* * *
As soon as Jake heard the deadhead’s call, he turned to look at me about the same time I wheeled around to look at him from across the pavement. Lucky for us we were of one mind; we hurried over to the edge where the other three stood. Rabbit was on his radio and calmly ordering the ones below to get their asses in gear. Mia had her sidearm drawn, her eyes trying to pinpoint the exact location of the screamer, while Jonah was flexing his hands around the rope. It was obvious he was itching for a weapon, who the hell wouldn’t have been? He alternated his glances between the rope and the vehicle, fighting with himself not to let go and run back for his rifle.
I was suddenly struck by how proud I was, how lucky I’d been, to have been able to know these people and fight alongside them for as long as I had. My friends more so than the Guard guys, but still.
“We’ve got three injured, sir. They won’t be able to climb back up. Me and Jonese are coming up for the stretchers. Moving now.” It was Willis who replied, and I noticed Jonah physically react to something he’d heard in the soldier’s voice.
“Jonah?” I asked.
He shot a stern look in my direction and shook his head, warning me to ask no more.
“Come on,” I said, gesturing to Mia and Jake. “I don’t know how many are out there, and I don’t know what’s going on down there in the Humvee, but let’s make sure they have a fighting chance.”
I didn’t wait for an order from Rabbit. I jerked my rifle stock against my shoulder and stepped out onto the highway, standing on the yellow line with feet apart and shoulders squared, rifle barrel aimed straight ahead at the fog. I caught Jake’s eye and tilted my head to my right, then caught Mia’s eye and tilted my head to the left, giving each a firm nod once they were set and ready. There was only one screech echoing through the night. Even though I wanted to believe that meant there was only one runner headed our way, I knew better.
Our luck had run out.
* * *
“Last group’s been released.” An older woman walked through the entrance to the lab. She was haggard in appearance, having spent days without sleep, working through the night to get that last batch of subjects ready for discharge.
“Have any trouble with them?” her supervisor asked. He was younger than she, though not by much, and felt worse than she looked.
“None at all. This group was completely docile around the breathers.”
He shot her a look over his shoulder. “What have I said about using that word?”
“Sorry.” She hung her head, partly from guilt and partly in exhaustion.
He sighed. “No, I’m sorry, Evelyn.” He ran a hand over his face. “Why don’t you get some rest now? The next group won’t be prepped until tomorrow. I can keep things under control here until then.”
Evelyn tilted her head and stepped over to him. David had always hated what they’d done, and she knew he’d carry that guilt with him the rest of his short and miserable life. It pained her a bit to see him carry it all on his shoulders, yet in a way she was glad he did. He deserved it.
“Do you need something to eat before I leave?” she asked him.
He turned to her and smiled. “No thanks. I’m fine. Now get out of here before I change my mind.”
She returned his smile and left David alone in the lab with his thoughts. They were the only two left, and soon they’d be gone too. Whatever it took to complete their objectives.
His
objective. They’d already burned through most of the Center’s staff. They had left a few alone, a skeleton crew if you will, to keep watch over the breathers and help with daily tasks. The rest had been used as test subjects; there simply weren’t enough survivors coming in as fast as they needed them. Use what you have, right? After they’d sorted through the staff, they sorted through the scientists. Now David and Evelyn were all that was left, along with three staff members to guard and feed the twelve breathers that remained.
Have to remember not to call them that.
Everything was going to hell. They hadn’t had a shipment in days. After tomorrow, they’d have no more subjects. Then their job would be done, and they could get some rest.
* * *
“Left side!” I yelled. My right hand worked the lever and ejected yet another spent shell casing, then rammed it forward again. The motion was instinctive to me, as was finding my next target through the scope.
“Got it!” Mia answered, swiveling at the hips and lining up her double-handed pistol grip on a runner that was tripping over its own feet to get to her.
Ironically, adrenaline kept me from freaking out and running. Well, adrenaline and the fact that there was nowhere to run. Maybe because I knew Jonah and Rabbit needed us to keep those dead bastards off them long enough for them to pull six people out of the crater that had once been a highway. It almost appeared as though the deadheads were having as hard a time seeing in the fog as we were, but that didn’t make sense seeing as how they were dead, their eyes were dead, and they worked more off of smell than sight anyway. Maybe we smelled dead, too.
We’d been on the road a long time without a shower. It seemed likely.
“Center!” Jake warned before pulling the trigger on the remains of a mailman. We knew, because he was still wearing his mailbag.
I adjusted my aim slightly and zeroed in on a female coming at me. Her face reminded me of the Crypt Keeper from
Tales from the Crypt
. Except her eyes were gone.
Well I know
she’s
seeing worse in the fog than I am.
I chuckled to myself and squeezed off a round, barely having time to eject it and load another before the next screamer burst into view ahead of me.
“Center!” Jake yelled.
“Right!” Mia answered.
Over and over, we shouted on top of one another, almost out of reassurance more than tactical advantage. Maybe it helped keep us focused, though I don’t think we needed all that much help; the runners weren’t pouring out of the fog, but there was a steady flow of them.
“Reload!” I dug in my side pocket for five more shells. Jake and Mia compensated and covered me while I rammed the ammo into place as fast as my fingers could work.
Four runners broke through the fog and scattered along the road, coming in hard. Five more were behind them, but far enough away that their features were barely distinguishable.
“Damn it!” The tempo of Jake’s firing came to an abrupt halt half a second before the new arrivals swarmed all over us. “Reload!”
He was out.
“Got it!”
I pulled up just before a very drippy runner was able to wrap his hands around Jake’s throat. I didn’t even think. I aimed, fired, then found the next target. I saw Jake reloading out of my periphery, so I didn’t waste time wondering if he was okay—there was no time.
I worked the bolt four more times in quick succession, dropping the last runner damned near on top of me when I heard Mia’s firing take on a chaotic rhythm.
“Reload!” I yelled, turning my head to find the reason for her sloppy shooting.
She was being overrun.
Jonah shouted from behind me, “Kasey!”
I didn’t turn around to look. My feet were moving me toward Mia as my arms moved my rifle from one runner to the next, still picking out and downing targets.
“Shit! They’re getting through!” Jake shouted.
I reversed the grip on my rifle and slammed the butt into a forehead, then swung it around and sideswiped another in the cheek. They both went down, though I was sure not for long. As I was helping Mia fight off the runners, two got past me and Jake, heading straight for Jonah and Rabbit—and the first pair of heads that were pulling themselves into view at the edge of the washout.
Jake couldn’t fire into them without risking hitting one of us. I couldn’t leave Mia to help Jonah and Rabbit fight them off. We all very much had our hands full.
I kicked another runner, this one grabbing my coat sleeve and clacking its jaws at my bicep, and sent it staggering backwards. The butt of my rifle connected with its skull with a crack as Mia gained enough room between her and another pair of rotters to put bullets between their eyes. I didn’t have time to check her for bites or scratches; more were coming out of the fog. Hell, my forearm had been burning ever since that dead sonofabitch grabbed hold of me, and I didn’t have time to check that either.
It doesn’t matter. You’re already dead. Protect the others.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Jonah had taken his knife and stabbed it through the eye socket of one of his attackers. Rabbit had his hands full of rope. The other deadhead was nowhere in sight. Neither were the heads I’d seen bobbing into view seconds earlier.
Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit.
I started to freak out. In that moment, my internal switch flipped from the off position to the on position. The flood of emotions that hit me caused me to drop the shells I was trying to load. I was already stepping back into the center of the highway, but instead of keeping my focus on what was ahead of me, I was turning my eyes to Jake and Mia. They were shouting out directions to each other, covering while the other reloaded, and basically getting the situation under control again. I didn’t notice they were picking the runners off before they even made it completely out of the fog, and I didn’t hear Rabbit issue orders to Jonah and yell into his radio.
I also didn’t notice the gut-trailing runner in front of me until it crashed into me and we were on the ground.
The air was knocked from my lungs, but at least I had the presence of mind to press my rifle skyward, one hand on the barrel and the other on the stock, holding the snapping jaws mere inches from my face. Everything else went away at that moment. It was like I’d been struck deaf or something. There was no noise, just absolute quiet. Except for the
clack-clack-clack
in front of my nose. The position of my arms kept the runner from clawing at my face and neck.
The smell was unbearable. That was the closest I’d been to a runner in a long while. It was a surreal moment. I wasn’t afraid. I should have been, but I wasn’t. I felt my arms getting weak and dropping slightly, yet I didn’t seem to care. I was too engrossed by the thing’s appearance. Its skin was like paper, the long-dead vessels and tissue underneath having faded to black. Its eyes were like vacant holes, that viscous dark fluid they’re all filled with long since bursting the delicate capillaries and flooding the whites. There was a long gash across its forehead that, of course, didn’t bleed. It was filled with maggots, which for some reason I thought was odd.
“You’re a rank bastard, aren’t ya?” I asked the deadhead, then a bit louder added, “Some help here?!”
The sound of the world being turned back on filled my ears. I heard shouts from all directions, footsteps, both slow and fast, sounds of struggling, everything you’d think you’d hear if your group was trapped and being overrun by zombies.
Clack-clack-clack.
“Haven’t forgotten about you, sweetie,” I grunted. My new buddy tried to take off the tip of my nose.
My jaw popped from effort and the muscles of my arms began to hurt. I didn’t have the strength to throw off at least a hundred pounds of dead weight, no pun intended. The thing’s guts had somehow gotten tangled up with my legs. Its raw fingertips clawed at my coat-covered shoulders and sides. I tried to turn my head to see what was happening around me; the gunfire was still going steady and I could still hear grunting and shouting from those struggling against the runners.
Shit
.
All I could see in half a second were feet going this way and that and bodies falling to the ground.
Clack-clack-clack.
“Oh,
come on!
” I screamed in its face. I took a deep breath, wishing like hell that I hadn’t, and shoved as hard as I could toward the dawn sky.
In a few seconds, I’d be out of juice and this fella would be dining on my nose. Maybe even the rest of my face.
* * *
While Jonah fought with the stragglers that had somehow gotten through Jake and Mia’s defenses, and Rabbit held onto the rope for dear life, Michael was down in “the hole” leaning against Jonese. Willis had been snatched right off the rope by a deadhead when he and Jonese made it to the top a few moments before, the former landing with a loud crack, the deadhead chewing on his neck, the latter losing his balance and bouncing off the rear end of the Humvee. Jonese had then put a bullet into the heads of both the runner and his friend without a second’s thought.
“Get moving, soldier!” Jonese shouted at Michael, planting one hand firmly on his back and shoving him toward the rope.
Michael, dizzy from slamming his head against the dashboard during the crash, didn’t even think twice about the military reference and spun around. “You need help down here! You can’t get them all out on your own!”
Jonese, already dragging Church from the driver’s side, jabbed his finger back at the rope. “Move your ass, now!”
Michael rubbed his face and pulled back a bloody hand. He wasn’t sure how badly he was hurt but he was on his feet and not dead yet, so without another look back he stumbled to the rope. He gave it a hard yank, to make sure whoever was holding it up top was ready for him, then began climbing hand over hand. He used his feet to help push, fighting vertigo with each exertion of his muscles.