by JT Sawyer
The bus swerved through the parking lot as Karl ran over several creatures that had just descended. Even with broken limbs, they still staggered towards the bus only to be pulverized seconds later as he tore through them and rushed to the bridge.
Dane and the others were sprinting and were at the halfway point as the bus came to an abrupt halt, causing several zombies on the roof to become airborne and smash into the pavement. At the rear, Travis shot two more blood-encrusted creatures and then shouted to Karl, “Load ’em and go or I’m gonna be a poor tipper.” He opened fire on three more beasts that were within twenty feet. As soon as he dropped them, more creatures piled over the bodies in a maniacal frenzy to reach him, their ravenous panting echoing along the blacktop.
Katy and Rachel had opened side windows and were trying to get off shots but the angle rendered their shots ineffective. The others arrived at the bus as Karl swung the lever, opening the double doors. Dane stood outside with the sniper rifle, shooting at two creatures moving from the left of the bridge. Rob sprang up the steps, followed by Nora. Becka was a few feet behind, struggling to run with the weight of an ammo container. As she rushed for the doorway, two zombies leapt at her from behind a pickup truck, tackling her as she fell sideways onto the pavement. Dane turned and kicked one of the creatures in the teeth, sending it backwards and then shooting it in the forehead. He then slammed the butt of his rifle into the temple of the other creature. It fell to the side with fresh blood oozing past its purple lips. Dane struck it in the head again with his rifle and then grabbed Becka, who had her hand clamped on a bite mark by her left shoulder. He pushed the young girl inside as Karl started to roll the bus forward. Dane shot two more zombies bounding over rocks to his left and then jumped aboard the steps as the vehicle sped away from the bridge and down the blacktop highway.
Travis was feeding a fresh magazine into his AK and staring at the twenty or so zombies still bounding down the road after them. As the bus’s speed increased the creatures faded into the inky-black shadows of the cliffs and disappeared.
He took a deep breath and pulled the rear-exit door shut. Pete let go of Travis’s belt and stood up. As Travis slung his rifle over his shoulder, he could see everyone gathering around Becka, who was lying on the floor. Katy and Rob were kneeling over her, applying gauze to her arm and shoulder. Travis rushed up alongside the girl and could see how pale her complexion was in the cabin lighting. The girl’s breathing was labored and her left arm clung fiercely to Katy’s shirtsleeve.
“Dammit. Did she take a fall or did she get…” Travis paused when Katy looked up at him with narrow eyes. The grave look on her face finished his sentence for him.
“She didn’t lose too much blood,” said Rob, who was pouring water from a bottle onto the wound. “I’ll get her patched up and then it’d be best if we could lay her across one of the reclined seats with her feet up.”
Travis kneeled down and ran his hands across Becka’s face, brushing strands of hair aside and looking into her blue eyes. “You’ve been through worse than this before, darlin’. You hang tough, you hear me?” Becka nodded, fighting to hold back her tears, which kept streaming over her flushed cheeks.
While he brushed the hair from her face, he saw her skin turn a mottled blue color and then it quickly disappeared, returning to its former pale appearance. He pulled his hand back with a startled expression on his face. He looked at Katy, who had witnessed the same thing. Travis slid the sleeve up on Becka’s other arm, studying the skin. “What do you make of that?”
Katy shook her head, revealing an incredulous look as she gazed at the girl.
“I don’t feel so good,” said Becka as she swallowed repeatedly, trying to catch her breath. “I’m so tired.”
As the bus sped north along the winding blacktop, Travis thought about the vaccines in his pack. “This isn’t over, sweetie,” he said to Becka, stroking her hair. “We’re close to Durango so you stay with us, you got it?” He glanced up at the dimly lit road ahead and clenched his jaw. This isn’t the end for her…this isn’t the end!
Chapter 8
The woman was moaning and holding the left side of her cheek as if it was being pressed against searing metal. She tried to sit up but the pain in her leg acted like a heavy weight.
She could hear the medic behind her speaking on a walkie-talkie. “She’s stable and ambulatory again.”
It had been several days of semi-conscious delirium since the deadly blast at the university in Flagstaff. The extraction team that had come for Nikki had flown directly to a makeshift facility in the mountains near Santa Fe, New Mexico. She had been up on occasion to monitor the computer and intel updates but had otherwise been trying to rest. She knew her employer was eager to find out what she knew and they expected a detailed briefing on the recently botched mission.
Nikki sat up, her head still spinning from the narcotics in her system. She slid off the metal table and limped over to the wall of the stark room. Hanging next to a table was a medicine cabinet with an oblong mirror. She exhaled and brushed a lock of hair aside from her temple and scanned the contours of her face. The ripple marks from the burn created a comet-shaped pattern that ran from her cheekbone, around the eye socket, and towards her ear. Her eyebrow had been spared. Whenever she looked in the mirror, she turned her head slightly to block the hideous appearance from her mind.
Nikki thought back to an image of her father standing beside her as a little girl, telling her that, with an ugly face such as hers, the mirror would be her only friend. She clenched her lower lip and took a deep breath while squeezing her right hand into a fist. She had to remind herself that her lovely figure and southern charm were only surpassed by her brilliant intellect.
The lean, blond-haired medic walked across the cement-slab floor and handed the radio to her. “It’s Crowley—he wants some answers now that you’re back from the dead.”
She unclenched her fist and ran her fingers through her hair, then casually flung her wrist back towards the medic. He moved forward a few more inches and placed the radio in her hand, then backed away.
“Why, bless your kind heart,” she said without turning. The raspy voice coming over the radio was one that she had hoped not to hear for much longer.
“Do you have a fix on Combs yet?” the man said.
“My dear Crowley—how come you didn’t send me flowers or a get-well card?” she said.
“You think this is funny—that this is a time to joke with me?”
“No, I don’t think the burn on my face and my leg wound are very amusing. What I do find remarkably funny is how your momma gave birth to a boy without any balls between his legs, which is why we are in this fucking mess. If you had given me more men and resources, the battle would’ve gone differently.”
“Nikki, if you don’t get this done, then…” he said in a low voice before he was cut off.
“Hush, hush. You sound all roiled up and that’s no way to conduct a briefing. Now, what we are dealing with is more like a temporary glitch. Travis and his little band of acorn-eaters got away and appear to be headed north.”
Crowley exhaled. “Then it’s time to descend upon them, capture Combs, and finish the job.”
“I’m not sure yet exactly where he is headed but I have one of my men embedded in their group. I’ve been receiving his personal location beacon coordinates and he will notify me of their precise destination in Durango. That’s the only missing link we need.” Nikki paused to rub a dab of burn cream below her left ear, wincing as the cool gel skated across the charred flesh.
“I have assembled a new team to replace my group at the university. We will be resuming the hunt with all efforts focused on southwest Colorado, in and around Durango. I am sending Bravo Team over there to scour the region and see what they can turn up.”
“And you…” said the man.
“I’m taking Alpha Team towards the Four Corners to shadow the group where my mole is at. Once I get Combs’s final destination
, I will relay the intel to you so you can perform a satellite thermal search for the lab. Then I will descend upon Combs and get the vaccine.”
“Just remember that he needs to be brought in alive. Don’t take things as far as other captives of yours.”
“You needn’t remind me that the vaccine is as rare as rocking-horse shit. I know what’s at stake. Besides, I only peel a person back to the point of their perceived physical collapse. The mind fails long before the body,” she said, holding a hand up to inspect her fingernails. “With any luck, we will locate the lab first and then we will no longer need him intact, though I may keep him half-alive for a few weeks as my little plaything.”
“All the same, proceed with caution. Especially given your recent track record in Flagstaff,” he growled.
“Relax—I’ll deliver everything on your little checklist. Remember, once you have what you need, my job is finished and my sister and I are gone.”
“Yes, yes, I know all about what was offered to you in exchange for your special skills,” Crowley said. “But as the saying goes, it’s not over ’til it’s over.”
Nikki frowned. “What can you expect from a pig but a grunt?”
“Enough of your attitude.” He paused with a grumble. “Call me when you have new intel.”
“My sweet voice will be the first thing ringing in your precious ears, I promise,” Nikki said, and then turned off the radio.
She walked over to the sink and filled a glass of water and then swigged down two white pills the medic had placed on the counter. “Are these compliments of the house?” she said, while turning towards the medic with a bitter smile. He nodded nervously, fidgeting with his hands in his coat pockets.
Nikki grabbed her shoulder bag off the table and tossed in the pill bottle as she limped past the medic with her chin up. “Thanks—send me the bill, sugar,” she said while reaching for an MP-5 leaning against the wall. Then she yanked open the metal entrance door and hobbled into the hallway.
In the days since the battle, her teams had been scouring the regions for telltale signs or tracks of Travis and his group. Even though each person under her command had been cross-trained, her manpower had been cut in half due to unforeseen casualties suffered in Flagstaff.
As she walked down the long corridor to the helipad outside, she wondered what Pallas’s end-game strategy was and what she had been left in the dark about. She hadn’t survived in this field as long as she had without having her own contingency plans and thinking four steps ahead of those in charge. The problem was that those overseeing Pallas were all doing the same in case this whole operation fell apart. She pushed open the exterior door and narrowed her eyes at the rush of sunlight flooding upon her. As she approached the HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter, she motioned with a twirl of her index finger for the pilot to fire up the engine. Three new recruits had just entered and were getting settled into the back of the cabin.
Once inside, she pulled up an image on her laptop and squinted at the photo of the Travis’s face that had appeared. She painstakingly studied his features. Underneath a green beret he had a brushcut of black hair and a clean-cut face. His olive-drab fatigues indicated the rank of sergeant major and various medals adorned his left coat lapel. As the helicopter rose, she finished scrutinizing his image. She had been so close to having him in her clutches in Flagstaff and ending this manhunt for good. I will find you alright, Travis Combs, but this time will have a much different roll of credits at the end. Your friends will die slowly before your eyes and there will be no one to save your self-righteous ass.
The pilot next to her came over the comms in her helmet. “We’ll be in the Four Corners area in one hour. Do you want me to rendezvous with the grids Bravo Team provided or head to the coordinates indicated by the personal location beacon within Combs’s group?”
Her eyes didn’t flinch and remained on the computer screen, “The latter will do. I don’t want them detecting our position so keep us at a safe distance. We are simply shadowing them until I get the final coordinates of where they are headed.”
The pilot nodded as he flew the chopper past a barren, jagged peak. The forested regions north of Santa Fe could be seen in the distance as the low desert transitioned into the higher elevation of mountains.
****
As he sat in his windowless office at the clandestine Pallas research center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Crowley had just disengaged the video from his conversation with Nikki and was turning to sip on his coffee when a new image on his laptop emerged. A gray-haired man in a black sweater appeared. “Did she reveal the location of the seventh element?” said the man.
“No, but she believes that Durango, Colorado is a potential focal point. She has a team headed there now.”
“Nikki’s continued recklessness has become a liability to this company. Her inability to quietly fulfill her objective in Flagstaff has drawn unwanted attention—attention that could lead back to us now.”
“What do you want me to do?” said Crowley, who was clenching the ceramic coffee mug in his left hand.
“For now, let her think she is in control. She thrives on that,” the man said calmly, with his hands folded in front of him. “I will send in a team of my own to Durango to scout the area. See to it that Nikki has what she needs for the time being but divulge nothing else.”
“Sir, are you planning to terminate her?” said Crowley.
“After her performance in Flagstaff, her unpredictable and erratic nature has made her a threat to our future plans. Is there a problem with you following these orders?”
“No, not at all, sir.”
“Good. I’d hate to have to cancel you as well. You have served this company admirably and we do reward such loyalty.”
The screen went blank and Crowley closed the laptop. He wiped away a line of heavy sweat from his forehead and forced himself to take several deep breaths. He had no love for either Nikki or his employer but if they considered someone like her expendable, what were his prospects of surviving the future?
He looked at the map on his office wall and focused his gaze upon the red mark encircling Durango. “Nikki, Nikki…your contract with the devil is about to expire, it seems.”
Chapter 9
Karl was straining to see the mangled highway sign ahead as he took a bend in the blacktop road. The sun had just risen and the snow-covered Abajo Mountains to the northwest were the only prominent landmark amidst the miles of flat high desert near the Colorado border. As he neared, the mileage marker grew clearer. “Looks like it’s seven miles to a place called Hovenweep National Monument and three miles to a historic trading post.”
“Which one you wanna stop at, boss?” he said to Travis.
“Pete—any thoughts?” Travis said.
“The monument is just a bunch of ceremonial prehistoric ruins. I’d say go to the trading post as we may find some supplies and there are a couple of old cabins which will make for a snug night’s rest.”
“Copy that,” said Karl. “That’s about all the fuel we got left anyway so this is the end of the line for this rig unless we stumble across a gas station that hasn’t been tapped out.” His left leg nervously shook up and down as he spoke.
“You can relax a little, man,” said Travis. “Your knee is pumping up and down like you’re workin’ a sewing machine. Those creatures are far behind us now and we’re not likely to encounter anyone or anything out in these sparsely populated regions.”
Karl took a deep breath as his eyebrows converged in the middle. “Right on—just wired from that crazy getaway, I reckon.”
Travis peered over his shoulder at Becka, who was semi-conscious in a reclined seat at the rear of the bus. Pete leaned over towards him. “What you thinkin’?”
“It’s ironic, isn’t it? I mean, we’ve made it this far, after all these months, only to have Becka get bitten so close to the end. If we only had a tank of gas, we could be in Durango in no time. Sixty miles is going to take two long days of
trekking, assuming the weather is on our side and the snow isn’t already too deep up there.”
Travis looked at Pete, who was staring at Becka. His friend turned back towards him and began to speak. “Trav, you’ve seen how everyone who gets bit reacts differently. She may only have a day at most left.”
“I know…I know, but goddammit, we’re so close. Even if she turns we can’t just put a…” He lowered his voice and moved closer to Pete. “…a bullet in her. We have to hold on until we can get the vaccine to Durango and finish the job.”
“Travis, you don’t even know if there’s anything left in that city to get the vaccine to. I mean, what if there is no facility? We can’t just let her suffer or tie her up once she’s turned and cross our fingers.”
“If tying her up is what’s necessary until I can get back here with the cure, then that’s what we’ll have to do. She has survived countless horrors and battles and I’m sure as hell not gonna let her die in vain, buried in some backcountry grave.”
“Well, this is it, fellas,” shouted Karl as he turned into a gravel parking lot in front of a single-story stone building flanked by a row of aspen trees.
Travis nodded to Pete. “Let’s finish this conversation later.” He stood up and scanned the parking lot for tracks and then peered around to an old cabin on the left side.
“Dane, Karl, and Rachel, you’re with me. The rest of you stay here and keep an eye out on the surrounding terrain,” Travis said, grabbing his AK off the blue-upholstered bench beside him.
As the double doors of the bus swung open, he stepped out into the cold mountain air. A flock of sparrows flitted away from a cluster of shrubs near the door of the building. He scanned the ground again for foot or vehicle tracks but the dust that lay over the gravel parking area revealed no signs.
