by Dirk Patton
“Wake up! Please! You have to wake up!”
John didn’t respond, his body moving loosely as she pulled at him.
“He always knows what to do!” Mavis cried, looking at Rachel with tears streaming down her face.
Both of them squealed in fright when there was a loud bang that sounded like it was inside the aircraft. Within seconds, a thin trickle of smoke appeared inside the cabin. Mavis stared at it, ceasing her efforts to rouse John. Seemingly accepting her fate, she lay down with her small arm across his chest and closed her eyes.
Rachel had seen the smoke that was finding its way into the cabin and had watched how Mavis had reacted. The terror she felt at the prospect of being incinerated suddenly became a deep, soul scarring rage. Giving John and Mavis a long, last look, she moved to the door.
Checking the pistol, she was dismayed to find there were only seven rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Eight shots to face at least twice that many females as well as Viktoriya. She didn’t care how many infected she killed. Not as long as she could survive long enough to put the eighth bullet in the Russian bitch’s head.
Placing her free hand on her belly, she cast another look at her small family. In the blink of an eye, what could have been played out in her mind. Her, John, Mavis and Dog raising the twins. Them growing up and being quite the handful because they both took after their father. Mavis blooming and becoming a strong, beautiful woman. John walking her down the aisle, once she found a man he couldn’t scare off. Her and John growing old, surrounded by more grandchildren and German Shepherd puppies than anyone could possibly count.
As quickly as the vision began, it ended, and Rachel choked back a sob for what might have been. Facing forward, she grasped the locking lever. She knew she had one opportunity. When the door opened, a wall of smoke and heat would rush into the cabin. She had to be prepared for that. To stand to the side to avoid that initial blast.
As soon as it receded, it was time to go. Out the door and away from the burning brush. Hopefully into clear air so she could spot Viktoriya. The pistol would be up and ready, searching for a target. The females would charge the instant they saw her, but she couldn’t let them slow her down. She had to move fast and couldn’t use her last bullet until Viktoriya was in her sights.
“Mavis, close this door behind me!” she shouted.
“What are you doing?” Mavis cried, scrambling to her feet.
“No time. Get over here!”
Taking a deep breath, Rachel started to pull the lever, but was suddenly knocked off her feet by a brutal impact. Suspecting the fire had caused one of the landing gear tires to explode, Rachel struggled to regain her feet. Before she could, there was a second impact even harder than the first and she felt the jet move sideways.
Another impact and she could hear the scream of tortured metal and the bellow of an engine. What the hell was that fucking bitch doing now? Wasn’t burning them alive enough?
The hardest impact yet sent her sprawling anew and this time the plane kept moving sideways. Then the landing gear collapsed with a rending crash and the jet fell to the pavement. The opposite cabin wall began to deform and she stared in shock as the smoke cleared for an instant to reveal the grill of the school bus. Its engine roared like a wild beast and she could both feel and hear the aircraft’s belly grinding across the asphalt as it was pushed toward the sandy median.
This seemed to last forever. The tortuous rending of metal as the jet was shredded by the pavement. The high-pitched squeal as structural components were stressed beyond the breaking point. Then as quickly as it had begun, it stopped.
Finally able to keep her feet beneath her, Rachel stood. She traded a frightened and confused look with Mavis who quickly stood and ran to her. They held each other, not speaking, waiting for the next horror Viktoriya could come up with.
“Look!” Mavis cried, pointing at one of the windows.
Rachel gasped in relief to see clear air instead of roiling smoke. The grill of the bus was still against the side of the fuselage, but from other windows they could see that the plane had been shoved clear of the fire. It still burned, but much of the dry tinder had been scattered and, for the moment at least they were out of danger.
Rushing to press her face against a window, Rachel searched for Viktoriya but failed to find her. She frowned in confusion to see more than a dozen dead females littering the area.
“What happened?” Mavis asked from the window next to her.
Before she could answer, a face suddenly appeared directly in front of her, eliciting a startled scream. Pressing a hand over her racing heart, Rachel stared back at Master Chief Gonzales as he gestured for her to get out of the plane.
52
Rachel rushed to the door, slamming the locking lever aside and releasing the latch. A wave of hot air rushed past, escaping the plane when she shoved the hatch open. Gonzales was already standing below it, rifle up and ready as he kept watch for infected.
“Everyone okay?” he called without taking his attention off the surrounding area.
“John’s wounded!”
“Can he walk?”
“No.”
“Fuck,” he mumbled, glancing up at Rachel’s sweat drenched face. “Okay. We’re taking the bus. Get down here and keep watch and I’ll get him.”
“What about Viktoriya and the infected?”
“For now it’s clear,” he said. “But if we keep standing here talking...”
Rachel didn’t need any further prompting. Hurrying down to the pavement, she took the rifle when Gonzales offered it and he leapt aboard the aircraft. Heart pounding, Rachel kept turning a circle, traversing the weapon’s muzzle in sync with wherever her eyes were focused. She didn’t fail to notice the large number of dead females in and around the still burning brush they had piled up.
Mavis jumped down to join her, looking around nervously. A few seconds later, Gonzales appeared in the open door with John slung over his shoulders. He moved cautiously, descending a step at a time beneath his burden. Reaching the ground, he circled the nose of the jet with Rachel and Mavis at his side, then boarded the idling bus. As gently as he could, he put John in a seat and rushed to the driver’s seat.
“Wait! There’s equipment on the jet that we need,” Rachel said.
“What? What’s so important?” Gonzales asked, clearly in a rush to get them moving.
“Medical gear. Without it, he may die.”
“Well, fuck me.”
“Stay with John and close the doors,” Rachel said to Mavis. “Open them when you see us coming.”
Mavis nodded, leaning against the lever that operated the doors as soon as Rachel stepped out. She ran to follow Gonzales, skidding to a stop and snapping off a shot when she saw a figure running in the desert beyond the pavement. It had been quick. Only a flash, and she hadn’t been able to identify her target. But at this point she was treating anything that moved as a threat.
Seeing more movement from the corner of her eye, she whipped the rifle around, but couldn’t spot a target. Focusing on the spot, she remembered one of the lessons John had taught her. Don’t get fooled by a distraction.
She could hear his voice in her head and turned to check the area. If not for that piece of advice, she would have fallen prey to a pair of females that were racing in from the side. Five fast shots put both of them on the ground, one with part of her head missing. The other was mortally wounded but was dragging herself forward to continue the attack. Rachel fired a single round that ended the threat.
“Let’s go!” Gonzales shouted as he ran past her.
His arms were loaded down with Joe’s gear and the duffel bags stuffed full of peripheral equipment. Rachel made a last scan then followed him to the bus. Mavis opened the doors as they pounded up, the Mater Chief leaping aboard and dumping his burden on a seat. He slipped behind the wheel as Rachel boarded, then slammed the doors and ground gears as he shifted into reverse.
The big vehicl
e jerked backwards, away from the plane, bouncing hard as it came up out of the median and onto pavement. He slammed on the brakes, fought the gears some more then they lurched forward. Their speed slowly increased and Rachel took the first deep breath she’d been able to since Viktoriya had started the fire.
“Where’s Viktoriya?” Rachel asked, shouting over the growl of the engine.
“Don’t know,” Gonzales said. “Was too busy shooting females. Speaking of which---”
He pointed at the rifle still in her hands. She felt better with the weapon but passed it back without complaint. Then she blinked in surprise, remembering John talking about the fight Nicole had with the SEAL over going to the mainland without him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Didn’t you stay in Hawaii?”
He glanced at her quickly before returning his focus to the road ahead.
“Don’t like being left behind,” he finally said with a shrug. “Seems you don’t either.”
Rachel was quiet for a beat before accepting his explanation.
“Well, I don’t know how to thank you. We were about to be cooked alive.”
When his only response was to nod, she moved away to check on John. Mavis had squeezed into the seat with him, supporting his head so it didn’t flop around from the rough ride.
“You okay?” Rachel asked her.
“I’m okay,” Mavis said. “But you’d better check him. He doesn’t sound very good.”
Rachel reached out and touched John’s face, involuntarily pulling her hand away when she felt the fever burning through him. Praying that the virus was doing its job, without hyperthermia related brain damage in the process, she eased into the adjacent seat.
“Is it working?”
“Too soon to tell,” Rachel said with a shake of her head.
They fell quiet, both of them close to John and each other. After several minutes, Rachel frowned in thought and raised up to look through the windshield.
“Hey! We’re going the wrong way!” Rachel called.
Gonzales glanced at her in a mirror normally used by the driver to keep an eye on unruly children.
“What? Why does it matter?”
“Joe Revard and Dog left, walking the other way.”
“What the hell for?”
“To get a vehicle.” Rachel leaned forward to peer through the large windshield, making sure she was right about their direction of travel.
“Well, fuck me running,” Gonzales grumbled, hitting the brakes.
Sighing, he jammed the shifter into reverse. Careful to not drop a wheel off into the soft sand that bordered the freeway, he turned the bus until they were facing east and slowly accelerated.
“How’d Viktoriya get infected?” he asked once they were back up to speed.
“How did you know?” Rachel asked without taking her focus off the sand.
“Saw her controlling those females, just like Nicole.”
“Oh.”
“So? What happened?” he asked again when she didn’t keep speaking.
“She tricked John into believing she had a sniper with me and Mavis in the crosshairs. Took his blood and gave it to herself. What the hell are you doing here, by the way?”
“Told you already. Don’t like to be left behind.”
“I mean here. Not that I wasn’t happy to see you, but why here? And now?”
“You know what Nicole’s doing, right?”
“I’m not supposed to, but I do,” Rachel said, eyes still searching for any sign of Joe or Dog.
“I was trying to meet up with her, but she must have a couple million females by now. I couldn’t get close enough to let her know I was here.”
Something about Gonzales’s explanation didn’t sit right with Rachel, but she was too focused on the immediate problem and didn’t give it any thought.
“What happened to the Colonel and Lucas?”
“Viktoriya. Shot Chapman and beat Lucas to death. And when she took John’s blood, she gave him the cure without him knowing. Turns out he’s one of the five percent that can’t be cured without it killing him. His organs are shutting down.”
“So he’s no longer infected?”
Something about the way Gonzales asked the question bothered her, though she didn’t understand why. Instead of telling him about the serum, she just shook her head.
“Anyone coming to help? Get them on a flight back to Hawaii?”
“No radio and no--- Do you have a satellite phone?”
“Did. Lost it escaping the infected.”
Before Rachel could ask anything further, he slammed on the brakes, sending her crashing against the inside of the windshield.
“What the hell?”
“Aircraft,” he said, pointing at a black speck traversing the horizon. “Probably a patrol and we don’t want to be moving and draw attention.”
53
Joe looked over his shoulder when Dog came to a stop. He was facing in the direction of the jet, his ears twitching as he sampled the wind. Assuming he was only worried about John, Joe softly called his name and resumed walking. He’d covered a good forty yards before Dog broke into a trot to catch up.
Despite his bravado in setting out to find them some transportation, Joe was hurting. His face had taken the worst of the beating from the Russians, but they hadn’t neglected the rest of his body. Two ribs were cracked. His spleen and one kidney were bruised. He belonged in a hospital bed, recuperating. Giving his body a chance to heal.
The pain slowed him as he plodded along the hot asphalt. But being slowed and quitting were two very different things. Joe was one of those people who didn’t allow his body to dictate what he was capable of doing. Or enduring. Part of him attributed that to his heritage as a Native American, but he’d learned that was misplaced pride. A man either had the grit to keep going regardless of the hardships he encountered, or he didn’t. Who his ancestors were had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Feeling the heat radiating up from the road’s surface, he thought about Dog’s unprotected paws. Looking down at his companion, there was no apparent distress, but Joe knew Dog was just as determined as he was to not let anything stop him.
Half an hour passed with only the sound of the wind and Joe’s nearly silent footfalls. Cresting a rise in the road, he came to a stop. A short distance ahead sat an abandoned Hummer. It was stopped at an angle on the road and the engine was still running, the idle loud enough to be heard from where he was.
Joe raised the rifle and checked the vehicle through the low power scope. The way it was parked, he was looking straight on at the rear passenger corner and couldn’t tell if there was anyone inside or not. Turning, he carefully scanned across the sand in the median, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
Swinging the weapon in the opposite direction, his breath caught when he checked beyond the shoulder. The sand had been freshly churned, the wind not having had time to smooth the sharp edges. It looked like what he’d expected to see based on Rachel’s description of the infected children having buried themselves.
Lowering the rifle from his eye, he looked at Dog whose nose was high in the air. He was quiet, but Joe didn’t put any faith in that. The wind was wrong for him to be able to scent anything in the area where the sand had been disturbed. Bringing the weapon back up, he scanned again then took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Let’s go,” he said softly to Dog.
They moved forward, Joe now treading silently. He remembered Rachel’s warning about sound and had given it some thought as he’d been walking.
The children, even though they were infected with enhanced senses, were still human. Or some version of human, he had reminded himself. That meant they only had five senses, but of those there was only one that was any good if they were completely buried. Touch. They had to be relying on feeling the vibrations of sound waves traveling through the ground, which was why they hadn’t emerged until Rachel had kicked the Hummer.
&nbs
p; Why were they hiding in the sand? Was it their way of lying in wait for prey to come along, or were they hiding from a predator? Assuming there were any predators remaining that could pose a threat. Unless... were they hiding from adult infected? Would females kill and eat the children?
None of that mattered at the moment. What did was staying focused and not being caught by surprise. Rachel had reported that the children were very fast and agile, and in his current condition he knew he wouldn’t be able to outrun them.
As they drew closer to the idling Hummer, Joe slowed their pace to ensure they remained quiet. The rifle was tight to his shoulder and he constantly scanned across the area of disturbed sand but didn’t neglect other directions. Dog was tense and close to his side but wasn’t alerting on anything.
Ten yards from the vehicle, Joe came to a stop. It appeared unoccupied, but there could have been someone or something huddled out of sight below the windows. He checked the sand again, glanced quickly at Dog then moved laterally so he could see the far side.
The driver’s door was open, swinging slightly in the wind. He was glad to note that the stiff hinges were preventing it from being slammed against the body of the vehicle and making a racket. A quick check of the windshield confirmed what he’d suspected when he saw the marks left on the ballistic glass by Rachel’s bullets. This was the Humvee the Russian pilot had stolen. But why had he stopped and where the hell was he?
Ignoring the mystery, Joe hurried forward, aiming into the interior in case there was a surprise waiting for him. Finding it as empty as it seemed, he made another fast check of the area around them. Turning to get in, he paused and snapped his head around when he heard the distant beat of a helicopter rotor.
“Get in,” he hissed at Dog, following his furry tail through the open door.
Pulling it closed, he latched it as quietly as he could while looking through the windows, trying to spot the helo. He hadn’t forgotten that Rachel had found one of the Hummers shot up by canon fire, and he debated the wisdom of selecting such a juicy target as his hiding place. Another look at the sand convinced him he’d made the right choice.
