Camp Zero (Book 3): State of Decay

by Jack Hunt

  “Let’s hope they’re there,” he said to Michaels.

  “I called out to them but they didn’t answer. Anyway, you told me to leave before it got dark.”

  They loaded up the gear and hopped into the armored vehicle. He gave one of the six remaining soldiers a nod and they opened up the gate. Those on the wall fired a few rounds at the stragglers that were nearby. The assault vehicle lurched forward and out they went. Stigers peered out of a section of the vehicle as they rolled around. It was like being in a nightmare. Men, women, children ran up to the vehicle and began beating on it. Their screams were deafening. The vehicle ran over many of them leaving behind a trail of blood.

  It had taken Murphy and Shaw two hours to get from the top of River Street to Second Street. They couldn’t believe their eyes.

  Initially they thought they were normal. They looked as if they were talking among themselves. It was only when Murphy called out to them and they let out a hideous scream that they realized that these weren’t the same people they once knew. They had spent the better part of an hour locked down inside a house. There had been a couple of moments they didn’t think they would be able to get out as these things wouldn’t leave. It was as if they could tell they hadn’t left.

  Eventually, gunfire in the distance drew them away and Murphy pushed his way out of an upstairs bedroom window. They both scaled down a lattice against the side of the house and then spent the next ten minutes traipsing over fences.

  “What the hell were those?” Shaw asked.

  Murphy never replied, he was too busy surveying the surrounding area for more of them.

  As they squeezed down between two houses they heard the rumble of an approaching vehicle. Murphy peered around the corner and saw an armored truck.

  Ally couldn’t wait any longer.

  “I’m going to see what’s happened to him.”

  Kiera grabbed a hold of her arm. “You heard them, Ally.”

  She pried Kiera’s nervous hand from her arm. “I don’t care.”

  And like that she pushed outside of the doorway, then scaled the drainpipe to the roof. She hadn’t made it a few yards when she noticed she wasn’t alone. Coming up behind her were Billy and Luke.

  “Believe me, I’m not here for you, princess. I just didn’t want to have to listen to Kiera nagging at me,” Luke said.

  From the top of the roof they could hear the sound of a vehicle. They knew immediately what it was.

  “I told you they would come looking for us.”

  “Yeah, great timing. Now had Frost been here we would have been able to leave this shithole behind. Now we are going to have to risk our necks because of his stupidity.”

  “Oh give it a rest, Luke. What the hell is your problem with him?” Ally asked.

  “Guys, you want to get down, otherwise you are going to get us all killed,” Billy said eyeing the insane that were running through the streets in the direction of the vehicle’s engine. It was amazing how clearly the vehicle could be heard when there weren’t any others on the road. The insane bounded over stationary, burn-out cars like apes.

  Billy led the way over to the far end of the building. Once they got on the ground they raced over to the brewery and peered in. They couldn’t see a damn thing.

  “Is he in there?”

  “If he is, he’s probably dead.”

  Luke was standing near the first door. It was open and there was a trail of blood leading out and down the street. They entered the brewery and followed the trail of blood. It came to a halt near a chair where rope hung loosely. There was no one inside except Tom’s father and he was dead.

  Murphy wanted to run out and stop the vehicle but all they could do was look on as it became overwhelmed with insane people leaping on top of it. At first they could see it, but it wasn’t long before it was smothered by the insane trying to get inside.

  “Let’s go,” Murphy said.

  Shaw grabbed his arm. “Where? We haven’t a clue where they are, or if they are even alive.”

  “Do you see them among them?”

  “No.”

  “Then they are still alive.”

  “Oh come on, Murphy. This is over our heads.”

  Murphy turned back to Shaw and stared her in the face. “Do you remember when you didn’t want to leave Mount Pleasant because of what they had done to your daughter?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you remember what I said to you?”

  She cast her eyes away and he began to jog on shouldering his rifle and scanning the immediate area for threats. Shaw quickly caught up with him and they headed for Tom Barrington’s home. Murphy knew the reality of them all being alive was slim. In all his time in war, traveling across seas and seeing disease, he had never seen anything like what he was witnessing. The violence was unfathomable. At least with the skinheads he knew what he was dealing with but these crazy people were unpredictable.

  Murphy shot out of an alley and right into the line of sight of a cluster. His eyes flared in horror as they took off in his direction.

  “Go!” he yelled to Shaw.

  Ally followed out the trail of blood that went north on Sixth Street. Her skin was crawling at the thought of what they might find on the other end. Why had he gone in alone?

  “I don’t think we should be out here,” Luke said eying Bank Street as they crossed over and passed by City Hall. It had been a long time since they had seen that place. It was in an even worse state of decay. Bodies that lined the streets depicted a picture of what had occurred when the infection had spread. A mother’s buggy was turned over with no baby inside. Blood covered the pink blanket that was a few feet away. Two people were inside a locked car, the window had been smashed in and one of them was leaning out as if whoever had reached in had dragged them out. The person’s neck was half eaten away.

  Ally stepped over a woman whose face had been torn apart. As they crossed over Cedar Street they could see more of them further down on the east side, piling up on something but they had smothered it so much they couldn’t tell what. As they dashed across the road her eyes flitted to a man who had been impaled through the chest with a spike, and tacked against the side of a building. He hung there, his head down and feet dangling.

  Billy glanced around nervously.

  “Whatever the hell they dragged out of there, it’s bleeding bad.”

  It wasn’t just droplets they were following but a thick streak of dark red. The trail of blood veered left just before Sweet’s Hotel and down into a back alley. They kept together with Luke holding the rear while Billy and Ally kept a close eye on the roofs around them. They had seen those things climbing onto roofs. Wherever they could go, they would follow. There was no escape.

  The streak of blood finally came to an end behind a large industrial dumpster. A pair of boots stuck out. They looked like Sam’s.

  Corporal Stigers was painting the air blue. “Soldier, get us the hell out of here.”

  “I’m trying. They must have jammed the wheels. It’s not moving.”

  The engine let out a guttural sound, and a high-pitched whine as it attempted to churn over but there were so many of them blocking the way and covering the vehicle that it was causing untold stress on the engine. Smoke began to back up through the ventilators. Thompson began coughing.

  “Turn off the engine,” Stigers yelled as he peered through the rear vent. There were four ways in and out of the vehicle. Two doors either side, rear doors and one at the top. All of them were blocked.

  Michaels killed it and they listened to the sound of hands bombarding them from the outside. Growls, and the slosh of what sounded like people throwing up all over the vehicle put them on high alert.

  “Don’t worry, they can’t get in here, this fucking thing is a vault.”

  “Maybe they can’t but their blood can.”

  Thompson turned around and his face was covered in blood. Stigers didn’t hesitate. Thompson’s eyes flared as if to say no, but it was too
late. Stigers fired a round through his skull. For a second Michaels and Stigers gripped their ears. The noise of the gun going off left an intense ringing.

  Michaels backed away and pushed himself into a far corner.

  “I had to. He would have turned.”

  That was the truth but it didn’t make it any easier.

  They kept back from the small side windows. “Who the fuck opened that one?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The infected had vomited blood through one that was partially open. It trickled to the floor and Stigers began to wonder if they could be infected from sharing the same airspace. They covered their mouths with military face masks.

  “We need to get out,” Michaels muttered. His body was shaking.

  Stigers turned to Michaels but he looked as if he was in shock. He stared blankly at Thompson, his head shaking ever so slightly. His eyes wide.

  “Michaels, snap out of it.”

  Ally nervously moved close to the back of the dumpster. As she circled around it, she gasped and placed a hand over her mouth. A child leaned over a dead skinhead’s body chewing on his neck. Its head jerked upwards and eyes locked on to hers. She didn’t hesitate. She fired a round through its head and backed up.

  “It’s not Sam.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Billy said as if stating the obvious would alleviate some of the tension they were all feeling. As Ally turned to say something to Luke, he had his rifle shouldered and began firing west of the alley in rapid succession and then backing up. They turned and began sprinting back to Sixth Street but Billy chose to climb a black fire escape attached to the nearest building.

  “Billy!”

  It was too late to get back as the insane rushed. As they reached the mouth of the alley, Ally glanced over her shoulder and saw that Billy was halfway up the ladder. The insane were hot on his heels.

  Sheer panic took over. Survival instincts kicked in. There was no time to think whether Billy would make it or not. Both of them were now running south in hopes of getting back to Kiera. But they didn’t even make it the block before more of the insane came racing around the corner, frothing at the mouth and screaming while wielding all manner of hammers, knives and god knows what else. Luke turned sharply and unloaded round after round at a door made of glass. It shattered and both of them rushed into the building. It was the Gold Corner Bar and Grill. Immediately ahead of them was a long bar that went the full length of the room. Chairs were all over the floor and a pool of blood seeped from a dead man. They vaulted over the bar and ran into the back room. It was the closest and only thing Luke saw. They didn’t have the luxury of being able to barricade themselves in. Ally turned the key in the handle and she followed Luke down into the basement. It was unfinished and smelled like mold and stale alcohol. He slammed shut a heavy wooden door behind them and they found themselves enveloped by darkness.

  There was no way to describe the cold fear that shot through Murphy as he and Shaw raced their way across yards, over fences and through alleys on the west side of Mount Pleasant. Twice he tried to get inside a house but the doors were locked. Any attempt of screaming for help would have fallen on deaf ears or would have been lost in the shrieks of the insane. Everything around them took on a surreal appearance as they searched for a means of escape from the horde that pursued.

  “In here,” Shaw hollered as a door on a home unlocked. Murphy was already several feet ahead, he fired a few rounds at those closest and then ducked inside. They took the kitchen table and jammed it against the door. Almost immediately they heard the thud as bodies slammed into the door trying to force it open. Murphy yanked on the heavy-duty fridge and slid it out and with the help of Shaw tipped it. Anything within reach was tossed behind that door and even then they were beginning to shift it.

  The thought of dying in that house didn’t enter his mind. They had no time to think, and they sure as hell weren’t going to give up.

  19

  Twenty minutes earlier

  In that moment, Sam thought he was going to die. The steel of the gun pressed hard against his temple. He glanced up to see Bryan Catz standing beside him. He told him to drop his weapon and then had his men push both Sam and Tom’s father into the center of the room.

  His five pals fanned out covering the exits as Bryan grinned.

  “I got to admit, Frost, that was a ballsy move to slip in here and think you were going to just waltz out.”

  He paced around holding the gun at waist level.

  “You know there hasn’t been one day that has gone by in the past year that I haven’t thought about this moment.”

  He stopped in front of Sam and pressed the gun against his forehead. Sam had resigned himself to the fact that this was where it would end. He wouldn’t die at the hands of the infected but instead, by someone far more insane than them.

  “Do you remember that night?”

  Sam squinted. “What night?”

  Bryan tapped the gun against the side of Sam’s head. “Think, Frost, think. The night I told you I would kill you.”

  Sam scoffed. “You’re living in the past, my friend. Look outside. Look at what’s going on. It doesn’t matter what you do to me. You are still going to suffer. You think killing me is going to appease some vendetta you have? You’re wrong. It doesn’t work like that.”

  “No. You see, that’s where you’re mistaken. The day I was driven out of Mount Pleasant, the only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that I would return and finish what we started here, and I’ve done it. So, yes. Go ahead, look outside. Everything you see, is because I made it happen. Every one of those self-righteous assholes who thought they got the better of us are now running around like mindless animals. And look at you. Standing here, right where I want you. About to die. So don’t tell me how it works.”

  Bryan took a few steps back observing Sam with a look of superiority, as if he had finally got the upper hand, as if in some strange part of his brain he had managed to play his cards right and knew how the game would finish.

  “Where did you go?” Sam asked, hoping to stall the inevitable.

  Bryan snorted and stared back blankly. “I headed south in the hopes of joining up with one of the other groups of skinheads. And for a while that’s what I did.” His eyes drifted to the ground as if being forced to recall a horrific event. “Then one day, well, the moment I saw people turning on each other, I knew right then what I would do. I could have run, cowered away like the others but instead I decided to use it to my advantage.”

  “By bringing one here.”

  He shook his gun at Sam. “Bingo.”

  “Why?”

  Bryan frowned. “Why? Why what?”

  “Why does it matter? What good do you hope to achieve through this?”

  Bryan startled chuckling to himself and looking at his pals. “That’s why you struggled that night when I beat that guy within an inch of his life. You need to know why, whereas I don’t. I don’t need a reason why. I just do. That’s how we get it done, not by thinking.” He paused and came up close to Sam. “You know, when I first met you. I actually thought I had found someone who was like me. Someone who had got bounced around foster homes. Someone who understood what I had been through because you had been through it but then I realized… We’re not alike. Not even close.”

  “I could have told you that. You’re a lunatic.”

  Bryan smacked him across the face using the full force of his hand. Sam spat blood to the floor.

  “Get on your knees.”

  When Sam refused, he whipped his face again with the butt of his gun. Blood trickled down as he was forced to his knees.

  “You see, that’s how I knew you would show up here. Because you can’t let things go. You can’t just let them be the way they are. You. Your life. Your past. Your desperate need for acceptance by others. You can’t accept that you are the way you are and that’s all you’ll ever be. No, you think you can be more. You think people give a shit a
bout you? Well news alert, Frost. No one cares. Look around you. Where are they? Huh?”

  “They’re coming.”

  He snorted. “I love this guy. Such an… what’s the word…” he slung his gun around in the air as though he was searching for the words.

  “Optimist,” one of the other guys said.

  “That’s it. Optimist. I admire that but you are full of shit.”

  Bryan brought the gun up to his head, then moved it back and forth between the two of them. “Which one should I kill first? Tom’s father or you?”

  “If you’re going do it. Just do it, you asshole,” Tom’s father said. Bryan stopped in front of Sam. Then in an instant he shifted his hand and unloaded a bullet straight into the head of Tom’s father. His body slumped and Sam could hear ringing in his ears.

  “I was getting tired of listening to his shit. But, I also wanted you to see that, Sam, before I…”

  As he was bringing his gun towards Sam’s head, the door burst open and three of the insane came rushing in. Before they could react, one of them jumped on the back of Bryan’s pal and dug its fingers into his eyes, and tore a chunk out of his neck. As another skinhead fired, blood landed on his hand and he began screaming.

  “Get it off. Get it off.”

  It couldn’t have been on there but a few seconds when his eyes went red and he turned. There was explosion of gunfire as the other three skinheads and Bryan unloaded at the insane but by that time it was too late. Another came in the second door and pounced on one of them. Bryan grabbed a hold of Sam by the collar, pressed his gun against the back of his head and forced him out back. He kicked the door closed and instructed him to place a table behind it. He then turned and fired the gun at a window several times causing it to shatter. Then he forced Sam to climb out. All the while he kept his gun trained on him. The second Sam hit the ground, he tried to escape but Bryan shot him in the leg. Sam stumbled to the ground in agony. After Bryan climbed out, he forced him up and made him head down Hotel Street, then take a left on Seventh Street to the gray Motor Vehicle Department building. He shattered one of the windows on a side door in order to get inside, then thrust him into an office area. Sam gripped his calf. He’d never felt so much pain in his life.