Surge (34 page)

As soon as I enter the lobby for our floor, I see the group packed and waiting to go. I check my watch, and its six o’clock on the dot. Olivia’s organizing how she wants the people to be in line. She split the twins, Oscar in front with Sarah and Danny, and Carlos in the back with Tommy. She ordered Leonard, who’s holding his cane, to be up front near her with Mike and Whitney. Akio, Marissa and Chelsea are right behind them, and Kelly’s in the way back near John and I.

No wonder there, out of sight, out of mind. The only person she wants directly next to her is Cory. Big shocker there, but they are our strongest members and she trusts him completely; so as much as it pisses me off to be in the back, I can understand her line up.

“Alright, look to your left and right, because you are to stay with the person next to you. I don’t care if you have to drag them along, you stay with goddamn your partner.” Olivia stares everyone down until they nod their consent.

“Good, now I’m just going to show you a few simple cues that you better learn and remember, or you’re dead.” She holds her hand up in a fist. “This means stop in your tracks, and wait for me to signal that it’s okay for you to move.” She flicks her wrist and points her middle and index fingers forward. “That means to move your ass quickly.” Olivia puts her hand out and chops it vertically. “That means to shut the fuck up.” She bends her arm down. “That means slow down.” Olivia crosses a fisted right hand across her chest and uppercuts in front of it with her left arm. “What does that mean?”

“A universal sign for fuck you?” John asks.

“Exactly,” Olivia says with a smile. “Thanks for paying attention, John.”

“You’re most welcome,” he replies a dazzling smile of his own. I elbow him in the ribs, but John just uses Olivia’s last cue pointed at me, the kiss ass.

“Anyone have any questions, before we get going?” Olivia looks around, but no one speaks out, so she prepares to move.

Olivia decided to use the fire escape, since it’s the only exit that doesn’t lead directly into a street. Obeying her cues, the group follows her to the office and through the window. She slides it open and checks the ground below before motioning more to come through. Once everyone is accounted for on the fire escape, Olivia starts climbing down. The fire escape is mostly metal stairs, like most of the others, so multiple people can safely go down at the same time. When we reach the first floor, I hear the creaking of the ladder rolling down.

I glance down to see Olivia and Cory watching the alley while more people descend the ladder. It takes about twenty minutes for everyone to reach the bottom with me coming down last. I count sixteen including myself, and give Olivia a thumbs up. She nods before jogging along the condo-plex’s wall to the end of the alley way. Her helmeted head slowly turns left and right, before signing for forward movement. When the group meets up with her, Olivia whispers something to Cory and he nods as she slips out of the alley.

I don’t know what she went to do, until I hear wheezers screeching in pain a few seconds later. It’s confirmed when I follow Cory’s cues to run to the opposite street. A glance to the right shows that Olivia has her mask up, is blowing her whistle, and chopping heads off of distracted victims. Most are nothing more than emaciated bodies, with pieces of flesh ripped off so that you see bone. Some have their clothing torn, or it’s weathered to the point that there are just mere stitches keeping it in place, while some are naked and wear their bites and scratches on gaunt frames. Others are a little more preserved, less flesh missing and are still standing on their feet with their hands covering their ears, as Olivia swoops in the finish them off.

Eyes dripping with green slime stare at Olivia, as she lifts her machete and splits their skulls like they’re firewood. She pulls her machete free with a wicked yank and moves on to the next, before the corpse even hits the ground. She does this all while blowing her whistle, so I have no clue how she’s able to breathe; awesome cardio would be my guess. I’m itching to help her, since the pack is about twenty strong, but then I recall what happened the last time that someone interfered with her plans; so I stick to Cory’s lead as much as it pains me to do so. Not that I don’t trust Cory’s lead, because I absolutely do, it’s that I don’t like Olivia fighting wheezers by herself.

About a dozen more screeches are cut off, before a blood covered blade of a machete appear along with Olivia. Her helmet visor is back in place and she jerks her chin at Cory to keep moving as she runs up to meet him. With her back on point, the pace uppens a bit. We cover eight blocks quickly, before Olivia stops for a count. All sixteen are still there, so she keeps moving. We’re passing abandoned grocery markets, corner stores and warehouses that I’ve raided along with our other gatherers, so I know the area. I haven’t seen that many wheezers, and those that we do see, Olivia or Cory take out with knives before moving on.

As we’re coming up on the same grocery store that John and I looted a few days ago, I get an idea of where Olivia’s headed. It’s confirmed at noon, when we reach Hal’s House. The storefront is now smashed in from the wheezer ambush when we were tripped the alarm, so even from our position across the street; I can see the dead bodies still scattered across the floor. There’s also movement from something inside.

I’m busy trying to make out what it is, when John elbows me and jerks his chin at the front. Switching my attention from the thing moving around inside, to Olivia waving me over, I jog forward and crouch down next to her.

“What’s up?” I whisper and my eyes swerve back to the store.

“You see it then?” Olivia asks and I nod. “Alright, well I was planning on getting a few helmets or hats for the girls, but we can’t take them in, until it’s cleared. So, are you up for some hunting?” My head swerves right back to the girl throwing me a bone, and I nod excitedly. She huffs out a breath, before continuing. “Leave John, I’m leaving Cory, since they’ll need to watch the group while we do a
full
sweep.”

“Alright, a
full
sweep it is,” I agree. “We still weren’t expecting someone to be hiding like a creeper in the back room.”

“You jackass,” she hisses. “I wasn’t hiding, I was using my brain, unlike you boneheads. Now, let’s move before I leave your pouting ass behind.”

Olivia doesn’t wait for me to reply, she just jogs across the street without making a sound. How the hell does she do that? My guess would be that it’s because she’s miniscule, but what do I know? I surpassed that size by the time I was ten, so I haven’t much experience with any of the possible advantages that come with being small.

“I do not pout,” I mutter and ignore Cory’s chuckle.

<~~~<~~~
~~~>~~~>

I look both ways, before I step into the street. Seeing nothing, I try to lighten my running steps as much as possible to follow after Olivia. Reaching the storefront, she holds up her hand for me to wait. After a few seconds of listening, she holds up four fingers, and twists her hand to indicate how many she thinks are inside.

I nod and follow after Olivia when she slips inside. I motion that I’ll take the right, and she nods before splitting off to the left. I walk softly all the way to the end of the store, and start at the last aisle. Spotting no wheezers there, I continue on to the next. Same story for the next two, but on the fourth aisle, I spot one chowing down on the fallen wheezer on the ground’s innards like it’s a free for all buffet of spaghetti.

Pulling my crossbow up to aim, I walk a few steps forward to get a better shot. About ten feet away, I take a breath and squeeze the trigger on the release. The arrow spears through one side of the feasting wheezer’s head, and the pointed end comes out the other side, before the body collapses on top of its meal. Leaving the arrow for now, I load another as I walk to the next aisle.

Another empty, so I move on until I find my next target. This one is chomping on an arm like it’s a chicken leg, but when it spots me, it bares it’s bloody teeth before hopping to its feet like a dude from MMA. That’s when he starts sprinting.

Whipping the crossbow around, so it’s hanging behind me from its strap on my back, I come up with my hunting knife and brace for the full frontal assault. I don’t wait long, the bastard’s smell hits me like a freight train, a mixture of raw sewage and piss that makes me gag. I ignore the sensation and dodge a swipe from the stinky fuck. Ducking under the swinging arms, I sweep my leg to knock him to the ground as I sink my knife through its jaw, and up into the brain. I follow the body down so that it lands softly with my knife still embedded in its skull. After I stand, I leave that knife where it is and swing the already loaded crossbow back around to catch in my hands.

I’m just about to turn into the next aisle, when I spot something on top of a shelf. It’s crouched and I know it’s alive, but even in his dim lighting; I can see it’s covered in hair. I’m thinking I’m going crazy, until it leaps from one aisle to the next like a freaking squirrel. Jogging to a better position, I aim and fire an arrow at the leaping bastard. It hits the thing in the side, before it tumbles to the ground, and knocks an aisle down with it. Running fast, I scan aisles as I approach where I saw the thing go down, but see nothing, so I keep moving. I finally find the thing limping on its turned inward foot, obviously broken since the bone is popping through the ripped pant suit, and it’s heading toward the back of the store while ignoring it’s injuries. I reload my bow so that I can take him down.

Aiming quickly, I pull the trigger and see it sink inside the back of the hairy skull. When it hits the ground, black blood forms a puddle next to the creature’s head. Not a pretty sight, but I still want to check it out up closer once it’s safe. He’s obviously one of the mutations that Olivia was talking about, and I want to get a better picture of what we could be dealing with more in the future.

Glancing around to make sure the coast is clear, I approach the fallen wheezer, and I shove it with my foot to over to make sure it’s dead. There’s no question about it, when I see greenish-brown ooze dripping out of the wound in his eye, where the arrow tip is sticking out. The man’s business suit is ripped to no more than tatters, but that isn’t what catches my attention. It’s the amount of hair covering every inch of his exposed skin.

His hands and arms are like someone glued a carpet’s worth of fake hair to them. His exposed chest is the same story. And his face? It’s fucking is grotesque. It reminds me of a really bad B-movie version of a werewolf, but it’s features are off. The mutation is missing a nose, most likely torn off by another wheezer, it’s one remaining eye is the same as others I’ve seen, with the red tint of the iris and the green pus it weeps. The main difference is in the mouth. Instead of being presented on a relaxed jaw, his lower lip is thrust forward, making it look like he has a permanent pout. Either this guy was an ugly, hairy bastard with a severe under bite to begin with, or the ape DNA that was coursing through its veins, changed his anatomy.

After my examination of the new wheezer, I leave the aisle and do another sweep on my side. Seeing nothing else but downed bodies, I jog to the back of the store. That’s where I find Olivia.

“About time,” Olivia replies with a bored tone muffled by her helmet. “I left the mutation for you, since you didn’t seem believe me.”

“Thanks for that,” I say. “Though I already did believe you, it’s nice to see the proof with your own eyes.” She nods. “The fucking thing was leaping.”

“Wait ‘til you see them climb,” she comments. “If they’re barefoot, they even use their feet.”

“That sounds lovely,” I say without concealing my sarcasm. “But I’d much rather shoot the fucking thing, before it has a chance to turn me ape.”

“True enough,” she agrees. Olivia glances around the wrecked store before flipping her visor up. “How about we just grab what we need so we don’t upset the females’ delicate dispositions?”

“You do know you’re a woman, right?” I ask.

“Are you sure?” Olivia asks with an astonished face. “I thought I had a penis.” I laugh at that.

“No, you have balls, but no penis, sorry,” I answer and she laughs. I ignore the warm sensation that the sound causes the rush through me, and glance around at the carnage. “I can see what you mean about them walking in here. Sarah hasn’t left the condo in almost two years, so I don’t know how she’d react. Whitney, Marissa and Chelsea might be able handle it, since they’ve seen this before. As for Kelly?” We both make a face, Olivia’s lip curling like she smelt something awful, making me laugh.

“Okay, grab as many helmets or hats as you can carry, and let’s get the fuck out of here. It smells like shit and piss, mixed with a little bit of puke for good measure.” I grimace at her description, but it’s spot on. “Sorry, I didn’t know that you had a vagina, I’ll refrain from using vulgar words for now on. How about it smells like pee pee and poo poo, with a little bit of spew, is that better?”

“You’re a real character, you know that?” I inquire with a grin, and she smiles back a crooked one. It’s just a tug to one side without flashing any teeth, but it looks adorable on her.