The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy

by Tony Battista

  The highway was a few hundred yards further but he could already see that there was a massive jam with people madly fleeing from growing numbers of infected. Only an hour or so earlier he was smugly content, still basking in the glow of his week of debauchery, smiling as he remembered the trio of beauties from the last night, one blonde, one brunette and a gorgeous redhead. He still had over three thousand dollars in his pocket, the rest safely on deposit in his bank account and he relished the prospect of an earlier and far more comfortable retirement.

  Now he was hungry and thirsty, hot and sweaty, scared almost beyond reason lying on a rooftop while a horde of flesh-eating monsters swarmed below him. Twice they flushed out a hapless victim and descended upon him, tearing him apart, devouring him even as he screamed in agony. There was nothing Bailey could do to help, even if his fear would have allowed it. He had one pistol, a 9mm Colt he’d pried from the dead hand of one of the locals, with three shots remaining in the magazine. All he could do was wait it out and pray to the God he only half-believed in that the horde would move on soon.

  Eventually the mass of infected thinned out, moving in a generally southern direction out of town having exhausted the supply of victims. Bailey waited until there were no more in sight for at least two blocks before opening the access door in the roof and climbing down into the store. He stuffed his face with stale bread and broken crackers, virtually the only food left, and chugged down an open can of juice he found behind the counter. There was nothing else in the store he could use. What little remained after the building was looted had been trampled and fouled by the infected.

  Standing near a window, careful to conceal himself behind a magazine rack, he looked out on the street for any signs of movement. There was no one left. The street was strewn with litter and debris and the ravaged bodies of unlucky townspeople and a goodly number of infected who had fallen victim to the feeding frenzy that destroyed the town. Cautiously he exited the building, eyes constantly scanning as he turned his head this way and that searching for any danger. One of the dead was still wearing scraps of a blue uniform and Bailey saw that it had been a policeman. A pouch on his belt held two full magazines and he found the pistol a few yards away, slide locked back on an empty chamber. It was also a 9mm but a Glock and the magazines weren’t interchangeable with his gun so he loaded the cop’s pistol and stuffed the Colt in his pocket.

  Feeling a bit more confident now, Bailey made his way down the street toward a small used car lot with barely a dozen vehicles. The door to the office was ajar, the blood-smeared walls, floor, and desks left no doubt as to the fate of the staff. A wooden box attached to the wall behind one of the two desks held the keys to all the vehicles and he grabbed all of them. Most of the cars were sad-looking heaps, the dregs of the trade-ins that larger dealers didn’t want on their own lots. A blue Impala looked to be the best of the bunch, but when he started the engine, it sputtered and coughed and it backfired when he gave it a little gas. He immediately shut it down, alarmed that the noise might attract unwanted attention. The nearest infected were several blocks away by now but they heard it and turned back, making their slow, stumbling way toward him. The next car he tried was a Honda with a cracked windshield, dented fender and a badly peeling paint job, but the engine started right up and purred smoothly so he headed it out of town. The gas gauge showed a little less than a quarter tank and he hoped it would be enough to get him far enough to find more.

  Half an hour later, he stopped at a truck stop off I-75. The main building had been wrecked and looted but there were quite a few cars still in the lot. He found a roll of thin plastic tubing and cut off a length using it to siphon enough gas into a can to fill his own car. Walking through the building he found only trash and broken furnishings, vending machines that had been ripped apart and emptied, shattered food display cases. Outside again, he found a small Styrofoam cooler in one of the cars that contained a bottle of water, three cans of soda and a soggy candy bar. He wolfed down the chocolate bar and drank half the water, putting the rest in his car. Infected began to appear among the stopped autos on the freeway and gravitated in his direction, so Bailey cut his search short and drove off along a two lane road leading southwest.

  Later that evening, he pulled his car onto a gravel access road and parked it behind a pair of oil tanks next to a pumping rig, locked the doors and spent a restless night sleeping in the back seat.

  He was very hungry the next morning, his stomach complaining loudly and insistently. After relieving himself against one of the oil tanks, he continued along the road until he began to see a few homes dotting the sides of the road. Around several of them, he could see infected lurking, milling and the doors of others were open, windows shattered, blotches of red telling a tale of failed defenses. He kept driving until he found a home that looked untouched and parked on the road in front of the driveway. Looking all around and not finding any sign of movement, he checked the policeman’s pistol and got out of the car, cautiously approaching the porch. Stopping at the bottom of the steps, he again looked around the area before calling out a hello. There was no answer so he climbed the steps and crossed the porch, knocking loudly on the front door.

  “Hello! Is there anyone here?” he called again as he repeated his knocking.

  Again, there was no answer so he tried the doorknob. Of course, it was locked, just his luck, and he peered through one of the windows into an empty living room. The window wouldn’t open either and he rapped loudly on it with the butt of his gun, calling out another greeting. There was still no answer.

  He gave a last call, looked around again and smashed the window glass. Reaching inside, he undid the latch, raised the window and climbed through. Once inside he called out again and yet again, there was no answer. Nothing seemed to be disturbed other than the broken window and he assumed the owners must have been gone when the outbreak happened. Making his way into the kitchen, he found a pantry whose shelves were lined with cans and boxes of food and he smiled happily. His stomach growled even louder but he decided he should search the rest of the house before sitting down to his first real meal in days.

  Bailey walked out of the room and a gun went off, the bullet grazing his left bicep before whining off into the kitchen. He didn’t think, he just reacted, raising his pistol and firing off five rounds. A middle-aged man across the dining room yelped in pain and fell to the floor, dropping a .22 revolver next to him. Bailey quickly crossed the room and kicked the gun away. He looked around but didn’t see anyone else so he knelt at the man’s side. The man had been hit in the shoulder, high in the chest and in the belly and it didn’t look like he could long survive.

  “Why did you shoot at me?” Bailey asked him.

  “You came in my house,” was the weak reply.

  “I knocked! I banged on the door, on the window: I yelled my fool head off! Why didn’t you answer me?”

  “I don’t know you from Adam,” the dying man told him. “You can’t trust anyone anymore, and now you’ve murdered me in my own home…” The voice trailed off and his breath left him as his body slackened in death.

  “No! I didn’t want to hurt you! I never wanted this to happen! I was hungry and alone and just wanted a place to stay, someone to talk to! We could have…” but he knew it was no use trying to explain himself now. He plopped into a chair and stared at the body. The man was perhaps a few years younger than he, a few pounds lighter; a man who looked like he worked with his hands and his back all his life. Now he was another corpse in a world of too many corpses already.

  Bailey found a blanket in one of the closets and wrapped up the body, dragging it out the door into the back yard. There he found a recently dug up patch of dirt with a wooden cross set into the earth at one end. Carved into the cross member was the name “Anna Sayler” and it bore yesterday’s date. There was another, partially dug grave next to it, the shovel lying in the bottom as if the man was contemplating his own death and then realized there would be no one left to
bury him. Bailey finished digging the grave, dropped the wrapped body in it and shoveled dirt into the hole. He wanted to say some something over it, but no words would come to him and he fashioned a crude cross from two sticks and set it at the head of the grave.

  His arm had already stopped bleeding but he found some alcohol and peroxide in the bathroom and cleaned and bandaged the wound. Only then did he take the time to get something to eat.

  Once his belly was happy, Bailey searched the rest of the house. He found a few hundred rounds of .22LR but no other guns. In the basement, there was quite a supply of home-canned food. A pipe leading from one of the basement walls to a pump and water tank had a tap installed just a foot or so before a check-valve a few feet from the wall. When he opened it, water flowed freely at a rate of about two gallons per minute from an artesian well. With apparently unlimited water, he figured the food stores were enough to last him at least a month, probably more. Maybe his lucky streak was returning.

  In an outside shed, he found two-by-fours, inch thick wood planks and sheets of ¾” plywood. A workshop in the garage held a supply of tools as well as nails and screws and for the rest of the day he busied himself with barricading the first floor windows, leaving observation and firing slits in each, and reinforcing the doors. After parking the Honda in the garage, he had his first good night’s sleep since before that chaotic day at the airport.

  The next morning Bailey went into the basement to fill a jug with water from the tap and noticed a heavy-duty switch mounted on the wall near the bottom of the steps. Curious, he took hold of the handle and pushed it up to the “ON” position. Immediately he heard the sound of a distant engine cranking over and, in a few seconds, a steady thrumming noise. There was a loud snap, as of contacts closing, and the basement lights came on. Following the sound of the engine, he found stairs leading to an outside door and, a few yards beyond, a steel enclosure with a chimney and a number of air vents let into the sides. Inside the enclosure was a natural gas powered engine driving a generator. Two shelves along one wall held twenty 6-volt batteries all interwired and connected to the generator.

  Smiling, he went back into the house and found all the appliances working. The man he killed must have shut off the generator right when he first saw Bailey approaching the house because the contents of the refrigerator were still cold. He fried up some bacon and eggs, toasted some bread and sat down to a satisfying breakfast. It seemed his lucky streak was returning.

  Chapter 9: On His Own

  Of the nineteen people trapped in the library when the outbreak started, only six were left three days later. Seven had turned spontaneously and six others were either killed by the infected or turned after being bitten. The survivors, Jerry and Teddy, Jim Perkins, the head librarian and a young married couple, were leery and suspicious of each other, alert for any changes in behavior or health. Perkins was sorry now that he’d refused to take his gun back when Jerry offered it, but Jerry’s dominant personality had made him the de facto head of the group and he was reluctant to ask for its return. At any rate, the .38 now only held two shots, the rest having been spent against some of those who’d turned.

  Even with their diminished numbers, the food ran out that morning and the water by mid-afternoon. Beyond the lack of resources, the stench from the dead bodies and the non-functioning toilets was enough to force them into the decision that the presumed safety of the library would have to be abandoned. Jerry unlocked the back door as noiselessly as possible, and then waited for a full minute to see if there was any reaction from outside. All remained quiet and he slowly eased the door open. There was no one in sight. He stepped out into the small courtyard and looked around in all directions. The remains of scores of victims were scattered about the yard, on the steps and in the street below, but nothing moved except the swarms of flies that feasted on the remnants. Motioning for the others to follow, pistol in hand, Jerry descended the steps and moved toward a parking lot, hoping they might be able to use one of the vehicles to get safely away from the city.

  Telling the others to stay on the sidewalk, he entered the lot alone. He could see that most of the cars were locked and didn’t try their doors, being uneager to set off any alarms and attract attention. Some few were obviously unlocked and he searched them for keys, weapons and supplies, coming up with only two bottles of water and a few mints. He did find a set of golf clubs in the trunk of one car and handed one to each member of the group. At length, he discovered a spare key under the floor mat of an SUV and all piled in as soon as he started the engine.

  The streets were eerily quiet as they made their way to the eastern suburbs, using sidewalks, parking lots and any other open spaces to maneuver around roads blocked with wrecked and abandoned cars. They stopped only twice on their way out of the city; once for a bakery truck from which they took as many loaves of bread and packages of rolls, muffins, bagels and snack cakes as they could carry and once for another truck with a huge cola logo on the sides. Most of its cargo was carbonated soft drinks, but there were two full cases of bottled water too and they somehow found room for those in the SUV.

  Closer to the city’s outskirts, they began to run into increasing numbers of infected, most of them simply milling about, seemingly confused about what to do since the supply of ready victims had been exhausted. Individuals and small clutches of infected began to follow them and Jerry could not build up enough speed in the congested streets to get far enough ahead to lose them all. After an hour of agonizingly slow travel, he spotted a roadblock a few blocks ahead of them. A big olive-drab truck was parked astride the lanes, a Humvee with a pintle-mounted machine gun on either side. The ground in front of the barricade was thick with the eviscerated remains of hundreds of infected.

  “Looks like the National Guard ahead of us there,” he announced to the passengers who all began to cheer.

  Jerry drove up as close as he could without plowing through the dead and got out of the car, holding his hands high. He soon discovered the gesture wasn’t necessary; the position had been overrun and all the soldiers were dead. Picking his way carefully through the, in some places knee-deep gore, he reached the barricade. The machine gun ammunition had all been used up and the few rifles he found were also empty, some broken, shattered when the doomed militiamen used them as clubs in their final moments. He managed to pry a .45 automatic from the stiff fingers of what remained of one of the defenders and found one spare magazine in a pouch on the unlucky man’s belt. Beyond the barrier, he could see more evidence of hopeless resistance in the form of dozens of fatigue-clad corpses and hundreds more in civilian clothes. There were still thirty or so infected feeding on what remained of the rivaling groups and they spotted Jerry almost immediately and began moving at the chance for a fresh kill.

  Slogging through the plundered corpses back toward the SUV was slow and tortuous and he was still nearly twenty yards away when the first of his pursuers threaded their way through the barrier. To his horror, he saw the driver’s door open and a form fall to the ground before, tires squealing, the vehicle backed away, spun around and drove off at high speed. The form on the ground turned out to be Teddy and Jerry helped the dazed man to his feet.

  “That damned woman!” Teddy spat out, holding his hand to his bloody forehead. “They panicked and wanted to leave as soon as they saw the first infected! I told them we weren’t leaving without you and she hit me with one of those damned candlesticks and pushed me out of the car!”

  “We have to move,” Jerry told him. “Can you walk?”

  “Walk hell, we gotta run for our lives!”

  Despite his bravado, Teddy had to be helped along as the two friends struggled to put space between themselves and the small herd pursuing them. Inside of ten minutes, Jerry was practically carrying him, pulling him along while his legs went through the motions, feet dragging the ground as their pace inexorably slowed.

  “I can’t go anymore,” Teddy gasped as he collapsed completely.

  “C
ome on, Ted! A few more minutes and we can stop and rest! Come on, buddy, we have to keep going!”

  “I’m all in, Jerry. I’m sorry, but this is as far as I can go. My head is spinning and I’m seeing double; I can’t even stand up, much less run. That damned bitch must have given me a concussion when she hit me. You gotta go on by yourself.”

  “I can’t leave you! What the hell? You’re the only agent that can put up with me! I need you, buddy! We can make it!”

  “Yeah, you always were a son of a bitch; none of the other agents wanted anything to do with you. If we’d only had a few more months though, I’d have had you headlining in Vegas.”

  “I know. I always had faith in you. I’ve got faith in you now. We can still get out of this.”

  “I’m done for. I’ll only slow you down and get you killed, too. You’ve got what, two bullets left in that .38? Let me have one of them. Don’t let them get to me while I’m still alive.”

  “Teddy! I can’t!”

  “You have to do this for me. I hate like anything to have to ask you, but you know I’m Catholic. Suicide is a mortal sin to us.”

  “So is murder!”

  “Ah, but you claim to be an atheist. I’m dead anyway. There’s no possibility of me living past them catching up to me. Don’t let them tear me apart, Jerry. End it now. It’ll be an act of mercy. If you’re really my friend, you’ll do it.”

  “Oh, God, Teddy! I love you like a brother!”

  “They’re getting close, Jerry. It has to be now. Go on! Go on and live! Go!”

  Jerry pulled the .38 from his belt and Teddy briefly smiled at him before closing his eyes and making the Sign of the Cross. His lips moved in silent prayer and Jerry squeezed the trigger and sent a bullet into his temple.