The Pandemic Sequence (Book 3): The Tilian Cure (14 page)

“Well, on the positive side, it’s likely that that gathering of Tils, if in fact there are several hundred thousand of them, is most of the remaining Tils in the country, maybe even the continent.”

“It’s amazing what we take for positives these days.” Shaking his head in humor, Derrick continued. “But, I see your point. After seven plus years fighting them, others dying off from starvation, injuries, or whatever, how many could possibly be left? So, this will be like our Alamo?”

“Hopefully with a better outcome,” Paul replied. “I don’t plan on engaging, though, until we can get to safety as many of the refugees that can’t fight as we can. Which means our timetable for heading to the rendezvous needs to speed up.”

“How soon do you want to leave?”

Paul knew this would be the point of contention. “I’m not leaving. Now that we have more fighters, we can spare a security detail to escort refugees to the Mohawk. Being ten or twenty men short won’t matter too much when we’re up against a force of hundreds of thousands.”

“Agreed. Plus it gives us time to fortify our position and plan.”

“Thing is, Derrick,” he danced softly with his words. “You’re going to lead the group to the ship.”

“What? I’m not running from this fight, Paul!” Derrick’s voice increased in both volume and intensity.

Raising his hands in an attempt to soothe the situation, he explained. “You’re not running anything. I need you there to not only lead the security detail, but when you get to that ship I need someone I can trust to make sure we get reinforcements. It has nothing to do with running away! You’re the only one I know here now, and the only one I fully trust.” He did not add, however, that the battle with the Tils was likely going to be a losing one. If he could spare the life of one of Mike’s old students, well, he owed him at least that much.

His words had clearly taken effect. He could see Derrick’s resolve weaken slightly before the younger man responded. “Fine, but I am coming back with the reinforcements!”

Nodding his assent, Paul thought to himself, By then the battle will long be over, my friend.

The pair spent the next two hours discussing the best means of splitting resources so that both parties had enough for their respective tasks. The hasty departure was less affected by the readiness of the Horde, Paul knew the work was nearing an end, but rather the health of the new arrivals. After a month of traveling, and severe malnutrition, he worried that Dan Seldis’ refugees would be unable to embark on another trek so soon. He could spare a handful of vehicles, but certainly not enough to accommodate the four to five hundred people he estimated would be heading south.

The final decisions regarding the exodus were left to the morning when Paul could speak again with Dan and get an updated status on the condition of his people. Ideally he wanted them on the road the morning after next, any later and the opportunity of escape might be lost. The Tils were out there and he knew their attack was imminent.

Pushing his hands deeper into the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt, Derrick crossed the distance between the command tent and the one he called his own. While he had been in the fiery warmth of Paul’s headquarters, the late hour had chilled the night air more than he realized. His thoughts, however, only registered the temperature change as one did a blade of grass; it was there but had no impact. No, his mind clashed with the logic of Paul’s decisions and his own reluctance to run from the fight. The Horde leader had said it was a matter of trust, and he did not doubt that, but he also knew there was an unstated purpose to assigning him to the southern exodus.

He certainly appreciated the older man’s concern for his safety. Yet, in the year he had spent on his own while the others started new lives in Cuba, Derrick had grown used to making his own decisions, and suffering any resulting consequences. Death was not a thing he wished for, or raced towards, but he could not help but chafe under the well-intentioned protectionism of first Hicks, and now Paul.

In truth, the process had begun years earlier when Mike Allard had waited to inform him of his parents’ death. They had been in the home’s garage, he had told Derrick days later, in what he believed was an attempt to escape a Til. Mike had spared him the lasting image of their mangled corpses. As he had spared him the pain of losing Jenni in the mountains, and again when he spared him the agony of finally ending her torment. And then Hicks sacrificing himself yesterday.

There was a warmth that came from having a life filled with people willing to take on burdens that should have fallen to him. Likewise, the assignment to lead the party of refugees south was a clear indication of Paul’s renewed confidence in him. Derrick was aware that the park ranger had repeatedly, and with some insistence, urged Mike to remove him from his post in the mountain camp when it was clear his myopic goal of caring for Jenni was impacting the community.

In the short time before he reached his tent Derrick vowed to lead the others to safety and return as rapidly as circumstances allowed. The battle Paul planned, perhaps the final strike against the Tils, was not going to be a burden that would rest on the shoulders of other men.

“MIKE!” The scream was drowned out by the cacophonous gunfire and primal vocalizations of the Tils. Pressed back to back as they had been, at first Lisa thought Mike had been brought down when she felt his body slide lower against her own. In panic, she turned just in time to see his figure launch outward before disappearing down the hillside.

Erik, using the ammunition-less shotgun as a club, swung wildly, and the weapon’s stock connected with Tilian skulls in a bone-crunching thud. “What is he doing?” he shouted over the chaos. “How can they have the Humvee?”

Closing the gap Mike’s unannounced departure had left in their defenses, Lisa pivoted several degrees on her heel. With three, keeping the Tils at bay had been a failing task, now with just her and Erik remaining, she knew it would be only seconds before they were overwhelmed. Using her new vantage point to peer down the hillside, her eyes widened when she spied Mike.

“Get down!” Lisa called over her shoulder as she tried to pull Erik with her to the ground.

For the briefest of flashes, as his feet cleared the heads and outstretched arms of the Tils beneath him, Mike felt a rush of grace and freedom. That sensation was quickly replaced however, as gravity worked to correct the anomaly of a free-flying human. Aiming the twin Glocks at the infected he was rushing towards, Mike brought down several before being forced to twist himself so that his shoulder barreled into two other Tils. Specks of white light flashed in his vision as bodies met earth and his shoulder wrenched from its socket. Contracting his limbs to roll through the momentum, the effort resulted in a skidding finish a stride from the Humvee. Exploiting the Til’s confusion and his own adrenaline, Mike sprang to his feet and fired into the thinning mass of infected surrounding and atop the armored truck. This really better work, his rational mind warned.

Felling the final two Tils standing at the rear of truck, he used his good arm to swing himself up to the pedestal-mounted M2 Browning machine gun. Turning and angling the weapon up towards the hill, Mike unleashed a deafeningly devastating barrage at the Tils converging on Erik and Lisa. Seeing that she understood his intention, Mike watched as she pulled Erik out of sight, freeing him from friendly-fire worries. Movement in his periphery caught his attention, and he turned from his attack on the hillside, bringing the .50 to his left and ripping through the bodies of Tils attempting to reach him. Soon more infected lay strewn on the ground, many with limbs shorn off from the heavy artillery, while a smaller number remained standing.

One of the Tils sounded a part howl/part shout into the air. In response, the infected still able to flee slipped into the tree line, disappearing into the shadows. Mike sent rounds after them; not trusting in the unbelievable, he continued to swerve the machine gun around the pedestal for several minutes before Lisa and Erik finally made their way down the slope.

“You guys all right?” he asked them, bending to scratch behind Gazelle’s ears.

“Better than you,” Lisa replied, as she stepped into the back of the Humvee. Without hesitation, she took his dislocated arm, extended it and thrust upward. Pain flared with intensity as the joint was returned to its natural state, and Mike grunted through grinding teeth. “How many times does that make?” she asked.

“Too many,” Mike said with a smile of gratitude.

“Damn, look at what they did to the truck!” Erik had been inspecting the interior of the Humvee. As Mike had expected, the dashboard was mostly gutted, wires and knobs splayed in an incomprehensible mess.

Tossing a loose piece of plastic back onto the front seat, Lisa was the first with the courage to openly state the concerning realization. “So, they know how we move and how to stop us from escaping.”

“That’s not all,” Mike added. “Pretty sure one of them ‘talked’ to the rest and ordered the retreat.”

Running a hand through his hair, Erik whistled in amazement before commenting, “Problem-solving, planning, communication... these aren’t your grandfather’s Tils.”

Knowing the likely answer, but hoping for a miracle from the New Cuba-trained mechanic, Mike asked, “Any possible way you can get this running?”

“Not in the time frame you’re going to want,” Erik answered.

“How long?”

Running his hands through the damage, Erik used the flashlight to survey and estimate, “If I can find everything they ripped out, we’re looking at two days minimum.”

Without thought, Mike turned to Lisa as he had in the mountain camp, and questioned. “What do you think?”

He could see she was initially startled by his return to normalcy. Squinting, Lisa looked up and down the highway, the first hints of dawn could faintly be seen in the eastern sky. “Two days sitting here with little ammo hoping the truck will run, or taking our chances and walking until we find a transport. I’m not much for sitting, Chief.”

The use of the familiar title was not lost on him. Nodding in agreement, the group took what could be salvaged from the truck and the home, before setting out on foot. The camping lantern in the cottage had been destroyed in the struggle, so Lisa lit their path with flashlights until the sun had risen enough to allow them to conserve the batteries. Mike and Erik took turns carrying the .50 they had unfastened from the Humvee’s pedestal.

Breakfast was eaten on foot, and the trio did not stop until the heat of the noon sun forced them to rest for lunch. As they ate, the ARC was passed around for examination.

“Something got crossed when we disconnected it from the tower,” Lisa surmised. More familiar with electronics than Mike, Lisa and Erik worked together to examine and diagnose the cause for the ARC’s malfunction. “Maybe once we meet up with Paul and the team, we can take it apart, but I’d not want to risk doing that out here.”

Mike agreed quickly. He had been tentative even removing the device’s casing when they might have to make a run at any moment. With disappointment, he turned back to his own pack and Erik replaced the outer case of the ARC before stowing it in his pocket. Though they had only recently been in possession of the Til-stopping weapon, its loss came as a heavy blow, especially with infected lurking in the shadows.

Setting out to resume their journey, Mike slung his pack onto his shoulder, flinching slightly as he forgot its tenderness. As a result of long practice, his senses were able to scan the road, keenly aware of movement and sound, while his mind ran towards other pursuits. He found himself losing the struggle in maintaining his distrust of Lisa. Twice now she had guarded his back without the slightest hesitation. Conversely, as his anger subsided, his clarity and understanding had increased. Michelle had told him before she left that Lisa was as equal a victim as they all were. She had not created the virus, nor had she knowingly assisted in its creation. Her only sin, if he could consider it as such, was hiding her connection to the Ira Project. Such a revelation would have run the risk of her being ostracized and hated for a thing in which she had no culpability. Shaking his head as he walked, Mike offered a quiet, “You were right,” to Michelle. She’s always been the empathetic one of the group, he mused. And she’s been right most of the time.

Once the day ran its length and the sun loomed large in the west, the group selected an open stretch of road to make the night’s camp. Not sure how many miles they had covered, or how many automobiles they inspected had failed to offer any promise, the trio slumped to the cracked black surface as corpses to a grave. Mike was impressed with how well they had faired, regardless of distance crossed. Erik, only a month past a bullet in his shoulder, was in the best condition of the small party, which meant little given Lisa’s dehydrated brush with death—and likely pregnancy—and Mike’s own year-long rehabilitation from the critical injuries sustained escaping from Miami on their way to New Cuba. A day hiking in the smothering heat of the south should have done them all in, so he gratefully accept their current conditions.

After a bland meal of freeze-dried chicken and rice, the night’s watch rotation was established. Lisa received her own shift which Erik offered to take for her, which she declined three times before he eventually stopped asking. The .50 caliber was set-up on an improvised low-ground tripod. Mike hated the lack of knowledge regarding the advanced Tils. Would they strike tonight? His mind searched for answers that could not come. Or would they regroup? Take time to plan? He forced himself to ignore the idea that Tils now planned.