The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy

by Tony Battista

  How does your leg feel today,” she asked as she stirred a pot of chicken stew over the makeshift stove.

  “It's healing,” he shrugged. “It's a little tender, but not that bad, really.”

  “You are such a fucking liar,” Vickie said without turning.

  Jake sipped his coffee in silence until she brought him a bowl of chicken stew and the last of the crackers.

  “I usually have scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast,” he teased. “Sometimes with a side of pancakes or waffles.”

  “Find me a damned chicken and you'll get eggs. If you want bacon, find me a pig, but you'll have to butcher the poor fucker yourself.”

  She noticed the slight wince on Jake's face.

  “You don't swear, do you?” she said suddenly. “Of course not! All the shit I've put you through and you haven't sworn at me once! What is it? Are you religious?”

  “I believe in God, but I wouldn't call myself overly religious. I just think people take swearing too lightly, use foul language just as a matter of course until it no longer has any impact. If you hear me swear, you'd better pay attention because something serious will be going down.”

  “More serious than a zombie apocalypse?”

  “They aren't zombies. Actually, a zombie is a human who’s been drugged or mesmerized into becoming a sort of slave without a free will. Hollywood turned them into supernatural, living dead creatures that won't die without destroying the brain. These are people with a disease. Their brains have already been destroyed in the sense that they've lost all power of reason and only exist to feed. They're violent and murderous and cannibalistic, but for all other purposes they're actually still human.”

  “Oh, that makes me feel so much better about the ones I've killed! Thank you for that!”

  “You do what you have to do to survive,” he said simply.

  Vickie made no comment, but tried to reconcile what he’d just said with the natural reluctance to take a human life. Logically, they had to do what was needed to survive, but she’d never really be able to think of the infected as pure evil, to completely disassociate them from ordinary people suffering from a terrible disease.

  Once he'd finished eating, Jake tried to stand up but his face twisted in pain and he let out a grunt and sat back down heavily. He tried to smile it away when Vickie looked at him, but she wasn't to be fooled.

  “You are going nowhere today,” she scolded. “I'm going to help you over to the sofa and I'm going to look at that wound again and you are going to sit there and take it easy for the rest of the day!”

  “But, we-”

  “But nothing!” Her voice left no room for argument and Jake sighed and let her help him to the sofa. She took off the dressing and clucked her tongue at the sight of the wound. “It's swollen up and it just looks ugly. It might be getting infected. I found a bottle of alcohol in the medicine cabinet. It'll hurt like hell, but I'm going to have to clean it up.”

  Jake said nothing and when Vickie returned with the alcohol and began working on the wound, he gritted his teeth and clenched his fists and tensed his whole body, sweating and quivering, but didn't let out a sound the whole while.

  “Tough guy,” she said, sarcastically. “Who are you putting on the act for? Too macho to cry in front of a girl?”

  “I think you enjoyed that, at least a little.”

  “You can be pretty infuriating,” she said while re-bandaging his leg. “Now, do you need anything before I put you to bed?”

  “I'm not spending the day in bed!”

  “In bed or right here on the sofa! If you try to get up, I swear I'll sit on you and tie you down, and don't think I couldn't!”

  “Sooner or later, I'll have to use the john.”

  “I found an empty milk jug you can use, and I'll put a bucket next to the sofa. Don't give me that look! With all that we've been through together so far, I'm not going to be mortally offended by you shitting in a bucket!”

  She brought the jug, a bucket and a roll of toilet paper and took the dirty dishes into the kitchen. Jake watched her go and marveled that this could be the same frightened, helpless girl he'd met only a few days earlier. He lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply, blowing the smoke out again slowly. She was going to be all right.

  . . .

  Once she'd finished in the kitchen, Vickie came back into the living room and sat on the easy chair next to him. She took the cigarette from his hand, took a quick draw and handed it back, coughing.

  “Filthy habit,” he told her. “Not good for your health at all.”

  “I'll worry about other things first, if you don't mind. I'm going out to the car for the water bottles. There were only four in the ammo bag. Before you try to tell me 'no'”, she added as Jake began to sit up suddenly, “I'll tell you to save your breath. There's enough canned food here to last, but we need that water if we're going to be here another day or two.”

  “Okay, but promise me you won't take any chances.”

  “When have you ever known me to take unnecessary chances? I've got my pistol in my holster and I found a .38 in one of the closets. I'll be quick and I'll be fine.”

  “Look through the windows and check out the area before you go outside.”

  “Oh, thanks. I never would have thought of that,” she scoffed, and she leaned over to kiss him on the mouth, lingering for a few moments, then, revolver in hand, left him.

  The street was clear as far as she could see and she slipped outside and stood in the doorway for a few seconds, then walked to the car in a crouch. Her hand had just touched the handle when she heard a scream from somewhere down the block, a scream suddenly cut short. She looked quickly around, seeing no one, nothing out of place. Every instinct told her that she should go back to the house and, like Jake said, not take any chances, but she found she couldn’t simply ignore another person in need.

  Fighting down her fear, she began to work her way down the block in the direction of the sound. Just past the empty lot, she heard a sobbing, pleading voice saying 'no' over and over and the sound of harsh voices laughing. She pulled back the hammer of the .38. Following the sound of the voices, she came to a yard with a high, wooden fence and flattened herself against it next to the open gate.

  Peeking around the gatepost, she saw four men and a woman, the woman struggling while one of the men pinned her arms from behind and another, having ripped her blouse open, was roughly mauling her breasts. The other two were laughing and cheering him on and one of them was wiping a bloody knife off on his pant leg. That was when she noticed the fifth man on his back on the ground, face beaten to a pulp and hands feebly trying to move. He had been slashed on both sides of his neck and blood pumped out of the gashes with every failing heartbeat.

  Vickie took a deep breath, trying to control her trembling and work up her courage. The sound of a slap and a yelp from the woman decided for her and, holding the revolver down against her hip, she stepped through the gate. The girl saw her first and looked at her with pleading eyes. The man molesting her noticed and turned around.

  “Hey, lookee here,” he shouted. “We got us another one!”

  “She's kinda scrawny, Jackie,” laughed one of the others. “I'll let you go first, 'cause she's gone be ruined when I get done with her!”

  That's when he noticed her bringing up the gun. The last thing he ever saw was the barrel pointing straight at his face.

  Vickie pulled the trigger. The hollow point slug blasted through his left eye and out the back of his head and he died before he hit the ground. The other men froze for a moment and that was long enough for Vickie to fire again, hitting the fondler in the point of his chin. He screamed in a bloody gurgle and put his hands to his ruined jaw and his scream snapped the other two to their senses. The one holding the girl threw one arm around her and tried to reach for the gun in his back pocket while she struggled. The other clawed for the pistol behind his belt and Vickie fired twice more, hitting him in the left shoulder and the center of h
is chest. The girl had enough presence of mind to bring her heel down hard on the last man's toes and broke free. He struggled for a moment longer with the gun, but the hammer was caught in a tear in the pocket and he held both hands palm out in front of him.

  “I ain't hurt nobody,” he pleaded. “Jackie there, he was the one what cut that boy's throat! I didn't have nothin’ to do with it!”

  “You were just having a little fun with her, then, is that it?”

  He half-smiled and then looked in her eyes and knew. He tried to reach for his gun again but Vickie calmly fired once more and blew away his right kneecap. While he was on the ground, holding his knee in both hands and screaming in pain, she fired her last round, shattering his left shinbone. She stuck the revolver in her waistband, drew the 9mm and rolled him onto his stomach with her foot. Ripping the gun from his pocket, she tossed it toward the gate. She did the same with the other man's gun and stared down at them with hatred. Two of them were already dead. The one with the ruined jaw kept gurgling and crying while rolling on the ground and the one with the shot up legs cursed her and spat at her.

  “Let's go,” she told the girl. “The noise these guys are making, they're going to have company soon.”

  The man with the crippled legs stopped dead and stared at her, the blood draining from his face.

  “You ain't gonna leave me like this? Them things will eat me alive! God almighty, you can't leave me like this!”

  Vickie beckoned to the girl who numbly followed her, trying to pull the remnants of her blouse closed. At the gate, Vickie picked up the two guns and they headed toward the brick house as the thug behind them hurled curses at her. Several infected were already heading toward the gate, attracted by the noise. One of them looked at the two girls, but the thug screamed another curse and it turned back toward the noise. The screaming turned from curses to terror and then to agony and Vickie hurried the other girl toward the house. Infected were starting to come in numbers now and they ran the last dozen yards.

  Jake was standing on the porch, leaning heavily against a post, rifle to his shoulder. He fired twice, dropping two infected who were nearing the house.

  “Get in the car,” Vickie shouted at the girl, pushing her toward the Hummer. She ran to the porch and pulled Jake's arm over her shoulder and helped him to the back door on the driver side. Once she slammed the door, she ran back into the house, scooped up the first aid kit and the ammo bag and raced back to the Hummer. Firing three shots to bring down two more infected, Vickie jumped in behind the wheel. She started the car, put it in gear, and sped down the street, now beginning to teem with infected heading for a feeding frenzy.

  “Oh, God, thank you! Thank you!” the girl in the passenger seat bawled.

  “Friend of yours?” asked Jake, deadpan.

  Ignoring him, Vickie asked the girl “Who the hell were those guys?”

  “I don't know,” she sobbed. “We saw the house with the fence and thought we'd be safe there for a while, but they jumped us as soon as we walked through the gate!”

  “You want to tell me what happened back there, Vickie?” Jake asked.

  “Later! I'm heading back to the island. There's too many infected taking an interest in that neighborhood now to suit me.”

  Nodding, Jake unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off, handing it to the newcomer. She smiled a thank you at him and put it on

  “My name's Jake. I see you've already met Vickie.”

  “I'm- I'm Carolyn, Carolyn Henson. She saved my life!”

  “We'll talk about that once we're safe on the island,” Vickie interrupted. “How's the leg, Jake?”

  “Okay. I'll be fine.”

  Carolyn looked over the seat-back at his leg and cried out “You're bleeding!”

  “Bleeding? I thought you said you were doing okay, Jake!”

  “It's not bad; it's just seeping a little.”

  “It's running down his leg,” Carolyn said, crawling over into the back seat. She applied pressure to his leg and Jake grimaced and gripped the upholstery tightly.

  Vickie turned onto the lane leading to the bridge. The infected had finished feeding and had moved on except for a couple of stragglers. Stopping the Hummer near the bridge, Vickie jumped out with the machete in hand and chopped at the neck of the nearest one. It went down after two solid hits. The other infected already had an ugly head wound and was wandering about aimlessly, paying them no attention so Vickie opened the back door and helped Jake out. She unlocked the gate while Carolyn supported him and the two of them managed to get him across the bridge into the compound and inside the building. When they had him situated on the mattress in the dining room, Carolyn used Jake’s knife to cut away his pant-leg while Vickie went back out to the Hummer to retrieve the long guns and the first aid bag and lock the doors. She recrossed the bridge, making sure to lock that gate behind her as well as the compound gate, and went back to the dining room to find Carolyn placing a pot of water on the stove to boil.

  “I can't believe you have running water here!”

  “There's a generator out in back and a pressure tank in the utility room. How's his leg looking?”

  “He tore a couple of stitches,” she told Vickie. “Who sewed him up like that?”

  “He did that himself, the crazy... idiot!”

  “I could tell it wasn't a professional job. Well, I'll have to pull all those stitches and clean out that wound before stitching it up again. He’s not going to like the way it feels and it's definitely going to leave an ugly scar.”

  “You’re a nurse, a doctor?” Vickie asked her.

  “My mom-” Carolyn's voice cracked and she paused a moment to collect herself. “My mom was a nurse before... before all this happened. She- she turned. My dad couldn't bring himself to... to do what was necessary, and she bit him. He told me to run while he tried to hold her off. Once I got out on the street, they were everywhere, attacking everyone in sight. Benny, he was the guy they killed up there, luckily for me he’d just driven up to see if I was okay so I got into his car and we headed out of the city. We got as far as the Benton Pike before we ran out of gas and we hooked up with a group of people who were living in a triplex. It was overrun three days ago, but Benny managed to get me out of there and we ended up where you found us.

  “Anyway, mom was an ER nurse and she taught me something about stitching and bandaging and taking care of wounds. He's really going to need some antibiotics, because that wound looks pretty bad.”

  Vickie went to the kitchen and returned with one of the baskets from the pharmacy.

  “We raided a drug store a few days back,” she explained.

  “Oh, yeah. This will do nicely,” Carolyn said after sifting through the bottles and picking one out. “We'll dose him with these for at least a week, and keep him off his feet as much as possible.”

  “I really like it when people talk about me like I'm not even there,” Jake put in.

  “Sorry,” said Carolyn. “I'll get you a glass of water so you can take these, then I'll clean your wound and replace those stitches.” Turning to Vickie, she asked, “Did you happen to find any topical anesthetics in that drug store? That would make it a lot easier on him.”

  “Everything we found is in that cabinet, the open one.”

  Carolyn went into the kitchen and Jake looked at Vickie.

  “So, what happened back there?”

  Vickie quickly recapped the events in the fenced in yard and Jake just stared at her.

  “When did you become such a bad-ass?”

  “Why, Jake, I'm shocked!” she teased. “You actually swore!”

  Carolyn came back and gave Jake the glass of water, then applied the anesthetic to his leg and soaked a clean towel in the pot of hot water.

  “So, Benny was your boyfriend?” Vickie wondered.”

  “Oh, God, no! Benny was a wonderful guy, but he was gay. He was my best friend for years. He deserved so much better than what those animals did to him.”

&nbs
p; She took the cloth out of the pot and wrung most of the water from it.

  “I'm going to put this on your leg and let it soften up the dried blood before I clean it. I won't lie to you. Even with the topical, redoing those stitches is going to hurt like hell.”

  “Can't be much worse than when I sewed it up myself,” he shrugged. “Didn't have anything to put on it then.”

  “Mr. Macho,” Vickie scoffed.

  “Well, Mr. Macho, we’ll see if you change your mind when I get started.”

  By the time it was all done, Jake was sweating and panting and he felt like screaming his head off, but managed to get through it with only a few groans and gasps. Vickie sat next to him and hugged him tightly throughout the ordeal, which caused him both pleasure and embarrassment. Carolyn taped a bandage over the wound and gave him two more pills to take. Jake swallowed them before thinking to ask what they were.

  “Sedative,” Carolyn told him. “You're going to go to sleep for a while. No sense in arguing, it's already done. Best thing in the world for you right now is rest.”

  Jake let out a resigned sigh and nodded, secretly relieved.

  “Top of the stairs on the left you'll find a bedroom and bathroom,” Vickie told Carolyn after they’d made him as comfortable as possible. “You can catch a hot shower and find some clean clothes.

  “Are you serious? A hot shower?”

  “All the comforts of home here on Fantasy Island. I'll clean things up here, you go ahead.”

  Carolyn took off with a smile and Vickie gathered up the bloody rags and the pot of water and took it all into the kitchen. When she came back, she knelt next to Jake and put her hand on his forehead.

  “You might be coming down with a fever, you feel kind of warm. I'll go up and get you another blanket.”

  She started to get up when Jake took hold of her arm.

  “How are you doing,” he asked her.

  “Me? I'm fine! You're the one who's hurt.”

  “Physically, yes, but what about you? Two days ago, you couldn't bring yourself to kill an infected because you felt sorry for him. Today, you killed four men and you aren't showing any emotion at all. That isn't right.”