by Dirk Patton
A quick check of the infected around the truck and I saw a couple of females that seemed to be looking around, but the Hillbilly Silencer seemed to have done the trick. The problem was I had no idea where my bullet went. Don’t know if I was high, low, left or right.
As quietly as I could I stripped the Pepsi bottle off and replaced it with the Mountain Dew bottle and smoothed down the tape to hold it in place. I re-sighted on the target, held slightly higher this time and aimed a couple of degrees off to the left. Again, deep breath, exhale, fire.
No hit, and this time the bottle didn’t work as well. Thinner plastic? Who knows? I checked the infected at the truck and there were now several females standing away from the pack looking in my general direction. They obviously weren’t sure I was there or they would already be charging, but I was on borrowed time.
Third bottle on the rifle, aim high and right, deep breath, exhale, fire. Nothing. I ripped the bottle off the end of the rifle as I watched half a dozen females start moving in my direction. Not running yet, but moving too fast for my comfort.
Fuck it. I stripped off my shirt and wound it tightly around the muzzle of the rifle. It wouldn’t work as well as the bottles, but the fabric would suppress the muzzle flash and knock down a good amount of the report. Aim center mass on the target, adjust up a couple of degrees, deep breath, exhale and fire.
23
BOOM!
The detonation was far louder than I expected. I felt the concussion in my chest and a huge cloud of white smoke marked where the targets had been. I ripped my attention away from the smoke to check on the infected. It looked like the diversion was working. The pack had abandoned the truck and was moving towards the smoke cloud. All but two females, that is, who were still moving towards me. They must have either seen my movement as I fired or heard enough of the rifle report to keep their attention.
The pack had cleared the truck by a good ten yards when I yanked the singed shirt off the end of the rifle barrel, slung the rifle, grabbed my pack and headed to get Dog. The two females spotted me as soon as I stood up and broke into a run directly at me. I kept the rifle slung, afraid to use it and alert the rest of the pack to my location. Instead I drew the Ka-Bar and moved to meet them.
One of the females looked to have been in her late teens to early twenties and was in good shape. She was completely nude as she ran towards me and even in the heat of battle my mind wondered what she had been doing at the moment she got infected. The other was older, probably in her forties and grossly out of shape. She was still coming fast, but the younger one quickly outpaced her.
I met her about half way to the truck, her at a flat out run, me slowing to a trot so I could move laterally. She leapt at me and I spun out of her grasp, completing the spin and jamming the knife into her lower back, directly into a kidney. Now, a normal human with an eight inch knife wound to the kidney would go down and stay down, but she wasn’t normal. She twisted around and almost pulled the knife from my grasp.
I spared a glance at the fat one who was still twenty yards away but closing fast. I needed to end this quickly before I had two of them on me and we drew the attention of the rest of the pack. Stepping inside the younger infected’s reach I slammed the hilt of the knife into her forehead with enough force to snap her head back and knock her to the ground. Using my own momentum I followed her down, right knee landing on her chest. I both heard and felt her breast bone and ribs snap when I came down with my 230 pounds. Reversing the knife in my grip I stabbed into her eye and sank the blade to the hilt. Just like earlier all animation left her body instantly.
Jumping back to my feet I turned as the older female arrived with a snarl. I sidestepped and swept her legs so that she fell face first to the pavement. I was on her back in a second and drove the knife into the soft spot at the base of the skull. Another instant kill. Damn, but I was finally getting benefit from all the training Uncle Sam had put me through. I shook my head at myself, wondering why thoughts like that went through my mind in the heat of combat.
I cleaned the blade on the back of her shirt and checked on the pack. Several figures, most likely female, were already at the cloud of smoke that was still hanging in the air, the bulk of the pack still moving in that direction. They seemed to be completely focused on the diversion and the truck was clear for the moment.
Running, I covered the last fifty yards as fast as I could, bending over to make sure there weren’t any surprises under the truck before I stepped up to the door. Grabbing the driver side door handle I yanked the door open and immediately heard a loud growl from deep within the darkness inside the cab.
“Dog,” I mumbled in a low voice. “It’s ok. Let’s go.”
Before I got the last words out my mouth he was standing on the driver’s seat, tail wagging so hard that his whole body quivered. I couldn’t help but take the time to rub his head with both hands, surprised at the sense of relief I felt that he was OK. Stepping back I checked on the pack’s status and Dog jumped to the ground and quickly trotted to the back of the truck where he lifted his leg and peed on the rear tire. Immediate need taken care of he trotted back to me and pressed his head against my hip.
The pack was still distracted and moving away. I headed directly for the tree line, Dog at my side. We made it out of the open and into the shelter of the forest without being spotted. I relaxed half a notch, thinking we were clear of the imminent danger and could quietly make our way to the lake. That mistake almost cost me my life, and very likely would have if not for Dog.
He let out a low growl just as a female screamed and leapt at me from no more than five feet away. Dog leapt and met her in the air, knocking her down and fell on her and started tearing at her throat. I was immobilized for half a second then stepped forward and rammed the knife home in the infected’s ear. Dog stopped attacking as soon as the corpse went limp.
Screams from the direction the pack had gone told me that we had been heard. Time to go. I set off deeper into the woods at an oblique angle from the road, making more noise than I cared to, but speed mattered right now. After what I estimated to be fifty yards I changed direction, ran another thirty and stopped. Behind us were screams and the sounds of bodies crashing through the underbrush, but it all sounded like it was moving parallel to us, not toward us.
I looked down at Dog whose ears were at full alert. He stared in the direction of the screams and noise, but he wasn’t acting like we were about to be attacked. Maybe we’d managed to elude them in the woods. Quietly we started moving towards the lake again. Behind us there weren’t sounds of pursuit and the screams slowly died out. I only hoped that meant the infected were not on our trail, not that they’d found us and were sneaking through the woods to attack.
I didn’t have any idea if the infected were capable of a level of reasoning that included knowing to stealthily track prey before attacking. For that matter, was it even reasoning or was it instinct? Again I caught myself over analyzing things. I didn’t care why they might do something, I just cared if they could or couldn’t do something.
We kept moving, slow and quiet. There was an occasional scream in the woods behind us, but nothing that sounded like pursuit. Slowly we pushed our way through the woods, not encountering any infected. Dog stayed two paces in front of me, ears at full mast and tail tucked tightly along his back legs. Every few seconds he would glance back to make sure I was still close to him then would go back to scanning the dark forest in front of us.
More than an hour later we stopped at the edge of the neatly mown lawn I had crossed earlier in the evening. There weren’t any infected visible in the open area and we hadn’t heard any noise from the infected behind us in over half an hour. Glancing down at Dog I noted that he was alert but not on guard so took that as a sign that I wasn’t missing anything. We crept out of the woods and picked up the pace as we crossed the open lawn, heading for the back of the house and the slope down to the lake.
There weren’t any clouds left in the sky
and the moon gave us plenty of light to make our way without worrying about tripping over anything or running into an infected that was just standing there waiting. We paused by the body of the infected I’d killed when passing this way earlier, Dog giving the body a perfunctory sniff before turning away from it. Checking around the corner of the house I was pleased to see the path to the boat house was open and clear. Dog and I dashed down the slope, my eyes raised to the lake. As we neared the dock I slowed, then skidded to a stop, staring out at the water. The boat I had left Rachel on a few hours ago was gone.
24
I didn’t have time to stand there and worry about why Rachel had moved the boat. Behind me there was a chorus of screams that could only mean a small pack of females had spotted us. Glancing back as I pounded down the wooden dock I saw five females coming down the lawn at a full sprint. Crashing through the boat house door with Dog on my heels I grabbed the key for the speedboat that was hanging from a peg, a smiling yellow rubber ducky on the key chain that would float if the key was dropped in the water.
I barely broke stride as I grabbed the key and leapt into the boat, Dog hesitating for a moment before leaping in and taking up station between the two bucket seats. It was dark in the boat house and I couldn’t see the ignition. Wasting precious time I dug a flashlight out of my pocket and clicked it on. Fortunately I was now able to see the ignition, but I had just destroyed my night vision.
Inserting and twisting the key the two giant Mercury motors on the back of the boat rumbled to life, masking the screams of the approaching females. I scrambled to throw off the lines that tied the boat in place and dropped into the driver’s seat, hand already on the throttles. I looked up and cursed. The boat house had a pair of wooden doors that swung open in the middle to allow access for the boat, and they were closed. The doors looked to be rather sturdy and I didn’t like the odds of crashing through them with the boat.
Dog growled as the sound of running feet on the dock reached his ears a moment before it did mine. Pulling my pistol I sighted on the latch mounted in the center of the doors, my target lit by the flashlight in my left hand that was doing double duty as a brace for my shooting hand. The doors were only twenty five or thirty feet away, an easy shot, and I put six rounds into the brass latching mechanism. A .45 hollow point round is a big heavy bullet that will transfer a lot of energy when it strikes a target and the rounds I fired did as I expected. The latch shattered then blew completely free of the surrounding wood and one of the doors started to slowly swing open.
The time it took me to shoot out the latch gave the females the time they needed to reach the boathouse and as I shifted my aim point to the walk door the first one burst through with a nerve shattering scream. I had her spotted with the small flashlight and didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. Her face distorted for a fraction of a second then the whole back of her head blew out and covered the female behind her with blood and brains.
The second female jumped over her and I fired twice. One round in the center of her chest slowed her and a follow up shot to the head put her down. Now there were two bodies piled in the open door and the next female had to slow to climb over them. She made an easy target and quickly joined her sisters. The fourth died as soon as she showed her head and with the doorway momentarily clear I shoved both throttles to their stops and the engines bellowed with power.
The stern of the boat dropped into the water as the props instantly spun up to full speed and the boat nearly leapt forward. The bow crashed into the access doors, slamming them open. There was a shudder as the boat seemed to shake off the impact then I could feel the acceleration kick in. We shot out of the boat house pointed at the center of the lake, gaining speed at an incredible pace until I slapped the throttles back to idle. We were far enough from shore already to be relatively safe and I didn’t want to go charging around the lake at top speed in the dark.
Behind, the surviving female stood on the dock and screamed at us. Even over the idling engines I could hear the answering screams from deeper in the woods.
“Well, we’re not going back that way.” I said to Dog and ruffled his ears. He leaned sideways and pressed his head into me. Fortunately he was a dog and didn’t understand that I’d forgotten him in the truck when we had to abandon it. He was just happy to see me. After a few moments of making sure I knew he still liked me he walked to the stern of the boat, leaned way out and started drinking from the lake. He drank for a long time before coming back and lying down next to me between the bucket seats for the driver and passenger.
The boat had powered a couple of hundred yards from the shore and then drifted another fifty or so before bobbing to a stop. The surface of the lake quickly smoothed back out and within a couple of minutes it was as smooth as glass and amplifying the reflected moonlight. The dash was backlit with a dim red light but it still took me a bit of looking to find the fuel gauge. It read just over half full. I hoped it read accurately. I also suspected that the two monster engines had a hell of a thirst and no matter how many gallons that half a tank represented it would go fast if I was heavy on the throttle.
I dug through the lockers on the boat that were built into the seating and finally came up with a pair of marine binoculars. They were extraordinarily light, their housing air filled so they would float if dropped overboard. Holding them to my eyes I scanned a slow 360 degree circle, hoping to spot the cabin cruiser, but it was nowhere to be seen. The dock where we had stolen it from still teemed with infected, and the dock that Dog and I had just departed was quickly filling up as more infected arrived, drawn by the sounds of our escape.
I didn’t think Rachel would intentionally leave without me. She had no reason to. She was smart and practical and realized that we stood a better chance together than apart. I had returned well before the deadline I’d given her as a time to give up on me. There was no indication that the infected had any way to threaten her while she was sitting on a boat in the middle of the lake. That left one viable option. Other people had somehow boarded the boat and taken it and Rachel.
“Fuck me.” I muttered under my breath. First I leave Dog behind in a panic, now Rachel had been taken. I wasn’t exactly lighting up the scoreboard with successes today.
Searching the boat again I hoped to find a map or chart of the lake, but no such luck. If Rachel had been taken, which I didn’t see any other possibility, then they were probably still somewhere on the lake. If they had just wanted Rachel, the boat would still be floating at anchor right where I left it. Time for a search.
First things first. I was covered in blood from the infected I had killed, drenched in sweat and smeared with mud and plant stains from my trek to rescue Dog. Removing my boots, socks and all my weapons I slipped over the side of the boat into the cool lake water and spent a few minutes rubbing myself as clean as I could. Feeling refreshed I climbed back into the boat and pulled socks and boots back on. I was shirtless and the mosquitoes had found me out on the water and were having quite the feast at my expense. There was nothing I could do except suck it up.
Closing my eyes I tried to picture the map of the lake I had looked at with Rachel earlier in the day. I remembered the lake was massive, going on for miles and miles as it filled in the low ground in the rolling Georgia countryside. Multiple little arms sprouted off from the main body of the lake and I was going to have to search each one of them. Edging the throttles forward I spun the wheel and pointed the boat in a southwesterly direction to start my search.
25
It was a slow search. I didn’t want to go too fast and waste gas as well as alert Rachel’s captors to my approach. Not that the Mercury motors didn’t sound like a growl from the hounds of hell, but the faster I went the more noise they would make. A couple of hours later I had lost count of how many coves I had checked. A couple of larger homes had boat houses large enough to conceal the cabin cruiser and I had cautiously checked them as well. Both were empty.
My stomach was growling. I’d lef
t the boat without eating the meal that Rachel had prepared and I’d burned a lot of energy. Chastising myself for worrying about my own hunger I pushed on in the dark. Visions of Rachel at the hands of people like the men I’d killed outside the sporting goods store made the muscles in my jaw ache as I clenched my teeth. Whoever had taken her was not going to have a pleasant time when I found them.
Another hour and countless coves later I motored around a sharp bend in the lake and immediately slapped the throttles to idle and cut the engines. On the north shore of the lake, no more than half a mile away, a large house sat back in the trees lit up like they were having a party. In the light that spilled down to the water I could see the cabin cruiser tied up at the dock next to a small bass boat and a sleek ski boat.
Water is an excellent sound reflector and noises will travel long distances across still water. The lake was as still as a mill pond and I could clearly hear the sound of an engine I guessed to be a generator as well as country music playing along with the laughter of several men. Raising the binoculars I scanned the cruiser and other two boats which both appeared to be unoccupied. The dock and lawn were also equally empty. No sentries? Didn’t these guys realize what had happened in the world?
I spent another ten minutes watching the house, then took my time scanning the shoreline on either side looking for infected. None to be found. Perhaps the house was just too far off the beaten path. There were no other houses on the shore for as far as I could see with binoculars in each direction. Just thick trees and brush that came all the way to a thin strip of mud that was the shoreline.
