Following April’s blood-curdling shriek, Jack pulls back the canvas leading the group into the room with his service revolver out in front of him. Dutch closely follows Jack in with his .45 drawn. Sarah neglectfully barges past the both officers, with Russell and Norman pulling up the rear. She gawks breathlessly into April’s horror-stricken face and then visually follows the length of the veterinarian’s arm to the tip of her erect index finger—to the gurney. Sarah gasps.
“Doctor—” April moves backward, angling herself between the Sheriff and Jack.
“Tell me it isn’t doing what I think it is doing.” Jack pushes past Sarah, keeping his revolver pointed at the creature’s chest. He too gawks, although inquisitively. The translucent mucus excretes from all recent incisions or formerly sustained injuries; it bursts upward into the air like a fountain of silly string at a child’s birthday party. Then hardening to a sinew webbing, it pulls itself snuggly over the creature as if it were vacuum sealing it in plastic. The incisions close in a matter of seconds.
“Russell, will you fetch me the tag gun?” Sarah speaks cautiously, never averting her eyes from the awe-inspiring spectacle.
“The tag gun, what for? WE HAVE REAL GUNS!”
“Because, Russell, they seem to be regenerating tissue at an astounding rate. When they do decide to wake up, we are not entirely sure we can contain them. I would personally feel much safer if we were able to track them rather than having them milling about the countryside, blindly slaughtering hundreds of innocents.”
“Point taken.” Russell turns, disappearing behind the partition.
“I thought you said these things were dead.” Jack looks back at Sarah while keeping his .357 pointed at what remained of the creature’s head.
“Not likely, Deputy… It would seem they may have only been rendered inactive due to the extensive damage their bodies sustained during the explosion, but now… now they seem to be regaining—”
“Regaining… what?” April inquires, completely mortified.
“Life… undead however. These creatures exist. It looks as if they are coming back.”
“You should all clear out. Jack and I will deal with this,” Dutch suggests.
“Sounds like a plan.” Norman backs against the canvas drape.
“Norman, stay put. Jack, Sheriff, keep your weapons aimed over its heart,” Sarah orders them as if there was no way she intended to exit the tent. “It has a protective shield around its heart. I assume that is how you kill it—that is, if it wakes up. This could all be a postmortem side effect.”
“Sounds like a lot of theories, if you ask me.” Dutch looks around nervously but does as Sarah instructs.
Jack watches as the creature’s body pulsates, twitches, and heals. “Yeah, I got to say, Doc, that doesn’t look like any postmortem side effects I’ve ever seen.”
“And you are the authority?”
“Just make up your mind. Is it alive or dead or… undead?” Jack levels his revolver over the creature’s heart, moving off to the side of the gurney while keeping all three subjects in sight. Dutch follows suit, moving to top of the gurney above the creature’s head. Russell reenters the room with the tag gun in one hand and a flare gun tucked into the front of his brown slacks.
“Place the tag against the meaty portion of the thigh. Pinch off the skin—make sure it is well seated.”
“What? OH HELL, NO—there’s no freaking way I’m going anywhere near that thing.” Russell then plants the tag gun sideways against Norman’s chest. “Computers, Doc, that’s what I do—computers. I say toxicology takes care of the tagging and bagging crap.”
“Hah-hah… funny, asshole.” Norman pushes the tag gun away. “Seriously, there’s no way in hell.”
“Fine, you imbeciles, I’ll do it myself.” Sarah snatches the plastic tag gun out of Russell’s hand and approaches the pulsating corpse. She unnervingly keeps her eyes locked steadily on Jack. “Be ready, Jack, Sheriff.”
Jack nods. Truth told, he was just as scared as Sarah and the others, and yet the unsure look in Sarah’s eyes begged him to steady her, to give her the strength she needed to approach the convulsing creature. Jack nods more firmly, as does the Sheriff.
Sarah looks up the length of the long thin corpse, stopping when her eyes meet with its malicious gaze. She watches with an intuitive depth of curiosity as fluids continuously excrete from the organ at the base of the skull where she had removed a portion of its cranium. She hesitates, not for sheer horror but a rather enduring curious compliance to supernatural orientation.
“Come on, Doc,” Russell anxiously urges her to get it done. “Do it already.”
Sarah takes a deep I’m-going-in breath, holding it in her lungs, and then gives Jack one last hopeful glance before pinching off a meaty section of the back thigh. The skin looks tough and taut against the bones, like that of a two-thousand-year-old mummy, and yet is moist with sweaty ichors. The smell sickens Sarah, and the clammy leathery texture of its skin has her quickly second-guessing her motive.
“Oh—Oh, I was wrong. I don’t think I can,” she squeals.
“Sure you can, Doc,” Russell urges her to continue, knowing that if she is unable, he will have to do it. “Just don’t think about it.”
“You got this, Doc,” Jack adds, studying the repugnant look on her face. “I’ve your back.”
Sarah nods and then presses the barrel against the pinched-off flesh. She squeezes the trigger, releasing and activating a small microchip directly beneath the skin, unnoticeable and untraceable by even the keenest eye. She exhales, sliding the tag gun into her lab coat. Without backing away, Sarah turns to Russell. “I believe that will do. Perhaps I should tag the others as well?”
Flipping back around, intending to examine her work, and while deciding if it was even necessary to tag the remaining subjects, Sarah instantly notes a peculiar change. It takes her brain a moment to process the change, as she has gone numb with delimitating reverence that immediately sends chills down her spine—paralyzing her more emotionally than physically. It had turned its head in her direction. Its fiery orbs, now bright with fixed detestation, pierce through Sarah’s mind, releasing her from any further obligatory fascinations with the creature. Consumed with unbridled terror as it sits straight up and never once takes its sneering convulsive effrontery off the Doctor, Sarah falls backward in a panic and hits the ground. She quickly scurries backward against Russell’s legs. “SHOOT! FOR FUCK’S SAKE, SHOOT THE BLOODY THING!”
Jack cocked the hammer back on his revolver, but before he can squeeze off a round, the creature effortlessly swats him aside, over a gurney and into another of the subjects. Jack hits the ground hard and is left stunned by the powerful blow. Sheriff Byrd manages to squeeze off a round, yet unfortunately for April Cooper, the sheriff aims poorly. The round grazes the creature’s neck and then reemerges, finding a new path into the veterinarian’s left eye and out the backside of her head. April falls to the floor with half of her head removed by the exit wound.
“FUCK ME!” Norman, covered in brains, exclaims loudly as he watches April’s blood spill out in a slow, ever-widening pool.
Even with leaking fluids from its neck, the creature catches the scent of the young veterinarian’s blood, and a long bluish tongue-like appendage lashes out of its mouth. Whipping it like a funnel cloud, it tilts its head up toward the wrapping thin canvas ceiling. At the same time, the creature turns its glare on Dutch, opening its terrible jaws, revealing the danger of its deadly teeth. Sheriff Byrd freezes; he immediately pisses himself. His face expresses the error of his judgment, and his life flashes from moment to moment before his eyes. There was little Dutch could do to prevent it from closing its bony talons around his neck.
Jack heard the vertebrae in the Sheriff’s neck pop, decimated thoroughly in the creature’s crushing grip. He scrambles to his feet as it discards Dutch’s lifeless body. Jack hastily fires a round into its shoulder, jerking it backward. Again, he fires into it until it brings its hateful gaze upon him. Now that Jack had the creature’s full attention, he takes precise aim, leveling the barrel of his revolver’s center of mass and slowly squeezes the trigger. The round exits the cobalt blue tube penetrating the creature’s chest, tearing through its heart as the slug explodes out its backside. The gurney flips on end, and the creature twists violently to the ground. It doesn’t seem to move after that, its pinpoint eyes extinguished.
Jack’s chest heaves in and out. His weapon shakes in his hands as a bead of sweat trickles down from the hairline between his determined dark brown eyes, where his brow meets the bridge of his nose. Smoke rises from the heated barrel of Jack’s service revolver. He gathers his resolve and stands firm, allowing training and instinct to overcome his fear.
Not one of them utters a single word. All eyes shift back and forth between the dead Sheriff and April Cooper and the overturned gurney. They watch the thing lying crumpled under the gurney, waiting for it to move again; it doesn’t. Satisfied that it is dead, Jack lowers his sidearm and slowly begins backing away. Without looking down, yet perfectly aware of the situation and the position of the others, he takes Sarah under the arms and lifts her to her feet.
“It’s time to leave,” he firmly suggests, knowing it won’t be long before the others come to life.
The third creature, still sprawled out on a gurney, shoots up, throwing its arms back while extending its neck upward. It lets go of a deafening howl that penetrates outward. cold bill blasts its way into their thoughts. They stagger backward, shaken by the cryptic message.
“MOVE!” Jack orders, pulling Sarah from the examining room through the partition and past the analysis tables, never stopping until they were both outside the tent.
In a series of fast fluid movements, the creature perches itself on its hind legs and leaps forward, colliding with Norman, pinning the plump scientist’s face down under its weight. Savagely, it rips through Norman’s neck with its long razor talons and sharp teeth. Norman tries screaming for help, but his blood spews into the creature’s hungry mouth, and his pleas shortly turn to phlegmy burbles.
Russell manages to make it past the foldout analysis tables when he decidedly whips around, absorbing the horrid gurgling sounds his colleague makes behind him. He pulls the single-shot flare gun from his waistband and, for a brief a moment, questions the uncharacteristic foolishness of his actions—ones that will more than likely end with him getting himself killed. Russell rarely agreed with Norman professionally, but Norman was an accepted colleague, and to Russell, that made Norman an admired acquaintance, probably his only friend. Tired of feeling insubstantial, Russell pulls back the hammer and fires the flare gun. The fiery projectile hits the creature’s shoulder, causing a small area of already burned flesh to ignite briefly. The flare then rolls harmlessly to the ground, and the fire snuffed out. Within moments, Norman stops moving, and Russell notes the exaggerated glare cast from his lifeless eyes; they strongly disapprove of Russell’s ridiculous attempt to thwart the creature.
The creature turns its hateful gaze on Russell, extending its ferocious jaws; bloody bits of Norman hang from its mouth and teeth and splatter the floor while it emanates a shriek that sounds like air sucking backward through its windpipe. The creature waits until after the flare-gun-wielding scientist flees in terror before returning to its meal. A gurney flies across the room and crashes against the side of the tent as the last of the creatures springs to life; it too howls.
* * *
Jack leads Sarah by the arm toward his police cruiser, ordering anyone in his path to vacate the area immediately. He opens the cruiser’s passenger door, assisting Sarah into the passenger seat, being careful to clear her head of obstruction as she climbs in. Both creatures tear through the top of the tent, rising high into the air as they glare at the feast below. The first of them lands on all fours, driving Mitch Casper down on to his back; the EMT barely has a moment to scream before it violently rends the flesh from Mitch’s chest, exposing every naked rib.
The second creature touches down on top of a moving fire truck and claws along the roof, ripping effortlessly through the thin metal until it reaches the occupants inside. Seizing the vehicle’s operator by the throat, it pulls his bony arm back through the jagged opening and nearly slices the firefighter’s head completely off. Kirk Bowman, the passenger firefighter, screams as he watches blood spray out his colleague’s neck and across the dash of the truck.
Jack ignores the growing chaos around him, opening the driver’s door to free the automatic shotgun from the lock mount along the dash of the cruiser. He then takes position behind the open door, drawing the charging handle into the rear position, loading the weapon, and readying himself.
Russell, with his laptop in hand, runs helter-skelter from the collapsing tent. The creature leaps from Mitch’s bloody corpse, clumsily scrambling after Russell. Jack rushes forward, unloading round after round into the trailing creature; each shot from the automatic shotgun jerks the thing backward, allowing Russell to close distance with the cruiser and eventually climb into the safety of the backseat. Jack follows suit, slipping behind the wheel and slamming the driver’s door. Placing the shotgun along his lap with the muzzle toward the door, he then turns the key in the ignition. The patrol car roars to life.
Terror stricken with excitement, Russell repeatedly slaps his palms against the cruiser’s protective mesh cage. “GO, GO, GO, GO, GO.” he takes a quick look out the back window and watches the creature climb to its feet, shrugging off the shotgun rounds that had planted it on the ground. Eyes burning, glowering at the police cruiser, it thrusts its arms defiantly backward and unleashes its tongue, daring Jack to try to escape.
Without a second thought, Jacks slaps the gear into reverse and hammers the gas pedal, wheeling the car around. He then speeds off through a field, knowing it would eventually connect with the main road but cared very little regardless; Jack intended on out maneuvering the creature altogether. The creature takes two steps forward, growls, and then leaps after the cruiser. But its attention is soon diverted as the fire marshal exits the rear cab of the fire truck and heads for the ambulance. It veers away from the cruiser, making a beeline toward Rick Gillespie.
Eventually, Jack finds the gravel road, leaving the bumpy field behind them. Sarah turns to Russell in the backseat and studies the young analyst; the fearful whites of his widened eyes stand out against his sweat-beaded caramel skin. “Russell.” She waits for the inattentive Russell Draper to respond, although he has been staring despondently out the cruiser’s back window. “RUSSELL!”
“WHAT?” Russell snaps to attention.
“Norman?”
Russell shakes his head. Sarah looks down and then at Russell again. “You stopped to get your laptop? Why?”
After taking another few short glances out the back of the cruiser, Russell lifts the lid on the laptop. He then clicks the start button and navigates down through a lengthy list of programs. Russell finally double clicks on the file entitled “Grid Map.” “How else do you propose we keep track of them?”
“Brilliant… bloody brilliant, Russell! I could just kiss you right now!” Sarah’s affection does little to put the color back into Russell’s color-stricken cheeks. Russell knows he has already stepped way outside any acceptable boundaries more than once tonight.
“I suppose it would have been had Jack not killed the one creature you tagged.”
“Are you trying to say something?” Jack’s tone elevates defensively.
“No, but I have a feeling.”
“What would that be?” Sarah asked.
“I’m guessing that if the explosion was unable to kill them, I doubt a bullet would either.”
“That seems reasonable,” Sarah agrees, turning her attention to Jack. “What do you suggest we do now?”
Jack briefly glances at Sarah as if he had a clue. He returns his eyes to the road. “You said these creatures are nocturnal, right?”
“Yes, but I’m not 100 percent positive. Perhaps my findings would have been more conclusive had I been able to examine each subject thoroughly. Although based upon the enlarged hypothalamus region and the membrane covering the eyes, I would have to say that is an accurate hypothesis.”
Jack nods slowly, hesitantly trying to follow her lengthy explanation. “Doc, you’re doing that thing again where you’re not talking in English.”
“Um… guys?” Russell looks up from his laptop.
“Yes. Yes. I believe they’re nocturnal,” she reiterates more plainly.
“Yeah, guys?”
Jack looks down at his watch, giving Sarah another quick look before his eyes are back on the road. “Okay then. The sun rises at six twenty-seven, which is in about ten minutes. I can outlast these assholes for ten minutes or at least long enough to make it to the armor back at the station.”
“GUYS,” Russell blurts out, looking out into the field off to his right.
“WHAT?” Sarah and Jack, in unison, snap, turning their undivided attention to Russell.
“It’s moving again,” Russell says without looking up at either of them, his eyes locked on to the fast-moving bleep on the computer screen.
“What?” Jack reiterates but now appears concerned.
“Yeah… really damn fast too… I told you I had a feeling. I don’t think you killed it.”
“What direction is it heading?” Jack accelerates the cruiser.
Russell arches his eyebrows and swallows, speaking meekly, “Um, right at us?”
“Shit!” Jack floors the gas pedal. The cruiser whips side to side before straightening out.
“Why would it chase us?” Sarah asks, although she already knew the obvious answer to her rhetorical question.
“I don’t know, maybe because Jack pissed it off, but I’m just spitballing here.”
“Whatever.” Jack disregards Russell’s attempt to place blame and then mumbles defensively, “Asshole.”
“Crap, that was quick.”
“What?” Sarah looks on as Russell monitors the computer.
“It’s in the field off to your right, Doc. Damned if it isn’t smart. I think it’s trying to flank us.”
“Fine by me. Let it play tag with the cruiser.”
“I don’t see anything. Where is it?” Sarah searches the dark field next to her, quickly elevating her tone to a growing hysteria. “RUSSELL, I CAN’T SEE IT!”
Jack removes his .357 from its holster and shoves the gun against Sarah’s chest. She shakes her head no. “I don’t agree with guns.”
Again, her stubbornness perplexed Jack. “Take it. I can’t drive and shoot.”
“Absolutely not—”
“It’s on top of us, guys!”
“Sarah—I cannot drive and shoot,” Jack cocks an eyebrow, speaking calmly. “Take the damn gun.” With much reluctance, Sarah brandishes the firearm, holding it awkwardly in front of her with both hands. “Just bring the hammer back with your thumb. It has solid recoil—don’t anticipate it. Make sure it’s well within your sights and squeeze the trigger.”
Sarah nods.
Russell looks up from his laptop, calmly announcing the creature’s arrival. “It’s here.”
It moves across the hood of the cruiser. It is quick, lithe, and although bipedal, the thing moves on all fours. The windshield cracks to a spiderweb as the patrol car catches the creature’s hind legs, sending it spinning uncontrollably into a large oak tree off to the left. Sarah, completely startled, unknowingly aims the barrel of the gun toward the fractured windshield unloading four rounds—hitting nothing. The loud gunfire echoes through the cruiser, leaving its occupants deafened, although Jack manages to maintain control over the vehicle as the wind rushes inward through a now large hole in the windshield.
“Jesus, lady!” He furiously shakes his head from side to side, trying to clear the ringing in his ears. “What the hell was that? I said make sure the target was in your sights and squeeze the trigger, not unload four rounds inside my cruiser and destroy my goddamn windshield!”
“Don’t yell at me. I told you I don’t agree with guns!”
“It’s up again!” Although the ringing in his ears has Russell tweaked, he uncomfortably leans forward in his seat, watching the bleeping icon as it moves across the grid map toward the cruiser.
The creature gathers momentum, furiously giving chase. Jack lets up off the gas, applying the handbrake, wheeling the cruiser on to an eastbound gravel road. Fishtailing the cruiser, the back wheels wildly slide across hundreds of bluish-grey rocks. The left rear wheel drifts dangerously close to a shallow ditch. Dust whirls up from under the wheels as Jack spins the steering wheel counterclockwise, regaining control. The creature, however, slides behind the cruiser and off into the ditch where it tumbles into a field of cut wheat before regaining its balance and rising up on its hindquarters. Off in the distance, Jack watches as the sun breaks over the eastern sky, already above the tree line. The creature pauses, watching the coming dawn.
“Wait! Wait! It… it stopped moving.”
“Are you sure?”
With hopeful anticipation and while holding his breath, Russell monitors the computer screen. After a short moment, he sighs, watching the bleep heading back toward Keegan’s farm. Russell glances down at his wristwatch—6:26.
“Russell, what’s it doing?”
“Russell?”
“It’s going back,” Russell gasps with relief. “The sun is coming up, and it’s heading back toward the farm.”
Jack immediately snatches the revolver from Sarah’s hands, giving her a callous glare and then holsters the sidearm. He leans back in his seat, clearing his throat, somewhat slowing the vehicle. Jack mutters, looking forward with satisfaction. “They’re nocturnal after all.”
“Yes, they are,” Russell agrees, closing the lid on the laptop. He takes a deep breath, releases it, and then takes a quick look out the back window for reassurance. “So… um, Jack?”
“Yeah,” Jack answers, keeping his eyes and the cruiser aimed at the welcomed sunrise.
“Who do you suppose Cold Bill is?”