by Brian Parker
Jake quickly went through the five rounds in the magazine, plus the one in the chamber when he started, and switched to a new one. He burned through those just as quickly and accepted his first magazine back from Sergeant Wyatt, who’d reloaded it for him.
Two more shots and the threat at the edge of town was eliminated. “Nice shooting, sir.”
He smiled and glanced at the NCO. Her eyes sparkled with a little bit more than appreciation. “Thank you, Sergeant. I was on the rifle team in college.” Jake coughed uncomfortably, then said, “Let’s reload the M-2010 magazines and try to draw some more of them out.”
After a second series of horn blasts and whistles, they got three more of the infected to emerge from buildings or alleyways farther away, which Jake was able to dispatch quickly. They repeated the process again and Jake shouted into the microphone, but no other infected appeared.
“Okay, I think we’re clear up here,” Jake declared after a full ten minutes of fruitless observation. “Dickerson, how’s your fuel?”
“One-quarter of a tank, sir.”
“Alright, that’s good enough. Let’s move forward—slowly.”
Dickerson shifted the Stryker into gear and began to creep forward. He swerved left and right a few times to crush the bodies of any infected still moving, despite their critical injuries. When they were about a hundred meters from the town, Jake sank down inside the vehicle, closing the hatch above him.
He watched through the viewports for movement while Sergeant Wyatt scanned with the TWS. The dusty town, nothing more than a collection of single-story buildings and homes, passed by quickly without any further incident.
“Stop!” the gunner announced when they’d passed what Jake estimated to be the halfway point of town.
“What is it?”
“You have got to take a look at this, sir.”
He maneuvered inside the vehicle until he was looking over her shoulder at the monitor. “Are those? Zoom in.”
She complied, zooming the camera until the indistinct mounds became clearer. “Looks like bones to me, sir.”
“Yeah… Do a quick thermal scan. See if we can see anything.”
She rotated the thermal camera and weapon’s platform slowly in a 360-degree circle. “Everything looks clear as far as I can tell, Lieutenant.”
“Fuck,” Jake muttered, dreading what he was about to say. “Give the horn a few blasts, Dickerson. Let’s draw ’em out.”
The private did as ordered and Sergeant Wyatt continued to scan for heat signatures. Nothing happened, so Jake shouted a bunch of jumbled nonsense into the loudspeaker. Still nothing.
“I’m gonna go check it out.”
“What the fuck did you just say, sir?”
“I’m… I’m gonna go check out those bones. That’s not normal and we need to know what the hell we’re dealing with.”
“Normal?” she scoffed. “None of this is normal. I don’t like you leaving the vehicle.”
“I’m sorry you don’t like it, Sergeant. But if we’re going to survive on our own out here, we need to understand these things better than just reacting to them every time they show up.”
“This is my vehicle, sir.” That last word was practically a hiss. “Who’s to say I won’t leave you if you get out?”
He turned to her. “Is that how this is gonna be? Are we done pretending the rank structure still exists?”
“Hey!” Carmen shouted from below, slapping his leg. “You two quit measuring your dicks. We need both of you.”
“I’m fine with you being the lieutenant,” Wyatt said, ignoring Carmen’s statement. “You asked to join me. You would have been stuck on that base if it wasn’t for me and what I had to do to get the RTO to lie about our authorization to leave.”
“Don’t bring that into it. You enjoyed it.”
“Maybe so,” she responded, her eyes blazing. “But we have this vehicle because of me. This is my vehicle and I don’t want you to leave it. It’s not safe. We’re in the middle of a goddamned town.”
Jake could tell that she wasn’t going to budge without him explaining what he was thinking. “Look, Wyatt—Caitlyn,” he added for a more personal feel. “I understand what you’re saying, and if you want to be in charge, fine. I really don’t care. But I have a responsibility to Carmen and those two kids to keep them safe, for the long term, not just today, or the next few days. Those piles of bones represent a potential glimpse into how these things function, what they do when they’re not hunting humans. The more we understand their behavior, the better off we’ll be when we get to wherever we’re going for the long term.”
Her expression had softened somewhat as he talked. He’d surprised himself when he told her that she could be in charge. It wasn’t something that he’d thought about, but in reality, he really didn’t care. He just wanted to keep everyone safe.
“Sir, I—”
“It’s Jake. I think we’ve moved past the rank thing.”
“Okay. Jake. I don’t disagree with you. Understanding your enemy is always a good thing, but this is dangerous. We’re in the middle of nowhere, with no back up, and no chance of medical aid if something happens. It’s not safe.”
“We were on our own the moment we left those gates,” he replied. “We won’t be safe for a long time. As long as we’re out here on the road, not inside some type of safe house or compound, then we’re in danger. And if one of us needs medical attention from a wound sustained from the infected, then the only remedy is a bullet in the brain.”
“Dammit, you’re putting me in a shitty position,” Caitlyn stated. “If you get yourself killed, then I’m responsible for the safety of everyone in this truck.”
“You already are, Caitlyn. I’m not planning on getting myself killed. That’s why I’ve been making sure we’re alone before I step foot off the Stryker.” He paused for a breath, then said, “We need to understand them if we’re going to survive. This is a perfect opportunity. All of them are dead or gone. We might not ever get this chance again.”
The emotions warred across her face. Finally, she nodded. “Hold on. I want to scan the area a few more times.” Without waiting for an answer, she dropped down and began to turn the weapons platform. It made three slow rotations before she reappeared.
“I don’t see anything. If you’re going, you’d better do it now.”
“You promise you’re not going to drive off and leave me?” he asked, grinning.
“No. I might leave you just out of spite.”
Jake pressed his hands against the roof of the Stryker and jumped up, setting his butt on the edge of the TC hatch. Then he swung his legs up and out of the vehicle. Finally, he lay on his stomach and reached inside, retrieving the M-4 that Wyatt had gotten for him from somewhere.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He scooted down past the driver’s hatch, which Dickerson had open now.
“Good luck, sir.”
“Thanks, Eric,” he said, letting the private know that he was on a first name basis now too. With only the three of them, who were no longer technically in the Army, it didn’t make any sense to keep it up.
What the hell? Jake asked himself as he tried to make sense of what he saw.
It was only in the high 60s, but his adrenaline was kicked up and making him sweat. He wiped the perspiration away from his forehead quickly and then returned his hand to the barrel guard of his M-4. Scanning the four massive mounds of bones, he decided there wasn’t any threat, but there were two darkened doorways leading into the building on the left.
He moved as far across the alleyway as possible and glanced back at the Stryker. Eric Dickerson was raised out of the driver’s hatch, his own rifle trained on the alley where Jake stood. The .50 cal on top was currently facing away from him as Wyatt rotated it slowly in a circle looking for targets.
With his back-up as firm as it could be, given the circumstances, he slipped the night vision monocular down over his eye. He’d chosen the monocular from Wy
att’s pilfered inventory because it gave him the option to use the night vision or his naked eye, switching back and forth as needed without a lot of extra movements. Walking quickly to the first opening, he began using a single person room clearing technique known as slicing the pie.
He put his back against the wall and then turned to face the doorway. He used the barrel of his rifle as a guide, keeping it pointed into to darkness as he took one step away from the building. When he switched on the monocular, he closed his opposite eye and searched the green-lit room for any more of the infected. When he was satisfied that there wasn’t anything immediately threatening in the corner that he could see, he began to advance, his feet tracing the line of a shallow arc from one side of the doorway to the other while his rifle remained trained on the area inside. As he advanced, he rotated his body so that by the time he was on the far side of the door, he was basically facing back the way he’d just come from.
There were more bodies inside the room. They were unmoving and appeared to be missing pieces and parts. These were more than just bones—although, he’d glimpsed many of those in his quick clearing. He wanted to investigate, but there was another threat less than twenty feet away that needed to be cleared before he could examine the contents of the room.
He cleared the next room in the same manner, by slicing the pie. The odor emanating from it made him wonder if he’d stumbled upon a sewage treatment plant. When he was satisfied that nothing was an immediate threat, he flipped the monocular up and turned on the flashlight mounted to the side of his M-4. Besides his pistol and the knife on his vest, it was the only piece kit that he wore that had originally belonged to him. He’d taken the flashlight with him into the refugee camp for emergency illumination. It was bright enough to illuminate the front porch of a neighbor’s house at 150 feet—he’d tried it often.
The inside of the room was covered with filth. Excrement seemed to be everywhere, the floors, the walls, even the ceiling had a healthy amount of it up there. That was the only feature of the room besides piles of rags in each of the corners. Jake wondered if the rags were where the infected slept, like a nest. Every animal in nature made sleeping areas of some type, were the infected simply more like animals than humans now?
He walked back to the alley and switched off his light until the next room, where he turned it back on to get a better view of the inside. He was shocked to see the condition of the bodies that he’d glimpsed when he cleared the room quickly before. There were the bones that he’d noticed, strewn haphazardly around the space, but there were also full bodies, at least ten or more. From the alleyway, it looked as if the bodies were being eaten. Consumed for their meat.
The corpses all appeared to be emaciated, like the ones they’d killed on the outskirts of town. “Holy shit. That’s how they’re staying alive,” he mumbled, startling himself at how loud his whisper sounded in the total silence of the alley. The infected were eating their dead.
The stench emanating from the room was horrendous. It was a mixture of rotten meat, feces, stale urine, blood, and twenty other odors that he couldn’t identify. Jake took a deep breath and adjusted his t-shirt up over his nose before stepping inside, careful to avoid touching the bodies or accidentally stepping in a pile of excrement.
He didn’t need to see much, but he did want to verify that all of the bodies were from the infected. It only took a few glances to confirm his suspicion, and then he was back in the alley. The dead all appeared to be the infected. They were mostly nude with cracked and bloody fingernails, had sunken eyes, scabs everywhere, and patches of missing hair where it fell out from poor nutrition and likely from their own yanking of it in their insanity.
The town was fairly isolated, with the nearest small town about seven miles away across an unforgiving desert in the summertime. The infected that stayed in the town probably ate through everything edible they could find and then began to turn on each other. The weaker ones were probably the first to go and the ten or fifteen he’d killed were the last remaining residents of Tucumcari, New Mexico.
Jake scanned the area again to make sure there weren’t any threats and then returned to the Stryker. After giving a quick back brief to everyone inside, they continued down Highway 54 to the lake, where they repeated the horn and loudspeaker method to draw out any infected that might be lingering there.
With no threats in the area, Jake and Caitlyn authorized the civilians to bathe in the water while one of the soldiers maintained security at all times. The women were directed to stay nearby, in eye contact of each other and the Stryker so they could respond to any threats.
As the women splashed in the lake, Jake couldn’t help but notice how thin Sidney was compared to Carmen’s shapely body. She had tattoos covering her arms and a few on her upper back. She was an attractive woman with a razor’s wit that kept him thinking every time he spoke with her.
Even with her protruding belly, he felt himself becoming attracted to the pregnant woman. She laughed and splashed some water at Miguel in response to something he said. She glanced sideways at Jake sitting atop the vehicle and smiled, her lips revealing straight, white teeth. Then she turned away to begin washing away the dust and grime of the road.
19
* * *
NEAR LIBERAL, KANSAS
OCTOBER 29TH
Sally yawned, stretching her hands above her head until they reached the headboard. It felt good to work out the soreness in her shoulders. Over the past month, they’d harvested the crops and preserved everything that they could in various manners from canning to dehydrating and freezing. This week was all about cutting down the plants and corn stalks for use as feed for their small herd.
Grandpa refused to let them use the tractor for fear of attracting the infected. It was hard work with the primitive tools they used and her hands were covered in burst blisters where callouses hadn’t formed yet. She wondered if they’d had the right tools for the job, then would the work have been as difficult. If they’d owned some type of pioneer-style farming tools, then they wouldn’t have had to use hoes and shovels to cut the corn stalks. Her grandfather assured her that they’d use the tractor to till the ground in the spring, five months from now, but it didn’t help ease the soreness she felt.
It made sense. In another five months, the infected should be pretty well cleared out of the area. They’d only had three show up during the entire harvest, so the harsh plains winter would probably kill most of them that were out wandering around without any clothing.
She glanced at her cell phone. It was plugged into the wall, charging off the home’s solar power. There had been some attempts by the federal government to get the Internet back up and running, but it was mostly just broadcasts about what to do against the infected and safety procedures—as if anyone reading those announcements today wouldn’t have already figured it out months ago. She hadn’t been as ditsy as her sister, but Sally still missed her daily dose of pop culture via the web.
A soft tapping on her door brought her back to reality. It was probably Katie or Grandpa telling her it was time to wake up and get ready for the day. “Yeah?” she asked, her voice scratchy from sleep.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Miss Sally,” Jesse said. “But there’s a whole mess of infected coming down the road and we need all the help we can get.”
She sat up, her sheets falling away to reveal that she only wore a t-shirt under the covers. She snatched the blankets up quickly, then chuckled at her embarrassment since the door was clearly closed. “What’s a whole mess mean, Jesse?” she asked, putting her feet over the side of the bed onto the old wooden floors.
“They’re still about a mile out, but best we can tell, there’s about fifty of ’em. They’s still too far to shoot with that suppressed rifle of John’s so Mr. Campbell wants us to go out and take care of ’em.”
“Fifty! Wow. That’s crazy. What are so many of them doing out there?” She was already pulling on her jeans.
“I don’t rig
htly know, ma’am. They all just appeared over the hill, travelin’ south down Zielne Road.”
“South?” she asked, pausing as she pulled her nightshirt over her head. “Why are they coming from up north?” For months, the infected had only come from the south, along Highway 54, and from the east, where Liberal was. They hadn’t seen anything coming southward in forever.
“Not sure, ma’am. There’s no tellin’ where this group come from. They coulda wandered west out of Liberal and then turned down Zielne at the sound of the cattle this mornin’.”
Sally opened the door, startling poor Jesse. “Oh, sorry.”
He grinned. “S’okay, ma’am. I’m used to gettin’ a fright these days.”
“Well, I didn’t mean to, okay? Where’s Grandpa?”
“He’s down in the kitchen, eatin’ a biscuit from last night’s supper.”
“Alright. Thank you, Jesse. I assume you’re supposed to get Katie up as well?”
“Yes’m,” he replied, ducking his head. The farmhand was as sweet as could be, but there wasn’t a lot going on between his ears.
“You go wake her up and I’ll go talk to Grandpa.”
She didn’t wait for him to reply, choosing to bound down the stairs in excitement. Fifty infected! It would be like a battle royale in one of those video games her old boyfriend used to play. Only this was real life, not some silly game.
The thought of people from her old life sobered her up as she hit the first floor landing. The old floorboards creaked in protest to the sudden addition of weight.
“Now, don’t go tearing my house up, child!” Grandpa chided her from the next room.
“Jesse told me about the horde,” she exclaimed breathlessly. “What are we gonna do?”
