A noise snatched his attention. It came from the bathroom.
He looked for a weapon close to hand and found only a large-handled comb. He picked it up and pushed against the door. It didn’t budge. He peered at the rest of the room and wondered if a prisoner would be held here. Unlikely. But a guard might.
He knocked on the door.
When no answer came, he knocked again. And again.
“Is someone out there?” a shaky voice said.
“Yes.”
“Are you one of them?”
“Them who?”
The voice was soft but strong, too young to have yet lost the timbre of innocence. “One of the ground guards,” she said.
“No. I’m someone else. From the military. I’m here to rescue the hostages.”
A pause followed, and Hawk wasn’t certain whether or not he had said the right thing. He opened his mouth to speak again but the woman spoke first. “What’s your unit?”
Hawk told her and waited.
“What took you guys so long?” Her confidence was returning.
“The virus spread beyond the city and we’ve been busy controlling it.”
“The virus spread?”
What planet had this girl been living on? “Yes, it spread. It likely broke through state lines a few days ago. Pretty soon, it might become a worldwide pandemic. You’re one of the hostages?”
“Yes.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, not hurt. Hungry, but okay. No worse than the others.”
“There’s some food out here on the coffee table. After I leave, come out and get it.”
“Okay.”
“Do you have a relative in the military?”
“My father. He’s. . . Well, we don’t know where he is. He was stationed in the city. He disappeared.”
“I need to find the other hostages. Can you tell me where they are?”
“It won’t be easy getting us out.”
“You let me worry about that. You just tell me where they are.”
“Downstairs. Go into the basement and take the first hallway on the right. They’re being held in the cinema.”
“Thank you.” Hawk glanced at the messy bed. There was no doubt in his mind what the girl had been used for in a house full of men. He tempered his anger but maintained it. Motivation for the awful things he would soon have to do.
“I’m leaving now,” Hawk said. “I’ll send someone up to get you later. It’ll be one of the hostages. If anyone else comes, don’t open the door. Pick something up—I suggest the water tank cover if you’re strong enough—and swing it at anyone who steps through the door. Understand?”
“Yes.” The girl sounded terrified.
“This will all be over soon.”
Hawk headed down the steps and continued through into the kitchen. He checked around the counters and under the tables. All the usual hiding places. Even experienced soldiers cowered at the sight of a marauding undead horde. But there were no cowering guards—not in here, at least.
He moved to the main counter and removed the knives from the block. With practiced ease, he slid them into his chest cavity. A feeling of intense purpose came over him, the way he felt before he’d been turned into a prisoner. He slipped as many blades into his body as he could and ignored the blood that trickled out. He held a knife in each hand and slipped out of the kitchen, back into the earlier hallway.
He adopted the movement of a zombie, stumbling forward. Much better for them to underestimate him. Once again, he was struck by bouts of flashing images. Memories of this place. The images were furry and indistinct. Someone shoved him forward, stumbling through this same hall the way he was now. He recognized a wall painting lit by a private light. He stumbled, and tattooed hands caught him, fingers festooned with gold rings. He shook his head, bringing him back to the present.
Thump thump thump.
The creatures continued beating at the French windows. Heavier now, with greater fervor. Time clipped at his heels.
He identified a series of doors on either side of the hall. Not the kind of rooms you housed hostages. More bedrooms, perhaps. They put him on edge. Someone could pop out and attack him at a moment’s notice. He had no choice but to head toward them.
He stumbled a few steps and built up some momentum. He wanted to launch himself at his attacker if one presented himself. He reached the first door and turned the handle. As he dashed inside, he thought he heard a noise over his shoulder from one of the other rooms. Too late, chum. I’m already inside.
Another bedroom. Far less opulent than the first, but still enjoyed a nice view. A series of cots lined the floor, recently disturbed. Four in this room alone. If the other doors led to similarly-sized bedrooms, there could be more than a dozen armed guards stationed there.
But none in this room.
He moved back to the door and listened. He heard nothing. He peered further down the hall at the next doorway—what would be his next stop. According to the girl in the bathroom, the hostages would be held underground in the cinema. It was much easier to keep an eye on prisoners when they were kept together in a single location. He stepped into the hallway, and the very instant he did, the next door opened, and he came face-to-face with his first armed guard.
There goes the element of surprise.
The man wore a soft expression of surprise, hand still wrapped about the door handle, a momentary blink of incomprehension, then utter shock. He raised his hand to fire the pistol he clutched tight. Hawk stepped to one side, then the other. He didn’t give a fig about the bullet that slammed into his body. It only slowed his pace, knocking him off-kilter, but the second bullet provided some counterbalance.
Between the second and third shots, he’d reached the armed man. He knocked his gun arm aside and buried his blade deep in the man’s neck. Hawk didn’t much relish the feel of it slicing the man’s flesh open. The sensation was attached to a hundred other deaths he’d administered over the years, deaths he’d sooner forget.
The man stared at him, as they so often did, wide-eyed and disbelieving their end had come. No fanfare, no remembrance ceremony would be held in their honor. He clutched the blade but was powerless to remove it. His body twitched as his lifeblood splashed across the floor and over Hawk’s boots. The man’s eyes fluttered shut, and he was gone.
Hawk snatched the man’s gun up and checked the fallen man for ammunition. He glanced inside the room, saw no one there, and hustled inside, pistol aimed behind the door.
Movement.
He dropped to one knee and aimed. He didn’t fire. It was only an empty shirt braced on a flimsy coat hanger. He turned toward the other side of the room, aiming his pistol between the bed and door to the bathroom. He first checked behind the bed, then moved to the bathroom. Empty, save for the usual mess of single men.
Hawk returned to the hallway, grabbed the dead man’s leg—still performing the waltz—and dragged him inside. He shut the door behind him and set to removing the man’s Kevlar jacket. He didn’t put it on. He wasn’t afraid of a few more bullet holes. Instead, he draped over his forearm to act as a shield.
He emptied the man’s other pockets and ignored the personal belongings. They could only remind him of the young man he’d killed and the grieving family he left behind. What good does that do anybody? He did find a couple of useful items: a cigarette lighter, an electronic bell, and half a bar of chocolate.
Hawk returned to the door and waited. There was zero chance the other guards hadn’t heard the dead man’s twin gunshots. The zombies would have heard it too and, as he could now hear, had been driven into a frenzy. He raised the Kevlar shield in front of his face and ran into the hallway, toward the third door. He took an internal deep breath and pressed on the handle. Locked. He immediately dived to one side, expecting gunfire to erupt from behind the door.
Gunfire did erupt, but not from behind this door.
Another door, further along, flew open and a man armed with a r
ifle opened fire.
Hawk hissed through his teeth and rushed forward, Kevlar shield raised high, protecting his head. The first bullets struck his body, tearing out chunks and splattering the walls with his blood. The vest took the following barrage, acting more like a target than a shield.
And then the door behind him—previously locked—opened, and a sister spray of metal flies flew, biting into his lower back and hamstrings. He’d fallen into their ambush.
But even the best-laid traps could go awry.
Boy, were they in for a surprise.
The first man maintained his fire and struck Hawk on the upper thigh—a metallic ting as the projectile struck his extensive metalwork there—and the man behind received a full blast of infected blood to the face. He squeezed off a couple more rounds into Hawk’s shoulder blades before he screamed, dropped to the floor and writhed in agony.
Hawk maintained his momentum and buried two bullets in his chest, one in the head. The man fell back, his dying trigger finger twitching and firing a dozen rounds into the room he’d recently vacated, splattering red sprays from two men perched inside. Others would be there too, tucked away in the corners. Too many for Hawk to face alone. Even his body could only take so much punishment.
He stepped back in the hallway and pressed his bloodied back to the wall. More gunfire from door number three, but this time not in his direction, but at the fallen comrade who had already begun to morph into an undead. Hawk would be next on his hit list. Hawk preempted the attack by rushing forward with his Kevlar shield raised. He shot the man easily, cleanly, in the chest before drawing up to the door.
The guards inside dropped and rolled, taking refuge behind the bed, the make-up table, the rickety old chairs they’d shipped in from elsewhere in the house. Hawk’s bullets flew straight and true, finding a couple of his marks, and when his finger clicked empty, he pulled blades from his chest. He shoved it in the nearest man. A single thrust, before moving onto the next man, and the next. In the guards’ panic, their bullets missed. Within seconds, he’d sliced every man in the room. They weren’t killing blows, but the men were dying anyway.
Hawk’s blades were coated with his infected blood. They were turning.
That left the fourth, and final, room. He’d have to hurry, or else they’d escape and run. When he stepped out of the third room and into the hall, drenched with the blood of the guards’ comrades, the remaining men backed away from the doorway, eyes wide, shaking their heads with incredulity. The front man slammed the door shut and initiated the lock. Inside, the men nattered amongst themselves, coming up with a plan of action. More than one sounded harried.
Newly reborn, the infected guards shuffled out of the room. Hawk took the electronic bell from his pocket and pressed the button. The undead groaned as one, turned in slow circles, and approached the noise. When they gathered around him, he searched their pockets but did not find what he was looking for. A grenade. Something to toss inside the fourth room and destroy all his enemies at once. He loaded up on the weapons they carried instead.
He aimed at the lock on the fourth room’s door and blew it away. Returning gunfire fashioned the door into a block of Swiss cheese. Hawk waited, his back pressed to the wall. He calmly reloaded and took aim. Someone ought to check and make sure he was dead, but none appeared to be in much of a hurry to do so. Pressed for time, Hawk kicked the door open, striking a heavy lump on the other side—the party who’d drawn the short straw—and more return fire followed.
Hawk’s newly-formed undead cavalry groaned into the breach. The men yelled, screamed, and most of all, opened fire. Empty clips signaled their demise. The ones left alive hurried to reload. But they never fired another shot.
Smash.
From upstairs. The creatures had, as always, discovered or created a crack to exploit. Now they were inside the house.
Damn. Hawk hadn’t wanted them to get in. Now that they had, they’d be drawn to the raucous gunfire spat by the dead men’s final salute. If he didn’t hurry, he’d have to engage them. But first, he had to deal with those inside this final room.
Hawk entered and blasted a fresh bullet in each creature’s skull as they supped on their victory meal. Noise made little difference after the recent cacophony. And now onto the next stage. Rescuing the hostages.
8.
TOMMY
Albert brushed a finger over a flower’s petals and shut his eyes as he breathed in its tangy scent. “Hello there, little fellow. How are you this fine morning? Do you get enough sun in the shade here? Wouldn’t you rather be out there in the sun with your brothers and sisters? I’m sure you’d be much happier if you were. I know I would be. Unless. . . there’s a reason you prefer to be here, tucked away in the shadows?”
He pushed the flower aside, revealing a thin trickle of water that made a long green trail along the wall. Albert grinned and nodded his head. “Ah. I see. You prefer to drink than to eat.”
As he bent back over the flower to continue discussing with it, Tommy, Emin, Guy, and Jimmy exchanged concerned looks.
“This guy’s a suit short of a full deck if you ask me,” Guy said.
“Forget the deck,” Emin said. “I think he’s playing with kids’ picture cards and we’re the only ones playing poker.”
Tommy watched as Albert plucked some of the flower’s pollen and held it in the palm of his hand. A breath of wind took it from him.
“Is this guy special or something?” Guy said. “Don’t look at me like that, Emin. I’m only saying what we’re all thinking.”
Emin sighed. Un-PC as the comment was, she had to agree. “I don’t see how he can help us.”
Albert stared deeply at a clutch of fluffy thistle seeds on the tip of his finger. He puffed on them and watched in awe as they took off and floated up before getting caught and riding high.
It was hard to say Guy was wrong, but they had already traveled too far to turn around now. Tommy wondered what they had been thinking to let this man come with them. He was a seventy-year-old child with no knowledge or information about anything. What could he possibly help them with? He couldn’t. He was a danger to them. They had no choice. They would drop him off at the first safe place they came to.
“Saddle up,” Tommy said. “Time to hit the road.”
* * *
Tommy sped up for the past ten miles, hoping to find somewhere safe to pull up and rest for the night. He barreled over a rise—the wheels left the tarmac for an instant—and almost rammed into a car parked across the road. He slammed on the brakes and strengthened his grip on the wheel. The others jolted forward and back again in their seats.
“Sorry,” Tommy grumbled.
The further they went and the closer to Austin they drew, the denser the cars became, parked bumper to bumper until finally, they took up the entire width of the road. Some had smashed into the dividers, others had run off the road completely and lay in a ditch.
Tommy came to a stop at a healthy distance from the blockage. Not even Albert asked what Tommy thought had happened. They knew well enough. Cars trapped in traffic, zombies roaming the countryside and attracted to the noise, a single panicked driver and this was the result. A fifty-car pileup on the 290.
Albert opened his door.
“Stay inside the car,” Tommy said.
“No one’s there.”
“No one living. Dead things will be around, roaming from place to place. And there will be more of them after this. They’ll be here. . . somewhere.”
But they weren’t there. At least, not yet. They could be grateful for that much at least. Still, chances were good they wouldn’t be grateful for long. Not in this world.
They waited another ten minutes before Tommy decided to take action. “Okay. Everybody out.”
“Do we have to?” Emin groaned. “I’m comfortable here.”
Tommy didn’t answer and merely climbed out. He heard her grunt of exasperation and followed the others outside. The world was silent. That was w
hat made it feel so dangerous.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Tommy said. “You know what we’re looking for. They could creep up on us at a moment’s notice.”
Whiiiiing.
A faulty highway light blossomed into full bloom. Tommy peered at it and the night sky whose darkness had crept upon them. The lamps were mounted with motion sensors. Guy wandered a little further ahead with Emin and Jimmy at his side and another pair of lights lit up with an electronic whir. The first light cut out when Tommy moved past it. A group of survivors lit by automatic lights, heading into deepening darkness.
They took a narrow manmade corridor each, roving up and down the road, zigzagging between the parked cars. Tommy kept close to Albert. He was the only one in any real danger. The others had little to fear from the undead. Tommy dropped onto his belly to check under each car before moving forward.
“Do you think we’ll need to turn the car around?” Albert said.
“That depends on how long this traffic jam is. Even the verges are packed with cars. And it’s dark, so it’s hard to see far ahead.”
“Tommy!” Emin and Jimmy ran down the road. Emin’s crutches struck the cars on either side in her panic. “Over there. Zombies. They’re heading this way!”
The overhead lights pulsed like a heartbeat, illuminating the horde that swam from the darkness. Gotta love technology. Any way to reduce our carbon footprint. . . and reduce the length of our lives in the process. The undead followed the trail of crashed vehicles like breadcrumbs. Searching for something to eat.
“We could hide in the car and wait for the undead to shuffle past,” Emin said.
“A bad option,” Guy said. “We don’t know how big the horde is. Judging by the half a dozen lights they’ve lit up in their wake, I’d guess they’re pretty damn big, and then we have to sit inside the car, waiting for them to pass by, hoping they don’t see us. If we make a sound or one of them glances in our direction, or they sniff Albert, we’re trapped in a tin can surrounded by a horde of the undead. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather take the open road any day of the week.”
Death Squad (Book 4): Zombie World Page 7
