by Nikita Eden
“Yeah,” Audrey agreed. “So, how bad is it really in Hobbs?”
“Well, the National Guard came in because it was getting harder to control the outbreaks and Hobbs wasn’t exactly small, even if it felt like it,” he said. “They brought in this huge caravan to try and keep people from crossing into Texas or vice versa.”
“That’s how it was in most places,” Audrey said.
“It was,” Lincoln conceded. “The guy who was in charge emptied the armory and took it to the high school because it was located in the middle of the zone they fenced so they could keep everyone left in the city within a small radius. It didn’t do anything but get everyone sick. Then they went a little overboard killing people.”
“Is there a way to go overboard when killing people who are turning into dregs?” Audrey gave him a sidelong glance.
“Not when they’re actually infected. The guys started killing people who even came into contact with the infected without scanning them or anything,” he clenched his fists and let out a deep breath. “When the guys with the guns started getting infected it was impossible for the rest of us to get to them because they attacked anyone who came close to them so they wouldn’t be killed.”
“Do you think it’ll be too much for us now?” Audrey thought about the dream she had of being overtaken by mountains of dregs as soon as they made it to Hobbs the night before.
“No. We can both handle our own and I had never heard of the mutants until I went to Artesia with the remaining guys from Hobbs’ National Guard,” Lincoln rested his bruised ankle on his knee.
Audrey nodded, “It would be nice to just be in a place with nothing but dregs. Mutants suck.”
“It would have been easier to get rid of all the dregs in Hobbs than it was taking down that Behemoth,” Lincoln rubbed his ankle.
~~~
The rest of the drive went by quickly. Audrey didn’t bother going the speed limit because there wasn’t any traffic and thanks to the state of life there were no cops that would pull her over—if there were any cops left in the area at all.
They drove slowly through a town called Tatum, but they quickly discovered it was deserted.
It was almost noon when they finally reached Hobbs. It was surrounded by large panels of chain link fence that were topped with barbed wire. Behind the fence were thousands of dregs wandering aimlessly.
“We should put our packs on before we go in,” Audrey suggested.
Lincoln nodded and they hurried to get their packs from the back of the truck. They closed their doors and rolled up the windows while they awkwardly strapped on their gear.
“At least we’re not in a small space trying to put this all on,” Lincoln muttered while he strapped his belt that held his ax around his waist.
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Audrey sat stiffly in her seat half a foot closer to the steering wheel than she was before. “There’s plenty of room in here.”
“Let’s just go,” Lincoln said, giving up the fight of pushing his ax in his belt loop while sitting down.
“How do we get in there?” Audrey looked around for an opening or gateway.
“Drive through the fence,” Lincoln answered. “When the rest of us left we sealed it off, so there’s no way to get in there now.”
“Did you get everyone out?” she asked.
“We got everyone we could,” Lincoln looked at the fence stonily.
Audrey didn’t say anything else and backed the truck up a few yards. She took a deep breath and held it before she pushed the gas pedal to the floor. A few panels of fencing bent over when she drove through the fence.
“I guess that’s a few less we may have to deal with,” she looked in her rearview mirror at the dregs that had been caught under the fencing.
“Head west,” Lincoln pointed down the street. “You’ll see a few military tanks around an old high school. That’s where the stockpile is.”
Audrey slowly navigated the streets while following Lincoln’s instructions.
She could feel anxiety building in her chest the farther they got because the whole town was swarmed with dregs. Luckily, they were uninterested in the truck as it drove passed them. A few of the more excitable dregs ran towards the truck and pounded on the sides, but Audrey sped away from them.
“Turn right in two blocks,” Lincoln told her after she ditched a small group of dregs. “The high school will be on my side.”
There were bigger hoards the closer the truck got to the school.
“Are those guys wearing riot gear?” Audrey asked when they reached the corner.
“Probably. There are probably a fair amount of the Army and National Guard guys in the city,” Lincoln said.
Audrey parked the truck behind a big dusty beige tank and they sat in silence while she gathered herself with deep calming breaths.
“Okay, what do you think we should do?” She asked him.
“We’ll just go in, fill up our packs with ammo a few times, and head out of the city,” Lincoln said. “We need to pick up as many boxes and whatever else we can find that will help. Mr. Davies said to find something to close up the caverns. I bet there’s some C4 in there too.”
Audrey clenched her jaw and nodded, “Alright, let’s go.”
They got out of the truck as quietly as they could and walked around the tank to scout out the area around the school.
“We’re going to need to run,” she told Lincoln. “Will your ankle be okay.”
“Yeah, let’s just get in a see what we have to deal with,” he said.
They ran through small groups of dregs that stood around the school as quickly as they could. They used their weapons to kill as many of them as they could on their way into the school.
Audrey ran and opened a door at the front of the school, “You doing okay?”
“Yeah,” he answered and ran passed her into the school. “Let’s just hurry this up if we can.”
The school was mostly empty aside from the heaps of bodies that lined the halls, “Why are there so many here?”
“This is probably where the dregs used to bring their prey,” Lincoln guessed aloud. “They’re all stripped to the bone see? If they had just died they would still be decomposing in the dry conditions here.”
Audrey grimaced at the few decomposing corpses amongst skeletons, “Where is everything at?”
“It’s all in the gymnasium. Follow me,” Lincoln said.
He led her through the small building and pushed a door to the gym open. There were multiple mounds of ammunition boxes full and guns.
“How much should we take?” Lincoln asked her.
“As much as we can fit in the truck bed like we said before,” Audrey replied. “Do you think we could drive it in here?”
Lincoln shook out his ankle and nodded, “Yeah, let’s fill our packs now and then we can move the truck closer to the door.”
“Okay,” Audrey grabbed a few rifles and gave one to Lincoln.
She used the strap on one to carry it on her back and filled her pack.
Lincoln filled his bag and grabbed a couple small boxes that were heavier than they looked and headed back to the front of the school.
They didn’t have to fight off any dregs on the way back out to the truck. They put their bags and the cases Lincoln grabbed in the back of the truck.
“You could drive the truck to the front of the school and I can open the doors,” Audrey said when they climbed into the cab.
“That’s a good idea. The bars in between the doors have pins that can be removed. We can take those out and you can back the truck all the way to the gymnasium,” Lincoln added.
“Okay, now we have a plan. I’ll see you in the school,” she said and opened her door.
“Audrey, wait,” Lincoln grabbed her hand. He pulled her closer to him and gave her a tight hug, “Be careful.”
“Wait for my signal,” She stepped out of the truck with her rifle ready to shoot and walked around the
edge of the tank.
There were still dregs meandering around without any clear purpose so she looked back around to the truck and waved at Lincoln.
He started the truck and as soon as he shifted it the engine backfired. The bang from the backfire had disturbed a hoard of at least fifty dregs that started swarming toward the sound.
She had never fired an automatic rifle before and it was harder for her to aim than it was with a small pistol.
She held the trigger down and emptied the first magazine. Unsure of how to reload it she swung the gun onto her back and unsheathed her machete. She slashed at the dregs that ran at her and headed for the doors with Lincoln slowly backing the truck up behind her.
Audrey watched as he skillfully ran over the remainder of the hoard while shooting his gun at their heads. As soon as he made it to the school he jumped out of the truck and started firing the gun Audrey had given him into the hoard of dregs.
“Well, that wasn’t expected,” she said when he was done.
“You know I was in the Army for a little while,” he reminded her and opened the front door. “I picked up a few skills from some of the guys I worked with.”
“Great, do you mind coming over here and helping me?” Audrey swung her machete in a wide arc at a dreg that had fallen on the ground and was slowly crawling in her direction. Its head fell to the ground and its body lay still.
None of the remaining dregs in the area around the school seemed interested in attacking them, but Audrey and Lincoln rushed to take the pins out so they could hurry in case the dregs behavior changed.
“The bar is stuck in there,” Lincoln growled and pounded at it with the heel of his hand.
“Could we push it in with the truck?” Audrey asked.
“It’s worth a try,” Lincoln said. “Get in and back it up.”
Audrey jumped in and put the truck in gear. It didn’t take much for the bar to pop out and slam into the ground with a loud ringing thud.
Audrey flinched and looked out the windshield. A smaller wave of dregs was rushing towards her.
“Audrey, I need you back here!” Lincoln shouted.
She turned around to see him swinging his ax at a group of dregs that had surrounded him from inside the building.
She groaned and opened the door. She rushed around the truck and swung her machete at the heads and necks of the dregs closest to Lincoln.
When there were only a handful of dregs left Audrey let out a sigh of relief. She felt worn out and grumbled when she turned around to face the front of the truck and saw a dozen more dregs pounding at the windshield.
“Could this get any worse?” She asked Lincoln.
“Don’t jinx us,” he lifted his injured foot off the ground and rubbed the back of his neck.
“We can just leave the truck here and bring the boxes to the bed before we drive off,” Audrey said.
“Do you think that will work?” Lincoln asked.
“There isn’t enough room between the truck and the door frame for them to get through,” Audrey pointed out.
“Let’s hurry then,” Lincoln agreed to it.
They ran back and forth from the truck to the gymnasium a handful of times before a blaring horn echoed through the halls.
“What is going on?” Audrey yelled to Lincoln who shrugged.
They rushed back to the truck where they saw the dregs outside had broken through the windshield and were climbing into the cab where they were hitting the horn.
“We need to get to the gym!” Lincoln yelled over the growls and roars of a sizable throng of dregs moving swiftly towards them down the opposite hallway.
They sprinted toward the gym but were cut off by a third smaller group. Audrey felt her stomach drop and worried that they might not get out of this. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she hastily lashed out at anything that came close to her.
It was difficult for her to keep up with the onslaught. Her breathing was labored and it hurt her side when she lashed out with her machete.
“I wish I had a gun right now,” she complained over her shoulder to Lincoln.
“From what I saw it would be better if I had one,” he said back to her before swinging the ax at the closest dreg. “We’re getting closer to the gym. As soon as we get close enough make a run for it.”
They inched their way through the endless assault. It felt like an eternity had passed when Audrey saw the doorway.
“Now Lincoln!” She yelled and swung her sword at the neck of the dreg closest her.
She heard Lincoln gasp and moved out of the way to make sure he got into the gymnasium before she pulled the door closed. Audrey made sure the door was secured and turned to find Lincoln looking at a gash on the side of his leg.
She stopped mid-stride, “Did one of them get you?”
“What? No,” Lincoln looked back at his leg. “I hit myself a little with my ax right before we got back in here.”
“Are you sure?” She asked warily. “What if you’re infected now?”
“I’m not, I promise, it was right as we were heading in here,” he said. “I took one last swing and hit myself on accident.”
Audrey didn’t move any closer to him, “But what if you are infected?”
“It’s a fast moving virus,” Lincoln said. “We’ll be able to tell by the time everything dies down out there. If I’m infected, kill me.”
“I can’t do that,” Audrey leaned against the wall by the door and slid down to the ground. “Why would you ask me to do that?”
“Because I don’t want ever hurt you,” Lincoln answered. “It would be easier than doing it to family. I’ve heard you had to when you were in Carlsbad.”
“Yeah,” Audrey said not looking at him. “Lincoln, I—”
“Don’t worry about it, Audrey,” he said calmly. “I promise it was my fault. A dreg didn’t get me.”
She flinched when one of the dregs slammed its body into the door behind her, “They won’t be able to get in here will they?”
“I don’t think so,” Lincoln leaned back against a box of ammunition and laid his leg on the ground. “You secured the door really well.”
Audrey shuddered at the blood coming out of Lincoln’s leg in tiny gushes and stood up to look around the gym for a first aid kit.
She found some medical supplies by a door to the locker rooms and grabbed it. She rushed back to Lincoln and started to care for his leg.
She used the strap from a gun to create a tourniquet before she cleaned it out with antiseptic.
“I don’t think I saw any gauze,” she said after she applied antiseptic cream to the wound.
“That’s okay. Are there any supplies for sutures in there?” he asked. “That’s what we’re really going to need.”
She nodded her head and pulled a white package out of the kit, “What do I do?”
“There should be gloves in there, put them on and then stitch me up,” he said calmly.
“Isn’t it going to hurt?” her eyebrows bunched together and she frowned.
“Not any more than getting hit the leg with an ax,” he tried to smile at her, but winced instead.
“Okay, but I need something to cover it when I’m done,” she said.
“Let’s worry about getting it to stop first,” he said, lying his head on the box.
She opened the packet and took the green gloves out of the plastic. She threaded the needle with the stiff thread it came with.
“I can’t do this,” she said with her fingers on his leg.
“Yes, you can,” Lincoln agreed softly. “Just push it through the skin.”
She felt a ball form in the back of her throat that she couldn’t swallow. She put the needle on his skin and pushed it until his skin gave way. It was easier than she expected it to be, but every time she looked down at the cut she felt like she was either going to vomit or pass out until she was done.
“The coach’s office is over there,” he pointed to the corner of the gym.
“There might be something in there to cover it with.”
She ran across the gym and into the office, there was athletic tape and a few school issued t-shirts that she grabbed. She ran back to him and sat next to him, “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m tired and want to go home and lay down for the next week,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” Audrey frowned, she folded one of the shirts up and pressed it over the wound. “They should have sent someone else with you.”
“Like who?” Lincoln held the shirt in place while she wound athletic tape over the edge.
“I don’t know,” she answered, pushing his hands away so she could tape the shirt. “You could have even come yourself if you needed to.”
“I’d be in a lot worse shape than I am now if you hadn’t of come along.” he said incredulously and pointed over his shoulder. “You can hear that, right?”
“Would it really have been that bad?” she questioned.
“That’s not a real question is it?” he looked away from her with a scowl.
“I could have come on my own,” she uttered the thought before actually thinking.
“You don’t know your way around here and there are a lot of people who would miss you if anything were to happen to you. People need you. Plus, you were worse off than I was at the start of this,” he frowned. “I hate to say it, but you probably would have been screwed more than I would have been on my own.”
“I don’t have family, though,” she said sadly. “It wouldn’t have mattered in the end.”
“Anyone can be family,” Lincoln said sternly and pulled her into a hug. “We’d all be lost without you.”
“Thank you,” she said against his shoulder.
“Not to ruin the moment or anything,” he said. “But why did you tape my entire leg up for a six inch cut?”
Audrey laughed nervously and leaned away from him, “To make sure your leg would be alright.”
“I’d have been alright with some Tylenol and a little time to heal,” he picked at the edge of the tape. “It’s going to hurt taking this off.”
“Sorry,” she said and back on the floor.
She closed her eyes and listened to the dregs pulling and banging at the doors for over an hour.
