Crucifixion - 02 (12 page)

Moving closer to the trail I kept a constant scan going for 19
and 20, finally spotting movement back down the path as a figure broke from the
trees and started running.  I was a blink away from pulling the trigger on him
when a body crashed into my left side, knocking the rifle off aim and me to the
ground.  Grunting with the impact of the body and the ground I rolled to get my
hands up and between us but this guy had been in a few tussles and knew what I
was trying to do.  When we had landed he came down on top of me and was using
his not inconsiderable body weight to pin my legs as he controlled my upper
body with a hand locked into my vest while he pounded my head with his fist. 
Feeling his weight shift I knew what was coming and got my hips turned just in
time to take the knee that was intended for my balls on the side of my thigh. 
It still hurt like hell, but at least wasn’t incapacitating like a shot to the
boys would have been.

I stopped trying to fight against his pressure and instead
rolled on the ground in the direction he was pushing.  This caught him by
surprise and with his arm pinned against my chest he had to roll with me and we
wound up on our backs with me on top.  He tried to wrap me in a bear hug but I
broke the embrace and started rocketing elbows behind me into his ribs.  The
second elbow I threw hit perfectly and I felt at least two of his ribs snap. 
One more elbow in the same spot brought a grunt of pain from him then I raised
my head and smashed it back into his face as hard as I could.  For a moment his
grip on me went slack and I rolled off and leapt to my feet five feet away,
drawing the Kukri as I rose into a crouch.  He started to fumble for a
holstered pistol and I lunged in and buried all 12 inches of the blade in his
guts and cut upwards until the blade stopped against his breastbone.  

Yanking the blade free of the corpse I looked in the
direction the last pursuer had run, but couldn’t see him in the dark.  Moving
on auto pilot I started running after him, Kukri held in my right hand, blood
spattering off it onto the ground as I ran.  I covered ground quickly, keeping
my steps light and as quiet as possible.  There was a little moonlight and I
was able to see and avoid sticks on the ground and branches in my path.  After
five minutes of running I made it to the larger valley where Betty and the kids
had been camped and paused to check the ground to make sure I was still
following the man.  Before I could spot anything in the jumble of footprints
from the passage of two large groups I heard him crashing through the bush to my
right, back towards the site of the ambush on the road.

Turning I broke into a fast lope, now tracking him by sound
as he continued to step on a stick or run into a bush every few seconds.  Several
minutes later I crested a small rise and saw him a hundred yards in front of
me.  The man was struggling through the dark forest.  He was overweight and out
of shape and even from this distance I could hear his ragged breathing.  His
run wasn’t much faster than a very slow jog and I came to a stop when I heard voices
ahead in the forest.  Did I let him escape and tell a terrifying story to his
friends?  The idea had merit.  A frightened enemy is a significantly lesser
threat than a mad enemy, and finding all their friends dead would frighten
them, but would also make them mad.  However, a lone survivor running out of
the woods and telling a frightening story of how his entire group was wiped out
in the blink of an eye could better serve my purpose.  Decision made I turned
and started running back down the valley.

Approaching my ambush site I slowed when I heard what
sounded like wild animals fighting.  Raising the rifle and looking through the
night vision scope I was momentarily disgusted by the site of a small pack of
infected feasting on the bodies.  There were four males and two females and the
females would feed on a corpse for a few minutes then move to another.  If
another infected happened to also be feeding on the new corpse the female would
attack it and force it to back off.  This was another new behavior I hadn’t
seen before, and didn’t quite know what to make of.  Shooting the first female
as she thrust her hands into the body cavity of one of the corpses I quickly
acquired and fired at the second female, but missed.  As soon as my suppressed
shot had sounded she had moved, dashing into the surrounding trees.  What the
hell was that?

Feeling less confident about being able to easily clear them
out I quickly sighted in on and shot all the males, but the female I had missed
hadn’t reappeared and wasn’t making any noise.  Not good.  Carefully scanning
the dark woods I couldn’t spot her, but I was almost certain she was still in
the area and was stalking me.  Lowering the rifle I drew the Kukri and stepped
off the path into thicker brush and started silently circling around the
carnage.  I took my time, lowering the toe of each boot gently onto the ground
and testing the spot before I transferred my weight.  This is a slow way to
move, but when stealth is more important than speed it’s the only way to move. 
Eventually I had circled the area and was slightly upslope, only a few yards
from where I had left my pack.

I started to move towards the pack, then stopped and froze
in place.  If I was lying in wait for someone and there was something I knew
they’d come back for, like my pack, I’d set up on it and wait for them to come
to me and attack when they were vulnerable.  For five minutes I stood perfectly
still, controlling my breathing, the only movement my head turning slowly as I
scanned the area repeatedly.  Even though I wasn’t detecting a threat didn’t
mean it wasn’t there.  Was I giving too much credit to the female?  Up until
now I hadn’t seen any indication that the infected were able to reason or
problem solve, rather had watched them repeatedly behave in only a mindless
pursuit of any prey that was in front of them.  Was that changing?  Were they
learning?  Was this a product of the viral component that the scientists hadn’t
been able to identify, or had I just happened to encounter a gifted one?

Never one to believe in coincidence I filed away this one’s
behavior and refocused on the task at hand.  My pack lay on the ground five
yards ahead of me on a clear patch of ground that was only a couple of yards
across.  Heavy brush surrounded the clearing except at the rocky edge where it
looked down on my ambush site.  If she was waiting for me it would be in the
brush at the back or on the far side of the clearing.  Moving a millimeter at a
time I sheathed the Kukri and raised the rifle.  Placing my eye up to the scope
it only took me seconds to find the female hiding in the brush on the far side
of the clearing.  She was squatted a couple of feet from the edge of the
clearing and was sitting perfectly still, her head turned to watch the path
below where the corpses lay.  She hadn’t seen or smelled me.

The forest was very quiet, as if even the trees and rocks were
holding their breath, and my current problem was that the rifle was on safe and
it would make a small degree of noise when I moved the lever to fire.  Whether
or not she would hear it was the question, but I had already seen that these
things seemed to have enhanced senses and I prepared myself to enable the rifle
and get a shot off as quickly as possible.  Target sighted I exhaled silently,
clicked the safety lever with my thumb and fired.  Miss again.  She had moved
the instant the rifle had clicked off safe.  Damn that was some reaction time. 
There was no way any normal human could have avoided my shot.  She had dropped
lower to the ground and moved to the side and now burst into the clearing,
charging directly at me on all fours at a surprising speed.  I snapped off
another shot that missed her head but impacted at the base of her neck, most
likely shattering her collar bone as she lost control of one of her arms and
crashed to the ground.

Faster than should have been possible she rolled and leapt
to her feet and launched herself into the brush to the side.  She was breaking
off the attack?  That was definitely new.  Up to now an infected that spotted prey
maintained pursuit of that prey until it either escaped or the infected was
killed.  Self-preservation had not been a part of the equation.  Still tracking
the female with the night scope I saw her running down the slope towards the
path and I stepped forward into the clearing, waited a moment then snapped off
another shot that blew out a chunk of her skull and dropped the body into the
dust.  I didn’t have time to celebrate my small victory as I was tackled from
behind and slammed to the ground on my face.

Another female that I hadn’t seen or heard was on my back
and ripping at me with her hands as she leaned in and tried to bite me.  All
that saved me was the high collar of the tactical vest and the shemagh I had
wrapped around my neck.  I could feel the pressure from her bites but her teeth
weren’t able to get through the layers of tough fabric.  More than a little
freaked out I got my hands under me and shoved, pushing both of us off the
ground where I was able to twist my body to come back down on top of the
infected.  But she wasn’t there when I landed on the ground, hard, flat on my
back.  Almost before I realized she had leapt off me when I had pushed off the
ground, the bitch straddled me like a lover and lunged her head forward with
teeth bared in an attempt at my throat.  Her hands were on my upper arms,
trying to control them, and while she was much stronger than a normal woman her
size she was still no match for a man more than 100 pounds heavier that could
bench press more than his own body weight. 

Forcing my arms up and together in front of my chest I was
able to get my right hand wrapped around her throat.  Pushing harder I levered
her up until my arms was almost fully extended and hit her hard in the face
with my left.  No effect.  Damn these things were tough.  Holding her by the
throat at arm’s length she couldn’t reach my face, throat or chest, but she
started trying to rip open my arms with her ragged nails.  Again, the heavy
military issue fabric did its job and protected me.  Still struggling with her
I rolled and got her on her back on the ground.  Pinning her lower body with my
weight I leaned into the grip on her throat and squeezed for all I was worth. 
She thrashed and struggled, a couple of times nearly bucking me off but I held
on and almost two full minutes later she lay still.

Not a trusting soul I maintained the pressure for another
thirty seconds, staring down at the woman and blinking sweat out of my eyes. 
She had been young and pretty, once.  She was slender with long, red hair and
had the kind of features that would have made men remember her.  Now she was
filthy and bloody with matted hair, and she was dead.  Releasing my grip I
flexed my hand a couple of times, drew the Kukri and rammed the blade into her
brain.  No reason to take any chances.  Wiping the blade on her tattered shirt
I sheathed it and stood up.  A scan of the area with the scope didn’t reveal
any more threats so I grabbed my pack off the ground, shouldered it and set off
down the slope to catch up with Rachel, Dog and our new friends.

As I ran to catch up with my group I had to force myself to
not think about what had just happened.  Dwelling on it would be a distraction
that I couldn’t afford as I moved through the dark woods.  It didn’t take long
for me to pick up their trail and I stopped for a moment with the intent to
disguise it to throw off any more trackers, but there was just too much
disturbance to hide.  The kids, like so many teenagers seemed to do, drug their
heels on the ground every step forward they took and this was leaving a trail
that Helen Keller could have followed.  Making a mental note to spend a little
time instructing them how to walk in the forest I set back off at a fast jog,
heavy pack bouncing on my back.

A few minutes later I rounded a curve in the valley which
opened up in front of me.  What had been a fairly narrow valley now widened
dramatically, the floor of the valley spreading out to be almost a quarter of a
mile wide.  The small creek, Wallace Creek I believe Betty had called it,
joined with a much larger creek and formed a small river.  The sides of the
valley were still manageable if we had to climb, but they were much steeper
than they had been and more heavily forested.  I could hear a low roar from
ahead that I couldn’t identify, but as I moved further into this new valley I
recognized the sound as a waterfall.  Pausing where I was I brought the rifle
up, scanned ahead and cursed.  Five infected were moving down the valley ahead
of me, apparently tracking the group.  Turning I checked my rear and was
relieved to not see any threats.  Back to the front I sighted in on each of the
infected and identified all of them as females.  Oh shit!

Were they going to be the more dangerous variety I had just
encountered?  Obviously I’d just fought two females that were able to think
well enough to set up and execute an ambush.  I had gotten used to the
predictability of the infected.  If they saw you, they were attacking and were
coming straight at you.  They didn’t try to hide and surprise you and they
didn’t work together.  If this was happening with all of the females the level
of danger they presented had just increased exponentially.  Putting my musing
aside I stepped off and started stalking the hunters.

Dropping the pack again I quickly exchanged the empty
magazines in my vest for loaded ones then left the pack in the brush near the
river.  Moving deeper into the valley I started following two of the females
who appeared to be moving together.  They were walking quietly through the
forest, only the occasional tick to their movements giving away the fact they
were infected.  If I hadn’t seen a few thousand of them before I probably
wouldn’t have realized they were infected until I was right in front of them. 
Males are easy to spot as they move like someone who’s just left the bar after
about ten too many drinks, but the females were even more agile once infected
than they had been before. 

Ten yards behind the two females, I stopped and checked on
the other three through the scope.  One was thirty yards farther down the
valley and 100 yards to my right.  The remaining two were on the other side of
the river, several hundred yards away.  Back to the two I was stalking I moved
closer, careful to keep my steps either on soft dirt or rocky outcroppings so I
wouldn’t make any noise and alert them to my presence.  They were close
together as they moved, close enough to touch each other if they wanted, and I
decided to take them out as quietly as possible.  Lowering the rifle I drew the
blade, gripped it tightly and leaned forward as I burst into a sprint.

I was a yard behind them when they heard me.  Both spun at
the same time, the one on the right opening her mouth to scream but the scream
never left her throat because I covered that yard in one fast step and sliced
through her neck, nearly cutting her head off her body.  The Kukri lodged in
her vertebrae and I didn’t waste time trying to pull it free, releasing it to
remain stuck in the female’s neck as she crumpled dead to the ground.  I was in
a full sprint and used my momentum to my advantage, lowering my shoulder and
ramming into the chest of the female on my left.  I heard the breath whoosh out
of her lungs from the impact and she flew backwards, landing on her back in the
dirt.  Following through I fell on top of her, bringing my knee down with all
my weight into her stomach and locking my left hand on her throat.

Even with the wind knocked out of her and a 230 pound pile
driver to the stomach she was still able to fight and started twisting her body
and slashing with her hands to try and throw me off.  I kept the pressure on
and leaned my weight into her throat with my right hand on the ground for
balance.  When I touched the ground my hand was on top of a softball sized stone,
nicely rounded by eons of river water flooding through the valley.  Grasping
the stone I raised it in the air and brought it down on the infected’s
forehead, both hearing and feeling her skull crack and cave in.  She instantly
went still and the animal light in her eyes blinked out. 

Standing up I slipped the stone into my pocket before
bending and retrieving the Kukri where it had lodged in the other female’s
neck.  Blade sheathed I brought the rifle around and checked the other three. 
The one closest had stopped and was looking around like she may have heard
something, but the two on the far side of the river were still moving forward
and were now angling slightly toward the water.  Trusting there was enough
distance to safely use the suppressed rifle I sighted in on the closest female
and dropped her with a shot to the head, then quickly looked for the two across
the river.  Both were still moving at the same pace and hadn’t heard anything. 
Taking a moment to check my rear again, which was still clear, I ran forward
and angled towards the river. 

I knew my group was on this side of the valley and the two
females would have to cross the river to get to them.  What I didn’t know was
if the river was shallow and slow enough for the females to be able to ford
it.  I hoped it was over their heads and running swiftly as it came up to the
waterfall, but I couldn’t count on it.  My plan at the moment was to keep them
in sight and when and if they tried to cross over they would be easy targets. 
No reason to make it more difficult than it had to be. 

Another couple of hundred yards and the females were
stalking along the far side of the river which was now close to 40 feet wide. 
The waterfall sounds were masking all other noises in the environment and I knew
it couldn’t be far away.  Taking a few moments I scanned behind me, all clear,
then ahead of me looking for my group but I still couldn’t see them.  That
didn’t concern me because I was still finding signs of their passing and I was
close enough that the footprints they were leaving in the moist soil of the
valley floor hadn’t even had time to fill up with water.  They weren’t more
than five minutes ahead of me.

The two females came all the way to the water’s edge and
stopped, looking across the river at an angle that was ahead of my position.  I
was reasonably sure they were looking at my group.  Watching them I was tempted
to take the shots, but the reaction time of the female earlier concerned me.  I
didn’t want to shoot and get one of them and leave one running around that was
alerted to my presence.  I’d much rather be the one doing the stalking than the
one being stalked.  The females didn’t stand still for long before they
continued down the river bank.  I started moving with them, keeping them in sight.

A few minutes later I could tell we were just upstream from
the waterfall.  Mist created by the water dropping into the pool at the bottom
of the falls hung in the air and the foliage, heavy and green from the extra
water was the thickest I had encountered so far.  It was so thick I was having
trouble pushing through to the edge of the river to maintain my watch on the
females.  When I finally got there I could see them crouched on the far bank. 
The river had narrowed as it reached the falls and where it spilled over it was
no more than 20 feet across.  Large rocks thrust up out of the water and dotted
the surface, the river swirling around them as it picked up speed to rush over
the edge.  I had no idea what time it was, other than probably early morning,
but the moon had finally made it directly overhead.  It was only a half moon,
but there was plenty of light to see and I didn’t like what I saw.  There were
six large boulders in the swirling river and while they weren’t lined up they
still created a path across the 20 feet of water that could be used if one
could jump from boulder to boulder.  I knew from experience that infected
females were very good jumpers.

I was hearing sounds from my side of the river that were
mostly masked by the roar of the waterfall, but sounded like screams.  The
group was in trouble and my first instinct was to charge in to help, but I had no
doubt these two females were about to cross the water and I didn’t like the
idea of them coming in behind me.  Even as these thoughts went through my head
one of the females sprang from a crouched position onto the rock closest to her
side of the river.  A moment later she leapt to the next rock, slipping
slightly on the wet surface but regained her balance and quickly leapt to the
next one.  Now the second one jumped and landed on all fours on the first rock,
using her hands to control her landing and grip much like a monkey.

Raising the rifle I sighted on the one in the rear hoping
the other wouldn’t notice when she went down.  The female was just preparing to
jump to the second rock when my bullet blasted through her head.  The body
tumbled off the rock and was quickly carried over the top of the falls by the
river.  I shifted aim to the first female and gladly noted she hadn’t seen or
heard anything.  She was leaping to another rock and as she landed and caught
her balance I shot her.  Just like the other she slipped off the rock into the
swirling water and half a second later was gone over the edge.  Slinging the
rifle I drew the Kukri to help me move through the heavy brush faster, slashing
vines and young trees to open enough of a path for me to push through.  I
wasn’t being quiet, but I was still hearing screams and was more worried about
speed than stealth at the moment.