“Promise me.”
“Don’t worry. If it kills you, I won’t let you come back, but you promise to fight, because my guess, with no good bacteria in your body, you’re going to shit everywhere.”
“I don’t think tetanus turns to a fever this fast,” Serena says.
“It doesn’t. Let’s get you back to the SUV.”
Ethan carries Serena from the canoe to the SUV, stashing her in the back.
“Why bother with me?” Serena asks.
He puts the seats down to give her a bed before hooking the elastic straps of a medical paper mask over her nose and mouth.
“You don’t strike me as the kind of man to allow a bit person to linger.” Her eyes water.
“Nope. I’ve put bullets into people as the teeth break the skin.” Ethan slips handcuffs from his duster pocket.
Gentarra climbs into the back. “What happened?” Grabbing the bandaged arm, her stoic face cracks.
“Listen. I witnessed a bite victim be cured at the military base. She was killed by men on the bridge. Some of the blood you wiped from my face was hers.” He shackles Serena’s wrists behind her. “She won’t be comfortable, but if it doesn’t work or the cure kills her, she won’t be able to come after one of us too quick.”
Gentarra crawls in next to the redhead. “The base is gone. She’d turn before we got her back there.”
“I’ve one injection of the cure. It kills all viruses and bacteria in your body. Even the good ones. They kept the other girl in a hermetically-sealed clean room until the good bacteria grew back.” Ethan tucks the blanket around Serena’s shivering frame.
“Even the ones we need to digest food?” Gentarra rests her check against Serena’s using her body to keep the girl warm. Ethan notices, for the first time, the outline of the same facial structure.
“All. They kept this girl in isolation until her body could restore its balance and grow some resistance to diseases again.”
“We’ve no way of doing that for my Serena.”
“I gave her a lower dose. We boil all her water and no one with a sniffle gets in here,” Ethan says.
“Will my daughter live?”
“Not everyone will withstand the cure, and I’ve enough left to run tests on. No more. And I don’t know if it’s a permanent cure, or if it only kills the virus after you’re bit. I don’t know if you’ve immunity, or each time you get bit, you must live through a new shot.”
“Fuck.”
“I know. Too many variables. If someone injects themselves and aren’t bit, they may die. This secret cost me.”
Gentarra touches Ethan’s stubbly chin. “You should’ve allowed her peace. You can’t risk saving anyone else. Not if you have people who can analyze this and reproduce it. Even if we must carry it around like an EpiPen. You hold the most valuable substance on the planet. And none of our lives are worth what it is.”
“You’re hardcore, lady.”
“No. I’m real. You should leave us and get that to your home,” Gentarra says.
“I do that, then this cure means nothing. If I don’t save people, then there’s no reason to cure anyone.”
MIKE TOSSES A stick. The dog chases after it. He brings it back. Mike rubs all over the dog’s neck, praises him for being a “good boy.” “Guess we need to give you a name.” The dog wags his tail as the stick sails through the air again.
He pats the hood of the El Camino. “No trust left in the world. He takes a plastic tub toy boat kids would find at the dollar store from the front seat.
The dog returns, and Mike slips the red collar from his neck. “Guess you’re free.” He slides the collar into the boat. He tosses the stick again. The dog races after it.
Mike marches to the Osage River and places the boat in the water. He shoves the toy so the current catches it. “I christen thee, Go Fuck Yourself.”
The dog returns the stick. Mike sends it across the field. The dog zips after it.
He climbs into the bed of a truck parked next to the El Camino where he transferred Kelsey from her bed of comfort.
He takes her hand in his. “I wish you’d wake up. I’m heading northwest, but to cross the Missouri River we must go into the capital or past Columbia on Highway 70. I won’t lead them to your group, but you need a doctor.”
The dog jumps into the bed, dropping the stick at Kelsey’s leg. He whimpers with concern.
“I know, boy.”
“Kelsey wake up. Tell me where to go.”
Kelsey’s eyes pop open. The blue sky, full of fluffy clouds, fills her view. “Beautiful.”
He squeezes her hand.
“Where are we, Mike?” She asks without opening her eyes.
“Some park next to the Osage River.” How do you tell her?
“My toes?”
“Kelsey, we need to get you to your doctor.”
“What happened to Dr. Griffin?” She walks on her elbows in an attempt to sit up.
“We wore out our welcome.” Mike assists her but holds her before she’s able to view her legs. “He had to operate. The burns to your legs were tremendous.”
Her eyes water. “Did he?”
Mike pulls her up.
“He amputated your leg—”
She slugs him. Her wide swing manages to impact his ear with her forearm. “You let them cut on me!”
“To save your life.” Mike hugs her tight enough she won’t be able to swing at him again. He cries with her.
KAREN LIFTS GRACE above her head, handing her to Alec. She cups her hands together to support Harley’s foot and boosts her into the back of the dump truck. Alec offers his hand to assist Karen up.
Boom.
A shotgun blast echoes. Alec calls from the truck. Karen drags him under the oversized wheels. She searches for a bleeding wound.
“Alec, where are you hit?”
He responds in a moan.
“Fuck.”
The ping of bullets off metal resonates above her.
“I was hoping the dump truck bed was thick enough to protect us.”
“We can’t keep running.” Alec moans.
“Where are you hit?”
“In my shoulder. They want us alive.” He presses a beanbag into her palm.
CORPORAL SANCHEZ HOPS from the truck. “Kenneth, remain at the wheel.” She places her notepad on the seat. “Don’t lose the shopping list.” She secures her assault rifle and draws her .22 pistol. Missing her assault rifle immediately, Sanchez accepts the camp’s mandate to spare the higher caliber weapon rounds.
“You might need that if there’s still a herd around.” Kenneth waves a hand toward the rifle.
“Twenty-two ammo remains in good stock. We encounter a herd, we run. We don’t have enough rounds to stand our ground.” Sanchez marches around the truck. “Maintain noise discipline. It’s only a theory all the vectors have been drawn to the southeast. And some will be trapped.” And pissed off.
One other car rests in the parking lot of the gun store. She swings wide of the open door to check for a reanimated cadaver strapped inside. The body holds a rusty pistol used to end the once living person inside. She reaches in to grip the gun. The useless weapon holds live, spendable rounds safe in the handle. She slides the gun across the pavement to the rear of the truck to be retrieved later.
Sanchez whirls to the boom. Seconds pass, and the bang repeats. She waves her hand. Cromwell and PFC Vockins take defensive positions at the truck. Combeth and Nick follow her, spreading out with enough distance between them a grenade wouldn’t kill all three. They move out past the businesses to the residential area.
Sanchez steps onto the grass of the yard. The house’s off course from their search plan, but noise brings biters and biters prevent loading of supplies. Her failure at retrieving the fence remains at the forefront of her decisions. She lost one in her command, and several were wounded, including the permanent scar on her left leg. Now a raise in pay grade, even if it’s more a battlefield promotion, puts
her rank in command.
At least they only jumped me one rank. Had they made me a sergeant, I might’ve lost the respect of the soldiers given to Acheron. This way, I appear to earn my rank, and it wasn’t a gift, or worse, because I’m a woman. Despite my failure at Orscheln’s, I’ve more field experience with the biters than the other soldiers, including the equally ranked Nick. We were all so well protected at Fort Wood, and all those men who were routinely outside the fence were recalled.
Recalled to where? The one question that sometimes doesn’t allow me to sleep. Where did the troops withdraw to? What plans does command have for retaking the country?
Why does the mind race through unimportant questions? Focus, girl. I fucked up. I saved the camp. Fucked up at the dam and you’d have ended everyone at the camp. Why the hell am I in command?
The bang occurs again. She flips her left wrist to check the second hand on her watch. It has a pattern. Maybe it’s a window shutter, but we need to silence it. It will fascinate the undead.
Combeth flips the latch on the gate. She kicks it open.
A biter flings itself against the wooden fence. It bounces off, leaving bits of putrid flesh and coagulated blood against the wood. The boards are stained black from the constant assault from the creature driven to chase the earthquake noise, demanding to escape the yard. It has beaten its face to the bone, exposing half a skull with only one eye.
Spotting no other biters, she holsters her pistol, unsheathing a knife.
Never ask your men to do what you’re unwilling to do. She drives the blade into the skull.
“At least we know they’re still being drawn to the southeast.”
“I hope it means the town is mostly clear.” Combeth lowers his rifle.
Sanchez whips her head so fast her neck pops. “Maintain noise discipline.” She flashes a hand signal, and they double-time it back to the gun store. She draws her weapon as they reach the pavement. Breaching a door, tactical style, was part of all their training. Sweeping for Insurgents another.
Different training will need instituted as biters don’t attack like the living.
Combeth stands opposite her, rifle pointed to eliminate any threat inside the door. Nick reaches for the handle. His arm tenses as he expects resistance from a lock. It flings open fast at his tug, giving none of them time to notice the piano wire connected to the inside handle.
The shotgun blast shreds Nick’s left thigh in half. His torso hits the sidewalk with red streams spurting from the stump.
Time freezes for the team.
Nick’s leg remains poised, pumping blood, fountaining as if trapped in a B-rated slasher film. None of the standing trio reacts—standard procedure in this situation lost on them. The surreal moment, unexpected, leaves them dumbfounded. Only time doesn’t freeze for Nick’s life flowing from him.
Sanchez recovers her faculties. With all her experience dealing with the biters, she forgot about how the living are. Never expecting to encounter a booby trap.
“Medic!” Wait! Do we have a medic? What the fuck can a medic do for him?
Even without a Navy Corpsman on the team, her order snaps the others out of the trance of witnessing Nick’s leg shredding by tiny pellets of lead.
Combeth shoulders his weapon. He unclasps the nylon thigh strap securing his holster to his leg. As he bends to operate, his rifle flips from his shoulder. He tosses his weapon to Vockins and slips the strap around Nick’s leg stump. The tourniquet pinches the blood flow to a steady dripping.
Nick thrashes. Banshee wails of how he’s going to die permeate the stillness of the air.
Sanchez considers, Put a round in his skull. Chances are he’ll bleed out. We don’t have medical supplies to save him, and he’ll die of blood loss before we reach Acheron.
What if it were Combeth?
What if it were Ethan?
No wonder Ethan wanted no attachments.
Attachments lead to emotional conflict, and there’s no place anymore for love.
Fuck it. We don’t give up on family. We do all possible for them if necessary. I’ll put a bullet in him because he’s dead.
She slides an arm under Nick’s pit. “Help me move him to the truck.”
Combeth complies. They move with purpose.
Kenneth fires up the motor.
Combeth hops into the back with Nick.
“Cromwell, Vockins clear this store and prep all supplies to load. I want the gun store empty when I get back. If we set off a door trap, then it’s not been looted. Check for more traps. Combeth, do what you can for Nick,” Sanchez directs as she leaps to the running board. “There’s a clinic two blocks down. Go!”
Kenneth slips the truck into gear. The quick takeoff almost shears her grip from the mirror. All I need is to bust my ass with road rash while I lose another man.
The truck lurches forward as the gears stick. Kenneth gets the vehicle up to speed, jumping the curb.
“Won’t a clinic have been overrun? Most medical facilities have.” Kenneth focuses on the road. He swerves around a stalled car.
Sanchez tightens her grip. “Private practice. Not at a hospital or an urgent care. Wanted to check it out, as it might have been overlooked by looters.”
He drives across the grass straight to the clinic entrance, barely remembering to shift into park before Sanchez hops off.
“Stay here. I’ll clear it!”
She marches to the door, drawing her pistol. Sanchez moves with machine precision as she flings open the door, sweeping through each room, popping every biter in the face she encounters.
She races to the truck. “There’s a little outpatient surgery room. It’s clean.”
Sanchez pops the clip, dropping it in her dump pouch, and inserts a full one. “Let’s move him.”
She loops an arm around Nick’s leg and the stump, leading the way inside to make sure the pathway remains clear of undead.
“He’s lost too much blood,” Combeth reports.
“End me!” Nick bellows.
They dump him on the table, no time to be gentle.
Sanchez jerks open drawers. She tosses medical supplies onto the counter. “Not until you’re dead. We don’t give up until you’re gone.”
“I don’t want to bite anyone.” Nick’s light brown skin pales.
“You won’t. I’ll end you, but not until you’re dead, soldier.” When she has all the bandages and other necessary supplies, Sanchez nods at her partner.
Combeth pulls on medical gloves before cutting away the tendrils of Nick’s pant leg with shears from the growing pile of supplies. “Open a bunch of those large gauze pads. We’ll have to stop the bleeding with pressure. We have ten more minutes with the tourniquet.” He slaps layer after layer of gauze over the stump.
“Burn it,” Nick pleads.
“You’ve lost too much blood to live through the trauma of cauterizing,” Sanchez says. It might be a last resort.
She slaps more gauze over the first few layers already soaked through, on the stump, and presses down. “We get it stabilized, and we transport him straight back to Acheron. We grab the ammo. It’s a slow trip. Too many bumps and it’ll break open the wound.”
“You got to stop the bleeding first,” Combeth says.
“I don’t want to be one of those things.” Tears never flow despite Nick’s whimpers.
“You won’t, Nick.” Sanchez presses fresh gauze on the soaked old.
“Tell Hannah I love her.” Nick’s fingers crawl past his hip and fumble the securing strap on his pistol.
TRAVIS KNEELS, PINCHING a spent shell casing between his thumb and forefinger. He sniffs—a hint of powder. Fired days ago. He tosses it aside.
“Sir, refueled and ready to lift off with the cargo nets full of napalm drums.”
Travis claps his hands to brush away the dirt of the ground. “Perimeter secure?”
“Not a vector in sight, Sir.”
“More happened here than being overrun by vectors. Someon
e loaded weapons crates from this warehouse. They left the forklift out.”
“They burnt the rec hall, gym, and pool building down. We discovered grenade pins scattered near the entrance.”
“I doubt the Marines set those. They would have used the C-4 I found in the weapons stash. If they scuttled the base, they’d have blown the armory.”
“Agreed, Sir.”
“Your men sweep all the buildings?”
“Not a living soul, Sir.”
“Secure the entrance to the medical building. I’ve got orders to check an office.” Travis leaves the soldier outside as he follows his prebriefed path to Dr. Ellsberg’s office.
Without the climate-controlled environment operational, the body, sporting a blood-stained lab coat and Ellsberg name tag, reeks from rot.
Travis clamps a hand over his nose and mouth.
He checks the office of a second doctor, discovering it lacked the ransacking Dr. Ellsberg’s experienced. Someone knew what to retrieve, which is more than I was prepared for. Maybe he gave information to a soldier. Even at the end of the world, those in power protect secrets. Armageddon be praised.
“Approaching Caruthersville Bridge,” crackles in Travis’s earphones over the thrump of helicopter blades. Peering through binoculars, he inspects the bridge.
The center support pillars are blacked from flames. Other supports have collapsed from the quake damage when the center supports were bombed. The military did strafing runs on the bridges to prevent the flow of undead across the natural water barrier.
Hundreds of undead line the road and the east side of the bridge.
As the vectors reach the shattered end of pavement, one cadaver tumbles, splashing into the water. It bobs to the surface without struggle, jamming against dozens more undead stuck against a fallen section of human architecture.
The logjam will break under flood conditions and sweep the undead to the Gulf of Mexico.
The next aftershock will send the herd into the water as those stuck on the bridge wait for direction. I may be the most experienced officer to deal with the undead, but even I lack the familiarity with groups of this number. Never have I known them to stand. Stand and wait.
No Room In Hell (Book 3): Aftershocks Page 34
