by Damon Hunter
“Get low,” she heard him shout and she did as he said, crouching and moving against the wall.
She could hear Ben’s forty-five and saw amblers fall as he delivered headshots. He cleared a path and came through, joining Ana on the other side of the amblers. The path of dead infected he created was quickly filled as more amblers came rushing into the hall.
“Now we are both on the wrong side,” Ana said.
“The hallway is a big circle,” Ben told her as he put a new magazine into his Colt 1911. He turned and fired once, killing another ambler. “If they follow us, we can get around to the roof.”
The horde was turning their way. They decided to save their ammunition and run.
“Three corners,” Ben told her as they ran down the hallway. “We turn three corners and we’re there.”
They turned one corner and saw an empty hallway in front of them.
“One down, two to go,” Ben said as they kept running.
They made it to the end and turned the corner. Again, it was clear all the way to the end.
“Two down,” Ben said.
They ran to the end. Ben was a little faster so he turned the last corner first, saying, “Last one.” Ana came around and almost knocked him over as she didn’t expect him to stop. She saw why he had come to a halt. The hallway was filled with the infected.
“Shit,” Ben said as they both turned back the other way. They didn’t go far as amblers were turning the corner at the far end. They found themselves in the middle of two approaching hordes.
“Maybe we can fight our way through,” Ana said.
Ben shook his head and said, “Even if we could, while we are fighting one side, the other is going to be on our backs.”
“Then what?”
Ben looked and saw an open door. They both ran inside and he shut and locked the door behind them.
“That won’t hold long,” Ana said as she looked around the long conference room. She looked and saw the busted windows.
“This is where they climbed out,” she said, “They came out of here and killed Chase.”
“I’m sorry,” Ben said, “I know you liked him.”
“Yeah, I did.” Ana lowered her head as she said this and saw the TMRT Sick Slaying Stick on the floor at her feet.
She leaned down and picked it up. When she did, she saw Fan’s body on the carpet. It was clear he was infected before he died.
“I found Fan,” Ana said. “He didn’t make it.”
Ben checked the other bodies on the floor and said, “No Novak. I wonder if he made it.”
“Be nice to think someone did,” Ana said as the infected started to pound on the door.
“Let’s not give up yet,” Ben told her as he moved to the busted window. Looking out, he didn’t see much to hang onto. The vampire rotters may have been able to climb to the roof from here but he didn’t think he or Ana could. It was a long way down, but as he looked he saw a body in a TMRT uniform below the window. He was too far away and the body had taken too much abuse for him to be a hundred percent sure, but Ben had a feeling Novak didn’t make it either.
Ben looked across the conference room and got an idea.
“Can I see that?” he asked as he motioned to the Sick Slaying Stick.
“Sure,” she said as she handed it over to him.
Ben went to the end of the room and felt along the wall. He tapped a few spots with his knuckles and then put his gun in his belt so he could swing the SSS with both hands. Ben smashed the section of wall he had been knocking on with the ball end. The ball went all the way through.
He pulled it away and said, “There is plenty of room between the framing, so it’s just a couple sheets of drywall between us and the next room. We can get out of here.”
“They’ll see the hole,” Ana said.
“Sure, but after we are in the next room, there’s only two sheets of drywall between us and the next room, we can work our way all the way down the hall,” Ben told her as he cleared out more dry wall.
He wasn’t completely right, there was some wiring running through the walls, but that didn’t stop them. Ben cleared enough drywall for them to step into the next room, which was someone’s office.
While Ben cleared some framed diplomas and certificates from the wall they needed to bust through, Ana looked back to see the door they had locked in the other room come down.
“Do this one fast,” she told him.
Ben nodded and swung the Sick Slaying Stick. It burst through just as the last one did. He went to bring it back to give it another swing but something on the other side grabbed it and pulled it forward. Ben hit the wall and lost his grip on the TMRT signature weapon.
Ben fell back and would have hit the floor, but the arm of a vampire rotter shot through the hole he had made and grabbed him by the arm. It tried to pull him back through, but the hole he had made was not near big enough and he smacked into the wall again. Ben tried to push away but the vampire rotter held on fast.
Ana unslung the rifle from her back and pointed the barrel along the wall next to where Ben was pinned. She fired and then moved the barrel an inch and fired again. She did this four times and did enough damage that Ben was able to pull himself free. Ana moved to the hole and put the bleeding vampire rotter’s face in her sights. She pulled the trigger and put him down for good.
Her gunshots attracted the attention of the amblers who stumbled into the conference room, as well as the ones in the hall. As the horde inside the conference room turned to pursue them through the hole in the wall, amblers began to pound on the office door.
Ben grabbed an end of the desk in the corner of the office. Ana saw what he was doing and took the other end. They pushed it in front of the hole in the wall just before the first one came through the opening. It was reaching across the desk when Ben drew his knife and stabbed it in the throat.
“I’ll hold them off,” Ben said as he drew his pistol. “Get through the hole.”
Ana was not a big person, but the opening was still too small. She used her rifle to pound out some more drywall. The bullet holes she made earlier made it easier to clear some space. She didn’t clear much, but she gave herself room to crawl through.
She turned back once through into another office and yelled back to Ben, “Come on.”
“I’ll never fit.”
Ana put down her rifle and grabbed the Sick Slaying Stick. She couldn’t get the same force behind her swings as Ben could, but she still cleared some space. She made the hole bigger, but not to the point that he could crawl through as he did when they busted out of the conference room.
“How about now?” she shouted through the hole.
The bodies of the infected had sealed the opening into the office enough that Ben could look. He thought it was tight but believed he could make it. A vampire rotter hand punching a hole in the office door made giving it a try an easy decision. He put the knife in its sheath and the gun in his belt and dove for the opening.
Once he got his torso into the next room, Ana grabbed him and pulled him all the way through. They both fell to the floor. From the floor, Ben saw the face of a vampire rotter come through the hole. He rolled to this back as he drew his pistol. He put three rounds into its face and it slumped dead, half in this room and half in the office.
Ben stood up, saying, “On the plus side, he kind of plugs the hole.”
Ana stood and saw they were in another office, this one longer than the last. There was a bookshelf on the wall they need to bust through. They tried to pull it down, but whoever put it up bolted it to the wall.
“Damn, we were almost there,” Ben said. “Maybe two more rooms tops.”
Ana moved to the door and put her ear against it. “They aren’t pounding on this door.”
“Not yet anyway,” Ben said.
“They are drawn to gunshots,” Ana said. “They might all be trying to get into the last office, we know a bunch of them were coming through the conference room. The office is long eno
ugh we might be past them.”
“I don’t know,” Ben said.
“You said maybe two more rooms, we can make it.”
Ben put away his gun and picked up the Sick Slaying Stick. “Even if we can’t, I don’t see a lot of other choices.”
Chapter 14
Interstate 10 - California
Katelin had regained enough of her senses to know her mom was in trouble. She found the latch and opened the tailgate. Both she and Bo rolled out.
“I’ll get Gavin,” Bo said. “Save your mother.”
Katelin drew her other Glock and went around the corner. With the rotter on top of her mom, she didn’t have a shot. She holstered the gun and drew the sword. As she stepped toward it, she saw the vampire rotter bring his jaws toward her mother’s face.
“No,” Katelin screamed as she charged, no longer worrying about staying close to the Jeep.
Katelin leaped as she brought the sword behind her head and swung straight down. She split the vampire rotter’s head down the middle, dividing the rotter’s head in half all the way until the axe stuck in his mouth stopped the blade. Katelin worried she cut her mother as well, as blood sprayed up out of the vampire rotter’s neck like a fountain. She pulled the sword free, thinking it might be better if she had killed her mom with the stroke. If she was bitten and infected, it would be easier to get it over with that way.
Jennifer opened her eyes and saw she was literally lying on the spot where the others had been blown up. She put her hands on the ground and tried to push herself to her feet, but the blood on the ground along with the blood on her hands made everything slick. She ended up back on her face. She tried again, this time getting some purchase. As she got to her feet, she tried to remember how long it was before the missile took out the others. It seemed she might have already been in the kill zone at least that long. She heard the whooshing sound as she dove back to the Jeep.
“Get up,” Bo yelled at Gavin as he sprinted towards him. He heard the sound of the rocket cutting the air and the explosion behind him but didn’t look back as he kept his focus on Gavin.
Gavin was slow getting up. Getting tossed down the road had taken a lot out of him. Bo reached him and threw the kid over his shoulder. He spun and started running back towards the Jeep. He was sure any second he would hear the sound of a rocket slicing through the air and then feel the heat. He figured he would only feel it for a half second or so. He didn’t want to die, and certainly didn’t want the ten-year-kid who had ended up in his care getting blown to bits, but he figured there were worse ways to go while in the Quarantine Zone.
With the Jeep within reach, he tossed Gavin, throwing the kid in the trunk where he knew he would be safe. He swore he could hear the whooshing sound as he took one more step and then dove for the car himself.
The second Bo got under the protection of the transponder signal, the missile that had locked onto him veered away. The rocket hit in the desert, close enough for them to feel the heat and feel the ground shake, but not close enough to do any damage.
As he and Gavin took a deep breath, both almost incredulous they were still alive, they heard Jennifer say from the front seat, “I think yours was closer than mine.”
They both looked up over the back seat. She was a mess, her hair was still smoking and she was covered in blood and gore, but she was alive. Like what had happened with them, the missile that had locked on her had veered away when she got under the umbrella provided by the transponder.
Bo made sure he stayed close as he got out to check on Katelin and Donna. Katelin was pulling the dead vampire rotter off her mother.
“Is she okay?” Bo asked.
Katelin turned with tears in her eyes and shook her head.
Bo fell to his knees and put his head in his hands. He had insisted they save the foursome who had been planning to steal the transponder and leave them all to die. Because of his decision, Cletus was dead and Donna most likely soon would be. He seriously considered walking away from the Jeep until a missile made him a smoking puddle on the asphalt.
“I’m fine,” Donna said as she rolled to her feet and made sure she was touching the Jeep.
“He had his mouth on you,” Katelin said. “Unless you’re immune, you’re not okay.”
“I didn’t feel a bite,” Donna said. “I would have noticed.”
“I saw him with his mouth on you,” Katelin said.
Donna turned so Katelin could see her back. “ Do you see anything?”
Katelin put away her sword and stepped closer, keeping a hand on the butt of her Glock in case her mom turned. She was surprised to see her mother’s shirt still intact.
“Lift your shirt,” Katelin said. “Bo’s over there bawling, he won’t look.”
“I doubt he wants to,” Donna said as she went ahead and pulled her t-shirt off. “You see anything?”
“Other than you need to get some better bras? No.”
“Told you,” Donna said as she put her shirt back on.
“How?” Katelin asked.
They both looked at the dead vampire rotter and despite the head being split in half, they could see how Bo’s hatchet strike had messed up its jaw.
“He couldn’t bite,” Katelin said as she leaned down, keeping one hand on the Jeep, and freed the hatchet from the rotter’s face. She handed her mom the axe and then pulled the short sword out of its arm.
“He would have found a way eventually,” Donna said. “Thanks.”
“What are daughters for if they can’t go all Toshiro Mifune on a vampire rotter for their favourite mother.”
“Toshiro Mifune?”
“I went on a Netflix samurai movie binge one weekend,” Katelin told her mother before turning to Bo. “You can quit crying, she’s fine. You fucked up its jaw so it couldn’t bite properly.”
“Really?” Bo asked as he looked up and saw Donna looked to be free of infection.
“Yep,” Donna said. “I’m glad to see you care.”
“It would have been my fault.”
“Well, I’m good,” Donna said.
“That kid Cletus isn’t.”
“Not to break up your pity party, but he chose to come into the Quarantine Zone. You can’t take all the blame,” Katelin said.
“I certainly didn’t help. If we hadn’t gone for the trailer, we could have been out of here. The people I wanted to save are all dead.”
“Yeah, well, shit happens,” Katelin told him.
“Language,” Donna said to Katelin.
“Whatever,” Katelin replied.
Donna looked at Bo. “She should say it another way, but she’s right.”
“Doesn’t feel right,” Bo replied.
“I get that, but how about we discuss this on the road?” Donna told him. “It would be nice to get somewhere where things aren’t trying to bite us or blow us to smithereens.”
“Good point,” Bo said.
Donna got behind the wheel and Katelin got in the seat behind her. Bo shut the trunk and then joined Katelin in the backseat.
Donna put the Wagoneer back in drive and they started driving east again.
“So all we have to do is keep driving until we are out of the Quarantine Zone?” Jennifer asked.
Donna put on the brakes.
“What are you doing?” Jennifer asked.
“They will have a roadblock,” Donna said. “They will shoot first and ask questions later. The transponder isn’t going to matter to the people manning the roadblock.”
“Are you sure they will just kill us?” Jennifer said. “We can prove we aren’t infected.”
“The fact a third of that goo on you comes from an infected person would be more than enough to get them shooting at us,” Katelin said.
“If the bite didn’t infect me, this won’t.”
“They won’t care,” Bo said. “Of all the bad things that have happened, you haven’t had the misfortune of dealing with the TMRT. Some of them might be worse than the infected.”<
br />
“Like the asshole my Dad is helping,” Katelin said.
“Language,” Donna told her daughter again.
“How would you describe him?”
“Okay, you get a pass on that one, but none of this helps us get clear of the QZ,” Donna told her.
“We’ve got four wheel drive,” Bo said. “We could off-road it out of here.”
“Maybe, but we don’t know how far to go. For all we know, we have to get to Arizona. Gas is going to be an issue sooner rather than later, too.”
“We don’t really have the supplies to wander the desert,” Jennifer added.
Donna started driving again. “Maybe we go slow and have someone keep an eye out with the binoculars. If we can spot the end of the QZ, then maybe we can work around it without getting lost in the desert.”
Bo nodded and said, “Sounds like the best bet.”
Jennifer found the binoculars and focused them down the road.
The miles went on in silence. Donna began to worry about the gasoline situation. The needle was already on empty, she wasn’t sure how much farther they were going to get.
“I see something,” Jennifer said.
“A checkpoint?” Donna asked.
“No, it looks like people walking in the road.”
“Towards us? Or the other way?” Bo asked.
“Towards.”
“Someone is walking into the QZ?”
Jennifer handed the binoculars back to Bo. He leaned over Jennifer’s shoulder and took a look.
“She’s right,” he said. “I’d bet they’re infected.”
“No drones?” Donna asked as they were close enough now they could see them without the binoculars.
“Doesn’t look like it. They were firing on us pretty quickly,” Bo said, “They should all be toast by now.”
“What does this mean?” Jennifer asked.
“That they established a checkpoint and a kill zone,” Katelin told them, “and it has already been overrun.”
“I wish I could say she was wrong,” Bo said, “but it makes sense.”
They were getting close enough that there was no need for binoculars. There were around a dozen amblers on the road coming toward them.
