Free Ferine Apocalypse (Novella): 4 Hours by John F. Leonard Page A

question.
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    Raylens indicated the gate to the yard and they trailed after him.
    He produced a key to the padlock and chain that secured it. Clicked it open and pocketed the padlock along with the key.
    They emerged into a dingy alley that must have served as a service road for the shops. Littered with rubbish and empty boxes. Black plastic bags that were split and spewing their contents.
    Raylens turned left and started walking.
    Stopped and turned back to them when they didn’t immediately follow.
    “Keep up fuckers. We don’t want to get separated out here.”
    Pearcey, despite any number of misgivings and an urge to smash the mask from his face, had a tendency to agree.
    They’d taken twenty paces when the two creatures appeared in front of them at the end of the road.
    One huge.
    Naked.
    Hideous and hairless. A body that looked hard and terribly thin. Criss-crossed by thick tuberous lines below the surface of a skin that held an aspect of cured leather.
    Another smaller creature at its side.
    Dressed in the tattered remnants of what might have been business trousers and a work shirt. Hanging off it like skin that was shedding.
    Slow, skulking movement that stopped abruptly as they caught sight of possible prey. A momentary pause, stock still and poised, as they evaluated the potential.
    Decision reached, they ran at them.
    From behind him, he heard Gallagher curse.
    Pearcey glanced over his shoulder and his heart fell. A sudden sinking despair added to the apprehension at what was in front of them.
    There was another.
    Running at them from back where they’d come from.
    Gallagher moved to meet it, blocking its path to the girl who stood rigid, frozen against the high brick wall of one of the yards in the alley.
    “Worry about the other two, I’ll do this.”
    Whispered, barely spoken as Gallagher clutched the steel bar and braced himself to battle the beast.
    Pearcey swung back and was amazed to see that Raylens was twenty feet away, jogging towards the first two creatures that had appeared. The antique bayonet back in one hand. With the other, he unshouldered the rifle.
    For one awful moment, Pearcey thought the man was going to start shooting. It would have been understandable, those things were like the worst wild animal you could imagine.
    And more than that. A nightmare given substance, a bad dream rendered in strange flesh and buckled bone.
    But the noise would be calamitous, bring more of them like rotten meat will draw flies.
    It didn’t matter, Raylens was already too far away for Pearcey to change anything.
    The creatures were slightly staggered in their approach. The larger one was faster, longer legs eating a little more ground with each loping stride.
    Raylens met them at an angle.
    Shuffled and dodged at the last possible second.
    Drove the bayonet under the jaw of the first. Up and into whatever was beyond.
    Used the rifle as a lance to fend off the second, deflect it as he turned and withdrew the blade from the first. It wasn’t pretty or graceful, just brutally effective.
    The smaller creature stumbled, claws skittering and losing grip.
    Fell and bounded to its feet again, savage and spitting.
    It didn’t stand a chance. Raylens advanced and repeated the trick he’d demonstrated in the yard.
    Slammed the bayonet between its teeth.
    Stood and surveyed the damage he’d done. The two twitching things on the litter-strewn ground at his feet.
    Pearcey shook off his paralysis.
    Dismissed the sense of mild awe that Raylens inspired in him.
    Dismissed the desire to go over and inspect the results of the man’s handiwork. Instead, he turned and ran to Gallagher.
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    The girl in black, Angela, was where she’d been.
    Leaned against the wall as if it might absorb her, camouflage her existence. As if crumbling red brick hues could mask the starkness of monochrome shrouded humanity.
    Gallagher was on his knees. The steel bar held limply in his hands.
    The creature lying a little further