Cruel World(149)

Through the storm, he saw the first of them on the horizon.

In a span of seconds, there were dozens more. Then hundreds.

They ran toward the building with a single purpose. He could feel their calls in his bones.

Quinn bolted back the way he’d come, sliding on the slick floor as he raced toward the lab door.

“We have to go, right now,” he said, slicing the card through the reader. They pushed past the door and ran down the hallway pausing again before bursting into the lobby. Quinn glanced out through the tall windows lining the front of the building and slid to a stop, grasping Alice and Ty as he did.

Two stilts were striding toward the truck. They were too close; they’d never make it.

“Damn it,” Alice said, her hair whipping as she looked around the building. Ty’s hand trembled in his own and Denver whined and paced before them.

“The roof. If we can get on the roof, maybe we can distract them long enough to jump onto the awning and then down to the truck,” Quinn said.

“No, if we go outside they’ll kill us,” Alice said.

“If we stay in here, we’re trapped. They won’t leave until they’ve dug us out. Those doors aren’t going to hold them. There’s hundreds of them out there,” Quinn said, gripping her arm hard. She searched his face and looked out at the stilts near the truck. They picked at it with long fingers, and it rocked on its springs.

“Okay,” she said.

They retraced their steps, the air humming with deep vibrations. When they arrived at the lab, things were dropping from the ceiling around them, and it was a split second before Quinn realized it was Rodney collapsing from where he’d grown. They raced down the rear hall and stopped at the door leading to the roof. Quinn yanked on the door without looking outside, but Alice must have done so since her grasp on his arm tightened.

“Quinn…”

The door was locked.

“Quinn…” More urgency in her voice.

“Stand back,” he said, shoving the pistol against the gap between the door and its frame near the handle.

He fired.

The gunshot was deafening, but when he tugged on the doorknob, the door swung free toward them. He shoved them into the dark stairway, a last look at the pale mass of lurching flesh, closer now, so much closer.

He lunged through the door, slamming it behind him. There was no way to re-lock it so he ran, ripping up the stairs two at a time. At the top landing, Alice had unlocked the outside door and already spilled onto the roof. As he made the landing, a fire extinguisher caught his attention on the wall. He tore it free of its mooring and sprinted onto the roof.

The roof was covered with rock and felt spongy beneath his feet. He neared the waist-high edge and looked over.

The field behind the building was filled with stilts. They poured like a tidal wave across the earth, arms swinging, heads tilted up, mouths open and belching roars.

“Is the front clear?” he yelled over his shoulder.

“There’s a few around the truck!” Alice called back.

“Get down! Don’t let them see you!”

He tossed the fire extinguisher over the side as the first stilts neared the building. He took aim, breathing, locking the sights on the red steel canister. The sights shook. Don’t let the fear win.

He squeezed the trigger.

The extinguisher jumped and spewed a stream of thick, white smoke into the air. The stilts nearby staggered away from it, the rest slowing and hanging back as the cylinder arced out even more of its contents. Quinn dashed around the side of the building banging the pistol on the concrete lip as he neared its front. The stilts surrounding the truck looked up at him, glaring through the short distance that separated them.

“This way you ugly f*ckers!” Quinn yelled and ran back the way he’d come. He only had to wait a moment to know that they’d taken the bait. They came into view, their eyes finding him as he pelted to the rear of the building. “Jump when it’s safe!” he yelled, but didn’t look back to see if Alice had heard him. The fire extinguisher was fizzling its last, and the herd approached it, coming closer like an army of thin apes. One of them reached out and batted the canister against the building. When it merely rolled a few inches into the grass and fell still, they flooded through the open doorway while others reached up, trying to grasp the edge of the roof.

He chanced a look over his shoulder just in time to see Alice lock eyes with him as she climbed onto the roof’s lip. Their gaze solidified into something almost tangible and then broke as she jumped.