by Hetzer, Paul
“I don’t think we can go much faster,” she stated, fighting to keep control of the wheel.
Jeremy stared out the back window at the chasing Loonies. “We’re not going to lose them at this speed.”
He found his rifle on the floorboards and grabbed it up. Ignoring the pain and stiffness in his shoulders, he stood and un-dogged the roof hatch and threw it open. He stood up in the gunner’s hole, his head barely clearing the roof. He wished he had had the time to learn how to use the .50-cal. that was mounted on the roof turret. It would have made quick work of the pursuing creatures. Instead, he laid his AR rifle across the back of the roof, braced an elbow, and took aim at one of the trailing Loonies. With the vehicle shimmying so violently, it took him four shots to drop the creature. He saw that the old woman Loony was falling behind while the four younger members of its pack were keeping pace with the limping Humvee.
Sarah swung a right onto Greenville Avenue, smoke billowing from beneath the chassis in ever thickening clouds.
On the roof, Jeremy was shooting at his next target and was rewarded with the creature tumbling to the pavement from a hit in its thigh.
Sarah slammed on the brakes and the vehicle came to a stop, the wafting smoke carrying a scent of burning rubber to their noses.
“Far enough!” she cried, grabbing her rifle and jumping out of the Humvee on wobbly legs. She engaged the first of the charging crazies at a distance of less than fifty meters. She dropped two more of the crazies with center mass shots while Jeremy took out the furthest one away with a shot to its stomach area that blew out the back of its spine. The old woman Loony was just coming around the far dogleg when they finished shooting.
“You take care of that one!” Sarah yelled up to him as she sprinted off behind a parked car and disappeared behind it.
Jeremy waited until the old woman was well within range before taking his shot at her limping form. His first shot missed. However, the second shot connected on her shoulder, spinning her sideways, while his third shot passed laterally through her heart and lungs and she collapsed into a heap on the street. He quickly climbed down and out of the crippled Humvee and met Sarah when she reappeared from the side of the car.
She smiled slyly at him. “Never get in the way of a girl with a full bladder.”
Echoing down the street they could barely hear the distant growls of a larger pack of the infected somewhere in the distance.
“I need to get on the radio and let Charlie know we moved. Try some of those doors to see if any are unlocked so we can hide out in case those things are headed this way.” She indicated the commercial buildings that held auto repair shops on either side of the street.
Jeremy ran to a gray-painted brick building on the south side of the avenue. The door to the shop was locked tight. With two blows from the stock of his rifle the window shattered and he was able to reach in and unlock the deadbolt. He swiftly entered the office that was adjacent to the garage. Thirty seconds later Sarah joined him in the dimly lit room.
“A rescue mission is on its way,” she announced quietly, rubbing at the gauze covered lump on her forehead. They secured the front door of the office the best they could and slipped through a service door to the garage bays, hoping to put another barrier between them and broken entry door. They slid over to the large garage door and peered out the grilled windows that ran at head height along the door, exactly when the first of a small swarm of infected washed through the street. Sarah and Jeremy instantly ducked down out of sight as members of the horde peered into the windows they passed while they prowled down the avenue. The two held their breath as they heard them scraping along on the other side of the garage door, holding tightly to each other’s hand.
Sergeant Heinlich led the squad of exhausted soldiers at a ground-eating pace along a neighborhood street lined with newer middleclass homes. As the street had widened, the Sergeant had split the squad into two three-man fire teams. The first team consisted of himself, Nantz, and Benton. The other team was led by Hernandez, with Carroll and Reese. Each unit advanced on the sidewalk on either side of the street, keeping the pace that the Sergeant set. They encountered only a few crazies in small groups or alone that they immediately dispatched with the blades of their bayonets. They only had to use their rifles once and that was when they had run across a group of five creatures who had charged at them out of nowhere from up a cross-street.
The Armory lay about two klicks north of their present position and they needed to traverse a lot of dangerous territory yet. Still out of range for radio communications with Gypsy Hill they were on their own, and that made it completely the Sergeant’s responsibility to see that they all made it home alive. Slightly over a half a klick to the east was the annex, and Heinlich briefly considered taking the squad back there where they could refresh their ammo and hold a good defensive position. However, he also deemed it now occupied territory well behind enemy lines. He figured the chances of them getting through the scattered swarm that was roaming that area were low on the probability scale, so he had chosen to continue leading them on their northern course toward the base.
They emerged from the neighborhood out onto a larger thoroughfare called Middlebrook Avenue. It wound northeast across some railroad tracks, past the Amtrak station, and through the heart of downtown Staunton. The squad carefully stepped out onto the wide four-lane main road and surveyed it in both directions. Heinlich signaled all clear and to move out. They had no sooner started forward when they all froze when they heard the distinctive sounds of gunshots far in the distance.
“Someone is taking their time with aimed shots,” Reese remarked to the Sergeant. There had been an appreciable pause between each of the shots, indicating that someone was choosing targets carefully. “There are two different rifles firing.”
Something else heard the shots also. A half a klick from the squad up toward the tracks and within another neighborhood of houses, something big started to move. Sergeant Heinlich put up his fist to stop everyone and motioned for them to find concealment. The two units ran at a crouch to a couple of abandoned vehicles pulled off to the curb of the road. They watched from around the vehicles as a swarm began moving away from them in the direction that the sound of the shots had come from. From this distance it appeared as one giant amorphic blob spread out over several blocks moving in a rippling wave of fluid motion.
“Fuh-uck!” Carroll exclaimed quietly from the behind the adjacent car. “I’m glad that shit ain’t coming down on us.”
The swarm disappeared like a swirling fog through the leafless trees that separated the downtown area from the neighborhoods to the south. When the last crazy had vanished into the woods Heinlich stood up.
“Everyone on me! Get your asses moving.” He led them across the street to a railway yard where a spur line terminated. They hurriedly negotiated the tracks, trying to put as much distance between them and the large swarm as they could.
“Who do you think was firing the shots?” Benton asked, keeping pace with the Sergeant.
“I’m betting it’s the kids in the Humvee. I was hoping they had shaken that group and were on their way back by now,” he said in between breaths.
“They might be in trouble,” Hernandez said on the other side of him.
“They’re in the Humvee. They need to un-ass that area and get back to base.” Heinlich shook his head. “Besides, we won’t accomplish much against that swarm with six of us wielding nothing else except sharp pointy sticks.”
Benton didn’t like the idea of leaving Sarah and the new kid out there on their own, even if they did have the armor of the Humvee to protect them. She had seen too many times what large groups of the crazies could do to any vehicle. There was really no safe place from them. Sarah knew how to take care of herself though, the girl was a survivor.
They were all survivors.
She jogged effortlessly with her gear next to the Sergeant. One good thing to come out of this disaster was that at 42 she was in
the best shape of her life. Except for the assorted moments of utter terror, she was kind of enjoying what some were calling ‘the end of the world as we know it’. She knew that of all the people at the armory, she had lost the least. She had never married or had children, and her parents had passed away a couple of years ago. She had a handful of friends and a boyfriend when this had all gone down. Not that it had been any great romance or anything serious like that, merely someone to ‘scratch the itch with’ a few times a week, so to speak. Before the world had fallen apart, she had been twenty pounds heavier than her present weight and probably couldn’t have run a continuous mile if she had tried. Hanging with these boys had leaned her out and now a mile was a jog in the park that she could do effortlessly.
She glanced back at the running figure of Private First Class Derek Carroll. He was the other perk of being with this group and he was definitely first class. The man flashed a white smile at her when he caught her glancing back at him and she returned the smile coyly. He was twenty years her junior and had the sculpted body of an African warrior, with long, strong, talented fingers that were learning their way around her body.
Him being hung like an elephant more than sealed the, and Benton was amazed that she was getting wet at the thought of him. She had never been with a black man before they met, having been raised in a strict Catholic family who frowned upon such interracial unions, but now that she had that taste she would never go back.
Once you go black, you never go back! she thought happily to herself.
She noticed that she was falling a few steps back and tried to pick up her pace, then abruptly experienced an overwhelming fatigue that coursed through her body. Getting old sucked. She glanced over at the even older Reese. Where Derek was twenty years her junior, Reese was almost twenty years senior to her. He plodded ahead carrying his rifle with the stub of a cigar jutting out of his clenched lips. She was amazed he was keeping up without breaking a sweat. She was annoyed that her short dark hair was matted to her skull from the layers of perspiration that covered her body.
Okay, maybe I’m not in as good a shape as I thought, she frowned to herself. I guess Derek and I need to increase our work-out sessions together.
A cold chill washed over her in a wave just as suddenly as the fatigue had hit her and she felt her legs slowing. No way was she going to raise a complaint or show weakness in front of the other men, or woman. ‘Dino’ Hernandez could be a stone-cold bitch when it came to the other women in the company. She was all Army and didn’t hide her disdain for any signs of weakness. “Being weak will get people killed around you,” she had once told Debra. No way was she going to let Hernandez know she was tired.
Benton forced herself to keep jogging, even as she shivered in the cool afternoon air and felt her legs turning to rubber. Her breathing became more labored and she dropped back from her position next to the Sergeant. They continued running down streets in an older section of Staunton lined with Victorian style homes, keeping a wary eye out for any signs of the crazies.
“You alright?” Carroll asked her when she fell abreast of him.
She nodded without looking at him. She was having trouble keeping up her jog. It was becoming a monumental effort to simply keep moving. Before she realized it, she had fallen to the rear of the squad. Her sight was swimming and a headache was forming in her temples, pounding to the beat of her heart.
I gotta stop, she thought to herself, just two minutes. Just stop and catch my breath. Her feet tangled together and she tumbled to the pavement, her rifle banging sharply on the hard surface of the road.
Carroll, who had been keeping a close eye on her, yelled at the Sergeant to stop. He ran back and knelt down beside Benton.
The Sergeant swiftly ordered a defensive perimeter be set up and joined Carroll next to Benton, who was sitting up with a look of bewilderment on her face. Carroll held her in place with his arm around her shoulder.
“Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?” the Sergeant asked as he knelt on the other side of her.
“I’m okay,” she assured him. “I just need to catch my wind a moment.”
Her head was pounding painfully now. It felt like a rat was loose in her skull, gnawing at her brains with its sharp incisors. She saw Hernandez glance her way with a deepening frown. How she so wanted to plow her fist into that Latino’s pretty red lips.
“I think I’m okay,” she whispered and tried to stand. As Carroll helped her to her feet, her legs gave way and she started to collapse again. Heinlich grabbed her by her other arm and the two men kept her standing unsteadily between them. Sweat was pouring from her face, drenching the top of her heavy shirt.
The Sergeant put the back of his hand to her forehead and she was startled by how cool it felt, almost like ice.
“You’re burning up,” he stated bluntly, looking around at the surrounding homes. “We need to move her someplace safe, out of the street.” He called Nantz over to him. “Find a way into that house.” He pointed to a red-framed house that sat packed in amongst other homes on the east side of the street. Nantz nodded and ran up the hill to the house and without hesitating kicked at the heavy wooden door on the front. The frame splintered and the door swung open. He made a sweeping gesture with his arm indicating it was open for them to enter. Heinlich merely shook his head at the antics and helped Benton up the cement stairs to the home while Reese covered their six.
Debra had never felt so weary in her life. I’m better than this! she tried telling herself as she forced her legs to work the steps. The headache was blindingly painful now. In fact, her whole body was aching with waves of fatigue sweeping through it. Just gotta lie down, just for a minute. She wasn’t sure if she said that out loud or only in her head; she was having trouble forming lucid thoughts. She felt herself being led into the house and then laid back onto something soft, maybe a couch.
Derek’s face swam into her view. “Are you okay?” he asked in what seemed like a slow-motion distortion of sound. She tried to answer him, but only a croak escaped her mouth. She felt him brushing her sweat damp hair with the palm of his hand and it felt strangely calming amidst the pain that was wracking her mind. His face hovered in front of her again and she gasped, not recognizing the apparition as her intimate partner.
Where am I? The pain in her head exploded in flashes of white light as her vision started constricting until she was staring through a long tube surrounded by blackness. Mommy? she cried in her mind, I don’t feel good.
That was the last coherent thought that Debra Benton ever formed.
Carroll shook Benton by the shoulders as she lay in a daze on the couch. “Come on, baby, speak to me,” he pleaded.
Heinlich and Nantz stood looking over his shoulder at the woman who was staring at the ceiling with unfocused eyes. Hernandez and Reese remained out on the porch on watch.
“She’s infected,” Nantz stated with an impassive tone.
The Sergeant nodded. He knew that Benton and Carroll had developed a relationship with each other, and as long as it didn’t compromise the squad’s ability to function professionally, he had looked the other way. In this new and unprecedented situation in which they found themselves, the old rules of fraternization needed to be thrown out the window anyway.
“But she wasn’t bitten!” Carroll snarled.
“Get Derek out of here,” Heinlich ordered Nantz.
Nantz took Carroll by the arm and tried to pull him to his feet. The man shook him off. “I gotta do this,” he snapped when he realized with a startling clarity what his girlfriend was becoming. He looked up at the other two men. “Give me a minute with her.”
Heinlich and Nantz just stood there silently.
“Go on. Get out of here,” he hissed.
The Sergeant nodded and backed out of the room. Nantz shrugged and turned, following Heinlich out of the house.
“How is she?” Hernandez asked when they stepped out into the bright afternoon sunshine.
The Sergeant sho
ok his head silently.
A minute later a muffled blast echoed through the house. Carroll finally emerged, his eyes hard but moist. He handed Benton’s rifle to Nantz. “She got about half a mag left in it.” He bowed his head and quietly walked off the porch.
Sarah watched the last of the creatures disappear from view down the road and let out a sigh of relief. “I think we’re in the clear now,” she whispered to the boy beside her in the silent garage.
“What now?” he asked.
She shrugged. “We wait. Either here or in the Humvee.”
He peered out through the small pane of glass at the wrecked vehicle sitting in the middle of the street. The swarm of Loonies had parted around the Humvee like whitewater around a boulder and had been pressed in so tight around it that their bodies had slammed closed the doors the two had left open. Many of the Loonies had simply bounded up and over the vehicle like a pack of rats over a log.
“I’m not sure I want to get stuck out there in that if they come back.”
Sarah nodded at him in understanding, “Yeah, me neither.”
What she really wanted to do was find someplace to lie down and nap. Her head still throbbed where it had hit the windshield and the ache and stiffness in her neck and shoulders had only gotten worse.
“How you feeling, Sport?” she asked.
“Like I’ve been hit by a truck.”
“Yeah, me too.” She massaged the back of his neck with her hand as they stared out at the barren street and Jeremy savored the feel of her warm hand.
They started to feel it through the soles of their boots; a vibration like a low-grade earthquake that steadily grew stronger. Things were rattling noisily within the garage as the vibrations increased.
“What is that?” Jeremy whispered. “Do you think it’s the rescue team?”
