Zompoc Survivor: Inferno (7 page)

“Kaplan, we’re clear! Go!” Ahead of us, a door opened and the two Marines bolted into the hall. They looked our way and waited until we were only a few feet from them to start moving. We hit the turn and pounded feet down the hallway, past the kindling that had briefly been in the way of the big ghoul. To my right, I heard the roar of the tumored ghoul and the crash of doors being opened violently. We had seconds left before our distraction went away. We passed the triage area and Kaplan came to a stop. For a brief moment, he tried to open the doors to the breezeway, but they wouldn’t budge. Freedom was just millimeters away. Kaplan stepped back and pulled his SMG up, taking aim so that he was firing at an angle to the door instead of straight at it. His gun coughed and bullets went whining down the hallway as they ricocheted off the safety glass. Behind us, I heard another crash, and the voice stopped.

“Get that door open!” I said as I pulled the rifle from my back and headed toward the triage area. Almost as soon as I got there, the doors on the far side opened and I found myself facing the screaming ghoul. It took a deep breath and threw its head back as I brought the rifle up. The first round went off before I had a clear target in the scope, but I still managed to hit it in the leg. Then the barrel was up and I pulled the trigger three times. Holes appeared in the screamer’s chest, and it staggered back. For a second, it just stood there, head down. Then it tried to breathe again, and managed a gurgling inhalation as I closed my right eye and put the wavering crosshairs on its face. I exhaled, and suddenly the scope steadied. The moment seemed to stretch out infinitely. I had all the time I needed to pull the trigger, and when I did I knew I was going to hit. When the smoke cleared, the ghoul’s head was gone from the chin up.

The sound of suppressed gunfire broke the spell, and I saw Hernandez lowering her P90 to kick at the remains of the glass in the door. Before they could even yell for me I was running their way. Even before I got to the door I felt the heavy thuds through my feet. I’d learned in Iraq how certain things felt. Vibrations in my shoulders and arms meant outgoing artillery, but if I felt it in my feet, it meant a mortar round was landing. Now, I knew that the rhythmic thuds I was feeling in my heels and ankles were from the big fucker running our way.  He slid into the glass as I made it to the door, and I could see him picking himself up when I turned the corner and hit the breezeway. Kaplan and Hernandez were almost clear of the breezeway, with Amy right behind them. Glass crunched under my feet as I started to pick up speed, then I heard metal screech and the heavy tread of the tumor ghoul behind me. I should have just kept going. I knew better.

I looked back.

The massive ghoul had already ripped a huge chunk out of the breezeway and he was still right on my ass. It slowed me down just enough for him to reach me, but it also gave me enough warning to almost get out of the way of the small mountain of fist he was throwing my way. But even a glancing blow from a Mack truck is still a glancing blow from a fucking semi. The punch knocked me clear of the breezeway’s awning and halfway to the helipad. I staggered forward in blinding pain before I hit the walkway and went sprawling. The armor on my arms probably saved me a yard and a half of road rash, but I didn’t figure I was going to get more than a few seconds to count that particular blessing as I tumbled onto my back and saw eight feet of raw ugly coming my way. The world swayed and spun in front of me, and I wondered if I’d picked up another concussion. Then, big ugly stopped. Over the ringing in my ears I heard the slap and crack of bullets hitting flesh and bone and the distant sound of my name being called. Ugly staggered back as wounds opened up on his chest, but he stayed on his feet. Just as quickly as the gunfire had started it stopped, and he shook his head before his beady eyes focused on me again. His hands curled into massive fists and he raised his arms over his head as he stepped forward. Just as I was bracing myself to try to dodge, I heard desperate cries from behind me, and then saw a familiar two pronged spear slam into Ugly’s chest. For a second he looked down at it, then he completely ignored it and leaned forward.

“Get away from him!” I heard Amy scream from behind me, along with a sound that galvanized me into clarity: the sound of metal on concrete. Ugly was looming over me, and he opened his mouth to let out an infuriated bellow. Pain, confusion, fear; all of it vanished as I rolled to my right and reached over my shoulder with my left hand. I pushed myself to my knees as I let out a roar of my own and grabbed the handle of the Deuce with both hands. Enraged, I came to my feet as I thrust the point up under the monster’s chin, and felt the blade shred flesh and shatter bone as it slammed up through its skull until it stopped moving with a jarring shock. The creature’s yell stopped with a gurgle and it looked down at me with wide eyes. With an enraged scream, I pushed up against its weight, slowly forcing it to stand straight, my whole body shaking with the effort. Its hands came up to grab me, and I twisted the blade before I yanked it out. Black blood poured from the wound as it wavered for a second, then it fell backward. The whole walkway shuddered under the impact, and I staggered back, every pain suddenly coming back to me as the adrenaline rush wore off. Just as suddenly, I was wrapped up in a hug that added pains of its own. Amy sobbed into my shoulder, and all I could do was put my free arm around her and stroke her hair while I made reassuring noises. After a few seconds, she stopped and pulled back a little, wiping her eyes.

“Don’t ever do that again,” I said with a waver in my voice. “Next time you leave me, do you understand?” She shook her head defiantly, her lips pressed together so hard her chin dimpled up. “Damn it Amy, if you get hurt, or so help me, get yourself killed, it won’t matter if I’m dead, your Mom will make my afterlife a living hell.” She let out a sobbing laugh and hugged me again before stepping back. Behind her, Hernandez and Kaplan were watching us, with the occasional glance behind us. I looked over my shoulder at the ruins of the breezeway. Ugly had done enough damage that the metal roof had collapsed, effectively blocking it off. I wiped the Deuce off on a scrap of hospital gown from Big Ugly and sheathed it before I limped toward them, stopping long enough to pick up my rifle. The scope and body were scratched all to hell, but it looked okay otherwise.

“We better get moving,” Kaplan said. “We made enough noise to attract attention for miles around, and we need to find a way down.” I stumbled along behind him to the helipad and went to the right side to look over the edge. Metal poles stuck out parallel to the ground with chain link fencing strung between them like a net. With a sigh, I slung the M39 and walked along the edge of the concrete helipad until I found what I wanted.

“Over here,” I said as I pulled the multi-tool from my belt. Kaplan led the way over and looked dubiously at me as I crawled out onto the heavy fencing. Thick pieces of wire were crimped around the wires of the fence and the pole, and I used the pliers on the multi-tool to untwist every other one as I went. Once I was at the end, I stuck the multi-tool in a pocket and motioned for Hernandez to crawl out with me. The fence sagged dangerously under our weight.

“Your turn,” I said to Kaplan. He gave a weary sigh as he understood what I was planning and put his weight on the pole as he came to join us. Once he was out a couple of feet, he bent down and rested his weight on his hands and gingerly walked himself forward until his feet were resting in the pole and he was holding himself up over the fence on his arms. I pushed myself up and Hernandez followed suit, then we kicked our feet off the pole and hit the fence with the toes of our boots almost in unison. Wire screeched and popped, and the middle of the fence sagged. Hernandez held herself still as Kaplan and I kicked up again, and more wire popped as Kaplan’s side of the fence gave way, taking him and Hernandez down with it and pulling my end down under their combined weight. I held on for dear life as we swung down, but once we hit the bottom of the arc, my grip was pulled loose and I went tumbling onto the grass. When I rolled to my feet, I could see Kaplan picking himself up a few feet away, but Hernandez had managed to hang on with her good hand, and was swinging on the fence about three feet off the ground.

“Owned by a girl!” Amy called from the helipad.

“By a Marine,
chica,
” Hernandez said before she let go and dropped to the ground. “Owned by a Marine! Now get your skinny little ass down here before we get swarmed.” Amy tossed her spear to the ground, climbed down the dangling length of fence like a spider and retrieved the weapon. In the shadow of the hospital, I could see shambling figures headed our way.

“Let’s go, people,” Kaplan said. “It looks more residential south of here. We’ll find a place to hole up for the night.” He took off, and Amy followed him at my gesture. I fell in behind her and Hernandez dropped in behind me. To the rear, the first of the zombies started moving in earnest. He led us across the grass to the street, then turned right and across another street so we were beside a raised section on our left. Across the street on our right was a parking garage. Kaplan kept us on the left side of the street as we went up the gentle slope to the first cross street.  That left us with a white building with a red trim on our left and a line of widely spaced trees between us and lots of open space to our right. Running with fifty pounds of gear made me grateful for the slight downhill slope, though the uneven ground we were jogging on did my feet and knees no favors. Another street found us running by a set of apartment buildings, and in the fading light Kaplan didn’t see the zombie wandering down the sidewalk in front of him until it was almost too late. My only warning was the three coughing reports, then I was jogging by a freshly re-killed infected. It was another block before we started seeing houses, and another block past that before we found a house that Kaplan was happy with; a two story stone affair with a fireplace and a “For Sale By Owner” sign out front. Amy and I waited while he led Hernandez in to clear it. Ten minutes later, she came out and pronounced in a bad accent “This house…is clean.”

Chapter
4

Dark Before Dawn

~ Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. ~
Albert Einstein
.

There was a difference between finding a good place to hole up, and actually making it into one. The average house is a terrible fortress, with multiple windows and doors creating huge gaps in the outer perimeter. Against people with guns and a serious desire to get inside, the average home was a death trap, even for a place with windows six feet off the ground. Against zombies in numbers less than a hundred, the little place we’d found was adequate. With some work.

I did a final check of that work, hoping I didn’t miss anything in the dark as I walked around the outside of the house. The back windows showed no light, and the back door was blocked with the refrigerator in the kitchen. I lowered the night vision goggles Kaplan had given me into place as I walked around the right side of the house, thankful for the spec ops helmet as much for keeping my head warm in the cool night as for being a convenient mount for the NVGs. The road was still empty, and the house on my right didn’t show any movement. I looked back to my left for any light escaping from the windows in the front room, but they were still dark. At the front of the house, I turned left and checked the improvised barrier we’d made for the porch. We’d pushed three vehicles against the porch, with a Suburban in the middle since it was the only one we could find that covered the front steps. On either side of it was a hatchback and a minivan, their rear ends up against the Suburban’s flattened back tires to make an inverted T against the porch.

I tested the junction points but with the tires flattened none of the vehicles was likely to move anywhere soon. The left side of the house was even more barren than the right, with only one window off the front room and none beyond a small bathroom window further back. I went back to the front porch and climbed up the side using the rounded stones for purchase for my boots. Hernandez turned my way from her post behind the low wall, her own face half hidden by her goggles. Once she was certain it was me, she turned back to watching the road.

“I been meaning to ask you,” she said when I squatted down beside her. “What was the deal with you and the guy back there in Nevada?”

“He was Amy’s father,” I said after a moment.

“That was what I thought,” she said. “No offence, but you and her don’t look anything alike. That and the different last names.”

“Yeah,” I said with a chuckle. “It’s hard to explain that part some times. There’s no term for it, you know?”

“I know it’s rough, losing someone you love like that.”

“God, yes. I’m not sure how to help her deal with that.”

“What about you?” she asked. She turned toward me and pulled the goggles up. “Are you gonna be okay? Because as much as I don’t like the touchy feely crap, I don’t want you losing it when shit gets serious because you lost your husband or partner or whatever.” Suddenly, the whole conversation made a different kind for sense to me, and I pulled my own goggles up.

“I’m dating Amy’s mother, Hernandez. Not her father.”

“Oh,” she said. For a moment there was silence, then I heard a suppressed snort come from her. “Sorry,” she said after a moment.

“For thinking I was gay? It’s not the kind of thing that pisses me off or makes me question my manhood. Besides, I've killed more infected in the past few days than Chuck Norris. Gay or straight, I’m pretty damn secure in my masculinity."

"Well, some guys would think..." she said, letting the sentence trail off.

"I didn't," I said, and gave her a smile. "And thanks for asking." For a few moments we sat there quietly. As awkward as the conversation had almost gone, it had let me know that to Hernandez, I wasn’t just a civilian any more. I wasn’t a Marine, but we’d fought together.

“Looks quiet,” she finally said. “Let’s head in.” We went back to the door, and she grabbed a cardboard box filled with crumpled up paper that was sitting beside the screen door. She scattered the contents across the porch before we slipped in through the heavy blanket that was nailed inside the doorway. Amy and Kaplan had nailed blankets over the windows and doors to hide what little light the fire in the stone fireplace gave off. After the chilly October air, the room was almost hot with the assault vest and helmet on. The helmet came off as soon as we stepped into the room, and I started stripping the vest off right after that. Kaplan had already taken his off, and Hernandez shucked hers faster than I did mine.

“Let’s eat, then get our weapons cleaned before lights out,” Kaplan said, pulling his pack closer. Amy gave me a questioning look and reached for the cache tube. I shook my head. Maya had given me a new rule back in Springfield, and I was considering adding it to the list: Use what’s around you before you dig into your own supplies. As good as our homemade MREs were, I wanted to use the First Strike Ration packs Kaplan had given us before I used mine, and there was another resource to draw from before that.

“Lieutenant, there’s still a little food in the pantry here,” I said. “We should use that first.”

“No power,” Kaplan pointed out. “Most of what they have needs to be cooked.”

“I have that covered,” I told him as I got to my feet and headed for the kitchen. I searched the pantry and drawers until I had found a few things that I could turn into a couple of meals, and more importantly, into a small stove. I grabbed a large coffee can, a can of cream of chicken soup, a couple of cans of chicken chunks and a five pound bag of rice. Finally, I took a cooking pot and a box of sandwich baggies and headed for the living room again.

“That doesn’t look very appetizing,” Hernandez said as I sat down and pulled the Tainto from my belt sheath.

“Patience, my young padawan,” I said. “All will be revealed in time.” The first thing I did was grab a baggie and start pouring coffee grounds into it. It took two baggies to finish off the whole thing. Then I took to the can with the knife. The aluminum was no match for the Tainto’s 5160 steel point, and in a few seconds I had three sides of a square cut near the base of the can. The metal side bent inward easily enough, and I had a one inch opening at the bottom of the can. I punched a few smaller holes near the top and bottom, then sheathed the knife and pulled my cache tube over and got my survival tin out of it. Inside, nestled with the button compass, fishing kit, magnifying lens, iodine tablets, and other necessities was a pair of emergency knives made from a cut down hacksaw blade wrapped with duct tape. On one I had filed the flat side down to razor sharpness, and the other I had left alone so I could use it solely for its original purpose. A few minutes of cutting allowed me to bend down a few strips toward the inside of the can as a makeshift grill top for pots that were smaller than the coffee can.

“I’ll be damned,” Hernandez said. “A hobo stove. I used to see the homeless guys cooking on them all the time back home.”

“Easy to make, easy to clean,” I said. While I could have gone outside and gathered twigs for fuel, we had several logs already to hand, so all I had to do was cut some bark and some long, narrow pieces from the sides and break them down so they’d fit. I cut some partial shavings out of the sides of a few pieces, leaving the wood curling away but not completely separated. A couple of pages from the phone book stuffed in the bottom served as kindling, with the bark and a few larger twigs on top of that.

“That’s cheating,” Amy said when I lit one of the smaller twigs from the fire and used it to ignite the kindling.

“No such thing right now,” I said as the fire blazed in the little can. “There’s only what works, and what doesn’t. And
this
…works.” While it heated up, I opened the can of soup with my P-38 and set the pan on top, then dumped the soup and chicken in, followed by a can of water. Then all I could do was wait and stir. Once it started to boil, I pulled it off the little fire and dumped in a double handful of the rice, stirred it in, then covered it with a plate.

“Let that sit for a few minutes, then we can dig in,” I said. While we waited, I dumped the rice from the bag it came in into a couple of the resealable bags and stowed them in my pack, along with the last two cans of chicken, a couple of cans of tuna and a box of mac and cheese that I’d stripped down and dumped into another baggie. “This won’t last us very long, but there are some eggs and enough bread I can make us breakfast tomorrow,” I said.

Amy grabbed some plastic bowls from the kitchen and we doled out the thick, gooey concoction. For a few minutes no one spoke as everyone tried their first taste. Kaplan promptly doused his with a little container of hot sauce and pepper, while Hernandez covered hers with salt. Amy made a face and doubled up with salt and pepper, while I just ate mine plain.

“That was pretty hard core, rushing that big son-of-a-bitch back there,
chica
,” Hernandez said between bites a few minutes later. “Stupid as hell, but hard core.” Amy blushed and ducked her head.

“Well, he’s supposed to marry my Mom,” she said after a moment. “I couldn’t let him off the hook.”

“Well, at least one of us is going to make it out of Kansas City,” Kaplan said with laughter in his voice.

“He might wish he hadn’t,” Hernandez said. I sat back and let Amy hold her own with the two Marines. Even after we finished eating, the verbal sparring didn’t let up, continuing as we cleaned our weapons by firelight and flashlight and reloaded spent mags. I showed Amy how to strip down the Ruger and clean the revolver before I stripped down my weapons and cleaned the sword. She’d already reloaded the magazines she’d gone through, and the smile she gave me when I offered her a heart-felt “Good job!” melted me all over again. The pipe we’d used to make her makeshift spear was bent, and one of the ZT Spikes had broken about an inch from the tip, so we stripped them off.

“Okay, everyone, let’s get this area policed and get upstairs in ten,” Kaplan said. We grabbed our gear and stuffed everything in our packs as quickly as we could then headed for the stairs. To get to the upper level required a ladder now, since we’d taken up the bottom half of the stairwell by prying the steps up. By the time we’d done that, removing the bannister was easy. Messy, but easy. Amy went up first and stepped onto the solid step with me right behind her. The last five steps creaked under our feet as we went up to the landing, and we heard the ladder being pulled up behind us as we made our way down the hallway behind the circles of blue light our LED flashlights provided. The bedroom we’d chosen to bunk down in was at the front of the house with windows facing toward the street and to the right side of the house. The box spring for the king sized bed had been set over the side window, and several layers of drapes covered the front window.

As soon as we got in the door, Amy headed for the pile of blankets and pillows on the mattress that was shoved in the corner. Kaplan came in behind us and pointed me to the bed while he went to a neatly laid blanket on the floor near the front window. Hernandez headed for the bedroom beside us.

“You’ll take last watch,” he told me as he set his gear down in a neat stack by his blankets. I nodded and laid my own vest and weapons by the edge of the bed where I could reach them. Once I was sure I could grab either of my pistols or the Deuce without looking, I pulled the bottle of pain reliever I’d liberated from the downstairs bathroom from my pocket and downed three of the little pills before I lay back and waited for sleep to come.

I was awakened by a whimper in the darkness. Instantly I came up on my right elbow and listened. Another soft mewl came from behind me, and I rolled to my other side and reached out in the darkness.

“Amy,” I whispered. The whimpering stopped, and I felt Amy’s hand brush mine. As soon as her fingers touched my hand, she grabbed my arm and pulled herself to me.

“I keep seeing him fall,” she whispered to me. “I try to hold onto him, but I can’t and he falls, he always falls.” The sobs came after that, quiet at first but hard enough to wrack her whole body. Finally, she couldn’t keep silent any more, and I felt my chest vibrate as she bawled into my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Amy,” I said to her over and over again, wishing every time I knew something better to say, but never finding anything else to tell her. Eventually, even that faded, and she fell quiet again, and laid her head on my now damp shoulder. Her breathing became slow and even, and I held her quietly. It was all the comfort I could offer her, and even if my arms went numb and fell off, I’d give her every second of it she wanted. I wished for a thousand things in the indeterminate time that I held her, but it all kept coming back to two things, one I could never give her, and one I could only hope to. I wanted to give her Karl back, but in the end, my prayer was simple:
let me be a good dad for her.
Yeah, simple. Just not easy.

When sleep caught up to me again, it was a stealthy ninja, because the next thing I knew someone was tapping my foot. I came up out of a dark, dreamless sleep to see Kaplan standing at the foot of my makeshift bed. He had his LED light on low, and he was barely visible in the soft blue light. As soon as my eyes focused, he tilted his head toward the door and walked away. I carefully pulled myself away from Amy and picked up my vest and gun belt, then grabbed the rifle once I had them on. Kaplan was waiting for me in the hallway.

“How’s she doing?” he asked. I shrugged.