The Spread

by Damon Hunter

  Ashley raised the sword but stopped and lowered it. “You haven’t shown any signs.”

  “I will. Why wait?”

  “Maybe you won’t.”

  Katelin shook her head and moved to pick up one of the TEC-9s she set down to open the door.

  “Corrigan and his girl must have locked him in there,” Katelin said. “Probably was someone they cared about. They didn’t want to kill him.”

  “Yeah, that would be my guess.”

  “I bet he bit them, or one of them and that one bit the other. Being kind cost them.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Are you going to make the same mistake?” Katelin asked.

  “You haven’t shown any signs.”

  Katelin raised the gun to her head, putting the barrel under her chin.

  Ashley put down the sword. “Don’t do it.”

  “I’ve been thinking of doing it anyway. Now there is no reason not to.”

  “There are plenty of reasons. Trust me, if you start to turn, I’ll take you out. You don’t need to do this.”

  “I think I do,” she said as she pulled the trigger.

  When nothing happened, Katelin smiled. “I forgot to cock the damn thing like a fucking amateur.”

  She brought the weapon down, and Ashley leaped forward, grabbing the gun and punching the teenager in the face. Katelin went down as Ashley took the gun away.

  “Sorry, kid. Your dad is immune, so until I see some symptoms you are staying alive.”

  While Katelin started rubbing her face where Ashley had struck her, they both heard a sound behind them. They turned to see an ambler come out of the same room as the vampire rotter. Ashley was right beside the door. It was on her as soon as she turned, latching its teeth into her exposed forearm.

  Ashley put a bullet from the TEC-9 through the ambler’s forehead, and it let go of her arm.

  Ashley went to her knees and put her arm on one of the crates. She pointed to the Japanese sword at her feet. “Quick, cut off my arm.”

  Katelin picked up the sword. “Will it work?”

  “I have no idea, but do it anyway,” Ashley said as she pulled off the T-shirt she was wearing with her other hand.

  Katelin brought the sword down hard, severing Ashley’s arm at the elbow. Ashley held out the shirt, saying, “Tie it off before I bleed to death.”

  Katelin did as she said, tying the shirt as tight as she could around the area just past Ashley’s elbow.

  Katelin stepped back and looked at the soldier. The bleeding had stopped, and she could see none of the telltale popping sores anywhere on her body.

  The gunshot woke everyone. Major Cook was the first one through the door. He was carrying his TMRT-issued rifle at his shoulder ready to go.

  “What happened?”

  “They had rotters locked in that room. I accidently let them out,” Katelin told him.

  “Did you get them all?”

  “I don’t know. Two came out.”

  Cook moved past them into the room and turned on the light, and Katelin heard his gun roar, as there was still an ambler inside.

  Vance came in next with Donna right behind him.

  “Is everyone all right?” he asked. Ashley was on the floor bent over, so they could not see her severed arm.

  “No. We were both bit. I cut off her arm, though, so she may be fine.”

  “That doesn’t work,” Cook said as he came back into the room.Ashley sprang from the floor, pushing down Cook’s weapon so his bullets left pockmarks in the cement floor before opening her newly elongated jaw and clamping down on his face with her new set of razor-sharp teeth.

  Vance raised the pistol he brought into the room and put a bullet through Ashley’s shoulder. She let go of Cook and turned to face them. Donna raised her own pistol, and she and her ex-husband fired until vampire rotter Ashley dropped to the floor.

  They both stepped forward to see if Cook was dead. He was lying on his back and not moving. He bolted upright, his face covered with rapidly growing sores. They both fired, but he took the bullets and kept going, knocking them both down as he moved on all fours out of the room. He jumped over Katelin and knocked Holiday aside, who had just come into the hall, as he loped into the kitchen.

  Lumpy had limped into the kitchen and vampire rotter Cook did not push him aside. Instead it sank two rows of teeth into his shoulder. With Lumpy bitten, it turned to find more victims.

  A bullet from Ana’s gun stopped its charge toward her, and Vance putting a bullet through the back of his skull put him down for good.

  Lumpy looked at the bite on his shoulder. “I’m fucked, aren’t I?”

  Vance saw a sore quickly growing on his neck and raised his gun. “Sorry, kid.”

  “Don’t,” Ana said.

  Vance looked over to see the petite young woman was aiming her weapon at him.

  “He’s my friend,” she said.

  “In a few seconds he is going to be trying to kill or infect us all.”

  Ana said, “I know.” She swung the gun to Lumpy and shot him three times in the face. “He’s my friend. I needed to do it.”

  Once Lumpy was down, she sat on the floor and started to cry.

  Vance left her there and went to check on Katelin.

  “Why didn’t he attack us?” Donna was asking Holiday as Vance went into Corrigan’s armory.

  “I’m guessing it could tell your ex and I are immune,” Holiday said.

  Katelin raised her arm so her mom could see. “It probably didn’t want to waste time infecting me since I’m already bit.”

  Katelin saw her father come back in holding his gun.

  “You get him?” Holiday asked.

  “Yeah,” Vance told him.

  Katelin looked at her father and showed him the teeth marks in her arm. “You had better finish the job.”

  “You haven’t turned,” he said.

  “But odds are I will. It happens differently for everyone. When I do, I will bite someone else unless you do what needs to be done.”

  Vance did not move.

  “Shoot me.”

  “I’m your father.”

  “So?”

  “So, you don’t tell me what to do. Donna, do you mind tying our daughter up? There should be some rope somewhere.”

  “I’ll find something,” Holiday said as the two parents watched their daughter for signs of the rot.

  “You’re making a mistake, Eric,” Katelin said.

  “It won’t be the first. You’re worth the risk.”

  “You risk getting us all killed for me, but a phone call on my birthday is too much trouble?”

  “Katelin…” Donna began.

  “It’s okay. I deserve it,” Vance interrupted.

  “Yeah, I guess you do,” Donna said as Holiday came back with a roll of silver duct tape.

  “It’s not rope, but it should work,” he said.

  Vance taped his daughter’s arms together. He said, “I’m sorry, but if we are going to be safe I have to do this too,” as he put a piece of tape over her mouth.

  He looked at the bite. “Immune or not, we should do something with this. Corrigan has a full cabinet of supplies in the bathroom.”

  “I’ll do it,” Donna said. She guided her daughter over the dead bodies covering the floor of the small room.

  “Maybe she is immune. It could be hereditary,” Holiday said as they stepped out of the armory.

  “Any of your blood relations bit?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Any of them turn out to be immune?”

  “No, but…”

  “She’s made it so far,” Vance interrupted. “That’s as good as we can hope for right now.”

  Holiday nodded. He looked in the other room and was about to ask what was the deal with the kid’s room in the bunker when they heard Bar yelling from the front room.

  “Why the hell isn’t anyone watching the monitor?” he said.

  Vance and Holiday hustled into
the front room, passing Ana, who was still sitting on the floor crying by her dead friend.

  “We have had some distractions,” Holiday said as he entered the room. “Didn’t you hear?”

  “I’m a heavy sleeper. What happened? Is everyone okay?”

  “No on the second question, and I’ll give you one guess on the first.”

  “Damn,” Bar said. He shook his head and then pointed to the monitor. “However bad it was, we’ve got more problems.”

  They looked up to see Dr. Talbot’s convoy cruising up to the barbed wire fence.

  Chapter 22

  Dr. Talbot’s Transport - Fallbrook, CA

  “Where are they?” Dr. Talbot asked as he watched the spotlights sweep the modified Suburban with the letters S-W-A-R-C painted in a fluorescent green on the side.

  Novak pointed to the mass of the infected wandering around in the field just past the abandoned SUV. “Maybe we are looking at them. People become infected.”

  “Not Vance and Holiday.”

  “Sometimes people get dead.”

  “There were three trained TMRT soldiers. They are still alive.”

  “They don’t have our numbers or weapons. The homemade armor on the SUV is nice, but it’s not the same as what we have. We have lost plenty of people. Well-trained people who were good at this shit. They wouldn’t be the first, and I doubt they will even be the last.”

  “I’m going to need to see a body.”

  “Might never happen.”

  “Then we keep looking. There was a ping on a phone less than two hours ago. It came from right here.”

  “Anything since the first ping?”

  “No.”

  “There may be a reason for that.”

  “They took her phone because they knew we could track her would be the most logical. We keep looking.”

  They drove past the Suburban and kept going down the road. As they drove, the horde began to thin.

  “The horde is massed exactly where they were when she used the phone,” Dr. Talbot said.

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So they are massed there because they are after something. My bet is it is our runaways.”

  “Doesn’t mean they are still there. They could have snuck away. The hordes are slow to figure out when they’ve been fooled.”

  “Maybe, but let’s go take a hard look anyway.”

  Chapter 23

  Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA

  They watched the convoy of transports move toward them. The amblers on the road became roadkill, but the convoy did not take out any with the machine gun turrets. It stopped at the parked Urban Assault Wagon. A large spotlight looked it over. Seeing it was empty, they continued on down the road.

  “You think they will come back?” Holiday asked.

  “I guarantee it,” Vance said as he sat down at the computer. He was not surprised to see a message from Barrington on there. He should have told Ashley or Cook to keep an eye on the computer while on watch. Barrington had tried to warn them, but no one had seen the message.

  Even if they had, Vance was not sure what they may have done differently. Katelin’s foray into Corrigan’s hidden rooms began before they received Barrington’s email.

  On the good news front, Barrington had reached out to some of his contacts in TMRT, including the man who recruited Vance, another former Marine named Kim. Vance was still skeptical anyone had enough pull to get them out, but he was glad Barrington was trying.

  With the immediate threat out of sight, Bar went to check on Ana. Holiday had filled him in with a quick rundown of the events. Hearing about Lumpy had the big, crusty old sailor near tears. He and the kid had grown close in their short but eventful time together.

  “You want to check on your kid?” Holiday asked. “I can watch the monitor.”

  “No, Donna has her. She hates me anyway.”

  “Hate is a strong word.”

  “Okay, dislikes me greatly, and rightfully blames me for all that is wrong in her world.”

  “Haven’t been much of a dad?”

  “That’s a nice way to put it.”

  “Sorry about Ashley. I know how you felt about each other.”

  “Thanks. If she hadn’t saved us, she could have been home with her family.”

  “Yeah, I thought of that. Managed to push it deep inside. Thanks for bringing it back to the surface.”

  “Sorry, being an asshole seems to be all I’m good at.”

  “Well, you saved my ass, so I’m going to have a hard time hating you. You know, if she wasn’t the kind of person to put her life on the line for others, we wouldn’t miss her so damn much. I didn’t know her like you, but I have a feeling she wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

  “You’re right. I still feel bad about it.”

  “Me too. The guy who owned this place was a friend of yours, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s the deal with the kid’s room? Is there a five-year-old running around here someplace?”

  “I hope not.”

  “Room didn’t really look lived-in.”

  “He had a kid. It was a while ago. The mom took him away. As far as I know, they never saw each other again.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “At least ten years.”

  “He kept a room for him?”

  “That would be my guess. He looked for them, but she was something of a survivalist herself. She knew how to get gone and stay that way.”

  “He did know if the kid came back he wouldn’t be five anymore. Didn’t he?”

  “Corrigan was not known for his sanity. I never wanted to know how he thought about most everything, including this.”

  “I can see that. Maybe you should go check on your daughter.”

  “Donna would say something if she started to turn.”

  “No shit. I was thinking more of a go see your kid so when we get out of this I don’t come visit and find a creepy shrine of a teenager’s room hidden in your house for a kid who is never going to come visit you and even if she did would be a decade too old for her room.”

  “You may have a point,” he said before heading back to the bedroom where Donna kept a vigil on their infected daughter.

  Holiday kept watching the screen as the lights of Dr. Talbot’s convoy came up the road toward the compound.

  Chapter 24

  The TMRT Eastern Compound - Escondido, CA

  Barrington was surprised Kim got back to him so quickly, and he called instead of sending an email. Kim was on the north end of the quarantine in the Oregon area, and Barrington figured he may have called it a day by this late hour. At best he was hoping to hear from the man in the morning.

  “I understand you know Vance personally,” Kim began.

  “Yes. He saved my life in Afghanistan.”

  “You feel you owe him.”

  “Yes.”

  “If he is infected, bringing him out would put a great number of people at risk.”

  “I know. I understand you know Vance personally as well.”

  “I do. We fought together. He may have saved me a time or two as well.”

  “Does he seem the type of man who would put others at risk to save his own skin?”

  “No, quite the opposite in fact. I see your point.”

  “If I didn’t trust him, I never would have reached out to you.”

  “Why are you reaching out to me?”

  “I want to get Vance out. His family too.”

  “I’m just a glorified grunt—no one above my pay grade gives two shits about what I have to say. You have a better chance to do that than me.”

  “Is this a secure line, Major Kim?”

  “As a matter of fact it is. Your message was clear, you want this conversation to be between us.”

  “Good. On the official level, Eric Vance is never going to leave the Quarantine Zone. I am asking you if you are willing to do something illegal. You can access the means and a trans
ponder which will keep the drones off you.”

  “You want me to go in the QZ and get him?”

  “Yes.”

  “It won’t be easy.”

  “Are you saying you can’t do it?”

  “Can’t? No. Covert ops, namely getting in and out of places I’m not supposed to, is what I’m best at.”

  “Won’t?”

  “Maybe. Just because I can pull it off doesn’t mean there won’t be repercussions.”

  “I understand. You could go to jail, and Vance would end up at best in our custody. Which, believe me, will not be good for him. What I’m asking is a tough sell.”

  “Yet you are still asking.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you think he is worth it?”

  “Yes. The question is do you?”

  “It’s a good question. Let me sleep on it, think about the logistics, and I will get back to you.”

  “Time is of the essence.”

  “I understand. Can you give me more information? The QZ covers a lot of area.”

  “All I can tell you is they are in Oceanside.”

  “So they are on the farthest point south, and I’m on the border of the farthest point north?”

  “I don’t have a lot of options.”

  “I’ll be honest. I could sneak across and get in and back out, but the window is small. We don’t fuck around with the QZ for good reasons. If I can’t get in and out in under an hour, there is no reason to go. All it would mean is we all would be stuck there.”

  “I’m guessing you cannot get to Oceanside and back in under an hour.”

  “Not even close.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m sorry. If you can get them closer to me, we can talk.”

  “How close?”

  “Oregon would be ideal.”

  “That is a long way for them to go across a very hostile environment.”

  “Yes it is. If anyone could do it, though, Vance would be a good bet. Get them to Oregon, somewhere on the coast, and then I’ll do whatever it takes. It’s the best I can do.”

  “So far it’s the best I’ve got. I’ll let them know and get back to you.”

  “I look forward to hearing from you.”

  Barrington broke the connection and sent the message to Vance.