They kept spotting the surgers periodically throughout the day. They were all being overly cautious now about moving the curtains to look out the windows. They kept their voices at a whisper when talking to one another. The last thing any of them wanted to do was attract the notice of the surgers stalking by. As terrified as they were of the surgers they knew the coming night would be even worse.
Based on everything they’d heard the crawlerz were at a whole other level as far as massacre and mayhem went. Some sort of metamorphosis took place when a surger evolved into one of the crawlerz. They lost the ability to function around light, but they gained an otherworldly control of their adrenaline bursts. Stories of galloping crawlerz jumping from the street through second story windows to get at victims were so common they had to be believed.
Worse than their physical abilities the metamorphosis seemed to unlock some primal cognitive and telepathic capabilities. LeBron had read plenty of descriptions of coordinated attacks by the crawlerz where the most plausible explanation was that they were communicating with one another using telepathy. It was one way to tell the crawlerz from the surgers. The crawlerz moved silently through the world while the surgers ran around screaming anytime they saw something they associated with prey.
For these reasons and more they all feared the coming darkness. They were all holding out hope that maybe the crawlerz were still a night or two away from showing up. Since they only moved at night that was a possibility. The strength of their will wasn’t enough to stop the earth from rotating though. The sun fled from the sky like it was also afraid of what was coming. The two by four enforced plywood window coverings that’d seemed so solid in the daylight now looked way too flimsy to keep out the monsters roaming the darkness outside.
Chapter 15: The First Night
The house was pitch dark. They didn’t dare turn on a light or make any more noise than they had to. Going off the intel that the crawlerz were way more perceptive than the surgers Bart decided they’d all just congregate upstairs in the loft to sleep through the night. They setup a watch schedule of two-hour shifts and everyone else tried to go to sleep.
The only one who actually fell asleep was Bart. He was helped along by the generous dosage of pain killers Yue crushed up and included in his before bed round of medication. She was keeping him constantly filled up with antibiotics and painkillers at this point. The paranoia had set in with her that his wounds would get infected and he’d die. She didn’t know if she could take burying both her parents in the same week. She wasn’t even sure they’d be able to leave the house again anyway. With the surgers roaming around during the day and the crawlerz coming out at night there was no safe time to conduct a funeral service.
The distant gunshots and screams started up a little after midnight. Even with the surgers roaming the streets today it’d been relatively quiet outside. The nice thing about being the last people on the planet to have to deal with the infected was that they knew what was coming. It was also the worst part of it. Kind of like being told how horrifying a roller coaster ride is. You don’t really understand the fear until you’ve been stupid enough to strap yourself in. Once you’re sitting at the top staring straight down at a ground that’s way too far away with your belly threatening to rebel that’s when you get it.
The three of them huddled together on the floor by their snoring dad listening to the sounds of violence all around them. At the sound of gunfire right down the street Drew got up and walked unsteadily over to the window closest to where the noise was coming from. Looking down the street he saw the flashes of light that lined up with the roar of the shotgun someone was shooting into the street. That poor soul had managed to end up outside on their porch fighting against a steadily increasing number of the ghoulish monsters.
Drew watched as whoever it was fired straight into the figures lunging for him. The infected mostly shrugged off the shotgun blasts and kept coming up on the patio. Before they could get to him though a blur came out of nowhere and ripped the man down to the ground. The blur now distinguishable as a humanoid figure buried its face into the struggling prey it’d just tossed to the ground. Whatever madness drove the infected told it’s host when to stop feasting on the prone man and continue hunting. The surgers and the crawlerz quickly leaving the porch to seek their next victim.
LeBron and Yue joined Drew in looking out the window. All of them watched as the body of the man left on the porch slowly rose to its feet. Hesitantly at first then with more confidence the freshly turned surger moved out into the street. It left the shotgun lying on the porch along with its humanity. It ran off in the direction of distant gunfire. On the way it passed a few infected who were still sprinting towards the sound of the shots it’d fired from the porch before being turned. That’s how fast it’d all happened.
