LZR-1143: Infection (21 page)

“Yeah, good thing.” She turned away, looking out the window.

“Can I ask you something?” I said, realizing only after I had said it that I hated that question.

“You just did,” she said, smiling crookedly without turning around.

Yep, that was why. I smiled anyway.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what?”

“You have a daughter who I know you care for. Why go with us on this crazy jaunt? You must realize as clearly as I do that the cards are kinda stacked against us. Even if I weren’t crazy, this plan definitely is. Hike off into the mountains through zombie hordes to find and break into a secret government lab where there might be a cure to a disease that appears to have won already? Definition of bat-shit crazy if you ask me.”

She looked into my eyes, face serious. “There are a lot of people out there that don’t have a chance to do anything to save their loved ones from this-not to mention from four thousand miles away. They may lock their doors, stockpile food and load their guns, but you and I both know that this kind of sickness gets exponentially worse. In two more weeks, the planet could be irretrievably overrun, and humankind-at least the humankind we know-could be very close to extinct. No one can hold out against that forever.”

She turned away, looking out the window. “The only hope for anyone, my daughter included, is finding a cure.”

Suddenly, the radio came to life, a frightened voice coming through clearly, the sounds of commotion and shouting loud in the background.

“Mayday, mayday. This is the HMS Liverpool. We are anchored in New York Bay and have been hit by an inbound freighter. We are taking on water, and abandoning ship. I repeat, we are taking on water and abandoning ship.”

This was incomprehensible. We all looked at each other in shock as Hartliss spoke rapidly in response.

“Liverpool, this is Lieutenant Hartliss, what the hell happened?”

“Inbound freighter, loaded with zeds. Must’ve killed the crew or something. They’re all… what the bloody… Jesus!” his voice escalated to a frightened tenor, ending in a shrill scream, as the radio squealed, transmission cut off suddenly from the ship.

They drive boats now? What next?

“Liverpool? Liverpool, come in!”

He tried several times, urgently trying to evoke a response. His pleas were met with the empty retort of static and dead air.

Hartliss cursed and checked his GPS read out, punching buttons and turning two dials quickly.

“I have to get back. There may be something I can do. Sorry, but I’ve got to let you down.

Before we could reply, the chopper jerked as it was buffeted by a gust of wind. “I’m going to drop you in a town about thirty miles South of the facility. According to the GPS, it’s called Kearney. I can’t take you the rest of the way. It’s a medium sized town, but if you clear the inhabited area quickly, you might have a chance.”

We started toward the grown, and I caught myself wanting to vomit as we dropped hundreds of feet within seconds. Small buildings flashed by below, and we crossed small town streets packed haphazardly with cars. Creatures meandered aimlessly below; some looked up as we passed. Not a good sign.

“I’m going to drop you in a football field. From there, you’re on your own, but it looks like there’s a car dealership across the street. Should be able to find transport there.” Hartliss’s normally calm voice was bordering on the frantic.

Mentally grappling with the potential loss of the Liverpool, I made sure my gear was in place. Across from me, Anaru read my mind, “Any idea how many of those things might be down there?”

“Negative. It’s a medium sized town, but no way to know. Not as many as the city, but you should anticipate that they’ll be drawn by the noise from the chopper, so be alert.”

“What about Fred,” Kate asked, grabbing my arm urgently. “We can’t send him back to the ship if it’s infested and sinking.”

“We don’t know that it’s overrun or that it went down. They could have stopped the leak and could be mopping up the zombies as we speak. Either way, Hartliss has enough fuel to find somewhere safer than where we’re going.” It wasn’t the best plan, but I believed it was true. There was no promise of safety in either direction, but at least by air, he had more options. “There’s no way for us to keep him safe in this, you know that.”

She looked into my eyes, doubt and uncertainty warring with her concern for Fred’s safety. She finally nodded and turned away, grabbing Fred’s hand and holding it tightly.

From the cockpit, Hartliss’s tense voice. “Here’s the drop. Get ready.”

Out the window to my right, I could see an empty football field, surrounded by bleachers. On one side of the field, a banner hung limply from the stands, espousing support for the high school team. Behind the field, the school itself sat in dark, stolid silence. A Toyota dealership, bright sign illuminated brightly across the street from the field, corroborated Hartliss’ satellite imagery.

As we banked and descended, I caught movement in the parking lot beside the field, and from behind the school. We definitely weren’t alone here.

In a gut-wrenching change of altitude and pace, the chopper dropped suddenly to within twenty feet of the ground, bleachers disappearing behind us as we lowered the last fifteen feet. Then the last five, as the wheels touched the soft grass and the wind from the spinning rotors blasted off the ground and into the cabin.

“That’s it. Everyone out. Good hunting and Godspeed!”

Sam jumped out, rifle up, head down but alert. Anaru followed, weapon similarly raised, then Kate. I was the last, and as I exited I turned quickly to Fred, who had been poised to follow. From behind me, I heard Sam’s voice rising, Anaru yelling in response, and the sharp report of a single shot. I held my hand up and spoke quickly and loudly.

“You’re staying, Fred. We’ll be back, I promise!” Disliking the lie I heard in my voice, I kept my hand up in a ‘stop’ gesture, and brought the door shut in front of him. His face stared out the window, his hand pressed against it softly, as I slammed my hand against the metal wall three times in sharp succession and sprinted under the blades to where the others stood, backs to me and the helicopter. Another single shot rang out, as Hartliss made a thumbs up gesture and lifted off the ground immediately, obviously concerned about the ship.

I turned to see Sam crouched on the ground, sighting carefully over the barrel of her rifle toward a group of six zeds making their way across the field toward us from the open gate behind the far goalpost. Two bodies already lay sprawled awkwardly on the grass, limbs askew, proof of Sam’s marksmanship.

From above and behind us, there was a sudden sound of metallic snapping and the arcing of electricity. We all looked back in time to witness Hartliss pull the helicopter back from an almost invisible line of electric wires that stretched between the announcer’s booth and the main grid on the far side of the field. He had clipped one of the wires, which had struck the side of the chopper after briefly tangling with a rotor blade. He was perhaps thirty feet from the ground, and the chopper yawed wildly before coming to an even keel. Sam turned back to sight the incoming creatures, as the rest of us helplessly watched the progress of the ship.

He achieved a couple hundred feet in altitude before smoke started to pour out of the engine compartment directly below the spinning rotors. The engine whined loudly as the smoke got thicker and came faster. He kept the chopper moving forward, out of the field, past the outskirts of where I knew town ended and forest began. The tail suddenly skewed sharply to the side, and the chopper lost twenty feet in altitude. It disappeared from sight over the closest hill, smoke still streaming from the tail and descending fast.

As I turned to Kate, horrified but impotent in the face of events, a bright yellow ball of flame and smoke erupted from the crest of the hill that it had just topped. I ducked involuntarily, even as a secondary explosion lit the sky almost immediately after.

From behind us, Sam’s voice drew us out of our trance. “We need to move, now!”

Anaru grabbed my arm, “Come on. We can grieve later. We need to get across the street and out of this fishbowl.”

Sam sprinted past us, rifle in hand, held professionally at her hip. I slipped mine off my shoulder, checking the clip and following Kate. Anaru took the rear, as six more slouching forms shuffled slowly behind.

We passed underneath a metal archway that was topped by more bleachers and bore another banner of support. Motivational posters adorned the walls on either side, a solid wooden gate in front of us, chained shut from the inside. Sam fired a round into the lock, releasing the chain from the handles as we poured through. We were in a parking lot, which was half full of various vehicles, most likely belonging to those in the school that had shown up in the morning merely one week ago, and were dead by the time the afternoon bell rang.

From behind the various rows of cars, more forms were evident, the early morning light revealing only the shadowy outline of their slow-moving forms. We turned to our right, toward the dealership, as several more appeared from behind the field, much too close for comfort. They moved slowly toward us, too many and too close to allow a pursuit.

I dropped to a crouch, carefully sighting the first of the bunch. I squeezed the trigger, expecting to be rocked back by the kick. Instead, I was rewarded with an empty metallic click.

Shit!

I looked at the weapon stupidly, checking the magazine to confirm it was loaded. The first creature was ten feet away now, eyes wide-open, mouth yawning in hunger. It was an old man, cowboy shirt open at the front. He wore no pants, and the pale flesh of his thin legs was tinged with gray. His sun-browned face, in sharp contrast to his pale bottom half, revealed only the lifeless gaze of the undead.

The safety! I flicked the safety off as he reached five feet from my position. With no time to sight the weapon, I fired from the hip. The first round hit him in the chest, tearing a hole through the pocket of his outdated shirt and spitting cloth and dry flesh into the air behind him. I squeezed the trigger again as he fell toward me, angling the gun sharply upward. The second round found home, taking him under the jaw and removing the top of his skull from the inside. He collapsed lifelessly to my side as I sighted the next in line carefully.

This time, unprepared for the recoil of the weapon, I was rocked back by the force of the discharge, pushed back out of my crouch onto my ass. Reflexively, I threw out my hand, scraping several fingers severely against the concrete. I cursed at the blood now dripped from my hand as I looked up. The shot had flown wide, striking the cement wall of the stadium, and the creatures behind the cowboy were nearly on me. They were too close to line up a good shot.

I scrambled up, even as the head of the closest creature-a large black woman in the uniform of a postal worker-whipped back sharply, and collapsed on the pavement.

From beside me, Anaru spoke quietly as he next downed a woman in an expensive looking business suit with a carefully placed shot. “I won’t tell Sam,” he said with a grin, not taking his eyes off the last creature in the pack. His shot took it in the sternum and it stumbled back. It craned its head to the side and stared at Anaru before moving forward again.

I raised my rifle, prepared this time for the recoil, and squeezed the trigger. The zed’s eye exploded as the round passed through the brain and out the back of the skull.

I turned to him, grinning like an idiot.

He patted me on the back with a massive paw-like hand as we turned to follow Sam and Kate toward the street. “Not bad. Like one of your movies, yeah?”

In front, Sam fired another single shot, hitting a slow-moving form that had materialized before her from the shelter of a large SUV. The shot took the man in the arm, pushing him back a step before he continued forward, unaffected. He was dressed in khakis and a polo, blood on his leg and neck indicating his wounds. Probably a teacher, I thought as a pistol shot sounded loudly in my left ear and he fell to the ground, bullet hole above this temple a dark hole. These things didn’t bleed much, I noticed as I more surprisingly realized that Kate had fired the killing shot.

“Not Rambo, huh?” I asked, remembering her comment from seemingly years back in Target, “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?” I asked as we moved past her victim, reaching the last car in the row.

“Military brat, remember? Learned to shoot almost before I learned to walk.” I noticed she was carrying the pistol in hand, with the rifle over her shoulder.

We were on a sidewalk along a four-lane highway. To our right, the edge of the football field and, further along, the entrance to the school. To our left, a shoe store and a gaudy, brightly colored Mexican restaurant that advertised one-dollar drafts and a three-dollar burrito. I was hungry again, and despite the carnage, my stomach growled unabashedly.

And I would kill for a beer.

Zombies shuffled and shambled toward us from both directions, converging on us as we crossed the street toward the car lot. We reached the property, and threaded ourselves carefully through the parked cars and trucks, the moans and hungry cries of our pursuers echoing in the early morning silence.

Chapter 20

As in any well-run car dealership, the salesmen greeted us as soon as we were in sight of the showroom. Shambling through open doors out of the glass-walled structure, they wasted no time in accosting our small group as we made our way through the parked cars and toward the building.

“Find a truck, we’ll take care of the salesmen,” Anaru said to me shortly, breaking off with Sam toward the shuffling pack. At least fifty more were now moving toward us from various directions, including those that had spied us on the street.

Kate and I ran toward the back of the lot. To our left, the large doors of the service department were open, and the movement of at least six creatures was visible from inside as hunching and slow-moving figures moved toward the sounds of our footfalls and gunshots.