The Forever Song
Page 60

Bones lay scattered amid rabid corpses, the tattered, bloody remains of clothes still clinging to them. A body, more skeleton than flesh, lay half in, half out of a broken store window. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman because it was so savaged. The smell of blood, rabids and unrestrained gore was overpowering, and had I been human, it would have made me violently sick.
“Well, someone’s been having fun,” Jackal remarked as we edged around a pile of dead rabids, the street and walls riddled with gunfire. A large camouflaged vehicle lay on its side by the curb, windows smashed, blood streaked across the windshield. “This place is screwed even worse than New Covington. All we need now is a mob of bat-shit-crazy humans tearing their faces off.”
Faint scratching sounds interrupted him. A rabid lay beneath one of the huge tires, its lower half crushed by the vehicle, long arms clawing weakly at the pavement. It spotted us and hissed, baring a mouthful of jagged fangs, right before Jackal drove the heel of his boot into its skull. There was a sickening pop, and the rabid stopped moving. Jackal curled a lip and scraped his foot against the curb.
“You know what? Never mind. I can do without the batshit crazy. This place is screwed enough.”
Kanin ignored him, turning his attention to Zeke. “How much farther to the lab?”
“Not far,” Zeke confirmed. “The docks and the town square are about a mile that way,” he went on, nodding toward the west side of the island. “According to the mayor, that’s where the barge crashed and the rabids came pouring out, so I’m trying to avoid the main strip by taking us around.
The lab is on the outskirts of the city, near the power plant and the old airport.”
“Then lead on.”
The road continued deeper into Eden, cutting through canyons of buildings and apartments, beneath bridges and walkways from the levels above. Streetlamps glowed dimly on corners, and lights shone above us from windows and doorways, casting weird shadows over the empty streets.
“Still no rabids?” Jackal mused, gazing into dark alleys and shadowy buildings. “I thought this hellhole was so infested they couldn’t throw a rock without hitting one. Where’s the crazy keeping them all?”
“I’m sure we’ll find out soon,” Zeke muttered. “I’m surprised we haven’t run into anything else. If Sarren knows we’re coming, I would’ve thought he’d set up at least a few—”
And at that moment, of course, my leg brushed against something: a hair-thin wire stretched across the road near the ground, almost invisible in the blackness. As soon as I felt it, I froze, but it was too late.
A bloodcurdling scream rang overhead, making me jump back with a snarl, unsheathing my blade. Zeke and Jackal drew their weapons, and we pressed back-to-back, gazing around for attackers. There was no body, human or rabid, on the balconies above, no movement in the shadows. But the scream continued, frantic and terrified, echoing through the street and over the rooftops, making me cringe.
“Where is it coming from?” I snapped, wishing I could see whoever was screeching just to shut them up. In the deathly stillness, the screams pierced the night like gunfire and probably echoed for miles. But I still couldn’t see anyone.
Kanin abruptly swooped down, snatched a loose brick from the sidewalk, and hurled it into the darkness. I saw the projectile flash through the air and hit something small on the corner of a roof. There was a crunch and then a garbled buzz.
Pieces of wires and machinery fell into the road, fluttering like dead moths, as the scream sputtered into silence. Though the echoes still lingered, bouncing off the walls and ringing in my ears.
And now there was a new sound, rising over the rooftops, getting steadily closer. A skittering, hissing, scrabbling noise, the sound of many things closing in. Jackal bared his fangs in a silent snarl and hefted his ax.
“Well, ask a stupid question…”
“This way!” Kanin barked, turning down a side alley. “Before they’re all over us!”
A white skeletal figure dropped onto the road from an overhead balcony, eyes blazing, and lunged at me with a wail. I tensed, but Zeke’s machete flashed between us, and the rabid’s head hit my boots as it collapsed. “Allie, go!” he snapped as the roofs, walls and streets began to swarm with pale, spindly bodies. “I’m right behind you!”
We ran, following Kanin down the narrow, winding streets, ducking into alleys and through buildings, a screaming, hissing mob at our heels. Claws snatched at me from a side street, snagging the edge of my coat. I spun and lashed out at the same time, cutting both arms from the rabid’s body before sprinting on.
A rabid leaped atop a car hood, hissing. Jackal snarled and brought his weapon down with a vicious crunch, crushing metal and the rabid’s spine equally. “Starting to feel like a rat in a maze, here,” he said, glaring at the mob closing in around us. “If anyone has an idea beyond ‘run in circles and kill everything that f**ks with us,’ I’d love to hear it.”
Zeke dodged a rabid that leaped at him, and swung his blade into another’s neck, severing it neatly. His backswing hammered into the first rabid as it lunged at him again, slamming it into a wall. “Where are we?” he growled, casting a quick look at a street sign on the corner. A rabid tried charging at him while he was distracted, but met a katana instead as I ripped my blade through its middle and cut it in half.
“Centre Dyke and Sandpoint,” Zeke muttered, and took a step back. “Okay, I know where we can go. Everyone, follow me!”
He took off down another side street, the rest of us close behind, cutting down rabids that got too close or blocked our path. Zeke and Jackal led the way, the machete and fire ax working in tandem, slicing through bodies or bashing them aside. Kanin hung back with me and covered our escape, his thin, bright dagger lethally accurate as it flashed through the air.
The streets opened up, and right ahead of us, a small stone building sat within a wrought-iron fence at the end of a small grassy lot. As we fought our way toward the gate, headstones became visible through the neatly cut grass, crosses and angels rising into the air, and Jackal gave a snarl of disgust.
“Oh, sure! Of course it would be a damn church. What else was I expecting?”
Zeke, slicing his way through two more rabids that came at us, didn’t slow down. “If you’re worried about bursting into flames if you cross the threshold, feel free to stay outside,” he said without looking at Jackal, who snorted and rammed the hilt of his ax into a rabid’s face, flinging it back.
“Hey, not to rain on your little parade, but I think you’ve forgotten something.” He swung his weapon in a vicious arc, striking an attacker down with bone-crunching force before turning on Zeke. “ You’re a demon now, puppy, same as the rest of us. I wouldn’t be so smug—you’re just as likely to get the lightning bolt when you step through those doors.”
“Then I’ll know where I stand,” Zeke muttered, and hit the cemetery gates, pushing them back with a creak. The rabids followed us across the lawn, between headstones and angel statues, scrabbling over the graves to get to us. We fought our way up the steps of the small church, toward the heavy wooden doors at the top. With the church at our back, the monsters were forced into a bottleneck as they pressed up the stairs, making it easier to deal with them. But there were still a lot of the bastards, and they were stupidly persistent.