Infected Freaks (Book 2): The Echo of Decay

by Jason Borrego

It took a moment, but Sam snapped out of her psychosis. She had the appearance of a person who thought about resisting, but then the cold tang of a knife pricked her neck. Abraham was positive Bob was going to kill her, and that was the easy way out of this life.

  “Bob, this isn’t you.” Abraham regarded him with eyes as dark as his soul. He raised his shaky hands and took aim at his old friend. “I’ll tear you apart if you don’t lower that damn knife.” His sore eyes misted with tears at his heartfelt words. He didn’t know Sam well, but he cared for the girl. Abraham was haunted by his silence during the Winter War. He should have tried to stop Bob, but he didn’t. This was fate coming back to punish him. The things Bob did to that poor Russian girl. Abraham squeezed away the memory unable to face it.

  “Fuck you, Abraham.”

  “Bob, this is your second chance.” His tone seemed to strike Bob harder than any fist he had taken over the years.

  “You don’t know shit. You would rather side with the hammer and sickle. You must have forgotten what they did to us. I just did it back to them.”

  “Except you did it to an innocent girl. She had nothing to do with the war.”

  Bob backed up against the cement wall, eyes cast downward. He raised his stumpy forearm and pointed. “You could have stopped me. But you didn’t. That makes you just as guilty.” The absolute sting of pain must have caused him to sway as he laid his back against the wall for support. “I’m going to kill your little black girl. You think she would enjoy some of the techniques we learned overseas? Peeling flesh was my specialty.”

  Abraham could hear faint buzzing sounds drifting from the gymnasium. It seeped through the cracks, reminding them what lurked in the shadows. He dared not tune out the song of death and decay. Nevertheless, he needed to focus on the perfect shot. If he jerked the trigger to hard, the bullet would sail into Sam. She stared back at him, tears escaping her eyes to trickle down her bruised cheek.

  “Take the shot,” she begged. She appeared ready for the sweet relaxation of death.

  Bob jerked her back and growled. “Abe doesn’t have the balls. Sure, he’ll hit one of us, but the old man can’t be sure of his aim. Look at him. Come get me, you old piece of shit.”

  Heat crawled up Abraham’s neck and took over his grim expression. He took a step forward, fighting the shakes. He needed to get closer. Sam’s body language screamed for him to shoot. However, the humble old fool wasn’t sure of his target.

  “Nobody calls me Abe except my mother.” Abraham was too focused on killing Bob. He failed to see the makeshift snare that lay before him in the dark.

  The booming sound of the rope jerking him up toward the ceiling was minor compared to the popping of his old bones. “Oh, shit,” he wailed, dangling upside again, several feet above the spinning ground. By some sort of miracle, he maintained a grip on his pistol, but the sway of the rope gave him no clear shot.

  “Put your guns down, boy,” Bob said, eyeing Hunter. “Or I’ll kill her and let her drip out every last ounce of blood upon your face.” He canted his head and kissed at Sam’s neck as if to taunt Hunter. “That snare was meant to trap some of the other survivors that held out in the school months ago. They didn’t want to live in my mountain kingdom, and every last one of them died. Most of them were women and children.”

  “You piece of shit,” Sam slurred, tensing her shoulders. Abraham knew she wanted to do something, but what could she do?

  “Take the shot,” Abraham muttered, trying to focus on Hunter from his upside down angle.

  “I can’t do it,” his grandson said, full of defeat. Abraham knew Hunter didn’t have a choice. His grandson was sucking in a quick breath when he dropped his rifle and tensed his muscles.

  “Good, now open the other garage door.” He looked up at Abraham and snorted through his hooked nose. “I always seem to get the better of you.”

  Abraham exhaled.

  Hunter hesitated.

  “Hunter, do it now, or I’ll cut your sweet little girlfriend.” Bob inched the edge of the blade closer to Sam and drew a tiny cut from her neck. Then his foul tongue wagged back and forth like a windshield wiper devouring her sugary sweat.

  Abraham watched the steady rush of sweat drip like a faucet upon Bob’s mouth. The sight brought a sickness to his gut.

  His grandson marched with his head down like a coward. A distinct rattle on the pull chain brought the first big metal door open with a bang. The second opened to a degree before getting caught up in the tear of metal. It was a clatter loud enough to summon the countless infected plaguing the school grounds.

  A blowing rain lashed inside as Bob ordered them all back. A gust of wind sent wet trash flapping around like a flock of angry birds. Bob placed the knife between his teeth and jerked Sam downward in a violent rage. He hit her, his only fist connecting with the back of her head.

  “Keep the doors open or I’ll kill her,” he said. He gave Abraham another sardonic grin, then grabbed the back of Sam’s coat and forced her into the yellow school bus. Then, with a rattle to the engine, he drove out into the abhorrent storm.

  It couldn’t have been easy for Hunter to watch.

  Bob and Sam disappeared into the lethal storm with only the tail lights saying good-bye.

  Abraham saw it in Hunter’s burning eyes. Part of him wondered if he would ever see her again. Then, Hunter scooped up his rifle and tore out into the rainstorm. He wasn’t going to give up on Sam.

  “Hunter, wait!” Revenge must have beaten against the inside of his teenage head like a drum. What boy could hold back such a fury? This was something Abraham understood.

  Abraham flashed Emme a hard glance as she came to him. “Get me down.” Emme studied the trap, her face scrunched. She turned away and examined the connecting parts.

  “Cut down the counterweight,” Abraham advised, trying up curl up his neck for a better view.

  “The engine block?” she asked, taking a step back shaking in waves. She turned and emptied what little was in her stomach while her hearing aids buzzed in the song of degeneration. Tears followed, wetting her eyes.

  Abraham’s throat tightened and he fought to swallow a cough. A weighted engine hung in balance stretched over several metal support posts. The rope was a thick cord of cable.

  “I need something sharp,” she said, turning and searching through a workbench fastened to the nearest wall.

  Then a terrible buzzing sound vented a quavering note, half drowned beneath the weight of the storm.

  “Shit,” he snapped, dangling upside. He didn’t have time to reach for his knife. Instead, he took aim, his muscles cramped. His first shot rang as an infected staggered into the maintenance bay. The explosion tore into the thing’s shoulder as it picked up speed. The second shot exploded its head, spilling its body to the ground. “Emme, hurry up,” he barked, sucking in the icy air. He saw the fear of God written on his innocent granddaughter’s face. But if he could see his own, he would have been more terrified.

  “I found this,” she said, brandishing a knife fastened to a metal rod. She climbed up on top of the engine block and started cutting at the cable rope. Emme’s tiny weight brought Abraham up a nudge. Jeffery circled her in a manic rage. The wild boy howled and circled and howled some more. Abraham thought the boy might have been protecting Emme.

  The force of the wind increased as a spatter of rain burned deep into the maintenance bay. It was already hard enough to maintain focus. With his pistol aimed up, he shot at the rope and missed. The fingers of death seemed to poke at his wits as he swayed back and forth in helpless abandon.

  Then a second infected freak sprinted into the garage. It stopped a second to smell the air, and then it darted straight for him. It wailed like a crying mother at a grave. Abraham’s gun fired in haste.

  Amongst the struggle, he felt Emme eyes staring him down. The infected freak was on him. “Stacy back,” he howled. Abraham was cursing as he twisted the things jaw upward, trying his best to keep himself from be
coming a meal. The surge of adrenaline caused his heart to quiver. I’m a dead man.

  Jeffery jumped to the thing’s back, his short legs wrapping tight around the creature’s rotten waist. Something in the little guy snapped. Jeffery tore out the monster’s neck with a feral growl using only his teeth.

  What the hell? Abraham thought, stunned at the sight.

  The freak staggered forward, and when the rope swayed that direction, Abraham hammered its soft skull with the back of the pistol. It was dead. Nonetheless, his heart felt as if it were about to explode. He couldn’t believe what just happened.

  “Emme, cut the rope and do it fast.” If I die, they die, he told himself, fighting the will to shut down mentally.

  She didn’t reply; instead, Emme kept on cutting, despite the full body tremors threatening her speed.

  ***

  Bob shook his dripping hair and snorted a laugh. He stood on the roof of a nearby building holding Sam prisoner. It was the best seats for the horror show he had told the frightened girl. “Look at your friend. He looks like a piece of meat in a lion’s cage.”

  Sam refused to answer. Instead, she was plotting a well-paced strike to the nuts.

  Bob gripped her drenched hair and forced her to watch. One by one infected tore into the exposed maintenance bay. Between the wild boy and Abraham, her friends were surviving for the moment. “They won’t die so easily.”

  Bob squatted to be eye level with her. “Do you realize how much your pretty little ass has cost me? I’ve lost everything. My town is overrun in those foul things. But now we will take the bus and start a new life somewhere else.”

  Sam tensed. She realized what he was going to do to her. Men in a broken world had a way of making women pay. Bob was still talking, the faint cadence of his voice a distant echo in her drumming head. She lifted her eyes and looked at his ugly, pitted face. He was grinning at her and licking his foul lips. It was in that moment that Sam squeezed with all her might against his bloody stump. It was her last chance at survival.

  ***

  Abraham pushed the diseased creature down and then swung his hammer at another. He was out of ammo and out of time. “Emme, get out of here.” He was ready to die strung upside down like a piece of meat. Still, he continued to fight.

  The wild boy leapt up like a wolf, tearing another infected down and then colliding with a large, bloated child riddled in fungi. Jeffery had become a dangerous weapon.

  A hard shiver raced through Abraham’s body as he imagined getting torn apart. His eyes swept across the space as more freaks buzzed in the distance. It wouldn’t be long. Again, that awful gurgling noise brought a certain rage to his face. It seemed to come from beyond this world. It was a choking, strangling sound of something precious caught in the jaws of a monster. It was the big freak. It had to be.

  “I got it,” Emme slurred as the engine block smashed into the cement. The force sent cracks running in every direction.

  Every joint hurt, and every bone snapped as Abraham fought to his feet. With his trusty hammer, he smashed the closest freak in the forehead and continued to hammer away at the back of its head. Fighting them on his feet was much easier as he made quick work of the remaining monsters. Out of breath, Abraham glanced over his blood-stained shoulder to his tiny granddaughter. “Get inside the vent,” he ordered. He braced himself for the wave of horrors darting his direction.

  Emme gave him the finger and picked up the knife fastened to the rod. She was going to fight the nightmares.

  All Abraham could muster was a curious smile. Part of him believed he was hallucinating. “Here they come.”

  ***

  “You stupid little bitch,” Bob shrieked. He struck her again, knocking Sam to the soaked ground. Glancing back, Sam believed she saw Hunter Heinz through the hammering rain. I’m dreaming, she told herself, blinking away the image.

  Then, a powerful blast from the bolt action rifle echoed in her hazy mind, smoke flooding the air. Bob’s yowl was music to her ringing ears. The terrible bully stumbled over the ledge of the roof and fell with an offensive thump. She jeered over the ledge and saw Bob lying on the top of the yellow bus on the street below. This is real.

  When she turned, she saw Hunter wore a pained expression around his hazel eyes. Sam watched him reload and take aim at the ledge. His skin was swallowed in blood and gore. He must have fought through an army of infected freaks to get to her. There was a bloody glob on his shoulder, and his shoes were stamped in a seedy flesh. Yet, the torrential rain promised to wash it away. There was a long moment of silence. And then bleak action filled with terrible repercussions and emotional anguish took over.

  “We have to save them!” Hunter yelled.

  ***

  Looking through the scope, Hunter saw half a dozen plague-ridden freaks running into the maintenance bay. He fired, ejected the casing, and fired again. The things were coming from every direction. For a second, he regretted leaving his grandfather. But his aim was true as a dozen heads exploded in a short span of time. The roof gave him a tactical advantage.

  The last two infected ran for Abraham. He took the shot and missed. Reloading, he was forced to watch the thing collide with his grandpa. Abraham and the freak tussled and rolled, punches impacting flesh with dull thuds. The infected clawed on top of his grandfather in a moment of defeat.

  Hunter screamed in silence as he slammed the bolt forward in the rifle and shot.

  The bullet sailed.

  Hunter couldn’t blink.

  The bullet dug through the chest of the monster.

  In that moment, Abraham reached out for his hammer and smashed the thing in its skull. He climbed up and hit it again and again as blood spurted from his nose. The spatter of brains and bone paint the seconds.

  Behind Abraham, Jeffery lunged up and smashed the final creature down. Then, Hunter saw his little sister drive down some sort of crude weapon through the awful thing’s skull.

  “What is that?” Sam asked, pointing to a slithering blob of horrid flesh and mold.

  “That’s the meatloaf,” he said. Hunter took aim, realizing his rifle was useless. Through the scope he saw the thing stop and turn back the way it came. It was running. He pulled back and saw that all the fear of night had been washed away with the first beams of morning. Hunter gathered his denim coat around his shoulders. We did it, he thought and smiled. The tears of joy came unguarded. “The daylight is driving them away,” he said, hugging Sam. Hunter held Sam, wincing in pain in his injured body.

  “Let’s get the hell out of this town,” she whispered, looking up at him with gorgeous eyes. The longest night of their lives was over.

  ***

  The past twenty-four hours had been the most thrilling Abraham had remembered. He listened as his grandson fired up the old Blazer. A vulgar, smoky blast erupted out the corroded tailpipe. It screeched several times like the cough of a smoker in denial. When his grandson revved the engine, he couldn’t help but smile.

  “We survived another night,” Abraham said.

  “Barely,” Hunter remarked, touching his tender forearm.

  “Barely is enough,” Abraham was quick to respond. He dropped his pistol into its warped holster and looked up. The beautiful swirl of white and blue in the sky shimmered in the full radiance of morning. “How’s the gas gage look?” he asked, setting down the empty fuel container he stole from the garage.

  “Full,” Hunter hollered back.

  Abraham looked to Sam and smiled. The poor girl was always on the wrong end of bad. Beyond the fright, he saw a small ray of light for the girl and it was named Hunter. When Hunter brought Sam back, they were holding hands. This gave hope to an old man like Abraham. Be good to each other.

  “This visit was a wasted trip,” Emme said, piling into the back of the vehicle with her wild friend.

  Abraham watched Jeffery for any sign of infection, and when the boy didn’t show any, he accepted him as one of the group.

  “A wasted trip? I d
on’t think so,” Abraham said, pointing to the new arsenal. “We got fuel. We got food, guns, and ammo, and now we’re going to get the rest of our family back.” Plus I took care of something I should have finished all those years ago. He never found Bob’s body, but he was sure no man could survive a near point-blank shot from a rifle. He must have turned and ran into the darkness.

  “Don’t forget about Emme’s ability to hear the infected freaks a mile away,” Hunter said. His expression suggested he was finally proud of his little sister.

  Abraham closed his sore eyes and again saw sweet Emme stabbing that makeshift weapon into the infected freak. She’s not a little girl anymore.

  “I won the right to sit in the front seat,” Emme said. “Remember?”

  Hunter must have known what she was talking about. “But I’m driving,” his grandson said, looking him in the eyes.

  “Give it to me,” she said, eyeing her brother.

  “Go ahead,” Abraham answered, slipping out of the front passenger seat and switching with Emme in the back. He didn’t know what they were talking about. And really he didn’t care. He was going to let this grandson drive and his granddaughter navigate for a little bit. They earned it. He wouldn’t sleep. At least that’s what he told himself. The truth was he would be watching with both eyes open, ready for whatever challenges awaited. Plus, he wanted to be close to Jeffery in case something happened.

  Abraham nested in the back next to the odd little boy and smiled. The peculiar little boy saved his life. Jeffery was one of the reasons he survived. “I knew I kept you around for a reason,” he said, exchanging awkward glances with the boy, who began to mutter the same phrase over and over.

  “Dr. John.”

  Maybe one day I will find out who Dr. John really is. Goosebumps pricked his flesh and chilled his core. Abraham knew Sam wanted to go to Denver. Nevertheless, she understood the rules. Abraham would travel to the divided city after he rescued his family from the Red Tower. I always keep my promises. Besides, Abraham believed his missing son and daughter were somewhere in the Mile High City. He didn’t have proof, but a parent never needed such.