Dudley walked into the meeting room wearing board shorts and one of those wife-beater t-shirts. He had his Elvis-style sunglasses pushed high up on his forehead, and sandals on his feet. He looked as if he had just gotten out of the shower. Even his dark hair was messed up, which was an unusual thing for him.
I just finished up my workout, little lady. I considered coming to this all sweaty, and pumped up, but I was worried you might not be able to contain yourself.
“Well, that’s very thoughtful of you.”
It was. Now tell me, does this interview have anything to do with the hint I gave you the last time we talked?
“It does indeed.”
Crazy times: not all of it is easy to talk about. Where do you want me to start?
“Jaxon left off with the two of you being stuck in a basement. Something was in the water, and zombies were coming through the door.”
That’s a pretty good place to kick things off…a shitty situation for me, though. The funny thing was I kept wondering why Jax was so interested in whatever was in that water. He kept trying to figure out what it was, and I didn’t understand why he cared so much. Let whatever the Hell was in that water stay there, and start focusing on the zombies trying to find and eat us.
It wasn’t until they started getting through the door that I understood what was so important about finding out what was in the water. Jaxon knew from the very beginning the zombies would eventually find us, and come through the door. He knew we would eventually need to go into the water to escape them.
“And Jaxon didn’t want something new attacking you when you made your escape.”
Exactly. You see: shamblers can’t swim. They just sink. Most of the time they won’t even go anywhere near the water unless they see prey: then they’ll charge right in after them. Jaxon was hoping to get both of us hidden in the water before the zombies got through the door.
The creature swimming around in there jacked up our timing. We should have been hiding in the water way before the shamblers actually got a visual on us. If we had managed that, they probably would have just avoided the water and left the room. Still, even though we had been discovered, jumping in the water and hoping for the best was my only viable option. It was either that, or be swarmed by the horde coming through the door. I unfortunately had a major problem getting into that dirty-ass water regardless of how limited my options were, and I really didn’t need to hear my uncle state the obvious.
“Jump in the water!” Jaxon shouted.
“Are you fucking crazy?” I asked.
“Jump in before you run out of ammo.”
The joke was on him. I had just fired my last shot. I pulled my machete free and began to hack at the zombies trying to force themselves into the room.
“I’m not jumping in that water!” I shouted.
“You don’t have a choice,” Jaxon answered. “I’ll cover you.”
“I’m not jumping in that water,” I repeated. “That’s poo-poo water.”
“It’s what?” asked Jaxon.
“It’s poo-poo water,” I said again.
I guess I should explain before we get any farther. Yes, I was concerned about the creature from the basement lagoon, but I was far more concerned about what also might be floating in the water. You see: I’m very particular about keeping myself clean. Jaxon, who is a clean freak as well, likes to call me a “germaphobe,” and he used to take great pleasure in having people touch my hands after I had just washed them. It used to drive me crazy.
“Wait a second. You were more concerned about the dirty water than you were about whatever creature was in there, and the zombies at the door?”
Hmm, maybe I am a “germaphobe.”
Regardless, I was having issues.
“What do you mean poo-poo water?” Jaxon asked.
“Well, the water had to come from somewhere. I’m guessing a sewage line burst somewhere. That’s poo-poo water, and I’m not getting in it.”
“It’s not poo-poo water you ass hat,” Jaxon said. “It doesn’t smell bad.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “The entire room smells bad.”
That was no exaggeration either. The room smelled like old socks and rotten flesh. I didn’t exactly put my nose to the water to have a whiff, but I couldn’t imagine it would be something refreshing.
“This is moving water,” Jaxon said. “It’s coming from a fresh source. This isn’t sewage.”
“It looks pretty still to me,” I shot back while hacking away at the zombies coming through the bent door.
“It looks still but it isn’t. If it were still water, it would be stagnant and nasty. This water isn’t stagnant.”
“I’M NOT GETTING IN THE POO-POO WATER,” I shouted.
As we were arguing, the zombies were making the hole in the door wider, and wider. I knew in my heart I wouldn’t be able to hold them off much longer. I just didn’t want to jump in the gross pool.
“Get in the damn water,” Jaxon growled.
“You get in the damn water,” I answered.
The noise coming from the shamblers was incredibly loud. Add that to my screaming at Jaxon, and we were really bringing down the house. I’ve been to rock concerts that created less noise. Hang around large hordes of zombies and you kind of get used to the noise levels. Unfortunately for me, the creature in the water probably didn’t hang around zombies much. It didn’t seem to be a big fan of all the commotion.
“Dudley,” Jax said. “Look behind you.”
I didn’t want to look. I really didn’t. I simply didn’t want to face any more bad news. I’d enough crappy news for one day, and the zombies pushing through the door was just icing on the cake. We’d already dealt with the machine gun breaking on the roof, and our building getting infiltrated. It was probably time to go home and have a nap.
I looked.
A clawed hand was out of the water, and grabbing hold of the first dry step. Mind you, I’ve seen some clawed hands before on zombies and vampires, but none of them even compared to the back scratchers on this thing. They were four inches long, thick, black, and looked evil sharp. Almost like a mutated badger or something.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered.
The head of the beast began to rise from the dark water.
“Jump,” Jaxon shouted.
The claws made it pretty easy for me. Don’t get me wrong: the zombies are rough. But I guess since the team has faced them so many times, they had kind of lost their edge. I really didn’t want to be anywhere near the receiving end of those claws.
I jumped into the water.
I swam as hard and as fast as I possibly could swim. I aimed my body right for the same filing cabinet that Jaxon was using. I just knew the beast was right behind me. I could just feel that clawed hand grabbing onto my leg and pulling me underwater.
It never attacked.
I reached my uncle right as the shamblers opened the hole in the door wide enough to pour into onto the stairway.
“Check it out,” Jaxon whispered after he had helped me out of the water.
The zombies were massing on the stairs but their attention wasn’t on us at all. Instead, they were focused on the humanoid creature that had climbed out of the water before them. It wasn’t pink upon closer inspection. It had a sort of milky-white skin that was almost, but not quite, transparent. The blood pumping through its veins just gave the skin a slight tinge. You could also see the vague shapes of internal organs as well. It was pretty nasty. The head of the creature was elongated, with small ears, a big huge mouth, and a wide nose.
The creature wasn’t all that large, as it stood there hunched over the stairs, facing down the zombies. I’m positive it was less than six feet tall, but it was still intimidating as Hell. It wasn’t just the claws either, not that I’d forgotten about those, but the mouth was just plain scary. It seemed almost overcrowded with oversized, jagged, teeth. The thing looked like it could bite through a metal girder.
The zombies had one of those brief moments of indecision when they realized their intended prey had been replaced by something else: something that probably didn’t smell even remotely human. The creature not only held its ground in front of them, but it bellowed a roar that should have come from a much larger creature.
Yet, it didn’t attack.
The zombies charged. The creature didn’t run: it didn’t jump back into the water. It stood its ground, and when the first shambler approached and grabbed hold of its neck, I thought it would all be over.
Instead, the creature reacted violently.
It slammed its clawed hand down on top of the shambler’s head, so hard the head caved in. After that, the zombies washed over it in a great big wave. The creature was buried beneath them in seconds.
“We need to find a way out of here,” Jaxon whispered.
“Maybe after they eat that thing, they’ll forget all about us.”
“I don’t think the zombies can hurt it,” Jaxon whispered.
“How do you figure? They are currently devouring it.”
“When that first zombie attacked, there was no wound. I don’t think it was able to bite through the monster’s skin.”
As if to prove Jaxon right, the creature stood up beneath the mound of undead that had amassed on top of it. It bellowed out another roar, and advanced up the steps in order to bite and scratch at the advancing horde.
The battle wasn’t going to last forever. There were way too many zombies pushing their way through the hole in the door. Eventually, their sheer numbers were going to drag the creature down. Ten zombies may not be able to puncture its hide, but one hundred or more zombies all pulling its skin in different directions was a different story entirely.
In the middle of its attack, the creature seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion. It gave a last few swats with its clawed hands and then jumped over the railing of the staircase, and vanished into the dark water.
The zombies pursued it.
Some of them jumped over the railing, while others floundered down the stairs and ended up wading around the room with their hands held above their heads, as if they were afraid to get their shirtsleeves wet.
“We gotta move,” Jax whispered.
“Where the Hell are we gonna go?” I asked. “We’re kind of trapped in here.”
“No,” Jaxon whispered. “There has to be a way out. I bet it’s under the water.”
“Oh, I really hate you right now.”
“We need to move now. If the shamblers fill up the room, we’ll never find the way out.”
Jax didn’t wait for me to reply this time. He was probably sick of hearing me complain. Instead, he quietly lowered himself into the water. I grumbled and fumed but I eventually joined him.
The water came up to our shoulders and it was cold as Hell. We tried to stay hidden behind the various objects as we made our way around the room. That worked pretty well. The zombies also weren’t venturing too far from the staircase. Evidently, they thought the creature was still in that area.
Jaxon led the way back to the muddy island with the upside down corpses.
“How are we going to find the way out if it’s under water?” I asked.
“I’m hoping I’ll feel a current. This water has to be escaping somehow.”
The moaning and groaning noises coming from all the shamblers were annoyingly loud. They just didn’t know how to shut up when they found something worth eating. On the plus side, it seemed as if the bulk of the horde had lost interest. There were still a lot of zombies in the water and on the stairs, but it didn’t seem as if any more of them were coming into the room. At the very least, that was a relief. All we needed to do was find the exit without being seen, and we’d be home free.
The first scream made me jump.
The second scream made Jaxon curse.
The many screams that followed made us run like Hell, and that wasn’t very easy, being chest-deep in dark water. We had gotten lucky when the cellar-dweller climbed out of the water onto the stairs. The zombies forgot all about me, and concentrated on the creature. Unfortunately, we had been discovered once again.
One of them happened to look over in the right direction at the right time, and saw us moving along the far wall. It was bound to happen. There were way too many searching eyes.
I looked towards the staircase, and immediately regretted it. The stairs were once again being flooded, and more of the horde was entering the water.
“This is bad!” I shouted!
“Rarely gets worse,” Jaxon answered.
He shoved his MP7 into my arms and pulled out his flashlight.
“Take out the ones closest to us,” Jaxon said.
He dove under the water. It was a weird feeling when he went under. I almost felt like I was alone in the room without backup. I didn’t like it; having someone next to you working toward the same goal makes things easier, especially when that someone is my uncle. With Jaxon around, it’s hard to imagine yourself failing.
I know that might seem weird. We lost people. We lose them all the time, in all honesty. We’re far from invincible. It’s just that, for some reason, Jax gives people the belief that they can win. No matter how hard things tend to get, he never contemplates defeat.
I was missing my shots.
Tension and stress can do that to a person. The first thing to go in extreme situations is hand/eye coordination. I’m normally pretty good at controlling myself, but this was something sort of new to me. Like I said, I felt alone.
A zombie had somehow gotten to within ten feet of me. Its wet face had this doughy skin that looked as if it were about to peel right off its skull. Its screams were watery, so it must have taken water into its lungs.
I fired, and I missed.
I fired again, and hit a shoulder.
The corpse jerked with the impact but it kept on coming. For a brief moment I blamed the gun. The sights had to be off in a bad way. Then I realized my hands were shaking fiercely, and the shamblers were getting closer.
I finally nailed it, right before it could get its hands on me. The body dropped face down in the water and floated there. I didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. I didn’t have the opportunity. There were too many zombies willing to take its place.
I fired, and fired, from my position. I had no idea how many bullets I had left, and the thought of running empty was freaking me out even more. They were too close. The smell coming off them was even worse when it mixed with the water.
I found myself trying to back away from them, but I was unable to do so since my back was already against the wall. Instead, I mentally chided myself, and pushed forward. It isn’t easy to make yourself walk towards an advancing horde of zombies, but I did it.
All in all, the speed of the shamblers was really affected by the water. They were splashing, and thrashing, trying to close the distance, but their frenzied movements only served to slow them down.
I stopped advancing. I forced myself to remain calm. I picked my shots, and brought them down. I had excellent results at first, but my success was short-lived. There were too many of them.
I began to retreat towards the wall once again. This time it wasn’t a matter of nerves. I was now moving backwards to avoid being overrun.
The screams were so loud inside the basement, I neither heard, nor noticed Jaxon come up from behind me, and wrap his arms around my chest. I immediately freaked right the fuck out. I thought for sure one of the shamblers had gotten a hold of me.
“Relax, Dudley!” Jaxon shouted. “Hold your breath!”
I did as he ordered and down we went. The zombies were all around us so Jaxon took us all the way down to the bottom of the cellar. We began swimming rapidly over the cement floor. The zombies could neither see, nor smell us through the water. Still, it was unnerving to swim around them in a sort of undead obstacle course. It was also an effort to avoid bumping into their legs so as not to alert them to our location.
It wasn’t long before I was running out of air. Jaxon had me by the arm. He was guiding me somewhere, but I wasn’t going to make it. I tapped his hand and motioned that I needed air. I could barely see his face in the darkness but I’m pretty sure he shook his head.
I’m not sure how he thought I could continue with convulsing lungs, but a breath of air wasn’t something I wanted: it was something I needed. I shook my arm out of his grasp and stood straight up in the water. Unfortunately, I was standing right in the middle of a loose group of shamblers.
They were pretty happy to see me.
You could almost see the enjoyment on their rotten faces. One of them grabbed me by the collar, and pulled my entire body towards its jaws. Jaxon erupted behind me, and brought his tomahawk straight down on the zombie’s head.
The relief I experienced when I felt its fingers release my collar was immense. Still, before I even managed to collect my thoughts and grab another breath, Jaxon was in action. There were too many of them around us. We couldn’t make our escape without getting some distance first.
Jaxon was punching with his fist, and slashing with his tomahawk. He was a whirlwind of destruction, hell-bent on clearing a space around us. But the dead just kept coming. That’s what they do, ya know? They just keep coming. Nothing scares them. They just keep coming, and coming, and coming.
I fired off two shots with Jaxon’s rifle, and then the gun was empty. I dropped it on its sling, and grabbed the handle of my machete. As soon as I pulled the blade free, my uncle suddenly turned on me, launched himself into the air, tackled me around the shoulders, and dragged me under the water once more.
This time I never even had a chance to take a breath. I began to fight against him as he dragged me along the bottom of the cellar. He swam towards the island. I could see the muddy mound through the cloudy water by the beam of his flashlight.
However, the island wasn’t our destination. We ended up going around it entirely. I was becoming frantic for a breath of air. I knew it would be bad if I put my head out of the water, but try telling that to my convulsing lungs.
I thrashed and thrashed, but Jaxon only tightened his grip. Spots began to appear in my vision. My slaps at Jaxon’s hand became weaker, and weaker. I vaguely saw the flashlight shining on a dark hole in the concrete, but I no longer cared. At that point, I released the expired air I had been holding in my lungs, and went completely limp.
Before I could draw that inevitable breath of watery death, I felt myself being pushed to the surface, and when that unstoppable inhale finally came, it filled my lungs with air, instead of water. I came to my senses immediately. I heard the rage-filled screams coming from all around us. I cleared my vision, saw the basement was filled with the dead, and they were all headed right for us.
Jaxon was breathing heavily in my ear.
“You ready?” He asked. “Get a good breath. I don’t know how long this tunnel is, but it’s better than staying here.”
In other words, drowning was better than being eaten. Well, I wasn’t too sure either of the two options made for a nice evening, to be honest with you. I took a deep breath of air just as my uncle’s hand closed around my arm.
Under the water we went. The hole in the concrete was at our feet. I barely felt a current as we headed towards it. Maybe the water was too cold, and my body had become too numb to really feel much of anything, but there must have been one. Jaxon swam like a crazy person. It was hard to see, even with the flashlight. The dirt walls and floor of the tunnel were clouding up the water.
After a bit, I began to get nervous. My air was running out. I could already feel the tightening in my chest. It was more than a mere suggestion to breathe, but I was ignoring it. I hated this. I really did. I felt completely useless. I’m not sure how Jax even managed to make any progress. I’m guessing he felt his way through the tunnel instead of relying on his flashlight too much.
Suddenly we began to rise.
It didn’t take us long to reach the surface, and when we did, both of us were laughing. We crawled out of the water onto a dirt floor. I wanted to lay there for a bit, and once again learn how to breathe. I’m sure Jax felt the same way I did, but he made sure to scan our surroundings with the flashlight before he even contemplated resting.
Both of us were still laughing. I’m not sure why. Maybe we were just happy to get out of that basement in one piece. All I know is Jaxon started cracking up the second we reached the surface, and I joined in along with him.
“Well, that sucked,” I said.
“It looked like you were having some problems there, tough guy,” Jaxon laughed.
“I thought you were going to drown me.”
“I can’t believe you popped your head up right in the middle of a group of zombies,” Jaxon said.
“It wasn’t like I wanted to,” I grumbled. “I needed air.”
“You want some free advice?” Jaxon asked.
“I do not,” I answered.
“Why not?” Jaxon asked. “It’s free.”
“No thanks,” I told him. “I’m okay.”
“How about some friendly advice?”
“How about fuck off?” I replied.
Now, I can see you’re looking at me kind of funny. That’s probably because you believe Jaxon really wanted to offer me a bit of advice that may, in fact, benefit me in the future. I can assure you that he had zero intention of giving me anything beneficial. Instead, what he was trying to do was open me up so he could harass me. If I had asked him what advice he had to give me, he would have probably made fun of my lung capacity. Or perhaps he would have made fun of the faces I made after I ran out of air, or suggested I quit the Regulators and find employment as a trumpet player since my cheeks can puff out so far.
I really don’t know what form the harassment would have taken. I only knew it would last for hours, possibly even days. It wouldn’t matter if I thought it was funny or not, because Jaxon found it funny, and when he finds something funny, look out.
“I’m thinking maybe later you’ll probably be interested in hearing my advice,” Jaxon said unperturbed.
“I can see how you would think that,” I answered. “I’ve been giving you nothing but encouragement to continue.”
“I can sense your anger, Luke,” Jaxon whispered. “Anger leads to the Dark Side.”
“Fear leads to anger,” I added.
Jaxon was no longer paying attention. That quickly, he had lost interest in joking around. Instead, he was shining his light on the floor. I finally pulled out my own flashlight and started investigating our surroundings. We were inside a tunnel of some sorts. The walls, the floor, and the ceilings didn’t look safe at all.
“What are you looking at?” I asked Jax who was staring at something on the floor.
“I found a footprint,” Jaxon answered.
“Is it the creature?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, it looks like we’re on the right track, I guess.”
“I’d say so,” Jaxon said. “I also don’t think the thing is normally a water creature.”
“Huh?”
“None of the footprints I’ve seen are webbed. Its hands weren’t webbed either. Did you see any gills?”
“I wasn’t exactly looking for gills, man. I just wanted to get the Hell away from it.”
“Look at the walls of the tunnel,” Jaxon said. “They’re covered in claw marks. Whatever that thing is, I think it dug this tunnel out. I bet when it went too deep it busted a water line, and that’s what flooded the basement.”
“How could one creature dig out this huge ass tunnel? I asked.
In just our immediate area, the walls were about ten feet apart, and the ceiling was about eight feet high.
“Look farther down the tunnel,” Jaxon said. “The walls get narrower.”
He was correct. I didn’t notice it on my first scan but farther down the tunnel the walls got pretty narrow. The two of us wouldn’t be able to walk side by side.
That’s when I noticed the dirt walls and ceiling were kind of shiny.
“Did you notice the shiny walls?” I asked.
Jaxon went over to the far wall, pulled out his knife, and poked the dirt. The wall stayed together. Not even a bit of dust fell from where he was picking at the wall.
“I bet it’s some sort of secretion from that creature,” Jaxon said.
“You don’t think that it’s maybe some type of chemical that someone could have coated the walls with, in order to keep the tunnel from collapsing?”
“If people dug this out,” Jaxon said, “They would have added support beams, and things like that, to make sure it wouldn’t collapse.”
“Do you even need support beams when you pour a hardening chemical all over the walls?”
“I’m no miner,” Jaxon said with a smile, “but I’m not sure this chemical you continue to speak of even exists, and if it does exist, I’m not sure it would be potent enough to keep this freaking tunnel from caving in on top of us.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” I answered. “Yet, I’m sure I’ve read about soil coagulants in the past.”
“Well, did these soil coagulants have the ability to hold back tons of dirt?”
“I really can’t remember,” I shrugged.
“I see,” Jaxon snickered, and tapped his earpiece.
“Hardin,” Jaxon asked. “You with me?”
“Right here,” Hardin answered.
“What do you think we’re dealing with?”
“I’m not positive,” Hardin answered. “I haven’t gotten a very clear image yet. Also, Miriam is indisposed right now, and not answering her phone.”
Miriam always takes off and goes on what she refers to as ‘solo adventures’. It pisses Jaxon off, but she doesn’t seem to care. A few months before this little adventure, she had also begun to take Ivana on her little adventures as well. I’m not going to even repeat what Jax said when he found that out.
“Jaxon seems to be rather protective of Ivana?”
She’s not a fighter, and because she’s not a fighter he doesn’t want her anywhere near any kind of danger. He’s the same way with his wife: probably even more so. Miriam normally handles exorcisms, and spirit-type problems: things the Regulators would be useless at. I personally don’t think it’s a big deal. I bet the two of them spend most of their time drinking tea and learning to knit.
“Well,” Jaxon grumbled. “That’s just great isn’t it?”
“Sorry, Jax,” Hardin replied. “She said things were getting hairy the last time I talked to her. I’m sure she’ll get back to us soon.”
“By the time she does,” Jaxon snarled, “I won’t need her.”
Without another word, Jaxon reclaimed his MP7, threw it over his shoulder, and tossed me a couple of mags for my own rifle.
“How many mags are you carrying?” I asked.
“That’s the last of them,” he answered.
“Won’t you be needing them?”
He didn’t answer. He just smiled at me and set off down the tunnel. I followed behind him. Together we followed the footprints into the darkness.
The tunnel was pretty freaky. At least, it was making me a bit nervous. The walls didn’t look stable, and once we had gone a ways, I was too worried about their stability to try a stab test like Jax did earlier.
It was a long walk underground. Eventually, the path we were following broke off into different directions.
“We’re going to get lost down here,” I said.
“Not likely,” Jaxon said. “I’ve been tracking our direction.”
“How have you been doing that?”
“My watch has a compass.”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “Let me see.”
We took a few minutes to geek out over all the features on his Pathfinder. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but aside from the money, one of the best things about being on the Regulators is getting to play with all the cool toys.
After I vowed to pick up one of those watches, we set off once again. Both of us were keeping an eye on the creature’s tracks. I mean, there were tracks all over the floor but we were only following the freshest of the bunch.
Every now and then we heard growls and shrieks in the distance. They weren’t zombie growls and shrieks, though. They were something else. They made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It felt like we were being watched, possibly even followed.
I shined my light down one of the side tunnels as we passed by, and for a brief second I saw the reflective shine of eyes staring back at me. It was gone before I could show it to Jaxon.
“I’m not liking this,” I said.
“I agree,” he answered. “I can’t believe these tunnels are running underneath the city, and nobody knew about them.”
“I wish they did know about them,” I said. “Then maybe somebody could tell us where to find the freakin’ exit.”
A loud growl echoed from somewhere behind us. It was followed by a series of clicks.
“Well, that’s a problem,” Jaxon announced.
“What is?”
“Those clicks,” Jaxon answered. “They sound like radar pings. If that’s the case, these things won’t need to use eyesight to find us, and that puts us at a big disadvantage because we are seriously out of our element down here.”
“I think we can both agree there’s more than one of these creatures,” I said. “How many do you think we’re dealing with?”
“Impossible to say,” Jaxon answered. “Let’s hope we don’t find out.”
We went deeper, and deeper, into the tunnels. We had no choice. We could have found our way back to where we came in with the compass, but there wasn’t much point in that. Backtracking only meant we would eventually wind up in a building overrun by zombies.
It was pretty crazy. The tunnel we followed went up and down. It angled a little to the left, and sometimes a little to the right. At one point we hit a T-intersection and had to study the footprints for a bit to figure out which direction we needed to take.
As Jaxon stood there studying the ground, the noises behind us became louder, and louder. The creatures were coming for us. I aimed my light, and my rifle, towards the rear so we wouldn’t get attacked from behind.
“I think you better pick a direction soon,” I said.
“It may not matter which direction we choose,” Jaxon answered.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, we started following the tracks because we were hoping the creature would lead us to the surface. Now we know there’s more than just one creature. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a community of these underground things. The one we’re following might be leading us to an ambush.”
“That’s comforting,” I said. “What do you think we should do?”
“I say we keep on following the footprints and hope for the best.”
We moved as fast as we could possibly go through the tunnels. The passage got narrower, and narrower, but we didn’t let that slow us down. We could tell we were being followed, and it wouldn’t be long before they were upon us.
Finally, Jaxon stopped in a tunnel so narrow he could barely turn around.
“They’re getting too close,” Jaxon announced. “We need to set up some traps.”
He began to struggle with taking off his backpack when I noticed dust drifting lazily down from the ceiling of a passage to our left. I also noticed that the footprints we had been following led down the same passage. I gave Jax a tap on the shoulder and pointed.
Jaxon moved to where I was pointing. The ground sloped upwards, and he followed it without any hesitation. The growls and clicks were coming from just beyond the range of my flashlight as I shined it behind us.
“Bingo,” Jaxon said. “I found a way out.”
At the top of the slope, he pushed against a lone cement block over his head. More dust drifted downwards, and the block made an extremely loud scraping sound as he moved it to the side.
Shapes were gathering at the limits of my flashlight beam a second before I gave up my vigil and climbed through the newly made hole in the ceiling. Jaxon was right behind me. I went to help him up but instead he snapped at me to check my surroundings.
We were inside a dark room with no windows.
I could sense Jaxon moving next to me. I heard the scrape and crunch when he pushed the cement block back into place.
“Where are we?” I asked when his light joined mine, and the room showed its secrets.
“I bet I know,” Jaxon answered without really answering anything.
Then I saw what he was looking at. Behind me and off to my right were two very old, very dusty caskets.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked.
“Welcome to Concordia Cemetery,” Jaxon announced.
We had ended up inside a crypt. While I’m not extremely knowledgeable about cemeteries, Concordia is pretty famous if you happen to live in or around El Paso. It’s an old burial ground from the days of the Wild West. It even has the final resting place of a gunfighter named John Wesley Hardin.
“Any relation to Mr. Hardin?”
I doubt it, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Jaxon went to the front door. By rights, it should have been sealed shut. It wasn’t. With just a bit of force, the door opened onto the nighttime sky. It was good to breathe fresh air again. Then I had a thought that made me nervous.
“How dangerous do you think it is to be in the middle of a cemetery during a zombie invasion?”
Jaxon blew out a lung full of air before answering.
“If you would have asked me a few hours ago, I would have told you I’m not crazy enough to find out. Looking around now though, I think we’re the only two people in here.”
A creaking noise came from somewhere in the distance.
“Let the games begin,” I muttered.
We exited the crypt and Jax drew out his pistol. We scanned our surroundings but nothing came charging out at us. I held my rifle in a ready position waiting for the barrage of violence but it never came.
“I don’t hear anything,” Jaxon said after he found us some cover behind a large headstone.
“Neither do I,” I replied.
Jaxon broke cover and low-crawled to the dirt road that wound its way in, and around, the various cemetery plots. I tried to cover him as best I could, but I had no idea where to look for any threats.
At the dirt road, he crouched low behind another headstone, and turned on his light. I understood what he was doing: he was looking for more footprints on the dirt road. After about five minutes, he made his way back to me.
“There are tracks all over the road,” Jaxon said.
“Same kinda tracks as the creature?”
“Identical,” Jaxon said. “Unfortunately, the tracks are coming from more than one creature. So whatever these things are, they have been coming in and out of here for a pretty long time. I can’t follow our friend from the basement anymore. Its tracks have gotten mixed up with all the others.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Wait and listen,” Jaxon answered.
We didn’t have to wait very long either. We heard scratching noises coming from one end of the cemetery within twenty minutes. In response, we crouched low, and weaved our way towards the noise, using the tombstones as cover.
I had never really been to Concordia before. I’d driven past it on numerous occasions, but I can’t remember ever going inside. It was a pretty large cemetery, but not huge. Some of the burial markers were made of stone, while others were made of wood, and sometimes even metal. There weren’t many trees: just some desert shrub type plants, and the ground itself was sand. It was an old cemetery, not at all like most people picture when they think of cemeteries.
There weren’t exactly a lot of places we could use for cover either, but we stayed as low as possible and did our best. As we made our way, we heard the sounds of a zombie scream from somewhere outside the walls of the cemetery. I wondered what the zombie was screaming about. There weren’t any humans left in the city except for us. I began to worry a little bit about the rest of the team.
That’s when I noticed Jaxon had stopped. I couldn’t see what he was looking at, but I was positive he had found our creature. I waited a few tombstones behind him until he finally motioned me forward.
I crawled to his position, and he pointed towards the wall.
I saw the creature once again. It seemed to have forgotten about us entirely as it was busy digging into the ground next to an old grave. Jaxon gave out a low whistle. The creature immediately stopped its digging, and turned its long head in our direction. Its eyes were black. They reminded me of a shark’s eyes.
“It’s completely hairless,” Jaxon said. “Not very big either. In fact, it’s kinda scrawny.”
“It might be slim but it’s covered in muscle. So if you’re thinking about tackling it, don’t bother. Also, look how long its arms are. The arms hang down to its knees. No wonder it could cave in a zombie’s head so easily. It’s got all that momentum.”
Jaxon started laughing. The creature heard him, and let out a low growl in our direction. Jax drew his pistol, and broke cover by standing up.
“Well, it’s been fun,” Jaxon said, “but I got shit to do.”
The creature saw him immediately and crouched low. It was ready to spring as Jaxon walked closer and closer. However, before the creature felt threatened enough to attack, Jaxon halted and aimed his weapon.
The muffled sound of a silenced pistol never came.
“Jax,” Hardin said in our earpieces. “Don’t shoot.”
“Why not?” Jaxon asked.
“I just got a call from Miriam,” Hardin said. “The creature is harmless unless attacked.”
“It doesn’t look harmless.”
“Well, it is,” Hardin said, “but it’s also somewhat territorial. So it’s probably best if you leave the cemetery.”
“What is it?” Jaxon asked.
“It’s a ghoul,” Hardin answered.