Darker Tide

Darker Tide - Part 6

The taints came in through the front windows and over the yard fence. Elias learned to let them get near since a blast of the shotgun would only put them down at close range. Robbie had taped a flashlight to the gun's barrel, letting Elias see what he was shooting at. He still missed some. The second one through was Old Man Robson, the bum, without a bottle for once. Elias aimed at his chest and destroyed his left knee instead. The old man lost his balance and pitched off the roof before reaching them.

Robbie had turned the generator off to save fuel and to keep them from choking on fumes. Also the light drew taints. Without it though they had to be vigilant. Where some of the crazies came in at a flat sprint, others would creep.

The taints in the backyard raged and howled threats but once out of the tide they seemed too consumed with anger to use the cunning that James had shown beneath the darkness. Each of them moved on after a time, looking for victims they could reach. It seemed almost as if common darkness were painful for them. It made Elias amazed that Billy Cesar had dared the light of day to get them.

The shotgun blasts roused Kia from her faint and she crawled out to join them on the roof, slowly recovering her wits. She took up a flashlight, helping Elias scan for intruders.

The dark tide reached half way up the walls of the carport before Robbie's rope-over-a-bar lifting system, with the bar supported by a tall fridge on one side and bookcase on the other, finally allowed them to hoist the generator onto the raft. The raft legs creaked alarmingly and the whole thing swayed ... but it held.

Another taint came through the broken window, an old woman, lacerating her legs on the remaining shards of glass. Elias levelled the shotgun at her but she surprised him, veering out of sight.

"Did she go into the study?"

"Upstairs," Kia said, swinging her flashlight across the outside of the house.

Elias watched the bedroom windows and only Kia's warning alerted him to another taint coming through the window. This one, fat, male, and nearly naked, charged them squealing his rage in an improbably high register. Elias brought him down on the edge of the roof. The shotgun blast hit his chest and though the stock punched Elias's shoulder the taint barely shuddered, though thankfully he did collapse. It wasn't like the movies where the blast knocks baddies back across the barroom.

The thud against the bedroom window took them all by surprise as Elias reloaded. If the old woman had managed to break the glass she would have landed on them, maybe catching the edge of the raft and toppling it. Thankfully her bodyweight didn't match her ferocity. Elias managed to finish loading, aim, and fire, all before she moved away for a second try. He was probably the worst of all of them when it came to aiming but some long overdue luck was with them and the taint fell back and didn't rise again.

"Three shells left."

"Getting there!" Robbie worked industriously with the nail gun.

"Will it work?" Kia's quiet question fitted into a lull.

"Don't know," Robbie said. "Still time to run." He nodded toward the front door. The dark tide would rise through the roof of the carport at the same time it reached the front yard.

The tide reached to within a foot of them and still the lights weren't lit. The moon had yet to show its face and in the full dark the black sea was rising as fast as they had ever seen it, eating up the inches. Some of the tainted must have piled junk against the wall because a shout from Kia had Elias turning to see blackened, bleeding hands gripping the edge of the roof. A grinning face followed, rising out of the blackness, and vanishing just as swiftly after Elias shot it at close range. A red mist hung in the beam of the Kia's flashlight. A second taint lunged out before Elias was ready to fire but Robbie put four nails in its face and it fell back. The last one looked like Mr Inkman from the tourist office. Aspiration, the San Francisco of the East.