She was pretty sure she wasn’t cut out to be a guerrilla soldier. Still, she was going to give it her best. She sure as hell didn’t want to die. Next time though, she’d let Leo sideline her. Chess players were much better suited to benchwarming than guerrilla fighting.
They were at the back of the store, on the side closest to the trees. Cassie tried to assess the scene, but visibility was limited due to their position. It was also incredibly dark.
“On three,” Leo said. He gave her hand a squeeze. “One. Two. Three!”
They bolted out like rabbits. Once free of the porch, Cassie scrambled to her feet and ran. The soaking backpack bounced on her back.
Off to one side, she spotted a mutant with two dead Soviets. The monster held one of the bodies in his lap, dipping his fingers into the skull cavity and lapping up brain matter.
The sight made Cassie gag. She turned her attention to Jennifer. Her sister had pulled ahead of their small group, leading the way through the Bohemian Grove.
The gunfire seemed to be concentrated on the north side of the general store. The screaming was awful.
A Soviet had dropped a lantern on the road that snaked through the Grove. The light stabbed through the trees and ferns, providing a single snapshot of the melee. Russians and mutants were everywhere.
She saw a Soviet in a stand-off with a mutant. The terrified man fired shot after shot as the mutant charged him like a bull. The bullets didn’t slow him. The mutant knocked him to the ground, swinging a large rock in his fist. There was a dull thud as he cracked open the skull.
She kept running. Jennifer kept them in the forest, away from the road that led through the Grove. This meant their progress was slowed by undergrowth and fallen trees, but it was better than being out in the open. Cassie alternated between looking around the forest like a frightened deer and watching the ground beneath her feet.
She was looking off to her left when Spill tripped in front of her. Cassie’s foot caught on his ankle. She went down on top of him.
Leo was there in an instant, grabbing her by the arm. Cassie pushed off the ground. Her hand hit something round and hairy.
A distant part of her mind knew exactly what she had touched. That same part of her brain screamed for her not to look.
But the reactionary part of her mind took over. Her eyes flicked down, looking for the source of the strange thing beneath her fingers.
It was a body. A dead girl.
And she wasn’t the only one. There was a pile of dead girls, nearly a dozen. They were naked, their bodies covered with bruises and blood. Cassie might not know much about sex beyond what she had learned in school, but she knew what the smeared blood on their thighs meant.
These girls had been raped and executed, each of them shot in the head after they’d been used. The girls ranged in age between high school and college, just like her and Jennifer.
Cassie bit back a scream. She had wondered what the Soviets were doing in this place. Now she had her answer. Her chest heaved as she struggled to breathe.
Leo murmured urgently in her ear. “We can’t help them. We have to keep moving.”
Cassie swallowed and kept running. She glanced back once at the pile of bodies, letting the image sear itself into her brain.
She’d seen a lot of terrible things in the last few days. For some reason, this atrocity hit her the hardest. Maybe it was the fact that the girls reminded her of herself and Jennifer. Maybe it was the fact that the Soviets had used them and tossed them away like garbage.
Cassie felt something inside her heart shift and harden. Ever since Leo had rescued her and taken her to the Sniper headquarters, she’d wanted to help, to contribute to the war effort.
But this was the first time Cassie had ever wanted to kill. She wanted to find the men responsible and kill them with her bare hands. She hardly recognized the rage burning inside her. It was like looking at a stranger. Maybe she was cut out to be a guerilla.
She reminded herself the mutants had the Russians well in hand. She would get her chance to kill Soviets in Luma.
By the time they reached the river, the sky had lightened to a dark gray. Cassie’s breath frosted the air. The screams and gunfire from within the Bohemian Grove had dwindled.
She got her first good look at Griggs. He looked awful. His skin was clammy and pale. The bite mark on his neck was puckered and black around the edges. Already, the signs of infection were present. Black veins snaked away from the bite mark, creeping up and down his neck.
Griggs noticed everyone staring at him. “I’m still here,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m not that easy to kill.” Without another word, he waded into the river.
Cassie dreaded the cold touch of the water and wished they had their kayaks. She’d never been a great swimmer.
Suck it up, she told herself. What was a little cold water compared to what those girls had gone through back in the Bohemian Grove?
She waded in with the others, inhaling sharply at the cold. Gritting her teeth, she went to the darkest part of the water, where it was deepest. She submerged herself and gave herself up to the current, dog-paddling to keep her head above water.
They left the Bohemian Grove behind, riding the river southwest.
They soon hit a stretch of river that was too shallow to swim. Cassie dragged her water-logged body out of the water, shivering from the cold. What she wouldn’t give for a fire to dry off and warm her skin. She was determined to keep going no matter what. Her feet sloshed through the ankle-deep water.
“How are you doing?” Leo asked beside her.
The sky had lightened even more, giving Cassie enough light to see him clearly for the first time in hours. One look at him sent a jolt of fear through her. If possible, he looked even worse than Griggs. His eyes were pinched with pain and fatigue. There was a droop to his shoulders she’d never seen before. His skin was pale.
“Leo—”
“I’m okay, Cas.” He looked down at his side. His hand was pressed against the bandage she’d placed over his wound. “I just need to be stitched up. The cut won’t stop bleeding.”
The breath left her lungs. Leo was not okay.
Yet what could they do here in the middle of the Russian River?
“We need to find shelter,” Cassie said. “You definitely need stitches.” She didn’t even want to think about the types of bacteria and other river scum that might have gotten into his wound.
“Soon,” he agreed. “When we leave the water. I want more distance between us and the Bohemian Grove.” He took in her shivering form. “We all need someplace to dry off and rest. We can’t pull off an attack on Luma in this state.”
The river once again deepened. They re-entered the water and resumed swimming. If they survived this mission, Cassie wasn’t sure she’d ever want to swim again.
“How much farther do you think we need to go?” she asked no one in particular.
“I think we’re just past Duncans Mills,” Jennifer replied. “I saw the back of a building that looked like Farmshed Bakery.” She glanced at Cassie when she said this.
Their parents had loved Farmshed Bakery. It was an odd memory to hold up against the current circumstances. The family that occasionally made trips to the beach and stopped at Farmshed Bakery felt like it belonged to someone else. Cassie tried to hold a mental image of her parent’s faces, but all she saw were the bodies of the murdered girls back at the Bohemian Grove.
They kept swimming. Cassie was numb. Her teeth chattered. Her hands felt like ice shards. The cold seemed to have permeated her entire body, lodging in her bones.
The land rose sharply on either side of them. The current increased in flow, sucking them along.
At first, Cassie was glad for the extra tug of the water. Moving faster meant getting out of the river sooner.
But it also meant something else. The Russian River emptied into the Pacific Ocean. If the current was picking it up, it meant they were getting close to the river�
�s terminus.
The rising land on either side of them was also a bad sign. Cassie knew the road to the beach sloped up for a few miles before it hit the ocean. That’s why the views along the ocean road were so great. Up on those tall bluffs, a person could see for miles.
Which was nice when you were in a car. It wasn’t so nice when you had to climb them to escape the river. And they would only get taller the farther they swam.
“Guys, we need to get out of the water,” Cassie said.
The Pacific Ocean in Northern California was a not a friendly stretch of water. For starters, it was probably ten times colder than the river. For another, the waves were brutal and unpredictable. The last thing they wanted was to get swept out into the ocean.
Jennifer shook her head. “It’s too soon, Cas.”
“No.” Cassie was pretty sure their bearings were off. “The river is moving too fast. I think we’re either close or past Nicks Cove.” Nicks Cove was the last hamlet before the ocean.
“But the bakery—”
“Jen.” Cassie met her sister’s gaze. She knew for a fact they’d all lost track of where they were, and were now too close to the ocean. “We need to get out of the river. The farther we swim, the taller those bluffs are going to get.”
Everyone looked at her. Leo absorbed her expression and nodded.
“Shore time,” he said. “Come on.”
They swam sideways, fighting the pull of the current as they headed for the bluffs. The water continued to pull them south.
Anxiety knotted in Cassie’s chest. They’d swam too far south. There was no way they could climb the fifty-foot bluffs on either side of them.
She reached the bluff and latched onto a large tree root. The water dragged her body sideways, trying to pull downstream. The others likewise grabbed exposed roots.
They all stared up at the bluff, an unspoken question hanging in the air: should they attempt to climb it?
“Too risky,” Leo said at last. “Our packs are too heavy from the water. If we try to climb, we could fall. We have to swim back upstream.”
38
Upstream
This was not going to be easy. Leo locked his fatigue away in a distant part of his mind. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep.
He’d lost too much blood. He needed to get dry and take care of the knife wound.
Soon, he told himself. As soon as they got out of the river, they’d find a place to dry off and warm up. There were homes and cabins scattered throughout the woods. They would find one of those.
Leo turned his attention upstream. If he hadn’t been feeling like shit, he would have realized they’d gone too far. Thank God Cassie had been paying attention. It was easy to get turned around when you were in the middle of nowhere with no landmarks.
He held tight to the tree root and pulled, simultaneously pushing against the river bottom with his boots.
Going upstream was always five times harder than going downstream. Even though the water of the Russian River was mild in comparison to the larger, more popular rafting rivers, it was still a river.
The water was waist-high on him. Between the pull of the river, his water-drenched clothing, and his knife wound, it took all of Leo’s strength to fight the current. He glanced back at Griggs. The man’s face was pinched with determination as he, too, fought his way upstream.
“It’s not far,” Cassie said behind him.
At first he thought she meant they didn’t have far to go. But looking upstream told him this was not the case. It was at least a quarter mile before the land sloped back down to give them any access to the land.
Then he realized she was attempting to comfort him. He adored her for trying.
“I’m so sorry, guys,” Jennifer said. “I messed up.”
“Not your fault,” Leo replied. “I got turned around, too.”
Step by step, they plodded their way back upstream. His hands were scraped and cut from grabbing onto the various exposed roots. His back ached from the wet backpack. His side hurt like hell. He was cold and tired and just wanted to lie down and take a nap.
He kept one eye on the bluffs, alert for any signs of danger. They’d learned the hard way that Russians weren’t just in the towns and cities. The fuckers could be anywhere. Same with the mutants.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever escape the memory of those murdered girls. The expression on Cassie’s face had been equally soul-crushing. When she saw those girls, Leo had seen something change in her eyes. A hardness had solidified there.
He regretted bringing her on this mission even if her presence was more than justified. Hell, she’d just prevented all of them from riding the Russian River straight into the Pacific Ocean.
“Does anyone else think it’s ironic that we’re in the Russian River?” Cassie asked, panting for breath.
“Why is it called that?” Spill asked.
“The Russians built a trading fort for redwood trees along the coast,” Cassie said. “That’s why the river was named after them. I did a report on it in fifth grade. The Native Americans called it the Ashokawna River.”
“Maybe that’s what we should start calling it,” Jennifer said bitterly. “It’s a much better name.”
“It is,” Leo agreed. He didn’t like anything in their country being named after the damned invaders.
God, he was tired. And cold. How much blood had he lost?
He replayed every horror he’d witnessed since the Russians first invaded, willing it to fuel him. Lars and Adam, both teenage varsity football players turned into nezhit. His dad, also bitten and lost to them. Jim. The girls in the Grove. All the infected who had terrorized West County and were now dying off. The poor bastards who had been ruthlessly gunned down in the initial invasion.
He willed the memories to bring his blood to a slow boil. The hatred was all he had. It gave him the strength to put one foot in front of the other.
What seemed like hours later, the bluffs finally tapered back down to water level. Leo heaved himself out of the river, treading with heavy feet into the trees that grew up alongside the bank.
Something touched his hand. He looked down to find Cassie’s fingers laced with his. He could barely feel her through the numbness.
“Hold on, Leo,” she murmured. One look at her face told him she knew exactly how bad he was. He’d lost too much blood.
“We need to build a fire,” Cassie said. A low fog clung to the landscape around them. It might be summer, but it was still chilly this close to the coast. Being soaking wet didn’t help.
“What if the smoke is spotted?” Jennifer asked.
Something passed between the sisters. Leo didn’t hear them speak, but he knew they were communicating all the same.
After a long beat, Jennifer said, “We’ll keep it small. I’ll find some firewood. Spill, do you know how to build a fire?”
“Yeah. They taught us in SERE training.”
“Good. You guys find a clearing and I’ll be back,” Jennifer said.
“I’ll go with you.” Spill followed her in to the trees.
That left Leo, Cassie, Bruce, and Griggs. Cassie hurried through the trees ahead of them, pushing through thick patches of ferns and hazelnut trees to find a suitable resting place. Bruce slung an arm around Leo, supporting him as he walked.
A hundred yards away from the river, Cassie found a clearing of redwoods. She dropped her pack and picked up a large branch, using it to rake away the larger pieces of forest debris. Griggs slumped to the ground, leaning back against a tree. Bruce lowered Leo the ground. Leo wanted to help Cassie, but he was too tired.
A few minutes later, Jennifer and Spill bustled into the clearing with an armload of wood. Spill gathered dry pine needles into a pile and lit them with some matches. He and Jennifer fed twigs to the flames, slowly building up the fire.
Cassie knelt in front of Leo, smoothing hair back from his face. “We have to get your shirt off so I can see your knife wound.”
; He let Cassie undo his buttons and pull off his sodden flannel shirt. Her eyes went round when she pulled the soaking bandage off his middle. He didn’t bother looking at the wound. Based on the pain, he already knew it was bad.
“Do you know how to give stitches?” Spill asked her.
“Umm, I took some sewing classes when I was a kid. I made a few pillows and quilts.”
“You were too liberated to take a sewing class, weren’t you?” Leo said to Jennifer. He must be feeling like shit to be goading her, especially when she was busy building a fire to help him.
She ignored his comment. “You’re going to have to do it, Cas,” Jennifer said. “Spill and I have to get this fire going. Bruce, keep an eye on Griggs.” The soldier was looking worse by the minute.
“Okay.” Resolute, Cassie retrieved the first aid kit she’d brought from the cabin.
The first thing she did was open a small orange pharmacy bottle. “Take these.” She held two pills up to his lips.
He took the pills and swallowed them, picking up the orange bottle from the kit. The penicillin was leftover from his father’s bout with the flu last spring. Giuseppe Cecchino was printed across the pharmacy label.
“Dad’s still looking out for me,” he mumbled.
Cassie gave him a worried look before returning her attention to the first aid kit. She ripped open several small packets of tiny disinfectant wipes.
He was pretty sure there was a joke to be made about this situation. For starters, Cassie had just taken his shirt off for the first time. On top of that, the disinfectant wipes looked like they were made to take care of paper cuts, not knife wounds. Life was ripe with irony.
But Leo had never been one to crack jokes, even when he wasn’t half dead from a knife wound. He’d always been on the serious side. His mom used to call him her “serious one.” Jennifer had complained about him being too serious back in high school. Hell, that was one of the reasons she’d dumped him.
He touched the side of Cassie’s face as she worked on his side, enjoying the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips. He didn’t think she minded his serious side.
Zommunist Invasion Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 45
