The Dead Years (Volume 1) Read online

  Mason’s first reaction was to head toward the door and offer some sort of help, although the huge glass wall thirty feet in front of him was offering the only line of protection for him at this point. What kind of help was he going to offer anyway? These things seemed to be much stronger and looked as if they were literally feeding on anyone who came into their line of sight.

  He figured there must be at least a hundred of them outside and while trying to come up with an escape plan, Mason knelt behind the desk to get out of sight, but also to block his view of the atrocious scene before that lie before him. He had seen enough and needed to be clear his head.

  Mason needed to get to April and Justin; if her father was right it had to be sooner rather than later. He looked back around the side of the desk and the focus of the mob had moved away from the parking lot and grown closer to the building. There had to be a dozen or so bodies pressed up against the glass while being torn apart.

  He knew Tom kept a revolver in the locked cabinet under his desk. Mason got to his feet and made break for the office. This time the crowd saw him and started pounding against the glass like a riot at a heavy metal concert. Mason slid into the office and behind the desk. “Not good!” He noticed the drawer open and the gun missing. Tom must have grabbed it on his way out. The pounding continued to escalate until there was a gigantic crash and Mason knew they were now inside.

  Knowing his only option was to run; Mason grabbed his bag from the floor and noticed the revolver just outside the office. It must have fallen out of Tom’s bag as he left in such a hurry.

  Mason could hear the pounding footsteps getting closer as he grabbed the gun and continued to sprint toward the staircase at the back of the building that led to the roof. There was no other way out. Mason feared he would be trapped inside and eaten alive.

  As he reached the stairs, the horde was only yards away from him and closing in fast. Mason refused to look back as he knew that would slow him down. As he pushed himself up the stairs with his legs he also used the handrail to pull himself toward the top in an attempt to move that much faster. Mason feared he would trip or miss a step and that would be it.

  He didn’t want to die here on this staircase. As he reached the top he prayed the exit wasn’t locked. He looked back and was pleased when he realized he had put some distance between himself and the deranged crowd. As he glanced over his shoulder before reaching the door, it looked as if those things were falling over each other to get up the stairs first.

  Thankfully the door to the roof was unlocked. As he burst through the door and onto the roof top Mason was momentarily blinded as the sun had broken through the clouds and was now drying what little rain had fallen.

  As his sight became clear again, he looked around and in all directions and it looked like a war zone as far as he could see. There were fires covering large parts of the city, car alarms sounding every few seconds and screams of terror filling what little silence there was.

  “What is this?” He said aloud.

  Mason remembered the vacant furniture store to the right closed six months ago and may still be untouched as he didn’t see any turmoil coming from that direction.

  As the crowd reached the door to the roof Mason put his head down and sprinted in the direction of the vacant store.

  “This may have been a terrible idea.”

  The distance he needed to jump now appeared much farther than he remembered. He knew if he didn’t clear the large space between the two buildings he would fall the thirty plus feet to the ground below and at the very least break his legs and become food for these monsters.

  With only twenty feet before the edge, and adrenaline coursing through every ounce of his body, he could actually feel their footsteps coming from behind.

  Mason dug in to increase speed and with his last step he launched himself over the gap.

  4

  April tossed the phone on the bed, grabbed her shoes and ran down the stairs before heading to the front door and making sure it was unlocked. She knew from looking out the window that the walkway on the left side of her house was clear and in fact a direct line to the entrance of the school. She decided to go out the back door and walk over instead of taking the car as there was no chance of driving into the parking lot anytime in the next few hours.

  Walking through the yard and out the side gate, April looked back and saw the neighbors gathered in the street obviously discussing the events of the day. They motioned for her to come over and she yelled back in their direction “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She didn’t want any company for her trip to the school and back since they may have slowed her down.

  The area outside the school looked intimidating to April. She pushed ahead and ran across the two lanes of traffic that led to the school. She watched as angry parents screamed all sorts of obscenities at one another from their halted vehicles. Out of frustration, one man even got out and kicked the door of the car in front of him. These people were not going anywhere and April was glad she had made the decision to walk.

  A large group formed outside the entrance to the school where teachers and staff members were trying to account for each student leaving. A few of the parents attempted to exit the area without checking their children out and were met with a stern facility member guiding them back toward the office. One overly aggressive mother decided not to bend to their demands and hurried her twins into the car only to be blocked by the biggest teacher April had ever seen. This was not helping to speed up the process she thought.

  Realizing that if she followed their rules, she wouldn’t get to see her son for at least an hour and that wasn’t going to work. April stopped for a moment, looked around and noticed the left side of the school where students were exiting the rear of the gym to the field. Since the entire mob was focused on the entrance she decided to head in the direction of the escaping students.

  As she walked briskly trying to be inconspicuous, April pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and sent a text to Justin. Where are you? I’m coming around the back of the school through the gym. April continued to get closed to the rear entrance and looked back to find to her delight that she had gone unnoticed. Justin’s text came through just as quick. I’m at the door to the library. The office is a nightmare.

  April reached the entrance to the rear of the gym as the few inventive kids continued to pour out. One of them looked over at her as they passed in the doorway.

  “Hey lady I wouldn’t go in there, it’s a ZOO!”

  “Yeah… You should see the front.”

  April fired of a reply to Justin as she made her way across the gym floor. Meet me in front of Mrs. Woods’s classroom and we will leave from there.

  She knew the classrooms and halls would be near empty as all the students were pushing toward the front entrance and there would be no chance of getting through that crowd any time soon.

  Justin hopped down from the table he was sitting on, slung his backpack over his shoulder and started toward the hall that led to his math class.

  The office admin, without even looking up, yelled at him through the crowd. “Excuse me Justin, where do you think you’re going?” Thinking quickly he answered “I dropped my math book just around the corner, I’ll be right back.” She seemed to buy his excuse as she continued whatever it was she was doing on her computer and waved him on.

  Justin turned the corner out of her view and ran down the hall toward his math class noticing he was the only one in this wing of the school.

  Making her way out of the gym and into the long hallway that led past the locker rooms and into the rest of the school, April remembered Mrs. Wood’s class being down the third hall.

  She thought back to the last time she was this deep into the school and figured it was last year’s open house where she learned Justin was in the top five percent of students in the district academically. Justin was the type of student that thrived on doing well, although he would never tell a soul as he hated the attention i
t brought. Justin would rather that no one knew just how brilliant he really was. He liked the friends he had and feared he would be labeled as a freak for being so smart.

  April was happy to discover that her memory served her right and she had chosen the right hallway. As soon as she rounded the corner she could see Justin down at the end of the hall sitting on a folding chair peering down at his phone. She waited until she was a little closer and didn’t have to yell, so they wouldn’t alert anyone that they were here before she said “Hey, you ready to get out of here?”

  Justin looked up. “Mom!”

  April immediately ran over to Justin and threw her arms around him and said “Let’s go.”

  “Uh Mom… Some of my friends are texting me that people are getting really hurt down at the front of the school.”

  “I don’t doubt it; there must be a few thousand people out there.” April replied.

  “No, they said people are REALLY hurting each other, they said some people may have even been killed.”

  “I’m sure nothing like that has happened, although I bet most of the people stuck out in that mess wish they hadn’t tried to come all at the same time.”

  “Look at the photo Billy just sent me.”

  Justin turned his phone so April could see the image. She almost let out a shriek as the horror of what she saw startled her. It was a blurry image although she could tell it was one man ripping the flesh from another man’s neck with his bare hands.

  She kept her composure so she wouldn’t frighten Justin. “Come on, you know he’s playing with you. I’m sure that is a photoshopped picture from the internet.”

  “Mom, I don’t think it is; we don’t have the ability to get online here at school, it’s blocked.”

  “I’m sure there some sort of an explanation…”

  As April was trying to calm Justin, they heard a low rumble that built into what sounded like a stampede heading in their direction. Justin looked at April just as a large crowd rounded the corner toward them.

  It appeared they were being chased, although it wasn’t quite apparent what they were running from until a few grimy, disheveled, homeless looking men took down the schools security staff at the rear of the crowd even after being shot more than once.

  These men were covered in blood and seemed like they were on a mission to destroy anything they came into contact with. They literally pulled the three security guards apart until there was nothing left of them. They then turned their focus on the rest of the crowd.

  As the crowd grew closer Justin froze in place. April grabbed his hand and pulled him backward into the classroom, knocking them both to the floor.

  Justin scrambled to get to his feet and looked at his mother in horror.

  “Mom, what are those things?”

  5

  As he soared over the void, Mason felt fortunate that the roof to the vacant furniture store was a good five feet below that of the gym. If the gap between the two rooflines had been any more than what Mason estimated at fifteen feet, he surely would have ended up on the ground below.

  Surveying the spot where was he was to land and the rest of the roof top, Mason noticed one of the things he had been running from at the far edge seemingly looking for a way off. Mason wasn’t much concerned as once he touched down, he figured they would still be a good sixty feet apart. That would give him at least a few seconds to get his wits about him before he was challenged.

  Landing hard on his feet, then immediately to his knees and finally falling forward onto his left side, Mason slid across the damp rooftop. Once he came to a stop, Mason jumped to his feet and was amazed to find he had only acquired a few scrapes from sliding to a stop, other than that he was good to go.

  Mason looked back as many of these things followed him over the edge, but without jumping, so they all ended up at the bottom of the alley between the two buildings, one on top of another. Mason was stunned when many of them just stood and walked back toward the crowd at the front of the building.

  Looking back across the roof he just landed on, Mason realized that he had hardly even been noticed by his new adversary. Only the noise of him crashing down caused it to turn in Mason’s direction slowly.

  Mason stared at this thing and it stared back, in the same way a bull does just before it runs down the bullfighter. He didn’t seem to be interested in Mason but more curious at why he was here, he even cocked his head to the left.

  Most of the other freaks Mason had seen today were fairly normal looking with the exception of their eyes. They didn’t seem to focus on any one thing and they didn’t look you in the face. They gave the impression that they were on a mission to destroy any human in their path and lost all concern for their own safety.

  Standing a mere fifty feet from this creature, Mason yelled the only thing he could think of.

  “Why?”

  It straightened its head and started toward Mason. As it approached Mason knew something was different about this one. It didn’t move half as fast as the others and it was in much worse condition, possibly hurt.

  As it got closer Mason still didn’t feel threatened. He began to notice the skin on its face and arms was torn off in places and was hanging by little shards in others. The clothes it had on weren’t in any better shape and looked as if they had gone through a wood chipper just before it got dressed.

  Twenty feet away and getting closer, Mason realized that its ankle was snapped in two and its foot was being dragged. He slid off his back pack, set it on the ground to his right and withdrew the revolver.

  This thing was bigger than Mason accounted for and he began to get nervous even though it wasn’t moving very quickly. Mason backed up to the edge of the roof with his back to the chasm. He changed his mind about the gun and slid it into his waistband, realizing if he squeezed off a shot, every one of those things would be drawn to him immediately.

  With only two paces left between them, Mason braced his rear foot against the drain pipe at the edge of the building and crouched into a defensive position. Mouth open, the creature lunged at him as Mason grabbed its forearm and pulled it to the ground. It didn’t seem to fight being pulled down; its only focus appeared to be Mason’s flesh.

  As he held it down and dragged it to the edge, it began twisting and turning its neck almost to the point of dislocation, the whole time snapping at Mason’s arm and face. Once he had it on its back and close enough, Mason released his grip, stepped back and kicked it over the side to the ground below.

  It smashed into the asphalt and was deformed even more from the impact. Much to Mason’s astonishment, it slowly righted itself, stood and began heading toward the rear of the building, although at a much slower rate than before.

  Shaking his head he muttered “What the hell has happened?”

  Mason reached for the gun that had fallen while he had his hands full with that thing. He walked a few steps further grabbing the backpack and headed toward the opposite end of the building.

  When he reached the Northeast corner, Mason surveyed the end of the parking lot furthest from the gym and noticed only a few of those things slowing roaming the area. From his vantage point he could see that the side of town nearest Justin’s school and his former home appeared untouched.

  It was only two miles away and he could run there if he had to, although his car was a much faster and safer option. April and Justin needed him and there was no time to spare.

  He just needed to get past the growing horde that still occupied the part of the lot where he parked. If the scene that played out earlier in the day were any indication of what he was up against, this may be the last challenge he would ever face.

  6

  “Justin… JUSTIN!”

  April was now shouting at him. She looked toward the door and asked “How do you lock it?” She shook Justin, who appeared to be in a state of shock. He just stared out the door as horrified classmates and school staff ran past and flooded into other classrooms.

  Apri
l grabbed a text book from his backpack and slammed it on the desk next to her making a loud crashing sound and waking Justin from his trance. “Mom, are we going to die?”

  “NO, but I need to know how to lock the door.” April tried to reassure Justin, although she wasn’t so sure they would make it out.

  “It only locks from the outside and you need a key.”

  April looked around and grabbed the desk next to her. “Let’s push some of these against the door and maybe slow them down.”

  “What about my friends and the teachers, we can’t lock them out?”

  “So far no one has tried to get in; they all look like they are more interested in going down that other hall.”