event.
I think she's passed the test
.

His eyes flicked back to the door, watched the long, dark shadows there. “That depends. Why did you leave the stairs?” Tom asked his companion.

“
Turner went through a full clip. I reloaded twice. Plenty of bodies, some stacked on top of others. Left some alive but hurt, like you told us. We were outta room to shoot, they were outta room to come up. Think it'll work?”

Tom jacked a thumb over his shoulder to where Turner waited for them, ready to provide cover from the corner. While they began to back down the hall, still watching the stairwell, Tom continued. “I don't know,” he said quietly. “I don't know that they'll
actually
eat each other. To be fair, I've never had quite this kind of opportunity, either.”

“
Wait,” Janessa said. “Didn't you say you'd done this before?”

“
I did, and I have,” he answered. “Generally, I don't make a habit out of staying in the area longer than necessary. Limits my ability to observe their behavior.”

They reached the corner. “In any case, if they have a renewed interest in coming up the stairs, it should take them a few minutes to clear the way.” The Shepherd looked at Janessa, then Turner. “Good work. Let's get back to Vargas.”

Turner went back to the next corner. When the radio operator was gone, the Shepherd spoke in a low voice. “You have yet to tell me what brought you from the Fold, Master Hunter. We're running out of time.”

Chris's voice was tight. “You're right. Sooner rather than later.”

“
When we leave the house, if not before.”

Janessa looked furtively from one man to the other before returning her attention to the hallway.

“
Very well, Shepherd.”

Turner's voice came from behind them. “Covering.”

“
Moving,” Chris answered. He and the others fell back to the marine.

When they had made their initial sweep of the house, it seemed expansive and unending. While the halls were still dark and their imaginations populated the deep shadows with unspeakable terrors, the entire place now seemed insignificantly small. Too quickly they passed doors that before felt miles apart and into halls that, only minutes earlier, were vast beyond comprehension. In some people, the sentiment would have inspired hopelessness and futility. Foolishness, even, to seek shelter in a place so small, so inadequate to the task of protecting them from the horrors lurking just beyond the walls. But this was what they had to work with, so they made the best of it.

Finally reaching the comparative safety of the chapel, they blocked the door with the alter. That object of holy reception proved to be a stout wooden table, once the rough purple cloth cover was removed. Though Darrow was obviously displeased with the action, that did not prevent him from assisting with removing two of the tables legs and bracing it against the door, just below the knob and across the frame. A few feet behind the table were arranged several chairs, spaced such that they might offer some obstruction to whatever came through the door, once the portal had been forced open.

Once the preparations at the door were completed, the Shepherd took the remaining chairs to the far wall, near the windows. He peered through those portals to the grounds below, careful not to put his head through. The Shepherd heard Turner ask another question. Apparently, the action at the top of the stairs had emboldened the radio operator.

“
So, why was I the one out there, again? You'll have to speak up, 'cause that hunting rifle was really loud in the confines of the stairwell. No offense, miss.”

It was a short while before the Shepherd answered; he was too focused on the Turned in the yard and all around the house. They were intent on finding the source of all the noise, but seemed to have temporarily given up on the porch door. Some of the creatures were near the covered windows on the first floor, where they pressed their noses against the boards, scratched at planks and frames. A few even struck the blocked portals with blows that could be felt in the floorboards on the second story. Nothing yet budged. But they were patient and persistent. They knew, somewhere inside the wooden box, there was food. The Shepherd knew, just as he suspected they knew, that when the Turned were hungry enough, wanted those inside badly enough, they would find a way in. Nothing would stop that. Nothing
could
stop that.