The Inroad Chronicles (Book 1): Legion Seed

by Erickson, Brian

  “Beverly! Do you know what the alternative is? Do you want that? Don’t give up on me now. I haven’t given up on you. Let’s see this thing through. Don’t worry, if it all fails, we’ll take care of it. You won’t feel a thing, alright?” She lowered her head to meet Beverly’s cast down gaze. “Alright?”

  Beverly slowly nodded, never lifting her eyes from the floor. “Yeah, okay, just a little bit more.” She cringed as Kathleen injected her and then collapsed back on the couch once the needle came out. “It hurts, Kathleen. It really hurts, and then I pass out.” She gritted her teeth, and her body contorted in pain. Her back arched up off the couch and her head twisted into the cushions. All the muscles in her body strained so hard that, instead of a scream, she only groaned. Then, as suddenly as she had tensed up, she collapsed and passed out.

  Jackson looked on with wide eyes. “That’s not good. I’m no doctor, but I’ve been in hospitals before, and I’ve never seen anybody do that when they get injected with medicine. It ain’t right. Why don’t we just finish her now? She’s asleep. It’ll be the most peaceful way for her to go.”

  “You promised me twelve hours.”

  “Twelve hours without getting worse.”

  She shot him a glare that could melt plastic.

  Jackson rose up an arm and let it fall down again. “Alright. But I don’t know what you’re holdin’ on to. She’s obviously not gettin’ better, anyone can see that. It’s a bullet now, or a bullet later.” He looked at Kathleen’s face and saw only rigid defiance.

  “Have it your way. A bullet later it is.” He knelt down and ferreted out a bottle of liquid soap from under the kitchen sink. “I read this once in a book about the IRA.” He began pouring soap into each bottle. “The soap binds with the alcohol, and when the glass bursts it spreads out over everything the same way napalm does and sticks there. At least that’s what the book said when they were talkin’ about throwing Molotov Cocktails at British convoys.” He cracked a small smile and began ripping shirts up into strips and stuffed them into bottles until he had several good wicks. He set the prepared bottles aside, and checked their ammo. “We’ve used a lot of bullets.”

  “How many do we have left?”

  “A couple hundred, but damn we used a lot.”

  “You used a lot.”

  Jackson sighed and shook his head, but did not speak. He began quietly reloading all the AK magazines and got everything they would need ready for another escape.

  Kathleen glared and then gradually knelt down beside him and helped prepare their supplies. They both popped cartridges into magazines forcefully and worked on in silence. Occasionally the sound of the barricade outside shaking ripped their attention away, and they continued on in deliberate silence.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ron’s eyes opened and he took a deep breath, exhaling as he stretched his limbs then let them fall by his side. He reached down and felt his lower back and grimaced. “Damn.” He rubbed his vertebrae as his brows furrowed. He slowly sat up and looked around. Okay Ron, this is nothin’ new. Now just stand up. He groaned as he slowly moved his legs around and set his feet on the floor. He stretched them out and wiggled his toes. Then he braced on the couch’s arm and pushed up as hard as he could. Just as he got halfway up, he felt his arms quivering, and a hand hooked under his left shoulder and lifted him up. Standing, he looked over and saw Lewis steadying him. “Thanks. I’ve never been good at asking for help, even when I need it.”

  “My pleasure, part of my job title is to spot people in need, even when they won’t ask for it.” Lewis flashed a smile that was barely better than a smirk. “Go easy now, one step at a time. You’ve been on your back for a day and a half.”

  “Jesus, that long?” His eyebrows suddenly shot up as he looked over at Lewis, who chuckled and nodded.

  “That’s okay, happens all the time.”

  Jackson made it to the doorway and rested his hand on the wall for support. “I just need to rest here for a second. I can feel my feet getting back under me now. When I get sick, I always lose my appetite, and know I’m recovering when I feel hungry again.” He breathed a sigh and grinned. “I just got hungry. Is there any food around?”

  “Yes, I have some.” He helped Ron to a table in the next room. “Okay, sit here. Let me get you something.”

  Ann walked in and clutched her chest when she saw Ron sitting. “Oh, you’re up. You hungry?”

  Ron rested on his elbows. “Starving, I haven’t eaten anything have I?”

  “No, not in almost two days.”

  Lewis walked back in with a bowl that left a trail of steam and a saucer with a chunk of bread and set in front of Ron. “This was the fastest thing I could make, Chicken Noodle Soup. I hope it’s all right.”

  “Perfect.” Ron grabbed the spoon and slurped.

  Ann and Lewis watched as he devoured the bread and heaved one generous spoonful after another into his mouth.

  Ron finished in record time and leaned back in the chair rubbing his stomach, and belched. “Scuse me, that’s better.”

  Ann looked at him with a flat stare. “You need to eat a few more times before you go off tryin’ to save the world again. Get your strength back.”

  “Yes mam.” He gave a schoolboy smile and lowered his head closer to his shoulders.

  “You are feelin’ better, aren’t you?”

  “Well I should. I just slept for almost two days. I won’t get back to a hundred percent for a while, but eating made a big difference.” He ran his tongue over his teeth and fished out a morsel of food from a gap, then swallowed. “How’s the situation?”

  Ann’s face tightened up. “The same, they just keep wanderin’ around out there waiting for us. As if we’re just gonna open up the door and let ‘em in. They’re totally mindless.”

  Ron listened and scratched his head. “Yeah, they have some sort of ability to work as a team though. I don’t know if they alert each other somehow, or if they just follow one another. When I hit the group with the car every one of ‘em turned around and chased me like a pack of dogs, it was weird.”

  Lewis leaned on the wall and crossed his feet. “The Id.”

  “Huh?” Ron cocked his head sideways.

  “Basic instincts, Id, it’s a psychoanalytical term coined by Freud. The devil has robbed them of their minds and stolen what Freud referred to as ego and super-ego. They’re lost in the wilderness relying only on their innate senses. Something evil has rotted their brains, leaving only a shell of the brilliance, ingenuity, and humanity they once possessed.”

  Ron and Ann both looked at Lewis with their mouths hanging open.

  Ann closed her mouth and forced down a little smile. “I’ve never heard a man of the cloth talk that way before.”

  “It’s just a simple observation, and I’m not your garden variety reverend who only reads the Bible.” Lewis re-balanced himself on the wall and crossed his arms. “Those creatures out there can’t think for themselves or ever return to any sort of real life. They’re lapdogs for Satan now, doomed forever. Freud goes on to say that it is the darkness in our personality. What he was able to learn from it he studied in dreams pertaining to neurotic symptoms. He found out that the Id directly contrasts with the ego, and that we have, essentially, a negative and a positive side. He called it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations, just like those things out there. They are fueled by nothing but energy from the instincts and possess no organization, produce no collective will except for, as you said, the ability to satisfy their instinctual needs, purely motivated by pleasure. In this case their pleasure is an insatiable appetite for flesh thrust on them against their will; name something more evil than that.” Lewis tilted his head forward and glared.

  Ron raised his eyebrows for a second and dropped them again. “Right, what kind of reverend did you say you were again?”

  “This has nothing to do with my denomination. It’s stuff I read on the side that I just happen to agree with and incorp
orate into my own personal beliefs. I don’t have any problems with Mr. Freud’s findings. I just think they fit into the Lord’s grand design.”

  Ron slowly got up. “Okay, good talk. Excuse me. I’m gonna go take a look outside.”

  “Let me help you.” Ann wrapped her hands around one arm and escorted him out of the room.

  When they left Lewis sighed and scratched his head. “Just not ready to hear it, I guess.” He took Ron’s dirty dishes and left the room.

  When they reached the front doors, Ann opened the peephole. “Better let me look first.” She moved her eyes in front of the opening and pulled her head back as a pair of fingers knifed through it. “Don’t get too close.” She pulled away and let Ron have a look.

  He peered through and only saw a snarling, ragged set of yellow and brown teeth. “I can only see one with its face against the door.”

  Ann handed him a narrow rod of reinforced bar leftover from the construction of a concrete porch. “Use this.” Ron took the rod and rammed it through the door’s opening. The rod made a small clink followed by a dense thud and then cocked at a downward angle, and Ron slid it back out. He looked again and saw a large group of them wandering around outside. “Oh yeah, I can see them now. There are a lot. It looks about the same as when we first got here.” He pulled back and looked away for a second, scratching his chin. After a few seconds he looked back at Ann with stern eyes. “Ann, I don’t think we can kill all those things from in here. We’re stuck.”

  “I know. I concluded the same thing. I just needed to hear you say it.” She leaned forward and they hugged, squeezing each other hard and close.

  “I didn’t say I was going to give up though. If there’s a way out of here, I’m gonna find it.”

  “I just needed to hear you say that too.” She squeezed him harder and closed her eyes. A slight smile rose up on her mouth as she rested her head on his chest.

  ✹✹✹

  A military convoy rolled out of Kingsport to search for survivors and eradicate any of the undead they found along the way. They rode in well-armed Humvees and troop transport trucks ready to lay down fire and bullets on anything that stood in their way. From intelligence gathering, and their own observations, they had concluded that few people survived far west of the mountains toward Nashville. Many believed that they would find some holdouts hidden in little mountain towns and winter retreats that dotted the forests. They headed southeast toward the Cherokee National Forest, stopping in towns along the way to search for survivors. None had turned up yet.

  Traveling down the road the soldiers’ morale still blossomed as they sang and laughed. The lead truck sped toward one of the undead walking down the road. As it passed, a soldier leaned off the side with a baseball bat and slammed it into the back of the creature’s head. It fell down with a thump and stopped moving. All of the soldiers erupted into high-fives and continued celebrating with warlike screams and primal howls.

  The high spirits continued throughout their journey through the countryside. Other times when they saw a creature on the road, they flipped coins to decide whether or not they should run it over, or shoot it in the head first, as they rolled past at high speeds. A few times they saw one stumbling through a field off in the distance. They would place wagers and take turns shooting at it with a high-powered rifle. The first person to blow its head off won the bet and earned some extra food rations from disappointed brothers in arms. By the time they had traveled for an hour and a half, all of them had won and lost food, expended a few dozen cartridges, and could hardly wipe the smiles off their faces after their difficult campaign to clear Kingsport.

  Then as they approached a strip mall the smiles faded one by one as the soldiers laid eyes on the scattered remains of corpses around the lot. Over a dozen bodies littered the ground, along with some of their uneaten entrails strewn through the grass. Several stores had large holes knocked out of their front windows, and a few had blood trails leading toward the grass. Blood still stained the parking lot, sometimes sitting next to a partially eaten body part. Several of the soldiers turned their heads away and cursed then turned back as their faces hardened.

  The convoy stopped and soldiers poured out of the vehicles. One at a time undead heads turned and shuffled toward them until they formed a pack moving in for the feast.

  The soldiers with flamethrowers walked to the center facing the undead and ignited the muzzles. The other soldiers spread out and started to flank the mob. Their Captain stood beside one of the Hummers issuing orders into a mouthpiece. As he continued to talk, the soldiers hustled into formation.

  They performed a simple maneuver dating back as far as Hannibal of Carthage’s rampage through Roman territory. The Double Envelopment called for a pincer movement in order to completely encircle and crush enemy forces. The fire brigade marched forward in the middle. As the undead pursued them, they fell back. At the same time, the flanking soldiers moved around mob, then took up firing positions. They began picking them off one by one. At the same time, the flamethrowers opened up and incinerated the horde. The maneuver forced the undead into a pile where they fell over each other with multiple bullet wounds from each side, then caught on fire.

  When the soldiers had finished, they quietly searched through the vacant stores for survivors. One by one they exited the hollow, bloody shells shaking their heads as the Captain looked on. Once he had seen enough, he positioned his mouth piece and waved an arm toward the vehicles. “Mount up. Let’s keep searching.” With long faces the soldiers listlessly climbed back into their vehicles and drove off. When they came up on another creature walking down the road, one of them stood up and shot it in the head, then sat back down and rejoined the silence. Despite their somber faces, each soldier slid cartridges back into magazines and slapped them back into their weapons. “I didn’t think it would be like this.” One of them said, and the others just kept loading.

  As they proceeded on their eastern course, they came over a hill and looked down into the valley below. They saw an eerily quiet neighborhood in a bowl ringed by mountains. They proceeded down to street level and found a world within a world where time had stopped and life ceased to exist. They passed block after block of deserted houses and abandoned objects in yards. Toward the end of the street the first Humvee abruptly slammed on its breaks after it passed one road. It backed up a few feet and the driver stepped out with a pair of binoculars. She peered through at the sight beyond. One of her fellow soldiers leaned out of the window of another vehicle and smacked his door. “Hey, Walsh! What is it?”

  The soldier lowered the binoculars, stepped back into the driver’s seat, conferred with her passenger, and leaned out the window and shouted, “I don’t think we’re gonna make it to the mountains today.” With that she turned the Hummer around and led the convoy down the small side road.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The twelve-hour mark had come and gone in the middle of the night, but Beverly’s condition persisted, however, in an odd way. Without something concrete Jackson could not make an effective argument for ending her struggle to survive, so they waited and watched.

  Beverly shot out of her sleep into a seated position, shivering, and braced herself against the back of the couch as a spasm of pain rushed through her body and spread to her head. Streams of sweat rolled down her face, and she swallowed several times as her mouth started watering profusely. Moments later she rolled over and retched into a bucket. She turned back over and lay on the couch dabbing sweat from her face with a towel, and her chest heaved rapidly with shallow breaths. She reached behind her head and fished some Saltines off the side table and stuffed a couple into her mouth and washed them down with some Coke. Sitting up, she massaged her stomach, closed her eyes, and laid her head back. “That was awful.” Then her body seized up as another streak of pain surged through it. She gritted her teeth as the muscles on her neck tensed into ruffles. Her back arched and her hands splayed open at her side as she convulsed. The episode fina
lly cut off as quickly as it had started and she doubled over, face in the bucket, and emptied her stomach again. She came back up shaking and collapsed on the couch, skin ashen, apparent even in the dead of night. “I’m so hungry.” Her belly growled and she curled up into a ball. After a minute she got up and walked around the room, eyes scanning over everything. They stopped on the Saltines, paused, and moved on. She looked out on the porch and saw Jackson with his back to her, keeping watch over the undead.

  She walked up to the window and stared at him. She placed a hand on the window and ran her nails over the glass. Her stomach rumbled and groaned inside her, and she could swear it was audible outside. Still gazing at him, she started drooling. Then she looked down, took a step back, and wiped her lips. “What? What’s wrong with me? Beverly, get ahold of yourself.”

  The door to one of the bedrooms opened and Kathleen stepped out onto an open hallway above. “Is everything okay? I thought I heard something.”

  “Yeah, I’m okay, sorry, I got sick again. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “Sick again, how many times is that now?”

  “Too many, I have no food in my stomach. I’m so hungry.”

  “Did you eat the Saltines?”

  “They came back up.”

  “Hmm. I’m sorry. That’s the gentlest food we have. Can you make it through the night? Maybe we can find something tomorrow for you.”

  “Yes. It’s okay. Go back to bed. I’ll be fine.”

  “Sorry, I wish I could do more. Good night.” Kathleen’s shoulders sagged, and she closed the door behind her.

  Once the door shut Beverly doubled over holding her stomach and sank to her knees. She grimaced and mashed her head into the floor. “I have to do something.” She forced herself up and walked into the kitchen, looked around and opened the refrigerator. The electricity had cut out days before, and her nostrils flared as the smell of moist, rank food wafted up to her. As the odors tickled her nose and traveled to her brain she began sniffing more. Her eyes darted around the refrigerator from shelf to shelf. Her mouth started watering again and she forcefully pulled open drawers still sniffing the air. Then she stopped abruptly and stared down into a middle drawer. There she saw a gray, uncooked, rotten steak still in its plastic wrapped polystyrene tray. With quivering hands, she ripped it open and stuffed it into her mouth. She clinched her teeth on the soft meat and jerked her head to the side and ripped off a large chunk. She stood there chewing euphorically with a curtain of gray meat draping her chin. She sucked the rest of it in and chewed with equal fervor. When she had finished, she eyed some of the old blood as she rolled it around in the tray. She put it to her mouth as normally as if it were a cup of water, drained the putrid juices from the tray, and licked her lips with a new light in her eyes as it all went down.