Of Sudden Origin - Part 3 Tribulation

by C. Chase Harwood

  “Where the hell is she going?” O’Shea unbuckled his harness. Tran got up to follow Susan.“Sit down, Mr. Tran!”

  Tran sat as O’Shea jumped off the helicopter. Susan ran as fast as she could toward the big Victorian. “Ms. Chancellor, get back on the helicopter! Susan!”

  “The notes, all the notes!” She yelled back and kept running.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” O’Shea looked to his left – the damn things were getting close. He realized that his only weapon was his sidearm.

  As Susan ran inside the house, Quentin O’Shea had to decide for the umpteenth time in his career whether or not to be a hero. Fifty yards away, the first of the Deadheads came around a building. In the back of his mind he noted how thin they looked. Starvation was setting in. He’d file that away for his action report. They saw him and started to run faster. He screamed at the house, “Susan, get out now! It’s too late! Get out!”

  Just then she opened a window on the second floor and yelled, “Catch!” She tossed her laptop computer down to him and he caught it. “Save us, Quentin. Save us all. Run!”

  O’Shea pulled his sidearm and was startled when the Fiends closest to him were shot to pieces. Jones had opened up with the Chinook’s mini-gun. He hesitated another moment.

  “Run!” she yelled, before ducking back inside.

  He looked at the laptop, then at the charging Fiends and ran. He ran in a way he hadn’t run since he was a little boy, charging up the stairs from his family’s dark basement, the open slats in the steps just perfect for clawed fingers to reach through and pull him back down into the dampness. He didn’t feel his feet touch the ground as he dashed for the Chinook, twisting his arm around over his head, indicating that Axelman should lift off. He dove for the ramp just as the machine broke with the earth and was pulled inside by Copper and Bullock.

  When the bird was fifty feet in the air it turned lazily toward the farmhouse. They could see that the house was surrounded. Fiends smashed in the windows and poured through the door. Suddenly a second floor window opened above the porch roof and Susan climbed out slamming the window behind her. She deftly climbed up to the next level of roof just as a Fiend crashed through the glass. Jones lit up the porch roof with the mini. Empty brass casings rained down on the Fiends below as the monsters reached up in futility for the hovering feast.

  Axelman’s voice came over the helicopters internal speakers, “We are saving that woman. Recovery team, lower the hoist.”

  Copper and Jacobus quickly unhitched and deployed the cable hoist harness. Jones kept a withering fire onto the porch roof, ultimately demolishing it, but also lighting the house on fire. The old Victorian had multiple steep roofs. Susan had climbed to the highest peak she could scramble to. She stood on a gutter and hugged the shingles.

  Copper threw the harness on as quickly as he could, latched himself to the hoist and gave Jacobus the thumbs down as he leaned out the door.

  Axelman lowered the huge helicopter as low as he dared, not wanting to blow Susan off the roof.

  The wash from the blades acted like a bellows on the flames and the house was being quickly engulfed. As Susan was buffeted by the wind and nearly knocked from the rooftop, the scientist in her couldn’t stop observing her environment. To her astonishment, she watched two infected assault a wounded one, biting off small chunks of the injured one’s arms. As far as she knew, no one had observed a fully infected person feast on another. Perhaps if the things were starving, then anything edible was up for grabs. As she considered the ramifications of that notion she was suddenly startled by a small child climbing, no, hopping up onto the roof with her. Though devoutly atheistic, Susan said a small prayer before the tiny devil entered her mind and filled it with horror. For seconds that seemed like minutes, she shared her consciousness with what could only be described as pure evil. Somewhere inside the labyrinth that was her gray matter, in the place she kept her consciousness, she was aware of her heart seizing up. Just as suddenly it all stopped, like a black pillowcase being ripped off her head. Loud explosions from a pistol fired near her ear. She looked up to find Copper dangling in front of her. At the same moment two particularly tenacious Fiends leapt onto the roof with them. “Jump, lady! Jump!”

  Susan jumped into Copper’s spread eagle arms and legs and he wrapped them around her while throwing a kick into the face of the nearest ghoul. The creature’s head snapped back, clearing a sightline for Copper to make eye contact with the Fiend behind it. What he saw gave him gooseflesh. The thing was huge. Drool poured from its mouth as it gnashed its filthy teeth.

  The Fiend smiled thinking, I will hack it and reach inside it and gleefully watch it scream and die.

  The eye contact was broken as the Chinook banked away, the hoist starting to rise just in time to deny the monster a machete full of Copper’s thigh.

  Copper snapped out of his reverie and realized that he was crushing Susan to him. “Jesus, lady. You are one bandong, loco, crazy-ass lady, lady. I told you about the babies. Now you know.”

  Susan smiled weakly, her freshly restarted heart doing its best to pound a hole through her chest. Her sense of smell was in high gear and she breathed in the delicious aroma of the Ranger’s healthy sweat. In another few seconds they were pulled back inside.

  Aaron Burnbaum screamed at her with tears brimming his eyes, “I had backed it all up! It was all backed up, you fucking woman!”

  “What?” Susan gasped.

  He opened a briefcase, which cradled two portable hard drives, “I tried to tell you it was all in here, but you ran out the door!”

  “Well, shit,” was all that Susan could say.

  CHAPTER TEN

  River Battle

  In the morning, Jon & Nikki drank their coffee alone in the canteen while a soaring hymn ended the early service. When they stepped outside they were joined by Steven Costas who walked with a brick of a man wearing overalls. He wore a wide brimmed hat over grey streaked black curly hair and sported a huge bushy black beard. “Mornin'. Name’s Alan Garber. I’ll be escorting you to the fields to report for crop management. Mr. Costas, as I was saying, you have my condolences for your loss. A little work in the fields will do you good.”

  They were led along a path that worked its way into the interior of the island and found themselves falling in with other parishioners heading in the same direction. Jon and Nikki's re-acquaintance after just one night apart was making them feel oddly self-conscious. As the path narrowed, they’re hands brushed once and they awkwardly held themselves apart so it wouldn’t happen again. Jon was surprised at both of them and decided that they must be suffering from some kind of juvenile-lust-itis. He chuckled out loud.

  “What?” she asked under her breath.

  “Nothing.”

  They fell back a bit from Garber and Steven quietly asked them, “How you two holding up?”

  Jon whispered, “We need to persuade them to let us settle on the East Side.”

  Nikki said, “What about you? You can’t want your kids to stay exposed to...”

  A tall woman strode past them carrying a compound hunting bow. She had a quiver of arrows strapped across her back. When she was past, Steven said, “We’ve been through this kind of thing before. Their mom and I have home-schooled them from the start. We’ll get along.”

  Jon said, “Still, we’ve been thinking that maybe you should join us.”

  “They’re not going to let us do that.”

  Nikki whispered harshly, “They’re going to have to let us do that. I’m not going to give them the option.”

  Several people turned. Garber said, “There a problem?”

  “No problem,” said Jon. “Just a rough night of sleep.”

  Big Ben Watson suddenly hurried past them and caught up to the tall woman with the bow. He stopped her and whispered into her ear. She clutched her bow tighter, turned around and jogged back the way she’d come. Watson then walked back toward Nikki and Jon. “
Alan, I need to talk with Miss Rosen.”

  “Suit yourself, Ben. Want me to wait?”

  “Nope. Go ahead. Minor security thing is all.”

  Jon stood fast next to Nikki. Steven hesitated, and then continued to fall in with Garber. Watson looked at Jon. “Go ahead, Mr. Washington, follow Mr. Garber. This regards Miss Rosen's military knowledge.”

  Nikki grabbed Jon’s arm. “No, he’s practically as well schooled in this war as I am. What’s your situation?”

  Watson gave her a frustrated scowl and then led them slightly off the path. “We have a small situation and could use a professional military opinion.”

  “Okay.”

  “If you’d follow me.”

  They double-timed it to catch up with Lukei, whose six-foot tall frame gave her a long stride. They passed back through the main village - The Lord’s Village, as a small sign stated - and then worked their way out to the fortified edge of the island where sharpened stakes protected the shore.

  As the forest thinned, they crawled out to a sentry’s blind. This morning’s lookout was Ham Unger, the young man who believed in horns. He nodded a greeting, gave Nikki a double-take, and then pointed to the opposite shore.

  Standing amongst the reeds, hip deep at the edge of the river, were two female Fiends, one of them holding a baby. They were identical twins, perhaps thirty years old, tall and skinny. Their clothes were rags, their skin covered in thick grime. They were sniffing at the air, breathing in big lungfuls of it. The baby’s head was tucked into the shoulder of the one who carried it.

  Watching this, the people in the blind realized that they could all smell the aroma of cooking food on the air.

  Nikki asked Ham, “I assume they haven’t seen you.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Have you spotted any others?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “How long have they been there?”

  “About fifteen-minutes. I seen ‘em come out of the woods. Just kept walkin’ closer, sniffing the air. The baby looks like its alive. They hadn’t et it or nothin'.”

  Ben asked, “So do we let Lukei try to kill them?”

  Nikki looked at Lukei, “Even if you get a heart shot on one, the other will give out a call to hunt. If there are any others in earshot... What kind of shot are you?”

  “Almost never miss, if I’m standing. Not sure about crouched in this blind.”

  Ben said, “Should we wait? Hope they walk away?”

  Ham asked, “What about the baby?”

  Jon said, “The baby could only be infected too. They won’t walk away. The damn things are single minded. They know there’s food on the island. They probably won’t leave until something else distracts them.”

  Nikki said, “If we ignore them, others may see them, come over here and smell our camp as well.”

  Ben said, “So we let Lukei take the shot?”

  She looked at Lukei. “I don’t think we can take the chance.”

  Jon said, “We distract them. Take a boat up the river here. Get them to follow us down the shore in the opposite direction. When we’re far enough away, we close in and shoot.”

  Ben said, “That’s good, but it might be quicker to just row out and shoot them right there.”

  Nikki smiled, “Guys, either of those solutions gets the things screaming the alarm before we ever get near it.”

  “So what’s your idea?”

  “I get close and kill them as quickly and silently as I can. We go up shore and tie a rope around my waist. I float down while swimming to the opposite side. They won’t see me until I come around that bend and by then it’s too late. I draw them out into the water a bit, stand up and club them to death. After that, you can reel me back over to this side.”

  “That’s nuts,” said Jon.

  “It’s a classic assault. The art of surprise. It’s exactly the kind of thing I might have done in Africa.”

  “It’s still nuts.”

  None of them spoke about what to do with the infant.

  They stood upriver, on the North Side of the island at the edge of the sharpened stick defense. Nikki was ready to go. She was armed with a heavy hand-carved club and Ben’s hunting knife. She had stripped down to her wifebeater-T and had taken off her combat boots. A length of nylon rope was tied around her waist. She had asked for some Vaseline and greased down exposed skin to ward off the chill in the water; no sense in getting to the other side just to have her muscles freeze up. Also, her skin would be slippery and hard to grab onto.

  Jon paced nervously behind her as Ben coiled the rope again after giving it one wrap around a thin tree trunk to get some leverage when it was time to pull her back across.

  Jon said, “I should do this. Believe it or not, I’ve already done it - fought in the water while holding a club and a knife. It’s hard.”

  She smiled at him warmly.

  He smiled back weakly and said, “I’m serious.”

  Ignoring him, Nikki began to climb over the smooth slippery stones that made up the shore on their side. Jon whispered loudly at her, “They let female Marines do commando work?”

  Nikki kept walking and the swift current pressed against her legs. “Actually, the Force Recon guys do most of the commando work. No females yet. But Marines are all commandos in once sense or another.” She launched herself into the water and was quickly swept downstream.

  Ben played out the line as fast as he could while Nikki swam with all her might.

  Jon watched slack jawed as she disappeared around the bend. Then he turned and ran along the forested path that led back to the blind.

  Nikki was surprised at how cold the water was; it was shocking and her breath came in short gasps. The speed of the river was also greater than she’d anticipated and her muscles became quickly fatigued. To make matters worse, Jon was right; swimming with a club and knife was goddamn hard.

  She was coming up on the spot where the Fiends stood and she knew she wasn’t going to make it. In another moment she would pass the things, dangling in the wide open, bait on a hook.

  She dropped the club to swim harder, passed the reeds that had blocked her from view, then swore at herself as the monsters caught sight of her and began to moan. Then the baby looked up – what the...? She made eye contact with it – huge black irises, pointy ears. Its mouth gaped open, displaying a line of razor sharp teeth – like a smiling piranha. Nikki's head filled with the image of herself struggling in the water. She could smell strong body odor and her stomach contracted as though from intense hunger. Then her mouth filled with saliva. It was utterly disorienting. Suddenly, she was jerked to a stop as the line played out to its end. The river water poured over her head, temporarily taking her out of the baby’s eyesight. Her head cleared, but she had to fight to stay on the surface.

  Up river, Ben cringed at his bright red palms. The rope had shot through his grasp and burned until the line snapped taught. He couldn’t see Nikki, but he could tell things had gone wrong. The knot on the tree trunk held, but it also tightened and was not going to come loose by hand. He cursed as he felt for his knife and then remembered that Nikki had it. The weight on the rope was too great and he couldn’t pull her back alone. Where the heck had Washington gone?

  The infant Fiend looked at the struggling thing in the water and felt its mouth flush with saliva. It was already old enough to put together that dinner was dangling right there in the water. Finally! Thought the sister holding the infant. She was beginning to doubt the skills of the baby, when finally it steered it toward this place and its smells and then like a gift, a Fresh One was delivered right in front of it. Now it had to just get to it. The wet was bad. The wet sucked Others down. Hunger won over the remote spec of rationality left in the demented humans and they began to call out with hungry glee, wading out further into the river. The infant, no more than a month old, struggled; its fear of water causing it to reach back for the land.

  Nikki f
ound herself staring at them from only fifteen feet away. She could see drool pouring out of the closer one’s ravenous mouth while it contemplated launching itself at her. Then she made eye contact with the baby again and her mind exploded with visions of horror, dread and fear. She was utterly incapacitated; the water gushed over her face, freeing her once more from the mental invasion.

  The Fiends had enough wits to judge the current and figure out that they would be swept downstream before they could get to her so they waded their way up the shore a bit. That’s when Jon came crashing into the blind, scanning the water and seeing Nikki's predicament.

  He yelled, “Nikki, cut the rope!” The baby looked right at him – “What?” It was in his head. The baby was in his head, and suddenly he felt compelled to swim toward the Fiends, offer himself up as a meal. It was an overwhelming sensation. Unable to control his body, he stepped through the branches of the blind and he started to wade out.

  Nikki was struggling under the strain of swimming against the pull of the rope and the rush of the water. The Fiends screamed with heated excitement - a fat meal so close. Suddenly, one was silenced as an arrow pierced its neck. Lukei had stood up and aimed her arrow true. The stricken creature fell into the water and was swept away. A second arrow pierced the shoulder of the baby carrier. The Fiend clutched itself, gasping, instinctively grabbing the arrow and breaking the shaft off at the point of entry. Then it lost its footing, falling into the river, dashing the infant’s skull across a semi-submersed boulder.

  Jon’s head was instantly cleared. He watched the monster get carried toward Nikki and he yelled up river, “Cut the rope, Ben. She’s gonna drown. Cut it!”

  Ben had been doing just that with the sharpened edge of a rock. The nylon was tough and he groaned inwardly with anxiety after hearing Jon’s distress; worse was the scream of the demon. He hacked furiously at where the rope wrapped around the tree and it finally snapped. Then Ben watched in frustration as the still tied knot snagged on a partially submerged tree branch in the middle of the river.