The Spread

by Damon Hunter

  He nodded and looked toward the hole where the door and a good piece of the wall had been. He was sure the explosion had taken out a good chunk of the horde nearest to the bunker, but the infected had extended all the way across the field in front of Corrigan’s place and possibly beyond. There was no way to blockade the hole, and the infected would be pouring inside any second.

  He took a second to look at his wound. A good hunk of steel was in him pretty deep, but it had not gone all the way through. He could stand, and while every step hurt like hell, he could walk, probably even run.

  The piece was jagged enough he figured pulling it out would do a lot of damage if he wasn’t careful. Probably bleed a bunch too. He had no dressing immediately available and no time to be careful. He left it in his thigh as he went for his sick-slaying stick.

  Ana stood as the first one came through the door. She had her hatchets on her belt. She drew them and slammed the twin axe blades into the forehead of the first one through. She kicked it away as Vance stepped forward and swung the spiked ball end of his SSS at the next one who darkened the doorway, removing its jaw from its face. It kept coming until he crushed its skull with his next swing.

  “Do we hold them here?” Ana asked as the two of them stood in front of the hole in the wall.

  “Even if we could, the assholes above us could drop another bomb,” he said as the flaming body of one who had been near the blast but somehow stayed in one piece came through the opening.

  Vance removed its head with a swing of the blade end of his SSS and kicked it back outside.

  Another flaming one slipped in and swung its smoldering arm at Ana. She ducked under and used her hatchets to take out its legs.

  Vance crushed its head with the SSS as it lay on the carpet. It was dead, but the fire on its body was still burning, filling the room with smoke as the carpet began to ignite.

  Vance said, “We need to move,” as he took out another one with a swing of the SSS.

  The hole had filled with the infected. The one he just killed was pushed into him by the approaching horde. They needed to turn and run, but the horde was too close.

  “Down,” they heard Donna yell from the back of the room.

  They ducked as Donna gave them some space by spraying the oncoming infected with the last magazine for her AR-15.

  They used the time she bought them to head for the kitchen as the dead infected were pushed aside and the horde began filling the room.

  The metal in Vance’s thigh shifted as he ran, and his leg stopped working, sending him falling face-first to the floor.

  He looked up to see Donna fire the last bullet in the Glock she had borrowed from SWARC. He could see she was out of bullets.

  He twisted to see a vampire rotter was working his way through the mob of the infected, climbing over them to get inside the bunker.

  He turned to Donna and Ana and said, “Go, get out of here.”

  Instead of listening to him, they both moved to him, grabbing his shirt to try and drag him away. Vance looked back again to see the vampire rotter crouched and ready to pounce. He also saw the vampire rotter had brought some friends with similar attributes.

  Chapter 35

  Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA

  Bo lunged forward, knowing he would not get there in time but having to try anyway.

  The vampire rotter had pulled Gavin close and opened its oversized jaw. Gavin got a view of dual rows of sharklike teeth and a whiff of the rotter’s rancid breath, but before he felt the bite, a bullet came up through its jaw and out the top of its skull.

  While fighting off Bo, the rotter had moved just enough to let Clay twist around and get an arm and his pistol free. He put the barrel under the monster’s chin and pulled the trigger just before it sank its teeth into the kid.

  Clay threw the dead rotter off him, rose, and pulled off his damaged helmet.

  Gavin looked to Bo and yelled, “Look out!”

  Bo turned and chopped off the top of an infected old woman’s head as she reached for him. She kept moving forward, drooling green slime out of her mouth, which was all that was left of her face. Bo stepped aside as the blind and brainless creature took a few more steps before falling down.

  The other transports had reached the tipped-over vehicle while Bo and Clay were fighting the vampire rotter. Soldiers in turrets unleashed lead death from twin fifty-caliber machine guns as the infected came at them, giving the TMRT in the downed vehicle time to get inside without being attacked.

  Being inside the transport sounded better to Bo now that he had experienced what it was like outside.

  Clay saw him looking at the transport. “You had the right idea before. Get on board that vehicle and you will never get off. The horde is all heading for them. This is your best chance to get out of here.”

  Bo nodded and said, “You had better go before they leave without you.”

  “Get out of here,” Clay told them.

  Bo and Gavin started running across the field. Clay took a few steps toward the transport but stopped. Seeing the way the machine gunners were targeting everything that moved, he could see them cutting him down as soon as he got close by accident. He was considering whether to try and signal them somehow when he looked at the twenty-something and the kid running into the dark. He was right when he told them staying with the TMRT convoy would be the end of them, but he didn’t see how those two would survive the night on their own. Sending them out was not too much different than bringing them back into the convoy. Dead is dead no matter how it happens or who does the killing.

  Clay spent the day regretting not joining Major Cook and leaving this fucked-up mission. Finding a cure was important, but he could not believe Talbot’s methods were necessary. He turned around and chased after Bo and Gavin.

  He was in much better physical shape than both of them. He caught up before they were halfway across the field.

  They reached the road and paused, looking back to see the horde was consumed with either getting into the transports or whatever was under the hill. They were relatively safe standing in the road.

  “What now?” Gavin asked the two adults.

  “Go up the road and find a house to hole up in, I guess,” Bo said.

  “Be better if we could drive,” Clay said.

  “Yeah, but I left my jeep back in Oceanside.”

  Clay pointed down the dark road and said, “There is a big old Suburban parked just down the road.”

  It was too dark for any of them to see anything. Bo asked, “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I doubt it’s gone anywhere.”

  “You have the keys?”

  “No.”

  “Then what good will it do us?”

  “You’ve never stolen a car?”

  “No.”

  “Lucky for us I have. Let’s go.”

  Gavin tugged on Bo’s shirt, asking, “Are we going to go steal a car?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cool.”

  Chapter 36

  Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA

  Holiday was a middle school teacher who loved boats. He didn’t know much about guns and never had much of an interest. When Katelin snagged a handgun off the wall and put in a magazine and chambered a round, he did not figure it was for him.

  “One of us should go check out the gun shot, and the other should go see what’s going on up front,” she said as more gunfire echoed through the bunker. She thrust the loaded pistol his way. “Take it.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Point it and pull the trigger twice. If the thing is still moving, do it again. You want the front or the back?”

  “Back,” he said. No matter what was going on in the front, her dad and the others were there to help. They had no idea who or what was firing a big gun behind them on the other side of the previously locked door. While she could certainly handle herself in a fight—probably better than he could—the idea of sending a kid, even a heavily armed one, alone in
to an unknown, possibly deadly, situation did not sit well with him.

  “Okay, but take the gun.”

  He took it from her. He started to take off the flamethrower but decided to leave it on his back. If they had to leave, he figured even if he didn’t use the thing it might be good to have.

  “Just remember, don’t shoot yourself,” she said before hustling off toward the front of the bunker.

  Holiday took her advice to heart and made sure the gun was not pointing his way as he moved through the door.

  He went down the staircase carefully, picturing himself tripping and putting a round through his own head. He figured he was the kind of guy who would survive this long in an overrun Quarantine Zone only to shoot himself on accident.

  Bar was hard to miss lying at the bottom of another staircase going up. Holiday was sure he was dead, but the big man groaned. He moved to him and saw the fracture on his arm. He saw the shotgun lying next to him and quickly figured out what had happened. Holiday’s fear of falling on the stairs and firing his gun on accident had happened to Bar.

  Bar had managed not to shoot himself, but the arm was in bad shape.

  Bar groaned again and opened his eyes.

  “Do you think you can stand?” Holiday asked as he moved to help Bar up without touching his messed-up arm.

  He got him to a seated position when Bar said, “Wait.”

  “We need to get moving. Talbot is here and something is going on up front.”

  “You need to tell them,” Bar said as he began to sway.

  “You can tell them yourself,” Holiday said.

  “No, there may not be time. Go tell them. I’ll wait here.”

  Holiday grabbed Bar’s shoulder, keeping him from hitting his head as he blacked out again and fell backward.

  “Tell them what?” Holiday asked.

  Bar was out of it, but he did manage to point to the second set of stairs.

  Holiday set him down gently and picked up the gun before going to see what Bar was talking about.

  Chapter 37

  Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA

  “Get the hell out,” Vance told the girls, knowing their effort to save him was about to cost all of them their lives.

  Donna let go of his shirt and picked up the sick-slaying stick, but it was too late. One of the trio of vampire rotters had already leaped.

  “Duck, Mother,” a voice shouted from behind them.

  Donna got low and the leaping vampire rotter was shredded with gunfire. It was a smoking corpse when it landed at Donna’s feet.

  Vance looked back and saw his daughter with a TEC-9 in each fist, filling the room with nine-millimeter bullets.

  She fired until her bullets ran out, taking out all three of the vampire rotters and a few more amblers who had made their way inside. She holstered the small machine pistols on her thighs and drew the Glocks.

  As Ana and Donna dragged him into the kitchen, she fired into the approaching horde.

  The flames from the burning rotters were growing. By the time Katelin joined them in the kitchen, the front room was on fire.

  Katelin slammed the door shut, saying, “Do you think this door will hold them?”

  “No,” Vance said as he managed to stand. He pointed to the smoke curling up through the gap between the bottom of the door and the kitchen tile. “Even if it could, it won’t stop the fire.”

  “Where’s Bar and Holiday?” Donna asked.

  Katelin pointed at the hidden door. “Holiday was back there. We looked for Bar but never found him.”

  “What do we do?” Ana asked. “Keep going back into the bunker?”

  “I hate to say it, but all we will do is back ourselves into a corner,” Vance told them. “Corrigan has a considerable arsenal. I think we need to arm up, and as bad as this sounds, we have to fight our way out.”

  “Seriously?” Donna asked.

  “The fire may work to our advantage. We may be able to slip through,” Vance said.

  “Either way, I’m going to go arm myself,” Ana said.

  “I guess I’ll do the same,” Donna added.

  “Wait,” Vance said as the three girls headed for Corrigan’s armory. “There is something I need to tell you if I don’t make it.”

  They stopped and looked at him.

  “Oregon,” he said.

  “Oregon?” Katelin asked. “I thought you were going to apologize for being a shitty dad, maybe tell Mom and I you loved us, and you say Oregon?”

  “That too, but if you can get to Oregon, Barrington thinks he can arrange to get us out. I’ll give you his contact information.”

  “Text it to me while I get myself some new guns,” Donna told him. “You want anything?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What?”

  “Use your best judgment. Something big that fires a lot of bullets.”

  Donna nodded and followed the younger girls into the hidden area.

  As soon as they were gone, Vance texted the way to contact Barrington to his ex-wife, while something, probably a vampire rotter, began to throw itself against the kitchen door. Vance balanced himself against the counter as best he could and grabbed the sick-slaying stick Donna had been kind enough to leave behind. As he watched the door begin to crack, he hoped the girls would hurry back with weapons.

  Chapter 38

  The SWARC Urban Assault Wagon - Fallbrook, CA

  “What’s SWARC?” Gavin asked as they came up on the big Chevy Clay had spotted. He and Bo were stationed on the field side watching for any of the infected who might wander their way while Clay looked for a way to break in.

  “No idea,” Bo said.

  Gavin pointed to the letters painted on the side of the Suburban in green as if that would help.

  “Still no idea,” Bo told him after giving the side of the big Chevy a quick glance.

  “Urban Assault Wagon,” Gavin said.

  “What?”

  “Urban Assault Wagon. It’s written below SWARC in smaller letters.”

  “Not a model I’ve heard of.”

  Clay came around the front of the vehicle, which was not a good sign since he was supposed to be breaking in.

  “I think whoever had this thing was some sort of half-ass citizens’ militia thinking the QZ was a good place to play a real-life real-fucked-up version of the Left For Dead games,” Clay said.

  “Did you get it open?” Bo asked.

  “I wouldn’t be standing here if I had. They put a metal screen up around the windows—breaking in isn’t going to be easy.”

  Bo noticed the machine gun fire had stopped. He looked to the field and saw the still-upright vehicles from the TMRT convoy were pulling out.

  “Damn,” Clay said. “When they pull out on the road, they will bring the rest of horde our way. We need to get inside.”

  Clay climbed up onto the hood.

  “What are you doing?”

  “If it comes to it, the roof is a much more defensible position. Plus, if we are up here maybe they won’t see us.”

  “Maybe we should run.”

  “Where? Unlike us, the vampire rotters can see in the dark. We’d be sitting ducks.”

  Gavin was already using the bumper in front to get himself up onto the hood when Bo decided to do the same. They followed Clay as he scrambled onto the roof.

  “Damn, we may have stumbled on a way in,” Clay said once they were on the roof. He glanced back to see the TMRT transport coming more or less straight at them. Instead of explaining what he meant, he said, “Get down and hold still. In the dark like this, they will see movement.”

  Bo and Gavin did as he said. When the lights from the lead vehicle swept over them, Bo was sure they had been seen, but the transports did not slow as they turned onto the road. Bo expected them to keep going, but after a short distance they stopped. A spotlight came up and illuminated the area around the edge of the hill. The angle they had found probably gave them a view of the base of the hill where Clay h
ad thrown the bomb.

  The remaining horde from the field did start moving to the road. They were heading in the general direction of the transports, either drawn by the light or because their meager minds were still locked onto the TMRT transport.

  Bo turned to look at Clay, who had moved to the back side of the Suburban.

  “I thought you said be still?” Bo asked.

  “They’re watching what is going on over there,” Clay said, “Besides, see that welded stand?”

  In the dark it was hard to see, but Bo was able to make it out. “Yeah.”

  “They made their own machine gun turret.”

  “So?”

  “So there has to be a hatch.”

  It did not take long for Clay to find the hatch. It was locked but just by a crude hasp welded to the ceiling underneath. There was enough give that Clay was able to slide a knife blade into the gap. After a few trial runs and some twisting, he was able to flip the latch and open the lid.

  “Come on, get inside.”

  Bo crawled in, doing his best not to do a face-plant as he went in head-first. He helped Gavin in and got out of the way so Clay could climb in.

  Bo pointed out the window to the area the TMRT light was shining on. “Looks like there’s a fire.”

  “Yeah,” Clay said. “Those shape charges do that sometimes.”

  “What now?”

  “I hot-wire this thing,” Clay said. “If I can, though, I’m going to wait until Talbot and his gang are on their way. The homemade armor on this bad boy won’t do much if they decide to take us down.”

  “So as soon as they go, we go?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  Chapter 39

  Dr. Talbot’s Transport - Fallbrook, CA

  Only the gunner who was thrown from the turret was unaccounted for. Dr. Talbot saw this as a victory. The TMRT transports were built to handle a lot of situations, but some sort of improvised explosive device was not one of them. No one figured the infected would be planting land mines to take them out.

  The troops would not see losing a man as a win no matter how much worse it could have been, but there was not much to do about it now. Their bitterness over the situation was why, when they brought the occupants of the downed transport who would not fit in the other vehicle aboard, Dr. Talbot went to the other side of the divider in his car. Only Major Novak was with him.