Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds): Extinction [Isolation]

by Brian Martinez

  There was no first aid to be found. Behind the counter there was plenty of ammo, but no guns. They carried the right caliber for the hunting rifle that sat outside in Will's overturned truck. He packed some of it in the bag, then added an assortment of other ammo in case they came across more guns.

  From a glass case on the side of the counter, near the dead body, Stan took a hunting knife. "What do you think you're doing," Will asked.

  "Trying not to die," Stan replied.

  "You're still under my custody, you can't have a weapon."

  Stan stared back at him. "I can't tell if you're serious or not."

  "Then I am."

  Stan pointed to the window. "One of those infected people could attack me. I won't be able to defend myself without some kind of weapon."

  "Your job is to run when I say run and stop when I say stop. The rest I'll take care of."

  Stan scoffed. "You're still the most stubborn person I've ever met."

  "And you're the most self-centered. Mom and dad did a great job, huh?" Will zipped up the duffel bag and threw it over his shoulder.

  Outside, the street was quiet. Either the infected were asleep, or they'd killed everyone they could find and wandered out of town. It could also be a trap, like the hunter sprung on them back at the cabin. They decided it was a chance they had to take. Waiting would only give the creatures time to come back.

  Will kept lookout as his brother climbed through the truck's broken windshield. Stan found the backpack with his laptop right away, but it took longer for him to locate the rifle. "Hurry up," Will called out. He'd spotted something a few blocks away that might be trouble.

  "I can't find it," Stan hissed through the open windshield.

  "It's a big gun, how can you miss it?"

  "I don't know." There was a long pause, then Stan said, "Shit." He reappeared, holding two halves of a broken rifle. The wood had snapped just under the trigger. The gun was unusable.

  "Leave it," Will said. Stan climbed back out with his precious backpack in tow. They snuck away and searched for a salvageable ride in the eerily quiet town.

  Only a few cars were left on the snowy street, and all of them were locked up. They avoided pulling on handles in case they set off a car alarm. A blaring sound like that could bring every infected within half a mile. It would only take one wrong move to be the end of them.

  Will scanned the horizon. "It's only a about a mile or two to the nearest houses. One of them has to have a car."

  "On foot, we'll freeze."

  "It's not that cold."

  "It's cold enough to be dangerous," Stan said.

  "You think so?"

  "I do. I think it's a bad idea."

  "Then I have to apologize."

  "For what?"

  "At some point I must have given you the impression that I wanted your opinion."

  Stan frowned. "I liked you better before you discovered sarcasm," he said.

  "No, you didn't."

  "No, I guess not."

  Will and Stan walked south on the main strip, staying close to the storefronts, but soon they found the only way out of town was blocked. A group of infected had jammed up the small creek bridge. They were trying to claw their way inside a snow plow to reach someone trapped inside.

  "Should we help him," Stan asked.

  "We can't."

  "Maybe we can go around. Over to the left there, if we're quiet enough-"

  "The creek is in the way. It's too risky to cross the ice this late in the season."

  They turned around and went the other way. Will figured if he went north he could always find a way to swing back around and take the long way home. He didn't care how long the road was, so long as it pointed home.

  He soon learned that way was blocked, too.

  Donegan was getting worse. The speed at which the complete breakdown of the charming, halfway decent-looking man was occurring would have been fascinating to watch if it wasn't so awful. His hair was thinning by the hour, and his skin had taken on a bluish, see-through quality. Even the shape of his face seemed to be changing- the mouth especially.

  "You're gonna have to do me in," Donegan said to Tanya. His voice was ragged, his throat dry.

  "No. I can't do that."

  "Come on now, lass, you have the easy part. You just have to pull the trigger. I'm the one who has to do all the dying."

  Watching the man cling desperately to his life was hard on Tanya. They'd been hiding in Donegan's apartment for close to twelve hours now, yet she hadn't gotten any closer to the man than the bedroom doorway. She'd be no good to Ryan if she got sick and died. In fact, she would be a serious danger to him. The thought of her turning on Ryan, being responsible for his death, was enough to make her nauseous.

  She shook her head. "What you're asking-"

  "You have to do for the boy," he finished. She looked out at Ryan on the living room couch. He was still asleep, curled up in a tight ball against a folded pillow. "Let me out of these bloody handcuffs," Donegan said.

  "What?"

  "Let me out or I'll fucking kill you," he hissed. After a moment he caught himself. "I-I'm sorry, that's- I didn't mean to say that." He looked tired. Ashamed. Tanya felt sorry for him.

  "If I did do it," she said, "should I use a pillow? You know, to make it quiet."

  He smiled. "You can if you like, but only to keep the mess off you. That silencer business is just for the movies."

  "Okay, just...just give me a minute," she said. Donegan looked down at his feet. He was biting his tongue, holding in another outburst.

  Tanya left the bedroom and went to the small kitchen. The two guns Donegan had given her were on the counter. One was a shotgun, way too big and loud for what had to be done. The other was a revolver. She picked it up, feeling the weight of it in her hand. She'd held guns before, at the shooting range on the occasions Will took her to practice.

  Feeling eyes on her, she looked up. Ryan was watching her from the couch.

  "He asked me to..." She couldn't finish the sentence to her son's face. Ryan nodded. He looked scared, but he understood. "Don't watch," she said.

  "I don't want to."

  She came back to the bedroom to find Donegan rocking back and forth on the bed, struggling against the handcuffs. "Let me go," he said. There was so much hatred in his voice, and the words were off, changed by his misshapen mouth. "Let me go, you bitch."

  She felt the sting of tears in her eyes. "Please, Donegan."

  "Let me go," he repeated, except this time he sounded like himself, like Donegan. It made the words take on a whole new meaning. Kill me. End the pain. Let me go.

  She raised the shaking gun until his face was in the sights, his bloodshot eyes boring holes into her. He lurched forward, yanking on the handcuffs so hard he tore the skin from his wrist. He did it again, and again, sloughing off his flesh like a pink glove.

  "Let me go," he screamed, his voice like the cries of a trapped animal.

  Tanya took a breath and let go.

  Will was pissed. After discovering that both directions out of town were blocked, they had fallen back to the hardware store to figure out what to do next. He realized they needed a plan if they were going to make it out alive. He needed to be smart, tactical, the two of them working as a team instead of individuals.

  In other words, he needed to ask his brother for help.

  "What if they're not home," Stanley said. "how will you find them?"

  "I found you."

  "That's different."

  "This is what I do. Trust me, I'll find them."

  "Fine. I'll help you get back to D.C., but then I'm gone. I mean it. You let me go."

  "At this point the police have more important things to deal with."

  "It's not them I'm worried about. At some point, if we're lucky, all this will be cleaned up. But I know you. You won't let it go. So if I help you, you let me go, and you leave me alone."

  "It's all about you, Stan. Just like always."
<
br />   "Okay. First, we need my van," Stan said.

  Will looked over at him. "You're insane."

  "I have supplies in my van- food, sleeping bags- and there's even more in the bunker. We need those things to travel, and depending on what condition Tanya and Ryan are in when we find them-"

  "Stop talking."

  "-There's first aid."

  Will thought about it for a bit. "Shit," he concluded.

  "I saw some boots and hand warmers in that second aisle," Stan said, "I think we're going to need them."

  -17-

  Ryan had watched his mother kill a man. If a week ago he'd been given a list of things he might witness in his lifetime, seeing his mom shoot a handcuffed guy in the head would be pretty close to the bottom.

  He didn't mean to watch. In fact, he'd turned away and faced the window the second his mom stepped into the bedroom. But when Donegan started yelling at her to let him out, yanking on the handcuffs so hard Ryan thought he would either break his arm or the wall heater, he turned back. She was in danger, and without dad around to protect her the responsibility went to him.

  It was no time to be a little kid, hiding under his sheets from the monsters.

  The look in her eyes when Donegan was dead, when she turned to see him standing behind her with that horrified expression on her face, was proving hard to shake. Hours had passed and his mom had barely said ten words. She just sat on the couch, scribbling on a notepad she'd found in a drawer. The bedroom door was closed so they didn't have to look at it.

  "It's starting to smell in here," Ryan said, breaking the silence.

  "I don't smell anything."

  "I think it's him."

  She looked up at him with dark circles around her eyes. "It's just your imagination, honey. That stuff doesn't happen for a while."

  "It's called decomposition. It usually takes two or three days, but with the heating it can start in a few hours. Plus he was already sick. That could speed things up."

  She put down the notepad. "Those movies teach you some strange things."

  "I guess. Kind of useful, though, the way things are."

  "If horror movies are educational films, then that's truly scary." She paused. "Maybe I can find some air freshener," she said, getting to her feet.

  Ryan followed her into the kitchen. There was nothing else to do, and his mom didn't seem all the way there yet. He didn't want her to cut her hand digging through drawers full of junk, so he helped her look. He noticed her shoulders tense up when she saw the gun. She'd put the revolver back on the counter after using it. Now she was staring at it, images flashing across her eyes.

  "What do you think he's doing right now," Ryan asked.

  She turned suddenly. "Who?"

  "Dad. What do you think he's doing?"

  She smiled. She must have understood that he was distracting her from thinking about what she'd done, but she was grateful for the distraction. "Fighting like Hell to get back to us."

  "You really think he'll find us?" He opened the small cabinet under the sink and looked around inside.

  "I know he will. It's bad out there, but your dad's the smartest guy I know, and he's tough as nails."

  Ryan popped up from under the sink. "Can I ask you an honest question?"

  "Sure."

  "Why did the Army kick him out?"

  His mom paused, surprised by the question. They had always avoided the subject whenever it came up, which wasn't often. Ryan had never asked the question outright, but after all they'd been through, it seemed ridiculous to be scared of something as simple as the truth.

  "He's strong, and smart, and really organized," Ryan went on. "So why didn't they want him?"

  "He doesn't like to talk about it."

  "Yeah, I noticed."

  "I guess I don't like to talk about it, either." She looked around uncomfortably.

  "You know what, don't worry about it," Ryan said. "If dad wants to tell me he can do it himself."

  His mom smiled. "It's better that way. And I'm sure he will."

  Ryan nodded. Then he held up the aerosol can he'd found at the back of the sink cabinet. "I found the air freshener," he said.

  April 23rd, 2015

  DAY 6

  It was late, just after midnight, and the forest was still. Other than the occasional hoot from an owl or the soft plap of snow falling from trees, the wind moving through dead branches was all that could be heard. There was an eerie silence in the air that didn't sit well with either of them.

  Will and Stan's boots trudged over hardened snow. Their eyes scanned for movement, searching for anything at all that might be hiding in the trees. Aside from the obvious threat, there were still the old ones to worry about. Black bears were common in the area. So were bobcats and coyotes. There was no shortage of teeth in those woods, and neither man wanted to wake them up.

  Stan stopped to catch his breath. It was a tedious climb uphill over uneven ground, and he was clearly starting to feel its effects. Will did the same. There was no point in over-exerting themselves, they would need their energy ahead. The moon cast veiny shadows over their heads and onto the white ground, dark fingers reaching out to strangle.

  "How much further do you think it is?" Stan adjusted his backpack over his shoulder.

  "Not sure. This is your backyard, not mine."

  "Yeah, well I usually take the road," Stan said with a sarcastic tone.

  "Not this time. Roads are too out in the open. Too much light."

  "You're right, this way is much scarier."

  Will snorted under his breath. Stan had always been funny- not that Will was about to admit that to him- especially under stress. It was a trait he'd developed as a kid, his coping mechanism for when things got bad at home.

  They got moving toward the cabin again. Will pulled his collar up to his chin to keep the wind off his neck. The temperature was dropping, and they had to be careful not to over-expose themselves.

  Eventually they came to a clearing. A wide open space was laid out before them, at the center of which was a large storage building. It was a few stories high, windowless, with a corrugated metal roof and sliding garage doors, all of which were closed. There were probably dozens like it spread across the state, stocked with piles of salt and sand for the spreaders. The road they'd been avoiding cut in from the trees on the left and led straight to one of the building's sliding doors.

  "Maybe we can warm up in there," Stan said. "Just for a little bit."

  "We don't know if its unlocked."

  "I'm willing to take a minute and check if it means getting out of the cold."

  Will considered it. "Alright, but stay right behind me, and keep your head on a swivel. Just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's not there."

  As they walked across the clearing, they noticed a set of car tracks in the snow. The tracks had been mostly covered up by further snowfall. Halfway between the storage building and the tracks, a mound stood out in the snow.

  It was the size of a man.

  Will signaled Stanley to stay back as he approached it. "What if it's one of them," Stanley whispered.

  "It's not."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because we'd already be dead."

  Stan hung back as Will closed the distance and nudged the mound with the tip of his boot.

  It rocked a bit, but otherwise it didn't move. He cleared some of the snow off it. Underneath he found more snow that had been stained pink, and one very dead body.

  "It's alright," Will said. Stan joined him by his side. The body had been absolutely demolished by the infected. Its face was chewed down to the skull. Bloody sockets frozen over with ice stared up at them, the exposed teeth screaming silently.

  "Looks like only one of them made it," Will said, motioning to the tracks leading to the road. He got down and started carefully searching the body and the ground around it for keys or anything else useful.

  His hand hit something solid. He knew what it was before he ev
en pulled it out of the snow.

  It was a gun, a Glock 19 to be exact, and freezing cold to the touch. Though he wasn't normally one to rely on guns, he'd never been more relieved to see one in his life. He held it up for his brother to see, but Stan was already distracted by something behind him, something up high on the storage building.

  "Oh my God," Stan said. Will turned to see what he was looking at, though he could venture a guess.

  Something was moving under the roof. The dark form clung to the side of the building like an enormous spider, just under the overhang. As it crawled out it knocked a few icicles loose.

  It was an infected.

  "How is it doing that," Stan gasped, but Will didn't have time to ask questions. The creature had spotted them, and he needed to take care of it discretely before others were alerted.

  He pulled the Glock's slide back and checked that there was a round chambered. Then he released the clip and counted brass through the witness holes- ten bullets. Eleven total, including the chambered round. He slapped the clip back into the Glock as the infected scurried down the wall.

  "Check the body for keys," Will ordered. He took firing stance as Stan dropped to his knees and started searching in the snow. The infected man had already descended most of the way to the ground. He let go of the wall- how he'd been holding it was a mystery- and dropped the rest of the way, hitting the snowy ground with barely an impact.

  Fifty feet away, it shrieked at Will in that same, high-pitched scream he already knew so well. Without hesitation other shrieks rose up nearby, a twisted battle cry echoing through the trees.

  "So much for being discrete," Will said. He lined up the sights as the infected ran at him on all fours, kicking up snow in its wake. It was just like the encounter he'd had the day before, with the hunter charging him down, except this time he had a gun instead of pepper spray.

  Will steadied his aim, focusing on the center of its chest. It was then that he noticed the white collar around the thing's neck, its black shirt shredded and dark with dried blood.