Empire of Blood [Box Set] Page 24

  It didn't take long before they saw the small patch of light. It grew as they got closer, eventually revealing the glass doors it came through. Without hesitation, Jackie pushed through the door without stopping, dragging Karen along with her. Jackie turned and kicked the door, realizing she didn't get a single dollar bill from inside. I'll just go back with the flashlight and--Shit, the flashlight.

  "Damn it!" she screamed, kicking the door over and over. Karen's bewildered expression, reflected in the bright glass of the door, snapped Jackie out of her fury and turned it to shame. She took a deep breath, sighed heavily, then flopped down Indian style and let her shoulders slump. How would she see to find some cash in any of these places without her flashlight? After seeing those bodies, there was no way she was going to try without it.

  "Okay, let's go find somewhere else then," she said, smiling at Karen.

  Karen just stared at her blankly.

  "Oh, come on, don't be such a pussy, Karen."

  Karen turned swiftly and stomped more than walked back to the car, got in, and slammed the door. Jackie laughed as she got up from the concrete and brushed off the back of her shorts.

  They drove around for a long time. Some of the roads were completely blocked with anywhere from dozens to hundreds of cars. If they drove close enough, they could see the stiff, gray flesh of the bodies still inside. The ones with their throats torn out were the worst.

  They saw their first one on North Main St. in a red Mustang convertible. He was wearing a blue camo hat that once tied around the throat. Now, both strings hung from the hat, threads hanging and blowing in the wind, framing the gaping blood-black hole where the man's adam’s apple had been. Jackie almost lurched, but managed to keep herself composed as Karen frantically sobbed about wanting to go home. When she looked back at her for an answer, Jackie made herself smile as she dug her fingernails into the steering wheel as casually as she could manage.

  "Everything is fine. Stop whining. This'll be fun."

  Karen's sobs died down some, but they didn't stop.

  She’d been driving around in circles for the better part of an hour trying to figure out which building they should go in next. Then, the obvious choice stuck out like a sore thumb in her peripheral vision. She turned to look at the tall, white, scepter-looking building off in the distant northern sky. Jackpot. Had to be. She swerved the car northward at the next intersection.

  Karen held tight to the door and seat as the car swung around. "What are you doing?"

  "I just picked our next destination, sister, and you better perk up for this one, it looks awesome!"

  "Where are we going now, Jackie, I told you I just want to go home, can't we just go home?" Her voice had taken on that whining tone again. The one that tore into Jackie's brain like nails on a chalkboard.

  "Oh, shut up you little baby, we’re going to that one right there!" She pointed to the tall white needle-shaped building. It stood over the rest of the skyline looking like a giant bishop on a chess board.

  Karen started to chew on her fingernails as Jackie slammed on the gas and swerved to miss the occasional abandoned car. Jackie noted the paleness of Karen's skin as they went along. Her first split second thought was that she looked like she belonged in the city. She almost felt guilty for the thought but instead shrugged it off and focused on the task at hand.

  The large white building towered over them as they drove up the block. It had looked tall from afar, but now it looked even taller. And Karen was really beginning to be a drag, too. She had started shaking lightly and whimpering under her breath every now and then. What a big baby, Jackie thought. I can't believe how much Mom and Dad gawk over you, you little brat.

  You could really see the damage to the buildings in this area. As they got closer and closer to the White Bishop, as Jackie had started calling it in her head, they saw large open spaces in some of the buildings and several appeared to have more gone than intact. Jackie was so busy looking at these tombs of decay that she didn't even notice all the debris in the road.

  The ride got really bumpy all of a sudden, and before Jackie could even look at the road in front of her, there was a loud pop and the car seemed to jerk away from her. Karen seemed to convulse as the car spun out of control, and then with inertia still pulling at them, came to an abrupt stop facing away from the tower.

  Jackie couldn't help but wonder if it was some kind of a sign, but she was already in too deep. She'd risked this much so far, why stop now.

  Karen sobbed into her lap. Jackie looked her over. She seemed fine. Jackie felt a slight jarring pain in her neck but not enough to keep her from moving. She sighed and then got out of the car to investigate. The left front tire looked more like the remains of an exploded black cloth than a tire. It draped several large chunks of steel and concrete that mirrored hundreds of others Jackie was now noticing to be scattered all over the road.

  Without thinking, she kicked one of the pieces and the shock of pain that tore into her foot almost sent her writhing on the ground.

  "Fuuuuck!" she screamed. Her voice echoed back at her several times as the realization of just how fucked she and her sister were clicked in her head. No wonder Karen was so upset now. They were stranded in deep in Necropolis, their car broken down, and the sun would be gone in just over an hour or so. Jackie swallowed what felt like part of her throat as the words formed in her head.

  We're dead, I've just killed us.

  As the echoes of Jackie's scream faded, Karen's weeping was the only sound in that desolate place. Jackie looked dumbly at the car as if she were trying to think it back to working condition. She turned and looked down the long road that had brought them there. Broken buildings and abandoned cars littered the view. Cars. Maybe we can take one of the cars. She ran around to the passenger side of her car that would now take them nowhere.

  A thick, painful feeling gripped her chest as she looked down at her blubbering sister. Her face wrinkled in worry as she reached for the door handle. She took a deep, quiet breath and pulled the door open. Leaning down next to her sister she spoke in a soft voice trying to hold back her own broken dam of emotion.

  "Oh my god, Kare-Bear, I'm so sorry."

  Karen's sobs increased. She put a hand out to push her sister away. Jackie cradled Karen's hand with both of hers and said, "I promise I'll get us out of this. I won't let anything happen to you."

  Karen shook with another wave of weeping, pulled her sister closer, and the girls embraced for a long moment.

  Jackie whispered in Karen's ear, "Let's go, maybe we can get one of these cars to start and get the hell out of here before it's too late." With that her sister stiffened. "What's the matter, Karen?" But even though her sister didn't answer, she knew what it was.

  The bodies.

  A strong wave of nausea came over Jackie as the image of that first dead man came back into her mind and refused to go away. That gaping hole for a throat and the bloated gray shell that had once been skin covering his body. She looked at her sister and that same tight stubbornness inside her,the one that had gotten them stuck in the first place, took over and she gripped Karen's hand and pulled.

  "Let go!"

  "No, we're getting the hell out of here before we can't!"

  Karen tried to fight her hand away from Jackie, but it was no use. Karen had never been an active child and now Jackie was thankful for it. It was more than that. She was thankful for everything about her sister. She had never known until that moment just how much she really did love her. She knew now, though. She loved her enough to drag her kicking and screaming all the way to the city limits if she had to.

  Karen eventually gave up and begrudgingly came of her own will. They smelled the driver of the first car long before they were close enough to make out its license plate. The smell was pungent in a way that Jackie had never expected. The intense, thick muskiness of it made Jackie's head hurt more and more the closer they came to the huge blue Lincoln. The sun had since been swallowed by the ho
rizon, leaving behind an eerie dusk.

  If someone had told Jackie what was left of the woman would look even worse than the man they first saw, she would have thought they were shitting her. But they wouldn't have been. It was obvious from the multiple gaping wounds she had been torn to shreds by multiple attackers. Her head hung sideways over her right shoulder and her collarbone showed through what was left of the flesh that had been ripped out of her shoulder. A quick look under the steering wheel revealed a medium-sized keychain of keys hanging from the ignition.

  Jackie had been too shocked by the view to hide it from her sister in time and Karen let out a wailing scream that sent the coldest shiver down Jackie's spine like ice. Jackie held firm to what they had to do, though. What she had to do. She took Karen over to the sidewalk and sat her down against the wall of the tan granite-walled building and left her there curled into a ball. She walked back over to the driver side of the car and took a long look at the woman and made herself imagine her little sister sitting there.

  As tears streamed down her face she pulled open the door and reached out for the body. Underneath the coarse fabric of the woman's suit, Jackie could feel the stiff limbs of her arms. As she picked up the body, it felt as though it were made of a slightly heavier form of hardened Styrofoam. She fought back the lurching in her throat and put all of her strength into tossing the body aside into the road. It landed with a series of cracks as both legs and one of the arms tore free from the lifeless torso.

  "Uggghh!" Jackie swung her arms up and down in disgust and for the first time was taken off guard by the immense fear and emotion inside of her. Her body convulsed for a minute as she stood there with nothing to grab hold of; she looked as though her hands gripped the invisible handle of a dynamite detonating box as she wept.

  It wasn't immediate, but eventually she took hold of herself and went back to where her sister lay staring off into space, dry tears staining her face.

  "Okay, kiddo, get in the car and let's get this show on the road."

  Karen looked up at her like a lost puppy. She drug herself up and the two of them got in the car, both with sour faces. Jackie took a deep breath and turned the key in the ignition. It didn't start but it made enough noise to give the impression it might if it were given enough motivation. She tried again. The car seemed to try a little bit harder but still couldn't quite make it.

  She tried again, this time pushing gently down on the gas and the car tried ever harder to come to life but still could not. She let a cry of anger that made little sense in the English language as she beat on the steering wheel with the bottom of her fist.

  "Why won't it start, Jackie?"

  "Do I look like I know jack shit about cars, Karen?"

  Karen started to cry again and there was that heavy lump in Jackie's chest again. She swallowed and took a deep breath.

  "I'm sorry, Kare-Bear. I thought it would work and we could get out of here and I'm just so scared."

  Karen reached across the middle console and grabbed Jackie's hand and gripped it tightly. A high pitched screeching came from somewhere far away like the scream of some demonic bird. The sound ricocheted off of the buildings and echoed in multiple pitches as it went.

  Both Jackie and Karen's hands clasped together went cold and wet as their grips tightened slickly. The hair on the back of Jackie's neck seemed to rise and she knew instantly what the sound had been.

  They're awake.

  She felt dizzy and surreal as she opened the car door and drug her sister with her. Karen was whimpering and it was all Jackie could do to get her to shut up. She finally had to stop and shake Karen to get her to snap out of it. Street lights and the remaining neon signs started coming to life as the two girls ran for the next car up the road, a lavender SUV.

  The front end of the it was buried into what had been a glass store front for some type of electronics store. Large crooked splinters of glass hung like monstrous teeth from the top of the wide window sill. Hues of red, blue, and gold reflected off the shattered glass strung along the sidewalk and the edge of the road around the SUV.

  Jackie lead the way carefully as they stepped over the glass, onto the sidewalk, and into the store.

  "Stay here while I get--"

  "But look Jackie, there's no one inside." Karen pointed into the windshield of the big lavendar truck which was dimly lit from behind with red neon light.

  Jackie walked up to get a closer look and sure enough it seemed empty. She put her hand out to Karen just in case and went around to the driver side door and looked down into the floorboard. No body, nothing at all. She opened the door and looked under the steering wheel. No keys. Her pulse quickened, but she kept as calm as she could and hopped into the car, going for the visor. She pulled it down and dust fell into her face, causing her to cough violently. But there were no keys. She tried the other visor and found it also lacking of keys.

  She knew it was a long shot but she reached across the seat and opened the glove compartment. Only random papers and junk seemed to fill it. She was just about get out of the car when she felt something under her foot on the driver’s side floorboard. She reached down and felt with her hand. It certainly felt like keys. She picked them up and they jingled filling her with hope. When the light reflected off the keychain she nearly hollered with excitement. Instead, she reached her hand out of the open door and motioned for Karen to get in.

  A weight much heavier than the vehicle she sat in fell away from Jackie's chest when she turned the ignition and the engine started with a loud roar. The girls shared a look of excitement and then Jackie checked the mirrors. Nothing. She pushed on the gas and the beast roared some more.

  "Yeah! We're getting out of here in style," she said.

  Karen giggled then for the first time since they'd arrived in the old city. Jackie put the SUV in reverse and hit the gas. It flung itself out of the open building at an angle and then they were facing the empty street ahead.

  Jackie took a deep breath and then floored it. The truck followed her commands instantly and before long they were several blocks up the street. Jackie smiled, almost snarled with delight as the lavender monster tore up the road and the buildings zipped by on each side.

  Karen let out a gasp and before Jackie could look over and ask what was wrong, she saw them.

  There must have been at least a dozen of them. Black dots swishing through the sky right in their direction, getting bigger the closer they came. A few seconds later and she could make out the closest of them. They looked sort of like people soaring through the air. But she knew they weren't people. They were dressed in what looked like black rags. Their skin was pale and their eyes were the most inhuman part of all their features. They were yellow and cat-like, watching, clearly able to see the girls from even that long of a distance.

  When the first ones hit, Jackie wasn't prepared for what would happen next. They slammed into the SUV like it was made of cardboard and its front end flipped up off of the ground. She could see Karen rising up in her seat, only the seatbelt holding her back from the ceiling as Jackie's stomach rose in whatever direction was now up.

  Then, the vehicle landed on its top with a loud crunch from above. Her left shoulder had pulled out of socket from the jerk of the seatbelt.

  "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," Karen was chanting in between hyperventilating. What was now the top of the SUV but had originally been the bottom began to shake. Jackie squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for it all to end.

  When the truck finally became still, silence filled the inside of the cab. The deafening stillness seemed to go on forever until it was interrupted by a high-pitched screeching that sent a painful chill down Jackie's spine. Then they started to thrash against the vehicle. It was as if a herd of rhinoceros had run full on into the sides of the thing. With each collision, Jackie could hear her sister let out a muffled moan as if holding back a scream with all of her might.

  The thrashing returned and worsened until a single slam sent the uptu
rned truck into what had to have been a spin. Whatever it was, it was causing Karen to lose her lunch again, the contents of her stomach slopping on the roof of the cab. They were moving so fast that the air was pulling on Jackie's flesh. Then, with a painful crash, it stopped.

  Jackie looked over at Karen. She hung loosely from the seatbelt her hair surrounding her face. She wasn't moving.

  "Karen?" Jackie whispered between sobs. "Karen, are you okay?"

  No answer.

  "Karen?" her voice sounding horse.

  Another long moment of horrible silence filled the air. Without notice, the world turned upside down again and the SUV slammed back down on its tires. That terrible screeching started again, only this time it sounded as though it were circling around them. Jackie looked over at Karen. Her head was hunched over her right shoulder so Jackie couldn't see her face. She still wasn't moving. It took Jackie several minutes before she even realized she might have the power to move now. She was still very dizzy and her ribs and shoulder hurt bad from where the seatbelt pulled on them but she thought she might be able to move.

  All the while that terrible screeching went on and on. She unfastened her seatbelt and reached over for Karen. When she pulled on Karen's immobile body, it slumped back with too much ease and her face became visible. Her eyes stared off into nothingness, looking unnaturally frozen. Jackie's breath caught in her throat and the world seemed to stop.

  The screeching took on an underwater impression even though she knew it was getting louder. She reached out and shook her little sister as if she could shake life into her. Nothing. Her limp body only shook and nothing more than that. Jackie began screaming uncontrollably. Her hands shook before her and a sense of hopelessness enveloped her.

  Her screaming might have continued had they not started slamming into the truck again. The first hit sent it leftward into a 90 degree angle. The second threw it almost back to the exact spot it had been. The third nearly turned it all the way around. Another moment of silence came and something clicked in Jackie. She reached forward and turned the key. The engine revved up, sounding more like grinding metal than it probably should.