The Night Sweeper: A Zombie Conspiracy Novel (The Sweeper Chronicles Book 1) (8 page)

We rocket down I-20 as fast as this bucket will take us, which is about 85 miles per hour. Really, they couldn’t get us something better than this for our getaway? I’d take a minivan over this piece of dung.

Harbin moans in the back seat as Mira tends to his wounds with a small med-kit she was able to fit in her jump pack. So far he hasn’t said a whole lot, and even if he did, I don’t know if it would make any sense. Electrocution marks, infected lacerations, and bruises galore are evident on his body. Who knows what all they did to him in there?

Mira leans forward and sticks her head between the seats. “He’s stable for now, but they really put him through the ringer. He needs real medical attention, a lot more than I can do.”

I glance at her in the rear view mirror. Her expression is terse. From the corner of my eye, I can see Harbin slumped against the passenger side window. “Is he conscious?” I say.

She shrugs. “Maybe. He's in and out.”

“Be straight with me. Is it common for The Council to treat people this way?”

She sighs hard. “I don’t know. I heard rumors from time to time, but nothing more. I really thought we were better than this now as a country. I guess I’ve still got a lot to learn.” I can hear the heaviness in her voice, the same heaviness I feel.

Ahead, two Festers emerge from the woods lining the interstate, drawn by the lights and noise of the car, but we're past them before they can even reach the shoulder.

Harbin stirs a little and mumbles something, his head lolling back against the headrest. I think again of his reaction to me in the holding cell. He acted like he knew me, but that couldn’t be possible. Could it? My name is well known as a Sweeper, but The Organization doesn't plaster pictures of us everywhere for the public. Any of us could go out in daylight and remain completely anonymous.

The more I think about it, the more unsettled I feel. There’s something just under the surface of this whole mess, and I don’t like being in the dark. But for now, there's nothing I can do, so I drive.

A short while later I turn the Ford off the interstate and speed down the off ramp. To our right, several drive-thru restaurants and an old grocery store sit in disuse, windows shattered and dark. A spattering of equally lifeless gas stations mark the highway on either side, and a hotel sits directly across from us, an Econo Lodge with a couple of trees lying against its sides, downed by weather or age.

At the end of the ramp, we take a left for a couple of miles. A right and another left, and we pull through the dilapidated gate of the old airfield. It hangs loosely from rusted hinges. The rest of the place isn't much better. Several small, abandoned aircraft lay scattered about the area, most with flat tires, broken wings, and other various forms of degradation. What's left of a small control tower sits off to the left, nearly stripped of its paint. A few small hangars finish out the scene. The runway is sufficient, but not long. The concrete bulges in places. The West Georgia Regional Airport was in truth nothing more than a rural landing spot cleared out from the encroaching woods. On its very best day, it probably saw no more than two or three flights. In the center of the tarmac, a stark contrast to everything else, sits a small, shiny black jet. Its engines are idling, and I can see the silhouette of the pilot through the cockpit window.

Pulling the vehicle to a sharp stop right inside the gate, I climb out and scan the airfield and surrounding tree line while Mira rouses Harbin in the back seat. She pulls him gently from the car, his steps wobbly and uncertain.

The first rays of dawn are peeking over the horizon, casting the sky with a purplish hue.

“Almost home free now, Mr. Harbin,” Mira shouts over the drone of the engines.

For an instant, there's a flash of light in my peripheral vision to the left. I’m about to turn in that direction when a massive explosion shakes the ground. The force crashes into us, knocking us to the ground, heat waves rolling over and around us.

It takes me a few moments to gain my bearings, my ears ringing, but as my senses clear, I become aware of several things at once. The jet is now lying on the runway in a flaming heap. Mira and Harbin are both on the ground next to me. Mira is moving. Her head whips back and forth as she assesses the situation like me. Harbin has come alive and is screaming bloody murder. My first thought is that he’s reacting to the explosion, until I hear a sharp whiz and thunk as a bullet hits him in the chest and exits through his shoulder, spraying blood onto the concrete drive. I dive on top of him and notice another hole already in his leg, spurting blood from a second entrance wound.

I calculate the last bullet’s trajectory without conscious thought and raise my gun up and behind me to where the top of the small control tower sits not one hundred yards off. Without even looking, I squeeze off several rounds as Mira rises to a crouch and does the same, following my lead. I drag Harbin back towards the car while he curses and screams, blood pouring out of him like a sieve.

Mira follows behind us, and I crouch with Harbin on the passenger side of the car, cutting off the sniper’s direct line of view. Harbin is trying to control his screaming now as Mira begins putting pressure on his leg and chest. He moans, pain and terror etched on his tired features. Things are getting bad, fast, and they keep getting worse as two shots ring out and the car slumps to the left, both tires on that side taken out by the gunman.

“We can’t stay here. We need to get to the tree line,” I shout. The trees begin about forty feet behind us. Forty feet that might as well be two hundred with a sniper sitting in the tower. I’ve got to come up with a plan and quick, or else we’re going to be lunch meat.

Mira looks at me and our eyes meet. For a few moments she has an odd expression on her face before she lets out a long sigh and says she has an idea. As if to punctuate the urgency of our situation, the rifle of our attacker cracks again and a bullet slams into the hood of the car just inches from her head.

Harbin is bleeding profusely and I know we’ve got to try to get him somewhere where we can stabilize him, if that’s even possible at this point. He doesn’t have much time before he bleeds out.

Mira reaches up and pulls open the passenger door, careful to keep her head below window level. She braces her foot against the car’s frame. Straining a little and grunting, she pulls down and out, and I look on incredulously as she yanks the door off of the car.

“What the…how did you do that?”

“No time for that right now,” she says. “Here take this.” She holds out the door like she’s handing me a pencil. I’m still staring at her in shock.

“I said take it!” she says, snapping me out of my stupor. I grab the car door from her as she bends over and lifts Harbin onto her back like he weighs no more than a twig. She stays low in a crouched position, adjusting the angle at which she’s carrying Harbin.

“Use that to cover us,” she says. She takes off for the tree line and I backpedal behind them keeping the door between us and the sniper as much as possible. I fire multiple shots around the side of the door, enough to hopefully keep the sniper off balance, but the rifle cracks and a bullet plows into the grass beside me. Another shot whizzes overhead, and still another actually pings into the car door.

We’ve reached the tree line now and the underbrush is thick. The rifle shots cease as quickly as they began. I drop the door and we dodge between trees, slipping on pine needles and hurdling fallen branches. Mira moves deeper and deeper into the woods, Harbin still slung over her back.

I can hear shouting behind us and glance back through the foliage to see an armed contingent of five men running from the tower in hot pursuit.

“Mira, we’ve got company,” I say. I’m still reeling from what I just saw her do. I’ve got to get my thoughts together or it’s going to get us all killed. Her head whips around to take in the new scene. “I’ll take care of them; you need to get Harbin as far away as possible.” She pauses long enough to nod.

“Be careful,” she says, and she’s off again, Harbin whimpering on her back from the jarring impacts of her footfalls.

I throw an internal switch, willing myself to forget what I've just seen, and allow my training to kick in, focusing on the immediate danger. I take mental note of how many shots I've fired. I'm getting low on ammunition. We didn’t come heavily outfitted. Our main goals were stealth and speed. I have one more ten round clip, and one bullet left in the chamber of my sidearm. I have no idea where my other gun is. Probably dislodged by the explosion.

I eject the magazine from my remaining gun, and slap the other one in. Moving as quickly and quietly as possible to my left, I creep around and away from the soldiers, making them my only focus, letting everything else migrate to the back of my mind. I catch glimpses of them through the thick undergrowth as I move. They’re coming in a “v” formation, fanning out as they go, cautious but fast.

I’m almost behind the nearest one now. The man in the lead is tracking Harbin’s blood trail. I wait for them to come into the line of sight between the tress where I'll have the best advantage, and rapidly squeeze off two shots, dropping two of them dead, before rolling to my right behind a large pine as the other three come to bear on me, taking cover as well. They fire wildly, knowing my general direction, but not my exact location.

I crouch as near to the ground as possible and peer around the side of the tree. I know the location of two of them, doing their best to squeeze behind trees, but not good enough. The third isn’t visible. I take aim at the first man, whose boot is sticking out from behind his tree just a little too far. I pull the trigger and the gun bucks in my hands, the man’s boot exploding with a spray of red. He screams and instinctively leans towards his foot and that’s when my second bullet catches the top of his scalp and slings him to the ground.

There are muffled shouts from the other two, and I’m able to pinpoint the location of the third gunman based off of what I hear. The language isn't familiar to me. I try to make sense of that fact, but I don't have long to consider before fate throws me a bone.

Two Festers plunge headlong from the west towards the nearest gunman, careening down a steep ridge not thirty feet away from him, their crazed expressions oblivious to the weapon held by the man. I’m surprised to see them out in the morning light, but prepare to take full advantage of the tactical advantage they're giving me. Thankfully, they’re closer to my enemies and haven’t seemed to notice me.

The first gunman raises his gun to fire at the leading Fester that’s homing in on him like a missile, and I put a bullet cleanly through his palm, his gun flying away. He cries out in pain and has no time to recover before the Fester is on him, driving him to the ground, teeth and fingernails slashing savagely. The other Fester heads towards the last man who tries to keep his cover behind a large boulder, but the creature continues to charge despite taking two bullets in the chest.

The Fester’s momentum carries him forward and he collapses on number three, his weight forcing the man to the ground, and I spring forward as he struggles to free himself. The Fester is still alive and grabs the man by the neck, clawing away most of his throat and sinking his teeth into the man’s shoulder. I approach from behind and put them both out of their misery, turning back to the remaining man being eaten alive by the foul smelling creature on top of him. The Fester notices me for the first time and leaps at me, but I react like lightning and catch him in mid-leap with a slug to his chest. He collapses, lifeless.

I move over the last man.

“Who are you?” I say, pointing my gun at his forehead. “Who sent you!?” I need answers from this guy, but it's wishful thinking. He couldn't tell me anything now if he wanted to. He tries to gurgle something, his jaw smashed and hanging grotesquely sideways. He makes a wet-sounding gasp, and the life drains from his eyes. He lies there, staring eternally up into the treetops.

I swear and take off at a run in the direction I last saw Mira and Harbin. Just because these guys are out of the fray, doesn't mean they don't have backup.

Mira's covered a lot of ground in a short time, and I'm forced to follow the blood trail myself, piecing together what I've seen as I run.

Whoever these guys were, they knew we were coming, where we would be, when, and with who. The whole thing screams inside job. And they didn't want Harbin for themselves. They wanted him dead. Then there's the language issue. It's possible they were multilingual Americans, but that seems unlikely. The most likely scenario is that they were foreign, and military, a theory made all the more disturbing by the rarity of intercontinental travel.

By the time I reach Mira and Harbin at the top of a small rise, I can see he isn’t going to make it. Mira is crouched over him where she has propped him up against an oak tree. His current injuries on top of what he’s endured over the last several days, are too much for him to recover from. I know this in a glance.

Still trying to apply pressure to his wounds, she catches my eye as I approach and shakes her head with a slight negative. I kneel beside them as well. Harbin’s face is deathly pale and his breathing is ragged. He reaches up and places a bloody hand on my chest, his voice a raspy whisper as he tries to form words.

“Easy. Just try to stay calm,” I say.