by Dirk Patton
Placing the malfunctioning rifle on the ground I stood, drew the Kukri and stepped around the rock to meet the approaching infected. Dog moved up beside me, head down and hackles raised as he growled and showed his teeth. Advancing I swung the Kukri and nearly decapitated the infected closest to me, stepping to the side as the body hit the forest floor. Dog bounded past me and slammed into the chest of a large male, carrying him to the ground where he started ripping into its throat. I was in a frenzy, slashing and stabbing infected as I moved further down the slope. Dog took another male to the ground, rolling in its embrace before locking his jaws on its throat. Hands brushed me and once a hand got a grip on my left sleeve and started pulling but I slashed with the blade and severed the arm of the attacking infected at the elbow, reversed the Kukri and buried the point in the his head. Then there were no more infected.
Looking around I counted nine bodies on the ground. Dog had killed three and I had hacked and slashed my way through the other six. During the battle I had wound up moving almost 50 yards down the slope and slowly climbed back up to where Rachel was waiting. Dog bounded past me, his four long legs eating up the ground. I had just made it back to the rocks where I had initiated the battle when a blinding spotlight lit up the area.
Chapter 15
Sometimes you get caught so unprepared that there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. The spotlight was from up the slope and slightly to the side, in the area Rachel was supposed to be watching but far enough off to the side that if she wasn’t scanning through 180 degrees continuously she would have missed them. I should have been clearer in my instructions when I put her on rear guard. I had a bloody Kukri in my right hand, my incapacitated rifle was laying on the ground where I’d left it, and the spotlight was far enough away and bright enough that I couldn’t tell if there was one man or one hundred in the darkness behind it. Dog growled and started to move towards the light but I stopped him with a firm hand on his back. Rachel looked over her shoulder at me, the terror on her face plain to see. I didn’t have a move at the moment and decided to play it cool and bide my time. Bending slowly I wiped the Kukri blade clean on the carpet of leaves, sheathed it and stood back up with my hands held out at my sides and faced the light.
“That was an impressive display,” a voice called out from behind the light and I couldn’t have been more surprised to hear a woman’s voice. I stood mute and noticed Rachel stand up in my peripheral vision.
“Honey, you don’t need that rifle. If we wanted to hurt you we’d have already done that.”
Rachel looked over at me and I nodded for her to keep the rifle pointed at the ground. Apparently satisfied with the situation the speaker stepped into the light and came down the slope to stand in front of us. She was not what I expected. The woman was at least in her mid-fifties and despite being dressed for the forest she didn’t look like she had spent a lot of time outdoors. Middle aged spread had definitely set in, her ass was as wide as my shoulders, and grey hair framed a face set off by gold rimmed glasses. Bright blue eyes studied me in the light. For all the world she looked like what I remembered my 3rd grade teacher looking like.
“If there’s more infected around that light is going to draw them in,” I said, keeping my hands in plain sight. I didn’t know if she had rifles behind the light pointed at us and wasn’t ready to find out the hard way.
“That’s what you call them? Hmmm. Fits, I suppose. Are you really Army?” She asked, a few moments later as she studied my clothing and the Oak Leaf on my chest.
“Yes, ma’am. I am. Major John Chase,” I introduced myself, figuring a little good old fashioned courtesy couldn’t hurt.
“And who’s she?” She asked, looking over at Rachel.
“She is his travelling companion, and her name is Rachel,” Rachel answered, apparently not appreciating being talked about like she wasn’t there.
The woman turned and looked at Rachel, for all the world appearing like she could assess her character just by looking at her. After almost a minute she made a ‘humphing’ sound in her throat, turned her head and called over her shoulder.
“Turn off the light.” A long moment later it shut off and I was as blind as a bat, night vision completely destroyed by several minutes of the light shining in my eyes.
“Thank you,” I said. “Who are you, and what are you doing out here?”
“I think the more pressing question is what are you doing out here?” I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was still intently watching me. Trusting my gut instincts about this woman I told her an abbreviated version of the truth, starting with the night of the attacks when I was in Atlanta. I debated holding back the part about the ambushers that had forced us into the forest, but if she was mixed up with that group we would likely have already been shot.
“OK, now you know who we are. What about you?”
She started to answer but was cut off before she could speak a word by the scream of a female infected that sounded way too close. My night vision was coming back and I saw the flash of fear wash across her face before she turned and motioned towards where the light had been. Grabbing my rifle off the ground I watched as half a dozen teenagers, two boys and four girls, dashed forward and huddled around her. They were armed with sticks, rocks, a couple of pocket knives and a big ass battery powered spotlight.
Rachel had already raised her rifle and I grabbed mine off the ground. Dropping the magazine I cycled the bolt and ejected the round that had failed to fire. Skills from a day gone by guided my fingers as I quickly separated the lower and upper sections of the rifle, extracted the bolt and checked it by feel. Everything felt as it should. Next I stuck a finger into the chamber and could feel part of a shell casing jammed in there. Apparently the last successfully fired round had come from a shell that was weak and had separated, leaving part of the brass casing stuck in the chamber. It took some force but I got it out, reassembled the rifle and loaded up with a fresh magazine. All of this had taken less than a minute. Again I was thankful for the instructors that had beaten lessons into us, sometimes literally. I had been taught to field strip and assemble rifles while wearing a blindfold. Once I could do that the instructors had added blows to the head, neck and back from a baton during the process. If it took longer than a minute to complete they would start hitting below the waist. It didn’t take long to learn to do it in less than a minute.
Rifle ready I raised it and sighted through the scope, scanning the surrounding terrain. Sprinting along the valley floor and quickly closing on us were three females. They were moving fast, even for the females, and as I watched they hurtled and dodged obstacles like an NFL running back. As I was tracking them another scream sounded from behind us, much too close, and I heard Dog growl and scramble up the slope to meet the infected.
“Rachel?” I asked.
“Got it,” she said, and I kept my attention on the three fast approaching threats.
Behind me there was another scream immediately drowned out by Dog’s snarling and the sound of bodies hitting the ground in a struggle. Dog’s snarling rose in pitch then it was quiet, a moment later his furry head back by my side.
“Good boy,” I muttered, then pulled the trigger and dropped one of the females.
The other two kept coming, not slowing or showing any indication that they cared their sister had just gone down. Tracking, I shot the second one as she leapt over a fallen tree, her body going limp in the air and crashing to the forest floor in a tangle of limbs and coming to rest against the trunk of a massive oak tree. The last female was the fastest and was weaving her way through the trees, now no more than 50 yards away. I waited a moment until she started up the slope to where I was standing then pulled the trigger twice. One round to the heart, one to the head. The body slammed to the ground and lay still.
Raising the rifle back up I scanned left, right, left quickly, didn’t see any threats, and then did a slower scan to make sure I wasn’t missing something. Satisfied for the moment I sp
un and checked behind me, glad to see Rachel scanning through a full 180 degrees with her scoped rifle, but double checked her. Again, all clear. Letting out a big breath I let the rifle hang on its sling and turned back to the old woman and kids. The kids looked terrified, the boys trying to look tough through their fear. The woman looked like this was something she saw every day. Perhaps she did.
“I’m going to guess the camp down the valley with all the camp fires is yours,” I said.
“Yes, that’s us,” she answered, some of the certainty in her bearing that had been there earlier was now gone.
“Those fires are attracting the infected and they’re also going to bring in the guys that ambushed us earlier.” I didn’t like what I was thinking, but didn’t have much choice.
“Rachel, you and Dog get them to their camp and get those damn fires put out. I’m going for our packs and will meet you there.” I waited for Rachel to nod and took off at a run, back in the direction we had come from. I didn’t like the idea of sending them off alone, but I really didn’t like the idea of losing the extra ammo, food, medical supplies and all the other equipment that was in our packs.
Settling into a fast trot I moved through the forest and for a moment flashed back to running through a dark Central American jungle with Soviet military advisors – read Spetznaz – in hot pursuit. Forcing my attention back to the present I touch checked the readiness of my rifle as I ran. I was making a little noise, but less than most people would have and was able to hear the shambling feet dragging along through dead leaves before I could see the infected. Raising the rifle I spotted the target and shot it without breaking stride, dodging around the body and quickly leaving it behind.
Earlier we had been moving slowly as we tracked the herd and even though we’d spent a lot of time walking we hadn’t gone very far. In less than fifteen minutes I was at the shallow cave and hoisting my pack onto my back. With it in place I lifted Rachel’s and put it on backwards so that it was resting on my chest. Between the two packs I now had almost 180 pounds hanging on my upper body and I had also blocked my access to spare magazines. Oh well, I’d just better be careful. Taking a moment to scan the surrounding forest I didn’t see any threats, but thought I could hear voices in the distance. Standing perfectly still and calming my breathing I listened intently and was sure I could hear something back in the direction of the ambush, but couldn’t tell what I was hearing. Whatever I was hearing almost sounded like chanting, but it was still a long way off and I didn’t have time to worry about it until it became a threat. Turning back towards the direction of the camp I started a slow jog which was all I could manage with this much weight.
Half an hour later I was approaching where I knew the camp had to be. I had killed three more infected males with the Kukri as I jogged down the valley and I was thankful that I hadn’t run into any more females. Coming to a stop I raised the rifle and scanned, finding no threats. Keeping the rifle up across my chest I proceeded, now at a walking pace. After another hundred yards I stopped and scanned again, spotting two more infected males off to my right. They hadn’t detected me and I didn’t want to leave them lose behind me. I moved their way, used a tree to lean on to steady my aim and dropped them both with two quick shots. Another scan and back to a fast walk. Five minutes later I started smelling a recently extinguished fire and knew I was close to the camp. Slowing further I moved into some deeper brush and scanned the forest again. Ahead, probably about 50 yards, a small group of figures huddled in the dark. A dog sat to the side of the group looking off to his side into the forest. Dog smelled me about the same time I spotted him and he came running, tail wagging.
Rachel had the old woman and the kids huddled with their backs against a sheer rock face that soared up into the night. There were two more boys and a girl that hadn’t been with the group when we’d encountered them earlier. Not comfortable staying in the area where the camp had been so visible I told the woman we were moving farther down the valley. Two of the girls started to complain but she shushed them and got everyone on their feet. Putting Rachel and Dog at the back of the group I took point and we moved a slow mile. I had started us off at a good pace but the kids made so much noise in the forest that I had to slow our pace. Towards the front of the group two of the boys were talking to each other and after the first time I gestured for them to be quiet I had to call a halt and get in their faces to get the message across. Finally reaching a smaller valley that branched off to the north and had a small stream trickling through it we followed the water until finding a wide, flat spot on the valley floor that was heavily forested. Moving the group into the thick brush I settled them down with warnings to stay quiet and went to find out their story from the woman.
Chapter 16
Betty Jasinski snapped awake instantly when she heard the first screams outside her motel room. A mother and grandmother she was conditioned to responding to any noise that sounded like a child in distress and when a second scream reached her ears she threw the covers off and started dressing quickly. Betty was a bus driver for the Nashville School District and currently had a charge of two teachers, two parent chaperones and 27 ninth graders on a field trip to Six Flags amusement park north of Atlanta. It had been a good trip, the kids as well behaved as you could expect for their ages and they were spending their last night in a budget motel with plans to make the six hour drive home the next morning.
Betty pulled her shoes on, stood up, glancing at the clock which read 4:03 AM, and went to the window. Parting the heavy curtains she failed to suppress a sneeze when a cloud of dust came out of the fabric. Wiping her nose and eyes she looked out the window from her second floor room. Below, the parking lot looked empty and she automatically sought out the big yellow bus with her eyes to make sure it was where she had left it. The bus looked fine. Betty’s attention was drawn to two figures at the edge of the parking lot, what looked like a man lying on the ground with a woman straddling him and moving about vigorously. Betty’s first thought was the couple was drunk and had decided to have sex in the parking lot, but that idea was dispelled when she saw the woman lean into the man’s throat and appear to tear it open with her teeth. In shock Betty kept watching as the woman continued to rip chunks of flesh off the body. Another scream to her left shifted her attention to a second woman that raced across the parking lot and joined the first in attacking the man.
A knock on the motel room door immediately to her left caused Betty to jump back from the window with a small gasp of fright. The knocking continued and a woman’s voice started calling out her name. Gathering herself after she recognized Miss Welch’s voice she unhooked the safety chain and yanked the door open. Miss Welch was the youngest teacher in the school. To Betty she seemed hardly older than the kids she was responsible for educating. She rushed into the room, eyes wide with fright and her whole body shaking.
“What’s happening?” She cried, grabbing onto Betty the way a child would her mother.
“Easy, child.” Betty said, sounding much more reassuring than she felt. “Something bad is happening and I think we need to get these young people on the bus and head home.”
“But there’s women out there EATING someone!” Tears were flowing now.
“That’s what it looks like, but we don’t know what’s going on. Right now it’s our job to make sure these children are safe. Can you help me do that?” Betty grasped the younger woman’s shoulders in her hands and looked into her eyes.
Miss Welch nodded her head and wiped at the tears running down her cheeks.
“Now, do you have your key?” Betty was referring to the master key the motel manager had given to each teacher that would allow them access to all of the rooms the kids were in. Miss Welch nodded her head.
“Good. Now what you’re going to do is wake up Mrs. Hatfield, Mrs. Wilson and Mr. Jackson and get them to help you round up all the kids and get them on the bus. Can you do that?” Miss Welch sniffed back tears and nodded her head again. “Honey, I want t
o hear you say it.”
“Y – y – yes. I can do that.”
“Good, now get busy. No time to tarry.” Betty gave a gentle push towards the open door. Miss Welch turned and dashed out, Betty following after pausing long enough to grab her purse and the bus keys off the small table in front of the window. Everything else she had in the room was just clothing and toiletries that could easily be replaced.
Outside she turned and headed down the second floor walkway towards the stairs at the end of the building, keeping her eyes on the two women at the far edge of the parking lot. They were still engrossed with the man lying on the ground and weren’t paying any attention to her. Reaching the top of the stairs she turned to start down them and froze in her tracks. To the south a massive fire burned, bright enough to light up the entire horizon.
“Good Jesus, help us tonight,” she muttered as she started down the stairs.
Betty hadn’t reached the bottom step when a scream from above froze her in her tracks. Looking up she watched as Mr. Jackson appeared to be hugging Miss Welch in the door to his room, then they fell back into the dark interior and she lost sight of them. She hesitated a moment, wanting to get the bus started and ready to go, but afraid something was terribly wrong with Mr. Jackson and Miss Welch. Reversing direction she climbed back up the stairs as fast as she could, hurrying to the door where she had last seen them. Arriving at the door she stopped and tried to peer inside but the room was completely dark. She could hear a wet, slurping sound intermingled with guttural snarls and involuntarily took a step back. Forcing herself forward she stepped back to the doorway and reached inside, feeling on the wall for the light switch. Finding it she flipped it up and dim lights came on inside the room. Mr. Jackson was on top of Miss Welch, tearing at her throat with his teeth. The horrible sounds were coming from him as he ripped into her. She lay on her back, legs twisted under her, arms splayed out to the side and her face was turned to the door. Her dead eyes stared up at Betty.
