“Victory in war is not repetitious, but adapts its form endlessly, Colonel,” Joseph said. The virus is. They met eye to eye. Joseph knew he was right.
“We stay,” Colonel Jackson said. “Good night, Doctor.” Jackson walked away.
Joseph wandered back into his medical tent. His mind was in a daze. This is not a conventional war. This was an unconventional war at best, but Joseph knew this wasn’t even like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but a whole new animal. An animal that the United States Armed Forces wasn’t ready to face; they wouldn’t have a chance to regroup. Joseph needed someone who was willing to gamble. Joseph knew that man, Mark Steele, and he was dead.
MAUSER
Backbone Peak, WV
Mauser’s feet sank deep into the mud. The mud slurped as it sucked him down. He lifted his foot free, feeling like a bug stuck in fly paper. Mobile and hostile and stuck in the fucking mud.
The twisted stink of the brown goop mixed with decaying flesh assaulted him. The stench was a punch to his gut, making him recoil in disgust. He managed to stand upright, flailing his elbows, to catch his balance, his hands still tied together.
The moonshiners hollered at him from above, their faces shadowed like demons by a hellish firelight.
“Eager bastard,” Puck bellowed. A smile cracked his boulder of a head.
“He don’t even know where to go,” Casey laughed, his mustache twitching like rat whiskers. Mauser had no choice but to ignore them. They were the least of his problems.
“Ahmed,” he screamed. Ahmed grappled with an infected, his back smearing along the mud wall. Its face inched closer to Ahmed’s, teeth clanking together. His hands slipped over its skin. Ahmed’s feet shifted, trying to gain footing in the sludge beneath them. More mud-doused people came for their fresh meat.
“Help,” Ahmed yelled at him from the corner. Mauser squared himself to the mass of dead. They were entirely red with mud. Their clothes had melded together, skin with cloth and cloth with skin. The mud accelerated the decomposition process, leaving flesh clinging to bones like stretched thin bubblegum.
Mauser launched himself for the infected. He drove himself into the undead. Flesh squished beneath his fists as he shoved and ripped them, unfazed by his assault. He strained with his calves as he drove into them. Keeping them stacked was the only way to survive.
Using his hands like a hammer, he backhanded a man into the mud and double-hand punched another into the others. Collapsing backward, they fell into one another. They flopped and flung stinking brown matter. He shoved another and threw him back into the wall. Black gore drooled down the undead man’s lipless face. It growled through its perpetual skeletal grin. The wall of death wavered but only gave him a moment of respite.
Mauser’s chest burst for air, the sudden onset of hand to hand combat taxing his system. He swung an elbow wildly backward, as a hand dug into his shoulder. Ahmed barely dodged him.
“I thought you were toast,” Mauser breathed. His chest heaved. Ahmed showed him a red rock the size of a softball in his hand.
“Always bring a rock to a fist fight,” Ahmed said. His fist blurred past Mauser and slammed the rock atop an infected skull. Its skull crunched and the infected dropped facedown into the mud.
“Try and keep that body beneath us. Better footing,” Mauser said. More undead slipped, clawed, and crawled their way for them. They were a muddy circus of death. Mauser leaned back adjusting the body of the fallen undead. The gleeful faces of their captors watched from above their mountain gladiatorial combat.
“I got a jar of Old Barnum’s favorite hooch that the city boy gets it first,” Puck called out.
“I’ll take you up on that, that Terry is a goner,” Casey shouted.
“Double or nuttin’ on the A-rab,” Chuck squealed. His pig-like jowls jiggled in delight.
Mauser frantically searched the edges of the pit for a way out, mocked by the sinister grins of his captors.
“No way out, baby,” One-eyed Sue said. She smiled down at him. Fucking One-eyed Sue. Mauser hated them even more. He jumped onto the mud wall, trying to climb out, slipping and sliding down its face. How the hell can I climb out without my hands free? Only a hand from above could pull them free of this mess.
Ahmed’s voice shook as he spoke. “They’re coming.”
Escape was so close. Gwen was there too. She looked away from them.
“Any ideas?” he screamed at her. She was silent, her face dour. He spun, fury rising inside him.
“Let’s give them a show then. I’ll grab them, you mash ’em,” Mauser said. I’ve got to be quick. A mongoose. But this mud is making me no better than a three-toed sloth. The zombies pushed closer to him and Ahmed. A host of brown soulless ghouls in a never-ending struggle to consume them.
Mauser side-stepped and pulled a zombie by his neck face first at Ahmed while giving another a shove into his buddies. He double-fist-punched an infected woman with long thin hair in the face sending her flying backwards. She snarled as she went down, arms thrashing in the mud. His arms erupted upward into the chin of a man in disintegrating overalls. It fell into the mud walls, unable to stand back up.
Hands dug into his leg like claws, raking flesh from calf. Using Mauser’s leg, an infected face emerged from the mud pit floor. It pulled itself out from the confines of its semi-earthen prison. Mauser stomped down with his other foot three times, the crack of bone sounding louder than the squishing mud. Another one down. We can do this.
Ahmed rushed past him, more of a wobbling slog, and smacked his rock into the face of another infected. He whirled, throwing a series of punches with his rock and assassinated another. Ahmed took a few steps back to gain his wind, and Mauser took two heavy steps forward.
Mauser’s ankle turned sideways off something hard beneath him. He felt a crack. A roar went up from the crowd. Pain shot up his foot into his leg and he fell backward. Shit.
The mud gobbled up his tied hands and he sank into it. Before he could sit up, an infected toppled onto him. The infected’s jaw worked like a starving man at a feast. Mauser pushed the man’s mouth away from his and sank deeper into the bog for his efforts.
The reeking mud enveloped Mauser, accepting him into her fetid womb, and another infected plunged upon him, forcing him farther into the sludge. The mud molded around his body, lapping his face like rank chocolate pudding. It violated his ears, muffling the sounds of struggle as it creeped its way around his face. The pounding of blood in his head overcame Ahmed’s faint yells. Mauser’s focus zeroed on one thing. The infected man trying to kill him.
Half the infected’s face had melted away, its molars grinding together exposed by an open wound. Its nose was a cavern, deep and black. Its eye socket a mere soupy hole, and a speckled white tendon held its jaw together. A jaw that bent low, trying to take a chunk out of Mauser’s face. Mauser fought with all his might, the mud holding him in a bear hug like a Russian bouncer. Maybe suffocating in mud would be better. Less painful if you just embrace it.
More hands scratched at his arms and legs. He let them press him slowly into the pit’s floor. One more breath before I go under. I have saved so many from drowning. Now, it will be my demise. Muted sounds surrounded him. His heart felt like it was going to explode. He fought to keep his limbs out of the mouths of his attackers. His body panicked as it realized he had stopped taking in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. Sorry, old pal. At that point, he knew he would die.
GWEN
Backbone Peak, WV
Fear paralyzed her. It riddled her body with ice, freezing her in place. Her friends fought in slow motion, their lives hanging with each swing of a fist and clack of gore-stained teeth. Mauser’s fingers grasped out of the mud from beneath a pile of infected. His fingers curled around the torso of the nearest dead.
Ahmed fought like mad. He lowered his shoulder into the infected and knocked them off balance. He slammed the rock into their faces.
She was stuck in a virtual painting. Fo
rced to watch the life and death struggle of her loved ones. Puck’s heavy arm wrapped around her shoulders, a straitjacket grip.
“Well, look at that. The old city boy went down first,” he said. Gwen lowered her eyes. She couldn’t watch any more. I’m too late for them. A tear trickled down her cheek. Puck’s iron fingers wrapped around her jaw, forcing her face back to the fight below.
“Watch,” he growled. Mauser was limp beneath the bodies. Ahmed continued a losing battle for his life. Puck shouted out over the pit, “Looks like youse owe me a jar of the good stuff.”
“Damn, Puck. You always pick ’em right.” Casey slapped his leg in disgust. “You see that, boy?” He clapped Eddie on the back, his shackled wrists clanked together, his chains hanging below his knees.
“Yes, master,” Eddie mumbled, head bowed.
Ahmed wrestled with a pile of dead, striking out with his fists at the dead.
They will die, and nothing you did helped them, Gwen’s mind mocked her. Her eyes drifted from the death of her friends. Something caught her attention in the woods. A shadow moved near the pine trees surrounding their camp. A long dirty beard shadowed by the light. Mark? Am I going crazy? She wiggled her head free of Puck’s grasp, but when she looked back, Mark’s phantom was gone. Why do you still haunt me, love? Her hope sank into the pit with her friends, and her heart fled with Mark’s specter.
Shouts of laughter made her look back upon the pit fight. Ahmed ripped bodies from on top of Mauser, kicking, kneeing, punching, and throwing the dead.
He’s gone.
Mauser’s hands were limp, shifting only with the movement of the bodies atop of him.
Gwen’s eyes kept returning to the trees. The shadow reappeared. He walked slowly, following along the tree line. Are infected in the camp again? Gwen almost raised the alarm, but something deep inside her held her tongue. Fuck these people. I’d rather die than help them.
“The Arab is a better fighter than he looks,” Puck said, sounding a bit impressed.
Ahmed backhanded a mud-drenched infected into the sludge. He fell into the mud, exhausted from his battles, and sank to his knees. The infected man grabbed Ahmed and pulled him down.
Gwen did a double-take. Infected Mark stalked behind Henry, who had inched up near the pit to catch a glimpse of the fight. She gulped as blood spurted from his neck, and the man was yanked backwards, a firm hand around his chin. Infected Mark dragged the man across the ground. Henry’s feet begged for traction. The body and Infected Mark disappeared into the darkness, her last glimpse of them was only Henry’s lifeless feet bent sideways.
Puck shook her. “What are you looking at, woman? Why aren’t you watching the fun?”
Gwen smiled as prettily as she could up at him. “Nothing, dear. Just the festivities.” She almost choked on the last word.
KaKrat-KaKrat. Gunfire erupted from the edge of the camp. The blasts roared in the night, overpowering the moonshiners’ laughs with gunshots.
They stopped hooting and peered drunkenly in the direction of the gunfire. Only firelight danced among the trees.
“What’s that all about?” Fat Chuck called out.
Puck stood up, pushing her away, his hand hefting his AK-47 to his hip. He walked to the other side of the pit.
“Casey and Owen, check that out,” Puck called out. He gestured with his index finger into the darkness. He stopped and squinted, eyes narrowing. An infected tumbled from the darkness as if it had spawned right into the camp. It fell into Puck.
Puck embraced the fiend in a tight bear hug. He picked it up and threw it into the pit with a flick of his arms.
“How the hell?” he shouted. He turned to his terrified comrades. Infected poured into the light. Puck shoved an infected to the ground and bashed its skull in with the stock of his rifle. Snatching up his axe, he howled, “They’re inside. Fight.”
Scores of infected responded to his call as his fellow moonshiners scattered in every direction. Owen screamed as three infected brought him down from behind, tearing into his back. Dark red organs wriggled in their hands as they ripped into him.
Puck swung his axe like a barbarian; it swished back and forth, cleaving with one end, bashing with the other. With his other hand, he fired the AK-47, bursting off rounds on full auto into the dark. The moans of the dead rang loud and free as if they already celebrated their victory over the living.
Infected Mark emerged from the shadows. A long wound ran along his scalp. He stared at Gwen blankly, then ran for her.
“Mark,” she cried out softly. You return to me like this? Just stay dead.
He bounded closer and closer. Her heart wept. Blood stained his beard and clothes. His head was hideously damaged where he had been shot. His hands gripped her elbows.
She turned away, knowing that at any moment his mouth that had kissed her lips, caressed her skin, whispered sweet nothings, driven her mad and sang at the top of his lungs on so many occasions would betray her. His mouth would rip into her flesh, instantly infecting her with the virus as it tore her skin and lips away from her body. She closed her eyes. She squeezed them tight so that the terrors of the night couldn’t reach her.
“It’s me,” he whispered. He looked over her shoulder. “Grab Eddie and help Mauser and Ahmed out of the pit,” his apparition uttered. He squeezed her arms and released her. When she cracked her eyes open, he was gone like it was a dream. Eddie hobbled around the pit.
“I’ll help you,” Eddie said, eyes wide in fear. She ignored him as she watched Mark march away from her.
“Hey, you.” The mountain of a man turned. “Yeah you, you big fuck. Let’s do this,” Mark cursed.
Puck pointed his AK-47 right at Mark. Mark charged straight for him and Puck grinned underneath his beard as he squeezed the trigger. Click. Click.
Steele darted around him. In and out he weaved, jabbing and slicing at the large man with a knife. Gwen was in shock. Mark was still alive. He was here and alive. The pressure of two hands wrapped around her ankle. Soiled fingers gripped her leg. I got too close.
She kicked at it with her other foot, but the hands had a vice-like grip. She tipped backward onto her butt and struggled in reverse. Eddie yanked on the hand, unable to pull her free. The hands held on and a bloody mud-caked red head poked out of the pit. Mauser. Eddie pulled his arms up.
Mauser collapsed on the ground. His chest heaved heavily, but he forced himself back up.
“Ahmed,” Mauser yelled at her. They both scrambled to the edge of the pit.
They all reached for Ahmed. His eyes pleaded for them. His arms reached for any part of them he could get his hands on.
“Grab him,” Mauser grunted. Gwen’s hands slipped through Ahmed’s. The mud made him as slippery as an eel. Infected clawed at Ahmed’s back, pulling him back down into the sludge. Ahmed jumped up again, his feet never leaving the mud pit.
“I can’t reach,” Ahmed strained. Gwen ran to Owen’s body. His carbine lay nearby, his hand twitching as the dead consumed him. She snatched it up. Ignoring the blood slicking her hand, she quickly pulled it from his grasp before the infected woman feasting on him noticed she was close.
She spun and sprinted to the pit. She squeezed the trigger at the dead faces staring back at her. Her first shots missed, but as she worked the trigger, her shots cleaned up. Her bullets disappeared into the dead’s heads, turning them to mush.
Mark.
Turning on her heels, she pointed the carbine at Puck and Mark. The men were locked in a combatants’ deadly embrace. They grunted and strained for advantage over the other. Puck’s tree-trunk arms engulfed Mark’s body. Mark’s back bent and he wedged his hands into Puck’s hips like a hinge, creating space.
Gwen tried to line up a shot, her arms swaying as she tried to place the front sight with the rear sight. Puck and Mark staggered back and forth. She couldn’t take the shot without hitting Mark.
“Mark needs your help,” she screamed. Mauser looked at her, confused, but Ahmed ran
to help. Within a second, Mauser was right behind him, hobbling to his best friend’s aid. Ahmed left his feet, putting a shoulder into Puck’s side. Puck stood upright, wrapping an arm around both Ahmed and Mark like an older brother with his younger siblings, holding the men at bay.
Mauser, reaching the fray, planted a savage kick into the side of Puck’s knee. The knee cracked and the giant’s leg sunk inwards. The giant toppled like a tree. The ground shook. She was sure of it. In a flurry of blows, Mark, Ahmed, and Mauser rained fists upon Puck until he quit moving.
She felt a pang of pity in her heart for the hillbilly, but she quickly forgot him. The three men approached, each man hardly recognizable. Mark stepped closer than the rest and draped his arms around her body. She felt stiff and rigid, cold beneath his embrace. His mere presence was a contradictory betrayal.
“We gotta get out of here, man,” Mauser said. In his freed hands, he held Puck’s wood axe. He cleaved a white-eyed zombie’s forehead, splitting it in two.
“Can I have this?” Mark said. He relieved Gwen of the carbine, prying it from her white-knuckled grip. He inspected it, turning it over in his hands.
“Never thought I’d see this again,” he said. A short smile touched his lips.
Gwen’s heart jumped. “The women are in the shed.” She pushed free of Mark and made a sprint for their prison.
“No time. We have to run,” Ahmed said, panting.
She ignored them all. Moans of the undead followed her in the night, but she ignored them and the shouts of her friends as she ran for the shed. Two infected pounded the door with open palms. She could hear terrified cries from within.
“Help! Help us,” the woman inside the shed called. What am I going to kill them with?
A muzzle flashed yellow in the night, and an infected dropped. Mark stepped up next to her, and fired another shot. It entered and exited the skull of the infected. The infected man joined his comrade in a heap of exploded brain matter.
The End Time Saga (Book 2): The Breaking Page 15
