Indestructible: V Plague Book 7 (16 page)

“Stay on me!”  I shouted to Katie and ran for the tunnel
that led out of the chamber.

She kept her left hand on my left shoulder, firmly gripping
the edge of the vest.  I was moving fast, but was afraid to break into a full
run, rather moved by shuffling my feet along the surface of the sand.  Any
females that hadn’t gotten to their feet could easily trip me.  I hoped that
keeping my feet low would prevent that.

I had lowered the rifle and drawn the Kukri as we ran,
feeling it slice into a body a moment before I crashed into it.  The contact
with the blade had given me enough warning time to lower my shoulder and bull
the female aside.  We kept going, screams continuing to sound all around us. 
Hands grasped at my arms as we moved and I began slashing back and forth.

More often than not I felt momentary resistance as the blade
bit into flesh, but it was sharp and my swings were adrenaline fueled.  The
Kukri cut through everything it contacted.  I was starting to think we were
going to make it to the exit relatively unscathed when a body crashed into my
right side and sent me sprawling.

I landed hard on my left shoulder, no longer feeling Katie’s
hand gripping my vest.  Panic surged as the female that had tackled me lunged
her face forward against my throat.  I was able to thrust my shoulder up just in
time to protect my flesh, hearing her teeth clack together on empty air, inches
from my ear.

Twisting, I grabbed the female’s neck and levered her up and
away, thrusting the Kukri into her chest until my knuckles pressed against her
body.  Hurling the corpse away I stood, afraid to swing the blade because I had
no idea where Katie was.  Disoriented in the dark, rage took over and when the
next female reached for me I yanked her close and snapped her neck.

Stepping back, I sheathed the Kukri and raised the rifle.  Suddenly
I could see and began pulling the trigger the moment I had a target.  The
females zeroed in on me as soon as I fired the first shot, rushing my
location.  They were close, but I had the advantage of sight and kept putting
them down as fast as I could pull the trigger, sidestepping so as not to give
them a static location to attack.

“Katie!”  I shouted, no longer worried about the females
knowing exactly where I was.

“Here!”  She shouted in return a moment later, her voice
coming from behind me.

Knowing where she was removed the last restraint and after
changing magazines I switched from semi to full auto and started mowing down my
attackers.  I wasn’t going for headshots, just putting bullets into legs to
slow them.  Going through two full mags, I popped in a fresh one as I moved
backwards.

“Coming to you,” I shouted between pulls of the trigger.

“No need,” Katie said a moment later from right behind me,
then I felt her hand on my shoulder again.

The females were still screaming, but as I scanned the
chamber with the night vision scope I didn’t find any that were still able to
walk.  Many were alive, crawling towards us across the sandy floor, but they
weren’t an immediate threat.  I checked behind us, not at all surprised when I
saw three dead females where Katie had been. 

“OK, we’re moving,” I said, heading for the tunnel. 

Three more females were on the ground, still alive, between
the exit and us.  Switching back to semi I put a single round into each of
their heads, then broke into a real run.  Katie held on tight and stayed right
against my back.

Passing through the gap, I turned to the side so I would
fit, Katie shifting her hand to my other shoulder.  The light steadily
increased as we approached the far end and I moved with the rifle at my shoulder,
ready to fire.  I didn’t think for a moment that there weren’t other females
responding to the screams and sounds of the fight.

We quickly covered the length of the tunnel, emerging into
the next chamber.  Stepping over the bodies of the females I’d killed earlier,
I froze when I heard screams coming from one of the other tunnels.  A lot of
screams.

“That’s a whole shitload of pissed off females,” I said.

“Is that the way out?”  Katie asked, moving up next to me
and pointing at a tunnel in the far wall.  She still held my Ka-Bar and it was
stained red, drops of blood falling from the tip onto the sand.

“In there,” I said, pushing her toward the tunnel entrance that
led to the chamber with the waterfall.  It had been empty of infected when I’d
checked it and if we were very lucky, the ones charging in would head straight
to the sleeping chamber.

Katie dashed through the opening and I followed, still
facing the approaching females with my rifle up.  We melded back into the passage,
moving around the first bend so we were hidden from the chamber we’d just
left.  I pressed my back against the glowing wall, poking my head out just far
enough to see the room.  Katie was next to me, pressed tight against my side.

A moment later, females began boiling into the chamber we’d
just left.  There were a lot of them, and they were moving too fast for me to
get an accurate count.  Racing across the floor they entered the other tunnel,
moments later fresh screams echoing throughout the caverns.

Pulling my head back I checked my vest, unhappy when I only
found four more full magazines.  Not enough with this many females.  But then
I’m not sure four hundred magazines would have helped.  There were so many of
them, and they were so fast, I didn’t think I’d be able to hold them off for
more than a few seconds.  Longer if we were in this tunnel and they couldn’t
rush me from a broad front, but even then there were more targets than I had
bullets.

“What are we doing?”  Katie mumbled in my ear.

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I’ve got less than a hundred
rounds left and I’m pretty sure there are more females than that.”

Katie stayed quiet and I leaned out to check the tunnel
entrance.  Fifteen or twenty females were pacing around the chamber, looking at
the floor, sniffing the air, but so far none of them seemed to be interested in
our hiding place.  Pulling back, I turned and quietly told Katie what I’d
seen.  Before I could turn my head away she reached up and grabbed my face and
kissed me, hard and deep.

“Just in case,” she breathed when our lips parted.

I kissed her again, a quick touch of the lips, then looked
back down the tunnel.  Two females were standing at the entrance, peering in. 
I froze, hoping they hadn’t seen me, not about to move again and risk drawing
their attention.  After a long moment, one of them stepped into the tunnel.

Without moving my head or taking my eyes off the approaching
threat I reached behind and gently pushed Katie a couple of feet away.  Once
she was clear I drew the Kukri and held it along my leg and waited.  The female
kept coming and now the second one followed her into the tunnel.

Keeping my attention on the infected I extended two fingers
on the hand that was holding the Kukri and lightly tapped the side of the
blade.  I hoped Katie would see my signal and understand.  I couldn’t help but
smile when a moment later I felt two taps on my shoulder.  She’d gotten it and
understood.

The first female moved even with me and paused when she
realized I was standing there, but I was already in motion.  Leaning out I
rotated my shoulder past her body and drove my elbow into the back of her neck. 
She stumbled forward and I reversed my motion, thrusting the Kukri into the
second female’s throat.

I grabbed the front of her shirt and keeping the body upright,
dragged it deeper into the tunnel, out of sight of the other females prowling
around the chamber.  Turning, I was happy to see Katie had finished the first
one off with the knife.  Pulling the corpse the rest of the way around the bend
I dropped it on top of the first one.

We had hardly made a noise, putting both females down before
they could sound an alarm, but something had drawn the attention of several of
the infected in the chamber.  They were stalking towards the tunnel entrance,
and I snapped my head around when a scream sounded behind us.  Whipping the
rifle to my rear, I body checked Katie out of the way and fired three shots,
dropping two females that were charging us.

There weren’t any more behind them, at least that had shown
themselves, so I turned back to the front.  As I sighted in on the females that
had broken into a sprint I felt Katie pull my pistol out of the holster
strapped to my thigh. 

Pulling the trigger, I noted the sounds as she checked the
magazine and verified there was a round in the chamber, then felt her back
against mine as she guarded our rear.  Time for worry over the noise of firing
the unsuppressed pistol was over.  Every female in the caverns knew where we
were, and it looked like all of them were charging directly at us.

I burned through a magazine in no time.  Loading a fresh one
I resumed a steady rate of fire, dropping a female with every pull of the
trigger.  They were so close I hardly needed to aim, and the narrow entrance
into the tunnel restricted them to one attacker at a time.  The bodies were
piling up, but several of the females were pulling their dead sisters out of
the way as fast as I could put them down.

Ammo was going in a hurry and I could see the chamber still
filling up with females.  In only a matter of minutes I was going to run out and
then they’d push in and rip us apart.  When the rifle ran dry I’d draw the
Kukri and keep fighting.  I’d be able to hold them off for a while, but
eventually my arm would tire and slow, or the blade would stick in a body, then
it would all be over. 

I hadn’t realized Katie was no longer at my back until she suddenly
appeared next to me, shouting to be heard over the screaming of the females and
the muted shots from the rifle.

“It’s open behind us.  We need to fall back!”

“This tunnel’s all that’s saving us,” I shouted in between
shots.  “We fall back and they can spread out and rush us.”

“How much ammo do you have left?”  She asked.

“Not nearly enough.  Maybe a minute, two if we’re lucky.”  I
said, pushing the release to drop an empty magazine then slapping in a fresh
one.

“Trust me,” Katie shouted as I felt two hard tugs on the
front of my vest.  Glancing down I saw fragmentation grenades in her hands just
as she pulled the first pin.

“Don’t fucking do…” I started to say, but it was too late. 

She had already thrown the first one onto the sand at the
mouth of the tunnel and was pulling the next pin.  The second grenade landed
farther out in the chamber amongst a tightly packed group of females.  Firing
two more times, I spun, pushed Katie around the bend and pressed my body
against her to act as a shield. 

The twin detonations were like the fist of God.  I was
deafened and not entirely sure my eardrums weren’t blown out by the concussive
wave.  Dirt and dust was thrown into the air, reducing visibility to nothing as
it quickly filled the entire chamber and rolled into the tunnel.  I was aware
of a vibration in the soles of my feet, but couldn’t hear a thing.

Moving away from Katie I looked around the bend, seeing
nothing other than a glowing cloud.  The force of the blasts had torn much of
the phosphorescent lichen free from the walls and it mixed with the dust in a
nightmarish, glowing fog.  I couldn’t see any females, but then I couldn’t see
more than six inches.  I couldn’t hear any screams, but then I couldn’t hear
anything other than my own heart pounding.

The vibrations intensified and “cave in” flashed through my
head.  Grabbing Katie’s arm I turned and ran for the far end of the tunnel. 
Grenades are devastating weapons against the human body, but they really don’t
contain that much relative explosive force.  I was pretty sure that either the
tunnel, the chamber, or both were about to be buried under a few tons of rock,
but the blasts shouldn’t cause damage all the way back to the waterfall
chamber.

We moved as fast as we could in the tunnel, visibility
slowly improving as we moved farther away from where the grenades had detonated. 
Finally we emerged from the cloud and into clear air.  The glowing dust was
just starting to roll out of the tunnel and disperse into the larger space, but
it quickly absorbed the mist in the air created by the waterfall, making the
dust heavier and causing it to fall to the sand.

The vibrations increased, turning to a deep rumble and a
moment later a fresh cloud of dust pulsed out of the tunnel, then the noise
stopped.  I had my rifle up, focused on where an infected would emerge from the
dirty air, but after a couple of minutes we were still alone.  Slowly lowering
my rifle I was glad to note that my hearing was starting to return.

The room was well lit, as it had been before, and I turned
to check Katie over.  She was dirty, sweaty, streaked with muck and blood, hair
greasy and plastered to her head, but had never looked so beautiful. 

“Can’t you ever do anything in moderation?”  I asked her,
smiling my happiness to be standing there with her.

“How many years of marriage and you have to ask?”  She
smiled back.  “Saved our asses, didn’t it?”

“Maybe just prolonged the agony if we can’t find a way out
of here.”  I said.  “How are you feeling?  The last time I saw you, you were
flat on your back with a bullet hole in your chest.”

“I’m good,” Katie said, reaching up and touching her
injury. 

Leaning down I took a closer look at where Roach’s bullet
had entered her body.  The wound looked like it had been healing for a couple
of weeks, not just a couple of days.  Rachel had told me she’d used powdered
blood clotter to stop the bleeding after determining nothing vital had been hit,
but Katie shouldn’t be up and running around two days after being shot through
the chest.

“How does it look?”  She asked.

“Good,” I said.  “You’re doing good.”

I was more than a little concerned.  Unless they’re in a
movie, people don’t just take a bullet then go on like nothing happened.  There
was definitely something odd here, and I didn’t like the only possibility I was
coming up with.  The virus.  Somehow the virus, without causing Katie to turn,
had strengthened her body and was helping her heal at an accelerated pace.

“What?”  She asked, looking at my face.  I’ve never been
good at concealing my thoughts from her.

“Nothing,” I said, starting to turn away.

“Uh huh.  Talk to me.  What’s wrong?”  She reached up and
touched the wound again.

“It’s just that you’re healing too fast,” I said.  “I’m a
little worried that maybe the virus has done something to you.”

Katie stood staring at me.  She started to smile, thinking
for a moment that I was kidding her, but as she looked at my face she realized
I was serious.

“Did you receive the vaccine while you were at Tinker?”  I
asked her.

 “They almost had to hold me down, you know how I am about
things like that, but yes I got the shot.  You don’t really think…” She paused,
a look of fear passing across her face.  “You think I’m infected?”

“I don’t know, babe.”  I said, wrapping my arms around her
and pulling her close.  “I don’t know.  I just know you’re healing about ten
times faster than I’ve ever seen.  That’s a good thing, and you’re not running
around screaming and trying to eat me.  That’s even better.”

“Maybe that’s why they took me,” she said a minute later,
face still pressed against my chest.  “I’ve been trying to figure it out, but
nothing’s made sense.  Until now.”

Katie leaned back and looked up at my face.  Started to say
something but I shook my head.  There wasn’t a point in talking about it right
now.  We were alive and together.  That was all I cared about.  Breaking our
embrace, I surveyed the chamber, seeing nothing different from the first time I’d
been in it.

Dust was still drifting out of the tunnel, but the density
of the cloud was lessening and I walked over to peer inside.  I couldn’t see
anything other than glowing dust, the night vision scope completely useless as
all it did was make the cloud look brighter.  Lowering the rifle, I stood there
for a moment listening. 

There was an occasional groan of overstressed rock and
frequent falls of dirt and small stones that sounded eerily like some giant
subterranean spider skittering along the rock walls.  The good news was there
weren’t any females trying to attack us.  The bad news; I was fairly certain
the tunnel was completely blocked and we were trapped.

I wanted to go into the tunnel and check how bad the cave in
was, but decided to wait until I could see.  Caves and caverns are dangerous
enough when you can see where you’re going and what your doing.  With zero
visibility I could stumble into a hole that had opened up in the floor, walk
into the arms of a female who was lying in wait, bash my skull in on the
ceiling, or any number of other unpleasant things. 

“So what now?”  Katie asked.

“You ask me that, dressed like you are?”  I grinned.  She
was still wearing only a thong and bra, and the bra had definitely seen better
days.  It was torn and ragged, revealing much more than it concealed.

“You’re amazing,” she laughed.  “Didn’t Rachel take good
care of you?”

“Hey!  Absolutely nothing happened between us.”  I said,
probably a little more emphatically than I should have as Katie gave me one of
her looks.

“I was just teasing.  She and I had a long talk and she told
me everything.  Or I thought she had.  Anything
you
need to tell me?” 

Katie stood looking at me with her arms crossed.  I looked
back at her, feeling the heat rise from my neck and spread across my face. 
This was hardly the time and place to be discussing Rachel, but I also didn’t
want to let the thought fester in Katie’s head.  At the moment, we were
relatively safe.

“I have feelings for her, yes.”  I finally said in a low
voice, looking at the sand at my feet.  “We’ve been through a lot, then when I
saw our house had burned I was sure you were dead at worst, or if you were
alive I’d never see you again.  I thought about being with her, a lot, but I
couldn’t.  So, yeah, I feel guilty.  But not because I did anything.  Because I
thought about it, and wanted to.”

Katie stood there looking at me for what felt like an
eternity.  I couldn’t meet her eyes.  I felt like a complete ass, but at the
same time I wasn’t going to lie to her.  She had the right to the truth, not
just about what I did or didn’t do, but also what I had thought about doing. 
Maybe I could have kept my mouth shut, but she’s a smart and intuitive woman,
always able to read me like a book, and would have figured it out anyway. 
Better to come clean and take my lumps.

“Should I be worried?”  Katie asked after letting me squirm
through several minutes of silence.

“Absolutely not!”  I said, finally looking up and meeting
her eyes.

Katie finally nodded, smiled and stepped into my arms.  She
wrapped me up and held me tight.

“Good,” she said.  “But remember one thing.  I can cut your
balls off and feed them to the infected if you don’t behave.  Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.  Got it!”  I said, smiling from ear to ear as I
held her against me.