Free The Raid: an Eden short story by Keary Taylor Page A

as it
could take without ripping, Tye zipped me up, and I went back outside to keep
guard with Graye.  Bill and Tye continued to load up on more ammunition, heavy
duty boots, and bug repellant.
    “I’ve got a bad feeling about tonight,”
Graye said in a low voice, more frosty air billowing out of his lips.
    “We’ll be fine,” I said, my eyes
scanning the alley behind the building.  “We know how to be careful.”
    Graye’s eyes fell to the ground and he
shifted his weight from one foot to the other.  “Yeah.”
    “Let’s go,” Tye said as he and Bill
stepped outside.
    We jogged between shops, heading for a
building two blocks away.  Tye and I took the lead, Bill and Gray watching our
backs as we traveled.  I tried to ignore the dried blood splattered on the
brick walls and the casings that littered the ground.  How long ago had those
lives been lost?  When the world started to go crazy?  Just last year?
    Something clattered on the rooftop right
above us and we all scattered.  Bill and Graye backed up the direction we had
come, their firearms out.  Tye and I dashed further down the alleyway, our own
shotguns pointed at the roofline.
    Metal met metal in a horrible screech,
but whatever it was stayed out of view.  Tye tugged on the back of my pack, in
the direction of a ladder that led up into the mess of a building that was only
half built.  We silently ascended, being cautious not to fall.  Tye and I
pulled ourselves into the exposed rafters of what should have become the first
floor ceiling and the second story floor.
    Just as we positioned ourselves behind a
curtain of shredded and hanging plastic, we heard a body hit the concrete of
the road.  A moment later, there were dragging, grating footsteps.
    I glanced up at Tye through the dim
light, questions in my eyes.  I wanted to ask what was going on.  They weren’t
supposed to be awake at night.  But his eyes darkened and he pressed a finger
against his lips for silence.
    The dragging footsteps grew closer.  My
heart pounded in my chest, my grip tightening around my shotgun.  My finger sat
poised on the trigger.
    It finally rounded the corner, stepping
into the moonlight that spilled into the building.  Its eyes were dead and
empty as it searched the building for life.  Its head swept from the left side
of the building to the right.  It hadn’t seen us, but there was some indication
that told it there was something inside.
    It stepped fully inside the wide, crumbled
opening of the building and I saw the reason for that dragging, grinding
sound.  Its left leg was bent at an impossible angle, being mostly dragged and
not supporting much weight.  It must have broken it when it jumped from the
roof of the building in the alley.  Its right leg had no flesh to cover its
metal bones and they clanked against the concrete floor.
    I leveled my sight on it, but just
before I could pull the trigger, a careful hand was on my arm.  Tye looked at
me with serious eyes that screamed stop .  He shook his head.
    Before I could try to ask him why with
my eyes, the thing below us froze.  Even I could tell it was listening.
    A few moments later, it continued across
the expansive room, dragging its dead and broken leg behind it.  It disappeared
into the dark of the building.
    Neither of us dared move.  For all we
knew it could have frozen just on the other side of the dark and was listening
for us.
    All we could do was wait in the dark. 
Wait for it to try and kill us.  Wait for it to make a move.  Wait for the sun
to come up and make a run for it.
    Something shifted in my pocket and I
felt it just a moment too late.
    A shotgun shell slipped out and fell to
the concrete floor with a soft ping, ping, ping .
    Tye and I both fired into the dark, the
sound of the shots echoing in the empty space in a disorienting and deafening
way.  As our shots illuminated the dark, I saw it, lurching through the building
in our direction.
    In a move I’d never seen