Outbreak (Book 2): The Mutation (15 page)

Mears stopped and put his fist up to let Jones and Hall know to stop as well.

Mears figured they were about half a klick from the clubhouse, and he spotted something ahead. They were getting closer to the shores of Lake Travis, and the sound of the water drowned out the other sounds.

Mears dropped back and motioned for Jones and Hall.

“There’s something ahead of us beyond those trees and that large rock,
”
Mears said to Jones and Hall.

Jones squinted. “Yeah,
”
he said, “I see it but can’t make it out.”

“I don’t think it’s moving,
”
added Hall. “Or even alive for that matter.”

“It’s not the living that I’m worried about,
”
Mears said stoically.

“I think we’re far enough away from the clubhouse,
”
Mears pointed out, “and I don’t think we should go any further.”

The other two soldiers nodded their agreement.

“Let’s check out whatever it is up there just to confirm it’s not a threat,
”
said Mears, “and then we’ll head back.”

The three soldiers fanned out again and approached the potential threat. The sound of water as it lapped against the shore became louder as they got closer.

Mears and Jones had their M4 carbines at the ready, while Hall kept a check on their six. Hall would be damned if he let anything sneak up on them from behind.

As they stepped closer, Jones snapped a dead branch under his boot, and all three of them stopped. If there was any kind of threat out there, it would now know they were there.

Mears raised his fist again and motioned Jones and Hall to rush whatever was beyond the large rock on the count of three.

One
…

Two
…

Three…

The soldiers ran past the large rock.  What they saw made them gag.

“Holy shit,
”
said Jones as she choked. “What the fuck is that?”

“Beats me,
”
responded Hall, whose arm covered his nose.

“I think we need to get Butsko and Wilder out here to check this out,
”
Mears finally said, looking away from the mass on the ground.

*****

Wilder and Butsko looked at the mass on the ground and neither one knew what the hell it was. The others in the group stayed behind, with Vasquez and Mane setting up a security watch.

“I’ve got no fucking clue what I’m looking at,
”
Wilder finally said. “What about you, Sir?
”
he asked Butsko.

Butsko was silent as he studied the sight in front of him. Scattered over a few feet was a mound of what they all assumed used to be human bodies. The mound was about three feet high and was just a pile of flesh, bone, and innards, but what made Wilder and Butsko so uneasy was that these bodies weren’t torn apart in the typical zombie attack manner. This was something different.

The bodies in front of them were shredded and decimated. Skin was stripped off of appendages, eyeballs were popped out of their sockets and squeezed, and Wilder could’ve sworn that, toward the bottom of the pile, it looked as though intestines were dangling out of a prolapsed asshole.

What they didn’t see were teeth marks.

“I’ve seen some crazy shit these last two years,
”
said Jones, “but nothing like this.”

Wilder agreed.

“Who,
”
Mears started, but corrected himself,
“what
could’ve done this?”

“This isn’t the infected,
”
Butsko finally said. “This is something else. Something new.”

“New, Sir?
”
Wilder asked.

“From what we have observed of the infected over the last two years, these things have one and only one motivation,” Butsko said. “They infect others to propagate the survival of the bio-nanotechnology.
”
He looked at the others and continued. “The nanites want to live, and they want to be the dominant species.”

“The proverbial ‘top of the food chain,’
”
Hall added.

“Exactly,
”
agreed Butsko. “But this is not part of that plan,
”
he said as he pointed to the mound of gore. “This is the complete destruction of the organism. Whatever did this made damn sure the nanites wouldn’t be able to repair the body.”

“Do you think non-infected humans did this?
”
Mears asked.

“Very doubtful,
”
answered Butsko. “That pile of mutilated flesh wasn’t done with a knife.”

“You’re right, Sir,
”
Wilder added. “There aren’t any clean cuts. Everything is just torn apart.”

“So you think other zombies did this?
”
Hall asked.

“Not the zombies that we’ve fought for these last two years,
”
Butsko said. “Remember what I said: this goes against their primary motivation to infect and create new hosts for the nanites.”

“Wait a second,
”
said Wilder slowly. “Maybe this
is
the work of zombies.”

The others looked at him.

“Hear me out,
”
Wilder said as he put his hands up before anyone could interrupt him. “We know the infected have gotten smarter and that they can learn.”

The others nodded in agreement.

“We also think,
”
Wilder continued, “there might be some kind of ‘hive intelligence
’
going on where information can be passed among all the infected.”

“Right,
”
Butsko said.

“So there’s definitely some kind of evolution going on with these bastards,
”
Wilder said. “I don’t know if ‘evolution
’
is the right word, but you know what I mean.”

“You’re suggesting,
”
Butsko concluded, “that these things evolved into something new.”

“Yes,
”
Wilder said. “Wait, no
…
not exactly. I don’t think the infected as a whole have evolved into something different. Maybe a new, separate mutated kind of zombie has evolved.”

“You mean like a new species of zombie?
”
asked Jones. “I really hate the sound of that.”

“Yeah,
”
Butsko agreed. “So do I.”

“Maybe that’s why there’s no zombies around here,
”
Hall added. “Maybe the zombies we’ve been fighting for the last two years are afraid of this new mutation.”

No one liked the sound of that, but it explained why they haven’t encountered any of the infected since they arrived at the golf course.

“There’s something out there that scares zombies,
”
Wilder said out loud to no one in particular.

“Fucking fantastic,
”
added Jones.

“Something tells me that the old saying, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ doesn’t apply here,” Hall said as he stared at the pile of gore in front of him.

“Come on,
”
Wilder finally said after a few minutes. “We should be getting back to the clubhouse.”

3

Around Spicewood, Texas

10 miles outside the city

Fi walked along route 71. She had been skipping but had grown tired of it a few miles back. Fi was amazed at how long she could walk without having to stop.

A vague, distant memory tried to surface in her mind. It was like trying to clearly see an image through the thick fog. She could remember holding hands with someone a long time ago as they’d walked through someplace full of animals in cages.

Then the memory was gone.

Fi felt happy. One memory she could remember was the fun she’d had next to the lake. There’d been so many zombies to play with there. She would catch them one by one, play with them, and then throw them onto the pile.

Fi also realized that hunting and catching the zombies was almost as much fun as playing with them.

Almost.

When she hunted, she felt like she was playing hide and seek, another vague memory that had surfaced a few days ago. But hunting didn’t ebb the anger inside. To do that, she needed to play.

And she did.

She’d played for hours over the course of two days. She’d forgotten how many zombies she’d played with, but she did remember playing hide and seek many times.

Fi smiled as she remembered the various bodies. She’d completely skinned one zombie while it was still alive. That was something new. She’d felt the fear of the zombie as she’d slowly removed its skin. Fi had removed the flesh from the left arm like it was a huge glove and had worn it as she’d skinned the other arm.

After she had skinned the zombie, she’d let her anger go and shredded the creature to pieces. There’d barely been anything left that resembled a zombie or a person.

This time when she played, Fi did something different. She removed all her clothes. The last time she’d gotten covered in her playmate’s blood and guts and couldn’t stand the smell on her clothes after a few days.

Now, Fi was covered from head to toe in blood, guts, and gore, and she found that she liked the feeling on her naked body.

The best time she had was when she’d jammed her hand up the ass of one playmate, grabbed hold of its insides, and then ripped them out. The rush that’d come over her body was like nothing she’d felt before. She’d felt her anger ebb as she’d turned her playmate inside out.

After a while, though, Fi couldn’t find any more playmates. They all seemed to go away.

She’d noticed that other zombies wouldn’t come near her anymore. They seemed afraid of her.

They avoided her.

Fi didn’t care. Now hide and seek games had gotten challenging, and she got to hunt them down all the time before she played.

The anger hadn’t come back in quite some time. She expected to feel that warm feeling in her belly any moment, but it hadn’t come back yet. Fi wasn’t worried, though. She knew it would come back. It always did.

When it did, she’d be ready to play.

4

Will to Heal Center

Spicewood, Texas

The group huddled in the darkness and listened to the infected above. The dead ran back and forth over the root cellar doors as they looked for the humans.

Everyone in the darkness knew exactly what the zombies searched for.

A meal.

After what seemed like hours of listening to the movement above, there was silence. The silence was more deafening than the sounds of footsteps on the heavy wooden doors.

“Do you think it is safe?
”
Dennis whispered to the others.

Everyone’s eyes were focused on the cellar doors and no one dared move.

Walt stood and slowly walked closer to the doors. He felt as though each step he took was louder than a three-piece jazz band.

Walt felt the eyes of the others on him as he placed his ear on the cellar doors.

He listened for any sound that came from outside as the others collectively held their breaths.

“I don’t hear anything,
”
Walt finally whispered. “I think they’re gone.”

“I doubt they’re gone,
”
Cheryl said. “Those things know about us, and they’re not in the habit of passing up on a free lunch.”

“Cheryl’s right,
”
agreed Joe. “We need to lay low in here for a while, and hopefully those things will think we ran off into the woods.”

“What do you think?
”
Joe asked the stranger. “You’re a soldier, right?”

“I am,
”
the stranger answered. “My name’s Darren.”

“Well, Darren,
”
David said. “I for one am very glad to meet you. Thanks for saving my ass back there.”

“That goes for me too,
”
Walt added.

“Where did you come from?
”
asked Samantha.

In the darkness, Walt could sense Darren’s hesitation. Walt assumed Darren didn’t have a happy story to tell. Not many people had happy stories nowadays.

“Why don’t we wait until we’ve settled in here before we start drilling Darren?
”
Walt whispered. “Besides—those things are all over the place up there.”