The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy

by Tony Battista

  Much to Vickie’s chagrin, the first person to greet them was Brooke, who met them enthusiastically at the outer defense line and jumped in the back seat with Eve. Once inside the main gate, they were welcomed by Joaquin and by Owen, who was very happy to see Eve with them. The two teenagers walked off together without a backward glance and Jake just shook his head and smiled.

  “This is excellent timing,” Joaquin said. “Phil and Ted are at this moment discussing what needs to be done at the farm house. They have made some plans already but, of course, await your final approval.” Peering into both cars, he asked, “Kim is not with you?”

  “No, she isn’t,” Jake looked the man in the eyes. “Forget about her, Joaquin. It just isn’t going to happen.”

  “Any trouble with infected since we talked with you last?” Pete changed the subject.

  “Sadly, yes. They came at us several times in the last week. We have hauled away fifty-eight corpses. None of them penetrated our defenses, though.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Jake said.

  “They were quite disorganized. I don’t think there were any alphas with them.”

  “What about bandits?” Pete asked. “Have you had any trouble with them?”

  “We’ve seen a few people watching the compound from time to time. They tried us out a few weeks ago but we bloodied them badly. Brooke is an excellent shot and took down three of them before they fully realized they’d been spotted.” Brooke smiled at the compliment, beaming at Jake until noticing Vickie’s irritated glare.

  “I don’t think they feel up to tackling us again just yet,” Joaquin continued. “…Kim is well, is she not?”

  “She’s fine. Look, you’re a good guy, Joaquin, but you really do need to stay clear of Kim.”

  Joaquin only shrugged and said, “Come with me and I’ll take you to Phil.”

  As Brooke moved to take Jake’s arm to lead him after Joaquin, Vickie inserted herself between the two of them and shot her a pointed look, at which Brooke awkwardly announced she really should be getting back on perimeter watch and timidly walked away.

  “You know, I really wish you’d set your sights on Brooke instead of Kim,” Jake told Joaquin.

  “Brooke is desirable, of that I will make no argument,” he answered. “I have pursued that course, but she, sadly, shows no interest in me.”

  “And you really think Kim has?”

  “Ah, but I have known Brooke for many months before resigning there is no hope. I have not yet had sufficient time to use my charms on Kim.”

  “Joaquin,” Carolyn quietly told him, “you apparently don’t know that Kim is intimately involved with Kate. It’s not that she isn’t interested in you in particular; she isn’t interested in men in general. You have no idea of her history and I’m not going to go into it, but she’ll never again be interested in men.”

  “Never,” he said after a moment of reflection, “is a very long time.”

  Phil and Ted were in a small office off the main lobby and were both pleased to greet their visitors.

  “Welcome! I’m glad you decided to make the trip,” Phil told them after shaking hands with each in turn. “Come on into the conference room with us; I’ll have coffee brought in and maybe some breakfast, if you’re hungry.”

  Once everyone was seated around the table and had a cup in front of them, Phil brought out a large sketch of the farmhouse in question and a topographical map of the surrounding area.

  “This will give you an idea of the lay of the land. We’ve been making some rough plans, but they’ll make more sense when we go out to the house and you look at the layout yourself.”

  “First things first,” Vickie interrupted. “Before Jake gets too immersed in all this, I want Dr. Vargas to look at his shoulder again.”

  “Well, of course. It’s been giving you trouble?” he asked Jake.

  “His arm is practically crippled,” Vickie blurted out. “He’s been pulling that macho crap again, trying to hide it from the rest of it, but it’s been getting worse almost daily.”

  “Oh, it’s really not-“

  “Damn it, Jake! Don’t you dare say ‘it’s not that bad’ again!” Vickie stopped him, eyes welled up with tears of frustration. “Lift your left elbow up away from your body! You can’t even do that, can you? Don’t pull this shit on me, Jake! Let Dr. Vargas see if there’s anything to be done with it!”

  “Nag, nag, nag,” Jake smiled, resignedly. “Okay. It has been bothering me a little more lately. It wouldn’t hurt to have Dr. Vargas look at it, I guess.”

  . . .

  Pete remained with Phil and Ted to go over their layout while Joaquin took Jake, Vickie and Carolyn to Dr. Vargas’ examination room. Jake stripped to the waist and Vargas poked and prodded at the wound and kneaded his fingers into his shoulder, causing him to wince and clench his jaw.

  “Very painful, yes?” he asked.

  “Yes! Very painful!” Vickie answered for him.

  “And this wound was the result of a metal peg, you say?”

  “Yeah, off a clothing rack,” Jake answered.

  “It is an old wound, at least a year I would guess.”

  “Just about that, yes,” Jake confirmed.

  “You’ve waited this long to seek my help? We should have treated this at your first visit to Hollington. I’m certain that this pain you’re having has persisted for quite some time.

  “I’m thinking something was left behind. Something is still deep in the wound, irritating it, perhaps pressing a nerve. We have no x-ray facilities here, obviously, so I would have to do exploratory surgery to see for certain, but the symptoms you describe and the way you react when I apply pressure in a particular way tells me that there is surely something there.”

  “Surgery? I don’t have time for that. There’s too much to do if we decide to move into this new place.”

  “You aren’t going to be of much help to us anyway in this condition,” Carolyn flatly stated. “You might as well resign yourself to getting this over and done with.”

  “She’s right, Jake,” Vickie said softly. “You just keep getting worse and you’ll only aggravate it even more. We can handle this; we don’t need you to supervise every step we take. You need to get fixed up.”

  “This is true,” Vargas agreed. “Your range of movement, the expression on your face when you move your arm and when I apply pressure, this all tells me that we need to take care of this sooner than later. I fear that much further delay may lead to complete incapacitation.”

  “How long will I be laid up in bed?”

  “I can’t give you an answer until I see what it is and how much damage has already been done. Days at least, perhaps weeks. All I can tell you is that the longer we wait, the worse it will be.”

  “Ah, hell,” Jake let out a long sigh. “When can you do it, doc?”

  “Fortunately, I have no other serious cases now so I would like to do it today. I have a young man here who has been of help to me who will assist. Carolyn, you have some knowledge of medicine. I would welcome your assistance also.”

  “I’d be glad to. The more can I learn, the more useful I can be.”

  “Wonderful! I will call my assistant. Carolyn, he will show you where to wash up and supply you with a mask and gown while I prepare the operating room. We can then begin immediately.”

  “Now?” Jake objected. “I wanted to look over this farmhouse first.”

  “The farmhouse can wait,” Vickie admonished him. “Pete is already going over the plans with Phil and Ted. Carolyn and I will look at the actual property with him after Dr. Vargas takes care of your shoulder.”

  “Alright,” Jake sighed. “I’ll trust Pete’s judgment on this new site. If you all think this is a good move, then I want you all to head home and let everyone know we’re going to do it and tell them I’ll be out of commission for a while.”

  “You know I’m not going anywhere until you’re back on your feet again,” Vickie told him,
taking his hand.

  Chapter 10: Bandits Again

  “Where the hell did those cars come from?”

  “I don’t know, Gabe. They come up too fast, went past before we could get ready,” Cy replied.

  “Go get Jimbo and Chuck and trail ‘em!”

  “Can we take Bernie with us?” Cy grinned.

  “Hell no, God damn it! Keep your mind on business! That truck had a woman in it and there might be more where they come from. Probably food and guns and ammo, too. Find out where they’re going!”

  The three men piled into a battered S-10 and a run-down Honda and began to head up the road. They were back in less than three hours and exited the vehicles nervously to face their fuming leader.

  “What happened?”

  “D-don’t get mad at us, Gabe,” Cy stammered. “We followed the road for miles but we never seen any sign of ‘em. There was too many crossroads and we didn’t have no idea if they kept goin’ straight or turned off somewheres. We couldn’t tell which way they went. Best guess is they was headed toward Hollington.”

  Much to the relief of all three men, Gabe only cursed, spun around and walked back to his RV, grabbing Frank along the way. After a few minutes he called Dan and Chuck and two of the others to the big RV he used as his headquarters. He had a map spread out on a table and he’d traced out roads and divided the map into sections with a marker.

  “Maybe they went on to Hollington, maybe they didn’t. There’s lots of farms around here,” he told the assembled men. “Dan, you take two men and search this area to the west and move on to the northwest. Chuck, you take a couple and start in the southeast section and move on as far as the main highway. Dave, you and Al take the town and the mall over here and Frank and me will swing by and check the marina and the lake houses. Somewhere in all this, we should run across wherever they’re settled, maybe run across some other stupid unlucky bastards, too. Just scout ‘em out, don’t do nothin’ stupid to get their guard up. Get started first thing in the morning and report back to me by the day after. If they didn’t head on to Hollington, maybe we can find where they did head to.”

  With no more instruction than that, the four groups climbed into their separate vehicles early the next morning and headed out. The marina turned out to be nothing more than ruins, ashes and a few foundered boats while most of the homes around the lake had already been ransacked and were empty of life. The little town of Glendale was deserted and in shambles, many of the buildings simply burnt out shells and, again, there was no sign of life there or in the thoroughly looted mall. Chuck’s group found an occupied farmhouse, spotting a man on the roof with a rifle and binoculars. A second man was tinkering under the hood of a car while a woman was taking down clothes from a line, two young children cavorting nearby. The sentry on the roof hadn’t spotted them and Chuck carefully marked the location on the map he carried before they moved on.

  Dan stopped his car as soon as he sighted the big farmhouse and he and the two men with him got out. He brought up a pair of binoculars taken from a man he’d murdered a few weeks before and focused first on the front of the building, then on the grounds. He scanned the area, noting the concentric lines of defense, the sharpened stakes, low fences and vehicle barriers, and nodded in grudging admiration. Several people were outside going about various chores and activities, but all suddenly hurried back to the house and, moments later, he could see rifles appear at some of the windows. Concentrating on the house again, he raised the binoculars to take in the upper porch, moving farther up to the roof to find himself looking down the barrel of a scoped rifle in the hands of a young woman dressed in military fatigues. He jumped back as a bullet impacted the ground an inch to the right of his toe and he hurriedly got back behind the wheel as his companions dived into the car. A second bullet took out the rear-view mirror by the driver’s door before Dan was able to get it in gear and spin the car around, squealing the tires as he sped away. He didn’t stop until he reached the encampment where the rest of the renegades had taken temporary shelter.

  Just after dark, Gabe returned with Frank and found Dan already half drunk, a nearly empty bottle in his hand.

  “Well?” he barked as he swept the bottle from Dan’s fingers.

  “We-we found them, Gabe. Don’t get mad! It wasn’t my fault! Honest! They had a spotter with a scope and she damn near killed me!”

  “Yeah? Too bad she wasn’t a better shot! Where are they?”

  “I marked it on the map, just like you told me. But there’s a bunch of ‘em and they got rifles. The place is fortified, got barricades and everything! It ain’t gonna be easy to get to ‘em!”

  “Let me worry about that! How many were there?”

  I don’t know. Seven or eight maybe. They were shooting at us so I got out as quick as I could!”

  Gabe threw him a disgusted glance, then turned to the man beside him.

  “Any of the others get back yet, Al?”

  “Dave and his guys came in about an hour ago. Said the town and the mall were deserted. They didn’t find much there; it was all pretty well picked over. They didn’t see nothin’ else. Chuck and them ain’t back yet.”

  “Alright! Dan, you show me where this place is then get the hell out of my sight!”

  After fixing the location on the map, Gabe went back to his RV with Al and Frank and shut the door.

  “That damned Dan is useless,” complained Frank.

  “He handles a rifle better than any man here. That’s the one thing he’s good at,” Gabe said. “Sounds like maybe you need to look this place over yourself, maybe take Hank and Joe with you tomorrow. Don’t let them see you; eyeball their layout and let me know what you think. How we fixed for ammo, Frank? Did anybody even bother to look for more while they were out?”

  “Could be better. Al found a few dozen rounds of .22s somebody overlooked when they looted the mall and Dave scored two boxes for the AKs and one for the ARs. If this place is a fortress, like Dan said, might be we have to hold off for a while unless we can catch them off-guard. From the sound of it, that’s not very likely.”

  “Okay. We’ll talk about it after you check it out. Right now, I need some food and a drink and then I need some sleep. You take off as soon as you’re ready tomorrow, Frank. Take whoever you want with you.”

  . . .

  The last group returned to camp two hours after Frank left the next morning. Chuck reported what they’d found to Gabe and drew a quick diagram of the house and grounds. Gabe clapped him on the shoulder and told him to go get something to eat, then studied the map and the drawing with Al. It was later in the afternoon when Frank returned and reported in.

  “Well, Dan was right about it being a fortress; barriers, sharp stakes, booby traps up to fifty yards out all around the place and clear fields of fire for at least a hundred yards and there was someone on the roof with a scoped rifle. Even if we got right up to the house, all the windows are covered with heavy wire; they got railroad ties or logs piled up around the outside walls, thick enough to stop anything we can fire at them. Unless you got a cannon hidden away somewhere I don’t know about, we ain’t ready to take them on with what we’ve got.”

  “How close did you get?”

  “A little over two hundred yards. I was deep inside some thick brush with my glasses and even at that, the lookout on the roof spotted me. It’s a hell of a feeling to be looking down the barrel of a sniper rifle. She peppered the brush all around me once she was sure I saw her, like she was playing games with me. No doubt she could have taken us all down if she had her mind set on it. Probably laughed her ass off the way I tore out of there.”

  “Shit! So they know we’re out here and they know we’re interested. All right, we’ll put them on the back burner for now. Chuck found another place we can probably hit. Here’s the layout.”

  “Well, if this sketch is accurate,” Frank commented after studying both the drawing and the map, “I’d say this won’t be hard to take. We’ll lose a fe
w men, but their defenses are pretty weak, pretty amateurish. There’s a blind spot over here on the left we can probably use to get some men up close without being spotted. Even with the small amount of ammo we’ve got, yeah, I think we can take it.”

  Chapter 11: Fighting with Fire

  Tad’s band had grown again to nearly a hundred followers since the costly attack on the duplex. He’d found another gasoline can in the bed of a pickup parked a few blocks down from the jewelry store and was carrying that along with him as the group made its way down a side road deeper into the farm lands. Some hours later, the female came running up excitedly to him and gestured toward a small, wooded hill. He stopped the group, leaving his two lieutenants to hold them in place, and went with her to the crest and saw the house only a hundred yards away. A man on the roof was looking in the opposite direction just then and Tad pushed her to the ground and indicated she should wait for him, entrusting her with the gas can. Keeping an eye on the guard and another man and woman out in the yard, he carefully made his way closer until he could have listened in on their conversation if his brain had still been capable of processing the words. The woman made some sort of comment and both began to bark in that strange way they did when their mouths curved upward and they appeared to be happy; he still hadn’t been able to put that into context.

  Then the man took something out of his pocket and he and the woman both put little, white tubes between their lips and the man produced a small metal box, flipped the lid open and did something with his thumb that made a flame appear at the top of it. He held the flame to each tube and both of them blew smoke out of their mouths.

  Tad watched a while longer, absently wondering about the white tubes with the glowing ends, but seriously pondering the implications of producing flame with such slight effort and knew he had to have that box. He studied the man, noting that he was some sort of green and white pattern from the waist up and brown from the waist down, not precisely understanding that these were the colors of his clothing, but remembering the combination for future reference.