Green Ice: A Deadly High (41 page)

“I think they’ve seen us,” Trey hissed.

“No shit,” Mancini snapped. “Get your car keys ready so you can fire up the T-Bird as soon as we get back there.”

“Where’s Jorge?
Didn’t he make it?” Leticia asked.

“He’s safe enough, for now,” Mancini muttered.
He upped the pace and broke out into a gallop, leaving Trey and Leticia a few yards behind.

Mancini led the way back through the alleyway. He slowed to a brisk walking pace, partly to allow Trey and Leticia to catch up and partly to scour the darkness for any signs of sudden movement.
Rapidly moving foot falls behind him caused Mancini to spin around, aiming the shotgun at the source of the sounds.

“Mancini?”
Trey called out, squinting into the dark alley. “You there, man?”

“Hurry it up,” Mancini growled. “Let’s get out of this fucking city.”

They huddled close and hurried through the alleyway, moving in hunched stances with Mancini and Trey at the front. Leticia gripped Trey’s free hand as she followed behind.

“Jesus, man,” Trey muttered. “I thought we were out the game in that damn warehouse, man.”

“We’re not in the land of milk and cookies yet,
dude
,” Mancini snapped, mocking the way Trey spoke.

They stopped moving and drew close to the wall at the opposite end of the alleyway. Mancini scoured the litter strewn street for any signs of infected hostiles or cops. The Thunderbird was still in its same position and the Nissan
was still parked on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. Mancini couldn’t see anybody roaming around the vicinity but heard shrill shrieking and grunts from behind him.

“Looks all clear out there,” he murmured, nodding ahead. “But
it sounds like those goons are right on our tail.”

Chapter Sixty-Three

Mancini led the way, edging
onto the street and approaching the Thunderbird. Trey and Leticia slowly followed, nervously glancing behind them, back down the alley.

“Where the hell is Jorge?” Trey hissed.

“Just get the car fired up, I’ll get Jorge,” Mancini barked.

Trey shrugged and jumped into the Thunderbird’s driver’s seat. Leticia clambered over the side into the back
, breathing heavily with exertion. Mancini ran over to the Nissan and rapped on the back window with his knuckles, glancing back to the alley.

“Come on, Jorge.
Time to shake, rattle and roll.”

Mancini impatiently waited a few seconds without a response. He tapped on the window again, this time with the shotgun barrel.

“Hurry it up, Jorge. Don’t jerk me off here. We have around ten fucking seconds to get out of here or we’re in a world of shit.”

Mancini tried to open the car’s back door but it was locked. He peered into the interior but couldn’t see anybody inside the vehicle. Jorge would definitely have been left stranded if Mancini didn’t need him. The rumble of the Thunderbird engine reverberated around the street.

“Hey, come on, man. Let’s go, already,” Trey called above the engine noise.

Mancini glanced
behind him towards the alley entrance, then back to the Nissan in front of him. He calculated the infected crowd was approximately fifteen yards from the street.

“Fuck it,” he hissed, level
ing the shotgun barrel and angling it high against the Nissan window.

“They’re coming, man. We have to go or they’ll be all over us,” Trey yelled from the Thunderbird.

Mancini fired the shotgun, obliterating the Nissan’s back windows on both sides. The boom of the firearm, combined with the sound of shattering glass echoed across the street.

“Ah, good call, man,” Trey shouted, throwing up his arms in exasperation. “Let the whole world know where we’re at, why don’t you?”

Mancini reached through the shattered window and opened the back door. A ghost like face loomed from the blackness inside the Nissan interior and Mancini jumped backwards, re-aiming the shotgun. He was a millisecond from discharging the firearm before he recognized the worried, hang-dog features on the emerging face.

“Jesus Christ, Jorge. You scared the crap out of me,” Mancini barked. “Why the hell didn’t you reply when I knocked on the window?”

Jorge blinked sleep away then shrugged. “You scared me also. Why did you have to shoot the windows out? I found a blanket on the back shelf and made myself comfortable. I didn’t hear you, I was sleeping. What the hell is going on now?”

Mancini didn’t bother to respond to Jorge’s gripes and queries. He reached into the Nissan interior and grabbed hold of the front of Jorge’s shirt and wrenched him up and out of the foot wells. Jorge winced and moaned in pain as his injured ankle snagged against the ridge at the bottom of the open door.
Mancini propelled Jorge over the sidewalk, hurling him towards the Thunderbird.

“Get the fuck in the car,” he yelled.

Jorge stumbled, crying out when the pain shot up from his ankle through his body. He fell against the side of the Thunderbird and clung on to the top of the passenger door.

“You are nothing but a thug, Mancini,” he s
pat. “You are a violent bully. The world would be a better place without people like you.”

Shadows of human shapes with raised arms emerged across the Thunderbird’s headlamp beams. High pitched screams and low grunts grew in volume, almost drowning out the rumble of the car engine.

Mancini glanced at the alleyway and saw the infected horde pouring from the narrow passage onto the street.

“Get in the fucking car, asshole,” Mancini growled, pointing the shotgun barrel at Jorge’s head. “I don’t like you and I don’t give a shit whether you live or die after this is all over but right now, I need you alive so move your crippled ass into that back seat or I’ll blow out one of your kneecaps right here on this damn street
and give you something serious to piss and whine about.” He lowered the shotgun parallel with the middle of Jorge’s leg.

Jorge made a snorting protest but complied with Mancini’s threatening request all the same. He hauled himself upright, using the side of the Thunderbird as leverage. Leticia leaned across the backseat and helped pull him inside the interior. Jorge winced and cried out when his injured ankle bumped against the side of the car as he crawled inside. Mancini jumped into the front passenger seat without opening the door, placed the shotgun and the Heckler and Koch handgun at his feet then wrenched the semi automatic rifle from his shoulder.

“Hit the gas, Trey,” Mancini instructed.

“
I’m on it,” Trey said. His foot thumped down hard on the gas pedal and the Thunderbird’s tires squealed as the vehicle lurched forward.

The infected roared and chased after the Thunderbird as it gathered speed. Some of the contaminated people leading the pack kept pace with the car and tried to grab hold of the tops of the doors. Mancini aimed and fired at the hostiles attempting to cling on. He wasn’t too
bothered about attaining kill shots, he was simply trying to restrict the infected from hanging on and launching themselves into the interior.

“They’re all over us, man,” Trey wailed.

“Just keep driving and keep your eyes on the road,” Mancini roared, firing a shot through an infected man’s gaping mouth. The body jerked sideways and fell away from the side of the car.

The Thunderbird roared on through the street, leaving the infected horde in the distance. Mancini took care of
a couple of stragglers clinging to the sides of the car and reloaded the rifle when the hostiles were eliminated.

“Ah, man,” Trey sighed, wiping sweat from his face. “I’ve never been so…” His words trailed off and his voice sounded tired and croaky. 

Mancini glanced across to the driver’s side. “Keep focused. Get us out of the city, Trey, okay?”

Trey
returned Mancini’s gaze. “Okay, I hear you, man. Now, which fucking way are we heading?”

It was a good question that Mancini didn’t have an answer to. The darkness prevented him from reading the map and he knew they had to avoid any sort of road block or law enforcement blockades.
They’d have to simply chance their arm and hope luck was on their side. The main route through the city was probably totally shut down so they had no choice but to press on through the back streets inside the quarantined area.

“Just keep heading on this route but make sure we don’t go through any dead ends,” Mancini said. “No more stops before we get to La Paz, agreed?”

Trey glanced in Mancini’s direction. “What happens if I need to take a piss, man?”

Mancini returned his stare with a steely glare. “You piss out of the fucking window.”

“What, while I’m driving?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll hold the wheel. Now, keep your eyes on the fucking road.”
Mancini pointed to the windshield then cocked the rifle. He took a quick glance to the backseat to check on Jorge and Leticia. Jorge leaned back in his seat groaning in pain with his eyes half shut and Leticia clutched the back of Trey’s seat with her eyes wide in concerned anguish.

Overly stuffed dumpsters, discarded vehicles and mutilated bodies littered the dark back streets. Huddles of infected crouched over recently deceased victims,
ripping, tearing and munching on human sinew and flesh. Some of them glanced up from their frenzied feasting as the Thunderbird’s single headlamp highlighted their ghoulish activities. They scowled
in
hissed in disapproval at being disturbed as the car sped by.

“Ah, this is disgusting,” Leticia gasped as she viewed the roadside carnage. “The whole situation is growing
much worse.”

“True
dat,” Trey muttered.

They drove by a school with darkened windows and Leticia crossed herself and said a short prayer for the children, hoping they would survive the infectious outbreak. 

Mancini worried how far the infection was spreading. Luiz had certainly left a trail of destruction in his wake. At its accelerating pace, he wondered how long it would take for the whole shitty disease to spread across the entire continent.

Chapter Sixty-Four

Trey drove through carcass and trash strewn street after street, which all looked similar to one another. Mancini hoped they weren’t driving around in one big circle after another but he didn’t feel as though they were heading back on themselves.

“Ah, man, is this place one long, never ending shit hole
?” Trey sighed, rubbing his eyes.

Mancini glanced across the seats. “You want me to take over driving?”

“I thought you said no more stops, man? If you want to swap seats and take over driving, we’re going to have to stop the car.”

“We can swap without stopping if you want.”

“Nah, I’m just messing with you, man,” Trey said, with a slight, half hearted laugh. “I’m still good. I just want to get out of this god awful shitty city.”

“Roger that,” Mancini snorted.
He reckoned they had to be approaching either some kind of quarantine barricade or the city limits soon.

Trey was about to take a right turn at a junction but Mancini caught a brief glimpse of a
green road sign a few yards further down the street to their left.

“Whoa, hold the train,” he yelled.

Trey hit the brakes, slowing the Thunderbird to a crawl. “
Hold the train
? Is that what they said in those stupid old cowboy movies?”

Mancini ignored Trey’s dig. “Back up a little.”

“You sure about this?” Trey sighed.

“Absolutely, now come on, back up. Let’s see if we can see what that road sign says.”
Mancini impatiently waved his hand in a backward motion beside his head.

“All right, you’re the top guy,” Trey huffed, jamming the transmission into reverse.

The Thunderbird rolled backwards and Mancini pointed down the street to their left. Trey drove forward slightly, angling the front of the vehicle so the solitary headlamp lit up the road sign. Mancini and Trey squinted through the windshield reading the sign. White lettering and arrows pointed in each direction but one single route alerted their attention.

“La Paz, one hundred and twenty seven motherfucking miles, man,” Trey whooped. He held up his hand, enticing Mancini to perform a high-five.

Mancini only pointed in the direction the white arrow indicated. “Let’s go,” he grunted.

Trey shrugged and hit the gas pedal, taking the left turn. “If the road’s clear, we can do this in one and a half, maybe two hours tops,” he said
, feeling relieved they were now back on track.