by D. J. Molles
Jerry clutched the window sill and stared out, the daylight glowing in his wide-stretched eyes so that they seemed grotesquely large in his face. Angela could not see what he saw, but she just watched his face, felt like a block of ice in her gut was melting as she witnessed him grab his hair, his perfect white teeth seeming to glow as he grimaced.
This was no random smattering of gunfire. Angela was not stupid, and she had learned from Lee. She had learned by watching and by listening to him plan operation after operation, carried out in cities and towns and industrial and residential complexes around the Camp Ryder Hub. The first opening shots, the quick response like a sudden thunderstorm that comes upon you within minutes of a clear sky.
This was a coordinated attack.
This was Lee.
Jerry turned towards her, his expression souring.
Angela stared back at him, feeling hot and cold at once. Giddy, almost. She did not do it as a jab, or an insult, or as a way to enrage Jerry, but simply because she could not help herself: a small smile touched her swollen, broken lips. She’d read news stories about miners trapped under the surface of the earth after a cave in. Trapped there in the darkness with nothing but hope to get them through. And she thought that this must be what they felt like when they saw the first patch of daylight after a week of blackness, as the emergency crews rolled back the first stones, like opening a tomb.
Jerry stared at her, trembling. Though she couldn’t tell whether it was from rage or fear. Like a growling dog backed into a corner, simultaneously baring its teeth and tucking its tail to protect its genitals. Angela stared right back at him, her expression hardening.
He raised a hand, pointed a long, accusing finger at her. “You bitch!”
You bitch! You bitch!
She was suddenly in her back yard again, running from Tom, holding that aluminum bat up to ward him off as he staggered towards her, slobbering, sweating profusely, mind lost forever. She felt the fear, but she pushed it down and remembered where she was.
That was in the past. That was a weaker Angela. That was a jilted housewife just trying to survive. That was not the same person she was now. She would not feel terrified by Jerry anymore. She was done with fear for now. At some point, when you keep dissolving the same substance in water, it over-saturates and falls out. For her, fear had suddenly oversaturated in her mind, and fell out.
She could take no more of it.
There was nothing left for Jerry but contempt.
Jerry snatched his shotgun up, brandishing it wildly. “Who the fuck is that, Angela? Huh? That your friends trying to break into my camp? Is that them? Fucking tell me!”
Angela’s face gave nothing. It remained undisturbed by his outrage, as though she had suddenly transcended this situation, she was above it, untouchable. She just stared at him with that damaged face he’d given her, like she was throwing it right back at him.
“No, Jerry,” she said, quietly, so that he leaned forward unconsciously in an attempt to hear her. “It’s Lee. He’s coming for you.”
CHAPTER 40: COMPLICATIONS
“C’mon, Devon…” Lee flicked his gaze back and forth between the left corner of the Camp Ryder building, and the progress that Devon had made. He’d made ten cuts so far, almost halfway down. Lee knew that it had only been a minute or so since the first shots were fired, but it felt like time was dragging. He looked at the building again, wondering what Jerry was doing, what defenses was he setting up? Would they be barricaded inside the building? Would they have hostages?
Devon licked his lips. “I’m going as fast as I can.”
“You’re doing good,” Lee assured him.
Out beyond the Camp Ryder building the gunfight raged.
“Alright,” he said, pulling back a bit and turning to face Jacob. “Back yard looks clear for now, go run and get the others. By the time they get up here we should have this fence open for them.”
Jacob nodded and took off running. Lee watched him go, sprinting between trees, dodging low branches and jumping fallen logs. What a strange transformation the man had made, from a bookish scientist to someone who could move as fluidly through the woods as though he’d been hunting them his whole life. Lee was in the process of admiring this when Jacob stopped short, just before disappearing into the trees.
“The fuck is he doing?” Lee growled, impatiently.
Nate craned his head back to see. “What’s going on? What’s he doing?”
“He’s just stopped there!”
“Fucking go!” Nate yelled, but not quite loud enough for Jacob to have heard.
Though Jacob hadn’t heard him, it seemed that he reacted to it. As the words left Nate’s mouth, Jacob turned partially, looked back at them. Then he started running again, back towards Camp Ryder.
Lee didn’t question Jacob’s actions a second time. “Nate! Watch the fucking yard!”
Something was wrong.
Lee turned his back to the fence and raised his rifle, sighting over Jacob’s shoulder as the man ran back towards them. Abruptly, Jacob stopped at the base of a large tree and spun again, turning away. He pointed his rifle and began waving his hands, as though urging someone on. Lee scanned through the trees and quickly saw what Jacob saw, though it made no sense.
The entire entry element sprinted towards them in complete disarray.
For the briefest of moments, Lee allowed himself to believe that maybe nothing had gone wrong, maybe they were just running for the fence as instructed, and they were just a little scared of the gunfire going over their heads. But they kept looking behind them as they ran, twisting and firing wild shots into the woods. Jacob posted up on the tree and sighted his rifle, allowing the entire element to pass him by, providing cover for them.
They weren’t attacking. They were retreating.
This is bad, Lee decided.
He tried to peer through the woods, but they were too thick, even in their leafless state, to see much farther than Jacob. But Lee watched the soldier-scientist tighten quite suddenly, and he began to fire. Puffs of gray smoke erupted from his barrel, his muzzle swinging in this direction and then that, not from the recoil.
Fast moving targets.
Oh shit…
Someone in the element began screaming as they came within a dozen yards of the fence: “Hunters! Hunters in the woods!”
Lee swore loudly. “Devon! I need that fucking fence open now!” he didn’t wait for a response. “Nate! Stay on that yard!” The element came abreast of Lee and he stepped forward, stood tall and pointed back in the direction they came. “Everyone fan out along the fence and face out! Do not fucking move until I tell you to move!”
Eventually the fence would be open, and the last thing they needed was a logjam at the opening, too many panicked people trying to get through and fucking up the works.
Jacob ran back to them at full speed, and Lee could now see what they’d been running from. The shapes moved quickly through the trees, flashing between them with inhuman speed. They didn’t climb the trees, but they reached out and grabbed the trunks to swing around them, making quick direction changes and giving them a strange, apish quality.
Everyone opened up at once, Jacob barely making it behind the line before the air was riddled with bullets. For no other reason than it scared the shit out of him, Devon began to scream, but he never stopped clipping the fence.
“Almost there! Almost there!”
Lee tried to target one of the infected as they hurtled towards them through the woods, but the direction changes were so rapid that it became impossible. Lee simply aimed in the general direction and fired as fast as he could, hoping to score a hit simply from the volume of lead he threw down range.
“Keep shooting! Keep shooting!”
The infected were close enough now that Lee could see them—lean, abnormally sinuous bodies. They did not have the same form of musculature as a normal, physically fit man. Compared to the rest of their bodies, their arms seemed lean and
wiry. The bulk of their muscle seemed to be packed into their core and, oddly, their backs and shoulders, giving them a hunched appearance. Their necks seemed to have disappeared amid the veiny protuberance of their shoulders, and their jaws hung open loose as they ran, disturbingly wide on their otherwise human faces.
Lee managed to sync his rhythm with one as it dodged through the trees, screaming an unearthly ululation, and he fired once, managing to halt the thing in its tracks, and then put two more rounds into it as it hung in the air for a half second before collapsing to the ground.
The victory was a small one—there must have been a dozen more coming at them.
They needed to get in the fence.
“Done!” Devon yelled.
Lee slammed a fresh mag into his rifle and recharged it, then reached for the nearest person to him and slapped the man on the back. “Move!”
The man didn’t waste any time. He hauled out of position and dove through the opening in the fence, followed quickly by Devon, then Nate. Lee moved down the line, initiating people with a slap and a command to move. He kept looking up as he went, kept judging how close the infected were getting, and every time he did he felt his heart sink a little more.
We’re not gonna get everyone through, he realized.
He stood tall, planted his feet. “Everyone go! Move!”
The remaining four people in the entry team made a mad rush for the opening in the fence. Lee didn’t watch them. He raised his rifle and began firing as he sidestepped towards the opening in the fence. “Jacob! Go!”
“I got it!” Jacob yelled back, standing maybe a yard or so in front of Lee. “Get in there!”
There was no time for argument. Lee turned for the hole in the fence. Jacob backpedaled as one of the infected took a giant leap and landed just in front of him. Jacob planted his muzzle right in the thing’s face and took it off with a double-tap.
Lee reached the fence just before Jacob did and he grabbed the man by the back of his collar, guiding him through. Jacob didn’t miss a beat, letting himself be guided through as he kept firing, firing, until his rifle went dry and they were suddenly on the other side of the fence.
Lee saw the bolt of Jacob’s rifle lock back and stopped where he was. Jacob went down to one knee to reload and Lee moved in close to him, putting his legs up against Jacob’s back so that he would know Lee was shooting right over his head and wouldn’t stand up into Lee’s lane of fire.
Lee could see one of the infected moving towards the cut in the fence, down on all fours like an animal but still moving fast. Lee put three into it and it kept coming, so he simply gave it everything he had left in his mag. The thing died, one hand outstretched through the opening in the fence.
With Lee’s own rifle empty, he glanced down and watched Jacob whip out a magazine—and then fumble it. He tried to catch it but it just bounced off of his fingers and tumbled into the dirt. Lee swore and reached for his second of four spare magazines. It was always bad when both shooters were empty at the same time. Bad for business.
Jacob bent forward to grab the magazine off the ground.
Lee pulled the mag from his pouch. The two of them racing to get their rifles back up.
Straight ahead of them, a pale form scrambled over the body of its pack mate and slipped through the opening in the fence, seeming to explode onto its feet when it had cleared the chain link. There was no moment where it eyed Lee up and growled at him, giving Lee the precious second or so that he needed to complete his reload. No, this creature already knew what it wanted and it did not have to think about it. It launched itself at Lee, arms stretched out.
Then it simply fell to the ground, like God’s hammer had come out of the sky and smacked it down. A red hole on its back. The boom of the far away rifle report. Tomlin, up on the hill, looking out for them. The thing twitched, raised its head. Lee put his magazine in, let the bolt fly forward and gave the infected one on the nose to end it permanently.
Below him, Jacob put the fresh mag in. “I got this, Lee!” his voice was insistent. He turned and glared at Lee, not because Lee had done anything wrong, but because Jacob didn’t want to leave any room for argument. Because Jacob was not going to let Captain Mitchell die for him all over again. It was his turn to stand tall. “You take that building, okay? Go get Angela and the kids!”
On the other side of the fence, the rest of the infected hit the chain link and began to climb. Four of them, latched onto the fence like spiders, then five, then seven and eight. Jacob turned his back to Lee and raised his rifle, picking the target that was closest to the top of the fence.
Lee turned back towards the Camp Ryder building. The rest of the entry team was stacked up along the back wall of the building, staring at Jacob as he stood before the fence, slowly moving backwards as he shot carefully, steadily at the infected, but failing to stop them from negotiating the fence.
Lee pointed to three of the members of the entry team. “Help Jacob! The rest of you get on my ass!”
Lee hit the left corner, pied it quickly.
Straight ahead he could see the gate, unmanned, still hanging off its hinges from where Marie had driven through it to escape only hours before. Beyond that, there was Shantytown, predominantly blue and gray with its numerous sections of tarp and faded wood and metal. Far on the other end of it, Lee could see a small group of armed men—maybe three or four—huddling behind an empty connex container and taking pot shots at the snipers in the woods.
A few unarmed people running about in a panic.
No other hostile movement.
Watch that corner, Lee thought as he started moving. He kept the front sight of his M4 on the corner, just past the big rainwater bins they’d built. Waiting for that one, enterprising motherfucker to pop out and try to take a shot at him. He moved a little quicker than normal because he needed to close the gap. He needed to take that corner. This long, straight, empty wall was just a shooting gallery. A no man’s land. A great place to get shot.
The corner was the next grounding point.
He stayed an arm’s length off the wall. Your first instinct was to hug it, but ricochets had a habit of travelling along walls, and the wall didn’t do anything for you but make you feel protected. Best to keep away from it.
Behind him, he could hear the footfalls of the others following him. Farther behind them, he could hear the furious shooting of Jacob and the other three as they tried to stop the infected from jumping the fence. The shooting became interspersed with shouting, and then there seemed to be more shouting than shooting.
They broke, Lee realized. They had to break.
He looked behind him and saw what he didn’t want to see: Jacob running, two of the three other men running with him, and the third on the ground, screaming bloody murder as an infected landed on him, clamped its jaws around his neck and reduced his screams to gurgles.
Jacob was yelling: “They’re inside! They’re inside!”
***
It happened fast.
Life and fate always conspire to take you by surprise. Rarely are you allowed to sit and ponder, or see the buildup, like a scientist reading a seismograph and determining when the mountain will blow. Rather, the circumstances are simply hurled at you without warning and you respond on instinct, and you hope to God that your instincts are true and correct. Then you are simply left in the dust, hoping you did the right thing, and wondering, what the hell just happened?
Jerry stalked the room, caught in a brief moment of indecision as gunfire raged outside. He kept cursing, growling under his breath like an ornery cur. His eyes kept travelling to Angela and there was still the bitter hatred there, but there was something else squirming around inside of him, and it looked to Angela like fear.
She stopped looking at him and looked at her daughter, because Jerry didn’t matter. Abby mattered. She didn’t want to speak, didn’t want to draw any attention to herself, or, God forbid, give Jerry any ideas, but she held Abby’s gaze and she nodded, t
ried to look confident, and mouthed the words, “I love you.”
Jerry stopped in the middle of the room and glared at her. “Angela, Angela, Angela…you stupid, stupid bitch. This is your fucking fault.” He turned and looked at Abby. “Go lock her up with the little brown kid,” he said to Kyle. “And do it quickly.”
Kyle took Abby and guided her out of the room. Abby didn’t like that at all and began to scream, but she walked along with him, somehow sensing that she should not fight. Angela watched her go, panic rising in her chest, causing her vision to narrow and darken at the edges—tunnel vision coming on. Don’t take my baby girl away! Don’t take her away from me!
Jerry stood in front of her. She turned on him and she could not see him as threatening any more. She was at the end of feeling threatened. She was all out of fear. All out of compliance. She could only see him as craven and pathetic.
He grabbed her by the shoulder of her jacket. “I guess you’re my hostage.”
He pulled her up to her feet and she was already in that forward motion, and she watched the double-barrels of that sawed-off shotgun float away from her as he tried to balance himself. And there it was—the chance, though she wasn’t sure why this was it, and not a hundred other instances. It was simply the feeling of breaking inertia.
She launched herself forward. She grit her teeth and put everything that she had into it, planting her head straight into his midsection and toppling him backwards. He grunted as she hit him, screamed out a curse. She kept driving forward with her legs and let out a scream.
The shotgun blasted. Shook the room and deafened her.
Maybe she had been shot. She wasn’t sure.
They slammed into the desk with a giant sound, the metal crashing noisily, all the objects on the desk clattering over. She felt the stillness of Jerry’s body. Felt the ache in her own neck from the harshness of the impact. Rolled off of him.
