Rotting to the Core (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 2)

by Durnin, S. P.

  “Twenty-five seconds, Jacob,” Poole called.

  Jake ignored him and turned to gaze at the sky. The sun would be setting in the next half hour and he wouldn't be around to see it. He was done. Karen was dead, the others were on their way to the secondary location and safety. He just wanted the end to be quick at this point.

  “Twenty seconds.”

  He visualized the lovely redhead who was going to miss him—hopefully only for a short time—and grinned sadly. He remembered how he'd told Allen and Gertie that he'd meet them in Pecos. He thought about how angry Kat was going to be when she learned what he'd done. Jake wasn't sure if he was glad he wouldn't be in the immediate area when that happened.

  “Fifteen seconds.”

  He raised his eyes and hoped whatever deity was in charge of the planet had a sense of humor. If not? Well, Jake believed he'd be looking at an afterlife full of hot lava, razor blades, and being used as a sex aid by the beautiful but thorny crotched succubi that populated the lower levels of hell. Looking across the transformer yard he saw birds nesting on the generator leads. They'd probably be picking his bones shortly. While the dead weren't interested in avian prey, even as humans were becoming scarce on the ground, the feathered little—

  His eyes went wide.

  “Ten seconds,” Poole called. “Milo? If you'll—”

  Jake spun, simultaneously yanked the crowbar from Tracy Dixon's throat, and kicked her in her emaciated chest.

  “Well,” Poole gloated, “it looks like someone's unshakable morals don't actually hold up when it comes to staying alive. Maybe—”

  Then his eyes widened as Jake took off like a shot through the transformer yard.

  “Milo!” The Purifier's leader yelled.

  Tompkins raised his weapon and squeezed off a few shots, but none came close due to Jake dodging through the eight-foot electrical units. He was heading for the opposite side of the yard as Poole began calling to his men. Halfway there, O'Connor climbed atop one of the transformer housings and jumped up onto the generator leads. These were massive two to three-foot thick conduits, constructed from heavy-duty, non-conductive materials. They held multiple wrist-thick cables, which ran from the plant's gas-powered generators to the transformers within the fenced in enclosure. And they were his way out.

  The conduits ran four across, giving Jake an almost eight foot wide, solid (albeit concave and cylinder shaped) walkway, roughly seventeen feet off the ground. He wasted no time jogging as quickly as he dared along the leads, passed over the yard's fence, and headed for the generator building.

  “Don't let him get away!” Tompkins yelled, prompting fully a third of the Purifiers to bring their weapons up and start firing at Jake’s fleeing silhouette.

  He dove forward and sheltered in the hollow between a pair of conduits, arms over his head as bullets pinged off the hardened polymer to his left. If he could get to the generator building, there was a good chance he could make it around to the river and escape. That wasn't looking to hopeful, however. Rounds were zinging by, ricocheting off the conduit's exterior and making it extremely dangerous to crawl, let alone stand or run along their surface. He tried to move as quickly as he could, knowing that once the Purifiers got a better angle, he was going to die. Either that, or the dead outside the wall would be too close and too numerous for him to escape.

  Ignoring the shaking in his extremities, Jake readied himself for a desperate, last-ditch dash for freedom.

  -Chapter Twelve-

  That was when all hell broke loose.

  It had been difficult getting the thirty-five pound M134 Minigun into the generator building unseen, especially in broad daylight. It had taken almost an hour, and was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences ever. Granted, there were only a few guards on the front gate, but there had been more walking the walled perimeter, passing by in ten-minute increments. Her timing had needed to be perfect before she'd moved across the sixty-yard gap between the Quonset hut and the generator house, to ensure none of the Purifiers witnessed anything out of the ordinary and raised the alarm. Also, the weapon alone was large and ungainly. Never mind the double size, eighty-two pound, “Ironman” ammunition pack, which held upwards of a thousand rounds for the battlefield bullet hose. Carrying all that had been a workout.

  There hadn't been any choice though. She had far too much emotionally invested in Jake to allow him to sacrifice himself. She'd been coming back from using the facilities in the Mimi's hangar when the Purifier's leader had made contact, and she'd listened in horror as the writer arranged to trade himself over to them in exchange for Karen's freedom. There was virtually no chance of this Poole keeping his word, but Jake had been dead-set to try. If she went to the others about it he'd never have forgiven her, so she'd come up with a plan.

  She'd waited in the shadows under the Hummer while Jake had unpacked the rear. When he went back inside their big, pink transport, she'd quickly slit open the boxes of MRE's and disposed of them around the Mimi's far side, right next to where he'd offloaded the weapons and most of the supplies. Working quickly, she'd cut one side out of each box and secured them together from within with a few strips of duct tape from a nearby workbench. She'd snagged a spare tactical vest from their vehicle's stores and stuffed it with full ammo clips for a pair of Glocks she also took. She's grabbed her zukin/fukumen (ninja mask and hood), and had pulled one of her black Volcom shirts over her cut off tank top. She'd chosen to keep the black, leather biker pants, steel-plated arm guards, and biker boots, grabbed her sword, and then hopped into the vehicle's bed, securing it shut again. After stuffing the weapons—along with herself—into the modified boxes, she'd kept quiet and hoped O'Connor would abandon his foolhardy idea.

  No such luck.

  The drive down had been torture. Especially after Jake had lit a nearby house on fire and begun shooting at the dead to draw them away from the Purifier's home base. Every sound had almost caused her to say Fuck it! and jump from her hiding place to insure he was alright.

  After he'd gained entry to their little sanctuary, parked the Hummer, and the guards had taken him away, she'd then slithered out of the boxes unnoticed. When a pair of men had come to take the (empty) MRE cases to their other supplies, she'd killed one of them outright. The other she'd bound in the garage's eight by eight supply closet, and questioned him quite firmly with the aid of certain pressure points, a Phillips-head screwdriver, and the box knife she'd used to create her MRE camouflage. He'd told her everything she wanted to know in the first five minutes about Nichole, Karen, all of it. She'd put him to sleep with a quick blow behind the ear, then insured he wouldn't make any further trouble with a round from one of her silenced pistols. She was reasonably sure that Jake wouldn't approve of such a hardline tactic, but he would be welcome to scold her for it later, once they both managed to escape the Purifier's camp alive.

  Hopefully, he'd feel the need to spank her. When she thought about that, she'd broken into a smile beneath her zukin.

  It had been a near thing. It had taken her almost an hour to remove the Hummer's weaponry, then to don Jake's tac-vest, secure both the pistols to her thighs with gaffer's tape, shoulder the Ironman pack, and clandestinely exit the Quonset garage. Then, the unruly-haired and infuriatingly noble writer had almost blown her entire plan when he'd taunted Poole. She'd almost wept in relief when Jake took off through the field of dormant machines and scurried onto the enormous conduit, which led straight to the generator building where she had taken position.

  When Fuhrer Poole's men started shooting, she'd known it was now or never.

  Kat stood up, slammed the base of the M134 on the railing facing the cafeteria courtyard and opened up on the gathered Purifiers.

  “BANZAI, MOTHERFUCKERS!”

  Her minigun started chewing up wanna-be Nazis and real estate alike from above, as it sent a flurry of bullets streaking down like the vengeful wrath of angry angels. Heads exploded, intestines shredded, limbs went flying. The majority of the s
urvivors, maybe a little more than half the Purifier's original number, ran screaming for the cafeteria doors. A few had the presence of mind to fire their weapons over their shoulders as they ran for their lives, but the shots went wild, sometimes hitting their companions behind and adding to the general panic. Kat kept the pressure on as she targeted the ones at the rear of the pack, herding them into the main building and away from where the writer stared at her wide-eyed from where he lay on the conduit. The few, lucky stragglers dove through the now-perforated entrance, shoving each other in their haste, which allowed her to drop the last visible trio in messy explosions of organ-scattered gore.

  “For god’s sake! Move!” she screamed, and sent another volley of flame-kissed death down across the building's face around the entrance.

  Kat didn't need to tell him twice. Jake was up and running along the conduit again in a heartbeat.

  The sixty yards to the generator structure were some of the longest in his life. He expected to feel a bullet hit him in the back with every step, but the insane woman succeeded in keeping the Purifier's heads down. A few of them shot blindly around the edge of the entryway, hoping to bring him down with a lucky shot. She answered with bursts from the minigun, tearing through the cinder-block walls next to the doorway and killing a pair of over-enthusiastic Purifier's in the process. They seemed to take the hint, because no more rounds were fired in Jake's direction.

  Reaching the half-frame, mesh-covered generator building, O'Connor didn't hesitate as he hurdled the gap between the conduit he'd fled upon and the steel walkway. Kat dropped her smoking weapon before moving to catch him as he crested over the railing and dropped towards her. He bowled into her just before he landed and they both fell to the floor, rolling a few feet away from the edge, and wound up in each other’s arms. He'd managed to take the brunt of the fall by twisting his body under hers, but their impact knocked the wind out of him. Laying there half stunned, he attempted to focus his eyes.

  The back of his head hurt, and he told himself he'd hit it against the steel during their landing. He winced as he touched it. Jake hoped he hadn't given himself a concussion, but his fingers were free of blood when he checked them with bleary eyes. Kat asked him something, but he couldn't understand her.

  “Give me a second... Almost knocked me for a loop there—Shit!”

  The last was drawn from him due to a forceful, open-handed slap from the really pissed-off, ninja-girl.

  “You bastard!” she cried, trying to slap him again. He caught one of her hands and held her off. “What the hell did you think you were doing? Did you think these racist fucks would keep their word, once they had you here?”

  “Well, I was hoping to get them to free Karen, so—” he began.

  She didn't let him explain. “And taking off without telling me what was going on? Or even saying goodbye? I should kick your ass up around your ears!”

  “Look, I—”

  “Shut up! You shouldn't have come alone! You're our leader, not our babysitter! You're not responsible for everyone, dammit! Do you know how monumentally stupid of an idea that was?

  “What the hell were you thinking?!”” Kat demanded,

  Jake shrugged and tried not to look guilty. “It was a spur of the moment thing.”

  “It was fucking crazy!” she snapped.

  “I… never said it wasn't?”

  Kat looked like she would either pull her hair out or deck him. One of the two.

  “I-”

  “You're an idiot!” she hissed. “Did you even consider how losing you would affect the group? How it would affect Laurel? Or me? Did you think I'd just head off to Pecos and leave you? Just leave you to get tortured or killed or staked out and turned into one of those things? How could you? How could you?”

  “I had to keep you safe, dammit!” Jake insisted.

  Kat was livid. “You...You!”

  Words failed her and she dove against him, yanking Jake's lips to her own.

  While this was neither the time nor the place, he responded in kind. The blue-haired woman's hands went along his throat, and up the sides of his face, to finally lock firmly in his hair. He crushed her to his blood-smeared chest, one hand against the small of her back, the other behind the nape of her neck as she owned his mouth with hers. The still dangerous—if temporarily contained—Purifiers were forgotten during a moment of pure passion, rivaling the white hot fury of the sun.

  When their lips parted, both were a little out of breath. It was Cho who finally broke their shared stunned silence.

  “From now on where you go, I go, you hear me? We're a team.”

  “But—”

  “No!” She cut him off firmly. “No arguments. We stick together. You want to protect me? Then I have to be there to protect you!”

  He stared at her. “Kat, I—”

  Cho's dark eyes were brimming, threatening to overflow. “Jake, my heart can't take this again! Not again.”

  Kat's tears were flowing now, but the look on her face had nothing to do with sorrow. When she smiled at him, Jake felt invincible and impossibly vulnerable at the same time. He answered it with one of his own and kissed her again as they sat up.

  She was kneeling over him, thighs pressed lightly against the outside of his hips. Jake slid his hands down her ribs, which caused Cho to take a shuddering breath against his lips before twining her arms around his neck. His hands moved lower to her leather-covered hips, and he pulled them forward until their lower bodies were pressed together. She moaned into his mouth and doubled the intensity of the kiss, writhing against him wildly. Jake's hands dropped further, and his thumbs slid along the inside of her thighs as his other fingers caressed the outer. His palms registered the excited trembling of the muscles in her toned legs, before bumping into the pistols she'd taped just above her knees.

  “We need to get out of here,” Kat whispered, “but we are going to continue this discussion. Later.”

  “Yeah,” he consented. “I think... Well. I think the three of us need to have a long talk.”

  She cocked her head in surprise. “Really? Not that I'd say no, mind you. I'd be willing to give it a go. Laurel is my best friend and all. And she's totally hot.”

  Jake was confused. “Huh?”

  A flurry of bullets ricocheted off the top of the railing and Kat ducked, smashing them together again. O'Connor pulled the duct tape around her thighs away, took a Glock in each hand, and rolled them so he could kneel over her. Cho pushed him up with her thighs and pelvis (which would've been erotic as all hell, if they weren't being shot at), allowing him to empty both pistols at the quartet of Purifiers who thought they'd be heroes for their boss. Two went down with rounds in their chests, and the other pair scurried back into the shadows of the cafeteria.

  Kat quickly stripped off the tactical vest and passed it up to him. Then she slithered out from under his hips, moving determinedly to retrieve her minigun.

  Jake was fishing for fresh clips when he saw Milo Tompkins leap from the conduit, straight towards their position and the ninja-girl's unsuspecting back.

  There was no time to think. O'Connor dropped the pistols to the floor and in the same movement, shoved her out of the way.

  The skinhead's RAD dagger caught him through the meat of his shoulder and hit bone. Laurel's friend heard Jake bellow in pain as she came to a stop against the wall, half-stunned. Tompkins’s face was the picture of insane fury, as he tried repeatedly to yank the blade out of O'Connor's arm. The wounded writer had some anger of his own to call on, however.

  He used a mental trick the salty, old frog had beaten into him (along with the rest of his brick) during SAS training. The same one he called on when his game of cat and mouse with the Party-Boy rapist came to a bloody (and agonizing) end. The trick wasn't to forget the pain, but to use it. Let the fire in his shoulder fuel his hate, cause an adrenaline surge in his system, and then convert it to strength, which he could apply towards a goal. Basically, it was a way to become really
strong, for a very short period of time. Minus the mindless urge to go all, Hulk smash!

  Taking hold of Milo's knife hand, Jake rammed the struggling Purifier in his scarred face with the top of his already sore head. The crown of a person’s skull is one of the hardest parts of the human skeleton, which was partly what made it difficult to kill zombies without a firearm. So, even though Jake's ears rang at the impact, it was Tompkins who went stumbling back, eyes glazed, with a smashed and obviously broken nose.

  As the furious Purifier steadied himself—and as he held his mangled face—he began to rant.

  “You son of a bitch! I'm gonna tear your pussy head off and feed it to that dead chick down in the yard! Then I'll teach your little, gook, whore a couple of tricks I know with a razor! After I ram her ass so hard she'll have to—”

  Jake silenced him with a straight-fingered kite to the throat. Tompkins’s eyes bugged wide and O'Connor followed it up with a knee to the skinhead’s nuts that bent him over. Taking careful aim, the writer dropped Milo senseless to the floor with a smashing elbow to the back of his neck. Jake would've used the sole of his Bates combat boot to stomp the bastard's head through the grating like Play-Doh through a noodle strainer, but the world began spinning violently. He managed to move back a few yards before his knees got weak, but that forced him to lean against the wall to stay upright.

  The knife. He had to deal with the knife. It was still lodged firmly in his shoulder and its edges were cutting him every time he moved.

  Oh fuck. This is going to hurt.

  Jake grasped the hilt with his right hand, took a few deep breaths, and yanked with everything he had.

  Yup. He'd been right.

  It hurt like hell.

  Getting the Nazi's dagger out hurt a lot more than when Milo had stabbed him with it. It hurt more than when the miserable rapist in Columbus and stuck a blade in his back. It didn't hurt more than being shot in Bosnia had, but it was a damn close second. O'Connor couldn't keep from crying out in pain when the blade came free, then he tossed it weakly across the floor. It ended up sticking point down through one of the perforations in the metal walkway.