“Hold this door,” she yells to her team.
Volley after volley center on the small entrance. Night runners are thrown back into the arms of those behind and begin to pile up at the door. I had a quick thought of using Echo Team to pull the bodies out from the doorway and Black to hold it shut but that thought evaporates as the numbers pile up. Minutes pass.
“Where do you want us?” I hear Greg shout above the din of firing and shrieks.
“Across the pool. Keep the door clear,” I shout pointing across the red-tinted pool.
The mound at the door piles up to the point where night runners have to climb over their own dead and wounded. The screams are deafening inside but our ears have become almost oblivious to them. One loud shriek seems to rise above the others. As if on cue, the night runners vanish from the doorway. The sound of our gunfire dies along with it until only the last clink of a shell hitting the floor is heard. It stops and silence descends. Now it’s my turn to be confused.
My trust factor with the night runners is not high. I don’t think they’d actually leave although they might go in search of something easier. It could be a change in tactics or they could just be going to feed on the marauders we left them. Whatever it is, we have a little reprieve.
“McCafferty, be on the lookout, they’ve left the pool area. Watch the ceilings, floors, walls, and everywhere else. Check your pockets just to be on the safe side,” I say.
“Okay, sir,” she replies.
We wait a few minutes but nothing is heard or seen. There are no distant howls or shuffling sounds by the door. Nothing whatsoever. It’s like they vanished into thin air. An occasional moan, whimper, or cry from the wounded is heard. I gather Greg over.
“I don’t like this. Thoughts?” I ask Lynn and Greg. They both shake their heads in puzzlement.
“Okay, let’s be cautious but let’s clear the bodies from the door and tie it shut. Greg, have Echo remove the bodies. Lynn cover them,” I continue.
We check our ammo supply and edge to the door with carbines at the ready. I am fully expecting some sort of trap or for them to anticipate us coming to the door and rush us from the sides. It’s an uncomfortable feeling to say the least. I’m almost ready to just sit in our positions and cover the door but I don’t know what they’re up to and want the teams to be ready and available for the unexpected. If we’re stuck having to cover the open door and they find another way in, we’re screwed.
“McCafferty, is there anything at the doors?” I ask.
A pause. “Nothing, sir. There’s not a thing in sight,” she answers.
The smell of the dead washes over me. The strong scent comes on quickly. It’s as if I have my nose stuck in amongst the bodies. It leaves as quickly as it came leaving just the smell of gunpowder in the air. I shake my head trying to ward off the atrocious smell. Stepping forward, I ease up to the doorway. The green glow remains clear of movement and only the still of the night greets me. One shriek lifts above the night. It sounds as if it is coming from the far classrooms but my ears are still ringing from the constant noise. My back feels like it’s going to seize at any moment.
Closer to the bodies, the smell of them once again comes over me but being this close, that’s expected. The smell of bodies long removed from their last introduction to soap; bowels releasing in death; bodies torn asunder. A few move slowly in the pile. I pull out my suppressed 9mm as I am hesitant to make any more noise than I have to. The night runner interest in us has vanished for the moment and I do not want that attention restored. Claps echo in the pool as I finish off the last of the wounded. Now only silence prevails.
The bodies are removed without any further assault. There are a few screams that rise in the night from closer by but nothing around our building. We close the door and tie it off with 550 cord on concrete bolts set into the pool walls. I feel a little more secure but the uneasiness remains. It’s not like the night runners to stop and give up. They behave like a wild pack without cognitive thoughts. Well, that’s not entirely true as we’ve seen them change tactics, but to give up and as one, that’s just not normal. My thoughts are still centered on them changing tactics and I’m trying to think on what those could be.
“Let’s head back to the gym,” I say feeling my headache worsen. The smell of the smoke and noise certainly hasn’t helped that any.
She sits in amongst the trees and waits. She senses other night runners around as she gnaws quietly on a piece of meat she smelled and located in the woods. She smells other pieces nearby but her small pack is busy with those. The lights from the two-legged camp can be seen as a distant glow through the trees. She and the other night runners have become cautious of being in those lights. She has seen the images from other pack members as some have wandered into those lights. The sharp sound and loss of another.
She is confident they could easily storm the camp and overrun it but is leery of running with the other packs. They are led by males and she is wary of them trying to take over. Some have learned the hard way to leave her and her pack alone though. The small one in her stomach warrants her care and caution. She will protect it above all other things but she, her small one, and the other pack members need to eat. And for that she has stretched her usual territory. The smell of the fresh meat was too enticing. Still, she sits warily.
There is a restlessness in the packs she can sense around her. She feels it herself but isn’t sure where it’s coming from. Perhaps it’s the faint scent of the two-legged ones she can smell around her. There aren’t any closer than the lair in the distance but some definitely passed this way earlier. The faint odor of them remains in the dry air.
Chewing on the meat, she reflects. Yes, she reflects. Not as you or I would but she has some of that capacity. She has a sense that she was someone or something else. Perhaps even one of the other two-legged ones at one point. If so, there are only a few vague memories of that time. More of a sense than a memory. Still, she is caught with a flash of an image from time to time; looking down and seeing small hands brush over a clean, white dress and knowing there is joy in the newness of it, a waterfall and glimpse of two-legged ones standing around smiling as her feet enter a cool, clear pool, a male hand reaching out to tussle her hair and she knows she is smiling.
She grabs the remains of her slab of meat and, sending a picture image of her small pack to follow, she edges cautiously closer to the lair ahead. She doesn’t know why, she just does. She settles back from the edge of the trees, just outside the light, and begins chewing once again. She sees the metallic objects that the two-legged ones sometimes get in and use to move about; that they use on the hard trails. She remembers and knows about some things. She remembers their purpose but not how to use them. That is far beyond her ability. Well, maybe not that far as there is a tickling inside her head, as if the ability to use them is just beyond reach. It’s both near and far away.
A thunderous noise reaches her sensitive ears and she shrinks back behind a tree; peering around its large base. Smoke rolls above one of the buildings far to her right. The sound is similar to the noise the sticks the others carry around that taught them the caution of the lights; similar but much louder. The sounds rolls through the woods; echoing off the massed tree trunks. Images of fear fill her mind from both her pack and the others lying close by. She blocks the images so they won’t overwhelm her, much as we block out the sounds around us, seemingly at will.
She looks into the large lair and around the edge to see if she can gain any clue as to what the noise was or meant. She knows that kind of noise is destructive but not what it occurring now means. Flashes of light emanate from a large, round building and she ducks further behind the tree; the meat falls to the ground forgotten. Some of the moving lights in the tall buildings that dot the edge of the lair tumble to the ground; waving their beams of light in random directions as they fall. Others tilt upward and the beam rests on the top of the structures. With her hearing, she can hear the firing sticks but they sound diminished in some way. The noise they usually make doesn’t fit in with the distance in which she sees the flashes of light.
