The Dark Knight (Apocalypse Weird 2) by Nick Cole

Author:Nick Cole [Cole, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wonderment Media Incorporated
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Heather pulled Cory out into the predawn darkness. The smell of smoke and fire hung heavy in the air. The groaning dead seemed distant and yet too real.

“C’mon,” said Heather breathing hard, running for the tree-covered hill at the back of the parking lot to the rear of the mega pharmacy. She scrambled up through dirt and leaves and into the dense foliage, letting go of Cory’s hand as she crawled up the hill. Sensing a game, Cory who was used to following, followed the frantic teenage girl. Halfway up the hill they tumbled into a rough concrete drainage ditch. They sat, each of them panting. Heather’s breathing slowed in time and so did Cory’s. Her eyes were wide in the just before dawn dark. She fumbled inside her designer hippy-ish backpack for a cigarette and a lighter. Trembling hands barely got the cigarette lit as she followed this with a deep exhale and a world weary sigh. She inhaled deeply again on the next drag, her lips hanging open afterward. Her head turned slightly, first to one side then the other, as if she were in the act of forever telling some unseen someone, “no”.

“That’s a no no,” whispered Cory too loudly.

She looked over at him, saw who she was with and what he was wearing, a Batman cape and mask, a man forever a child, and told him to, “Shut up.”

Cory turned away, studying some ants that crawled near one of his gloved hands. He let them. Cory liked ants.

They sat for a while, Heather smoking, in the darkness. Listening to distant screams and groans that seemed impossible to hear until they realized it wasn’t a single groan they were hearing. It was a chorus. A choir. A distant pack of dogs gone feral, surrounding someone. Raving as they closed in. Down through the trees they could see the back of the pharmacy. The groans there were gone, missing, sated.

“I’ve got to go home now,” whispered Heather, still fighting off the effects of the sleeping pill Dr. Liu had given her. Her mind returned to those suddenly awakened moments back inside the store. Dr. Liu was hurt. But there’d been a loud Bang just before. That was what had awoken her. The loud Bang. And then Dr. Liu was telling them to come with him and then go. Leave.

She’d seen them. The undead. She’d seen them cresting up through the aisles like a tsunami she’d once been shown a video of in school. That’s what she’d thought at that exact moment just before they raced out the back. That the undead were like a Tsunami.

Cory was rocking back and forth slightly, occasionally sighing out heavily behind his latex rubber mask.

“Shhh,” she hushed. “We need to be quiet now.” Then, “We need to find help.”

“I’ve got to take this medicine to Mrs. Sheinman.”

She thought about telling him to go. She couldn’t take care of him. She didn’t want to take care of him. He was a liability.

But the thought of being all alone right now frightened her.

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