“Run!” yelled Kevin.
he Infected raked and pulled at the garage door, peeling the slats apart with a screech of stressed metal. Kevin aimed his .45 as he backed up to the inner doorway. Tris leapt out of the chair, launching it into the shelf behind the desk. A few cardboard-boxed oil filters fell to the floor. Skin peeled away from the Infected’s face as it forced its head into the widening breach in the flexible barrier. Steel slats buckled and broke apart. Kevin clapped his second hand on the pistol, sighted, and fired. Blood spattered up and down on the metal. With a final, heaving groan, the dead man hung in place, stuck by his neck and arm.
Tris braced her hands on the side of the shelf and shoved it away from the inner door with a mild grunt. Kevin blinked. She ignored the incredulous face he made and rushed out. He backed after her. A short hallway to the right contained a single bathroom opposite a white door with black letters spelling out ‘private.’ Straight ahead, a red-tiled corridor led to a modest convenience store, full of overturned grocery-style shelves and trash. Six sliced and bloody Infected staggered over the wreckage.
A chubby Asian woman with a foot-long piece of glass sticking out of her shoulder swiveled to face him. Milky eyes held no trace of higher brain function, and rolled up into her head as a black serpent-like tendril emerged from her mouth. It, more than the woman, seemed to be staring at him.
He shivered. “Oh, fuck no.”
Kevin fired, missing on the first shot. The other five ambling figures behind her whirled toward the noise. His second shot caught her in the shoulder, staining more of her peach colored shirt red. She took a step closer, the thing in her throat straining forward. The third slug struck at the base of her nose, spraying gore over the rest. The serpentine tongue surged out to three feet in length, whipping side to side as the body careened over backward.
Tris raised the Beretta. “Five, we can do that.”
Metal clanged in the street outside.
“Shit, the ones from the garage are comin’ ‘round.”
She lowered her arms and ran for the door marked private. Kevin shot a second one in the chest, putting it down in one. Dammit. I got one or two bullets left. “I hate Infected… I fucking hate infected.”
Rattling came from his right. “Does anyone like them? Shit, it’s locked.”
“You’re vaccinated at least. One speck of blood in my face and I’m fucked.”
Tris flipped 180 degrees and went for the bathroom. “Damn, the window’s too small.”
“Look out.” Kevin aimed at the private door and pumped his last two .45 rounds into it. Splinters flew, but it held. “Shit.”
“I got it.” Tris jumped up, grabbed the top of the bathroom doorway, and drove a two-legged mule kick into the private door. It shook, but held.
Infected rushed the corridor, gripping and punching at the air. Kevin pulled a Sig 226 out from under his right arm and shot a charging Indian man as well as two dark-skinned women with cornrows and bloody eyes. They collapsed. Two burly men in flannel shirts stumbled over the crawling bodies. The fallen seemed so desperate to get to him they didn’t bother trying to stand back up.
Tris kicked the door again, and it broke open. Kevin shot the crawling men once each in the head and ran after her up a flight of stairs to a tan-carpeted apartment. A Confederate flag adorned a wood-paneled wall over a battered sofa facing a massive flat-panel TV set. Aside from that, every scrap of decoration in the room appeared to bear a Steelers logo: pennants, mugs, framed shirts, posters. Even the trash can in the kitchen had a team sticker on it.
“Oh, hello you beautiful thing…” Tris jogged around the coffee table to a bookshelf between the couch and the wall.
Kevin followed her gaze to the top where a Japanese sword set sat under a thick layer of dust. She climbed up and took the katana, pulling it out enough to check the edge.
Tris whirled about with a child-at-Christmas grin. “It’s sharp!”
He rushed for the kitchen. “All yours. I ain’t gettin’ that close to them.”
“What now?” Tris jogged up behind him. “Infected know how stairs work.”
As if to underscore her point, commotion echoed up the hallway. Kevin crossed the kitchen in four steps, heading for a door out to a small patio. He squinted at the moonlit streets, shivering at silhouettes moving with the telltale mannerisms of Infected as far as three blocks away.
“What the hell! Do they have radios or something?” Panic bubbled in the back of his throat. “Shit.”
Tris ran out onto the patio with him and slammed the sliding door closed. “Seven of ‘em coming up the stairs. We don’t have much choice.”
He frowned at the tiny slab of safety with two folding chairs. Glass doors wouldn’t hold them at all. “Roof.”
Kevin grabbed her by the hips and hoisted her up. She got her arms over the rain gutter; the katana hit the tarpaper with a clack. A few seconds after she shimmied over, she reappeared and reached down.
“Grab my hand.”
He jumped up, but missed the edge. Something crashed inside.
“Kevin!”
“You’re half my weight.”
She scowled. “Thanks, but I doubt that. Don’t be an idiot.”
After another miss, he grumbled and leapt at the same instant the door smashed outward in a rain of glass fragments. His grip closed around her frail wrist. He expected to drag her down into the grasping arms of a pair of Infected, but she closed her fingers around his forearm and hauled him up. Her mousy little grunt of exertion would’ve been cute if he hadn’t been about to shit himself.
Scratching fingers pulled down his legs. He booted a jowl-faced business suit in the nose, knocking him over the patio railing. Tris scooted backward, dragging Kevin away from the edge. The portly man hit the ground with a noise similar to a trash bag full of pudding bursting on the pavement.
“Ugh.” Kevin cringed. “I do not want to see that.”
Moaning and rattling metal echoed from down below. A shallow lip about ten inches high ran around the flat-roofed building. Aside from a handful of pipes with spinning vent cowls, and a long-dead air handler, the area was wide open.
“You okay?” Tris picked at his shirt.
“Yeah.” He stood and walked to the edge. Six Infected had crammed themselves onto the patio, reaching up at the roof as if trying to will themselves to fly. “Damn, what a mess. I think they’re exceeding the weight limit on that patio.”
“Get away from the edge. If they don’t see us, maybe they’ll lose interest.”
“I ain’t that lucky.” He moved from the alley side to the front, where at least forty more half-alive wretches wobbled past the old gas pumps. The mere sight of them got his hands shaking. He paced. “This is why I don’t go to cities.”
“Sorry.” She walked to the air handler and pulled open an access panel. “I feel like it’s my fault we’re stuck here.”
“Probably because it is.” He folded his arms, backing away from a tarmac full of groaning, mindless, virus-carrying nastiness.
A piece of sheet metal clattered to the ground.
“You’re supposed to say no it isn’t, or it’ll be okay, or it’s not my fault.”
At the front-facing corner opposite the patio side, he squinted at the darkened street. “It’s not your fault this went to shit, but you are the reason we’re in Harrisburg.”
She grunted an instant before something broke with a loud snap. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“I can’t tell where the hell we are. Every street looks the damn same at night.”
A deep moan rumbled up from inside.
“We should be safe up here until morning,” said Tris.
He retreated farther from the edge. She knelt by the air handler, rigging some salvaged wires into a harness so she could wear the sword on her back. Tears caught the moonlight, making her cheek glint. Kevin trudged up to the narrow end of the old air conditioner and leaned against it. The box was a few inche
s too tall to make hopping up on it like a seat easy enough to bother.
“You had no way to know. It’s not your fault those people are dead.”
She stopped knotting wire and let her hands fall in her lap. “I know.” After a pause, she sniffled and wiped her face. “The Resistance represented our last chance. I was supposed to have the cure. Save the world. Now everyone’s going to die.”
“Look…” He put a hand on her shoulder. “You did all you could. Blame the sick bastard who came up with the Virus in the first place.”
“What if I wasn’t so slow? It was my fault those idiots caught me. If I’d been a little more resourceful, I wouldn’t have been abducted and―”
“You’d have showed up in time to die from whatever killed them.” Kevin shook his head. “I can’t say I’m terribly impressed with this ‘resistance’ if they’re dumb enough to set up shop in the middle of a damn hive.”
Tris pulled a knot tight to the scabbard. “They made the Virus to ‘scrub’ the world of those with genetic impurities. They’re paranoid about DNA damage from nuclear fallout, inbreeding, toxic chemicals… Those poor people.”
“What’s the Resistance hope to accomplish anyway? The Enclave is one city. It’s not like they’re in control of anything but themselves.”
She shrugged the sword over her shoulder onto her back, measuring a length of wire around front as she let off a somber chuckle. “They wanted to break down the wall. Open the Enclave up. It started inside with a small group of dissidents. I remember being a little girl and seeing the head talk about it.”
“The head?” He lowered himself to sit and waited for his heart to slow back to normal. “I gotta hear this.”
“Oh.” She smiled. “It’s not a real head. Everything’s scary to a five-year-old. The Speaker. He’s appointed by the Council of Four. Most citizens think he’s in charge, like a president or something. His face is everywhere. There’s TV screens all over the place.”
“Maybe they tossed you in jail because you found out about this council thing.”
“No. The Council is common knowledge.” Tris fidgeted until the sword sat right, and shifted around to sit next to him with her back to the air handler. “I might’ve been six or seven when the Speaker announced there were people among us who were trying to destroy us from within. At the time, I was terrified. I had no idea what was really going on. They weren’t trying to kill us.” She tapped her shoes together. “They wanted to overthrow the council.”
“And do what? Stop trying to kill everyone else?” He contemplated closing his eyes, until another moan floated up from below.
“Either that or escape. Civilians aren’t allowed to leave.” She pulled her feet close and rested her chin on her knee. “I think the Virus might have mutated in ways they never expected. Now they’re afraid of their own weapon. The victims weren’t supposed to live more than a couple months after contracting the disease.”
Kevin shivered. “Infected have been around at least ten years. I don’t think it’s ‘working as intended.’ Sure, there were survivors in big pop centers, but not enough to keep it this bad, this long.”
“I thought you said Harrisburg was one of the worst.”
He chuckled. “It is.”
For a while, they sat in silence, listening to scratches and moans while gazing at the stars. Tris leaned to her right and rested her head on his shoulder. He raised an eyebrow at her, noticing silent tears.
Tris hung her head. “Those people didn’t deserve to die.”
“They’re not dead yet. If they were, shooting them in the heart wouldn’t do much.”
She squinted into a breeze that lifted her hair. “Not much different. The people they used to be… The world that used to be.”
“Hey.” He grabbed her hand. “The nukes came down long before those Enclave bastards set the Virus loose.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Why do you have to do anything? Try to stay alive, that’s enough.”
She glanced up at him with a sour expression. “Get a roadhouse, sell guns and booze, and hope no one breaks those ‘rules’ you keep talking about? You think that’s a goal?”
Kevin closed his eyes. “Oh, it’s definitely a goal.” He opened one eye. “Might be a petty and selfish goal, but it is a goal.” He shut his eye and tried to relax.
Tris sighed.
Sunlight knocked on Kevin’s eyelids until the red glow dragged him kicking and screaming out of sleep. He grunted, raised a hand to shield his face, and squinted at a world tinted green. At a nearby cough, he pushed himself up and looked toward it.
Tris knelt near the roof edge, doubled over and holding her gut. She gagged and dry heaved. Kevin flailed in an uncoordinated attempt to stand.
“You okay?”
“No.” She shrank in on herself, shaking. “I had a fucking bomb inside me for months. I could’ve died any time Nathan wanted to push a button.” She gurgled. “So, no. I’m not okay.”
“Hey…” He crouched by her side. “You―”
Tris whirled and wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you.”
Kevin wheezed at the slender arms forcing most of the air out of his chest. “Urk.”
She relaxed, but didn’t let go, and bit her lower lip. “Sorry, still not used to the augments. They’re still new… I got them right before the ‘escape.’”
“Probably when they put the hot pepper in you.”
Tris shivered. “Yeah. Wonder if there’s any other nasty surprises.”
“I might be a bit rusty, but if you need someone to do a cavity search…” He raised both eyebrows. “I’ve got a medical degree.”
“You?”
He nodded. “Yep. Found it with some salvage awhile back.”
She gazed at the sunrise for a quiet moment. “If we get out of this alive, maybe.”
He nodded toward a pair of metal bars looping over the south edge of the roof. “Not that hard. Sun’s up.”
“Infected don’t burst into flame in the day.” She let her arms drop and wandered to the ladder. “We don’t really know why they avoid light. People who contract rabies become hydrophobic, so maybe it’s similar.”
“I’d shit myself if I saw a hydra too.” Kevin followed.
“Ass.” She threw a leg over the wall and descended, pausing when her face hovered over the edge. “Hydra’s are mythological.”
He raised both eyebrows. “So were zombies.”
She poked him in the side. “How the hell do you know what a hydra is anyway?”
“I spent most of my life hunting for crap to sell. I usually read any books before I turn them into coin. One had hydras in it, but usually its dragons.”
Tris muttered the whole way to the street level. Kevin hustled after her.
“Dragon’s aren’t real either.”
“Thanks for the clarification there.” She sighed. “As far as I know, the Enclave isn’t working on any giant reptiles. Be right back.” She jogged into the service station through the front door, glass crunching under her shoes.
“Yeah?” He moved to the center of the street, turning in a slow spin, searching for anything familiar in the shapes of buildings. At least with the sun up, he could head generally west and south. “Enclave ain’t much known for ‘restraint’ when it comes to what they tinker with.”
Kevin glanced at the smashed windows. What the hell is she doing? He trotted up to the wall, leaning past the twisted aluminum frame. Blood trailed in the grooves in the bricks below the window, pooling inside and out. Looters had long ago taken anything of value from the store, before anyone knew such a thing as an Infected could exist.
He backed away from the blood, not trusting breathing that close to it. Every direction he looked, the streets lay empty. The imagined ghosts of survivors walked about, continuing in some manner of life devoid of electricity and modern conveniences, but life nonetheless. Then the Virus happened.
“We had
a chance…”
Glass crunched behind him. He looked back at Tris tiptoeing around the shelves, carrying his red leather jacket. Realizing why she’d gone inside, he cracked up laughing. After handing it to him, she swatted dust out of her jumpsuit, raising the muted smell of sewer for the span of a few breaths.
“You went back for this?” Kevin checked his jacket for blood. Finding none, he put it on. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t want you giving me crap for making you lose it. I know how much you like your jacket, and you’d say it was my fault because you let me borrow it for a blanket.”
A somewhat combative reply died at the tip of his brain when she grinned. “Busting my balls, huh?”
“Yeah.” She pawed at her sleeves.
“Ugh. Burn that damn thing. You smell like shit.” He coughed. “And I don’t mean that as a euphemism either. You smell like actual shit.”
“I’m not streaking.”
He walked to the west, following a road. “Do you want to get shot at or jumped by someone looking for an Enclave bounty?”
“I don’t think the Infected care.” She trotted to keep up with his long stride. “Unlike you, I’m not attached to a particular item of clothing, just clothing in general.”
“Wayne’ll have some stuff I bet. Ornery bastard’ll squeeze you for it though.”
She made a blasé face. “If you mean money, I don’t have any.”
Kevin sighed.
After several blocks walking past crashed cars, scorched buildings, and the destructive aftermath of mass riots, Tris fell behind, gazing at the road. Kevin paused until she caught up, and took her arm.
“No point getting in a funk about it. Feeling shitty isn’t gonna undo any of it.”
She looked up at him with red ringing her wide sapphire eyes. If he couldn’t see the rest of her, the face she gave him would’ve made her look fourteen.
“What?”
Tris sniffled. “What do you mean ‘what?’”
“Women only make that face when they want something.” He stopped. “What do you want?”
One More Run (Roadhouse Chronicles Book 1) Page 8
