Authors: James Cook
“What are you planning to do with that?” I asked him as he propped the rifle up in the passenger’s side of the truck.
“Never hurts to have options.” He replied.
I thought about pressing him on the subject, but decided against it. If the Green Beret wanted to bring a sniper rifle, then I was not going to argue with him. He was certainly qualified to use it.
I gave my other suppressor equipped HK rifle to Stan, and told him to act as primary gunner. Cody was his backup just in case he had more targets than he could handle. I gave Cody the Sig Mosquito and the silencer for it, figuring that if they both had stealth on their side, then their chances of survival were much greater. Making sure that the town was clear of undead was going to be dangerous work for the two SWAT officers. I also gave them plenty of ammunition, and all the spare magazines that they could carry. Stan gave his SCAR to Jessica, who only had a 9mm pistol, and she grinned as she looked it over.
“Hell yeah, it’s nice to finally have some firepower.” She said as she raised the rifle to peer through its sights.
“That thing looks good on you, lady.” A woman’s voice shouted from behind me.
I turned around and saw Ethan, Andrea and Stacy walking toward us. Andrea carried her husband’s SCAR on a tactical sling. Ethan wore a pistol on his belt, and his fire axe rested on one broad shoulder. He had another, smaller axe tucked into his gun belt. Stacy held Aiden on one hip and carried a heaping plate of food with the other. My stomach growled when I saw breakfast coming my way.
When they reached us, Stacy handed me the plate as I leaned down to kiss her. Just as our lips met, Aiden took the opportunity to smack me on the side of my face with one grubby little hand. I flinched, and nearly dropped my plate. I straightened up and glared at the wee offender, who laughed maniacally and reached out toward me clasping and unclasping his fingers.
“He wants you to hold him.” Stacy said, and smiled as she held the baby out to me.
I handed her my food and took the little guy from her. He smiled and babbled something incoherent at me. It was uncanny how much he looked like his father. He had the remains of his breakfast smeared on his chubby cheeks, and I couldn’t help but laugh at him. He was a cute little fellow.
“Wish us luck today, okay buddy?” I said, and tickled him under one arm.
He giggled, and leaned into my shoulder. I gently stroked his soft hair a couple of times, and kissed him on his little baby head before handing him back to Stacy.
“You coming with us today, Andrea?” I asked.
“No, I’m just walking around with this gun because it makes me look so damn sexy.” She replied.
Ethan grinned and smacked her on the rear end.
“Damn right it does.” He said.
Andrea shot him an irritated glance. I pointed at the SCAR with one hand, and at Ethan with the other.
“I thought this was your rifle.”
“It is, but Andrea is a better shot than I am. I prefer the direct approach.” He said, patting the haft of his axe. “If things get hairy, I still have my trusty Glock.”
I shrugged and took my breakfast back from Stacy.
“Okay, whatever works for you guys. I’m going to go put some food on my stomach before we head out. See you in a little bit.”
I gave Stacy another kiss, taking my time about it and ignoring the baby.
“Want to sit with me while I eat?” I asked her.
“Sure, let’s go over to your truck.”
I walked back over to the Tundra and set my plate on the tailgate before taking the box of grenades and setting them on the ground. Stacy eyed the little bombs, and gave me an appraising look.
“That is some seriously dangerous stuff you have there. Where did you get those things? What are you going to do with a bunch of grenades?”
I sighed and shook my head. “My friend Gabriel gave them to me. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea. I figured they might come in handy today.”
I sat down on the tailgate and Stacy put Aiden down in the bed of the truck. He immediately started crawling around and making little cooing sounds as he explored the large metal box he found himself in. I turned and put my back against the sidewall so that I could watch the little guy. Stacy sat down next to me and ran one soft hand over my calf muscle. I picked up my food and dug in with gusto. I had not realized how hungry I was until I started eating. I pulled a canteen from my harness and washed down the rice and beans with lukewarm water.
“How are you feeling?” She asked me.
I looked away from the baby and saw concern in her beautiful brown eyes. I smiled and shrugged.
“I’m not afraid, if that’s what you mean. I’m not really excited either. This is just something I have to do. I’m not looking forward to it, but it needs to get done. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”
Stacy smiled and brushed an errant eyelash off my face.
“You know, me and a few of the other girls have been talking about you. We all wonder what you did before…you know…everything. I think you were an FBI agent or something.”
My hand stopped mid-way up to my mouth with a spoonful of beans. I stared at her for a moment.
“Really?” I laughed a little, and shook my head. “I sorry to disappoint you, but I was just a regular guy. I never worked in law enforcement, or served in the military. In fact, the only job I ever had before the outbreak was as a financial analyst. I’m not exactly the Rambo type.”
Stacy’s brow furrowed, and she leaned back with a disbelieving expression.
“Are you serious? Just the other day you went out with Steve and the other guys when that bunch of creeps attacked. Ethan said you killed close to a hundred infected all by yourself. Where did you learn to fight like that?”
I opened my mouth to tell her about Gabriel teaching me how to fight when something occurred to me and I stopped short.
Let me take a moment here to bring up something that I haven’t mentioned yet.
Ever since the large horde of infected attacked the compound, I had been feeling a nagging sense of unease nibbling at the back of my mind. Every couple of hours I would think about it, trying to figure out what it was that bothered me, only to wave if off like an annoying housefly. I had the same feeling that I used to get when I would walk out of the house to go to the grocery store and realize that I had neglected to grab my wallet, or when I would forget where I had left my keys. There was some important fact about the attack that should have been immediately obvious to me, but for some reason I was failing to see it. While talking to Stacy, something clicked in my mind, and I realized what it was. In his manual, Gabriel wrote about how the undead will follow any potential prey until they become distracted, or find something else to chase. I remember thinking,
what if they aren’t distracted? What if they don’t find something else to chase?
The answer to that question was now painfully obvious to me. If they are not distracted, they keep marching toward the last source of food they detected until something else comes along to draw them away. If they do not find something else to chase, then they will follow the direction that their last potential meal ran away in for…well, until something stops them. The undead that tried to swarm the compound were not just a random assortment of infected marching in unison under the influence of a herd mentality. They were following a source of prey.
They were following me.
But that didn’t mesh with what Gabriel had written about them. Did he miss something? Did I miss something? Why the sudden change in behavior? How fast could these ghouls move? A mile an hour? Less, even? The compound was several miles northeast of Alexis. Save for the stretch of road that leads there, the way to the compound consists of steep hills and dense forest. I imagined the path that the undead would have taken to reach the abandoned textile mill, and I understood why it took them so long to get there. Stacy stared at me for a long moment whilst I pondered. Eventually, she waved a hand in front of my face and leaned down to look me in the eye.
“
Helloooo
. Eric? Earth to Eric? What’s going on, sweetie? You look like you just saw a ghost.”
I shook my head to clear it, and focused on Stacy.
“I think I know why that horde attacked the other day.”
Stacy’s eyebrows went up. “Okay. Do you want to tell me about it?”
“They were following me. Well, both of us actually. Me and Ethan, I mean. I lured the undead to the other end of the street, and then double backed to pick up Ethan. The infected were following me at a distance when we escaped. They must have trekked through the woods for two days to get here.”
“Okay, I think I actually managed to follow that, but what difference does it make now? I mean, you and the other guys killed them all, right?”
“Yeah, we did, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t happen again. I’ll talk to your father about it. We’ll have to be more careful going forward, maybe take some extra precautions.”
I put my half-eaten plate down on the tailgate and frowned. Aiden crawled over and tried to grab a handful of rice. Stacy picked him up before he could, and put him in her lap.
“Eric, are you sure you’re okay?” She asked, placing a finger under my chin and turning my face up to hers.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just trying to make sense of all this. I wonder if some of what Gabriel taught me about the undead might not be completely accurate. But why would what he observed about the infected be different from what they’re doing now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re learning?” Stacy said.
I looked her in the eye. “Let’s hope not. If those things can learn, then we are all in deep shit.”
“They can’t learn.”
I looked over Stacy’s shoulder to see Steve standing behind her. The guy was stealthy, I never even heard him approach.
“They’re dead. They’re brains are dead. Anything they do is just instinct.” He said.
Stacy turned and glared irritably at Steve.
“And what would you know about it, exactly?”
“I’ve been talking to Bill. He’s got some theories on how the infection works.
“What did he say?” I asked, interested.
Steve’s gaze switched from Stacy to me. It was weird watching attention shift. His entire body remained still, with no subtle shift of his balance, or turn of his neck. The only thing that moved was his eyes. He reminded me of a lion watching its prey through a stand of tall grass.
“He thinks the contagion can re-sequence DNA. He says that most of human DNA is just filler material, and with the right manipulation it can be made to do some pretty crazy things.”
“Does he think the Phage could be man-made?” I asked.
Steve shrugged. “He seems to think it’s possible. You should probably ask him about it sometime. In the mean time, we need to get moving.”
I nodded, and handed the rest of my uneaten food to Stacy.
“Alright then, let’s make this shit happen.”
I put the box of grenades back into the truck while Stacy took Aiden and handed him off to Emily. Emily gave me a smile and a wave, and I waved back. Stacy came back over to me, wrapped her arms around my neck, and squeezed.
“Be careful out there.” She said.
“Count on it.” I replied, and smiled down at her.
I gave her one last kiss, and then let her go so that I could meet the other members of the diversion team at the gun locker. When I got there, Earl was hugging Jessica, and Ethan was sharing a few whispered words with Andrea. The petite woman had slung the SCAR around to her back, and Ethan’s fire axe leaned against the wall behind him. I couldn’t imagine what they must be feeling, knowing that the most important person in their lives would be in danger, and that they would be unable to reach one another if they got into trouble.
I stayed quiet until the couples said their goodbyes. When Jessica and Andrea went back outside to wait in their trucks, I waved everyone over for a few last words. I noticed that Justin and Rick were carrying their new AK-47s, and had enough ammunition strapped to them to start a small war. I sincerely hoped that they wouldn’t need it.