The man was incredulous and thumbed to the door. “Out there?”
“Better hurry,” added Cyrus. “Don’t kill him.”
The man swallowed hard, spun on his heel, and sprinted from the diner. Billy saw him and ran off to the right. The man followed, and the horde followed him.
Cyrus sighed. “This is irksome. He continues to avoid capture.”
“Looked to me like he really didn’t know how he does it,” Masta G whispered. The three men watched as a Runner fought its way through the throng, desperate to get to the men who had run away.
Billy rounded a corner and realized he was back on Fell Street. One of the shop fronts had crumbled into the road and the building was on fire from the rocket attack. Several dead milled about and turned to face him when he came into view. The thug chasing him put his rifle to his shoulder and destroyed three of the things.
“You better fuck’n stop, asshole!”
“Or what? You gonna shoot me? Pretty sure Cyrus wants me alive!”
“How about I put a hole in your leg then? Think the smell of blood will be okay to the dead ones?”
Billy hadn’t thought of that, so he put his hands up and stopped running. The Runner came screaming around the end of the building and the guy shot it in the chest. He ran over to Billy and poked him with the barrel of his weapon. “Move.”
“Uh, you sure?” Billy pointed back the way they had come.
The vanguard of the horde were now streaming onto Fell Street.
The man’s eyes grew wide. “Shit! This way!”
He forced Billy to run down the street, but each way he tried to go, a swarm of dead blocked that direction. The things began to come from under cars, out of open doors, and from down the street. The men were forced into an alley, but it was a dead end, the far side a solid brick wall, four stories high. The man pushed Billy down next to a dumpster and pointed his rifle at his head.
“You tell me! You tell me right now how you do it, or I’ll take my chances with Cyrus and blow your damn head off!”
Billy blinked and the man looked down the alley. A wall of rot had entered and was on the way.
“Tell me!” the man almost screamed and poked Billy in the head with the rifle.
“Ow! Okay, okay!” Billy rubbed his head, unzipped his pack and reached in, rummaging around. He came out with a bottle of something and opened it. He poured a bit of the thick solution into his hand, rubbed it with his other hand, and then applied it to his face.
“That’s it? That’s all you have to do?”
“Yup and they won’t touch you. I’ve been doing it for months.”
The man glanced back down the alley and inhaled an involuntary sharp breath. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and grabbed the bottle, immediately dumping half the contents onto his hands, then rubbing his hands all over himself.
“Don’t forget your head,” Billy said and pointed to the man’s hair.
The desperate man applied more of the solution to his face and head and sniffed. “It smells like…”
“It is. That’s all I’ve ever used. It works.”
“You sure?” The man was breathing fast and terrified. The dead were twenty feet away and getting loud.
Billy nodded and made a diagonal slicing gesture with his right hand. “Totally sure. I’m still alive and by now you know I can walk through them, right? Got to stop talking though,” he added, “or they might figure you out.”
His rifle aimed at the oncoming tide, the man was about to begin firing.
Billy shook his head. “Don’t shoot or they’ll know!”
Billy’s captor nodded furiously. The younger man leaned against the dumpster and began picking his thumbnail with his index nail. The dead walked right past Billy and headed for the other man, who backed up. He retreated until there was nowhere else to go, a solid wall behind him. The wave of infection never stopped and Billy rolled his eyes as the man started screaming. The things tore him apart as he stood against the wall, the press of the crowd such that he never hit the ground and was devoured standing up.
It didn’t take long, as there were many creatures. What did take a while was Billy’s escape from the alley. The dead in the rear pressed forward even when the meal was done, trapping their brothers, sisters, and Billy. When the infected which were denied a feeding realized that they had missed out and there was no more food in sight, they and the rest of the horde moved off back down the alley as slowly as they had come. The last of the dead to move on, an older man in a filthy undershirt and nothing else, glanced briefly at Billy with its crimson eyes as it passed him. Billy nodded to it.
The living man moved to what was left of his pursuer. Stains on the littered ground, torn and bloody clothes, scattered bones, and a skull were all that remained.
Billy made a face. “Ew, nasty.” He shook his head in disgust. “Ugh.”
He stared at the man’s military rifle. The entire weapon was covered in gore. He reached down to pick it up by the sling and it dripped with fluids when he lifted it.
“Seriously?”
He brought his yellow backpack around in front of him and dug into it. He was able to wash off most of the infected fluids with two bottles of water and wipe the weapon down with a sock. The sling had been permeated by the rank blood though and he discarded it. There were two extra magazines in the dead man’s pack, a knife on his belt, and assorted other sundries that needed appropriation.
Billy put the weapon to his shoulder and looked down the sight. By the light of the moon, he checked for a safety. It had been disengaged the entire time and the dead man had never fired. Billy smiled and found the magazine ejector lever. He figured out the charging handle as well and drew it back a bit, nodding. He had never used a military rifle before.
“Just one,” he said and fired off a round down the alley. “Oooooh! This is nice.”
Immediately, he realized his mistake. He knew that the lane would fill back up with the dead in a moment because of the gunfire and he would have to wait to get out again.
Taking a step toward the mouth of the alley, he kicked the empty bottle he had given the thug. Billy pouted. He would be without barbeque sauce for his next meal. He loved that sauce on everything, especially potato chips, and it was becoming harder to find. He hoped the dead had enjoyed it.
Unknown Residence, Massachusetts
Anna’s legs were crossed as she sat on an overturned bucket in an attic in Massachusetts. “I have to pee.”
“You’re sitting on a bucket,” Seyfert told her. “Turn it over and pee.”
She made a face and was about to retort when a crash from the floor below them interrupted her.
“So they’re upstairs now,” the Texan drawled. “If I was gonna pick between bein’ trapped here an’ bein’ trapped with tons of food an’ big walls, I’d pick—”
Rick smiled. “We know, Hillbilly. You may have mentioned this before.”
“I can’t see how many there are through the fog,” Seyfert squinted through the attic dormer window, “but it looks like they’re thinning out back. Might be that now is the best time to go.”
The SEAL surveyed his surroundings one more time. This attic was gigantic, spanning the length of the house and the garage. It looked like there had been construction happening prior to the onset of the plague, as a stack of plywood and two-by-fours sat unused in a corner. Several power tools and some extension cords lay forgotten where they had been last used. A few wall frames had been installed and some electrical cable had been threaded, but that was it.
There were stored items in the attic as well, but nothing the group could use. Furniture covered in canvas tarps. A large oval mirror in a wooden frame. A dozen steamer trunks and a few banker’s boxes, all containing clothes or personal items.
Rick searched the trunks again while Dallas and Seyfert moved to the far end of the long room.
Seyfert and Dallas returned a few minutes later to find Rick inspecting a leather jacket.
“Red ain’t your color, Hoss.”
“We either have a big problem, or a possible solution to our current issue,” Seyfert told Rick. Rick looked at the SEAL expectantly and Seyfert continued. “There’s a stairwell that leads into the garage at the far end of the attic. There’s a flimsy door at the bottom of the stairs. If they figure that out, we’re dead. We might be able to use that set of stairs to go through the garage and out the back though.”
“Wilcox died because of that garage,” Anna said, moving quietly up next to the men.
“Wilcox died because we didn’t properly recon the house. My fault as much as his.” The SEAL shook his head. “Think of what’s in front of us, not what’s behind. We need to get out of here and that stairwell is our only option other than out one of the dormer windows, but then it’s a thirty-foot drop to the backyard.”
“Dunno about big drops with our legs there, Pard. Mine hurts now, how’s yours?”
“It’s fine,” Seyfert answered, rubbing his leg. “We should go now.” The SEAL moved to the dormer windows and opened all three of them. “Just in case.”
Rick finished adding loose rounds to a magazine. He ejected his other magazine and replaced it with the full one, pulling back the charging handle to charge a round. He added six more rounds to the partially expended magazine.
“Ready,” he said with a nod.
“Doing this quietly would be preferable,” Seyfert told his three teammates, “but I would expect we will have to fire on them. Check your targets and your zones.”
The quartet moved down the plywood floor toward the stairwell. They could hear the sounds of multiple threats on the second floor below them. The noises the dead made were loud.
The humans reached the stairwell and started down. When they reached the bottom, Seyfert turned to them.
“If I slam the door, that means there’re too many and we have to fall back,” he whispered. “This door won’t hold long, so go right out the windows and we’ll find a way down.” He raised his eyebrows. “Ready?”
Everyone nodded and Seyfert cracked the door, using the sight on his sidearm to track targets. The garage was vast, capable of holding several vehicles, but he only one housed was unusable. A luxury sedan sat in the third bay, all the windows broken out with the vehicle positively drenched in mostly dried infected fluids. Shelves of skiing and rock climbing equipment sat toward the back of the structure.
The SEAL opened the door a bit more with his foot and checked behind it. He held up two fingers and drew his knife. He moved down the two steps to the concrete floor. The last step creaked, but neither the young dead boy, nor the middle-aged dead man turned to look at him. Dallas, Rick, and Anna filed out behind Seyfert, Dallas with his piece of rebar. Seyfert moved left and stood behind the boy, nodding to Dallas. They struck their targets simultaneously, Seyfert utilizing a sideways temple strike and the big Texan using his strength to bring the rebar overhand through the softened skull all the way to the trachea. Both men kicked their victims forward to extricate their weapons.
Anna covered Rick as he moved to the open door between the garage and the house. He hurriedly shut it, but not before the living heard the hungry cries of the dead grow in intensity.
“Yeah, so, they saw me,” Rick told his friends.
Seyfert studied the garage doors. Each of the three had an electric door opener. He reached up and yanked on a red line attached to one of the opener boxes and a chain released with a thud. Moving to the large, wide door, he got down on his belly a few feet back on the concrete of the garage floor. The first thumps from dead hands landed on the entry between them and the dead inside the house.
“Rick, cover Dallas with me. Dallas, lift the door up a foot, and we’ll check to see if it’s clear. If it isn’t, slam it back down fast.”
Dallas nodded and put his hand on the ornate garage door handle as Rick got down next to Seyfert.
“Go!” Seyfert told Dallas.
The door came up quickly for one so large and both Rick and the SEAL said, “Clear!”
Dallas threw the heavy wooden door all the way open and the four friends rushed out into the fog. They could hear the terrifying noises of the dead around them, but still couldn’t see through the fog.
“Stay close!” the SEAL whispered. “Within sight of each other at all times!”
Seyfert’s whisper didn’t go unnoticed and something lunged at him from the fog. It latched on to his tactical vest and he spun with it and took it to the ground. He held its mouth at bay and struggled to get it off him before Rick got the former human off of his friend with a vicious kick. A second kick and a stomp to the back of its neck destroyed the thing, but not before several others materialized out of the fog beside the team.
Two of the things grabbed at Anna, but she nimbly side-stepped away…and into the waiting claws of a third. She used the butt of her rifle to break its jaw, while Dallas brought his rebar around in a sideways arc, nearly decapitating it. Rick was covering Seyfert while the SEAL got up, but was assaulted by a dead woman in half of a disgusting floral dress. He kicked her knee and she stumbled backward into the two that had gone for Anna and Dallas. More of the creatures emerged from the murk and Seyfert realized they were surrounded.
“Go live!” he said and fired his suppressed pistol into the face of a dead thing in a blue smock. “Break after me!”
Rick shot a mailman through the right eye, then hurried behind Seyfert, Anna and Dallas on their heels. The four of them created a diamond-shaped pattern with Dallas in the rear. They were beginning to fire more rapidly as the targets came at them out of the fog. Anna’s suppressor hissed noisily as she destroyed a shambler and her next shot was significantly louder. Her suppressor was almost spent.
“Switching to my rifle,” she told her friends and brought the weapon up from its sling. She aimed the M4 battle rifle to her right as the group progressed.
Seyfert stopped moving forward and glanced to his left, then right. “Got a stone wall in front of me, moving right. Stay tight.”
The group moved down the wall in close formation, destroying anything that came at them. Anna tripped on something and the something reached up and grabbed her. She fell over it onto the ground and it began to crawl up her to get a bite in. With no legs and one arm, it was easy to push off, but its remaining hand would not let go. Another thing stumbled out of the mist and fell on the ground to feast. She had no choice but to fire her rifle and the unsuppressed shot was incredibly loud.
The noises of the dead grew in intensity, although they were hard to pinpoint through the fog. The horrifying sounds echoed through the mist and against the long stone wall. A dead woman appeared to the right and another, then a dead boy. Anna smashed the first thing in the face with the butt of her rifle, driving her back. Dallas did the same and lashed out with a kick that snapped the dead kid’s leg at the knee sending the former boy sprawling. More of the things emerged and Seyfert decided to pick up speed. Two more steps and he fired twice, dropping one creature and scoring a non-killing headshot on the second. Its head snapped to the side, but it didn’t even fall over and came on with one less eye.
Seyfert tried to holster his sidearm, but the suppressor caught on the holster and he fumbled and dropped it. He made to reach for it, but a rotten, growling thing plowed into him, sending him into the high wall. He smacked his head and the thing caught him by the tactical vest, biting into his shoulder. The creature only got the tac webbing and tried to move in for a better bite as the SEAL fought it off. He gave it an elbow under the chin and then one to the nose, smearing the appendage off of the rotten thing’s face. A gaping black hole was left where the cartilage had been.
Rick shot it in the side of the head with his pistol and the group picked up speed. They began a slow, deliberate jog, and suddenly Seyfert found a section of the wall that had come down.
“Through here!”
The rest of his group followed him through the collapsed and broken ston
es, the dead hot on their heels. Two of the things stumbled on the large chunks of stone, impeding the progress of the others.
“Into the woods, stay together!”
The group followed Seyfert’s command and moved quickly into the neighboring forest. The surreal landscape was beautiful but terrifying, as it held a legion of plague-ridden, vicious undead. The thick fog covered everything in a blanket of opaque coolness, with only the bases of the trees visible. Oaks, maples, and huge pines loomed before them, disappearing into the murk above as if the canopy had been stolen by some enormous entity.
A growling dead women came from the left side, and Dallas smashed her with the butt of his weapon. Each of the group took small but deliberate strides in an attempt to remain in contact with the others. They moved quickly, but in a moment, Seyfert heard a scuffle and he spun to see what was happening. Dallas and Rick were behind him, but Anna was nowhere to be seen.
Noises to the right alerted the men and they sped off in that direction to find Anna going hand to hand with two infected. She lashed out with her right boot, the left knee of the dead man bending backward with a snap. The thing went down, but not before its brother grabbed Anna and moved in to eat her face. She brought her elbow up, catching the thing under the jaw. Even from ten feet away, Rick heard the thing’s teeth shatter. Not even stunned, it came at her with renewed vigor, but Seyfert was there and ended it using a downward stab with his blade. The other creature was attempting to stand and Anna moved to finish it, but Seyfert grabbed her and mouthed Let’s go! She nodded and the four of them moved deeper into the trees.
They were nearly out of breath and sore from running when they could no longer hear the horrifying sounds of pursuit. For the first time, the sun was visible as its own object in the sky as opposed to it just lighting up the fog.
“East,” Seyfert said as he stopped and put his hands on his knees. He pointed to the sun. “We need to move east.” He shook his head. “Holy shit, I’m getting soft. All this easy living in an underground bunker and I didn’t work out enough.” He spit.
Run_Book 3_Long Road Home Page 11
