TORMENT (38 page)

“But it’s my—”

“I know it’s your fault, but it makes you sound like one of them.” He motioned behind them, toward the voices.
“Scared the shit out of me.”

An aberration on one of the trees caught her attention. “Over here,” she said. The dead bark had been pulled away and dropped on the ground. Knowing what to look for, she searched the area and found a second tree in the same condition, leading away from the voice.
Then a third.
“He left a trail.”

“Let’s hope we’re the only ones smart enough to follow it,” he said before following the trail himself.

They moved swiftly, doing their best to stay quiet while increasing the distance between themselves and the wall of voices. The woods ended abruptly and opened up into a patch of dirt on a rise where the trees had recently been cleared. Austin and Melissa were there,
laying
on their stomachs, looking over the edge of the rise.

Austin rolled onto his back at their approach and thrust his handgun in their direction. Once he saw their faces, he relaxed and motioned for them to get down.

Mia and Garbarino crawled up to the edge of the rise and lay on their stomachs. The view below them made them wish they’d taken their chances in the abandoned foundation. A city stretched out before them. Tall buildings now in ruins stood in the middle. A line of old, red brick mills lined a river filled with yellow, stagnant water that no longer flowed. Inner city buildings mixed with malls surrounded that. Suburbs lay beyond. A construction site sand pit lay directly below, and that, thankfully was devoid of movement.

The rest, however, was hell.

45

A piercing scream turned Mia’s gaze to the street that crossed the far end of the construction site. A woman ran across the pavement, one way, and then the next—a frantic retreat. “She’s like Dwight Cortland.
A runner.”

“But what’s she running from?” Garbarino asked.

“More friends,” Melissa answered, pointing further down the road where a crowd of killers streamed into the road and gave chase.

The runner went into convulsive fits as the apologetic shouts of the killers reached her. She started in one direction, but a loud shout startled her and she turned around. This happened twice until she had become so blinded by raw panic that she ran into the arms of the killers.

“They’re not your friends,” Garbarino said to Melissa.

She waved a hand at him. “Pish. Look, they’re hugging her.”

The runner disappeared beneath the mass of clawing, horrified killers. Mia was thankful for the distance between, not just because they were hidden from the mob, but because they couldn’t hear the tearing of skin or smell the fresh blood. “Did they somehow get past us?” she asked.

“Those are the same people that have been tracking us,” Austin said. Before she could ask him how he knew, Austin pointed deeper into the city. “Watch the streets. And listen.”

Mia focused on the city beyond. Then she saw it.

There were hordes of killers everywhere, their screams creating a high-pitched white noise in the background she hadn’t noticed before. Running in front of most crowds was a single person, sometimes a pair.
More runners.
A wail cut through the background noise. Mia saw nothing, but recognized the roar as being similar to that of the hunter, Henry Masters. A second cry answered the first from the other side of the city.

The mob below moved on, most of them now weeping in anguish for what they’d just done. They left a mangled body in their wake—torn limbs, a pool of blood and a trail of entrails. Mia was once again thankful for the distance that obscured the gruesome details. But when the body started moving, she longed to be closer, to see how it happened. From a distance she could only register the subtle movements below. Then the woman rolled over, coughing. She pushed herself to her hands and knees while looking all around her, the panic returning, perhaps with a fresh memory of how she’d just died. She got to her knees, gathering her trailed, eviscerated intestines and stuffing them back in her gut. Assembled once more, she stood and ran.

Straight toward them.

“She’s going to lead them to us,” Garbarino said.

Mia tensed. She had as little desire to meet this runner as she did the killers. “Maybe she’ll turn around.”

“Hey friend!”
Melissa shouted. While Mia, Austin and Garbarino were distracted, the woman had stood and cupped her hands to her mouth.

The runner below screamed and turned around, bolting back out of the construction site.

Melissa took a deep breath and opened her mouth to shout again. Austin rose up behind her, a large rock in his hand. He swung the stone around and cracked it against the side of her head. The woman dropped to the ground, silenced, but not unconscious. She stared at Austin with the eyes of a woman betrayed. Tears ran down her dirty cheeks, leaving clean streaks. Her jaw shuddered as she began to weep. “How could you?” she said, “Why did—”

Austin struck her again. This time she fell silent as blood gushed from a dent in the side of her head. He crouched down again and looked at a shocked Mia and Garbarino. “Sometimes to save people you have to hurt other people, the latter of which I’m not sure she even qualifies as anymore.”

When neither of them replied, he added, “Don’t worry, she’ll be back to her trusting self in no time.”

That resonated with Mia and Garbarino. Despite not being violent, she was one of
them
, one of the damned, destined to be betrayed for an eternity.

A scream turned their attention back to the road. The runner had been caught again. The horde did their work, tearing the runner apart. Thirty seconds. That’s all it took. Then they were moving on again, leaving human road kill and a fresh stain of blood.

The whole world is going to be covered in blood soon
, Mia thought. Then the female runner collected her body, waited for it to finish knitting together, stood and ran toward the city where several more killer mobs and at least two hunters waited.

“We can’t go down there,” Garbarino said.

Austin stared out at the hellish city. “No choice.”

“The fuck there isn’t,” Garbarino said.

“He’s right,” Mia said.

Austin turned toward them, his face grim. “You both need to start listening to things or you’re not going to last much longer.”

Mia and Garbarino both held their breath and listened.

Tortured screams from panicked runners drifted out of the city first, mixing with the background noise of the thousands of killers. The occasional roar cut through the din. But there was something else. The voices of the killers grew steadily louder. But the noise wasn’t coming from the city.

It came from behind them.

From the forest.

The horde of killers pursuing them since they’d dropped from the sky would soon be upon them.

Mia felt a sudden and rising panic and for a moment knew what it felt like to be a runner. She nearly got up and ran like a wild woman. Instead, she controlled her fear and asked, “Why are they still following us?”

“Dunno,” Austin said and then pointed to the city.

“Maybe they can sense we’re still alive?” Garbarino said. “Maybe it draws them toward us.”

“Let’s hope not.” Austin motioned to the city.
“Because we need to find a way through.
If we can stay hidden long enough, and make it through the city, they’ll get distracted by the other killers, or runners.”

Garbarino nodded, but Mia wasn’t so sure. The horde tracking them had killed Dwight the serial killer and Pastor Billy and hadn’t looked back. The distraction was only momentary. This horde and Henry Masters had eyes for them and them alone. Maybe Garbarino was right. Maybe they were attracted to the living. Or maybe Masters remembered Austin and Garbarino from his former life as a war protester and was following them out of spite. It didn’t really matter. They were all dead eventually.

What did matter was what happened post-death. Would she wake up like Melissa, become one of the
mob
and kill her friends? Or would she stay dead?
I’m not ready
, she thought.

“If forward is the only direction we have left,
then
let’s start walking before we have to run. I don’t know about you two, but I don’t want to run head long into a mob of killers.
Doesn’t work out so well for the runners.”

Mia moved into a crouch, looking for the best way down the ridge into the construction site. From there they would have to cross the road, a few neighborhoods, and the yellow river. Then they would have to pass through the core of the ruined city.

“Are we going somewhere,” said a sugary sweet voice. Melissa had
returned,
all smiles and trust, Austin’s betrayal forgotten.

Austin looked at the other two and made a face that said, “See!”

A shout from the woods behind them made everyone freeze. The horde was close.

Austin spoke fast. “Down the hill as fast as you can. Stay close to the sand piles in the construction site. We know there’s a second group of killers close by so we’ll need to scope out the road for cover, then stay close to the houses in the neighborhood.”

A stick snapped in the woods.

“Melissa,” Austin said.

She turned to him, smiling wide.
“Yes, hon?”

“You have friends waiting for you in the woods. Go run and see them.”

Mia and Melissa gasped in unison, Mia in shock, Melissa with excitement. Then the woman was up and running. As she disappeared into the woods, Austin slid over the edge and started down. Mia and Garbarino followed.

“That was messed up,” Garbarino whispered to Mia.

She nodded in agreement, but when Melissa shouted, “Hey there, cutie-pie,” a moment later, she knew the distraction Melissa would cause just might save them. Hopefully long enough for her to get right with whatever creator was sick enough to conceive a hell like this, but merciful enough to provide a way out.

“What are you doing?” Melissa said
,
her voice tinged with an uncharacteristic fear. “Why would you—that
hurts
!” The scream that came next chased them down the hill and haunted their thoughts as they entered the construction site.

46

Austin led the way through the mountains of sand, gravel and shattered stone strewn around the construction site. He did his best to keep their position concealed from the horde behind them, but he also had to worry about the killers stalking the road. He stopped at the bottom of a large mound of sand and crouched, waiting for Mia and Garbarino to catch up.

“We clear up ahead?” Garbarino asked, hiding behind a toppled over, rusty bulldozer. The road lay twenty feet away.

Austin hadn’t seen nor heard any killers ahead and gave a nod. “How’s our six?”

“Haven’t seen anyone,” Garbarino replied. “But the sand piles are blocking out the sound.

Austin listened. Garbarino was right. The giant man-made sand dune was muting the shouts and screams of the killers behind them. “Once we hit the road, keep running until we reach the river.”

“Banking on them not being able to swim?” Garbarino asked.

“And hoping there isn’t a bridge nearby, yeah.”

Mia frowned. She knew they didn’t have a lot of options, but she wasn’t keen on the river plan. “And if there are drowners?”