Werewolf Suspense (Book 3): Outage 3 (Vengeance) (12 page)

Rosemary and Sven turned on their cellphones, shining them at the distant walls. They saw nothing.

Tom waited for the noise to resume, but it didn't.

"Rats," Sven grunted in the near-darkness, after a pause.

Sherry laughed nervously. The sound was unnatural and forced, as if it'd taken her effort to muster. Rosemary clung to Tom's sleeve and they shut off the lights.

Tom pictured Paul slumped over in the closet, blood leaking from his ruined face. Perhaps the rats had gotten to him already. The memory of the gunshot—of the man's final, despondent words—was still fresh in Tom's mind.
 

The fact that Paul was in the closet still bothered Tom, though he knew there was no time to rectify it. He thought of Lorena's gutted, unclaimed body. How many others were out in the streets, awaiting a burial they might never receive? Plainfield had become a twenty square-kilometer burial ground, filled with the remnants of the people who used to occupy it.

Tom arched his back, stretching tired, tense limbs. Without his jacket, his arms were goose-bumped. The room would get much colder soon. Without heat, the chill from outside would infiltrate the cracks and crevices of the building, subjecting the occupants to the bitter temperature.
 

He let his mind wander. After a few minutes, he'd settled into a more comfortable position. A voice sprang from the darkness.
 

"I'm sorry," someone whispered.

"Huh?" Tom shifted in the darkness.

"I'm sorry," a voice repeated. The voice was cracked, distraught. It took Tom a second to recognize Sherry.

"What are you talking about?" Tom asked.

"What happened to my sister and my niece was my fault." Sherry sniffled. "I lied to Frederick about what happened, and I'm sorry."

"What do you mean?" Frederick asked.

Sherry took a deep breath. "My sister and my niece were supposed to come with me to the shelter. They were still inside the house, packing. I was supposed to warm up the car." Sherry paused and wiped her nose in the darkness. "I went outside and cleaned off the car, then I sat in it, waiting. That's when two of those things came out. At first I thought I was seeing things. It wouldn't be the first time."

Tom swallowed. It was the most he'd heard Sherry speak all night, and he was hesitant to interrupt her.

Sherry continued. "I got out of rehab last week and…well, I haven't been entirely clean. I figured it was my mind playing tricks on me. So I watched and waited as the creatures went inside the house." Sherry paused to wipe her face. "And then I heard the screams. They were awful, horrible screams. It sounded like bodies being turned inside out. It was even worse knowing it was my relatives, and I wasn't doing anything to help. But I couldn't move. I just…couldn't. So I stayed in my seat. I was so frightened. And then the screams stopped, and I started the car, and I drove, and I kept going until I got stuck on the side of the road. That's when you found me, Frederick."

"So you left them behind?" Frederick repeated. "That's messed up."

"Yes," Sherry said, letting out an enormous sob. "What was I going to do? If I went inside, I would've died with them. I can't stop thinking about them. I keep wondering if there's some chance they're still alive…if they're waiting for me…my niece was only eight years old…" Her voice trailed off as she succumbed to her tears. They listened as the woman bawled. Tom tried comforting her, but no words helped the distraught woman.
 

After a few minutes of crying, Sherry fell silent. Tom thought about what she'd said. It certainly explained how disconsolate she'd been. In some situations, what Sherry had done might be considered horrible, but what help could she have offered her relatives against the beasts, other than dying herself?
 

What precedent was there to the nightmare they'd found themselves in?

They'd been sitting still for a while when they heard another noise.

"What's that?" Frederick whispered.

Tom jolted to attention. Rosemary attempted to turn on her cellphone, but the light wouldn't come on.

"Dammit. My cellphone's dead," she whispered.

"What about yours, Sven?" Tom asked.

"Mine's running low, too."

He heard the large man digging into his jacket, and a moment later a thin light came on from ten feet away. The phone illuminated the frightened faces of the survivors.
 

It quickly blinked and shut off.

"Shit."

Ever since Sherry's confession, there'd been little noise outside. Now something was happening. The commotion had started again. The beasts were growing agitated, their guttural growls across the parking lot. They stirred and stomped the snow, filling the air with their snarls.
 

It sounded like they were moving in a circle. Tom listened as the noises ebbed and flowed, as if the creatures were performing some perverse ritual. He pictured the creatures' gruesome silhouettes soaking in the last rays of the moon. Were they paying homage to whatever gruesome god had created them? Were they acting on instinct?

The racket reminded Tom of tribal, ancient rituals, things he didn't understand. Things he didn't
want
to understand. He'd do anything for the commotion to stop and for the beasts to disappear.
 

But he knew that wouldn't happen.

More than likely, the beasts were preparing for whatever sick slaughter they had in mind. It sounded like the waning of the moon was ramping them up, driving them to frenzy. The beasts collided with one another, growling and panting. The noise instilled a deep panic in Tom—not the fear of dying, but the fear of the moments before death. He couldn't imagine being sliced apart and devoured. The thought gave him dull aches all over his body, as if his mind was prepping him for the pain.
 

The beasts roared. They collided against one another, their snarls rising to a crescendo. At last, one final, unifying howl filled the air.
 

And then the noise stopped.

Without the comforting light of their phones to fall back on, the survivors found themselves immersed in darkness. It was as if some cruel god had stripped them of their hope, one strand at a time.
 

"They're coming," Tom said, keeping his voice low. "Be ready."

The aura of the beasts loomed like a storm cloud. Even without the assistance of cellphones, Tom's internal clock estimated that it was almost five o'clock in the morning, late enough that daylight felt like a reality rather than a promise.
 

But it was a reality they might never see.
 

The room reeked of blood, vomit, and men's sweat. Tom crinkled his nose, trying to block out the foul odor, but it was stuck in his nostrils, ingrained in his memory. He listened alertly, exhausted, anxious, hearing more scuttling in the darkness. More than likely, the rodents were waiting in dark hiding places, ready to come out and scavenge whatever was left of the survivors.

Tom clutched the rifle in his hands, aiming into the darkness. A soft parade of footfalls hit the snow outside. Rosemary sucked in a breath.

"You ready?" he whispered.
 

"I think so," she said. In the darkness, he heard her swallow. "How can I be? Whatever happens, I appreciate what you've done tonight, Tom. Whether we succeeded or not, you helped me."

Tom nodded. His eyes welled up, but he was unable to answer.
 

Somewhere in the darkness, he heard Sherry mumbling a prayer. Her voice was hoarse, uneven, but she sounded strangely more comforted than she had before.

Without warning, pounding ensued on the doors around them. Unlike before, these noises were adamant, aggressive. The creatures' growls were loud and unrestrained, their claws bent on damage. The doors rattled against the barricades. Piles of chairs crashed from the tables, plummeting to the floor. Tables creaked and groaned.
 

The survivors rose to their feet like defendants in a courtroom, awaiting a verdict. Rosemary clung to Tom, aiming her pistol into the darkness. Tom shifted his attention back and forth between the doors, wondering which would be the first to cave. The doors rattled on weak, protesting hinges. The din of the beasts was loud and unforgiving. Tom longed for the cover of the generator—anything to drown out their nasty snarls.

It'd been hours since he'd seen one of the things, long enough that his mind distorted and exaggerated their appearance, making the creatures seem even worse than he remembered. He couldn't imagine facing them again. Weapons or not, there were only so many he could take down. Eventually he'd succumb to biting mouths and claws. His companions would die with him, ripped apart in the darkness, food for creatures that were better fit for hell than Earth.

Stop it, Tom
.

He forced himself to think back to the words he'd spoken to Sven and the others, rousing speeches that he half-believed. Earlier in the night, he'd been ready to die to take the beasts down, but he'd forgotten the reason.
 

He'd promised Rosemary they'd find Jason and Jeffrey. Although there was a good chance the children were dead, there was still the possibility they'd escaped. He thought of his own son, facing his last moments in an overturned car. Tom would've wanted his son to know he hadn't stopped trying to reach him.

Rosemary's children deserved the same thing.

Tom reminded himself of that as the beasts pounded the doors. He'd already killed several of the beasts. He could kill these, too. He kept telling himself these things as the refrigerator slid backward and crashed to the ground. He focused his fear into anger.

The beasts had killed Lorena.
 

They'd killed Mark, Abby, and others.
 

They'd slaughtered the whole town.

"Get ready!" he yelled to the others.
 

"I'm ready! I'm ready to take these motherfuckers down!" Frederick cried.

"Me too!" Sven growled in agreement.

The survivors shifted in the darkness as they got in a position to fire. Tom soaked in the last few moments of relative calm, knowing it'd be over soon.

And then it began.

The first door to break was the one leading to the interior hall. Sven and Frederick cried out as the table legs ground mercilessly against the floor. The door whipped open, slamming against the wall.
 

Tom caught glimpses of the creatures in the dark. Fragments of moonlight shined through the hall and into the kitchen. The lighting was spotty, but enough to see the first beasts scrambling over the barricade. Frederick and Sven were the first to fire. Their deafening, abrupt gunshots signified the end of the survivors' refuge. The beasts roared as bullets struck them. Tom heard the sound of collapsing thumps as several of them fell sideways.
 

"We got 'em!" Frederick screamed. "Goddammit, we got 'em!"

"Keep going! Don't let up!" Tom screamed.

His voice was drowned out by gunfire. Another beast entered the room and fell. Sven whooped in triumph as another beast collapsed. More beasts entered, and Tom aimed his rifle and joined in. He succeeded in striking a few of them down, listening as Rosemary joined in next to him.

They fired intermittently for almost a minute, battling back the beasts, listening to the things' ghastly bellows. Several creatures tore full-speed, only to be halted by bullets before they got a chance to enter. Some of the bullets missed their mark, but the survivors complemented each other—where one person failed, another hit the target. Finally the doorway cleared, and Tom stared into the moonlit hall, waiting for more to emerge.
 

"That can't be all of them," Frederick whispered, awe-struck. "Can it?"

"There have to be more," Sven confirmed.

The barricade shuddered behind them, indicating there were more outside, but the main hall looked clear.

"Be careful," Tom said. "Stay away from the door."

They huddled in a group, retreating a few steps further from the bodies of the dead beasts that littered the room. Other bodies lay just past the doorway. Some were slumped in the hall. The survivors' anxious breaths rose above the clatter. Suddenly, without a sound, Sherry pushed past Tom. She ran toward the open door, raising her hammer.
 

"Sherry! Where are you going?" Tom yelled.
 

The woman kept running. Whether she'd finally lost it, or was determined to escape, Tom wasn't sure. Sherry clambered over the mound of dead beasts, navigating around the bodies as if she were running a marathon. He raised his rifle and took a step after her.

"Get back here!" he cried.

"Leave me alone!" she shrieked. "I'm getting out of here!"

Tom watched her clamber over the mountainous bodies, struggling for footing. For a moment, he entertained the idea that she'd escape, that there might be a means to get the rest of them out of there.

A dark shadow appeared in the doorway, crushing his hope. Sherry stopped in her tracks. She raised her hammer.