The man took a step back without saying anything. He didn’t need to. Actions spoke.
“All right.” Turk reached out for Skinny and pulled him into the dark. “Stay right here. I’m going to go check the other building.”
“Juh-juh-just don’t shoot,” he said. “Please, don’t shoot.”
Turk ignored the man’s babble. If he were going to kill Skinny, he’d have done it long ago. Another ten seconds of silence passed. Turk slipped out of the building, well aware that he’d exposed himself to anyone watching. The streets were laid out north, south, east and west. The buildings offered a way to stay out of view, but that couldn’t be counted on.
He heard a cry for help. Baldy? Mike? Which one was it? What if it was someone else? There could be others on base.
With his rifle aimed ahead, Turk remained close to the wall as he moved toward the main road that ran between the buildings. Every few steps, he turned his head ninety degrees, looking to his right and behind.
No one watched. No one followed.
Upon reaching the corner of the building, he stopped and took a deep breath. Any number of scenarios was possible. He wanted to be prepared before exposing himself to them.
Across the road, Baldy lay on a stretch of bleached concrete, in front of an open door. He was surrounded by an expanding pool of blood. His right hand, which hovered over his stomach, twitched wildly. It appeared as though he’d suffered trauma to his abdomen. His face was shredded on one side. A large gash ran from his mouth to his ear.
Another cry for help seemed to originate from within the building.
Mike.
Something else had to be present, too.
Turk could just shut the door. Wouldn’t be that big a waste, right? Mike was a piece of shit hick that nobody would miss. But what about the next poor soul who came along and decided to enter the warehouse in hopes of finding supplies? What kind of surprise would await that guy?
The image of the underground facility in Nigeria flashed through Turk’s mind. Standing above a hole in the floor, looking down on a sea of afflicted. Firing rounds hopelessly, never thinning their ranks. The damned crowded around a cell block where several members of Delta Force awaited their fate.
Turk had been the one to deliver reprieve to the soldiers in the form of death.
Not those soulless bastards.
It didn’t matter who was inside the building. Could be an asshole like Mike, or a close friend. Turk had to do what he could for the person. No one deserved to be eaten alive.
He hurried down the side of the building and then crossed the blacktop. At the corner of the building, he stopped and scanned the surroundings. Behind him, toward the gate, there was no one visible. Same in the opposite direction, where the road led to the water.
Bally continued to groan and cry. From here, Turk made out the man’s throaty pleas for help. Even from a distance, he knew that death was the only salvation for the guy.
Another scream tore through the air. He felt it through his hand, which rested on the corrugated steel exterior. There was no time to waste. The afflicted had attacked. Now, perhaps with them distracted by feeding on Mike, he could end their lives.
Turk angled around the corner. He gave a quick whistle to get Baldy’s attention. The big guy’s grimace spread as he shifted his head to look back at Turk. Turk held up one finger and gave the guy a nod. He tried to keep his gaze from lingering on the hole where most of Mike’s abdomen had been. The wound was mortal. No way around that. After taking care of the afflicted, he’d provide a quick passing for Mike.
The smell emanating from the doorway was that of blood, sweat, and human waste. This was where the people had slept when the base was teeming with survivors. Though it now housed a few men, the smell had remained.
Turk entered and quickly slipped into the shadows. A room barren of interior walls spread before him. In one corner, dozens of cots had been piled. A few were still in the middle of the room, close together. For protection, he assumed.
Next to those cots lay Mike, motionless. His wide eyes stared up at the ceiling. Blood surrounded his head and upper body. His right arm was missing. A large chunk had been taken out of his neck. The wound had obviously severed his carotid artery. If Turk had arrived a few minutes earlier, he’d have seen the final quart of blood pumping out in arterial spray. Now, there was nothing. Mike had passed.
But where were the assailants?
Turk scanned the room. On first pass, he saw nothing. He felt them, though. Their penetrating stares ate through him. If he didn’t find them soon, he was next to die.
Something fell to the floor behind Mike. Turk spotted the item. The remains of Mike’s arm, chewed down to the bone from shoulder to mid-forearm. Nothing worthwhile after that.
Two eyes, glowing faintly, appeared. Turk strained to make out the body. From the position of the eyes, it had to be hunched or squatting, but the mass he expected to see wasn’t there.
And then he realized why.
A child, maybe ten years old, stepped forward and stopped next to Mike. With its head bowed and shoulders slackened, it seemed to contemplate the dead man on the ground. The child then kneeled and proceeded to study Turk.
Then it fed on Mike’s leg.
Just a kid? Is that all? Could he really cause all this damage?
He almost laughed at the questions being thrown up in his mind. He’d seen firsthand what the afflicted could do and recalled that physical traits had very little bearing after the change.
Turk aimed down the barrel. Center mass. One shot should be enough to neutralize the afflicted child. Then another to destroy the brain.
The kid looked up, his stare directed at Turk. Blood coated his face from mid-cheek to his chin. Streams of crimson flowed down his bare chest. The eyes looked normal now. Innocent. It was not the look of a beast or a monster, but that of a hungry child. The glance lasted no more than a second, but in that brief moment, Turk nearly lost the will to do what had to be done.
He thought about the man dying outside. The man already dead on the floor. How many other survivors had the child slaughtered?
The shot roared and echoed off the metal walls of the square building. The smell of gunpowder momentarily overpowered the stench in the room. The bullet hit dead center in the afflicted’s chest, knocking it backward, arms flailing.
Turk approached from the side, keeping to the shadows and affording him a view outside. The afflicted child looked up at him. It blinked several times. The eyes went from dull to glowing. Despite the wound that had damaged the being’s heart, it reached out for Turk. Through ragged breaths, its lips curled back into a snarl, exposing blood- and dirt-covered teeth.
Turk aimed the rifle at the child’s head. Without a second thought, he pulled the trigger, blowing out the back of his skull.
Tension left the muscles. The small body went limp against the concrete. Looked like a kid sleeping. Could have been Turk’s child. Or any of the children he’d known that were family or friends. And he’d killed him. What dreams had been extinguished? Hell, did they even exist anymore?
Unlike Turk, the virus didn’t care. It killed indiscriminately. And it gave life to few.
Life? Eternal damnation, more like it.
He did that kid a favor. No longer would it have to hunt a dwindling supply of human flesh, feeding on rats and squirrels to stay alive.
Outside, the humidity weighed as heavy on Turk as his actions did on his conscience. He approached Baldy. The heavy man’s breathing had become rapid and shallow. The end was close.
“What’s your name?”
The guy’s distant stare refocused on Turk. Through labored breaths he said, “Jessie.”
“I can end this for you now, Jessie. Just say the word and close your eyes.”
Jessie clenched his eyelids hard. Tears streamed from the corners. He wasn’t supposed to die. Not like this.
None of them were.
Turk stepped forward. He held the rifle inches from the man’s head.
“You won’t feel a thing, Jessie.”
But he didn’t pull the trigger. A scream cut through the air, causing Turk to retreat back inside the building.
Jessie reached out with this bloodied hand. “K-k-k-kill me.”
Turk ignored the guy. What made the sound? Had it been Skinny? Or something else?
“The-the-the gunshots,” Jessie said, gulping for air between words. “Attracts them.”
“Don’t shoot,”
Skinny had said as Turk left the other building. Now he knew why. Skinny wasn’t afraid of Turk killing him. The man knew it would attract the afflicted.
Remaining inside was asking to die. Moving was Turk’s only option. He stood in the doorway, eyes focused loosely on the metal wall across the street, on alert for movements in his peripheral vision and any sound.
With the exception of Jessie’s ragged breathing, the area remained still.
Turk stepped out. Five feet from where Jessie lay was the pistol. A .22, the firearm didn’t have much stopping power. But up close, it could penetrate a skull, and that was good enough.
He scooped it up, then looked back at Jessie. “Sorry.”
Killing the man was no longer an option. The afflicted seemed to be drawn to weak prey. A dying man served that purpose. Bait, as it were.
Turk sprinted across the narrow road toward the building separating him from the waterfront. He followed the wall left to the east, away from the station’s main road, and continued around the corner along the outer edge. His plan was to loop around this and the other southernmost structure, then get back to where he’d seen the raft.
If nothing else, he had to have that damn life raft when he left the station.
What about Skinny?
It wasn’t a thought Turk expected to have. These men meant nothing to him. They were obstacles in the way of him getting what he came for. Because of their idiocy, he was fighting the afflicted.
Maybe I drew them in. They coulda been following me through town. Shit.
He felt like he owed Skinny. If Turk hadn’t shown up, Skinny and the other two would go on with their meager existence until one of them screwed up and brought death upon the group. It was inevitable. At least Turk couldn’t construe that as his fault.
His footsteps seemed to echo through the installation amid the silence. If it weren’t for glass and other debris on the ground, he’d have removed his shoes to reduce the noise. The afflicted were attracted to it. They had been eight years ago. So why not now?
The main road dead-ended into a fence. Beyond that was the water. Turk stood at the corner of the building, weighing his options. He could leave now, over the fence and into the water. But the raft. That boat would be nice to have.
Turk eased his head around the corner of the building, looking back toward the gate. He’d hoped to see a deserted road stretching into the city. That wasn’t the case.
A pack of seven of them stood two hundred yards away. A couple stared up toward the sky. Others looked off toward the city or the side of the road. One seemed to look in his direction, but what it focused on was not evident.
“Shit,” he muttered. To get to the boat, he had to cross the road, then circle around the opposite building. So not only would he cross their path, in the time he took to get around the structure, they could be there waiting for him.
Out of sight, Turk would have no idea if they advanced.
The smell of death, trash and decay dissipated. Something stronger overpowered it. Smoke. At first a trace. But as the seconds passed, it grew strong enough that Turk’s eyes burned. A gray stack rose and plumed in the sky.
Then he heard Skinny call out. “They’re coming, man.”
The guy appeared in the middle of the street, screaming the same thing over and over while holding his arms in the air. Might as well have broadcast himself as fried chicken to a crew of construction workers.
The first afflicted took notice and began its approach. Didn’t take long for the others to follow. Their movements were uncoordinated. They staggered and jerked and dragged themselves forward. These were not the lethal beasts he’d encountered in Nigeria. Then again, not all of them were either.
Turk resisted the urge to open fire. They might not move well now, but once focused on an assailant, things could change.
He had to make a decision. Sprint across the road, head for the water, or backtrack and verify which building was on fire.
Skinny spotted him and started jogging. Turk kept back, out of view until Skinny appeared, at which time Turk checked the road again. The group of afflicted hadn’t made it far. Maybe they didn’t feel the need to hunt. Could it be an investigative party?
“What’d you do?” Turk said.
“I burned it down.”
“What?”
“The fire stops them.”
Turk leaned around the corner again. It was true. With flames leaping into the air, the afflicted were retreating.
“Tell me you dragged a bunch of shit into the street and lit it there,” Turk said.
Skinny shook his head. “Propane. Doused everything I could inside and lit a match.”