The Redemption Trilogy

by A. J. Sikes

  “Changing!” another man near the truck yelled. Meg twisted her head to look over her shoulder. The man was reloading. The monsters were coming slower now. Only a few appeared in the windows and were quickly shot down.

  Or they’re sneaking back to hide inside, hoping these guys will run out of ammo.

  The thought scared her. The monsters had shown they could still think. But could they really plan like that?

  “You’re going to run out of ammo if you don’t get inside!” she yelled, hoping they all heard her. “And some of these bodies are going to turn. Go to the fire station. We have someone inside to let you in.”

  Meg grabbed up the trauma bag by her feet and raced away from the engine. She sprinted down the street to where the others were hiding by the linen van. Half way to their position she stopped running and dropped the trauma bag.

  Oh, God. Where are they? Where’s Jason?

  All Meg could see were bloodied bodies and monsters feeding on them.

  “Hel—Help!” Meg screamed, backpedaling for all she was worth.

  ***

  Jed watched the lady firefighter grab the medic kit and run away from the fire truck. She crouched down and ran like hell, like she’d been in combat or something. She knew how to move, or wasn’t afraid to try at least.

  He was glad he could save her back there when the thing was about to jump her. Fucking monsters were taking them all down. Only half a squad was left, and the guy with the M27 in the street, he was about to get it if he didn’t find some cover soon.

  Jed popped two rounds at a creature trying to crawl around the side of the fire truck. The guys there didn’t even notice, just kept shooting every time one of the monsters came into view.

  “Y’all fall back! You gotta fall back!” Jed shouted. If they heard him, they didn’t show it.

  Fine. Fuck it. I gave you the call.

  Jed looked for the firefighter lady again. She was headed down the street, back the way she’d come from. A second later, she dropped the medic kit and screamed.

  Jed moved out of hiding and lifted his weapon. He heard another scream from behind him and pivoted to watch the guy with the M27 go down under two of the monsters. Their claws raked into him and he roared as he tried to fight them off. But it was no use. They ripped into him while he thrashed. Jed had his weapon on them, but the firefighter lady was screaming for help down the street. Jed spun in her direction and saw her running backward. She whipped around, half stumbling up the street and aiming for his position. She got her feet under her and ran full tilt, waving her axe in the air.

  “Inside! Inside!” she yelled. Her mask muffled her voice, but not so much that Jed couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  He dodged to the side and aimed in her direction. Four of the monsters charged up the street behind her like a pack of wild dogs. He knew he should shoot them, but a heavy fear held his finger away from the trigger.

  What if he missed them? What if he hit her?

  But he had to shoot now. If he didn’t, then this was it for Jed Welch.

  “Now or never, Jed. Now or fucking never,” he said to himself as he forced his finger around the trigger.

  He squeezed off a shot and put the first monster down with a hole in its face. He did the others just the same. One, two, and three.

  The guys from near the fire truck ran over beside him right as the lady firefighter came up. The monsters were still out there. Their shrieking and scraping claws seemed to echo off every wall. Broken glass tinkled and cracked somewhere nearby.

  “We gotta go,” one of the other guys said.

  “We’re US Marines, ma’am,” Jed said to the lady firefighter. She looked around the street like she was stunned.

  “Ma’am,” Jed said again. “We gotta get inside. You got people in there, right? People can let us in?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  They moved back toward the fire station door. Jed kept his weapon up. The other guys had theirs up, but one guy only held it ready, not up and aimed out.

  “Eyes out, man,” Jed told him and motioned with his weapon for the other guy to bring his muzzle up.

  “I’m out, man. Got no ammo.”

  “Shit. Guys over there still have it on them. They didn’t even get a shot off, right?”

  “They’re covered in blood,” the lady firefighter said. “You can’t touch them. You aren’t wearing gloves.”

  Jed looked at her. She had her axe in both hands and stood ready, like she’d move out into the street. One of the other guys, the one who still had ammo, came up next to her. He dropped his mag and handed it to this buddy, then popped his ammo pouch open and took out his last one.

  “I’ll cover you. C’mon.”

  She nodded at the guy and they stepped off together, aiming for the first bunch of bodies right across the street.

  “Get what’s in their weapons,” Jed yelled after them. The guy next to him slotted the half-empty mag into his weapon and charged it.

  A shriek put them all on alert and Jed whipped his weapon up and around the street, looking for whatever made the noise. He couldn’t see it, though, just busted out windows, blood everywhere, and bodies on the ground.

  The guy next to him opened up, firing over their heads. Jed spun around. Three of the things were crawling down the wall of the fire station right at them.

  — 30 —

  Upper East Side, Manhattan

  “Run!” Meg yelled, shoving a hand against the Marine’s shoulder. “Back to the station!” He stumbled away for a step, then lifted his rifle and started shooting.

  “No!” Meg yelled, but it was already too late. Three of the monsters jumped away from the building and landed in the street, surrounding the young man. He spun to one side and fired, but he missed the monster. Before he could shoot again, the other two tackled him and ripped into his body with their clawed hands.

  Meg charged with her axe up and swung at the one nearest her. She sliced the top of its head off and followed her swing around as she jumped over the dead man at her feet. She landed, facing off against the remaining two monsters with her axe at the ready. The nearest monster reared up and the one behind it began circling around Meg to the right.

  It went down with a bullet hole in its chest, and the one nearest to her flinched, backing up a step and looking around her shoulder.

  It knows. It can tell where the threat is coming from.

  “Get inside!” Meg yelled as she stepped backward, keeping her axe up to guard against the thing in front of her. Its puffy mouth popped and smacked in a sickening rhythm that turned Meg’s stomach. She swallowed against the urge to vomit and focused on the weight of the axe in her hands. She’d have to time it right, but she’d kill the monster and then they’d get inside.

  The monster leaped away to the side, and then raced forward and leaped again. Meg turned in time to see another of the Marines taken down in a snarling mess of blood and tearing claws.

  The Marine who had been hiding fired at both of them, the monster and the man it tackled. Meg rushed forward as two more of the monsters dropped down beside the shutters, penning them in.

  ***

  Jed slammed his boot heel into the steel shutter door behind him. The lady firefighter had her axe up, and he had his rifle at the ready for a buttstroke.

  Goddamned bone-dry magazine. We’re gonna die.

  The door creaked behind him, but it didn’t move. The monsters kept circling him and the lady firefighter, sometimes lifting their heads and sniffing. The one in front of him bit its own hand and chewed out a bunch of muscle and blood. It puckered its mouth.

  “Oh hell. Oh hell oh hell oh hell,” Jed said.

  The lady firefighter got in front of him and Jed instantly spun around to make sure the other one didn’t get him from behind. But it was on the ground with a deep cut down the middle of its face.

  “You—You saved me,” he said, backing up against the shutter and banging on it with his foot. The lady firefi
ghter kept dancing with the one in the street. It tried to get around her and she put her axe up. Then it skittered the other way and she spun to match it, step for damn step.

  “Keep banging on the door,” she said.

  Jed did what she said, slamming his heel into the door again and again. He only stopped when he saw the faces in every window in the building across the street.

  ***

  Meg darted forward with her axe, trying to feint at the thing to get it to commit. She’d learned a little more about how they moved in just the last few minutes. Wherever they saw a threat, they’d go for it. As long as she looked more threatening than the man behind her, she could save him. And she was confidant she could take the monster out this time.

  She’d lost count of how many she’d killed so far, but her axe dripped with their blood, and before she went down it would drip with more.

  The creak and groan of metal sounded from behind her. Meg heard the chain rattling as Rachel cracked the shutters open.

  “Get in,” Meg said to the Marine at her back. The one in front of her was still staring at her, and slowly shifting on its feet. Left to right. Left to right, staring at her and shifting its position. Left to—

  “Shit!” Meg yelled. More of them were creeping down the wall of the building across the street. In the instant that she took her eyes off the one near her, it jumped, and she just had the strength to put her axe up to block it from tackling her.

  It rebounded and launched again from the sidewalk to her right. The man behind her ran forward and swung his gun around to hit it in the side of the head with the stock. She heard a loud crack, and then shrieks as the ones on the wall began dropping and charging for them.

  ***

  Jed finished the thing off with a second buttstroke, making sure its head was caved in on one side before he darted backward and dropped down to roll under the fire station door.

  The lady firefighter was already on the ground doing the same thing when Jed got inside. A mass of arms and legs raced for them from across the street, and the snarls and shrieks were like knives in his ears, pushing him to get inside as fast as he could.

  “Close it!” someone near him yelled. Jed got his knees under him and lifted up from the floor in time to see a different firefighter grabbing at the chain that worked the door. It was another woman, with dark hair hanging out from around her mask.

  Then she was falling, slamming onto the floor. Her head bounced off the concrete and a stain of blood marked where she hit. It smeared as her body was yanked out of the fire station.

  She didn’t even get to scream.

  ***

  Meg threw herself toward the clawed hands reaching in, with her axe held out. But they were too fast. Claws wrapped around Rachel’s ankles and tore her legs out from under her. A sickening crack filled Meg’s ears and then Rachel was gone, ripped from the room right in front of her eyes.

  The Marine was there, reaching for the chain to close the door, but he was too far back from it. He leaned over the spot where Rachel had been, trying to catch the chain with his gun and pull it closer to him.

  Meg lunged for the chain and in two quick movements had the door closed. She fell against the wall and slumped. Her axe clattered on the floor beside her, and Meg shook and then roared with sorrow.

  ***

  “Thank you for helping me,” Jed said. They were the only words he could think to say. The only words that made any sense any more. Everything else in Jed’s mind was a mess. Even the lady firefighter was a mess, shaking and crying. He could see tears flowing out of her eyes behind her mask.

  “Why didn’t you shoot it?” she asked. She didn’t look at him, just stared at the ground between her boots while she sobbed.

  “My—No ammo. I got nothing left.”

  They stayed like that for a few beats while the monsters clawed and shrieked outside the door. The lady firefighter looked at the chain a few times, and Jed figured maybe she was thinking just to open it up. Let the fuckers in and that’d be that.

  Gotta get her back on her feet. What the fuck do you say, man? What do you—

  “What’s—What’s your name, ma’am?”

  “I’m Meg Pratt,” she said, cutting into his thoughts. “You’re…?”

  “My name’s… I’m Private Welch, but you can call me Jed. I’m Jed.”

  ***

  Meg caught that he mumbled the word, Private, but gave her his first name with more force. Something was off about him. He was different from the soldiers out on the street. The ones she couldn’t save. Or maybe he’d just survived the worst battle imaginable and was in shock. He had said he was a Private after all, so this could have been the first time he’d ever seen war.

  Not like Meg had seen it before herself, but she’d been through plenty that was just as bad.

  Maybe as bad as regular war. The kind where people just shoot each other or blow each other up. Nothing like this, though. Nothing at all.

  “We had some more survivors with us,” Meg said. “They got in, though. The monsters.”

  They’d stopped shrieking outside and she only heard a few of them moving around. Their claws scraped on the door sometimes, but it seemed like they’d given up.

  For now, maybe. They’ll be back. They always come back.

  “You’re the only one left, ma’am?” the Marine asked. Meg had to smile. He had a southern accent, and the way he said ma’am sounded so polite. Such a difference to everything else around her.

  “Yeah. Me, you, and Rex.”

  “Rex? He the fire dog or something?”

  Meg let out a sharp laugh as she looked at the stairs. Rex was on the steps with one hand on the wall and his axe clutched against his chest with the other hand. He had a dopey-dog look on his face, like something Meg had seen in a Norman Rockwell painting. “Yes, Jed. That’s exactly who Rex is.”

  She picked up her axe and struggled to her feet. Meg nodded at Rex, indicating Jed with her axe.

  “He’s a Marine. He’s out of ammo, but he’s okay.”

  Rex seemed to relax a bit. He came down to the app floor and approached them cautiously.

  “You—You weren’t infected, right?” he asked the Marine.

  Jed shook his head, but didn’t say anything.

  “We should set up guard duty,” Meg said. “Get some rest. Sleep if we can.”

  Jed nodded and mumbled that he’d take the first shift.

  — 31 —

  April 20th, 2015

  Upper East Side, Manhattan

  When she woke up to Jed shaking her shoulder, Meg had no idea what time it was. But it didn’t feel like she’d had much sleep. She got up anyway, picked up her axe and went to stand at the top of the stairs. From there she could see through the windows in the dorm room in case anything tried to get in.

  They’d nailed more boards up to make a tighter grid, and reinforced the others that Rex had nailed back after the things broke in earlier.

  They’ll hold. And if they don’t, then it’s just time to accept it I guess.

  Her two-hour shift passed in silence, except for the grisly sounds of the monsters on the street outside. Meg was supposed to wake Rex up for the last guard shift, but she couldn’t sleep anyway, so she stayed up for the rest of the night.

  Daylight finally broke and she went to the dorm room windows to watch the street. Streams of the infected moved like trails of giant ants as they slinked away from the morning light coming into the ruined street, illuminating the bodies and the blood of the night before. A few monsters picked at the bodies, but quickly moved away, like they would rather ignore the dead.

  Don’t want a cold dinner, huh?

  Meg looked at Jed and Rex sleeping in their bunks. Jed lay still with his empty weapon beside him. Rex held an axe by the handle, but the head hung down beside his bunk.

  She’d done it. Finally, after all the blood and the hell and the agony of watching people die all around her, Meg had saved two people.

&n
bsp; A man with an empty gun and another man with only half a spine, if that.

  “Maybe there’s a yellow brick road somewhere in this city,” Meg said to herself. “We’ll find the wizard and get them what they need.”

  She laughed, a sad and hollow sound inside the near silence of the dorm room. Rex snored softly behind her and Jed mumbled something in his sleep.

  It would have been so easy, so many times, to just join Tim in death. To let the monsters get to her, or to just take herself out. She’d had no shortage of opportunities to die or just kill herself over the past twenty-four hours. But she hadn’t taken any of them.

  As she watched the monsters crawl away into the shadows outside, the thought that she may have been better off dead kept nagging at her, like a hangnail rubbing against her other fingers.

  “No,” she said, eyeing the last of the monsters on the street. “You don’t get to win. Not today. And maybe not ever.”

  PENANCE

  Author’s Note

  As a US Army infantry veteran (Operation Just Cause, Panama 1989-1990) I hold myself to the continued support and recognition of our nation’s service members, be they active, veteran, retired, or fallen.

  By purchasing this book, you are making a direct impact on organizations that carry out that mission. Thank you.

  10% of my proceeds from sales of Penance will be donated to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA.org).

  An additional 10% will be donated to the Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy Memorial Scholarship Foundation (murphfoundation.org).

  If you have not experienced any direct interaction with our military and veteran communities, or are not familiar with these organizations and their missions, I encourage you to visit the websites above and get to know the people inside the uniform.

  — 1 —

  5 May 2015

  Upper East Side, Manhattan, approx. 1140 hours

  Jed stared at the gun in Rex’s hand, wondering how he’d kept it hidden, and what he was thinking by pulling it out now.