Crucifixion - 02 (11 page)

Betty Jasinski snapped awake instantly when she heard the
first screams outside her motel room.  A mother and grandmother she was
conditioned to responding to any noise that sounded like a child in distress
and when a second scream reached her ears she threw the covers off and started
dressing quickly.  Betty was a bus driver for the Nashville School District and
currently had a charge of two teachers, two parent chaperones and 27 ninth
graders on a field trip to Six Flags amusement park north of Atlanta.  It had
been a good trip, the kids as well behaved as you could expect for their ages
and they were spending their last night in a budget motel with plans to make
the six hour drive home the next morning.

Betty pulled her shoes on, stood up, glancing at the clock
which read 4:03 AM, and went to the window.  Parting the heavy curtains she
failed to suppress a sneeze when a cloud of dust came out of the fabric. 
Wiping her nose and eyes she looked out the window from her second floor room. 
Below, the parking lot looked empty and she automatically sought out the big
yellow bus with her eyes to make sure it was where she had left it.  The bus
looked fine.  Betty’s attention was drawn to two figures at the edge of the
parking lot, what looked like a man lying on the ground with a woman straddling
him and moving about vigorously.  Betty’s first thought was the couple was
drunk and had decided to have sex in the parking lot, but that idea was
dispelled when she saw the woman lean into the man’s throat and appear to tear
it open with her teeth.  In shock Betty kept watching as the woman continued to
rip chunks of flesh off the body.  Another scream to her left shifted her
attention to a second woman that raced across the parking lot and joined the
first in attacking the man. 

A knock on the motel room door immediately to her left
caused Betty to jump back from the window with a small gasp of fright.  The
knocking continued and a woman’s voice started calling out her name.  Gathering
herself after she recognized Miss Welch’s voice she unhooked the safety chain
and yanked the door open.  Miss Welch was the youngest teacher in the school. 
To Betty she seemed hardly older than the kids she was responsible for
educating.  She rushed into the room, eyes wide with fright and her whole body
shaking.

“What’s happening?”  She cried, grabbing onto Betty the way
a child would her mother.

“Easy, child.”  Betty said, sounding much more reassuring
than she felt.  “Something bad is happening and I think we need to get these
young people on the bus and head home.”

“But there’s women out there EATING someone!”  Tears were
flowing now.

“That’s what it looks like, but we don’t know what’s going
on.  Right now it’s our job to make sure these children are safe.  Can you help
me do that?”  Betty grasped the younger woman’s shoulders in her hands and
looked into her eyes.

Miss Welch nodded her head and wiped at the tears running
down her cheeks.

“Now, do you have your key?”  Betty was referring to the
master key the motel manager had given to each teacher that would allow them
access to all of the rooms the kids were in.  Miss Welch nodded her head.

“Good.  Now what you’re going to do is wake up Mrs.
Hatfield, Mrs. Wilson and Mr. Jackson and get them to help you round up all the
kids and get them on the bus.  Can you do that?”  Miss Welch sniffed back tears
and nodded her head again.  “Honey, I want to hear you say it.” 

“Y – y – yes.  I can do that.”

“Good, now get busy.  No time to tarry.”  Betty gave a
gentle push towards the open door.  Miss Welch turned and dashed out, Betty
following after pausing long enough to grab her purse and the bus keys off the
small table in front of the window.  Everything else she had in the room was
just clothing and toiletries that could easily be replaced.

Outside she turned and headed down the second floor walkway
towards the stairs at the end of the building, keeping her eyes on the two
women at the far edge of the parking lot.  They were still engrossed with the
man lying on the ground and weren’t paying any attention to her.  Reaching the
top of the stairs she turned to start down them and froze in her tracks.  To
the south a massive fire burned, bright enough to light up the entire horizon.

“Good Jesus, help us tonight,” she muttered as she started
down the stairs.

Betty hadn’t reached the bottom step when a scream from
above froze her in her tracks.  Looking up she watched as Mr. Jackson appeared
to be hugging Miss Welch in the door to his room, then they fell back into the
dark interior and she lost sight of them.  She hesitated a moment, wanting to
get the bus started and ready to go, but afraid something was terribly wrong
with Mr. Jackson and Miss Welch.  Reversing direction she climbed back up the
stairs as fast as she could, hurrying to the door where she had last seen
them.  Arriving at the door she stopped and tried to peer inside but the room
was completely dark.  She could hear a wet, slurping sound intermingled with
guttural snarls and involuntarily took a step back.  Forcing herself forward
she stepped back to the doorway and reached inside, feeling on the wall for the
light switch.  Finding it she flipped it up and dim lights came on inside the
room.  Mr. Jackson was on top of Miss Welch, tearing at her throat with his
teeth.  The horrible sounds were coming from him as he ripped into her.  She
lay on her back, legs twisted under her, arms splayed out to the side and her face
was turned to the door.  Her dead eyes stared up at Betty.

Betty remained rooted in place, her mind refusing to process
what her eyes were seeing.  She had forgotten to breathe and finally the need
overcame her terror and she drew a sharp breath.  Mr. Jackson’s head instantly
snapped up in her direction and she gasped.  His eyes were as red as the blood
that coated his face and ran down onto his chest.  With a gurgling snarl he
lurched to his feet, never taking his focus off the doorway where Betty stood. 
Reaching his feet he took a step forward and growled.  Betty snapped out of her
shock, reached forward and pulled the door shut as she stumbled back.  Her foot
struck something that clattered metallically on the concrete balcony and she
looked down to see the master key.  Miss Welch must have dropped it when Mr.
Jackson grabbed her.

Scooping up the key Betty started dashing down the line of
rooms, unlocking doors and screaming for people to get up.  The third door she
opened was a room shared by four of the girls and one of them screamed and
leapt at her as soon as the door moved.  Betty’s hand was still on the door
knob and she jerked backwards away from the attack and pulled the door shut in
her panic.  Hard thumps immediately started from inside the room as the girl
pounded on the door in a rage.  Trying to shake off her terror Betty continued
down the row, but now she banged on each door with her fists before opening
it.  Several times there was an answering scream or snarl and banging from
inside the room and Betty left those doors closed.

Less than ten minutes later Betty had roused all of the kids
that were in rooms without one of the monsters and had them standing on the
balcony.  Mrs. Hatfield, the other parent, and Mrs. Wilson the other teacher
were both missing.  When Betty had knocked on their doors there had been
screams and loud thumps as a response.  The same had happened at several of the
kids rooms.  As the group stood there, screams and pounding coming from the
rooms at their backs, Betty took a quick head count.  Nineteen.  That’s all
that was remaining from the 27 she’d brought from Nashville.  Betty had no idea
what was going on, but she knew she had to get these kids to the safety of the
bus and get away from Atlanta.

Quickly she herded the kids into a group, trying to be
compassionate for the ones who stood there crying, but the need to move faster
prompted her to start pushing and grabbing arms to get control.  A minute later
she led the group to the stairs and they started down.  The kids were
completely terrified and bunched tightly together and against her back as they
moved.  Halfway down the stairs the sound of shattering glass caused them to
pause and look up.  Mrs. Wilson pushed through her room’s broken window and screamed
when she saw them on the stairs.

“Run!”  Betty cried, rushing down the stairs and urging the
kids to move.

Mrs. Wilson was a young woman, a former alternate for the US
Gymnastics Olympic team.  She showed her athleticism by vaulting over the
second floor balcony railing and landing on the roof of a parked car,
shattering all of its windows as the roof caved in under the impact of her
landing.  She leapt to the ground without even a pause and rushed at the
group.  Her step-daughter, Riann, froze and stared, still standing there when
Mrs. Wilson launched herself into the air and tackled the young girl to the
ground.  Riann screamed but it was cut off as her step-mother ripped into her
throat.  Another window on the second floor shattered and Betty ran as fast as
her aging, out of shape body could go, fumbling the bus keys in her hand so she
would be prepared to unlock the doors as soon as she reached them.

Another window on the second floor shattered, but Betty
didn’t take the time to look and see who it was.  The bus was now only 30 yards
away and most of the kids had run ahead of her and were just reaching it,
yelling for her to hurry.  Out of the dark from the far side of the bus two men
lumbered into sight, each grabbing a kid and pulling them to the ground. 
Another female dashed in from the other direction and tore open one girl’s
throat with a slash of her nails before falling onto another girl and savaging
her face and neck.  Betty charged up, huffing like a steam engine, and tried to
still her shaking hands so she could get the keys in the lock for the bus
doors.  While she did this two more females charged the group, each taking a
boy to the ground with screams of rage. 

Finally getting the keys in the lock, Betty opened the doors
and stepped aside to hurry the kids onto the bus.  They jammed up at the doors,
too many bodies trying to get through at the same time.  While Betty wasted
precious seconds sorting them out another woman and two more men showed up and
each took another kid.  The terror of seeing his classmates being torn apart and
eaten was too much for one young boy.  Turning away from the crush of students
trying to get onto the bus he started walking out into the parking lot, a
vacant look on his face as tears and snot flowed.  A few moments later he was
descended on by three women who tore into him with a savagery Betty didn’t know
existed.

Kids finally on the bus she quickly stepped up and leaned
her weight into the lever that operated the doors, slamming them a second
before a screaming woman crashed into the folding doors.  The glass cracked in
a spider web pattern and the woman started beating on it with her fists and
continued to scream her rage.  Betty slipped behind the wheel and started the
bus.  Not waiting for it to warm up she shifted into drive and hit the throttle. 
The big diesel engine clattered and roared and the bus slowly started moving. 
Betty stayed on the throttle as the front bumper crashed into a sedan, shoving
it out of the way with a screech of metal as more women ran screaming at the
bus and slammed into the sides.  The kids screamed with every impact and Betty
fought the wheel to straighten the bus out and head north on the highway that
would take them to Tennessee.

“How did you wind up here?”  I asked in a quiet voice. 
Rachel was seated on the other side of Betty listening to the story.  The kids
had formed up into a tight group and huddled a few feet away from us.  Dog had
found nine new friends and was soaking up the petting and attention he was
getting from them.  Watching them I was reminded of a news story I had once
read about pets being used to help kids deal with post traumatic shock.  It
certainly looked like Dog was a welcome addition.

“We drove for a few hours.  Those crazy women just kept
attacking the bus and the men just stood in the road.  I had to run so many of
them over because they won’t move.  I tried to get to the interstate but we got
trapped in a gridlock of wrecked and abandoned cars.  We waited for two days
for the police or the Army, or anyone to come help us.  When no one showed up and
there weren’t any of those things prowling around we finally left the bus and
started walking.  My family is from around here and when we came to Wallace
Creek I knew where we were and we left the road and started cutting through the
country.”

“You and these kids have been on foot for two weeks?” 
Rachel asked in surprise.

“That’s right, sweetie.”  Betty looked at her and smiled. 
“Like I said, my family is from around here and I know the area, but I also
grew up a tom boy and I know how to live in the woods.  This is Tennessee after
all, not Atlanta.”

“But what have you been eating?”  Rachel was amazed.  I was
kind of proud of the old woman.  Again I was reminded never to judge a book by
its cover.

“Darling, if you know where to look there’s plenty of food
in these woods.  Maybe not McDonalds, but a body can do just fine on roots and
berries, and trapping squirrel and rabbit sure ain’t rocket science.  Kind of
good for me, actually.  I think I’ve lost some weight.”  Betty said the last
with a chuckle as she patted her ample hips.

“What were you doing away from your camp when you found
us?”  I asked, taking a moment to raise the rifle and scan the woods.

“We heard the gunfire and thought maybe it was the police or
the Army.  Well, I guess it was the Army since it was you we heard.”  It was
too dark to see, but I imagined there was a twinkle in her eye when she said
this.  “Gotta be careful.  Letting an old woman and a bunch of kids get the
drop on you like that.”

I grinned, both in embarrassment and agreement.

“One thing about that,” I said, my tone gentle.  “You’re
very fortunate my rifle was out of commission.  If it had been in my hands I
would likely have opened up on that spotlight.”

“Don’t you think I knew that, young man?”  Betty softened
the rebuke by reaching out and patting my forearm.

Properly chastised I sat back and thought about our next
move.  Now that I had gotten involved I couldn’t just walk away from Betty and
her kids, but at the same time I was really feeling the internal pressure to
get to Arizona and find Katie.  It would be nice if I could get them to
Nashville and be on my way, but after the recent additional outbreaks I didn’t
know if Nashville was still a safe place.  There was also the massive herd of
infected moving towards the area that Max had talked about on the radio and I
no longer had much confidence that the Army was in any shape to hold them at
the border.  The other option, dragging them along with me all the way to
Arizona was not one I was willing to entertain.

“Betty, how far are we from Nashville?”  I asked, raising
the rifle and scanning the surrounding woods again.

She thought for a minute before answering, “If we follow the
creek north it will take us up to Murfreesboro, then it’s just a few miles up
24 to get into Nashville.  What are you thinking?”

“Here’s the thing,” I said.  “I’m trying like hell to get to
Arizona to find my wife, but I’m also not going to go off and leave you and
these kids to fend for yourselves.  I want to see all of you to safety and
getting you out of these woods and at least as far as Murfreesboro is what I
need to do.”

“Young man, we’ve survived for two weeks in ‘these woods’
and have been just fine.  We don’t need your help.”  I could tell by the tone
of her voice that I had offended her.  Time for some stark reality and a little
diplomacy.

“Betty, no offense, but how many infected have you had to
fight off?  What about other survivors?  There’s been a second outbreak and
things are pretty bad and headed to worse.  You’ve done an absolutely amazing
job of keeping these kids safe up to now, but things are getting worse and like
it or not, if you want to continue keeping these kids safe you need my, our,
help.”

Betty was quiet for a long time, digesting my words.  “We
haven’t had to fight any of the infected, and you’re the first survivors that
we’ve come across.”

Rachel reached out and took Betty’s hand in hers and started
talking, relaying first the story of the men who had tried to ambush us at the
outfitter store we’d raided in Atlanta, then moving on to her abduction aboard
the cabin cruiser.  While Rachel talked I stood and moved a few yards out into
the brush to do another check of the area.  I was on my second slow scan when
movement caught my attention.  Focusing on the area I was able to see what
looked to be at least 20 figures moving up the smaller valley, following our
path.  There was one figure out in front, the remainder bunched up together
behind it, and they only moved when it moved.  These weren’t infected.  These
were men following a tracker who was on our trail.  Holy hell couldn’t we catch
a break?  I moved quickly and quietly back to the area where everyone was
sitting and called Dog to me with a soft pat on my leg.  He jumped to his feet
and trotted over, staying at my side as I moved.  Betty was hugging Rachel when
I walked up to them but I didn’t have time to be sensitive to the moment.

“We’ve got trouble,” I said, interrupting them.  Rachel
wiped her eyes and got on her feet, then helped Betty rise as well.

“We’ve got about 20 men coming up the valley, following our
trail.  I suspect they’re part of the group that ambushed Rachel and I, looking
for some payback.  Betty, get the kids on their feet and make sure they are
absolutely quiet.  No talking.  Rachel, stay with them and get them moving
farther up the valley.  I’m going to set up some surprises for our guests then
I’ll catch up.”

Each of the women nodded and I shouldered my pack and
trotted off towards the approaching group, Dog on my heels.  I stopped and told
him to stay with Rachel, pointing back the way we had come from.  If he was
human he would have complained as he turned around and ran off to find her.  I
did a quick check through the rifle scope and saw that the group had covered very
little ground and estimated I still had almost ten minutes before they reached
me.  Moving further towards them I was careful to control my noise.  Fifty
yards closer to them I stopped, knelt and dug through my pack.  Supplies in
hand I left the pack on the ground and started working quickly.

Less than five minutes later I was done, grabbed the pack
and moved into the brush and climbed the slope away from the valley floor. 
Finding a spot I was happy with I placed the pack on the ground and lay on my
belly, using the pack as a rifle rest and sighted in on the area of the valley
floor where I had set up a little surprise for our pursuers.  I had taken
advantage of their lack of tactical knowledge which was evident by the way they
bunched up when they moved.  I had picked two trees on either side of the
trail, about 20 feet apart and fairly well obscured by vines.  On the side of
each trunk facing the trail I had duct taped three fragmentation grenades about
four feet up from the ground.  Straightening out each grenade’s pin so it would
pull easily I had linked all of the pins together with a thin, black nylon
cord.  The cord stretched around a couple of anchoring sticks I had jammed into
the ground and was taut across the path at about six inches of height and 30
feet farther down the path from where the grenades were waiting.  My plan was
that as the tracker moved down the path he would walk into the trip wire which
would then pull all six pins.  With the bulk of the group nicely bunched up
about thirty to forty feet behind him the grenades should do some nasty damage.

Grenades were not ideal for this type of trap.  Once the
pins pulled there was a five second delay in the fuse before they detonated. 
Five seconds doesn’t sound like a long time, but if the tracker realizes what
he just walked into when he trips the wire and warns the group, it’s enough
time for many of them to get to a safe distance.  Ideally I’d have seriously
considered giving up my left nut for a couple of Claymore mines to use in my
trap.  A Claymore is packed with C4 and 700 steel ball bearings that will
absolutely shred anything in the blast zone of 50 meters.  And Claymores don’t
have time delay fuses.  Oh well.  Once again I reminded myself of the old adage
that you fight with what you have.

I was settled into the rifle stock and watching through the
scope when the tracker approached the trip wire I had set up.  Behind him about
25 feet were 19 men, all armed, and though they were bunched up the narrow path
forced them into a formation only two bodies wide so they stretched back
another 20 feet.  Perfect, as long as the tracker didn’t warn them in time for
them to scatter to safety.  Slowly the tracker advanced, walking with his head
down, occasionally pausing to reach down and touch the path.  How was he seeing
the ground well enough to track us?  That thought hadn’t even gone through my
head until now, and as I peered through the scope I could make out the IR
flashlight and goggles he was using.  Shit!  Would he spot the black cord
before tripping it with his feet?  I now regretted having set up a trip wire
rather than running a line up to my location so I could pull the pins at
precisely the right moment.

Scanning the group I was glad to see that all of their
attention was on the tracker.  They weren’t paying any attention to the
environment around them and I could probably have been standing on the edge of
the trail and they wouldn’t have noticed me if the tracker didn’t point me
out.  That was fine.  I shifted my aim back to the tracker and saw him pause by
the two trees where I had taped the grenades.  I had intentionally not pushed
into the brush at this point, not wanting to leave a trace that could be
detected, but something had caught his attention at the edge of the path. 
Bending down he touched the ground, looked off to the side directly at one of
the grenade clusters for a moment, but apparently didn’t spot them as he
finally resumed moving forward.  I let out a long breath that I hadn’t realized
I was holding.

A long minute later he was at the point where I’d strung the
trip wire across the path.  I quickly checked and the group following him was
nicely centered on the two trees.  Back to the tracker I watched him stop and
hold up a fist.  The group stopped, but not after bunching up a little
tighter.  I felt a small thrill of exhilaration.  It looked like my trap was
going to work.  A moment later I was dismayed to see the tracker drop to one
knee and closely examine the trip wire, then turn his head first to the right
then left to see where it went.  Making a snap decision I sighted on his head,
exhaled and pulled the trigger.  He was on his knees and leaning forward over
the line to look at it and my bullet struck his left temple and blew out the
right side of his head, the plume of blood and brains visible in the night
vision scope.  The body collapsed instantly, falling onto the trip wire.  I
couldn’t tell if the pressure on the line that pushed it down six inches to the
ground was enough to pull the grenade pins.  I’d find out in five seconds.

Moving my aim back to the group I saw them tense up and all
start trying to move at the same time as they reacted to their tracker going
down.  Fortunately for me they were standing so close together that all they
initially succeeded in doing was to bump into each other as there was no
coordinated direction of movement.  One guy at the very back had the right idea
and turned to run, but I dropped him in his tracks with a well-placed shot. 
Quickly shifting back to the front of the group I shot the lead man, then
pulled the trigger on another as my mental count reached five.  A heartbeat
later a ripple of explosions tore through the forest where they were still
standing and I lost sight of all of them from the dust and debris that six
grenades blasted into the air.  Both trees were blown in half at the point
where the grenades had been attached and toppled to the forest floor, throwing
more dust and debris into the air.

Before the dust cleared I started hearing the screams of the
wounded.  I’ve known guys that couldn’t handle hearing those screams, finally
opting out of the military to get away from them, but they were music to my
ears.  Hearing the screams of your enemy means you’re still alive and have
inflicted more damage than you’ve taken.  Hopefully.  Unless you’re hurt too
bad to scream.  I kept watching through the scope but there was no breeze in
the valley and it was taking a long time for the dust to settle.  Movement at
the back of the dust cloud drew my attention as two men supporting each other
made a break back down the path.  I shot both of them before they made it ten
yards.

Finally the dust started to thin and I was able to make out
the carnage I had wrought.  Bodies and parts of bodies were scattered along the
path.  In one of those scenes from battle that will always stick with you as
clear as the moment you saw it I spotted a human arm dangling from a shattered
tree branch, swinging slightly like it was waving at me.  Not letting myself
get distracted I kept scanning and started counting bodies, running out of
corpses when I reached 17.  Three unaccounted for.  I took a moment to scan and
count a second time, but the number didn’t change.  Leaving the pack where it
was I first moved laterally then descended towards the path, keeping to the
heaviest brush.  I heard number 18 before I saw him.  He was sobbing and
moaning and when I angled around a large tree that had blocked my view of him I
could see him sitting on the ground with his back against the trunk.  His hands
were clasped across his belly in a futile attempt to hold in the intestines
that had spilled out when the blast had ripped him open.  I showed him the only
mercy I was in the mood for by shooting him in the head.