“Cut to the right . . .NOW!” I said as I let go of Mac and grabbed my pistol from the holster.
BANG . . . BANG!
The slide locked back, and the herd of buffalo charge forward—smashing into the ghouls and trampling them as they sought safety on the far side of the pasture.
My maneuver put me slightly out of step, and I adjusted my trajectory enough to hook up with Mack a dozen steps later. We didn’t slow down until we hit the lake. At the boat, I launched the stuff bag toward the seats, and then turned and readied the rifle. Shawn threw the duffle across the bow railing, scooped up Mack, and charged through the water.
“We’re in!” he yelled from behind me, and I turned and leapt for the boat. I came up short and once again sank to my waist. Shawn’s hand latched on to my vest and yanked. I practically flew into the boat, and then scrambled for the key. The big engines started on the first attempt, and I slammed it in reverse and dumped the throttle to full. With a thundering bass roar, the tweaked and tuned Yamahas spun their props and churned the water into a froth of bubbles as the NauticStar pulled out of the reeds and into the lake. Seventy feet out I throttled it down and cut the wheel. In the dim light of the rapidly approaching daybreak, a skirmish line of figures stepped through the weeds and brush to stand at the edge of the water.
“Take the wheel,” I gasped to no one in particular as I grabbed the .22 and peered through the scope, praying that my eyes were deceiving me.
Shawn was right next to me, and he took over as captain while the night scope lit up the predawn gloom, bringing a vivid nightmare to my eyes in electric green glory. At the water’s edge were about two dozen infected, and I could see at least four hyperactive ferals shifting and weaving through their ranks. My attention to them was only in passing, because standing near the center of the line was the angel of death. Her black eyes were glistening with malice, and her creamy white skin showed no sign of my shot or the hundreds of bite marks that had been there just a few hours ago. As the boat bounced further away through the chop, I held the rifle as steady as I could against a rail and emptied the magazine. Her ebony eyes narrowed, like they were burning my image into their depths, and then she turned and melted into the brush. The line of ghouls followed a few seconds later.
Chapter 73
I took control of the boat from Shawn, spinning us toward the center of the bay and running the engines up to ninety percent power. In two minutes we were a half mile from shore, and I throttled back to idle and let the boat drift. Mack was sitting on one of the benches with a blanket draped across his shoulder as his father dug through a chocolate colored nylon fanny pack. I searched around and found the welcome sight of my own backpack, grabbing it on my way over to the pair.
“You know anything about injuries?” Shawn asked as he cut away the bloody gauze that was barely hanging on to his son’s leg after our run to freedom.
“Yep . . . let me take a look at what we’ve got going on here.” Mack’s trousers were already slid to knee level, and the final layer of wrapping that came off in his father’s hands brought an angry wound into view. It was almost dead center in the muscle over the femur midway between the knee and hip joint, and it was seeping a mixture of blood and watery pus. There was no exit wound that I could find, and the skin and tissue surrounding the entry hole was hot to the touch and angry, dull red in color. I raised my hand to Mack’s forehead, and it was also hot.
“What have you been able to do for him so far?” I asked.
“Not much,” Shawn replied, “all I’ve been able to scavenge is some Tylenol for the pain and some hand sanitizer to clean the outside.”
“Does he have any allergies to medicine?”
“No, he’s good to go with anything.”
I reached into my pack and pulled out the bottle of antibiotics that I was supposed to be taking for my ankle. It was a mix of amoxicillin and clavulanate potassium. Each pill was 250 milligrams, and I removed three. “Here ya go Mack,” I said as I handed him two of the capsules, “this stuff is pretty strong, and it’s going to start fighting the infection in your leg. I’ve got a bunch of stitches in my ankle . . . well actually, they used to be in my ankle until I had to bail out of the second story of a barn that a pair of wild men set on fire underneath me . . .”
Shawn chuckled, and even Mack broke out in a grin at my teasing.
“Anyhow, I’m on the same stuff.” I popped my pill and then continued. “We’re going to have to clean around the wound, and I’ve got this little bottle of liquid that will turn your leg purple, but it should wear off before you get married, OK?”
“Yes sir.”
I retrieved the emergency first aid kit out from underneath the console of the patrol boat and took out the bottle of betadine antiseptic and some extra gauze pads, and then cleaned the area as best I could. I estimated that Mack was around eleven or twelve years old, and for someone that young to have pushed through two days of infection, followed by our practically superhuman charge across the bison field without complaining spoke a lot of his character. He winced in pain several times as I saturated the area with the antiseptic, but he toughed through the wrapping.
“OK, no more running, jumping, dancing—especially square dancing—horse racing, water polo, pole vaulting, or sitting on a comfortable couch,” I said as we got him dressed.
“Why can’t I sit on a couch?”
“Because I’m stuck in the middle of a lake in North Dakota, and all I’ve got to sit on are these hard seat cushions and scrawny blankets. So if anybody gets to sit on the first comfy couch we find, it’s going to be me.”
He rolled his eyes and snickered, and then Shawn and I worked together to make him a cushioned bed out of as many life jackets as we could round up.
“All right partner,” I said to him, “try and get some shut eye. We’ve got a short trip ahead of us, and then we’re going to pick up some more passengers, OK?”
“OK,” he said as he settled in and rubbed his obviously tired eyes.
I stood and walked back to the wheel. Shawn followed, and both of us just about collapsed as we sat on the wide bench seat. The bucket of radios that I had reclaimed from the ranger station sat next to me, and I took a moment to plug the charger into the boat’s inverter outlet before dropping the radios into their charging cradle. Four tiny red LED indicators began flashing, and I slid the radios onto the dash and out of my way for now.
The RPMs of the engines spooled up, and their high performance props dug in and pushed the patrol boat forward.
Shawn nudged me with an elbow, and then stretched out his hand. I took it, and we shook again. “Thanks for the ride,” he said.
I nodded and said, “It wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for you and Mack.”
He was silent for a moment, and then he turned his head my way and asked, “What do you think about his leg?”
“It’s definitely infected and there’s no exit wound, so the bullet is still in there. The antibiotic that I’ve given him should help to at least suppress the infection, but judging from the location, there’s a possibility that the bone in his leg could be involved. That’s not good, but the bright side is that we have a crap load of medicine, and I happen to know where a very experienced orthopedic surgeon is staying, and he owes me a big favor. So, if things work out, and you’re willing to stick with me and my companions for a bit, well then, I think Mack will be just fine. In the meantime, we’ll keep him on the antibiotics and Tylenol. He’s got a fever, but part of that could be from our sprint to the boat. Either way though, we need to make sure that he’s drinking plenty of water.”
He rubbed his eyebrows with his thumb and forefinger, and then kicked back against the seat and stretched. A yawn followed, and then he turned back towards me and nodded his head. “You, sir, have just bought yourself two additional traveling companions. Now do you want to tell me where we’re going?”
I smiled and pushed the throttle to half power. As the boat surged fo
rward, I leaned towards Shawn and said, “We’re going to pick up my girlfriend, her unconscious mother, her chain smoking father, and a little girl that I adopted about twenty-four hours ago.”
Shawn started chuckling and shaking his head, and then he reached into his pocket and drew out a can of snuff. When he popped the lid off, the tobacco inside was practically floating in lake water. His head shaking and laughter increased in both tempo and volume as he stared at the saturated mess, and then I watched him put a three fingered pinch into his mouth and spit over the side, clearing out most of the Devils Lake flavoring. When he finally settled, he pointed a thick finger straight through the windshield and said, “Sounds like fun . . . lead the way.”
I pushed the throttle to full, and the NauticStar rocketed across the early morning wave caps that were beginning to reflect the first golden rays of sunlight.
I kept the patrol boat at full throttle until I was on the other side of Mission Bay, and then I dropped back to about forty miles an hour. It would save fuel, and also allow me to scan the lake for Michelle if she took my advice and left in her dad’s bass boat. As I approached the underpass that lead into East Devils Lake, I pulled my walkie-talkie and headset out of the backpack and radioed Michelle.
“This is don’t worry calling be careful, do you copy?”
There was no answer after ten seconds, so I called again. “Michelle . . . this is Eric calling, do you read me?”
I looked at the battery meter on the radio—it was still reading three out of the four bars. The channel was correct also. I tried again. “Michelle, this is Eric . . . can you hear me? I’m less than two miles away and heading in . . . ETA—ninety seconds.”
Silence.
I shoved the throttle to maximum and the boat jumped across the waves.
“Are you in range with those radios?” Shawn asked.
“We should be well within the range over the flat water.” I had given him a quick rundown of the situation at the cabin, and he sighed and stood up as I veered toward the dock. My time estimate was true, and I ran the boat flat out until I had to back off in order to avoid wrecking.
Shawn was up front getting Mack awake and armed with of the .308 as I drifted to an almost perfect stop against the end of the dock. One look at the bank tightened my gut into a coiled knot of tension. Michelle’s dad’s bass boat was still here, and the back door to the cabin was barely visible through the pile of unmoving bodies that were pressed against it. Scattered throughout the yard were at least thirty more corpses.
“Michelle, this is Eric . . . can you hear me . . . are you OK?”
No answer.
As far as I could tell, there was no movement anywhere within my range of vision, so I grabbed the .22 and hopped onto the dock.
“Planning on going yourself?” Shawn asked as his feet thumped onto the wooden planks next to me.
“You should probably stay here with your boy. If I don’t come back in ten minutes, I won’t be coming back.”
“We’d still be feeding the sickos at the vet office if you hadn’t shown up, so how about letting me start paying you back.”
“You don’t owe me anything, and you’ve got Mack to think about,” I said.
“OK,” he replied, “let me try this again. Shut up and give me your 9mm, and let’s go rescue your dysfunctional family. I already told Mack to stay at the wheel and be ready to shoot or skedaddle, and he charges by the hour so let’s get moving.”
The dread of what might be sucked away the humor I normally would have enjoyed from Shawn’s barb, and in any case I didn’t have time to argue. I handed him the loaded CZ and my one remaining magazine. “You’ve got thirty-six shots, and it’s dead on target . . . so if you miss, it ain’t the gun’s fault.”
He took the pistol and extra magazine from me, and then patted the .45 in the holster at his hip. “Well, if we run into anything larger than an armadillo, I’ll put away your BB gun and bring out the heavy weapons.”
I unscrewed the night scope mount and set it on the dock, mentally cursing my lack of attention to details that once again left me with the wrong optic at the wrong time of day. There was no time to zero in with the reflex sight, and in any event it was fifteen feet behind me in the boat, tucked away in my backpack. The aftermarket stainless steel barrel also came without the standard factory sights, so this was going to be a strictly “fire by instinct” venture. It would still be much better than trying to swing the rifle in close quarters with the bulky night vision scope attached.
My soul was screaming at me to charge forward and tear through the mound of corpses piled against the door, but the little voice of logic that I seldom listened to spoke up, reminding me that if they were still alive, the last thing I’d want to do would be to draw more attention to the cabin.
“We need to go around front,” I whisper to Shawn, “there’s another door on the side by the road.” He nodded and we padded down the dock and onto shore. I guided us through the gap between the cabins, pausing once again by the air conditioner. The scene that greeted us looked like the aftermath of a WWII battle. There was nothing left of Faith’s grandparents cabin across the road except the still smoldering embers of the main beam, and the blackened, crumpled remains of the tin roof. The street was littered with bodies spread in a wide fan, the apex of which pointed towards the front door of Michelle’s dad’s cabin. A few of the ghouls were still feebly crawling, and their movement through the intermixed tendrils of smoke and morning mist created an effect that brought to mind the consequences of an artillery barrage, less the giant craters.
“Was it like this when you left?” Shawn asked.
I shook my head. “No, only a few bodies were on the street, and that cabin wasn’t burned down.”
“I don’t think the ones that are trying to crawl are worth a bullet, do you?” he asked.
“No.”
I crept forward, carefully looking in as many directions as I could for signs of movement, but the only thing I noted was the occasional wounded crawler. The front of the cabin looked like the movie set of a low budget slasher flick. Corpses were sprawled everywhere, some of them two or three deep. The small porch roof was collapsed and lying on the ground next to the front entrance, the door to which had been torn off its hinges and was now buried under the dumpy body of a fisherman dressed in chest waders. A floppy-brimmed hat hooked through with several artificial flies still perched on the light brown halo of hair above his dull cherry eyes, and at least a pair of bullet holes decorated his rib cage. I looked up at the second floor window—the glass was broken and several streaks of blood trailed down the siding.
Shawn crouched next to me and tilted his head toward the sprawl of bodies on the road. “Whatever happened here was hardcore.”
I was getting ready to move through the front entrance when Shawn stopped me with a hand on my vest. “What?” I practically hissed.
“I know it doesn’t look good from here, but before you go charging into the house, remember that there’s a lot of bodies lying everywhere, and some of those bodies might be not quite dead. Let’s take our time just a bit to make sure we don’t get . . . ah . . . bit.”
He was right, and as much as I wanted to sprint into the house screaming Michelle’s name, I also had no desire to make a stupid, and probably fatal, mistake.
We stepped cautiously over and around as many of the bodies as we could and entered the cabin. The stench was horrible, and if it hadn’t been for the permeating odor of cigarette smoke that still lingered around to provide some cover, I’m pretty sure my eyes would have been watering. Inside was a bloodbath. Multiple corpses displaying ghastly gunshot wounds tattooed across their gray skin were everywhere, and toward the back door they piled upon one another so high that we couldn’t get to the stairs—it was completely blocked with a waist high plug of ghouls.
“Mother of . . .” Shawn trailed off at the macabre scene in front of us.
“Michelle,” I mumbled quietly as I looked f
or a body with long red hair. There were so many dead lying everywhere I couldn’t tell who was who, and my heart sank in despair. I sidestepped across the corpses and back towards the front door, head hanging in anguish at my loss and wishing with everything that I could join them. In the front yard I sank to my knees and buried my face in my hands. “I’m sorry Michelle . . . I’m so sorry,” I whispered to the light breeze that worked to dissipate the haze.
“Eric? . . . Eric is that you?” Michelle’s sleepy voice crept into my headset and my eyes shot open as I vaulted to my feet.
“Michelle? . . . Michelle? . . . can you hear me?” The skyrocketing disbelief and joy that bounded into my spirit at the sound of her voice had me practically dancing as I searched up and down the road trying to locate her.
“Eric! . . . thank God! . . . where are you?”
“I’m standing in front of your dad’s cabin . . . where are you?”
Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending Page 61
