by J. Thorn
She looked up as she walked across the room, spotting me and almost faltering in her step, but she recovered smoothly enough for the men to not notice. At the table she shoveled scrambled eggs out of a large cast iron skillet onto the waiting plates and was thanked with another hard slap on the ass. The other man reached up and grabbed her right breast and squeezed it hard enough to make her flinch, but she didn’t try to pull away.
Rachel kept her eyes on me while the men groped her, then the breast squeezer dismissed her with another slap on her bare ass that was hard enough to make her stumble. She recovered and quickly moved away to the safety of the stove. The men dug into the eggs, eating like they hadn’t had food for days.
I looked at Rachel and used hand signs to tell her I counted eleven men, then raised my eyebrows questioningly. She understood, and without raising her hands very carefully extended all ten fingers, then two more. Twelve. I had spotted eleven. Where was the twelfth?
I pointed at the room with the pool table and held up nine fingers. Rachel nodded subtly enough to not be noticed. I pointed at the two in the kitchen, then raised my eyebrows again. Rachel shrugged her shoulders no more than a half an inch, but enough for me to tell she was saying she didn’t know.
Shit. The odd man out could ruin my day. Surprise and sobriety were on my side. I was confident I could take the two in the kitchen with my knife, then the nine with my rifle. The problem was getting blindsided by the missing man while I was finishing off the room full of drunks.
I made a calming motion with my hand to Rachel and moved away from the edge of the door before I was spotted. Dog was next to me, flattened to the ground and as alert as ever. I was glad to have his nose and ears to keep an eye on my back. I guess even Dog isn’t perfect, because by the time he growled it was too late.
“Don’t fuckin’ move.” A male voice with a thick accent said, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being racked from the darkness at the corner of the house.
26
It has always amazed me how the mind speeds up in high stress or high danger situations. I know what it’s like in combat and I’ve heard professional athletes try to explain the same phenomenon. The body will dump a massive amount of adrenaline into the blood stream and the brain immediately goes into hyper speed. Your senses and reactions are so enhanced that everyone and everything else around you is in super slow motion and super HD clarity, your analytical and decision making processes going into warp drive. This is an incredible edge in combat, or on the field, and not many people can do this. Special Forces operators and pro athletes that play at a high level typically have this ability and it’s what lets us get to where we are in our chosen profession.
A fraction of a second after I heard the voice start to speak the world around me slowed down. I realized that if I was captured I’d be dead and Rachel might as well be. Fighting was the only option that gave us a chance at survival. This thought went through my head and the decision to fight was made in less than the blink of an eye.
My rifle was still slung and would take too long to bring to bear, but my pistol was inches from my hand and ready to go. Launching myself towards the voice with a mighty push of my legs I drew the pistol as I twisted to get into a firing position. Shotguns at close range are devastating weapons. If it was twelve gauge loaded with 00 buck shot it was essentially the same as firing eight .38 special pistols at the same time, each of the shot pellets being about the same size as a .38 bullet. As I pushed off, my hope was that my assailant didn’t really have the shotgun pointed directly at me as most people rely on the intimidation factor rather than expecting to actually have to shoot.
My body reached full extension and as I twisted I started firing the pistol at the spot where the voice had come from. After my second shot sounded the shotgun boomed and a tongue of flame lit the corner of the porch like a strobe light. I felt something tug my left arm and the left side of my chest, but it didn’t hurt so I ignored it.
The flash from the shotgun firing gave me an aiming point and as I landed on the porch in a fully prone position I quickly put six rounds into the spot where I’d seen the flash. I was rewarded with the sound of a body hitting the ground and a shotgun clattering to the porch. Without pausing I dropped the pistol magazine, popped in a fresh one and holstered it, then swung my rifle around as I leapt to my feet.
The rifle I’d looted from the sporting goods store was most likely illegal as it was a military version of the M4 with a selector setting for Semi Auto and Burst. Semi means for every pull of the trigger one round, and one round only, will be fired and another loaded into the chamber. Burst will fire three rounds for every pull of the trigger. I thumbed the selector to burst and stepped in front of the window that looked into the room where the men were playing pool.
I couldn’t begin to guess how much time had elapsed since I’d fired the first round from the pistol, but it couldn’t have been long as the nine men in the room were still basically where they had been, not having reacted to the firefight yet. I was sure the alcohol they had consumed contributed to slowing them down, but I was moving at warp speed and they weren’t.
Aiming through the window I pulled the trigger and three rounds shattered the glass and punched into the chest of one of the pool players. Before he had time to fall I adjusted slightly and sent three more rounds into the second player. Now I had their attention.
Shouts and curses sprang from them and they all started moving. In slow motion I saw three of them reach for their pistols. I targeted each of them, putting each down in turn so quickly none of them had time to get their pistols up and into action. I shot two more as they tried to scramble across the floor and out the door that led to the kitchen. The remaining two were in opposite corners of the room but I had to swing my rifle to my left when the French doors leading from the kitchen burst open.
One of the men from the kitchen rushed out the door, pistol up and ready but before he could even spot and target me I put a three round burst into his head. I spun back to the rec room but only one of the men was visible. Three rounds in his back put him down, then I had to move as bullets started punching out through the wall right next me. Someone was firing blind and hoping for a lucky shot. I didn’t know if it was the other man from the kitchen or the last man from the rec room that I’d lost sight of.
I quickly changed the magazines in the rifle and fired five bursts back through the wall towards the most likely location of the shooter. The shooting from inside the house stopped and I moved to the kitchen doors, nearly shooting Rachel as she stepped into the doorway. Without a word, I grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the house and past me as I moved into the kitchen. The second man I’d seen eating was lying face down on the floor, the handle of a rather substantial butcher knife sticking out of his back. I made a mental note not to piss Rachel off in the kitchen.
The only man not accounted for was the shooter that I thought I’d gotten when I shot through the wall. I briefly debated the wisdom of just getting out of there, but if he wasn’t dead I didn’t want to leave him behind to get pissed off, find some friends and come after us. Pushing ahead I kept the rifle up and ready.
Moving quickly but cautiously I entered the rec room, scanning with the rifle for any threats. The room was a slaughterhouse. The stench of blood, voided bladders and bowels and the overlaid haze of burnt gunpowder was a familiar smell that had a strange calming effect on me. I went to each body, counting as I went and making sure each was dead. When I found the one who was shooting through the wall I was pleased with my response. I’d fired five bursts, fifteen rounds, back through the wall and I counted thirteen holes in the body.
The adrenaline was quickly draining off and the post combat letdown started to set in. With it came the pain. Then I realized I was having a hard time breathing. I stumbled back to the kitchen and out the door to the porch where I would have fallen to the ground if Rachel hadn’t rushed forward and wrapped her arms around me for support.
27
Rachel staggered under the sudden weight as John collapsed into her arms. Letting him slip to the porch she quickly examined him in the light spilling out from the kitchen. Two holes that looked like bullet wounds in his left arm bled freely, but fortunately neither of them was pulsing blood like an arterial shot would do. Ignoring them for the moment she checked the wound in his chest. A couple of inches below his left nipple, it was seeping blood and when she leaned close Rachel could hear the whistle of air in and out of the wound. Rachel had done a rotation in the ER at Atlanta’s Grady Hospital and knew what a punctured lung sounded like. He needed a modern hospital and a trained surgeon, right now, but all he had was her. A fourth year med student that supported herself by showing her tits and ass to men.
Never one to panic in a crisis, Rachel jumped to her feet and dashed into the house in search of first aid supplies. Starting in the kitchen, she ransacked every cabinet and drawer without finding anything more substantial than a box of bandages not suitable for anything more severe than a paper cut. She set aside a stack of clean, white kitchen towels and raced to the closest bathroom where she found a plastic handled X-acto knife and a small sewing kit. In the next she found more of what she needed. Rubbing alcohol, gauze pads, medical tape, antibiotic ointment, scissors, and a large vinyl bag with a heavy zipper. Inside she found syringes with unopened needles, a plastic baggie with a ball of black tar heroin, and a spoon and butane lighter. The spoon was stained from cooking the heroin. Zipping up the bag Rachel grabbed a towel off a rack, folded everything up in it and ran back to the kitchen.
Grabbing the white towels on her way by she stopped long enough to check on John. He was still bleeding and unconscious, his color not good. Dog sat by his head, furry hip pressed against him as he kept watch.
“Stay with him,” Rachel said to Dog and then sprinted down the lawn to the dock. Dog let out a low whine as if in answer then went back to scanning the area.
Rushing onto the cabin cruiser, Rachel dumped her supplies in the main salon. A few minutes and a pinched finger later she had converted the dining table set up into a large bed. She was still naked as she worked, but had more pressing priorities than covering herself. Besides, there was no one to see her other than Dog, and so far he hadn’t seemed impressed with what she had on display.
She ran back up the dock and lawn, pounding onto the porch and kneeling next to John. His eyes were open when she looked down at him and he tried to smile but it came over as a grimace. Working her arms under his shoulders Rachel pulled him to her and sat him up, her bare breasts pressed tightly against his face.
“Come on, lazy. I don’t stick my tits in men’s faces for free. You’ve got to help me out here. I can’t lift you on my own.”
John lifted his arms and wrapped them around Rachel’s neck, worked his legs under his hips and with her help stood up. He would have crashed back to the porch without her support. Rachel slipped around his body to his right side. Keeping her arms wrapped tightly around him she looked up at him.
“Can you make it to the boat? It’s not far.”
“I can make it.” John’s voice was whispery and his chest rattled alarmingly when he spoke.
True to his claim he stepped forward and Rachel moved with him providing as much support as she could to a man that outweighed her by a good hundred pounds. The going was slow and had to be painful and exhausting for John, but he didn’t complain. They came to a stop when they reached the cabin cruiser, Rachel unsure how to get him across the eighteen inches of open space between the dock and the boat’s deck.
John solved the problem by pushing her arms away and stepping across. He staggered when he stepped on the boat, Rachel leaping across to wrap him up again and steady him with her arms. Dog followed a moment later and led the way into the salon where John collapsed onto the bed as soon as he and Rachel reached it.
“I’ve got some medical supplies,” Rachel started digging through the bundle she’d taken from the house.
“No. Get the boat out in the lake. I made a lot of noise and there may be infected on the way here.” John’s voice was getting weaker, the chest rattle worse. His belly looked to be slightly distended and Rachel was fairly certain he was bleeding internally.
“There’s no time. I have to get your bleeding under control or you won’t make it,” Rachel started to reach for the bottle of alcohol but John reached out and grabbed her arm to stop her.
“If the infected show up none of us will make it. I’m good for a few minutes. Get us off shore.” His hand slipped off her arm and then his eyes closed as he slipped back into unconsciousness.
Rachel let out a deep breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. A couple of seconds of indecision then she leapt up and raced to the bridge to start the engines. When she got there she said a few decidedly unladylike words. The keys were not in the ignition. The bastards that had captured her must have taken them when they docked the boat.
Rachel ran back to where John lay unconscious, took the pistol off his hip, told Dog to stay and headed back to the house. She didn’t know who had been driving the boat, but she would check pockets until she found the keys.
The first body she came to was the man John had shot as he came out of the kitchen when the fight started. Rachel ran her hands over his body, finding Ford keys, a can of Skoal snuff, a pocket knife, a battered leather wallet but nothing else. Moving on she searched each of the other bodies with similar results. No boat keys.
Standing in the middle of the rec room Rachel was covered in gore to her elbows, but she ignored it and tried to think of where else the keys could be. She dashed around the room and checked all the tables, threw couch cushions aside, and got down on her knees and looked under the sofas. Nothing.
Returning to the kitchen she searched the whole room, careful to check the corners and under furniture. Still nothing. Then she remembered the twelfth man. The one John had shot on the porch that led to the all-out firefight. Dashing outside she found the body and repeated her search, finding the boat keys in his left hip pocket. Raising the key up to the light Rachel wanted to shout for joy, but her blood froze when a female infected screamed from the tree line not more than thirty yards away.
Rachel didn’t wait to see if there was just the one, or five thousand of the damn things coming. She jumped up, hurdled the small planting bed at the edge of the porch and ran across the lawn as fast as she had ever run. Another scream behind her pushed her faster and she almost stumbled as her legs had trouble keeping up with her momentum down the sloping lawn, but she regained her balance and sprinted the last few feet to the dock.
The cabin cruiser was tied to the dock at both bow and stern with heavy nylon ropes wound around iron cleats that were bolted to the dock. Sliding to her knees at the bow line Rachel quickly unwound it, risking a look over her shoulder while her hands worked the rope. Three infected females were charging down the lawn, one of them well in the lead and no more than twenty or thirty feet away. The line came free and Rachel scrambled to the stern line, tearing her knees and feet on the rough wood of the dock. The second line came free as the first infected reached the dock and charged Rachel.
Rachel raised the pistol she’d taken off of John and pulled the trigger. The big .45 roared and bucked in her hands, but she missed and the infected kept coming. Rachel had time for one more shot and took it, missing a second time, then the infected was on her with a flying tackle.
The infected was unbelievably strong. She was a small woman, easily six inches shorter and thirty pounds lighter than Rachel, but she had the strength of a much larger man. Rachel fought hard, struggling to keep the snapping teeth away from her flesh, rolling down the dock with the infected locked onto her. She could feel her strength going and knew she was about to die when a nightmare of teeth slammed into the infected and knocked it off of Rachel.
Dog rolled with the infected, flipping back onto his feet and locking his jaws on the back of the female’s
neck. Gaining his balance, Dog spread his weight across all four feet and wrenched his big head to the side in a lightning fast and incredibly powerful motion as he bit down. There was a sickening crunch of vertebrae and the infected went still. Dog dropped the corpse and moved to stand between Rachel and the other two infected females who had just reached the dock. He was a fearsome sight, hackles raised, head lowered, lips peeled back from bloody teeth as he growled, but the infected have no fear.
Dog crouched, gathering his legs for a leap to battle when there were two quick shots and both females dropped to the dock, dead. Rachel, so certain she was dead just moments before, didn’t understand where the shots had come from until Dog whined and she followed his gaze to the boat. John stood in the door to the salon, rifle still pointed at the two females. For a moment he looked ok, then slid down the door frame and collapsed onto the deck.
28
The first thing I saw was a furry face and golden brown eyes staring at me. I was on my back and I hadn’t felt this tired since I had gone through the Army’s Special Forces selection process. Day after day of running, climbing, shooting, swimming, no sleep, little water and less food. Actually, this was worse.
I tried to sit up and the pain that lanced through my chest convinced me to stay where I was. Dog whined and looked to the other side of the room where a rustling noise was followed by Rachel leaning over me with a small smile on her face. She was scrubbed clean with her long hair back in a ponytail, but the bruising on her face was a mask of ugly purples, yellows and greens.
“Welcome back,” She said. “How do you feel?”
