The Infected (Book 5): Battleground

by Zuko, Joseph

  “Fuck off,” Thundered Sara.

  “That’s what I’m talking about.” He gave them one more glance before he faced Desiree. With his back to the crowd he placed his elbow on the counter. “Get me four cartons of Marlboros and the six-pack of lighters.” Ryder leaned forward and pointed at the blood on Desiree’s shirt as she filled his order. “You stab that stiff out there?”

  “Yeah,” Desiree’s demeanor had changed. She didn’t make eye contact as she loaded a plastic bag with smokes.

  “Did that prick, Dave, leave you here alone?” He ripped a loud burp.

  “He got bit.” She slid the full sack across the counter.

  “Serves him right,” Ryder scooped the plastic handles onto his forearm and angled himself toward the group. “I knew it. I had my back to you for a full minute and none of you limp dicks did a damn thing. So why don’t ya aim them at the floor, before I shove this cold steel up your asses.” He raised the barrel of his gun.

  Troy was the first to lower his firearm.

  Sara didn’t believe it when she let her SKS fall to her side.

  The loud mouth is right. She thought to herself.

  We’re not going to kill him for being an asshole. She shared a moment with Troy. Sara figured she knew what he was thinking. Firing their guns might bring them unwanted zombie attention and Ryder seemed to be only interested in getting his supplies. That and tormenting everyone as if they were back on a middle school playground.

  “That’s better,” burped Ryder as he stomped across the store. He landed in front of the beer cooler and checked out his drink options. From pure repetition, he reached for the cheap domestics on the bottom rack, then paused for a moment. “Desiree, what’s on sale?” He laughed hard and opted for a premium brand of brew, grabbed a twelve pack of Deschutes Brewery’s Mirror Pond Pale Ale and placed it on the floor. He took out two more cases and stacked them on top of the first one. “I’m gonna need to keep these on ice.” He pivoted and headed for the stockroom.

  Once he disappeared through the doorway, the others gathered at the center of the store. Shawna’s heart raced. Between the humidity outside and the freak in the stockroom, she was pouring sweat. Pink droplets fell from her forehead. Her perspiration was rehydrating the dried blood in her hair. The thought of someone’s dried blood dripping from her scalp grossed her out almost as much as the idea of leaving with Ryder. The sound of his voice alone made her skin crawl.

  These are my only two choices? Shawna sighed.

  Stay with the people that killed my friends or head off into the wilderness with Ryder?

  As Leon moved closer to the group, he accidentally bumped her shoulder. At least she hoped it wasn’t intentional.

  “Sorry,” said Leon as he shuffled a few steps away from Shawna.

  I’ve got to try and get the key to the bus from him. Then I can leave them all in the dust. She would have to wait on that, right now she needed to focus on the monster in the stockroom.

  “What are we going to do about him?” Whispered Shawna.

  Leon answered, “Nothing.”

  His response surprised her. Shawna added, “He’s dangerous.”

  Leon couldn’t stop himself. He deepened his voice and said, “So am I.”

  Shawna raised an eyebrow.

  Leon reset himself, “He hasn’t done anything to us.” He slung his rifle to his back. “He can call me all of the bad names he wants or make fun of my big fat lazy Mama, I don’t care. That’s how you deal with jerks. You ignore them. He gets off on confrontation.” Leon bent at the waist and picked up something from a lower shelf. He handed the package to Shawna. “Here, you have some… gunk dripping on your face.”

  She took the package of baby wipes Leon handed her and said, “Thanks.” She stepped away from the group and headed for a mirror on the far wall. She spotted herself. Yeah, she was nasty as hell, but she was extremely caught off guard by how confused her expression was in the refection. These were not the horrible people she thought they were. Leon creeped her out at first, but he seemed okay now. Weird, but harmless.

  Shawna pulled a wad of wet naps from the package and wiped the gore away. Someone in the background of the mirror caught her eye. It was Leon giving her the disturbing smile, again. Once their eye’s locked, he turned away.

  Leon’s cheeks went flush. He got to work and loaded eight boxes of crackers, plus two canisters of oatmeal. He hoped Shawna hadn’t noted when he bumped her shoulder on purpose.

  Slow down Casanova. He told himself.

  Now’s not the time to be hasty.

  The weight of the bag in his hands told him it was at its max. If he shoved more in there the plastic would split wide open.

  I’ve got to play it smart. He set the sack at the end of the aisle. A display of wine bottles filled the corner of the store.

  Be sincere and act from the heart. The bottom shelf was loaded with boxed wine. They made the most sense. The boxes were lighter and less likely to shatter. He moved in their direction.

  I should get her drunk.

  Troy ground a layer of enamel off his teeth. Sara reached for his forearm. “Leon’s right. Let’s grab what we need and hit the road.”

  He nodded at her, scratched at his beard and lowered his gaze. “It’s a strange sensation.”

  “What is?”

  “Getting warped back in time, like I was twelve-years-old and Ricky Smyth was trying to pick a fight with me on the bus ride home from school.”

  Ryder smashed around in the stockroom and mumbled some curse words to himself.

  “Well, you’re here with me now.” Sara gave his arm a squeeze. “Let’s fill these bags and get some miles between us and that pile of human garbage.”

  “Deal.” Troy gave her a wink and went to work loading supplies.

  Ryder exited the stockroom with a good-sized box in his arms. He lined it with a garbage bag and headed to the freezer full of ice. “You limp dicks miss me?” Ryder belted a hardy laugh.

  No one said a thing.

  He opened the freezer door and yanked two bags to the floor. Ryder smashed them a few times to break apart the chunks of ice. That’s when he realized no one was paying attention to him. Sara was an arm’s length from Troy and the smell of a budding relationship was ripe in the air.

  “Hey, big man, you tap that young filly yet?” asked Ryder as he kicked his box down the aisle toward his stack of beer.

  Troy kept to his own business and loaded cans of stew.

  Ryder lifted the bags of ice and headed for his makeshift cooler. “No?” He grunted a short laugh. “She’s about half your age, but that’s how I like them.” He sighed and reminisced. “I love talking ‘em into shit that’d make a prostitute blush.” Ryder cracked open the first case of beer. He moved quickly transferring each bottle into the plastic lined box. “Hell, big guy, you might even be her first.”

  It was extremely difficult for Sara not to fire off an insult, but she kept calm and managed to control her emotions. She loaded the bag even faster and ignored the loud mouthed, gapping dick-hole at the rear of the store.

  Ryder emptied the last case of beer and poured the ice in on top of them. He studied the store. Sara was in the toiletry aisle. She grabbed handfuls of toothbrushes, mint flavored paste and floss from the rack. Next thing she knew Ryder was beside her. It startled her when he spoke.

  “Hand me them condoms.” He commanded.

  Sara moved away from the racks, but he blocked her escape.

  Troy stepped into the aisle. “Get away from her.” He set his bag of food on the floor.

  “This doesn’t concern you, big man.”

  Troy took a step. “I said get away from her.”

  Ryder aimed his gun at Troy. “Stay right there, big man.” Ryder’s gaze burned a hole through the back of Sara’s skull. He yelled. “I’ll leave this store right now, without a fuss, once she hands me that box of rubbers.”

  Sara put her bag on the linoleum, turned to the shelf of
prophylactics and reached for a box. With the container in her hand she faced Ryder. His meaty paw hung in the air at chest height. As she set the box in his palm his grease fingers collapsed around her wrist like a Venus flytrap.

  He yanked her in close and hissed, “I’m gonna be thinking about you when I slide that rubber down my shaft.” Some spit landed on Sara’s cheek.

  She brushed it away and said, “Listen…”

  He groaned, “Yes…?”

  Sara cut him off with a powerful knee to the groin. His nuggets smashed against her thigh. Ryder yelped, dropped his gun, let go of her wrist and cupped his balls. He bent forward, unable to breathe. Sara grabbed a fire extinguisher from a rack full of barbeque supplies and clocked the back of his skull with all her might.

  Crack!

  Ryder fell to the floor. Sara stomped her boot into his ear and crushed his face into the unforgiving floor. She hovered above his limp body. The red canister held high. She waited. Sara knew he could spring to life at any second, but to her delight, the disgusting man was knocked out cold.

  She released the canister on his spine and snarled, “I’ll think about you the next time I take a fat shit!” Sara spit a thick loogy on him.

  The shock and bewilderment on Troy’s face was priceless.

  Chapter 8

  Brother Paul sat forward. His legs spread out in a V in front of him. Drops of sweat collected at the top of his neck. A pool of blood inched toward his feet. The fluid worked its way through the maze of grout as it followed the path of least resistance.

  I could be bleeding. He thought to himself. Paul wanted to check his skull for a gash. His noggin made a hell of a cracking sound when it contacted the ceramic floor. He was sure there would be damage to his scalp, but his hands were too busy holding the grip of his pistol. Earlier today he thought his headache couldn’t get any worse, now it felt like his brain was trying to drop kick out of his eye sockets. Greg’s cries filled the room. Patrick remounted his victim and got in position to take a nibble. Paul pushed his pain aside and focused. He steadied his breath, zeroed in on the target and let five rounds fly.

  The bullets tore into Patrick’s torso. Each exit wound sprayed Greg with more black blood.

  “Damn,” cursed Paul. He got his legs under him.

  Greg rolled to his side, clamored to stop the bleeding above his hip and howled like an animal when his fingers touched the open wound. Patrick went in for another bite. His mouth landed on Greg’s lips. For a second it seemed like they were sharing a passionate embrace. Greg went quiet. His eyes were the size of manhole covers. Patrick jerked his head to the side. A solid chunk of lips and cheek skin tore away from Greg’s face.

  For the rest of Paul’s life, he would never forget the unnerving sound of that lipless scream. Paul’s boots found traction. He took off in a sprint toward Patrick.

  Paul counted in his head.

  Seven. That’s all I’ve got left in this gun. I can’t miss another shot.

  He passed by Tony. The nine-fingered man knelt in the center of the room. He was as pale as a bowl of milk. He squeezed his injured hand and yelled, “Oh God!” at the top of his lungs. His cries turned hoarse and he coughed out a mouthful of blood.

  He doesn’t have long! Paul knew he would have to deal with him next. First, he needed to take down the turned ones, before they got loose and destroyed everything he had worked so hard to build. The thought of losing four more people to this disease, when they were already stretched so thin, was more than heartbreaking, it was downright devastating.

  How are we going to load the children into the vehicles and keep everyone safe? Anger burned at the pit of his stomach. If he managed to survive this, he would have to lay down the law with the good Doctor. At the edge of his vision he spotted Bryant’s white coat, flailing across the floor. She was in serious trouble, but Paul was right behind Patrick. He needed to finish off the one-armed man, before he could help her.

  Lindsey was consumed with fear as Miranda pinned her to the floor. The turned woman fought with inhuman strength and it surprised Doctor Bryant that she had lasted this long.

  How did it go so bad so fast?

  The Doctor squirmed. Her self-defense training course was six months ago and not a damn move was coming to her.

  Think, damn it, think. She panicked. Her memory had gone blank. Lindsey couldn’t tell you her birthday or her favorite flavor ice cream. Which was Ben and Jerry’s, Americone Dream. The only word she repeated to herself was…

  …Teeth!

  Miranda’s infected body pulled harder against Lindsey’s defenses. Saliva dripped onto the Doctor’s lab coat. The glistening incisors moved closer to Lindsey’s exposed skin. They crashed shut. The sound of enamel on enamel sickened her. She kept her elbow tight under Miranda’s jaw. Her strength was about to give when she caught a flicker of light shining off something metal on the floor.

  The bone saw! Lindsey stretched for the surgical tool.

  Patrick ripped off Greg’s right ear and slurped it down like a hunk of Canadian Bacon. Paul stood behind the infected, reached for his shirt collar, yanked him to the floor and jammed the barrel of his gun, point blank, into the back of Patrick’s skull. Paul fired twice. The infected cranium exploded across the floor. Greg was a tattered mess and no longer recognizable. The pained expression on his torn face begged for a quick end to the misery.

  Lindsey’s fingers wrapped around the handle of the bone saw. She felt the tip of Miranda’s tongue as it lapped the edge of her earlobe. In the middle of this life or death struggle for survival, a realization came to her.

  I can’t recall the last time a man caressed me softly, with the tip of his tongue. Only now, as death literally breathed down her neck, did she come to terms with how much of her life she had wasted not being in love.

  The decade it took Lindsey to finish her medical degree, she went on a handful of dates and of those five nights on the town, only two of them ended with heavy petting. She averaged sixty hours of work a week and there never seemed to be enough time for romance. Maybe it was how she was raised.

  Mom and Dad were never ones for public displays of affection.

  Maybe I feared rejection.

  Maybe my expectations were set too high.

  Maybe this and maybe that… She thought to herself.

  Now isn’t the time for self-discovery.

  It didn’t really matter what the cause of her self-imposed celibacy, because one thing had become clear. Even if it was a sin, she needed to get laid. But before Lindsey could worry about such carnal thoughts, she had to make it out of this room in one piece.

  With her last ounce of strength, Lindsey lifted Miranda’s torso a few inches and got a workable gap between the two of them. She forced the blade into Miranda’s open mouth. The saw’s razor-sharp teeth slid through her cheeks as Doctor Bryant drove the tool further into Miranda’s throat.

  Black ooze drained from the cuts and covered the front of Lindsey’s white coat and blouse. Chunks of severed tongue dropped from Miranda’s gaping mouth. The saw slid its way through muscle and within seconds Doctor Bryant had removed the woman’s jaw.

  The monster was still alive, but it was missing half of its main weapon. The hunk of bone and flesh fell to Lindsey’s chest with a nasty splat. She wiggled and fought to get out from under the infected woman. The jaw bounced off her torso and slipped across the floor. It reminded her of the plastic windup chattering teeth she used to play with as a child.

  Paul couldn’t understand the words Greg was desperately trying to tell him, but he figured it was, “Kill me! Kill me, now!”

  Greg’s eyes rolled into his skull. His body convulsed on the floor. He was about to turn, Paul couldn’t wait any longer. He pressed his pistol to Greg’s temple and popped two rounds into his faithful follower.

  Three shots left! He told himself.

  Paul leapt across the floor. Tony’s eyes went black as night, but Doctor Bryant was down range from this vantage.r />
  I can’t risk hitting her. I need to get closer.

  Tony’s head violently cranked toward Paul. The monster darted in his direction with world record speed and before Brother Paul knew it, the beast had closed the distance in the blink of an eye.

  Paul panicked. He squeezed the trigger too soon. The bullet sailed passed Tony and punched the far wall.

  Darn it! There was zero margin for error now.

  Tony’s clawed hands were inches away. Paul changed the angle of his gun and pressed it under Tony’s chin. The first shot removed most of Tony’s features in a flash of pink and red. The second did the trick. Tony’s burly body tumbled forward and intertwined in Paul’s legs, which caused him to slow his progress for a moment. His gun was empty, so he tossed it to the floor. The last weapon on his tactical vest was the K-Bar. He removed the knife from its sheath and kicked his way out from Tony’s limp body.

  The teeth of the bone saw scraped against Miranda’s spine. Lindsey knew it wasn’t physically possible, but it sure seemed like two gallons of fluid had poured out of the gaping wound in the woman’s neck. She was soaked to the bone and there didn’t seem to be any sign that the blood flow was coming to an end. She pressed her lips together to keep the disease from entering her mouth. Lindsey held both ends of the saw and worked it back and forth.

  This is, by far, the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. Doctor Bryant had witnessed some grizzly surgical videos in her day and participated in more than a few autopsies, but they all paled in comparison to what she was undergoing at this very moment.

  The muscles in her arms were about to give, but she kept the pressure on and after two more passes of the saw Miranda’s body became as limp as a dead fish.