Extinction Survival Series | Book 4 | Warrior's Fate
Page 13
The two squads loaded up their vehicles. Often, the time spent between battles was worse than the fighting. Those moments not only let you think about the risks, but gave you a chance to ruminate about what you had already lost.
Lucas’s HUMVEE led them out of the landfill and onto the valley floor. Instead of turning on the Ronald Reagan, which would take them to the local Costco, Lucas turned the other way.
“Where’s he going?” Brett asked.
No one had an answer until they approached a Home Depot. It sat next to the entrance to the tunnel. It quickly became evident that Lucas wanted to see the results of his handiwork. Brett followed the other vehicle around to the back of the giant metal building and pulled up to the loading docks.
Lucas jumped out of his truck and jogged over to a chain-linked fence that ran along the back property line. Deerweed plants were everywhere. Their yellow flowers had just begun to bloom at the end of their tall and leggy green stems. Large clusters of the native weed grew along the fence line, forming a thick mass that was almost five feet tall. Lucas waded into the bushes and disappeared into the vegetation.
“Idiot,” Tim grumbled. “I’ll be right back.”
He jumped out of his MRAP and trotted over to the spot where his brother had entered the jumbled overgrowth.
He pushed aside the Deerweed and found Lucas staring off in the distance. They were less than fifty yards from the devastation. The side of the wadi had been pushed into the bottom of the wash. Instead of seeing the underground entrance, there was a large crater surrounded by bodies, all thrown away from the center of the blast. From that distance, you couldn’t tell that they were Variants, just dead bodies that lay silent on the dirt. Tim gazed at the scene, noting the dozens of corpses spread out on the shallow ravine’s floor.
“I’m tired,” Lucas commented.
“So am I. Now let’s get back on mission. I want to go home,” Tim replied.
“Ha! Home. Lost Valley’s not our home,” Lucas hissed.
“It is now,” Tim said. “We don’t have time for this shit. Come on.”
Tim grabbed his brother’s arm, but Lucas yanked it away.
“What do you mean, we don’t have time? What world do you live in?”
Lucas shouted.
“Quit being an ass. I want to get back to Mom and Dad.”
“And I want to go home. Our real home, not a Boy Scout camp,” Lucas shouted. “I don’t want to do this anymore!”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Tim yelled, grabbing Lucas, this time by the shoulder. “Get your shit together.”
“Stop!” Lucas screamed back. Then he began to cry.
“Geez. What’s wrong with you?”
“Can’t you see? Look what I do. Look at my life.” Lucas waved his hand at the devastation. “I’m supposed to graduate from high school this year! I’m supposed to be planning for college. Now look at me. I’m Lucas, the zombie killer.”
Tim let his brother cry it out. It would be five years in April since the infection began. Lucas had just turned thirteen when it happened. The apocalypse had effectively stolen the teenage years from both of them.
Tim understood. He was only two years his senior and had moments like this himself. But they needed to finish their recon of the warehouse store, grab any supplies that were still good, and move back to the Valley. As quiet as it was on that cloudy morning, the city was still owned by the Variants.
“Come on, bro. Let’s go,” Tim gently said. “We’re not safe here.”
Lucas let his brother lead him away. Neither one knew how true Tim’s last statement would turn out to be.
The men remounted their vehicles and jumped onto the Ronald Reagan Freeway. After a mile, they got off on San Fernando Road, just a few hundred yards from where Roy’s fresh corpse lay on the bridge. Both vehicles cut left under the freeway, away from the collaborator’s lifeless body, and Costco appeared just beyond the overpass.
The HUMVEE spun into the warehouse’s crowded parking lot. Vehicles packed the spaces with cars jammed around the store’s front entrance. Every parking aisle was blocked by abandoned automobiles. It was a scene that they had all seen far too many times at various grocery stores and warehouse clubs. People hadn’t been ready for an emergency of the size that the infection brought. They’d panicked and then had been caught in these locations when the whole thing went sideways. The abandoned vehicles that cluttered the asphalt were the remnants of lives lost for lack of time and preparation.
They drove to the back of the building. This area was remarkably free of deserted cars. Brett pulled up to a metal rear door and put the large armored truck into park.
“Come on,” Brett said to Tim. “Let’s get this over with.”
Wilson Canyon Channel Entrance
The creature hurt. Surrounded by dirt and rock, it struggled to breathe. Its arms were pinned to its side and it was slowly suffocating.
It could hear some of horde prowling below. Their muffled cries and growls filtered up through the surrounding debris. It tried to reply in kind, but it couldn’t. Its chest felt like it was in a vise.
The creature awoke in this predicament. It was mindlessly rushing into the tunnel, following the sounds of human cries heard from deep within the cave. The flash of light and a crashing sound were the last thing it could remember, not that memories were its strong point. It just sensed the explosion and awoke in the grip of the collapsed earth.
Its vision was beginning to fade as it grew tired of fighting its own extinction. Death held no fear for it because it wasn’t anything its addled mind could comprehend. It lived to feed and mate, nothing more.
A sound found its ear. Screaming between two humans caught its attention. They were arguing, their voices stimulating its lust for food.
We don’t have time for this shit. Come on.
What do you mean, we don’t have time? What world do you live in?
Food!
The blood lust invigorated the dying monster. It fought against the land’s grip and felt its arms begin to rise.
Quit being an ass. I want to get back to Mom and Dad.
The dirt began to give way. The creature thrust its arms out of the ground and pulled itself up. The hole it had been encased in began to collapse, exposing a cavern filled with dozens of its fellow Variants. They began to crawl out of their tomb.
The morning sunlight hurt its eyes while searching for the humans. Within moments, it was surrounded by a cluster of its infected brothers and sisters that had been trapped in a pocket within the collapsed tunnel. The surviving Variants numbered over fifty.
The human voices did not reoccur, frustrating the infected monster. It tried to smell for human spoor, but its nose was encrusted with dirt.
Two engines revved in the near distance, triggering the horde into a full sprint across the wash. They broke through the weeds just in time to see the two military vehicles turn out of the parking lot.
The mob raced after them. They were not fast enough to catch either the MRAP or HUMVEE, but they were able to follow their path. For over a mile, the infected trailed the vehicles and watched them disappear behind a large structure.
They were about a half a mile behind when Lucas and Brett pulled up to the rear of the Costco. With the Variants’ speed and general unawareness of pain, it wouldn’t take long before the horde caught up to their next meal. They could already taste the tender human flesh as they hurtled towards the unsuspecting humans.
— 11 —
Unless you are prepared to expect the unexpected, be prepared to expect the unexpected defeat.
— Anirudh Sethi
Costco
Pacoima, CA
Lucas’s squad and their war dog were a precision instrument, having searched so many buildings over the years that they’d lost count. They stacked up on the metal employee entrance door. No one needed a prompt, and not a word was said between them as they lined up for yet another breach.
The dog waited patie
ntly at the front of the line. Lucas had already verified that the door was unlocked. He looked down at Rex. The war dog was anxious, but not in an aggressive way. It was a good sign that the space beyond was clear of any Variants.
The young men pushed the “on” button of their weapons’ mounted flashlights and nodded. They were ready.
Lucas gripped the knob and bounced his head up and down, silently mouthing his countdown.
Three… two… one…
The door was flung open, and Rex stormed into the building, followed by five armed and anxious young men.
They moved into the space with a grace and prowess that could only come with years of experience. Each man covered a sector of the space that they’d invaded. Between them, the entire floor had overlapping fields of fire so any spot to their front had at least two rifles covering it.
They moved slowly but steadily into the cavernous building. They’d arrived in a back caged area, where stock was brought in from arriving trucks then re-distributed out to the floor. After clearing the small space, they sent the dog out into the main warehouse.
“Search!” Lucas commanded.
Unlike Shrek, who had grown up in Europe and learned to respond to Dutch, his progeny trained in English.
Tyrannosaurus Rex bolted into the dark building and rocketed up the nearest aisle. They quickly lost sight of the dog as it shot away. Lucas loved watching it work and completely understood why war dogs were often called fur missiles.
The silence in the building was complete, and the only sound Lucas could hear was the clicking of the dog’s claws on the dusty, concrete floor.
“Hey, check this out,” his squad leader said, pointing his flashlight at a pile of supplies.
Pails of number-ten cans, vacuum-sealed food pouches, along with over-the-counter medical supplies, were stacked up by the garage door. All of it was long-term storage food that hadn’t expired.
“That’s convenient,” the young man commented.
A couple of the others began to lift the large door, leaving Lucas to wait on his war dog to finish his sweep.
Then it happened.
Somewhere in the front of the store, Rex yelped. It was a signal that he’d found an infected. But instead of the dog holding its ground, he heard it sprinting back at them, barking its warning as it ran. It made no sense, until the thud of feet rumbling across the roof of the building echoed from above.
“Variants!” Lucas hissed to the men nearby.
He pressed his neck’s transmit button and screamed into the microphone. “Variants! On the roof!”
He waited for someone outside to respond, but there was no reply from Brett, his brother, or any of the other men.
Outside Costco
Brett and his squad mates were lounging around outside the garage door. They were standing casually along the store’s wall, their rifles slung over their shoulders or hanging at their side. They were passing around a can of Copenhagen dipping tobacco, a bad habit they’d learned from Shader.
The dip didn’t interest Brett. He leaned into the open door, listening to the other squad clear the building. He heard Lucas order Rex into the bowels of the metal structure. After a minute of quiet, he decided that the store was clear of Variants.
“Hey, Tim. A little help, here,” he called out.
Brett leaned his rifle against the wall and walked over to the HUMVEE, waving Tim to the vehicle’s back door. He leaned into the vehicle, looking for Lucas’s assault pack.
“Top pouch,” Tim said with a grin. “You know, my brother will smack you for taking his stuff.”
Lucas was a notorious sugar fiend and always carried several packages of gum with him.
“I’m sure we’ll find more inside,” Brett said with a grin.
Brett hopped into the back seat. He began digging through a mound of nylon gear, all stacked in the cargo area.
“Here we go,” Brett said, lifting a desert-tan pack from the pile. He burrowed through several of the zippered pockets but came up empty. “Hey, Tim—see if he has any up front.”
Tim jumped into the front passenger seat just as the garage door began to lift, searching for the plastic container of Chiclet-sized gum. He stuck his head down to the floorboard and saw the white container.
“Got it!”
A loud bang came from the hood of the HUMVEE. Something had hit with such force that both young men thought they were in an earthquake. The HUMVEE rocked on its suspension. Tim and Brett looked out to the front.
A Variant had landed on the hood of the armored vehicle. Its leg bone was sticking out of its shin, broken by the force of the impact. Unfazed by the injury, it stood up and glared at them through the windshield. It let out a growl and coiled to attack.
Just then, both men’s radios blared a less-than-timely warning.
“Variants! On the roof,” Lucas’s voice barked in their earpieces.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Brett said under his breath.
Both men wrenched their doors shut just as ten more dropped from the metal roof onto the rest of Brett’s squad. The men outside were dead before they could make a sound.
Brett reached for his battle rifle, but it wasn’t there. Both he and Tim had left their primary weapons outside, leaning against the warehouse wall. All they had were their handguns. The two sidearms wouldn’t be nearly enough to handle the number of creatures that had suddenly appeared.
“Jesus! They’re everywhere,” Brett shouted from the back seat.
Another mass of Variants swarmed from around the corner of the building. Many rushed into the open garage, but dozens grouped around the HUMVEE, smashing their bodies against the reinforced windows. The bulletproof glass would keep them safe in the short term, but a starburst crack developed on the window next to Tim. Several of the monsters began to shove the battle truck. If they figured out how to work together, they might push the Hummer onto its side.
“We need to move,” Brett said, crawling into the driver’s seat.
He rotated a switch on the dashboard to the run position and waited for the wait light to switch off. The seconds that went by as the ignition’s hot point warmed up were agonizing. The creatures attacking the vehicle were growing in numbers, and infected bodies were everywhere. The size of the horde blocked Brett’s view of the road, forcing him to try to drive by memory.
“What about my brother?” Tim yelled.
“We can’t help him if we’re dead,” Brett replied. “We have to get clear of these things. Then we can come up with a plan to rescue them.”
“That might be too late!” Tim replied. “We have to do something right now.”
The wait light went off, and Brett turned the switch further right. The engine was triggered. They were ready to move.
“The only thing we can do is get out of here, find some fire power, and return. I hate to break it to you,” Brett said, nodding at the open garage door, “but he’s either safe or dead. There’s no in-between. Either way, another few minutes won’t make a difference.”
After depressing the brake pedal, Brett pushed a large lever forward, releasing the electronic parking brake. He checked the oil pressure and fuel status. The routine had been drilled into him five years past. The training had stuck. He put the HUMVEE into low drive and turned to Tim.
“I promise. We’ll come back as soon as we have the firepower to get Lucas and the others out of there.”
Tim looked back, fear and sadness in his eyes. He nodded at Brett, then wiped a tear away. “Okay. Let’s go.”
The HUMVEE lurched forward, drawing even more Variants to the movement and noise. Brett punched the gas, sending many of the infected under his wheels. He pushed through the throng and broke free, swinging around the back lot and onto the street. All the while, Tim stared at the building, searching for his younger brother. The armored vehicle shot down the road with many Variants in futile pursuit. A minute later, they had disappeared in the rearview mirror.
Inside Costco
“No!” Lucas yelled.
He lunged at the closest man, who looked at him in confusion. Lucas tried to grab him, but a deformed claw reached in and yanked him away. The speed of the man’s death stunned Lucas.
The other soldier saw his friend pulled outside. He released the door and brought his rifle up. He began to spray the creatures that had suddenly appeared just outside the door.
His magazine quickly ran dry. He pushed the mag release button on his rifle and dropped the empty case to the ground. He pulled a fresh mag from his battle belt and slapped it into the well. Before he could do anything else, he was pulled outside as well.
Lucas looked on in horror as both men were torn apart. Limbs were rended from their torsos and the remains shredded by the ravenous beasts.
The other two in Lucas’s squad turned and ran toward the back of the store. Lucas followed closely behind.
As he sprinted through the frozen food section, he heard a bark from the next aisle over.
“Rex!” he called out. The dog was quickly at his side.
Screams of rage came from the now-open door. Calling his dog had let the Variants know where he was. Lucas could hear the horde’s footfalls above their grunts and panting as the creatures raced inside.
Lucas had never been in this particular Costco, but he’d raided enough of the other warehouse stores to have a general idea where the building’s offices were.
He used his weapon’s mounted flashlight to navigate the aisles. He had to see where he was going, but it marked him to the Variant mob. They followed the high-intensity beam through the store. Many of them began to take to the walls and metal shelving, while a few even made it to the ceiling. Dozens of the creatures were closing in on him.