Infected (Book 1): The First Ten Days (9 page)

Marcus, Jason, four other soldiers and I remained to fight off the infected. We couldn’t afford to run so early on and get fatigued and killed. We needed to slowly back up the way we were doing and keep them suppressed. My gun ran out of ammo and so did the gun of one soldier. “I’m out!” he yelled.

“I’m out!” I followed up after the soldier said it. And another soldier ran out.

“Save your ammo. RUN!” Marcus said and we all took off behind him.

Seven of us against a large army and there was nearly no ammo left. One of the soldiers took off the backpack he wore and unzipped it while he ran. He pulled out three assault rifle clips, put the backpack on again and passed the clips out. One of the soldiers in the far back was picked off by a runner and vanished under the horde, his screams faded in seconds. My fear was off the charts. I was sure that Jason’s was too but we pushed on. It was time to put the survival skills we pretended to have to work.

“Let’s finish them off!” Marcus said. He turned around and shot again, Jason followed up and then I did. Soon enough the numbers of infected thinned out and we made quick work of the remainder of the horde.

I strongly believed the apocalypse occurred a day earlier, and because of that, the infected deserved a ‘Job Well Done’. I would later make sure to congratulate them once I was as far away from them as I could possibly imagine. No runners were left but we knew it was a matter of time before we would encounter more.

We ran till we were too exhausted to run any more. The walkers were catching up and soon they would be followed by the runners after our gun shots. It was going to be an infected frenzy.

One of the soldiers passed out on the way to the group.

“Not now. The base is close!” Marcus said frustrated. With help of another soldier, they picked him up and continued to move again.

“They’re going live!” one of the other soldiers said as he dropped a grenade on the floor. The walkers caught up with it and they blew to pieces that flew in every direction. This was probably a bad idea because he created an open area for some of the runners that made their way to us to move through with more ease. “DAMNIT!” he said at the product of his action.

Marcus and the other soldier put their entire focus on getting the passed out soldier to the base while Jason, the soldier left and I laid suppressive fire. We shot, ran, shot, ran again, and kept that pattern alive. There were too many infected for us to get them all, and with three of the armed men unable to help, it wasn’t going to be any more possible. Jason’s clip ran out of ammo and he ran back to help carry the knocked out soldier. He took the place of the other soldier who took that as a cue to come back and help us with the suppressive fire. The soldier that threw the grenade was caught by one of the runners and fell to the ground long enough for the walkers to fall all over him. When I looked behind us at Jason and the rest they were no longer there. They must have turned somewhere up ahead and escaped from view. The last soldier tripped while he backed up and the runners made it to him before I could. Within seconds I found myself alone, face to face with an army of infected and a gun close to depleted of ammunition.

The last of the runners forced their efforts and as a result killed off everyone who helped with the suppressive fire except me. It was time to run and so I did. I ran until the glow of the lanterns a block over became visible. It was Jason, Marcus and the other soldier that woke up. An additional soldier stood there which I took as a sign that we caught up with the rest of the survivors.

“We have to go. They’re going to catch up!” I told them as I ran right by. Marcus caught up with me and led the rest of the way.

“The base is up ahead,” Marcus said. He pointed passed the survivors ahead of us at a large fence that we were arriving at. One of the soldiers used the lantern as a signal light for us to know where to go. Because we turned a block to get away from the infected, they weren’t all behind us, some of them were to our sides but on the streets parallel to the one we were in, but the infected somehow new this and jumped out of alleys between the streets. The street we were on rapidly became flooded by infected that leaked from every crack.

I couldn’t tell what kind of area we ran through, it seemed industrial. If so, we were around factories. Regardless, the path was nearly completely blocked off and we needed to make it to the base before the gate was closed to protect the rest of the survivors. Marcus opened fire on the infected in front us and Jason followed with his now reloaded rifle. Everyone else at the gate joined and helped clear a path for us, but it wasn’t enough. The infected weren’t even bothered by the rounds wasted on them. Some runners came out of the alleyways directly in front of the gate.

Soon we’d be protected by fortified steel gates; there was a block’s distance to go. We once again focused our fire on the runners and left the walkers alone until we cleared out all the runners. Jason made it passed the gate first and gave cover fire for Marcus, the soldier that woke up, and me. The soldier in front of Marcus was caught by some walkers and one runner. Marcus wasted no time and jumped over the fallen soldier that was already getting eaten and made it passed the gate. Only I was left.

I was dashing a hundred feet behind Marcus while I dodged both runners and walkers from every direction. Everyone on the other side of the gate laid down suppressive fire. I tripped over a walker and fell to the ground but picked myself up in time. A runner came from the right and I dodged to the left where a walker tried to catch me but I dropped to the ground and rolled passed him. The last runner I remembered that night jumped from my right side when I least expected it, my focus was entirely on the gate at this point.

I was grabbed by the ankle and fell to my side. My head slammed against the ground. “NO!” I heard Jason’s voice for a split second before everything went dark.

Day 3

Jason

T
his hell was much more than any of us could have predicted. If I would have stood alongside my brother on the way to the base he would not have been caught by the runner and he would not have lost consciousness. He rested at the infirmary while he recovered. The rest of us went right to the development stages of our plan for survival.

Every survivor that made it to the military base was kept in the infirmary. The infirmary was one of the first structures in the base large enough to house everyone. We did not want to risk anyone’s life because of the strong possibility of infected roaming the base. Because of this, we decided to wait the daylight out in the infirmary.

While waiting for the sunlight to shine above us, I couldn’t help but replay all the events that already occurred on the way to the base. I waited at the gate for my brother but I wasn’t out there with him. The runner grabbed a hold of his ankle and they both toppled over to their side. The damage he took to the head was due to the sudden impact when he hit the group and immediately caused him to lose consciousness.

Marcus and I went back out of the base to assist. We shot and killed any of the infected near my brother until it was clear enough to pick him up. I lifted him up by the shoulder and rested his whole weight on my back. Marcus stood on the defensive and protected me on the way back to the other side of the gate. The infected closed in on us from all directions but Marcus kept them at arm’s length with his excellent display of marksmanship. The path he cut led us back to the base again and the soldiers rushed the gates closed when we arrived.

If I remained next to him then we would have been together in that moment and it wouldn’t have occurred, but I went to someone else’s aid and the result was as expected, a disaster.

Farpoint Army Base

I
don’t remember having felt tired. I was too worried whether or not my brother was going to regain consciousness, but I caught myself waking up next to his infirmary bed, so it was a given that I did fall asleep at some point. All the other infirmary beds were being used for rest and relaxation.

Marcus and his cronies chose to wait for the light to scout for life, food and weapons. I was more worried of the possibility that everyone on the base before us was already infected and just waiting for an opportunity to show themselves.

The infirmary was just the first floor in a three story medical building. I walked outside to the sun already lighting the sky up. I must have slept on that chair a few hours before I woke up again. Based on the position of the sun it recently came up so the day just begun. Many people were gathered outside, in the front, talking and relieved they were in a ‘safe’ place, although there was no such thing as coexistence between safety and the infected. Marcus and some of the other soldiers handed out food they scavenged from the nearby facilities and some they managed to bring with them. There were still a large number of soldiers unaccounted for that did not make the trip to the base with us, but no one addressed that particular issue, so I chalked it off as just another ‘mission’ they went on.

“Hey, you, what’s your name?” Marcus said. He nodded his head when I looked over so that I would know he called me. “What’s your name?” he repeated now in front of me.

“Jason…” I couldn’t remember whether I forgot to tell him my name, or if he forgot to remember my name.

“Jason. Right... Thanks for all the help yesterday. I know it was rough out there, but I’m glad your brother is at least somewhere safe to recover. I wanted to thank you earlier but I was a bit busy.” He was a lot less serious than he was the day before. The same cloud of relaxation that overtook everyone else took him over too.

“It’s fine. I was forced to help by the circumstances. Didn’t plan to let anyone be left behind because one person couldn’t do things right. I did the best I could, you know?” I attempted to humble myself although I did have a sense of accomplishment to have stood so well by actual freedom fighters.

“Well I appreciate the help. Some of the guys and I are going to secure all the facilities we didn’t get to reach when we searched for food. The storage has to be near and we need to locate it.” He pointed his finger to a table on the side of the infirmary building. “I left a gun over there for you in case you want to come along. Don’t worry about your brother. We left our expert medic with him. I will understand if you choose not to tag along.” He gave me a pat on the back and walked off to speak with some of the soldiers he was going to leave with.

At the table there was one gun left. It was a fully automatic assault rifle, similar to the one I used the day before. I picked it up and walked over to Marcus and the other soldiers.

Before they noticed I was headed their way, they were having the same conversation the survivors were about the soldiers that were missing. Somewhere between when we left the building and reached the base something occurred to the other half of the soldiers that Marcus gathered. They shortened the conversation and dropped the topic when I went over. They wanted to keep the soldier talk away from the ‘common’ survivor.

“Alright, let’s go,” Marcus said. He led the way and we followed.

There were four of us, me included. The goal was to find the food storage building and clear the base of any infected. Although the lack of life in the base was a bit eerie, I was curious to know what happened to everyone.

The base was huge. Although I didn’t know precisely how huge, I did know that we spend the first half of the search walking to buildings they didn’t already search when I was asleep. We walked a few minutes before we reached a building they did not searched yet.

Marcus opened the front door and stepped inside first. He stopped a few feet into the building. “Clear!” he said.

The next soldier went in. He walked in further than Marcus did. “Clear!” he said.

I stood there for a second and the one soldier left outside nudged me. I was being treated like one of the soldiers rather than just some random guy who wanted to help out. I moved in and went a bit further than the second soldier. I scanned the area and kept the pattern up. “Clear!”

The final soldier entered and walked the furthest in.

The rooms in the building were limited, all of which had no door with exception for one that did. From the outside, the building looked like it was several stories tall but from the inside it was just one floor with a tall ceiling. Chairs were laid out in rows; they all faced a stage with a small podium in the center. It was some kind of conference or briefing room.

At the far end of the main room the only other door rested. We made sure nothing was in between the chairs on the way to the door and we gathered behind the door.

Marcus opened it and went inside. He looked around for a moment and came right back out. “Let’s get to the next building, this place is empty,” Marcus said.

We left the conference building.

We searched a few more buildings the same way. One of those buildings even included the private rooms of the highest rank officers of the base, but they were insignificant.

On our search for the food storage facilities we came across the armory. The name was written on the door, large, in bold black words. Everyone smiled in excitement and looked around at each other. Once again Marcus led and opened the door. The smile on Marcus’s face as well as my face and that of the other two soldiers all faded instantly when we found no guns and no ammunition on the other side. It was cleaned out.