Each street she crossed, every block she entered more infected appeared, attracted by the alarms and moving toward her as they spotted her.
“God, where did they all come from?” she cried aloud in panic as she rounded a corner and saw yet more of them turning toward her and plodding along steadily after her.
A parking lot at a grocery store was half-full and she yanked frantically at doors, finding about a third of them unlocked and finally, as panic threatened to overwhelm her, found one with a set of keys on the center console. It took her three tries to get the key into the ignition but, thankfully, the car started right up and she dropped it into gear and sped out of the lot, tires squealing, fishtailing as she turned onto the street. Shaking and sobbing, bleary-eyed she put the town behind her, rolling two miles down the highway before she got control of herself and eased the gas pedal from the floor. She went off the shoulder around a curve and the car spun around and side swiped a tree before coming to a stop twenty feet off the road.
Karen lay her head on her hands on the steering wheel and cried for several minutes, realizing that she’d been frightened many times since this all began, but this was the second time she’d experienced actual, unreasoning terror. She knew she couldn’t let it take control of her again if she expected to survive; this would almost certainly not be the worst that would happen in days to come.
After collecting herself, she drove back onto the road, the car seeming to have suffered only cosmetic damage. The gas gauge showed a little over a quarter tank and she knew she should try to find more as soon as possible, but the idea of stopping and getting out of the relative safety of the car held little appeal and she’d have to find another siphon hose and gas can before she could even try. The solution came fifteen minutes later when she drove up to a gas station/convenience store. It was obvious by the human remains that the infected had been there before her but, mercifully seemed to have moved on. There were plenty of snack foods and a number of canned and boxed food items left, though from the way most of them were scattered about it looked as though someone tried to loot them before being taken down by infected. There was a big Ford crew-cab pickup by one of the pumps with the keys still in the ignition and a hunting rifle on a rack on the rear windshield which she judged a better bet than the old Toyota she’d been driving and loaded it with food and all the water and juice drinks she could find. Three two-and-a-half gallon and four one-gallon gas cans were on the shelves and she found a length of hose and siphoned enough gas from the other vehicles to fill them all. After securing them in the truck bed with bungee cords, she picked up all the flashlights, batteries, toiletries and anything else she could think of a use for and stowed them in the back of the cab. The engine throbbed with restrained power and she noted that the tank was full, and then drove out. A few hundred yards down the road she spotted three infected shambling along in a loose group and stopped the truck. Shotgun in hand, she stepped out, then leaned on the horn until all three turned her way and staggered quickly toward her in anticipation of a fresh meal. She waited until the first was only twenty feet away and gave him one barrel, instantly turning his face and neck into a grisly sludge of blood and mangled flesh. The second took the other barrel square in the chest and dropped like a rock. The last infected didn’t even seem to notice what happened to her companions and closed to within five feet before Karen put a nine millimeter slug through the center of her forehead. Satisfied, she got back into the truck and continued on, feeling ready to face whatever came her way.
She was wrong. Some miles further along she come upon a car on its side in the middle of the road. Several obviously dead infected lay strewn nearby along with a man whose dead hand still tightly clutched a large and very bloody ball-peen hammer. Near him, a woman sat cross-legged on the pavement cradling a silent infant in her arms, gently rocking back and forth while staring blankly off into the distance. She never looked up as the truck approached and stopped about ten yards away. Karen thought her heart would break at the sight of a young mother alone holding her dead baby after the father died fighting for their safety and was about to rush to her side when she noticed the woman’s eyes shift toward her and quickly away again. Suddenly alarmed and suspicious, she hit the accelerator and jerked the steering wheel, intending to take a wide arc around the wreck. The woman tossed the dead child aside and raised the pistol she’d been hiding beneath it and fired rapidly. A man emerged from behind the wreck with a rifle and pointed it, but Karen had the shotgun at the ready and blew off both barrels as she passed him, nearly tearing his arm from his body. He dropped but the woman rounded the wreck after the truck, still firing as fast as she could pull the trigger. One bullet hit the tailgate but didn’t penetrate to the bed and another punched a hole in the metal near the roof but Karen escaped without injury or serious damage.
At first, she was simply shocked. Then came the realization that these people had set a trap, using a dead baby as bait and she was angry, furious at the outrageousness of using someone’s dead child in that way and simply tossing it aside once it served its purpose. Now she realized the infected were not the only danger in this perverse new world. She understood the people in the town she’d passed earlier being wary of strangers, being frightened, ready to kill if necessary to defend themselves, but ambushing unsuspecting strangers, setting up such a pitiful scene to lure a Good Samaritan for robbery and murder was something she’d never imagined. From now on, she could not afford to be naïve, trusting, to take any situation at face value. Above all, she had to see to her own survival first and, only after they’d proven themselves, even begin to consider trusting anyone else.
. . .
Her next stop was a few hundred feet before a crossroad an hour’s travel later. A moving van and an RV apparently had collided there and the still smoldering wreckage blocked the intersection. The road she was following was flanked by deep drainage ditches and there was really no possibility of crossing them. Karen pulled out a map and began looking for an alternate route when three men appeared from behind the wreckage pointing rifles at her truck and approaching at a fast walk. A glance in the rear-view mirror showed two more armed men arise from the tall weeds lining the ditch and advancing from behind. Mind racing, Karen weighed her chances of putting the truck in reverse and plowing down the men behind her, but they stayed one on either side of the road, beyond the drop-off. With five guns pointed at her, her options were to go down fighting or surrender and leave herself at their mercy. She’d just about made up her mind to open fire on them when a spray of blood and gore erupted from the head of one of the men in front of her followed a split-second later by a loud report. The other men were stunned momentarily and a second man took a bullet in the small of his back and crumpled to the ground
Karen was out of the truck and in a crouch on the pavement before the other men had a chance to react. She fired off nine rounds at the men behind her, scoring five hits and killing both as she heard another gunshot followed by a bullet striking the truck door. A final shot sounded almost immediately and she turned in time to see the last assailant drop to his knees and fall flat on his face to lie unmoving in a spreading pool of blood. Far off to her left and in front of her, a man rose from cover on the other side of the cross road and held a scoped rifle high in his right hand, pumping it up and down a few times before cautiously moving forward. He kept the barrel of the rifle pointed well away from her and stopped when he was a few dozen feet away.
“They ambushed another car going the other way about half an hour ago,” the man explained. “I was too late to do anything about that, but I saw your car through my binoculars a little while ago and worked my way closer.”
“Thank you,” Karen managed, keeping a wary eye on the stranger and her pistol, though not pointed directly at him, at the ready. “But why would you want to help me? You don’t even know me.”
“I took a chance,” he shrugged, putting the butt of the rifle to the ground. “I knew these were bad people by
their actions. It stood to reason you had to be better than them. Do you intend to shoot me?”
Karen realized she’d unconsciously brought the barrel of her pistol in line with his chest and pointed it away, though only slightly.
“My name’s Ethan Tyler,” he said, forcing a smile. “My car is out of sight up the road a bit. I have some food and water I can spare if you’re of a need.”
“Karen Monroe,” she said after a moment. “And I have my own supplies. So… what do we do now?”
“Well, you said ‘we’, so I guess we’ll start there. Two traveling together, especially if both have their own food and water and weapons are a safer bet than two traveling separately. Or don’t you think so?”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Beside the fact that I probably saved your life or at least saved you from whatever these guys planned to do to you, no reason, I guess.”
“Where’s your car?” Karen asked after thinking it over for a moment.
“Behind those trees up the road there,” he answered, motioning with his chin.
“Bring it on over and let’s see what you have to offer in the way of supplies.”
“Actually, it blew a belt. It looked like I was in the middle of nowhere here so I kept driving until the engine seized. I really do have food and water, though.”
“So it looks like you need me a lot more than I need you, doesn’t it?”
“You could look at it that way. The way I see it, I think maybe we need each other. I’ve been alone since this all started and I don’t like it a bit. I have a feeling maybe you think the same way.”
“Could be,” she allowed.
“Look, if all I was interested in was stealing your truck and your supplies, I could have picked you off as easily as I did those guys and just taken it all.”
“Yeah, but what else are you interested in? You’ve been looking me over pretty good here. Maybe you have other ideas, too.”
“Yeah, I’ve been checking you out,” he admitted. “You’re a good-looking woman and, well, I am a guy after all. But I’m more interested in staying alive than trying to score, especially with someone who handles a pistol the way you do.”
“Hmm! Then you wouldn’t mind putting that rifle and that pistol and those two knives in the bed of the truck while I drive us over to your car?”
“Whatever you want,” he agreed, putting words to action.
Karen backed the truck a few hundred yards until she found a spot where she could go off-road and cross-country to where she could get back on the road again, past the blocked intersection. Ethan’s car was where he indicated it was and they transferred his supplies to the truck and siphoned enough gas to top off her tank. All the while, she kept a wary eye on him, not yet ready to trust another member of the human race.
“So, do you have a destination in mind?” he asked.
“There’s some sort of Army base marked on the map southeast of Richmond.”
“Blue Grass Army Depot? Been there. It’s gone, overrun.”
“What? I was counting on finding some kind of authority there!”
“Yeah, so was I. Had a friend who lived in Richmond and worked there. The base is crawling with infected now. Richmond’s gone, too. I came down from Cincinnati. Every place I’ve stopped, it’s the same story. Where’d you come from?”
“Louisville. Pretty much the same story. I don’t know why I picked this direction. I guess I just happened to be pointed this way when I got out of town. Where else is there?”
“I don’t know. Do you have any family at all here?”
“The closest I had to family was a nice old guy named Santino; he ran a little Italian restaurant in Louisville. They killed him, right there on the street in front of his place. I have a cousin who lives in Tennessee, just across the border, I think. It’s been years since I’ve seen her.”
“Well, I sure don’t have anything better to do. You want to head that way?”
“Might as well. You can keep the rifle in the cab; it might come in handy, but leave the pistols and knives in the bed for now.”
Once on the road again, Ethan turned on the radio and hit the ‘seek’ button.
“There’s been nothing but static since yesterday,” Karen told him.
“I know. Wishful thinking. What did you do in Louisville?”
“I tended bar. Night shift. Not a bad gig while it lasted; the tips were good, anyway.”
“That good a bartender, huh?”
“Not so much that,” she chuckled. “I knew how to dress for the part; low cut blouse, skin-tight little shorts. Mostly men in a sports bar and they don’t mind tipping big for a flash of skin and a little flirting. It paid the rent,” she shrugged, “and I was saving up to go to school later.”
“Oh, yeah? What were you looking to be?”
“A physical therapy assistant, to start with. I was going to work up to being a licensed therapist after a few years.”
“Interesting,” he said noncommittally.
“How about you? What did you do in Cincinnati?”
“Nothing glamorous. I drove a fork truck in a warehouse. I was only there three months. Before that I did two tours in the Mid-East.”
“Army, huh? That’s why you can handle a rifle so well then?”
“It comes in handy,” he said, raising binoculars to his eyes. “Pull over a minute.”
“What is it?” she asked as she applied the brakes.
“Not sure. House and some buildings up ahead. Smoke or a lot of dust around one of them.”
He got out of the truck and climbed on top of the roof for a better look.
“What is it?”
“Car headed this way. In a hurry. Looks like it just left that house.”
Ethan hopped down and moved behind the truck bed with his rifle.
“Take these and keep an eye on them,” he told her, handing over the binoculars. “I’ll be ready back here, just in case.”
Karen watched for a few seconds before she could tell there were two people in the front seat and a bit longer to see there was someone in the back also. As they continued to approach, she lowered the binoculars and shifted her holster a bit, loosening the Beretta for a smoother draw. She turned to look at Ethan, but he was nowhere in sight. Somewhat perturbed, she turned back to watch the car slow down and stop fifty feet away. Two men got out on the passenger side and the driver wore a wide grin.
“Hey, honey,” one of the men called. She was standing behind the truck door and he couldn’t see her pull the Beretta. “You look lonely!” and the other two laughed.
“We’ll be more than happy to keep you company,” the man called and the one behind him howled like a wolf. “Yeah, we’ll treat you real good!”
He leaped backward as a slug from Ethan’s rifle nipped his earlobe off. The driver shifted into reverse and spun the wheel, backing away so suddenly the man in back was knocked down by the open rear door and the right front tire ran over both his legs. The driver was off the road and shifted into drive, ignoring the fallen man’s screams when Karen fired three times, scoring one hit each in the man’s shoulder, neck and head and the car drove off the other side of the road and into a tree with the dead man slumped against the wheel.
The man with the bloody ear held his hands high as he looked down the barrel of Karen’s weapon and shouted “I didn’t do nothin’! I didn’t do nothin’!”
Ethan suddenly appeared beside the truck, rifle leveled at the pleading man.
“He was running away.” Ethan stated flatly. “There was no need to kill him.”
“I’ve seen first-hand the things these people are capable of. If not us, he would have preyed on someone else.”
“See if there’s anything you can do about the guy on the ground. I’ll keep this one covered.”
“Fuck the guy on the ground! I don’t have any doubt what they intended doing when they thought I was a lone, defenseless woman at their mercy!”
Ethan s
tared at her.
“You said you wanted to be a physical therapist! You wanted to help people!”
“I wanted to help people recover from injuries or disease, decent people not outlaws or gangsters! Let’s find out why they were in such a hurry to get away from that house before you go lecturing me about helping people!”
While they argued, the standing man took a chance and yanked the gun from his waistband. Ethan shot him in the stomach and his gun discharged once, taking off one of his toes before he fell to his knees, bent over with his forehead inches from the ground, hands pressed tightly against his profusely bleeding wound. Karen walked over and kicked the gun away from him then pushed him over with her heel and shot him in the forehead as he lay on the ground. Ethan had seen that sort of thing before, from his own squad mates in Afghanistan, and hoped to God that he’d never see anything like it again. She turned her face defiantly toward him, a silent challenge in the set of her jaw and Ethan said nothing.
“Help me!” the man with the broken legs cried out. “Jesus, for the love of God, help me!”
Karen none too delicately checked him for weapons and, finding none, she stuffed the other man’s pistol in her belt and quickly searched him for spare ammunition, finding one empty magazine and a few loose shells, which she put in her pocket. The dead driver had a revolver and a box of .357s and she took them to the truck.
“Get in,” she told Ethan, starting the engine.
“What about this guy?”
“We’ll decide what to do about him when we find out what happened up at the house.”
He took one last look at the moaning, pleading man on the ground and hopped in the passenger seat. As they neared the house, they saw four figures tied to fence posts- an older man, a middle-aged woman and what appeared to be their teenaged daughter and young son. The woman and the daughter were naked and the boy had on only a shirt. At least one infected was feeding on each of them. Karen stepped out of the truck and shot all but two of the infected. She called out to make certain their attention was focused on her and, when they started toward her, she got back into the truck and drove it slowly down the road toward the injured man and his dead partner. Setting the pace to keep them close enough to hold their interest, she led them past the car and sped up, going down the road thirty or forty yards before turning around and heading back to the house. The broken man screamed when the infected started on him and they could still hear him when they reached the house.
The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy Page 48
