Flesh-Eaters Anonymous - pt 8
No one was there. I scanned left and right, not seeing anything, but I felt something whiz past my face and then there was a thunk in wall right by my head. I ducked and retreated back in the bedroom as a human stepped in the front door.
I'd heard of these guys. The Feral Tribes was one of the names for them. Either they had gone insane after the dead rose or whatever it was that brought them back to life had had an adverse effect on these few. The rumor was they'd eat anything, living or dead, that crossed their path.
I crawled on my hands and knees back into the bedroom. The window faced the street, where he'd come from, no doubt the ones with him were out there. I thought about dashing for the closet but the noise would give me away. Under the bed was an equally bad idea but there was nowhere else to go.
He was in the doorway, unwedging the metal blade thing he'd thrown at my head. It was in deep so he left it and came after me. I was half under the bed when he grabbed my leg. I spotted the remnants of the syringe and grabbed the needle. As soon as he had me all the way out he went for his waist where there was another equally big metal blade. He began pulling it out when I sat up and jabbed the needle into his eye.
The feral screamed and flung himself back to the door with his hands to his face, but not much else after that. He slid onto the floor, limp, while I scrabbled to my feet. I took the blade from his waist and went out into the living room. The bump I had heard was another one of them, his face smashed into the wall. I stepped around him and peeked outside.
They had Ollins strung up by his neck just off the porch steps, kicking his legs. They must have drawn him out somehow and thrown a noose around him after he came out. I heard them up there, trying to pull him up. I stepped around him, narrowly avoiding one of those great big booted feet as he thrashed about and slapped at his side.
"Ollins! Ollins! It's me!" I tapped his hand with the handle of the blade. Ollins grabbed it, swinging it over his head and through the rope. He landed on his feet, catching his balance. He looked at me, nodded and ran in the house. Before the one I had killed could get up he grabbed him by the hair and hacked his head off with three strikes and ran into the bedroom.
The attic access was there and by the time I came in he was already up and gone. I heard his thundering steps overhead and then the splash of breaking glass. One of the feral tumbled off the roof, belly flopping onto the lawn and the walkway, his face bouncing off the concrete. He lay very still after that. There was struggling and a scream of surprise and then another one came down, landing on his feet, but rolling with the fall. He got up, limping as he ran away.
There were three loud cracking sounds accompanied by a piercing scream. Ollins jumped off the roof and landed feet first on the one in front of the house. He brought one foot up and down hard onto his skull and turned to me. He had a wild look in his eyes and for a moment I thought he was going to attack me.
The head he'd been holding rolled off the roof and he caught it without looking. He held it up, looked back up at me, then at it again and tossed it aside. Ollins stalked back into the house, pushed past me and picked up the phone. He jabbed in a number and after a few rings I heard Jack's voice on the other end.
