by Kirk Withrow
“Ok, first questions: Who are you and who’s your boss? No offense, but you don’t really strike me as upper management material,” Animal said.
The man was still trying his best to scoot away from her, but his injuries prevented him from making any real progress. When it seemed like he either hadn’t understood the directions or was simply not going to participate, she took one of her brush tools and lopped off the closest rev’s index finger. She picked it up and waggled it in front of him with a lascivious glare. He began talking immediately.
“Christ, lady, you’re insane. My name’s Billy. Connor is the boss, but everybody calls him the Puppet Master for some reason. Just keep that thing away from me,” the man pleaded.
Animal had a pouty look on her face as she lowered the infected finger. A second later, she smiled and said, “Isn’t this fun? You’re doing great. Next questions: What do you guys want with us? How many of you are there? And where is the Filipino going?”
Once again, the man failed to answer right away. She began walking the severed finger up his leg like some sort of figurine, and he started singing like a canary.
“Look, I don’t know shit. It’s all Bayani. He’s the one who’s been tailing you guys. Connor just sent us along to give him some backup. They probably went back to the plant. There are like fifteen guys there with Connor and some little girl. Please don’t hurt me, lady. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Animal’s face grew angry. “Don’t mention Plant; that’s one of the rules. Didn’t I mention that?”
“What?” the man sputtered in confusion.
Animal silenced him by placing her finger over his trembling lips. “One last question: how do you want to die?”
The man didn’t offer a coherent answer but instead began sputtering and pleading. Animal interrupted him and said, “Come on, Billy. Make a decision.”
There was only more sputtering and pleading.
Animal sighed and said, “Fine. Have it your way. Dealer’s choice.”
With lightning speed, she raised her brush tool and brought it down hard onto his neck, nearly decapitating him in the process. She put her boot on his head and pried the blade out of the bone. Cujo watched silently, neither condoning nor condemning her tactics.
Animal walked past her and said, “Let’s go kill every last one of those bastards.”
Without a word, Cujo turned to follow her. She stopped and knelt next to Charon who was still lying on the reservoir’s concrete floor. With a gentle pat on his head, she said, “Good job, boy. I don’t know why or how you found us, but thanks for your help. You truly are an amazing dog.” He let out a long, soft whimper that Cujo took as part acknowledgement and part exhaustion. “Sit tight and rest. We’ll swing by and get you on our way back,” she added as she hurried to catch up with Animal.
34
Connor flashed an accusatory glare at Garza when the sound of gunfire erupted somewhere to his left.
Before the soldier had a chance to react, Connor lunged forward, plunging a knife deep into Kate’s abdomen. The speed with which he’d produced the blade caught Garza completely off guard.
“Kate!” Garza screamed. In that instant, their plan exploded into a million pieces, and there was no need to keep up the façade any longer. He watched in horror as Kate collapsed to the ground.
John, Reams, and Lydia came around the side of the building just in time to hear Garza’s cry and to see Kate crumple to the ground. They immediately opened fire on two of Connor’s men who had taken cover behind a stack of barrels. They had been oblivious to the danger behind them and died without a fight. In an instant, the entire area fell under a blanket of gunfire, and it seemed that bullets were coming from every direction.
Garza dove next to Kate and dragged her to cover behind an overgrown pile of bricks and stone. She grimaced as he pressed his hand over her abdominal wound in hopes of staunching the bleeding. “Hang on, Kate. I’m gonna get you out of here. John will get you patched up. Just hang on.”
Kate winced and blood trickled out of her mouth as she coughed. Even though her eyes were filled with pain, they still possessed a distinct clarity. She pulled Garza close to her so that he could hear over the noise of the gunfire. There was so much she wanted to tell him but she knew her time was running short.
“Listen to me, Garza. You’re not infected. You have to forget about me; I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time.” Every word was a struggle, and every one felt like it would be her last. Her vision grayed and her breath grew shallow as she focused all of her effort on finishing her statement. “Get Ava, and promise me that son of a bitch will die a horrible death.”
Kate wished she could explain to him how she’d passed the needle to the side of the mound of skin she’d pinched between her fingers, and that the cold sensation he’d felt had been the syringe’s lethal contents running harmlessly down his arm. If she’d had enough life left in her, she would’ve told him those things. Instead, she could only hope that he took her word and understood that he was going to be okay. No sooner had she uttered the last word than Kate found herself in death’s throes.
Garza held her tightly as her body was racked by convulsions. Despite his effort, the last of her blood volume spurted between his fingers, and she died in his arms. Tears filled his eyes, and he shook his head in disbelief.
“No, no, no. Kate, don’t die. Hang on. John will save you. Just hang on.”
He shook her lifeless body as he pleaded with her, but her head only lolled to the side in response. She was gone. Her bravery and quick thinking had saved him more times than he could remember, yet he would never be able to repay her. He was a mess of tears and snot as he pulled her close to his chest and sobbed loudly. The death and horror of the new world was taking a toll on him, and he wanted to scream and lash out like a child having a tantrum. Despite the pain still heavy in his heart, he knew he couldn’t give it any more time. He had a job to do—and a promise to keep. He lowered Kate’s head to the ground and closed her eyes.
“Rest easy, Kate.”
It was as if Garza had been in a vacuum that violently exploded when he uttered those words. All at once, the reality of the situation flooded his mind as his senses came alive with the chaos and carnage all around him. Screams of pains were intermingled with screams of rage. Guns rattled and popped in every direction as bullets pinged off virtually everything, missing their targets by the slimmest of margins. Puffs of dirt and grass erupted like tiny volcanoes as other bullets slammed into the ground. The air was thick with the smell of dirt, blood, and gunpowder. It was the sweetly metallic odor of death and dying. Beneath it all was the faint yet unmistakable undercurrent of decay that left no doubt that there were infected lurking nearby. Taken as a whole, it was the embodiment of LNV and what it had done to the world.
Garza shook his head to try to get his mind back into the game. If he was going to survive, he needed to focus entirely on what was happening right in front of him at that moment. Keeping a clear, level head had been the key to his survival in every combat engagement while he was in the military. He raised his head and saw Connor running head down toward the building. A second later, shards of brick and rock peppered Garza’s face when a bullet impacted less than a foot to his right. He dropped out of the line of fire just before the next barrage of gunfire came.
Garza knew he was a dead man if he stayed where he was; each successive bullet seemed to hit a little closer. At the same time, he knew charging blindly into the unknown would be suicide. He was unarmed and had no idea how many men Connor had or where they were positioned. From the sound of the gunfire, he imagined there were nearly a dozen armed men scattered around the vicinity. The thought of Connor escaping was infuriating, but Garza knew he would be cut down before he made it halfway to the building if he tried to go after him. He needed a weapon, and he needed a plan. Where the hell are Mother and the others? A little backup would be nice right about now…
&n
bsp; As if in answer to Garza’s prayers, the sound of suppressed rifle fire broke out nearby. Up to that point, he had heard only unsuppressed shots. Knowing that John’s rifle was equipped with a suppressor, he hoped the scales were about to be evened out. Screams of pain and shouts of warning from several of the gunmen confirmed his suspicion: the cavalry had arrived. When there was a shift in gunfire away from Garza’s position, he knew it was time to get back into the fight.
* * *
Reams and Lydia formed up behind John as the three crept along the building’s west side. There was about 200 feet from corner to corner, and they were eager to distance themselves from the ravenous snarls of the infected staked to the ground behind them. The tall grass grew right up to the wall, offering them excellent concealment while also limiting their ability to see their surroundings clearly. They saw no sign of Connor’s men patrolling the area. Perhaps he’d seen no reason to guard this side because there were no ground floor doors or windows through which to gain access to the building. Regardless of the reason, they were grateful for the oversight.
When they neared the far corner, John raised his closed fist. The trio immediately stopped and crouched lower in the tall grass. He held two fingers in the air before pointing at his eyes and then to a spot just ahead of their position. Reams understood at once: John had eyes on two men just ahead. His next signal told them he wanted them to cover him while he moved up to take the men out. Reams and Lydia nodded in understanding and agreement.
John inched forward in a high crawl position, still concealed by the tall grass. Before he was in position, gunfire sounded to the east. The two men John had been stalking toward raised their heads as they shifted around nervously.
Although the tall grass and metal drums obscured Garza and Kate from John’s view, neither was capable of blocking out Garza’s plaintive scream.
“Kate!”
John instinctively rose up in time to see Kate fall to the ground. Garza immediately dropped down beside her. The man standing over them, whom John assumed to be the Puppet Master, looked on with coldhearted insouciance. John hated him immediately. Worried for Garza’s safety, he raised his rifle and fired a shot at the man who’d stabbed Kate. It was rushed and went wide, giving the man a chance to duck out of the line of fire. In an instant, gunfire erupted from nearly every direction, and a bullet whizzing past John’s head forced him to drop down and pull back.
The two men John had been about to ambush spun in confusion.
“What the hell?”
Neither man got another word out as John fired a three-round burst through the first man’s chest. With his attention divided between John crouched in the tall grass and his buddy who was about to keel over on top of him, the second man never saw Reams posted up against the corner of the building. Reams drew his pistol and put him down with a double tap to the head.
John was about to move up to take cover behind the metal drums, when a shot rang out on his right side.
THWACK!
“Son of a…” Reams said as he dove for cover. The bullet ricocheted off the cinderblock wall less than an inch away from where the big man’s head had been, filling the air with concrete and metal shrapnel.
Lydia popped up and fired a single shot that struck the shooter in the chest, the impact causing him to whirl around before slumping to the ground. The report from her rifle was incredibly loud compared to the suppressed weapons John and Reams carried. No sooner was the gunman down than she dropped out of sight. The sound of glass breaking from a window on one of the building’s upper floors had her scurrying for cover.
The disturbance in the grass as well as three of their brothers falling to the ground amidst sprays of blood didn’t go unnoticed by the rest of Connor’s men. The salvo of gunfire intensified, with the heavy clunk-clunk-clunk of at least one large-caliber automatic weapon joining the fusillade. Fortunately for Garza, much of the fire seemed to be concentrated on John’s position.
John remained hunkered down in the tall grass as he looked for a way to advance without being ventilated by a dozen metal slugs in the process. Dusk was rapidly approaching, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to get a fix on the shooters’ positions before their muzzles flashed. While the vegetation offered good concealment, it provided virtually no cover. He was a sitting duck, albeit a camouflaged one. All of a sudden, a string of bullets tore through the air above him, sending fragments of grass raining down upon him as though someone had just passed a weed eater overhead.
Paralyzed by the sight, Reams watched as a line of bullets dotted a path straight toward John. Each impact seemed to occur in slow motion, but he was unable to find his voice to warn John in time. One of the bullets slammed into John’s back with a loud thump, causing him to stiffen for an instant before going still and limp. His head was turned to the side, and Reams could see that his eyes were closed.
“Shit! John!” Reams screamed but his friend did not move.
He hoped that John simply couldn’t hear him, though Reams’s mind had him fearing the worst. Lydia had seen John get hit and immediately assumed a more aggressive position to provide covering fire. Her gun barked several times, and the screams of one of Connor’s men told Reams that her shots had been on target. Reams reached down and grabbed John’s ankle before dragging him back behind the cover of the wall. The rifle, still slung around John’s neck, trailed behind his unmoving body.
Reams crouched to examine John’s injury, though he had no idea what exactly he was looking for or what he would do about anything that he found. John didn’t appear to be bleeding, so he rolled him over to check his pulse and breathing. He felt John’s wrist and then his neck, but all he could feel was the pounding of his own heart in his fingertips. Frustrated, he turned his head to the side and placed his cheek less than an inch from John’s face just as he’d seen people do on television when they wanted to know if someone was breathing. He listened intently, but all he could hear was gunfire and the sound of his own breathing.
“Maybe he needs CPR?” Reams said, as though it might be the panacea he needed to save John. “I don’t even know CPR. My mother was right; I should’ve done more with my life than be a grease monkey working on planes.”
Reams tried to remember what he’d seen people do when they performed CPR. All he could remember was mouth-to-mouth and pushing on the chest. Not knowing which of the two he should do first, he opted for chest compressions, which he did several times without noticeable effect. Am I doing it right? Maybe I need to give him breaths first… He lowered his head toward John’s face, trying not to think about the fact that he was about to put his mouth on another man’s lips. Don’t think about it. It might be the thing that saves him. All of a sudden, a huge expulsion of air and spittle hit Reams in the face as John coughed violently. His coughing spell continued unabated for several seconds, punctuated only by the occasional sharp inhalation of air.
John’s apparent resurrection left Reams stunned. He stared at his friend—partly relieved and partly pissed.
“What the hell, John? You coughed in my face. Man, I was about to give you mouth to mouth and everything!” Reams groused.
John groaned in pain and said, “Thanks, buddy. I love you, too.”
John winced as he tried to sit up. Intense pain radiated from his back all the way to his chest. He tore his shirt open; exposing the body armor he wore underneath. “Help me get this off, will you?”
Reams helped him out of his shirt and pulled the Velcro tabs to release his vest. When it fell to the ground, Reams said, “Damn, John. It looks like someone tried to drive a sledgehammer through your back.”
Even though the injury had just occurred, John’s skin already showed signs of the impact. A multitude of hues not native to human skin radiated out from a garish, dark purple splotch about the size of an orange. Reams picked up the vest and saw that the round had shattered the back plate of John’s armor.
“You’re one lucky son of a bitch. Anything stronge
r would have punched a whole through this plate and kept going,” Reams said.
The pain John felt when he rolled his shoulder back didn’t make him feel particularly lucky, but he knew Reams was right. The injury could’ve been much worse. Pointing at the plate carrier, he said, “Hand me that thing will you? We need to get moving. Do you know if Garza is okay?”
Reams didn’t know Garza’s status. He’d focused all of his attention on John after he saw the round had hit his friend in the back. Now, as he handed him the vest, he wondered if John was fit to continue their mission.
“You sure you can keep going?” Reams asked. John shot him a resolute look that told him he wasn’t going to bother answering the question.
Another burst of gunfire drew their attention to Lydia, her rifle blazing from her crouched position about ten feet away. Despite her small frame, the weapon looked strangely natural in her hands. When her magazine ran dry, she exchanged it for a full one with the speed and dexterity of a trained professional. She smiled and gave John a relieved look when she saw that he seemed unharmed.
John poked his head around the corner of the building and saw Connor barking orders to a couple of men. They were too far away to hear what was being said, but Connor pointed in his and Garza’s directions as he spoke. It was the first good look he’d had at Connor’s face, and it wasn’t at all what he had expected. In many ways, it was worse. Rather than appearing mean and angry, which would’ve been the average criminal’s response in John’s opinion, Connor looked cold and calculating, as though the whole situation were a mere business transaction gone awry. Such callous indifference to the suffering and death of others was the hallmark of a true psychopath and chilled him to the bone.
Several large floodlights clicked on, bathing the area with light and making it difficult to see the building located behind them. Turning to Reams, John said, “I still haven’t seen Ava or anyone from Mother’s team, but Connor is heading inside. I need you two to cover me while I go after him.”
