by Damon Hunter
They did not have to be told twice. The four of them hustled into the trailer. Donna lowered the back window and Gavin told them to hang on as Donna hit the gas. She angled the Jeep towards the interstate.
Everyone was nervous when Donna drove into what they knew was the area patrolled by drones, especially the four in the trailer. Even though the transponder had kept them from being targeted before, there was always the chance the TMRT could change the code, and they still were not sure how the range worked. The Jeep could be safe, but it could be open season on the trailer. The trailer bounced around quite a bit, but the hitch held on and so did the four. To fall out probably meant death and they all knew it.
No missiles rained down on them as Donna found the interstate. With an actual road beneath the tires, she could speed up.
“I think we’re going to make it,” Ella said as the tires found the asphalt.
“Except we left all our loot back at camp,” Givens said.
“Fuck the loot,” Dennis replied. “I’d rather be alive and poor than a rich fucking zombie.”
“Amen to that,” Gil was saying when a vampire rotter who had been hanging onto the axle underneath the trailer climbed over the side and grabbed his ankle.
Gil kicked at it, but it had him in its grip with one hand while the other somehow kept a firm hold on the side of trailer. The rough terrain had scraped off large swaths of the skin on its backside, but it didn’t seem to care. Gil hung onto the side rail tightly as it pulled, but it was too strong and yanked his leg enough so it could sink its teeth into Gil’s ankle.
Dennis drew his knife from his boot and lunged toward the infected man who had just bit his friend. The vampire rotter hit him before he could get close enough, knocking him to the front of the trailer where he tumbled over the rail.
Dennis managed to grab enough rail to keep from hitting the road. He screamed when his feet brushed the pavement at sixty miles an hour. His right foot twisted in a way it shouldn’t, breaking his ankle. Dennis did his best to ignore the pain and got his feet up so they weren’t dragging on the road. He hung on tight as he watched the vampire rotter climb the rest of the way into the trailer.
Ella was the closest and Givens stood to intercept it before it got her. The back window of the Jeep came down again and they heard the kid with the guns yelling, “Get down.”
Givens got low and the girl’s twin machine guns roared. The rotter was full of holes when he flopped over the railing and into the road.
“Good shooting, kid,” Givens said as he turned back towards the Jeep.
Katelin replied by saying, “Look out.”
Givens turned to see Gil, with his face covered in sores and his eyes turned yellow, lunge at him. Givens was too slow to respond and ended up underneath his infected friend. Katelin tried to aim, but Ella had moved to try and help. She punched Gil in the head, but her blows did nothing to stop him from biting Givens in the face.
“Move, damn it,” Katelin yelled.
Ella realized she wasn’t doing any good. She was probably next to be bitten, so she moved away. Katelin took aim but the Jeep swerved hard to the right and she was knocked back away from the window.
Donna couldn’t help but watch the mirror and the stowaway vampire rotter attacking the people in the trailer. Even though this stretch of the interstate was fairly straight, her preoccupation with what was behind her meant she did not see the burned-out husk of truck blocking the road quick enough to slow down.
The truck took up two lanes, so she had to yank the wheel hard to get around it. She would have made it, but obscured by the truck was another burned-out vehicle sitting in their path. To avoid it, the Jeep left the road. Donna braked, knowing that with her current speed, there was a good chance she would roll the Jeep. She slowed the Jeep enough to stay on four wheels and swerved back onto the road.
Donna looked back to see what was going on and was surprised to see no one had fallen off the trailer during the short off-road excursion, though it would have been nice if the infected guy would have fallen out.
The bump going back on the road proved the last straw for the trailer. The bent hitch broke loose and the trailer, lacking a safety chain, separated from the Jeep. Thankfully, Donna had slowed to the point where it didn’t roll. Instead the front of the trailer dropped straight down.
Ella hung on as the nose of the trailer dropped and skidded along the pavement, shooting sparks until it came to a stop. None of the others did as well. She was the only one left on the trailer.
She looked back to see Dennis in the road. He looked in bad shape but he was alive. She heard something coming from her right and turned away from Dennis to see Gil, with so much of his face scraped off by the road she could see his skull in places, reaching for her.
For a split second, Donna was going to keep driving, but she stomped on the brakes instead. She knew even if one of her recently infected friends didn’t get her, a drone strike would. She threw the Jeep into reverse and backed toward the fallen trailer. As she drove, she could see one of the infected men coming up from the other side. Donna did not think he would get there in time.
Ella got her hands up and pushed Gil away, but he kept coming forward. She rolled to the other side of the trailer as Gil climbed over the railing. She would have jumped off and run into the desert but saw the Jeep coming back at her fast and stayed put. She turned back to see that Gil was almost on top of her. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her toward his open mouth.
Cletus opened the door and grabbed her by the back of her shirt and yanked her away from Gil’s bite. He couldn’t get her free from infected Gil’s vise-like grip but he left Gil with a handful of her jet black hair as he pulled her into the Jeep.While Bo was getting Ella inside, Gavin was yelling from the back as Givens ran on all fours towards the Jeep.
“Is she in?” Donna asked.
“Yes,” Cletus said, even though the door was not closed.
Donna put the Jeep in drive and hit the gas. Gil lunged and got a grip on Ella’s foot, which was still hanging out the open door. As Donna pulled away, he was still hanging on. Bo saw the two of them getting pulled out of the Jeep and got a handful of Cletus’s shirt. He kept Cletus in and Cletus kept his grip on Ella.
While they were struggling to stay in the Jeep, vampire rotter Givens leapt and got his elongated fingers on the bumper of the Jeep. He was already covered in road rash, and a little more didn’t bother him as he climbed up the back.
Katelin did not see him, as she was watching Ella struggle to stay inside as Gil began to use her to climb up towards the open door. She drew a Glock and leaned over the seat in front of Ella. She saw Gil opening his mouth to spread his disease. It was a hard shot leaning over the seat with him draped over Ella’s legs as they sped along the highway, but she didn’t think she had a choice but to try. Katelin pulled the trigger and put a bullet in the middle of Gil’s face.
He was dead, but kept his grip on Ella. His dead weight was dragging Ella out of the car. Cletus kept his grip and tried to find some sort of leverage to keep her inside while Bo tried to pull them both in. Jennifer saw what was happening and twisted around to try and help.
Katelin was still leaning over the seat when she felt the short katana sheathed on her back begin to be pulled loose. She turned to see Gavin stab at Givens as he crawled in the window.
Gavin tried to drive the blade through the vampire rotter’s yellow eye, but it raised an arm and instead he put the short sword through the vampire rotter’s forearm.
Katelin was twisting around so she could shoot vampire rotter Givens in his face when he grabbed Gavin and pulled him towards his open mouth. Katelin didn’t want to risk shooting the kid, but she didn’t want to see him bitten either. She lunged forward, hoping to put the gun right on Givens’ forehead before she pulled the trigger.
The vampire rotter saw her coming. It still needed one hand to hang on, so it dropped Gavin and smacked Katelin as she came forward. She shot back
wards with the force of the blow. When she hit the back of the seat, the gun flew from her hand. The impact left her dazed.
Seeing her hurt, vampire rotter Givens forgot about Gavin and started coming in to get Katelin.
Donna could see her daughter was in trouble. She hit the button to raise the window in the back. The window pinned the vampire rotter to the roof but he still had one arm and his face inside. Even though the arm had the short katana sticking out, it still worked just fine. He got a hold of Katelin’s leg and pulled her to his open mouth.
Donna slammed on the brakes. The jolt of the quick stop bounced Cletus and Ella loose from Bo’s grip and they both tumbled out of the Jeep.
The sudden stop also jolted the vampire rotter. He lost his grip on Katelin, but only for a second.
“Give me an axe,” Bo said to Jennifer. Without Cletus to hang onto, he could turn his attention to the vampire rotter.
Jennifer handed him one of her hatchets as the vampire rotter pulled the still dazed Katelin close enough he could reach her hair. He picked her up and opened his mouth to tear out her throat. The vampire rotters seemed to sense the immune, and instead of trying to infect them just went for the kill. Bo moved as fast as he could over the seat but knew he would not get there in time.
Donna grabbed her pistol and left the car, keeping contact with the Jeep so a drone missile didn’t lock onto her. She came around the side and fired into the legs and back of the vampire rotter hanging out of the back window. She put all ten rounds from the S&W forty caliber she was carrying into the infected thief. After firing her last round, she could tell it was still alive and probably biting her daughter. She realized she had not brought any more ammunition with her.
Having ten slugs pierce his backside made vampire rotter Givens pause before sinking his teeth into Katelin. Gavin lunged forward during the pause and grabbed the sword still stuck deeply into Givens’ arm.
Gavin pushed with all his might and shoved the blade through until the hilt hit the arm. He then pulled backwards, hoping to free the katana so he could strike again, but it was stuck tight. He did manage to distract the rotter long enough for Bo to come over the seat and swing the hatchet. The cramped conditions of the trunk made it hard to put a full swing into it but he still got enough force in the blow to put the blade through the thing’s left jawbone. The axe went all the way through and half of its jaw swung loose.
The axe was stuck on vampire rotter Givens’ face. Bo was trying to yank it free but he was having trouble, with Katelin underneath him, getting any leverage. While Bo was trying to get the hatchet loose, the rotter put his legs on the bumper and pushed backwards. The window shattered and he fell backwards onto the pavement. Bo lost his grip on the axe but Gavin kept his grip on the sword so he went out with the vampire rotter. When they hit, Gavin lost his grip and went rolling onto the street.
On the other side of the Jeep, Cletus had untangled himself from Ella. He stood up and moved around her so he could help get her free of Gil’s dead body. Cletus pulled while she pried at the fingers. Instead of getting Gil off of her, Cletus was dragging them both further away from the Wagoneer.
Jennifer saw them getting farther and farther away and stepped out herself. She kept a hand on the Jeep but reached out towards them as she said, “You need to get back to the Jeep.”
They were so busy trying to get Gil off of Ella that they didn’t hear her.
Jennifer yelled this time, “You need to get back to the Jeep. The drones.”
This time they both looked up at her.
“Oh shit,” Cletus said as he stood up straight and looked at Jennifer. “She’s right.”
He moved around to the other side of Ella to drag her and Gil’s corpse back to the Jeep when there was a whooshing sound and he, Ella and Gil’s dead body were turned to liquid by a missile fired from an unseen robot in the sky.
The heat from the blast scorched Jennifer’s hair and one of Ella’s arms smacked her in the chest. She was covered in the blood of all three. The explosion, along with Ella’s dismembered forearm, knocked her back into the Jeep, and the force of hitting the Jeep pitched her onto the road right next to the red spot in the charred asphalt where Cletus, Ella, and Gil had been.
Everyone but the vampire rotter looked when the missile struck. Donna saw Gavin lying in the road. He was even farther away than Cletus and Ella. She wanted to yell for him to run to the Jeep, but a vampire rotter with an axe in his face and a sword through his arm was rising to his feet and focusing his yellow eyes on her. Donna turned and ran for the open driver’s side door. She was almost there when the vampire rotter leaped and knocked her to the ground. Donna was pinned on her belly with the infected Givens on her back. She tried to squirm free but couldn’t get anywhere. There was nothing she could do to stop him from ripping into her flesh with his rotten, jagged, new teeth.
Chapter 12
Palomar Medical Center Rooftop - Escondido, CA
“You should let me look at that leg,” Carter said to Vance as they reached the roof. “I’m not just a pilot, I’m also an EMT.”
“I’ll be fine,” Vance told him. “Just go gas up the chopper.”
“I’m going to need to do my pre-flight check.”
“One thing at a time,” Vance told him.
Vance leaned against the chopper’s hull while Carter started dumping fuel into the helicopter’s empty fuel tanks. He looked over and saw Dr. Talbot already in the chopper stretched out along the seats. For a second, Vance thought he might be dead, but he saw he was breathing. It appeared he was taking a nap but he looked up and waved.
Vance saw his arm. It had been bandaged badly. A testament not to Talbot’s lack of skill but the difficulty in doing a proper field dressing with only one hand.
“It’s from Ana’s hatchet,” Talbot said defensively.
Vance nodded and went back to watching Carter. He didn’t really want to talk to Talbot anyway.
Carter finished filling the chopper. He pointed to the cockpit and said, “I should go do the pre-flight.”
“Or not,” Vance said. “I don’t want you thinking you can leave without us.”
“Look, it is necessary.”
“Then hopefully once everyone is in the chopper, you will have time to do it,” Vance told him. “Otherwise, just sit down and wait.”
“How long are we going to give them?”
Vance shrugged. “I’ll tell you when the time comes.”
“You know, you’re killing my family.”
“Maybe we can work something out,” Vance told him. “I don’t want your family to die, but you’re not leaving us, what we are doing is too important.”
“Your lives are more important than mine? Or my family’s?”
“We may have the cure.”
“Bullshit.”
“The information is back at the checkpoint and we can’t leave it behind. Every one of us who was on this roof was on our way out of the QZ. Every single one of us chose to stay to get the stuff back at the checkpoint. It is not bullshit.”
Carter had nothing to say to that. He looked away from Vance and heard something behind him. He turned and looked up to see a vampire rotter in nurse’s scrubs coming over the top of the helicopter. “We’ve got company,” he said to Vance as he pointed up.
Vance turned and saw it leaping for him. Vance raised the shotgun as he pushed himself off the chopper with his one good leg. He fired as he fell backwards, removing the rotter’s shoulder and right arm. The blast knocked it off course. Instead of pouncing on Vance, it landed next to him.
Vance was on his back when the vampire rotter rolled to its feet and got ready to attack him again. Vance pumped another shell into the chamber and turned to fire, but it used its one remaining hand to slap the gun aside. Vance’s next shot went wide, hitting the door to the hospital instead of the nurse turned vampire rotter.
Vance managed to hold onto the shotgun. He flipped it in his hands so he was holding the barrel an
d swung the stock at the leaping vampire rotter. He caught it flush in the jaw and for a moment stopped its progress. Vance could see it getting ready to pounce again so he spun so he could get his feet up and keep the rotter off of him.
Vance planted both feet into the rotter’s chest as it came forward. It reached for his throat while he held it at bay with his legs and it could not quite reach him. Vance racked the slide on the shotgun and aimed for the rotter’s open mouth. Vance pulled the trigger and nothing happened. Carter had only two shells in the gun. Vance used the shotgun like a bat again, putting a big dent in the side of the vampire rotter’s head and throwing it aside.
Vance drew his pistol and put a bullet between the rotter’s eyes. Vance rolled to his feet to see Carter was no longer sitting on the ground. The sound of the chopper’s engines roaring to life let him know where Carter had gone.
The already bad leg had gotten worse while fighting off the vampire rotter. When Vance took a step towards the chopper, the bad leg didn’t respond and he fell to the ground.
As he pushed himself back to his feet, he saw another vampire rotter come over the side of the roof. He knew it would be on him before he made it to the chopper, so Vance stopped and took aim.
It took four shots as the the thing moved to try and dodge, but he put it down. By the time he dropped the rotter, the chopper was in the air.
Vance pointed the pistol at the chopper but held his fire. If he shot Carter and he wrecked the chopper, he wouldn’t be any better off.
Vance lowered his gun and watched the helicopter fly away, leaving him behind.
Chapter 13
Palomar Medical Center Fourteenth Floor - Escondido, CA
Ana stepped back and sprayed the infected at her feet with machine gun fire. She raised the gun to fire at the amblers filling the hall as she continued to backpedal away from the horde spilling onto the fourteenth floor, but realized Ben was just on the other side of the them. She didn’t want to shoot him by mistake.
