The Search - A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (ROT SERIES Book 5)

by Damon Hunter

  “So are we out of the kill zone?” Jennifer asked.

  “I would say so,” Donna said.

  Donna had just finished speaking when the ambler closest to them blew up.

  “Or not,” Katelin replied.

  More infected fell to drone strikes as they got closer.

  “Well, we know where the kill zone ends,” Bo said.

  They drove slowly and found themselves driving among the infected. There were a lot more than the dozen they had first seen. Victims of the rot all around them were reduced to smoking puddles of gore as the drone strikes continued.

  They went over a small rise and in front of them was a roadblock. It looked manned by TMRT, but using the binoculars, Jennifer was able to see it had been abandoned.

  “Can we go around?” Bo asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Donna said, but as she steered them off road, they had not gone far before the Jeep began to sputter and cough. Donna stopped, knowing the Wagoneer was nearly out of fuel.

  “What do we do now?” Jennifer asked as infected kept walking past them. They were lucky none had noticed them, but all of them knew that wouldn’t last.

  Donna shrugged. “I’m open to suggestions.”

  None of them had any.

  Chapter 15

  Palomar Medical Center 14th Floor - Escondido, CA

  Ana grabbed the door handle and Ben raised the Sick Slaying Stick.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  “No, but let’s go for it anyway,” Ben said as he pressed a button on the staff and released the spikes on the ball end of the Sick Slaying Stick.

  Ana swung open the door. She hoped the horde had passed them by, but a doctor with sores rapidly growing and popping on his face was standing at the doorway. Ben bashed in his head with the Sick Slaying Stick and then kicked the infected doctor out of the way.

  Ben stepped through the door and bashed another ambler in the head. He saw Ana was partially right. Nearly all the horde was moving the other way, but there was still plenty of amblers between them and the entrance to the stairway up to the roof.

  He glanced quickly back to Ana as she followed him into the hall and said, “No guns.”

  Ana nodded, put the rifle on her back, and drew her hatchets.

  Ben kicked the nearest ambler in the chest, sending it stumbling back into the amblers behind it. While they were off balance, he swung the Sick Slaying Stick and sent four of them to the floor. This gave them some space and they moved through it.

  Ben felt something tug at his leg. He turned to see one of the amblers he knocked down grabbing his pants. Ana chopped down with her axe in her right hand into the ambler’s head and used the hatchet in her left to remove its hand at the wrist.

  Ben kept moving, ignoring the severed hand still gripping his jeans. He jabbed forward with the ball end of the Sick Slaying Stick and rammed the ambler who stepped in his path in the chest. The spikes were stuck in the ambler’s chest, but Ben kept pushing forward. Using the ambler like a battering ram, Ben plowed ahead. They reached the door and Ben twisted the spikes loose and let the dead ambler finally fall to the ground. Ana put one hatchet back in her belt and grabbed the door handle while Ben swung the Sick Slaying Stick at an infected nurse who managed to avoid being knocked away by the ambler on a stick Ben used to clear a path to the exit.

  Ana threw open the door and stepped through. She turned to see Ben taking out another ambler with the blade side of the Sick Slaying Stick and told him, “Come on.”

  Ben stepped through the door and Ana shut it behind them. She turned the lock and they ran up the stairs towards another door. They burst onto the roof and Ana shut and locked that door as well as quickly as she could.

  “We made it,” Ben said.

  “Let’s get the hell off this roof,” Ana told him.

  They looked over and saw the helicopter was no longer on the pad. Other than the dead bodies of the infected and the empty gas cans, all they could see on the roof was Vance sitting down on the helicopter pad.

  “Where is the chopper?” Ana asked as she and Ben got closer.

  “Vampire rotters climbed up to the roof,” Vance said. “While I was fighting them off, Carter decided to leave without us. I’m so sorry.”

  Ben looked around the area as if he could spot something to get them off the roof and said, “This isn’t good.”

  “It’s probably worse than that,” Vance said. “Except for what we have on us, all our gear is on the chopper.”

  Ben looked at the door. “They’re going to get through at some point. Probably sooner rather than later.”

  “Yeah,” Vance replied.

  “Where’s Talbot?” Ana asked.

  “He was in the chopper,” Vance said. “I don’t think Carter knew he was there.”

  “So that asshole is the one who gets to escape?” Ana said.

  “Looks that way.”

  “What’s the plan then?” Ben asked. “You’re the TMRT badass, surely you’ve got a plan?”

  Vance shrugged. “I think it’s your turn to come up with the plan.”

  “I’m a high school dropout with a rap sheet. Plans aren’t one of my strong points.”

  “If we had some rope or something, we could climb to the windows the rotters knocked out,” Ana said. “We escaped the hotel with bed sheets back in Oceanside.”

  “We don’t have either one,” Ben told her.

  Vance pointed at his leg and said, “I don’t think I’m climbing anywhere anyway.”

  They all looked at the door as something began to pound on it.

  “So we do nothing?” Ben asked.

  Vance struggled to his feet and took his Sick Slaying Stick in two hands. He hit the buttons on the side and released the blade on one end and the spikes on the other and said, “I’m going to fight.”

  “There’s a lot of them,” Ben told him.

  “Before they get me there is going to be a lot less,” Vance replied.

  Ana checked the magazine on her rifle while Ben checked his pistol. While they were waiting to make what was most likely going to be a futile last stand, Vance felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

  He held the SSS with one hand and saw Donna was calling him. He was supposed to text her every hour but had been too busy. He hoped she was calling to say they were safely out of the QZ. They should’ve been out for awhile. He was going to answer it and at least say goodbye since he didn’t figure he would get another chance when the door fell and the infected poured out onto the roof.

  Chapter 16

  Palomar Medical Center Life Flight Helicopter - Escondido, CA

  Talbot found his pistol before he slid into the co-pilot’s seat. He put it to Carter’s head and chambered a round before telling him, “Turn this thing around.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” Carter asked as he kept the chopper moving away from the hospital.

  “I’m the guy with the gun telling you to go back.”

  “You have a name other than guy with a gun telling me to go back?”

  “Talbot, Dr. Talbot. I don’t want to have to tell you again, turn this thing around. I’ve done a lot worse this last week or so than shoot a man in the head, believe me.”

  “I believe you, Doc, but I’m guessing you don’t know how to fly this thing. If you have anything in mind but dying in a fiery helicopter crash, then you don’t want to shoot me.”

  Talbot knew the pilot was right. He had hoped fear would cloud the pilot’s judgment—having a loaded gun pressed on one’s temple could do that—but the pilot knew he had an advantage. Unlike when Fan did the same thing to Reg, Dr. Talbot was not willing to die to get his way and it showed.

  Talbot lowered the gun and said, “I’m on a mission. An important one. I need their help.”

  “I have a mission too. It’s also an important one.”

  “I’m sure you do, but…”

  “But nothing. You might as well shut up, Doc. There isn’t anything you could say to make me aban
don my family in this shit.”

  “There are bigger things than your family.”

  “Not to me. Since I’m the one who can fly the chopper, I decide what’s most important.”

  “Maybe after your family is safe…”

  “Maybe, but we aren’t even going to discuss it until they are.”

  Talbot had a feeling the pilot had no intention of helping him even if his family was safe. He had no idea what to do about it.

  “There is my house,” Carter said, pointing to a neighborhood below them.

  “Your family is inside?”

  “Last I checked. I told them I would land in the cul de sac at the end of the block, where I would have plenty of room to put the chopper down. They should be waiting.”

  “I don’t see anybody,” Talbot said as Carter began to slowly lower the chopper down to the street.

  “They probably stayed inside. They will see me and come running.”

  “When is the last time you talked to them?” Talbot asked as Carter put the chopper down in the cul de sac.

  “I don’t know, two hours?”

  “Two hours?”

  “I had to fight my way to the roof. It wasn’t easy,” Carter said as he watched the house. No one was coming out. He pulled his phone from his pocket and called his wife.

  When no one answered his call, Talbot said, “They didn’t make it.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “You own a lot of guns? Does anyone in your family have combat training?”

  “No.”

  “Then they didn’t make it,” Talbot said as he pointed out into the neighborhood. “No one did. This thing is loud as hell, anyone alive and not infected within a two-block radius would know you’re here, and anyone still rot free would want to get the hell out of here. Yet there is nobody.”

  “Maybe because everybody else already left. I should check the house.”

  “For what? They knew you were coming, and there is no way they didn’t hear us. There are no infected in the streets at the moment. If they could come to the chopper, they would.”

  “I can’t go without knowing for sure. My wife and kids are in there.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “You can’t know that. Not for sure.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time on the wrong side of the quarantine line. I know. They aren’t there.”

  Carter stayed silent. Talbot could tell he was thinking about it and could tell the logical part of him knew Talbot was right. The emotional part of him did not want it to be true and refused to believe it. Talbot needed the logical part to win this fight. There was still a chance that if Carter could come to his senses, Talbot could retrieve his research.

  Carter looked at Talbot. “You really spend a lot of time in the QZ?”

  “Yes. I was in charge of collecting immune survivors.”

  “And you don’t see any way they could be alright in there?”

  “Why would they stay inside if they were fine?”

  “They could be in trouble.”

  “All the more reason to run outside at the sound of the helicopter.”

  “There could be other reasons.”

  “Such as?”

  Carter couldn’t think of any. He nodded as he said, “I don’t want it to be true.”

  “I understand why you would feel that way, unfortunately what we want has no bearing on what is.”

  “Yeah. I knew when it took me so long to get to the roof they were in trouble. I knew when they wouldn’t answer my calls something bad happened. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

  Talbot wasn’t sure of the right thing to say, so he said nothing.

  It seemed to be the right answer as Carter said, “Let’s go get your friends.”

  The chopper started lifting off the ground but Carter let it go back down. He pointed towards his house and said, “You almost talked me out of abandoning my family.”

  Talbot looked to the house and saw three people, two women and a child, stumble outside and start walking towards them.

  “They made it, that’s my wife Hannah and my mother, the little one is my daughter Amanda,” Carter said as he opened his door and went outside to greet them.If Talbot had any idea how to fly the chopper, he would have slid over and done it. Instead, he watched as the initial trio was joined by another four people, two more of them clearly kids. Talbot watched as they walked slowly towards them, moving like amblers. Carter was wrong, they didn’t make it. They were infected and the only man around capable of flying the chopper was enthusiastically running out to join the ranks of the infected.

  Chapter 17

  The Abandoned Border TMRT Checkpoint - Blythe, CA

  “I finally got some service and now he isn’t answering,” Donna said as they sat looking at the roadblock the TMRT had set up and then abandoned.

  “They could be busy. I’m guessing the checkpoint where Dr. Talbot left his research is a lot like this one. Only worse,” Bo told her.

  “I know, I was just hoping for some advice.”

  “I don’t know what he could tell us anyway,” Katelin said.

  “Maybe nothing,” Donna told her daughter, “but I wanted to talk to him anyway.”

  “Could be better if you didn’t,” Jennifer said. “If he is in the middle of something, it might be better if he didn’t have to worry about you and Kate.”

  “Yeah, but I’d worry less about him and the others if he would answer his phone,” Donna replied.

  “While you’ve got your phone out, can you see how far it is to get to Blythe?” Bo asked. “I have a feeling we’re really close.”

  “Sure, why?”

  “If the town has been evacuated, maybe we can borrow someone’s car,” Bo said.

  “Still about five miles away,” Donna said. “That’s a long way on foot with a bunch of infected around.”

  “Maybe they evacuated before it got bad?” Bo asked.

  “Like they did everywhere else?”

  “Well, I was hoping for better than that. Maybe this was the exception. A lot less people to clear out.”

  “Are you really that optimistic?” Donna asked him.

  “No, but the odds might be better going for Blythe than sitting here until some vampire rotter comes along and sends a horde on us.”

  “Odds of walking five plus miles without encountering a vampire rotter are pretty slim,” Donna told him.

  “Yeah, but odds of one never making it this way are worse.”

  “I wish I could argue with you on that one,” Donna said.

  Jennifer raised the binoculars and scanned the area before saying, “What if we only had to go about two hundred yards?”

  “I like that better than going five miles,” Donna said as Jennifer handed her the binoculars.

  Just past the roadblock, she could see a pair of Humvees parked off to the side of the road. They probably belonged to whoever had been manning the roadblock. The drivers had either evacuated another way or were infected. Either way, the vehicles had been left behind.

  “Let me look,” Bo said and Donna handed the binoculars back to him.

  While Bo was looking, an ambler bumped up against Katelin’s window. She lowered the window and slammed the hatchet blade into the infected man’s sore-covered forehead. She pulled the blade free and put the window back up as the ambler fell.

  “I think you have something, Jennifer,” Bo said. “We can make it to them.”

  “And then what?” Donna asked.

  “We keep driving until we are out of the QZ,” Bo replied.

  “Okay, but what if the driver, like every normal person in the world, didn’t leave the keys inside?”

  “They weren’t the personal vehicles of the drivers,” Bo said. “They checked them out from a motor pool. Chances they just left the keys inside are better than if they were civilian cars,” Bo told her.

  “Still long odds,” Donna said. “We could just be stuck in a Humvee instead of a
Wagoneer.”

  “True, that’s why one of us will go. If they can’t be started, only one person is at risk,” Bo told her.

  “You have someone in mind?” Katelin asked.

  “Yeah, me. I bet I’m the fastest. Besides, I owe you guys. My screw-up cost us big time. If I hadn’t insisted on getting that trailer…”

  “We could have shouted you down,” Jennifer said. “It was our decision, not just yours.”

  “Yeah,” Katelin added. “Only my mom wanted to leave them.”

  “You wanted to shoot them at first,” Donna said.

  “True, but I didn’t. It would have worked out better if I had, maybe you should feel guilty, too.”

  “For not letting my teenage daughter murder people? I don’t think so.”

  “Either way,” Bo said, “I’m still the fastest. I’ll go.”

  “I’m getting tired of losing people,” Donna told him.

  “I’m not planning on getting lost,” Bo replied.

  “That’s what everybody says,” Donna told him.

  Bo had no good reply so he didn’t say anything. Instead, he grabbed the broadsword.

  “Maybe I should go with him,” Katelin said. “Provide some cover.”

  “No,” Donna told her.

  “But…”

  “Listen to your mother,” Bo said as he opened the door. “I’ve got this.”

  Bo jumped out and started running down the middle of the freeway straight towards the roadblock. He stopped when two amblers stepped in his path, he took the pair out with two swings of the big blade and kept running.

  Katelin pointed to something moving quickly from the desert. “Is that a dog?”

  Jennifer used the binoculars to look and said, “Yes, like a German Shepherd or something. It looks infected.”

  “Bo doesn’t see it,” Katelin said.

  “He’s immune, he’ll be fine.”

  “Unless a dog bite is different, or it tries to kill him.”

  “We fire a gun and they will be all over us,” Donna told her daughter.

  “You’re right,” Katelin said as she opened her door and jumped out. She drew both swords as she sprinted to intercept the dog.

  “Katelin, get back here,” Donna yelled but her daughter was already gone.