Kinnick ran farther up the slope. His quads shook, giving everything they had. Breathing burned his chest, and his calves were filled with as much blood as they could hold, but he continued to dig his feet into the rocky slope, showering the infected behind him, struggling through the rocks and steep incline. His vision was blurred with stinging sweat. Blood pounded inside his skull, and his vision was a haze. Dark shapes ran down the slope ahead of him. Dear God. Kinnick stopped standing upright. This way too. I’m done and I killed all these boys.
The ones coming down the hill were different than the ones coming up the hill. They held their guns in a meaningful way as if they were ready to use them. The lead man neared Kinnick and he recognized the brute.
Stark bounded down the hill with fifteen men at his back. He slid on his ass part of the way down. He leapt up, his carbine bursting fire past Kinnick. Stark’s gun blazed so fast it sounded like it was on full auto. Kinnick went to his knees, crawling in the dirt until he felt a hand on his belt.
“Move your ass, Colonel,” Stark yelled in his face. Veins bulged in Stark’s neck.
Kinnick mountain-climbed his feet but mostly scrambled until he was upright. Several agonizing minutes later, he reached the top of the ridge. His legs were overcooked noddles. He was so fatigued that he was afraid he might actually be having a heart attack as pain shot down his left arm and up into his neck. He forced himself upright and joined his men, aiming down the ridge. Don’t have time for that. He shook his arm out, trying to catch his breath.
The remnants of Stark’s 1st squad fired down the steep slope into the infected. Kinnick took up his carbine and listened in misery to the faint calls for help through the gunfire.
A private struggled through the trees. Two infected converged on him and dragged him down from behind. The private crawled, hands gouging the earth as he tried to escape. He spasmed as the infected dug their hands into his lower back pulling pieces of bloodied uniform, skin, and chunks of kidneys from his body. They shoved the bloody guts in their mouths, tearing into the meat while his soldier convulsed in shock on the ground.
“Where’s Hunter?” Kinnick shouted. His carbine pinged as he fired it.
“Don’t know, sir,” Stark said over his shoulder. He slung ten rounds in quick succession, dropped his magazine then reloaded by shoving a fresh one in its place. “Not going to matter if we get overrun,” he shouted.
Kinnick picked out a pack of the dead scrambling up the slope and pulled the trigger repeatedly. The bodies stumbled and jerked as rounds penetrated their rotting flesh. He calmed his breath and lined up his sights on an ugly infected’s head. The carbine sounded off and the infected dropped to the ground to be trampled by the other dead. It didn’t cry out when struck. It didn’t scream when its guts were splattered against the rocks. When limbs were severed from their bodies or their bones broken into tiny white fragments, they only let out a low moan like a distant train.
“Get those 2-40s going,” Kinnick yelled over to the remainders of 2nd Platoon. Two soldiers laid prone on the ground. One hastily flung out the bipod legs of an M240B machine gun. The supporting soldier laid out the belt of ammunition. It thundered out rounds. A fast-paced, dud-dud-dud-dud spewed from the barrel. It hammered at the infected gathering along the slope. Guts sprayed out their backs as bullets raced through rotting flesh. The hot rounds penetrated multiple bodies, going through entire groups of the dead. The infected knocked into one another, the incline of the hill causing some to collapse and roll into the others. Hasty feet flattened the rest.
A truck roared on the cluttered highway before Kinnick saw it. A white semi pulled a long silver cylindric fuel tanker behind it. Infected were brushed to the sides as the truck divided them into two halves on the edge of the road. An infected clung to the passenger side door, pulling itself alongside the driver. It fell backward as bullets punched through the door of the truck. With a crunch, the driver hit an abandoned car and shoved it to the side like a bigger sibling would a smaller as they raced for presents on Christmas morning. The semi slammed perpendicular to a smoldering car near the entrance, t-boning it several feet. The force of the impact drove the car sideways into the median. The infected swarmed the semi, beating it with fists and the weight of their lifeless bodies.
Kinnick’s radio crackled. “Who’s that guy? Do you want us to clear out some space for him?” Elwood said. His voice was skittish as if he would sound the retreat at any moment. The glass shattered on the driver’s window. Arms shot through. Heads exploded and the bodies fell back onto the others.
“Hold your fire, Lieutenant. We don’t want to hit the fuel tanker.”
“Copy that, sir.”
A man’s head popped up from a rescue hatch atop the semi. He looked around before he pushed his arms through the opening. A soldier pulled himself up from inside the semi’s cabin. Kinnick raised his binoculars back to his eyes. A brown bearded soldier huffed as he pulled himself free. Master Sergeant Hunter. The man crawled across the top of the tanker as hundreds of infected assaulted the semi beneath him. Kinnick glanced at the remainder of 2nd Platoon.
“Stark, how many of your men are operational?”
The bull of a man stared down his firing line.
“Fifteen, Colonel. Farrell is a bit banged up, but he’ll fight.”
Kinnick pointed. “Move down the ridge.”
Stark’s eyes flashed. “Sir?”
Kinnick pointed. “Fire your way down the hill, and clear out a path for Master Sergeant Hunter. Do not hit the tanker.”
“Second Platoon, you heard the Colonel. Clear a path for the master sergeant. Move!” Stark screamed. The soldiers ran down the ridge directly perpendicular to the tunnel. They fired between sprints. Kinnick ran with them, following a scrawny soldier tasked with carrying a light machine gun. Dust rose up as boots beat the rocky ground with tread. As they grew close to lining up with the edge of the tunnel, the squads split into a V, aiming down the hill.
“Don’t hit the truck,” Stark screamed at his men.
They fired into the mass of infected, bringing them down in slow, controlled shots. Hunter stood, feet widespread, balancing atop the tanker. He quick-fired into the infected’s heads, and the bodies piled up around the tanker. There was a method to his extreme violence.
As the infected thinned, Hunter jumped down from atop the silver tanker, using the pile of dead to break his fall. He rolled over the fallen bodies, all that his kit would allow. The infected swiped, grasping hands reaching for Hunter and missing. He pushed up onto his knees and scrambled upright. He lowered his head and sprinted for the hill. He cross-checked an infected woman in the face and bounded up the slope. Second Platoon slow-stepped down the hill, closing the gap between themselves and the insane master sergeant.
Hunter hustled up the hill. Infected would turn and lunge for him as he ran the gauntlet of the dead. Most he ignored on his way by. Others he popped off rounds into when they were too close. The steep incline caused his cheeks to puff out and turn red as he ran. The gap between Hunter and the infected widened.
Hunter raced past 2nd Platoon and they retreated back up the mountainous slope. Kinnick panted as he saddled up alongside the master sergeant. Hunter put his hands on his hips trying to breathe.
“Been awhile since I ran up a fucking mountain. Wahoo,” he half-yelled.
“Glad to have you back,” Kinnick said, clapping Hunter on the back. Hunter stood, taking a big breath, his mustache quivering beneath his greedy oxygen-ingesting.
“Let’s seal the deal,” Hunter said with a wink.
“Stark, you don’t by any chance have a rocket I could borrow?” Hunter asked.
The linebacker smiled. “Alexander,” he called over his shoulder, “would you oblige the master sergeant?”
A helmeted soldier jogged up and handed Hunter a foliage green AT-4 anti-tank rocket. Alexander bowed his head as if he were a squire handing a legendary knight his sword. The master sergeant winked at the young
soldier and hefted the 84 mm unguided single-shot rocket launcher up onto his shoulder, taking aim at the fuel tanker. He flipped open the sights and lined them up.
“Clear,” he shouted, ensuring no one was unfortunate enough to be behind him. A moment later, a single shot roared from his launcher. Flames burst from the back of the AT-4. With a screech, the rocket penetrated the tanker. The ground shook as fire exploded outward into the tunnel and the infected.
Hunter turned to Kinnick with a grin under his bushy beard. “That should do.”
“That’ll do.” Kinnick clicked his radio. “Elwood, you may clear out this area. Second Platoon is coming your way.”
Kinnick nodded to Stark. “Go ahead.”
“Be a pleasure, sir,” Stark grinned. “Let’s mop ’em up.” He held his hand in the air, spinning it in a short circle, and pointed his men in the direction of the remainder of the enemy.
TESS
Temple Energy Plant, MI
“Bring me your people, Steele. We will not wait long,” the pastor shouted with a smile. His long-fingered hands wrung themselves together.
“God wills it! God wills it!” shouted the pastor’s men, hoisting their weapons high in the air.
Flames licked Pagan’s legs with their orange viper tongues and he howled in searing pain. His eyes fell on her for only a nanosecond before he forced them shut, his voice rising in agony. His eyes had shouted regret. Maybe it was for never saying how he really felt about her. Maybe it was for something he had done, but he would have only a few agonizing moments to straighten it out in his mind.
“You bastard,” Tess spit at the pastor. Steele pulled at her waist with his hands. She shook him off. “We will never surrender. I swear it. You’ll see my face before you die.”
The pastor shook his head in disappointment. “Such a misguided creature you are, Tess. God’s love will warm your heart one day, child, of that I have no doubt. His embrace will burst you with his love.”
Tess shook. Her body screamed fight or flight. She leaned toward fight. “What more do I have to give? What more do I have to lose?” she screamed. Better to go down swinging. She took a lunge at the pastor, but powerful arms encaged her.
“We can’t stay,” Steele said from behind into her ear. His words were nothing to her. He carried her backwards, and she fought and trembled as Pagan screamed with everything he had inside him. He would continue to scream until the nerve endings in his skin were seared away by the flames, however long it took. Five minutes, seven minutes, until his epidermis split and the fat leaked from underneath the destroyed layers of flesh or the smoke overcame lungs.
She kicked out. She kicked back at Steele. The heel of her foot met his shin. “Let go, you bastard,” she screamed aloud, but her screams paled in comparison to Pagan’s. The notes of agony taking every ounce of breath away from him.
“They will pay,” Steele whispered to her over and over. Moments dropped into the bucket of eternity. Dazed, they saw the chain-link fence open and close. The sneering pastor’s men turned into round-trunked brown maples, skinny lakeshore pines, and slender white birches. Steele released her and she clutched a maple overlooking the power plant. Tears gripped her eyes. The gray smoke was rising from the field, dispersing in the air.
Steele armed himself next to her, holstering his M9 Beretta and tomahawk.
“We can’t let them do this,” she croaked between sobs, leaning on the tree more than standing upright. The fire crackled below, totally engulfing Pagan.
Steele threw branches and twigs to the side, uncovering a black-stocked Remington 783 .300 Winchester hunting rifle. Releasing the bolt backward, he put a brass-encased round into the receiver, locking it forward with a snap of his wrist.
Pagan’s head lolled from his left to right, his mouth was bent in a painful smile, his lungs spent from screaming. Have the flames already licked away the flesh of his face, leaving him with a permanent skeleton’s smile?
For a moment she hoped that Steele might try to save him. “What are you doing?” she spit out. Steele put the hunting rifle to his shoulder. His eye hovered near the optics.
“Mercy,” Steele said from the corner of his mouth, and the rifle cracked out of the forest. Pagan’s head slumped to his chest, a tormented man put to final rest. And tears rolled down her cheeks.
“We run,” he said. He slung the hunting rifle over his shoulder and forcibly grabbed her hand. His hand was hot and rough in her’s. Tree limbs whipped them while they fled through the forest gauntlet. Sand flung from their feet into the air in a rushed ferocity. They didn’t care about tracks. The Chosen knew where their camp was. They knew where they went. It was only a race against the clock before they came for them to exact their price, to force them to live under their unholy regime or be put to death by fire.
Everything happened in a daze. All the trees that passed her were hazy. Her muscles burnt beneath her skin, lactic acid building up, but still, a level of numbness filled her to the very core. An emptiness that made her long for something to believe in. Something to make her feel whole. An emptiness that nothing in this world could ever fill.
Her lungs stung and she ripped her hand free from him. She doubled over, labored breathing exiting her chest. “They’re monsters,” she breathed.
Steele sucked wind. “They are,” he said worriedly, eyes scanning their surroundings. He didn’t sound confident.
“I will kill every…single…one. I promise you,” she said.
“But first we have to get back. Figure out a plan,” he said.
A twig snapped nearby. Her heart leapt from her chest. They couldn’t already be here, hunting us like dogs.
A form came from beyond the trees. Its jaw hung loose, hanging by white tendons to the infected’s skull. Steele bounced upright and met the dead with the butt of his rifle, slamming downward until with the stock until the infected was destroyed. The Chosen were not the only enemies who roamed the countryside.
“Come on,” he said. She followed him unwillingly through the trees. Her anger caused her to drag her feet, slowing her down. This anger was willing her to stay put and fight for Pagan’s honor. Her man. Her partner from the beginning of the planet’s descent into hell. The man had survived the ugliness of fighting religious zealots in a foreign country only to be murdered by religious zealots in his own. A man she was comfortable around and safe. A man she loved. A man who was dead. She never actually believed he would die. Never. Even when they had fought packs of the infected, she always knew he would be there with that damn goofy smile on his face.
The other part of her followed behind this other bearded man. A man who had stepped up into Pagan’s place. It was this part that let her follow Steele and trust his intuition. It took everything in her to give in to this man, but at the same time, it felt right. His internal resolve and willingness to do right glowed before her. She felt bound to him like she had never felt for another man. She had experienced many lovers but not a love like this. Keeping her eyes on the center of his back, she ran behind him taking the hills, sand, and felled tree trunks in determined stride.
Eventually, trees gave way to the asphalt road. Steele sprinted across it. A motorcycle lay on its side in the ditch.
“Thunder did what he was supposed to,” he said. Steele heaved the four-hundred-pound beast upright. He mounted the motorcycle, looking to her to join him. He held his hand out expectantly. “Hurry,” he said, rushed.
Her eyes never left his. She bypassed his hand, cupped his shaggy cheeks, and brought him in close. Their lips locked and she kissed him with all the feeling she had left in her. He slowly pulled away, his eyes wide in surprise. Fire surged through her veins. It wasn’t the anger that drove her but something else entirely. Something she hadn’t felt in so long.
“I-um,” he stuttered. She put a thumb to his lips.
“Don’t say anything. You’ll ruin it.” She swung a leg over the back of the motorcycle and settled in. When she wrapped her arms around h
is torso, he revved the engine, speeding down the road. She could feel him breathing as the wind whipped them. Tucking her face behind his back, she felt at ease, his closeness tempering the sting of loss. His closeness filling in a piece of her void.
Before long, they found themselves at the entrance to Little Sable Point, and she was hesitant to give up her stranglehold on his body.
“Tess,” he whispered. “We’re here.” He kicked the motorcycle stand out with his boot. He gradually released her from her hold on him. They dismounted the motorcycle.
“Are you okay?” he asked, eyes worried.
“Pagan’s dead and they’re coming for us,” she said.
Her world spun and she landed in his arms. He scooped her up, carrying her through the camp. Everything happened as if she were a mile away in the clouds. People shouted around her. Darkness draped around her like a death shroud. The last thing she remembered was Steele yelling as he stared down at her, his eyes frantic.
STEELE
Little Sable Point, MI
“How fast can we get this camp mobile?” Steele asked Thunder. Thunder scratched at his bandana running along the brow of his forehead.
“Me and my boys could hop out of here in ten. It’s everybody else that will slow us down. We gotta get trailers hitched, the semis are done for, not enough fuel, and we have to make sure we got all the supplies we can manage.” Steele grimaced as the retreat to-do list grew longer and longer.
Turning to Ahmed, he said. “I need you to grab one of the bikes and roll up to the Lakeshore intersection with Larry. No shooting. The moment you see anyone you report back here as fast as you can.”
“Don’t leave without me or you won’t get those hockey tickets when this is over,” Ahmed said. He hefted his M4 and gave Steele a mock salute.
“We won’t. Any chance I get to see the Caps go down, I’ll take,” Steele said after him. I’d be surprised if any of us leave here. Ahmed disappeared into the camp.
“How many trucks need fuel?” Steele asked Thunder.
The End Time Saga Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 103
