Schmidt settled for having one of his own men drive while he held Yue in his lap. He was going to keep his pistol firmly planted on her temple. That should keep the men outside from opening fire on them. Once they were all in place, he whistled for the men up by the wall to go ahead and finished opening it. A second after he whistled a skinny wraith of a woman came in low across the dirt floor and launched herself teeth first into one of the men working on getting the door down.
The dirt covered crawler ravaged the man’s face with her teeth while he fell over backwards screaming. He was punching out at her, but she completely disregarded the ineffective strikes. She’d been hiding from the sun in a deserted corner of the garden center. The filth covered crawler had crushed herself down between bags of mulch pulling them to cover her completely and shield her from the accursed sun. She’d sensed the men in the garden center and felt the familiar urge to rend them to pieces. Typically she’d have stayed in her resting spot until sundown regardless of that urge.
A voice had cajoled her out through. Images had flashed in in her fevered mind of where the men stood. It was like someone had been remote controlling her urges. Like someone was adding more lustfulness to her desires until they were unbearable. Regardless of the light the crawler had burst out of her resting spot to streak forward taking out one of the men at the front of the center. She ripped away at the man’s face. There was no stopping her until the bullets from the other guard finally ripped her heat apart. Completely ignoring the pain from the bullets she died in a blissful state of bloody carnage.
In the truck Yue’s head rocked backwards as she lost the psychic connection to the crawler. The stream of its visions no longer connecting it to Yue’s consciousness. The sudden death had startled Yue enough to make her react physically despite not wanting to give her special talents away. Schmidt just thought Yue was using the crawler incident as an excuse to reverse headbutt him and make a run for it. He grabbed her hair and bounced her face off the dashboard as a warning not to do it again. Yue barely noticed she was so blown away by what she’d just done.
She’d just made a crawler run through the sunlight riddled building to attack someone. She’d turned a crawler into her own personal pit bull. Best part of it was Schmidt didn’t seem to have a clue. That meant she’d get the opportunity to do it again. That could mean the difference between escape or death for the three of them. She was going to have to carefully pick the right moment to strike. If crawlerz just kept coming out of the woodwork for no real reason, Schmidt would catch on sooner or later. The slimy scumbag wasn’t stupid.
The section of the wall they were going to drive through fell down while the one freaked out guard was busy shooting his now faceless partner. He was more concerned with the man turning into a surger and biting him than he was in holding up the wall. That meant the wall fell outwards giving Jeff and the men outside front row seats to the drama playing out on the stage in front of them. The freaked out guard finished shooting his partner and spun around pointing his weapon at the men outside. That didn’t go over well.
Yue flinched when the guard took a round to the head. A sniper was obviously posted outside. Not that it needed to officially be a sniper necessarily. There were a ton of freakishly good shots among the members of the suicide squad. Yue tensed up expecting to get hit by a bullet of her very own at any second. At the very least she was thinking Schmidt would slam her head into some more stuff. At this rate her and Lisa would be working on getting out to southern California to see if they could find a plastic surgeon who’d managed to survive. This kidnapping thing was going to end with them both having serious wicked witch of the west noses.
“Drive.” Schmidt ordered the nervous as hell looking driver. The driver was not loving the idea. He crossed himself before shifting into drive and easing the big military truck forward.
“You sure you shouldn’t just surrender?” Yue asked. She was surprised to hear her voice coming out sounding kind of funny. Evidently having your nose smashed into a dashboard made you sound a little bit like you were huffing helium during the height of pollen season.
“Do you enjoy having your face smashed into the dashboard?” Schmidt asked. For the first time that façade of coolness sounded a little off. Between the crawler and the sniper taking out his man a little fear was creeping in. There was a very good possibility the second that they rolled out of the garden center they were all going to die.
“Do you enjoy watching your men die? Just pull over and let us off. We’ll let you go. My boyfriend’s in charge of the group out there. All he cares about is getting me back. There’s nowhere you can run anyway. You think the President can’t just order you tracked via satellite? Just give up. What are you trying to die for?” Yue made one last attempt to get inside Schmidt’s head. She gave herself a one percent chance of it working. At least she could say she tried. Schmidt may be a dirtbag but the men with him weren’t necessarily all bad. Every single survivor was needed to stand up and fight the infected. Killing each other was just stupid.
Schmidt stopped himself from bouncing her head off the dash a second time. If he had his brains would’ve been splattered all over his headrest. There were quite a few cross hairs resting on him and the driver as they drove out into the parking lot. The driver drove like he knew he was about to be shot. The big green machine rolled through the parking lot like a drunk golfer trying to zig zag his way away from a pissed off gator discovered by a water hazard. People in the front and back of the truck were being thrown around haphazardly.
The evasive driving served its purpose though. They made it out of the parking lot without any of the snipers having a clean and clear shot. Not that they necessarily would’ve taken it anyway. Jeff had ordered everyone to stand down unless an opportunity came up to guarantee a clean kill on both the men in the front seat of the truck. He’d guessed that Schmidt would have at least one hostage up front to make it difficult for them. He’d kind of hoped that Schmidt would’ve been dumb enough to let Yue or Lisa drive. The man had turned out to be wily enough to know better than to let them behind the wheel though.
Yue heard the chinook lifting off the ground behind them as they left the parking lot. She had no idea how Schmidt thought he was going to outrun a helicopter. She hoped he didn’t have any more rockets up his sleeve. If he had any kind of surface to air missile capability, they were screwed. That thought triggered another thought though.
“Where are we going?” She asked. Her voice once more sounding tinny and hoarse.
“Don’t you worry. We’re headed somewhere safe. I’m not too worried about your boyfriend and that oversized bird of his. Overcompensating for something?” Schmidt said snidely.
That confirmed it in Yue’s head. Schmidt was part of a larger group. He was most likely leading them back to a base where the people there had the capability to shoot down the helicopter. Otherwise they wouldn’t be going there in the first place. It explained why Schmidt was confident in being able to escape. It also told her that Schmidt was carrying out someone else’s orders. Someone it’d be really good for them to find out more about. They couldn’t wage a war on the infected if these idiots kept ambushing them.
Looking up ahead Yue saw that it looked like they were going to go under an overpass. At least they were unless the driver had some super-secret driving maneuver that he thought would fool a helicopter worked out. Yue thought they were probably making a beeline for whatever outpost Schmidt had decided they’d be safe at. All he really needed to do was time their arrival for nighttime and there wouldn’t be a whole lot that Jeff could do about it. Not unless he wanted to hover in the helicopter all night.
Putting herself into a meditative state once more Yue was hoping that she’d be able to keep them from ever making it to that outpost. A flicker of an image formed before dissolving in her head. More came shortly afterwards. She started introducing her own images into that stream of consciousness. Her images quickly rose to the top and got the group
of infected worked up. The group of the infected who were spending the day under the overpass that the truck they were in was currently barreling towards at eighty miles per hour.
Chapter 8: The Trolls Under the Bridge
“Sure we should go under the bridge sir?” The driver asked. He’d been told to get on the main road and head west. Schmidt was trying to look at a street map while keeping Yue from doing anything stupid. He wasn’t having a lot of luck, so he slid her off his lap into the middle of the bench seat. In her meditative state she didn’t even notice.
“Yeah. Just go through fast. We should be fine even if a couple of the infected are under there. They’ll be hiding up near the top. I don’t think they’re spending the day staring down the street waiting to jump us.” Schmidt doubted his own words even as he spoke them. After what they’d just witnessed back in the garden center, they were both more freaked out than ever about what the crawlerz might do despite the daylight.
If they hadn’t been so focused on the shadows under the bridge up ahead, they might have noticed the super weird look on Yue’s face. The way her eyes were closed but you could see them moving back and forth under her eyelids. Like someone having crazy dreams. The way her lips were moving like she was casting a spell. She wasn’t exactly doing that but that’s what it looked like. Her nose may or may not have some fresh blood dripping out of it as well. It would be hard to tell since her face was already smeared with blood from having her nose smashed into the dashboard earlier.
This time was easier than the one at the garden center. Either she was getting better at controlling them or it was easier when there was more of them. Yue really didn’t know since it seemed like every time that she tried this it turned into something different. This time all she did was slip into the groupthink of the infected under the bridge up ahead and show them the truck coming at them. She filled her own mind with images of leaping on the truck when it passed under the bridge. Pretty soon her vision was clouded with the images from the infected reflecting the truck approaching. She became part of their excitement. Her shared lust for uninfected flesh bringing a flush to her own cheeks.
She wanted to drop out of the chain of images circulating through the group she was making herself part of. She hated the obscene images of depraved cannibalistic lust she was ensnared in. The way it triggered some long neglected part of her brain to feed on that connection and those extremely base desires. She wanted to get out of that, but she couldn’t let herself. Not yet anyway. She had to make sure she stayed in control after the crawlerz attacked. She’d have to fend them off herself, Lisa and Lindsey. She could care less about the others.
The first crawler smashed into the windshield of the speeding truck before they even got under the bridge. In her meditative state Yue had seen what the leaping crawler had seen. She’d guided it to jump for the driver of the vehicle. In some other part of her brain she was wondering what was going to happen to her if the truck flipped over or crashed into something. She’d been unceremoniously dumped into the middle of the bench seat. It wasn’t like Schmidt had taken the time to seatbelt her in or anything. With her arms fastened behind her back she couldn’t even brace herself for what she knew was coming
The windshield on the driver’s side exploded into a million pieces of safety glass. Yue already had her eyes squeezed shut so other than the possible addition of some more scars she was good to go there. The crawler broke its neck and died coming through the window. The driver freaked out thinking the dead crawler was going to bite him and slammed on the brakes. The driver was only steering with one hand while desperately trying to push the crawlers head out of his lap. If there’s one place you didn’t want the infected sinking their teeth into it was definitely your crotch.
The green machine slid sideways under the bridge striking one of the poles in the middle. The section of truck that hit the pole took a big chunk of concrete off of it. The truck pinballed away from the large round support beam and slid sideways towards the underside of the bridge. Yue was knocked out of her mediative state by all the crashing around they were doing. Schmidt hadn’t bothered putting on his seatbelt either. He’d gotten his head slammed into the passenger side window when they hit the support beam. Karma can be a real bitch.
More crawlerz slammed into the truck. One of the monsters smashed the driver side windows out and pulled the rattled driver out by his hair and neck. The driver screamed as a trio of the infected bit into whatever parts of exposed skin they could get to. Schmidt opened the door on his side and grabbed Yue. Yanking her out of the car he made a run for the light. Yue saw the light through her blurred visions. It looked like a golden waterfall pouring into the concrete. It formed a shimmering curtain that they could pass through to reach relative safety.
Weapons were going off behind them. A suddenly agitated Yue remembered that her two friends were still shackled in the back of the truck. She tried to turn around to go back to them, but Schmidt cuffed her hard on the side of the head and pushed her towards the light. Realizing she was in no condition to try and physically overpower Schmidt she let herself slip back into her trance state. She repeated a phrase of non-sense words she’d made up to help her reach that state. Schmidt glanced at her oddly then ignored her once again. He was just happy to see she was no longer fighting him on getting the hell out from under the bridge.
He continued to drag her while she let herself slip back into the stream of consciousness that made up the groupthink the crawlerz were driven forward by. She saw the men coming out of the back of the truck with weapons firing in the dark. The crawlerz they hit didn’t register pain from the bullets driving them to the ground. Rather it was a sense of utter frustration at not being able to get at the hot wet flesh of the uninfected. This frustration was what made the other infected more cautious about their approach. Pain meant nothing to them.
The crawlerz began sliding under the truck and bouncing up on the roof to strike the soldiers from different angles. The infected became lost in bliss at the coppery taste of their preys life blood. Yue did her best to ignore the near orgasmic feeling of tasting the blood of their victims. She kept her head above the cloudy water as she thrashed around looking for any images of Lindsey or Lisa. She knew she may only get a microsecond to inject an image to save them. If she missed her moment, then one of her friends would die. She repeated her phrase out loud letting it become a loud chant as she undulated her body. She was doing everything she could to stay focused.
In the back of the truck Lisa came to faster than most of the people who’d been bashed around in the crash. There was a couple of tiny red lights lighting up the back of the truck. She saw a couple of men hop out to the street below. A second later she heard their screams as something attacked them. She was pretty sure she knew what that something was. She really hoped Yue had something to do with it. If not, her and Lindsey were screwed. Searching the faces around her she saw one she recognized. Reaching out with her foot she smacked him in the face until he looked up.
“Spencer. I need you to unlock these handcuffs so I can get out of here.” Lisa said. She’d been shackled to the inside of the truck. She really hoped Spencer hadn’t lost the keys. Looking at the giant knot on the side of his head she hoped he was still able to speak English. For her to be able to see it in this light it must be a pretty impressive injury.
Spencer fumbled around in his pockets until he finally pulled out a keychain. He crawled over next to her and started working on trying to get the right key to unlock her. A crawler smashed into one of the soldiers in the back of the truck with them. The crawler was on the floor about six feet from where Spencer was trying to uncuff her. The crawler rolled off the first man it’d attacked onto one of the soldiers who was lying unconscious on the floor bed. Another soldier had his pistol out and was shooting the crawler in the back.
Spencer finally figured out how to unlock the cuffs and set Lisa free. She immediately grabbed the keys from him and unlocked Lindsey. As soon as the
cuffs were off a bleary eyed Lindsey, she looked over at Spencer. He’d pulled his own pistol out while he waited for her to unlock Lindsey. Lisa poked him in the back and Spencer started moving forward. The original man who’d been attacked by the crawler who’d jumped into the truck rolled over and attacked Spencer’s leg. Spencer put his pistol to the infected soldiers body and started pumping rounds into him. The newly turned surger shuddered and then stopped moving.
A thoroughly hysterical Spencer sat down with his back to the side of the truck and pulled his ripped pants leg up to take a look. He was missing a small chunk of his calf in the shape of a human mouth. Crying he pointed at the wound like that would somehow save him. Lisa slid over next to him and asked if he had any bandages. He said he did in his backpack and Lisa offered to hold his pistol for him while he got them. She was telling him that if he had any kind of water or anything they could try and clean the wound out. She was telling him she’d seen people survive if they acted fast enough.
He set his pistol down and started frantically digging through his backpack. She picked the pistol up and shot him in the back of the head. Across the truck she saw another soldier with a rifle in his hands had seen what she’d done. She flipped her pistol around to aim at him. He nodded respectfully at her before going back to doing his best to kill anything that got near therm.
Crawlerz: Book 5: Off the Rails Page 7
