by Damon Hunter
Carter was not sure the right way to reply.
“We don’t have to be enemies,” Vance said. “Plus, what he said about gunshots is true, you can get us, but you’ll be getting yourself. I have a feeling this hospital is packed with infected.”
“You got that right.”
Before Vance could say something else, they heard gunshots from the roof.
“I guess there is no harm in shooting you now,” Carter said. “Give me my fuel.”
Chapter 8
Palomar Medical Center Rooftop - Escondido, CA
“I bet you went to college,” Chase said to Ana as they sat leaning against the short wall at the edge of the roof. They had a good view of most of the rooftop and the entrance to the hospital from there.
Dr. Talbot had gone inside the chopper, correctly figuring Ana might still be angry at him. From where they sat, they had a good view of him too.
“What makes you think that?”
“You have the look. I bet you look at me and say ‘there is a dude who didn’t go to college’.”
“I’ll admit seeing your wearing camouflage with the Sacred Sons of America’s True Patriots patches doesn’t help. The militias aren’t a big thing on campus, at least not where I went. If you were wearing some normal clothes I could see you sitting in my chemistry class, though.”
“Really?” Chase said, sounding flattered.
“Yeah, and I would know. I was two years in at the University of Arizona, and if I get out of this alive, I’m planning on a third. I was, however, dumb enough to think coming here was a good idea, so you shouldn’t think I’m all that smart.”
“Smarter than me, I’m here in this shit too and I barely got out of high school.”
“You sound like you want to go to school.”
“I do. It would be nice to go somewhere and meet people like you instead of idiots like Cam Carson and his bunch.”
“Yeah, except you did meet someone like me,” she said as she scooted closer to him.
“I guess I did. Which is much better than just meeting someone like you.”
She got closer and said, “I got to meet you, too.”
Chase leaned forward and kissed her. He expected she might push him away, but instead she kissed him back. They stayed with their lips locked longer than either felt they should have. When they broke away, they both looked to the chopper to see if Dr. Talbot was watching. He wasn’t, but they still didn’t feel they had enough privacy.
Ana pulled away as she said, “We should probably keep watch.”
“Yeah,” Chase said.
“It doesn’t mean we can’t continue this later,” Ana told him.
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“I’d like that.”
“Good. Me too.”
“Something good may come out this whole stupid thing after…”
Chase stopped talking as he felt something grab the back of his shirt. He turned to see a hand had reached over the roof and gotten of fistful of his fatigues.
“What the Hell?” he said as he tried to pull away and draw his gun at the same time. The hand holding him was strong and pulled him back into the wall. The force of the impact with the wall knocked the gun from Chase’s grip.
Ana got to her feet as the vampire rotter pulled itself over the short wall. She drew one of her hatchets, but the vampire rotter in a nurse’s scrubs sank its rotting teeth into the top of Chase’s head before she could strike.
She swung for the back of its neck, but it shifted and she put the small axe into its shoulder instead. She pulled the axe out and went for a second swing, but it swung one of its long arms and smacked her across the face. The force of the blow knocked her off her feet. She landed hard on her back about ten feet away.
Ana felt like she was about to pass out after the back of her head struck the ground. Only the looming threat of the vampire rotter kept her awake. She looked up to see it getting ready to pounce and tried to move, but her body was not obeying her mind’s commands. It would have leaped and pinned her to the ground, but Chase, with his face covered in his own blood, grabbed it by the shoulder.
He no longer had his gun, so he drew his knife and stabbed the vampire rotter in the chest. He pulled the blade free and stabbed it again. He went for a third, but the vampire rotter twisted and smashed him across the chest, sending him tumbling over the side of the roof.
Ana was still having trouble getting her body to move. She managed to sit up and was starting to draw her gun when it turned back to her. Chase’s blood was running down its chin as it prepared to leap again.
A bullet hitting it in the shoulder stopped the leap. Ana glanced back to see Dr. Talbot firing a handgun. Talbot hit it two more times in the chest. The force of the rounds striking it knocked the vampire rotter backwards and it tumbled over the side of the roof.
“Thank you,”Ana said as she got to her feet.
“No problem. It was the least I could do,” Talbot told her as he walked to the edge of the roof. “Can we be even now?”
Ana seemed to be thinking about it when Talbot looked over the edge. The hand of the vampire rotter shot up and grabbed Talbot’s arm. Despite taking three bullets, two knife thrusts and a blow from Ana’s hatchet, it was still hanging onto the lip of the roof with one hand.
It had a grip on Talbot’s gun arm. He had no way to fire at it as it pulled him towards its open mouth. Talbot put his his free hand against the short wall and pushed back, but the vampire rotter was too strong.
It was coming forward to bite him when Ana stepped to the short wall and put a bullet in between the vampire rotter’s eyes. The bullet killed it and it let go on its handhold on the wall. The hand holding Dr. Talbot, however held tight. The dead weight of the vampire rotter pulled Talbot towards the edge.
Ana grabbed him, but she was not a big person, and for a second it seemed all she accomplished was ensuring they all fell fourteen stories together. She slowed him enough so that he could get a foot against the short wall and push back, keeping him from going over.
Dr. Talbot tried to pry the fingers gripping his arm loose, but all he did was lose some of his leverage. He let go and used the free hand to push against the short wall before he went over.
Ana reached over the wall and tried to get Talbot free of the dead rotter’s grip, but she could not get the elongated fingers to budge.
“At some point I’m going to get tired and end up a stain on the sidewalk,” Talbot told her as she quit trying break the rotter’s grip.
“I know,” she said as she drew her other hatchet. Before she could do anything with it, she heard a noise behind her. She turned to see the vampire rotter hanging onto Talbot was not the only one who had climbed to the roof. Two more were coming over on the over side.
She dropped both the hatchet and the pistol and grabbed her rifle. While she and Chase had been sitting there talking, she had leaned it against the short wall.
“What are you doing?” Talbot asked as the weight of the rotter pulled him a few more inches closer to becoming sidewalk art.
She didn’t answer, instead she raised the rifle and put three rounds into the first one over the roof, sending him back over. The next one jumped and she missed. It zig-zagged across the roof, making her second and third shots go wide. The fourth, however, caught it in the lower leg. With a big hole in its ankle, it was not spry enough to avoid her next rounds. She put enough bullets in it to drop it and then, while it was trying to get back on its feet, she took a little extra time and put a round in its head.
“Hurry,” Talbot said.
“Hang on, I’m coming,” Ana said as she gave the roof a quick scan for more threats.
“Hanging on isn’t my only problem,” Talbot screamed.
Seeing no threats, Ana put down the rifle and picked up the hatchet. She moved to the edge of the roof and saw what Talbot meant. Out of a busted window on the floor below them, she could see another vampire rotter crawling
out and begin climbing towards the roof. It saw her and somehow jumped. Ana rocked back and avoided the claw-like hand swinging for her by inches. After missing her, it grabbed the edge of the short wall and started pulling itself up.
Ana separated its fingers from its hand with a swing of the hatchet and it fell back. The determined rotter still caught the window ledge below them and avoided falling to its death. Ana turned and picked up the pistol she had dropped. It was getting ready to leap again when she shot it three times in the face.
“I don’t think I can hold on much longer,” Talbot said.
Ana leaned over the wall and swung at the rotter’s wrist with her hatchet. The angle was bad and the blow did not do much damage. There was no way to get a better angle, so she kept swinging.
“You’ve got amblers,” Talbot said as she chopped away.
Ana looked behind them and saw he was right, there were four of them. Drawn by the sound of the gunshots, they were coming onto the roof from the door the others had used to go into the hospital. Ana took another swing and for the first time felt the bone crack. She glanced behind her. The infected foursome had spotted them and were going straight for them. She didn’t think she had time for another swing.
“Hang on, Doc,” she said as she turned and fired the pistol, putting head shots into the first three. The gun clicked when she pulled the trigger the fourth time. She had fired the entire magazine. The ambler reached for her but she slapped the hand away with her gun and put the hatchet through the top of its head.
She turned back to see Talbot’s hand slip, he was going over when she grabbed his shirt collar and planted both her feet against the wall. She kept him from going over, but had no way to help free him. If she let go, he was gone. As she was holding him there, she saw another ambler come through the door.
Talbot recognized she could not let go and reached his free hand back.
“Give me the axe,” he said.
Ana handed it over as the ambler saw them and started heading their direction.
“Hurry,” Ana said. With one hand she was able to drop the spent magazine from her pistol but she couldn’t think of a way to get a new one in and chamber a round without her other hand.
Talbot had a worse angle than she did to chop at the rotter’s wrist. He tried and realized he would never free himself this way even if he had all day.
Holding nothing but an empty gun, Ana saw the ambler close the distance. She figured she had about five seconds before she had to let go. She knew Talbot was important—unlike her he could solve the rot problem—so she planned to hang on up to the last second. As it kept coming, she started thinking she didn’t even have the five seconds.
Knowing he would never get loose chopping at the wrist, Talbot instead swung for the fingers wrapped around his arm. The hatchet went through them easily. Too easily. Even with the TMRT armor he was wearing, the hatchet was buried in his forearm. The gun in his hand dropped when the axe struck bone. The rotter, however, succumbed to the power of gravity and headed for the ground fourteen stories below them.
“I’m free,” he yelled. He turned to see an ambler in a hospital gown was within arm’s reach and the only weapon he had was imbedded in his forearm.
Ana let go as soon as Talbot said “I’m.” She didn’t think she had time to wait to see if he was saying ‘free’ or ‘stuck’. She rolled and picked up the assault rifle. The ambler was nearly stepping on her when she raised the gun and fired up through the bottom of its chin.
She rolled to her feet to see Talbot wrenching her axe from his arm.
“There is a first aid kit in the chopper,” he said as he handed her the axe.
Ana put the hatchet in her belt and raised her rifle so it was aimed at Talbot’s head.
“What are you doing. I already apologized…”
“It’s not about that.”
“Then what?”
“The hatchet has infected blood on it.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Can you get infected from that?”
“Honestly,” Talbot told her, “I’m not sure.”
“Thus the gun to head, I prefer to be ready.”
“Are you sure it’s not personal?”
“I did the same to one of my best friends. With him, I pulled the trigger.”
“I assume you waited until he showed signs of infection,” Dr. Talbot said.
Ana looked him over. Talbot showed no symptoms. She lowered the rifle and said, “Patch yourself up, I’m going to try and contact the others. Those shots we had to fire are going to draw a crowd and we don’t want to be trapped on this roof.”
Chapter 9
Cam Carson’s Helicopter - The Mojave Desert, CA
Bo stepped out of the helicopter with the transponder under his arm like a football and Gavin stood next to him, holding his former next door neighbor’s hand. They were not related, but were the closest thing to family either of them had left, at least in California.
Katelin looked out at the pair of people still watching them. They were the safe zone, but she wasn’t sure how safe they were.
“In all this talk about how to get off this chopper, we haven’t discussed why we went down,” Katelin said.
“Can we figure that out once we are out of the killer robot in the sky shooting gallery?” Donna asked.
“Does it really matter?” Jennifer added.
“If some asshole shot us down, it does,” Katelin said.
“I’m not letting you shoot them,” Donna told her daughter.
“I didn’t say I wanted to. I’m just saying we should be careful. If they did shoot us down, running to them might be a bad idea.”
“She has a point,” Bo said.
“Okay, we’ll be careful,” Donna replied, “but I think we still can’t stay here forever.”
Bo got back into the chopper and grabbed a pair of binoculars. After scanning the area, he put them down and said, “We don’t have to go to them, we can go past them and up that hill.”
“If they follow?” Donna asked.
“Then we may have an idea if they are friend or foe,” Bo replied.
“Alright, we go up the hill,” Donna said.
Bo and Gavin got out again. Jennifer got out next and took Gavin’s hand on the other side. Donna grabbed as much gear as she could carry and stuffed it into a backpack she found in the chopper. She stood in front of them. Cletus grabbed as much stuff as he could carry and joined her.
“Stay close,” Donna said as she unslung her rifle.
Katelin drew the two Mac Tens holstered low on her leg and stood behind them.
“Like your mom said,” Bo told her. “Stay close. In fact, stay right on me.”
Katelin nodded and they huddled together. If the transponder signal could protect a motor home-sized vehicle they could spread out a bit, but they did not want to take the chance. They started moving towards the hill with all five of them staying within arm’s reach of the transponder.
None of them were surprised when the pair who had been watching moved to cut them off. The way they were moving did not give any of them a good feeling about their intentions.
“They’re going to be waiting for us,” Donna said.
Before anyone could reply, they saw they had another problem. Two amblers came wandering over the hillside. They were a middle-aged man and woman, dressed in khaki shorts and Hawaiian shirts. They looked like they were a couple, or at least used to be. In their current brain dead and drooling state, they may not have known the other one existed. Both of them saw the five survivors huddled together and started walking their way.
Cletus raised his rifle, but Donna put a hand on his shoulder and said, “It would be better to take them out without gunfire. Last thing we need to do is to draw a horde.”
“You think way out here there is enough of them to be a horde?” Cletus asked as they came to a stop and waited for the amblers to come to them.
“I’m surprised to see these two
, but better safe than sorry.” Donna said as she put her rifle back on her shoulder and drew her axe.
“I don’t really have anything but this knife,” Cletus said as he opened a folding knife to reveal a short black blade and locked it in place.
“Take my sword,” Bo said. He had used some rope to rig a strap so he could carry it on his back. “Or take the transponder and we can trade places.”
Cletus took the transponder and he and Bo switched places. Bo drew the medieval-looking broadsword he had taken to using and held it like he saw in a movie.
“You guys notice something?” Katelin asked. “Like no drone strike, we may be in the clear.”
“Could be,” Donna said. No one moved.
“We can split up,” Katelin said. “Maybe flank those two or at least make it harder for them to get the drop on us.”
The amblers were almost within ten yards of them when the infected lady exploded. The man never stopped coming their way and was vaporized himself a second later.
“Let’s keep moving,” Donna said as she wiped some ambler guts off her face. “I don’t think this shit is ever going to come out of my hair.”
“Look at the bright side,” Jennifer told her. “At least we know the transponder is working.”
They stayed together and reached the top of the hill. There, the pair who had been watching them was waiting with guns raised.
“We don’t mean you any harm,” Donna said.
“Good to know,” the man with the rifle said, but he didn’t lower it. “I still need you to put down your guns, and Conan the Barbarian needs to drop the sword too.”
None of them moved.
The other one was brandishing a handgun, a big revolver. He pointed at Cletus with it. “Is that thing the transponder?”
“I guess,” Cletus said.
“Put it down too.”
“Do it and we let you walk away,” the other man said.
“Did you shoot down our helicopter?” Donna asked.
“It was a good shot, wasn’t it?” the rifleman said.
Donna didn’t answer.
