...continued from page 5.

It was furious - furious in a way completely beyond human understanding. What was going on? There never had been issues like that in the good old days... Admittedly, It had not been able to reach Its goals back then, either, but this was ridiculous! First one man with a single shotgun taking out a third of Its troops, then these bikers, then one of them even escaped, and then these brainless fools could not be trusted to watch out for fire, one of the few natural elements that could harm them... It would have to find ways to improve things around here.
But not yet. For now, It withdrew Its minions into the shadows of neighboring houses and waited. There was bound to be a firetruck at some point, and then they would make up for lost numbers!
And indeed it only took about 2 minutes since Its forces had hidden away before sirens could be heard. There had to be something useful about these newfangled cellular phones - while usually allowing a victim to use one to call for help was a bad idea, in this case they could also be used (without the owner's knowledge) to order fresh meat.
Black Earth was well equipped - their fire department building had 5 garages - and was only a few blocks away.
Soon spinning lights joined the sound of the sirens, and two fire trucks arrived at the scene. They parked on two sides of the burning bar near the fire hydrant which was located across the street from the building. As soon as the trucks stopped and the fire men started getting out hurriedly, another troop also started moving in.
Flood lights on the trucks fired up one by one and pointed at the burning building, and there was an orderly bustle of activity. Huge hoses were unloaded and unrolled and then dragged into the direction of the hydrant, but before they could be attached, there was movement all around the scene. The fire man in charge asked some of his men to block the street to keep these people out of danger - some of them were walking right by the burning bar. He pulled out his megaphone and spoke through it towards anyone near the fire. There was a brief squeak of feedback, and then his voice: "Please move away from the building at once. You are not safe there."
But there was no response. He tried again, talking more slowly. "Please ... move away ... from ... the building ... at once!" They did not seem to hear his warning at all. Weird... To his knowledge, there were a few deaf people in this village, but not this many. He called some of his men over and sent them out to try to disperse them.
Meanwhile some of the approaching shapes had made it to the fire hydrant, and they did not react at all to any requests to move away made by the fire men who were trying to attach the hoses there. And something about these shapes looked ... wrong, so when they kept approaching, someone asked for light to get a better look. One of the beams from the flood lights turned towards the hydrant and illuminated ... bodies. They were gray and in various stages of decay, but all the same moving right towards them. The man in charge turned to look all around him - they were surrounded by a circle that kept drawing closer.
At that time, there were screams from the area around the burning building, and the men sent there were no longer visible and now hidden in piles of gray bodies.
It took the man in charge only a split second to analyze the situation of the fire. The building was lost and with it anyone still inside, no doubt about that. But the low wind and the big distance to the nearest buildings made the probability of this fire spreading very low. He had to risk it to save the men. He quickly climbed on top of a truck and pulled up the megaphone again. "Get back in the trucks and run for it! Everyone!"
For some, it was already too late. The bodies had reached the hydrant and the two men preparing it for the hoses, and more screams rang out from there. This seemed to be the final signal for everyone else to stop whatever they were doing and to run back towards the trucks. The drivers had already gotten in, and the engines were still running to power the water pumps and lights, so now they only had to wait for everyone to jump on board.
Suddenly there was a loud pffffff noise coming from the back tire of one of the trucks, and shortly after that another one. Two of the gray ones were walking along the side of the truck, each with a fire man's ax in its hands. The truck's tires were strong, but so were these hands, and they were already both taking aim for another swing at the next tires with the pointy end of their axes. From towards the burning building came another group with axes in their hands, heading towards the other truck.
The man in charge screamed into his megaphone: "Go, drive, for God's sake! Go!"
Pffffff and pffffff went two tires on the second truck before the drivers finally undid the breaks and started driving while the last few fire men jumped on board and started climbing towards the doors of the cabin. One of the drivers pushed the pedal down too far and nearly killed the motor as the front tires turned in place. On his second attempt he managed to get the heavy truck to move - right at some of these terrible gray shapes. He started the siren and prayed that they would step aside - and they did.
He was able to drive past them, or so it seemed. In fact, some had managed to get a hold of the truck and were letting themselves be dragged along. The other truck also had some bodies attached to its side, and one of them was now trying to climb up. The rest of the circle of lurchers was drawing together, then split up and followed each of the trucks.
Since the trucks had faced different directions when they had parked, they were now driving in different directions, too. But for both of them the destination was the fire station.
One fire truck had no air left in any of its four back tires, and the rubber quickly wore down and slid off the rims which were soon biting into the comparatively soft tar of the road. This resulted in the back moving as if it was on rails.
This did not seem to be a problem until the truck reached the first turn at the end of the block. The front of the truck tried to swerve around the corner, but the back kept going straight - until the whole truck slowly tipped on its side and slammed into the ground. The bodies that had been climbing up to the top had managed to hold on, except for one that had still been partially on the side of the truck as it tipped, and the lower half of its body was buried under the truck. Its arms moved around aimlessly for a while like those of a turtle that was on its back, but then it found a handhold and simply snapped the now useless lower spine. Then it joined its fellow bodies that were already smashing in windows and dragging out fire men.
The other truck fared better at first since it still had two inflated tires in back. The driver managed to make a few corners without incident and was now heading back towards the fire station which was only a few blocks away. He sighed in relief. Then a gray hand shot through the open window and grabbed his throat, blocking the scream that was trying to burst out of his mouth. In panic, he turned the steering wheel one way and another, then he saw the lantern post to his left and reacted. His lungs yearned for just one breath that would not come, but he kept going and directed the truck straight towards the post. Then he pulled the wheel at the last moment, and the side of the truck connected heavily with the post which started scraping along the truck. There was a ping as the side mirror was snapped off, but that was the last thing the driver heard when the post slammed the body off his door and the attached hand ripped out his throat.
After a few seconds, the truck came to a halt, and more figures that had been climbing around the outside were now breaking through the windows. The fire men inside the small cabin stood no chance.

"We are there, Gerard". Philipp's voice took a few seconds to filter through Gerard's thoughts before he answered: "Hm?"
"Eau Claire. We arrived", Philipp tried again.
"Ah, yes, excellent. And in good time, too."
Philipp had been driving as fast as the van would go. They had been stopped by a cop once, and they figured that sooner or later his white empty body would be found by someone. Everyone hated being in a rush - it took a lot of the pleasure out of feeding.
But during the last hour or so the highways had been fairly empty, and they had made the trip in record time.
Gerard continued: "Now what we require is a gas station to fill up the tank and to procure a map of the area."
Philipp spotted a gas station just off the highway and took the exit into town. Soon he stopped the car at a pump. Then they all looked at Gerard who said: "Philipp, please fill up the tank. I will have a short conversation with this nice attendant in the store."
Philipp nodded, got out of the car and walked towards the pump.
The others watched Gerard entering the building and browsing through the maps, opening them up all the way to check for their detail. He folded them all again and selected one. Then he walked around the store, occasionally checking if Philipp had finished pumping yet. Then he brought the map to the counter and started a short conversation with the attendant. After a few sentences, Gerard nodded, looked the attendant in the eye - and smiled.
Only seconds later he was on his way out again. The attendant was still standing where Gerard had left him, but he had a strange and empty look on his face. He would wake up soon enough and not remember anything about the last 5 minutes. Gerard and Philipp entered the car again, and Gerard said: "Excellent. Now we need to enter the Highway again going South, and I will let you know when to exit."
Giles finally had enough of the secrecy. "Aren't you gonna tell us about this oh so secret plan of yours? Come on, it's obvious you have something cooking!"
Gerard smiled. "Indeed, I do, and it will be revealed when we have arrived at our destination. Exit here, Philipp, if you would."
He directed them through a few turns near a shopping mall until they parked in front of a hunting store. It was closed.
"First, we have to get inside without being detected", Gerard said, and they all left the car and approached the building.
Andrew looked around carefully, peered into the windows and finally leaned his head against the side door window and looked up. Then he withdrew and nodded.
"The infrared sensors won't bother us, but the glass break and door sensors might. I know this security system, though, so it's up to you. We can either break the lower half of the back door and try not to trip the sensor on top, or we can chance it by just going in and disabling the system once it goes off - this model usually first sends an audible alarm and only calls the security company after 15 seconds which should be plenty of time. But they may have had an installer worth his salt who changed that. I personally would break a hole in the door and go through there."
Gerard just nodded and said: "Proceed then."
Andrew grinned. Then he walked to the back door, crouched down and bent his knuckles so his fist was flat and pointed at the front. Then he pulled back his arm, took a deep breath and let his fist fly towards the door. It went right through, leaving a flat hole in the heavy door. Andrew flinched a little, and carefully pulled back his hand. It was bleeding, and it was obvious that some of his finger bones were broken.
He addressed Giles: "Your turn. Just make sure the upper half of the door doesn't move." Then he concentrated on his hand which started changing shape almost immediately, his broken bones mending and his tissue healing. Even the blood on the skin was sucked back into the hand.
Meanwhile, Giles stuck both hands into the hole in the door. You could briefly see his shoulder muscles bulge as he pulled with all his might and created a horizontal rip that literally split the door into two halves. Then he got up smiling and said: "Entrez s'il vous plaît" as he casually kicked in the bottom half which flew into the store and banged against the opposite wall somewhere inside. He also had cut his skin but ignored it, and within a few seconds his cuts had also vanished.
One by one, they all entered the offices of the store. There were infrared sensors here, too, but all they noticed was a slight change in air temperature as the night air streamed into the building - not enough to trigger them. As far as they were concerned, there were no people in this store. At least none that were alive.
Gerard continued into the main area of the store and looked around in the pitch black darkness which to him was twice as bright as a clear night lit by a full moon. Soon he found what he was looking for, and he explained to the others what they were supposed to get. Six mouths turned into grins as understanding dawned, and they all got to work.
About 20 minutes later, they emerged from the building, each loaded up with large hunting bags that were all filled to the brim and most of them grinning from ear to ear. Monica even giggled once in a while.
They carefully loaded up the car and got in. Monica and Lewis climbed into the back and opened the window in the rear gate. Then they started unpacking some of the items they had acquired.
The first item that was handed to them was an air mattress pump, or rather the thick tube that belonged to it. A funnel was inserted and attached with duct tape to one end, and the other end was squeezed flat. About two feet of that end of the tube were then stuck out the open window and taped down.
Gerard in the meantime had unfolded the map and started giving directions to Philipp that lead them back on the highway closer towards town. Soon they got off again and entered one of the main roads that circled around town. On Gerard's signal, Lewis opened a few small bottles and started pouring their contents into the funnel that Monica was holding up. She also took an open bottle with her free hand and followed Lewis' example.
So they kept driving all the way around town in the right lane, then one more time in the left lane, then back onto the highway where they circled town two more times, a thin but constant stream of liquid following them. Every few minutes, one of them would snigger.
Philipp was careful never to drive into any of the liquid, and finally they stopped and made their way back onto a clean section of the highway that was leading them further South.
"Done!", Monica said happily, and Lewis smiled as they packed away the leftovers.
Giles thundered a loud "Woohoo!", and the others also reacted, each in their own way.
Philipp offered a high five to Gerard who ignored it, but even he had a contented smile on his face.
Andrew laughed. "That oughta keep these tail waggling idiots occupied for weeks! They'll never sniff us out now - not with gallons of yummy tasty animal smell all over the place!"
"Yes", Gerard added, "I have read various reports about how drug sniffing dogs against all rumors cannot be fooled by pepper or coffee, but what really distracts them are scents of other animals. And the cocktail we just served them should be more than sufficient to allow us to depart without hindrance. So onwards, my friends - we are heading for Madison!"
And Philipp pressed the pedal down to the floor.

Better. Much better.
They had been able to make up for the losses in the fire earlier.
And now they were on the move again, passing from house to house, their numbers again growing slowly.
There was one more business nearby that was open at this time of night - a gas station with built-in convenience store.
It probably only had one person inside and was not really worth the trouble, but It wanted to be thorough, and that meant taking out the store, too. Whoever had the graveyard shift in there might be armed, though, and what It could not afford was more losses.
So the goal was to get the person out of the store and out of reach of whatever weapon may be sitting behind the counter. It divided Its forces into two smaller groups and one large one which It sent to continue the recruiting process from other residential houses. The two smaller groups marched towards the front and back entrance and then pressed themselves against the walls on either sides of the doors to stay out of sight from the inside. Then one shape separated itself from the others, opened the back door, noisily kicked over a postcard stand and left again. It slowly kept walking away from the building as some muffled cussing and the sound of running feet could be heard inside approaching the entrance. The door opened again, and an overtired and angry young man appeared in the door yelling: "Who the hell do you kids think you are? Come back here and clean up the mess you made, you bastards!"
Then the darkness came alive and swallowed him.
About half an hour later most of the village had joined the ranks of the gray shapes, and they were heading for the Northern end of town where the highway led past town with a few homes and businesses on either side.
Now they would just clean up the rest of this dump and then head East towards Cross Plains and then Madison.
As they moved on, a car slowly turned from the highway onto the village main road towards them and stopped. Shortly after, its high beams lit up. But no one exited the car.
It tried to sense who was in the car - and withdrew a split second later. Them! A bunch of blood suckers were in the car!
Finally an opportunity for revenge!
It had not had enough time to sense how many were in there - It did not want to be noticed and to draw attention ahead of time. But how many could possibly fit into such a car? Seven? Maybe nine or ten if they used the trunk area? That should not be much of a challenge against the many dozens It had at Its disposal.
It looked as if they were finally getting out of the car - It guessed that they would probably either run away (somewhat unlikely given previous encounters) or charge. It knew that Its minions would never be able to outrun them, but they could be ready in case they came for a fight.
So It drew back any scattered bodies to the rest of the group and forced them to squeeze together to form a tight wall in the front and orderly rows behind that. After a while, they all marched in perfect goose step, and It briefly amused itself with memories from 70 years back on another continent that reminded It of this sight. Then It went back to work and had all the rows except for the first lay their arms on the shoulders in front to give additional stability for the likely oncoming onslaught.
After a brief inspection, It noticed some irregularities in the ranks - some of them were in worse shape than others: The upper body of one kept folding back and often was dragged behind. Another had the same happen to its head and was missing arms, and yet another stopped below the rib cage and had to walk on its hands. And then there was what used to be the baby Jimmy. These and some others would be possible liabilities since they would not be able to hold anyone back. So It extracted them, did some rearranging to fill the holes and sent these to the sides of the front row with the exception of Jimmy who was ordered to climb onto one of the bodies in the front and to stay hidden by clinging on to its back, but ready to jump. Jimmy's speed might be useful to draw first blood, figuratively speaking.
And so they marched on.
The other side by the van had not run away, but they had not approached, either. It looked as if they had taken items out of the vehicle, and some had been messing with the car itself and were now exiting again. Then the van suddenly moved and accelerated towards them at high speed and with smoking tires. The bastards were going to ram them - where was the fairness in that?
Oh well...
So It instructed the wall of bodies to open up in the path of the car so it would simply drive through without causing any danger.
Then It noticed the thin line attached to the car.
It reacted quickly and sent the two groups further away, but it was nearly too late.
The car exploded.
Showers of fire and parts rained down, and the force of the explosion blew the closest bodies off their feet. Only one second, and Its forces had been decimated by about 20%. Now It was really angry...
And It sent Its army around the burning debris until they were able to form a wall again, and they started their attack.

"Hold on, Philipp, please take this exit if you would."
They had just passed Wisconsin Dells and were facing a long and empty stretch of farm land.
Philipp slowed down and turned onto a smaller highway. Then he asked: "Where are we going then? You know, there aren't that many hours of night left, and we'll need a place to stay..."
Gerard had been studying the map. "Just a small detour, and we still have several hours of darkness at our disposal. There is a small village, a fleck of fly dirt if you will, with a charming little name that somehow reminds me of our ancestors in the old country. I would very much like to see a place that someone decided to call Black Earth."
Giles had winced slightly at the mention of "the old country". Gerard kept going on about it all the time and how he (allegedly) was able to trace his own lineage all the way back to some obscure spot in Transylvania. And he was only 30 years older than them. Good grief...
"Yeah", he said sarcastically, "maybe we can dig up a few pounds of this black earth so we can fill up a coffin with this stuff for you to sleep in."
Monica and Andrew giggled.
Gerard ignored them. "Please, do an old man this favor."
Old man, yeah right... "Sure, grampa, whatever you wish!", Giles answered.
So they kept driving through the night. They passed a few villages and towns at high speeds, and the next half hour passed uneventfully.
Then they saw the sign announcing the village of Black Earth.
But it was completely dark.
Even during the last few miles there had always been a few lights - street lanterns, shop signs or just lights above people's front doors. But there was no light here, only the beam of the headlights.
Giles couldn't stop himself. "I do apologize - it actually is Black Earth - it's so black you can't even see it!"
Even Monica groaned. "Oh, just shut it, will you?"
Philipp in the driver's seat started slowing down as they rolled past a dark gas station. "Something's not right here... Maybe a storm?"
Gerard shook his head. "No, I do not sense any heavy weather in the area. This must be something else entirely."
They approached the turn onto the village's main road, and Philipp was about to set his blinker for the upcoming right turn when he saw movement in that direction. He squinted in an attempt to see better. "What is that?", he asked more or less to himself.
"Go a bit closer, please...", Gerard said thoughtfully, also trying to distinguish between two similar shades of black that seemed to be moving against each other.
Philipp slowly made the turn and stopped the car. Whatever it was, it was a few blocks ahead of them now, and it was coming closer.
He pulled the high beam lever, and then they saw.
It was bodies, dozens of gray bodies, lifting their legs as if they had just learned walking, moving even though they were clearly dead.
Giles was the first to break the silence. "Them...", he said hoarsely and full of hatred.
Even Gerard did not believe his eyes.
Finally, he said: "I am afraid, my friends, that our family vacation may be cut short. It appears there is work to be done here. And we shall not rest until every last one of them has been shredded to pieces and burnt to ashes."
They all nodded slowly. As different as they all were, this was one topic they agreed on - this plague ... this infection needed to be stopped at all cost.
Giles started again: "I hate z..." But Gerard interrupted: "Yes, yes, we know - we all do! But we also must keep a cool head about us. What we need now is some quick but effective strategy. Any ideas?"
Philipp raised his hand. "Well, it might not get all of them, but we could rig the car to drive straight into them and then blow it up. Good chance it'll burn a lot of them and rip a few others into pieces, too, if we're lucky. What do you think?"
"Ha! That's still too good for them!", added Giles angrily, but he was ignored again.
"How are you planning on creating the explosion?", Gerard asked.
"Oh, on our first night in Superior, I browsed through some of the local businesses, and one was a demolition specialist. And they had lots of pretties that go boom-boom", Philipp answered, grinning. "I simply had to take one along - got it right here in my bag, ignition, wires and all."
"Excellent, go ahead then. Everyone else, get ready to charge. Lewis, hand Philipp his bag and the duct tape, please."
Their enemies were still about a block away when Philipp had finished taping the explosives under the gas tank. He had attached the wire and secured it to the car. Monica had unwinded enough wire off the spool. Lewis had been preparing the car by running duct tape from the wheel to various areas of the car to prevent it from turning. Andrew and Giles had unloaded their belongings from the car (minus the animal scent which they left behind) and put them down on the side wall of a business building nearby.
Gerard had just stood there with his arms folded and his eyes closed.
"Ready", Philipp said. Gerard took one deep breath and opened his eyes. "Let's do this!"
While Philipp attached the ignition box to the cable, Lewis took the air mattress pump and propped it between the driver's seat and the gas pedal of the still running car. The motor howled, and Lewis quickly pulled the transmission lever and put the car into drive before withdrawing his hand. The tires screeched, and the car jumped forward.
Philipp picked up the igniter and turned the key to enable the system.
"Take this!", he whispered as the car drove straight into the crowd.
But before it could reach them, they suddenly split up. The car was about to go right between them without ever touching one. They weren't supposed to be intelligent!
"Shit!", he muttered, and pushed the button.
There was a majestic boom followed by a whoosh as the flames reached the fuel coming out of the burst gas tank. The car suddenly was engulfed in a huge fireball and seemed to lift a few feet off the ground before you were able to see that it was no longer a car at all but instead a large number of smaller pieces and shrapnel that showered the area.
A few of the gray shapes were thrown through the air by the power of the explosion, others were cut down by the flying car parts, and others again caught on fire as the burning gas hit them.
But it was not as effective as they had all hoped... Only about a quarter of them had been affected by the explosion, and not even all of those had stopped moving entirely.
When it was silent again with the exception of some leftover fire, Gerard raised his fist and screamed at the top of his lungs: "Chaaaaaaaarge!"

...continued on page 7.