I wasn’t sure the thing on the deck couldn’t break in eventually, but Quinton was right: The upstairs gave us a better location to either counterattack or run. Downstairs, all we could do was defend. And it’s generally better to be uphill than down in a fight. I didn’t know what the things were or how they knew we were here, but I wasn’t going to sit still and let them trap us in the house. I headed up the stairs while Quinton fetched the shotgun shells and blew out the last candle.
It was still pouring and even with our boots and coats back on, the rain felt sharp and surreally wet with an odor like lightning. The loosely pooled energy on the ground seemed to reach up and pull the rain down, flashing colors and sizzling as it hit. Quinton had paused under the porch roof to load the shotgun and I wanted to tell him this rain wasn’t natural, but I feared to make a sound that might attract the creatures now crawling out of the water and stumbling along the shore. The mist of the Grey curled around them, rising like ground fog in my view and gleaming with bright streaks of wild magic that powered the things moving toward the house.
We stepped away from the building for a clearer view and even in the wet night, the monstrosities’ shapes and shambling movements gave them away. An odor of putrefaction and campfire smoke wafted off them from the lake.
“Those look familiar,” Quinton whispered.
I started to reply, but even his quiet voice and our slow-moving presence were enough to draw their attention. The things nearest us turned and showed us rotting faces and death-blinded eyes. Then they started moving our way and the rest followed.
Silence was no longer helpful, so I aimed at the nearest zombie and shot it in the face.
The decomposing flesh tore away, giving no resistance to the projectile. The shambling, undead thing stopped and swayed, the reel of colored light around it dimming for a moment with a high whining sound. Then it continued coming forward with half a head.
Quinton fired the shotgun. The boom of the first barrel going off so close by deafened me. Normal sounds fled, leaving only the ringing of the shot and the whining crackle of the grid as the rain struck into the pools of light on the ground. The monstrosity, barely recognizable as once human, staggered but continued onward. I glanced past it to the shapes coming up the hill from the water and saw that most were the walking corpses of animals, not people. We both fired again, hoping to break the creatures down too much to continue moving, but they kept coming.
In the emptiness of the rain-swept night, no one came to see what we were shooting at; there was no one nearby to hear or care. We’d have to deal with them ourselves, one by one.
I shoved the pistol into my coat pocket and ran to the nearest dead thing. Plunging my hands into the putrid flesh, I groped for the thread of energy that animated it and yanked it out. Two more things had closed in on me and I grabbed for one while the other swiped at me with decaying paws. My ears still rang and I struggled in the buzzing, disorienting silence of the Grey-haunted night to tear the next creature apart while the claws of the other ripped loose and struck through the thick fabric of my coat.
I broke the first one down and turned to take on the ghastly mountain lion corpse that tried to maul me with its dripping fangs. Shuddering, I rammed my hand into its mouth and tore its jaw loose from its half-fleshed skull. I could barely see through its reeking hide to locate the knot of magic that animated it, but I was afraid to drop too deeply into the Grey where I couldn’t see the shapes of the things at all and risk being hit or bitten while I was blind to their normal aspect as well as deaf to their scraping approach.
More of the stinking corpse-puppets reached me, and I had to fend them off by feel with elbows and feet while I tore the second one apart. But they still managed to grab me and rip at my clothes, sending bits of cloth fluttering to the muddy ground. There was a flash of yellow silk, but I couldn’t spare it my attention as it fell from my torn shirt.
I could smell the gun smoke and see the flashes from the shotgun’s muzzle as Quinton slowed the mob down, but he had to reload every two shots and the things were focusing more on me than on him. I was in danger of being overwhelmed if I couldn’t clear them off faster. I didn’t know what they were going to do to me if they pulled me down, but I didn’t want to find out and I knew Quinton wouldn’t shoot at anything that was within two yards of me.
I shoved the pressing dead back and cleared a temporary circle by making a fast series of sweeping kicks that knocked the nearest ones into the ones behind. I followed up by shoving hard on the Grey with the sharp, concussive thrust I’d learned could disperse a ghost or topple a demon.
The shambling carcasses fell down around me in a circle about eight feet wide. It was nice to know how far and how hard the effect hit, but I didn’t have time to admire it. I tore off my tattered coat and threw it toward Quinton, hoping he’d take the HK and the spare magazines out of the pockets and use those for a while. It didn’t do as much damage as the shotgun, but the 9mm pistol was a lot faster.
There were too many on me to bother trying to see their individual shapes anymore, so I let myself fall into the Grey, concentrating only on the shining skeins of energy that pushed the dead things onward. Knocking them down wasn’t good enough, and I didn’t know if I could push on them from here or not. I needed to break them permanently.
In the mist-world, the zombies looked like tiny blue lightbulbs wrapped in violet clouds that stretched and deformed as the nightmare things staggered forward. The smell was nauseating. I snatched at the nearest light and felt the creature that contained it tear open like rotten fruit. The process was easier in the Grey, but just as exhausting. The creatures still managed to tear my clothes and pull my hair, and there were so many. . . . There had to be a faster way to deal with them....
I forced my way back up the slope toward Quinton, buying time to get a better look at the situation. The things moved slowly, but with the mindless implacability of idiot machines, each one powered by a core of magical impulse and an unreeling tether to the nearest source of power—the lake. So long as there was water, they’d keep coming.
I couldn’t make the lake dry up or set fire to the scraped, hard ground on the hilltop. I’d have to sever their connection to the lake and hope the rain wasn’t enough power on its own. That meant giving up the hill, but not yet.
I kept backing up, stepping out of the Grey so I stayed on top of the land, not risking sinking into it.
Quinton was level with me now, still shooting at the oncoming zombies, but he fired off the last of the HK’s rounds as I watched. He turned his head as he dropped the smoking automatic into one of his own pockets. I couldn’t hear, but I knew what he said: “Out of ammo.”
Hoping he could understand what I was saying in my deafened state, I yelled to him, “Draw them into a cluster uphill. I need to get below them, near the water.”
I had to take them out in one big push if possible—or at least thin their numbers considerably. I wasn’t sure I could gather up the individual threads of energy that pulled from the lake and break them apart, especially not once they’d been bundled together. The combined rope of magic might be too powerful for me to hold and breaking it might not even destroy the power that animated the dead creatures, but it was all I could think of.
Quinton and I fell back together for a few more feet. The undead followed us, packing together into a dense clot of moldering bodies. The rain was slacking off a bit and the zombies seemed a little slower. Maybe there was hope.
Quinton grabbed me and kissed me hard and then spoke against my lips: “Move fast. I don’t want to die.” He pushed me a little and I ducked into the Grey as he started to swing the butt of the shotgun into the head of the nearest dead thing.