Affliction Z Series Books 1-3

by L. T. Ryan

  “He’s gonna get us killed,” Ralph said as he headed toward the trees off to the right, away from Derrick.

  A breeze blew past. It chilled the sweat on Phil’s brow. He almost didn’t notice the smell it carried over his own body odor. Wood smoke. He sat up and looked to the west where farmland spread through the valley and across the hills. There was no sign of a fire. It had to have come through the trees.

  Phil reached for his rifle and aimed it in the direction Ralph had walked. Visibility was reduced to nothing after the first ten feet or so. The dense woods were impenetrable by the sun, its light being filtered and reducing visibility from the clearing. A lack of sleep and a heavy dose of paranoia left Phil seeing things in the shadows. Figures raced through the trees. They stopped and stared in his direction. Teeth were bared. No one stepped out into the open.

  He dropped his other foot to the ground and repositioned himself along the far side of the ATV, using the railing to support his rifle. The wind died down again. The woods fell still. Phil peered through his scope, affording him a deeper view into the woods, past the area where the shadows came to life.

  He saw nothing.

  “Got a deer?”

  Startled, Phil swung around and leveled his rifle at Derrick. The young man dropped his own weapon and hoisted his good arm into the air.

  “Jesus Christ, what’d I do?”

  Phil lowered his head and pulled in a deep breath. “Just a little on edge, son. That’s all.”

  Derrick smiled, though it was obvious the gesture was forced. He reached for his pistol and continued toward the ATV. His nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed.

  “That smoke?” he asked.

  Phil nodded. “Coming from those woods.”

  “Where’s Ralph?”

  Phil glanced at his son, arching an eyebrow. “In those woods.”

  The men stood still and silent for a few minutes. Phil honed in on the ambient sounds of the forest. Only, he heard no birds or insects.

  Why hadn’t Ralph returned? Had he decided to set off on his own? No, he’d have waited until he was alone with the ATV for that. It had food, water, and other supplies. That left misfortune as a possibility. Perhaps he’d uncovered the source of the smoke. Or maybe the source of the smoke had found him.

  “What if he’s in trouble?” Derrick asked.

  “We’ll give him five minutes,” Phil said.

  “Then what?”

  Phil looked past his son, toward the stretch of farmland.

  “We can’t leave him,” Derrick said.

  “We can’t?”

  “Not to die.”

  “What if he’s already dead?”

  “What if he’s hurt and needs our help?”

  If it were you, we’d be gone.

  “Dad, come on. Let’s go look for him.” Without waiting for Phil to reply, Derrick set off toward the trees.

  “God dammit,” Phil muttered. He was fine with losing one of the men, preferably Derrick. But continuing solo was not in the plans. He had to sleep, and having someone there to keep watch was integral to his plan to survive. He reached into the cargo area, grabbed a pistol and tucked it into his waistband. “Wait up, Derrick.”

  Together they crossed the threshold into the shaded woods. The air chilled by fifteen degrees as the leaves and branches beat back the sun’s rays. Every step on dead leaves set off an alarm to anyone, or anything, within thirty yards. Phil kept his rifle aimed ahead. Derrick did the same with his pistol.

  “Should we call for him?” Derrick whispered.

  Phil ignored the question as he scanned the ground, looking to pick up Ralph’s trail. He’d entered the woods at the same spot. There had to be something indicating which way the man traveled. After a few seconds, Phil spotted a broken twig.

  “This way,” he said softly, pointing to the right.

  Twenty yards in they heard a crash off to their left. Both men spun toward the sound, lifting their rifles to their shoulders. Derrick stared down his iron sights. Phil scanned the area through his scope, looking for anything out of place.

  Nothing stirred. No follow up noises ensued.

  “Tree limb,” he said through a heavy sigh. “Come on, let’s keep going.”

  “Shouldn’t we call for him?” Derrick asked.

  “Keep your damn mouth shut, boy.”

  Derrick stopped in place.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Phil said, feeling his son’s weapon aimed at the back of his head. “You’ll never make it without me. Now quit fucking around and come along.”

  He pressed forward with little concern over what had just happened. Derrick wouldn’t do anything. The man knew that he needed his father to survive.

  Phil spotted another sign that Ralph had passed. He pointed at a disturbance in the leaves. The spot where Ralph had relieved himself.

  “Why didn’t he just come back to the field?” Derrick asked.

  Phil didn’t respond. He was working through the same question. Something had to have happened that caused Ralph to continue deeper into the woods. Panic, curiosity, or force. Which one was it?

  Standing over the spot where Ralph had squatted, Phil ignored the smell and scanned the area for another sign. A broken limb. More disturbed leaves. Anything.

  He saw both.

  And Ralph’s rifle.

  Ralph, however, was nowhere to be seen.

  “Come on,” Phil called out to Derrick. He scooped up the weapon and blazed a trail past the leaves and broken branches. Disregarding his own rules, he called out for the man. Wide-eyed and with his head on a swivel, he headed deeper into the woods, disregarding the signs that were all around.

  When Phil looked back, he saw Derrick standing in the same spot. His face was drawn and pale. His mouth stuck open. Phil spun toward his son, but before he could take a step in Derrick’s direction, someone — or something — grabbed hold of his shirt collar. Fingernails wove through his back hair and penetrated the skin on his neck and upper back. In an instant, he was knocked off balance and slammed against a tree trunk, while fingers threaded across his face, pulling to the left, sliding over his mouth. Flashes of green and red streaked in the distance in some strange, frenzied dance.

  Five

  Turk waited stock-still for thirty seconds while an unknown person aimed what he presumed to be a rifle at his back. The sun peeked through a hole in the gray clouds and glinted off the broken glass that lined the street. The humid air enveloped him. Sweat slid down the bridge of his nose, his forehead, and his cheeks. His soaked tank top clung to his body. The still air smelled of garbage, human waste, and stagnant water. While moving, Turk had been able to avoid noticing it. Now it overpowered his senses.

  Boots stomped the pavement behind him. There were two sets on the move, circling to the right and the left. Was that it? Or were there more? Would they keep their distance? Or was their plan to rush him from either side in an attempt to take him down?

  Turk inched his head to the right. The move extended his peripheral vision a good ninety degrees, allowing him to see almost directly behind himself.

  “Don’t move, boy!” The thick southern accent sounded as though it might belong to a guy trapped between teenager and adult. It was deep, but lacked power. And here he was calling Turk boy.

  Let him get close.

  The guy barked out commands. “Hold your arms out to the side. Drop to your knees. Lace your fingers together behind your head.”

  Turk remained silent, refusing to comply. Why should he? Intimidation tactics weren’t going to work. If the man intended to shoot him, he’d have done so already. The guy was trying to set up a hierarchy with himself on top.

  Fuck that.

  “You hear me, man?” The guy’s shoes hit the pavement, sounding as though he was making a straight line for Turk.

  One, two, three.

  The guy stopped. How close, Turk had no idea.

  “I heard you,” Turk said. “But without knowing who yo
u are, I’m not really compelled to act on your commands.”

  The guy said nothing, but must’ve motioned to the other two, because they began approaching from the side. Their movements were out of sync. The guy on the left looped out a few feet, putting him in Turk’s field of view. He was tall and wiry with stringy brown hair that hung to his shoulders. He clung to a hunting knife, which he held in a defensive position across his chest. Turk pivoted his head to the right an inch or so. The other guy was the opposite of the first. Shorter than Turk, he had a rotund belly and bald head. His left hand shook as it clenched a pistol.

  Amateurs.

  “Ready to get down on your knees, boy?” the guy behind him said.

  “Fuck you.”

  “What?” The guy moved forward until the rifle’s muzzle pressed into Turk’s lower back.

  “That’s the wrong move,” Turk said.

  “Yeah, well, fuck you, bro.”

  At this point, Turk assumed there were only three men. If there were more, they’d have made their presence known in some way by now. Turk inched his head side to side. Skinny and Baldy were still more than six feet away.

  Baldy looked particularly shaky with the pistol in hand, as though in the old world he’d have pinched it between his thumb and forefinger, carrying it like was a dead mouse’s tail. That was the reality of life now. Survivors who were better suited to sit behind a computer screen punching keys were pressed into playing the role of soldier and protector.

  Turk figured Skinny and Baldy latched on to the dumbass behind him because the guy showed traces of leadership and signs of dominance. All three were scared of Turk.

  It showed in their faces.

  Their movements.

  Their actions.

  “Ready to bow to me, asshole?” the guy behind him said.

  “Nah,” Turk said. “But I’ll blow you.”

  “What the —”

  Turk spun to the left, toward Skinny, who clutched his knife. The move created a few more feet of distance between him and Baldy. Something told Turk the guy had never fired the weapon, and as such, his first shot would go wide.

  Turk’s left arm dipped behind his back and found the rifle barrel. He forced it down and away while searching for a grip on the weapon. Turk held his right arm up in a defensive position, ready to block a knife attack from Skinny. None was forthcoming as the blade-wielding man stood like his boots had melted into the asphalt.

  Turk finally had a visual of the guy behind him. He looked about twenty years old. Country boy for sure, with buzzed hair, a wide jaw and nose, and close-set eyes. The man shifted one leg back, like he was getting ready to grab a bull’s horns and start swinging the beast. He yanked hard on the rifle. Turk supposed the move was to regain control. Why the guy didn’t pull the trigger was beyond Turk. He’d already prepared himself for the burns he’d get on his fingers and palms.

  Using his left hand to pull the country boy closer, Turk abandoned his defensive position and struck with his right hand, catching the guy between his cheek and jaw. A trail of blood erupted from the man’s mouth as his head snapped left. He dropped to his knees. Let go of the rifle. Fell sideways.

  Turk flipped the weapon around and took aim at the guy with the pistol, who still hadn’t squeezed off a single round.

  “Drop it.”

  Baldy looked down at the man on the ground, then over at Skinny. They both dropped their weapons at the same time.

  “You shitting me?” Turk said. “I was ready to blow your buddy’s head off. Be doing you a favor if I did, especially in his current condition. Come on. Where’s the tough guys that were threatening me a few minutes ago?”

  “We-we-we…” Skinny blinked hard and took a deep breath while holding one hand out as though it could stop a bullet. “We ain’t been with him long. He showed up here a couple days ago and just kinda took over. Ray had been the guy in charge, but Mike there slit Ray’s throat. The other four left after that, leaving us and Mike.”

  Turk could have pressed for more details, but he didn’t. There was no point. He had to get what logistical information he could out of these guys, and then get moving.

  “Any boats here?”

  “Nah,” Baldy said. “They were all taken right away. People was real assholes about it, too. They’d get their family on, have plenty of room to spare, but take off anyway.”

  Turk nodded out of habit while only half-listening to the guy. “What about rafts?”

  “Rafts?” Skinny repeated. Turk noted how the man’s eyes bugged out like a deranged frog.

  “Yeah, inflatable things made out of rubber. Seen any of them?”

  “Shit,” Skinny said. “Never thought to look.”

  “Christ,” Turk muttered, wondering how the men managed to survive for two weeks. Judging by the haggard look of the men, hiding had to have been options one, two, and three. “Step back, both of you.”

  The men did as ordered. Turk picked up the knife and pistol and stashed each in his waistband. He glanced ahead at two rows of square buildings clad in aluminum and steel.

  “Which of those buildings looked like it might’ve been used as a warehouse or a storeroom?”

  The guys looked at each other for a few seconds, each waiting for the other to respond. They both shrugged. Not only where they morons, they paid little attention to their surroundings. Turk almost felt bad for them. He got over that feeling as quickly as it arrived. Nature would take its course. He hoped it happened after he left.

  “Come with me,” Turk said.

  “What about Mike?” Skinny said.

  “Who?”

  Skinny pointed at the man on the ground.

  “Leave him for all I care.”

  “They’ll come to get him.”

  “Who will?”

  The man retreated back a step as he looked past Turk, toward the city. “Those…things.”

  “Fine by me,” Turk said. “That’ll keep them away from us. Now move.”

  Baldy wagged both hands in front of his expansive stomach. “It don’t work like that, man. They’ll come in for him, but he’ll be like an appetizer. After they finish, they’ll know we’re here and it’ll be like a buffet line.”

  It made sense for the guy to relate everything to food. After all, Turk was starving. He couldn’t imagine how the larger man felt.

  “Then carry him inside,” Turk said.

  For all Turk knew about the afflicted, he understood very little about how they acted in the open. They’d been fortunate to not encounter any groups on the trek from his burned-out bunker to the cabin. Even after entering Charleston, he’d seen no sign of them. He had begun to consider the possibility that the virus was done, and that not-so-much life after death wasn’t as permanent as he feared.

  Skinny and Baldy grunted as they lifted the unconscious man off the ground and slipped his arms across their shoulders. They dragged him toward the buildings, with Turk following behind. He kept glancing back, wondering if the afflicted had already caught the scent of wounded prey. Had their instincts evolved as such, that they’d notice from a distance? Or were they just that good at hiding in plain sight that Turk had missed them?

  “Tell me about these buildings,” Turk said.

  The two guys looked at each other, perhaps trying to find assurance that it was okay to speak.

  “Christ,” Turk said. “Either one of you.”

  “Offices on the left,” Baldy said. “To the right is just a bunch of paper. Files and folders, you know?”

  “What about gear?”

  Skinny said, “Most things were looted in the first couple days. It was crazy here. The Coast Guard, they couldn’t do anything to stop it. There were only a few of them left anyway. They bolted as soon as they realized there was no point trying to keep people from the boats. So they slipped behind the gate in the middle of the night. We all ran out there and watched as they took the biggest ship. Three of them and all that extra room. By the time people got over the top,
and we got the lock cut, it was too late. Then we were overrun by folks getting the rest of the boats. It was crazy. Man versus man, woman versus woman, even kids getting in on the action. More people died than got on a ship.”

  “With no one to lead, the masses turn on one another. Foundation of history, boys.”

  “We’ve been staying in there.” Skinny gestured toward the building on the right. “I can guarantee nothing like what you’re looking for there, but maybe the building across the way.”

  The smell of human waste was stronger here. Turk wondered if it was something more. Decay, perhaps. What had they done with the bodies? Looking ahead to the waterfront, he didn’t see any corpses. Had they stored them inside? The guys had an issue with leaving Mike behind. They must’ve seen what happens when you leave flesh for the taking. In which case, burning the bodies was the only solution.

  “Corpses,” Turk said. “What’d you do with them?”

  The men paled as they stared at each other. Presumably, they felt uncomfortable speaking of the atrocities they had committed.

  “Burned?”

  Baldy nodded once. Skinny looked away.

  “Where?”

  Baldy pointed a smaller building set off to the right. His voice a whisper, he said, “The smoke shack.”

  “All right.” Turk offered the pistol back to the bigger man. “You take Mike into the building you’ve been sleeping in. Then you watch over him. If you got rope, use it. Either way, stay twenty feet back and don’t let him get off the floor. If he does, shoot him.”

  “What about me?” Skinny asked.

  “You’re coming with me. I need a lookout while I’m sorting through what’s in that building.”

  The men split up. Turk looked back and watched Baldy drag Mike into the structure. The big guy reappeared a few moments later and took position at the door. He stood with one foot inside and out.

  Skinny and Turk continued around the corner. A rusty chain ran snaked through two eyebolts, one on the door, the other secured to the building. A lock connected the ends, but remained open. Turk had Skinny free it, and then open the metal door.