D A Novel (George Right) - By George Right Page 0,36

ropes tying its legs and torso stretched and snapped; only a disheveled noose remained on its neck. If, of course, that thing inside the bag had a torso, legs, and a neck–but Logan did not doubt it anymore. Then one more bag began to move, and one more...

Everything must go, oh yes.

Tony looked around in panic. He did not know whether they could get out of the bags and whether they had any interest in his person, but the notion of waiting and checking seemed absolutely mad. However, the idea of breaking through them filled Logan with insuperable horror. He wanted to run–but where? The garbage truck and these bags blocked the way back. In the other direction there was a dead end... Unless he headed deeper into a shop, but who knew they wouldn't follow him there? If only he had some kind of weapon... he has already ascertained that local...inhabitants...can be harmed. The stakes! Could he use one of them as a weapon? They weren't aspen, but those impaled on them seemed to remain dead. However, those things in the bags had stayed motionless for a long time, too...

But there was no more time to think. The first figure in a bag had already risen to its feet and in small, but frequent short steps–as much as the bag allowed–was moving towards Logan. The others moved, too... even those pinned by the burning car–they could not stand up, but squirmed on asphalt, and then began to creep, like huge black caterpillars.

Tony darted to the corpse of a ten year-old girl. Stakes on which the adults were impaled were too bulky, but this one was just the right size... Clutching the girl's stiffened corpse, Logan dragged it upwards, hoping to free the stake, but instead the stake was pulled out of its base, remaining in the body. Either it was stuck inside there or was held by spasmodically clasped muscles of the corpse... Tony threw the dead girl on the floor, then, having grasped the brown-stained bottom end of the stake, turned her upside down and put his shod foot on her chin. The black figures were approaching and he did not think any more about fastidiousness or, still less, about pity, but feverishly pulled on the stuck stake. It, at last, came unstuck with a disgusting sucking sound and, rasping metal against a bone, moved a little. But the first of figures in bags was already near the storefront window. Logan, dragging behind himself the girl's corpse which was gradually slipping from the stake, ran a few steps deeper into the shop. A couple of jerks more, and Tony managed to liberate the dirty metal stick completely–just in time to swing it and drive the sharp end into the breast of an oncoming figure.

The stake went in with notable resistance, but nevertheless easier, than Logan had expected, and pierced the figure through. Probably that thing inside a bag was already fairly rotten. But pulling the weapon out appeared to be more difficult. Tony hardly had time to do it in order to jam the stake into the throat of another figure which had already approached him sideways. It tumbled down backwards, but the first one, though pierced already, still stood. Logan smashed its head in, swinging the stake straight from the shoulder like a bat, and then jabbed in a stomach the third "bag" which had stolen up to him from the right. A loathsome crunch sounded–apparently the spike went into the backbone–and the figure jackknifed and then slipped from the stake down to the floor. A heavy sickening stench spread from the pierced bags. Ahead, new figures were already approaching, and Tony, having again snatched the stake as a cudgel, began to thrash them on their heads–as it turned out to be faster than piercing them. He heard a wet crash as skulls broke, but some of them fell only after the second or third blow. Tony turned on the place like a madman, dispensing blows to the left and to the right. Soon his arms and shoulders, unused to such work, were aching with a leaden pain. He understood that could not last long; however, the majority of figures in bags already lay motionlessly on the floor of the shop and in the street in front of it. Some more blows–and Tony could take a breath. It seemed the first wave had been beaten off. However, those that could not stand up had already crept up