by Burgy, P. J.
“Climb! Climb!” She called out to the girl.
Kara's strong legs were swift, but the Wailers were faster. They were going to beat her to the tower. She saw a dark shape pass her on the left and again felt waves of relief wash over her when Russell went charging forward. He'd abandoned his helmet and was brandishing a long, thick piece of rebar that he'd pulled up from the ground near one of the disassembled bunkers.
These Infected were intelligent and reacted to Russell, scattering to the sides around him to form a circle. They had weapons of their own, waving knives and pipes in the air while hooting excitedly. In the moonlight, Kara saw the gleaming edge of a machete being swung down at Russell and her heart sank. Russell blocked with the rebar, kicked another attacking Infected in the gut, and swung the metal rod into the skull of the nearest Wailer to him. The remaining Wailers hesitated, studying the carnage before them. She didn't have time to watch what happened next, Kara had to keep going.
She nearly fell over when she heard a scream behind her, and she skidded to a halt, whirling around on her heel to see Michael crushing Gencho's throat in one powerful hand, both men on the ground. Gencho had his knife buried in Michael's side, between his ribs, his empty rifle on the grass three feet away from where the two grappled.
Renshen, jogging up, aimed his pistol at Michael. “Hey, you. Ugly. You get offa my boy.”
When Michael shrieked in Renshen's direction, Kara saw her father shrug, take the five or six steps it took to close the gap between them, and shoot Michael three times in the head. Michael's body shuddered, went lax, allowing Gencho to shove him off and away. Gencho brushed himself off, shaking his legs out.
Kara would have turned back to continue making her way to Lena, as she hadn't forgotten. She knew the girl was climbing up the ladder, and she could hear Russell fighting close by, just out of sight behind her. She would have spun around and kept going, knowing full well that one or two of those sentient things would be trying to get to the girl before her, or would be gunning for Kara herself by now. But she was unable to pry her eyes away from where Renshen and Gencho stood.
They were exchanging smirks, their helmets off as they shook hands, father and son smiling at one another. Something pale and lanky had dropped down from the wall, where the shadows gathered, and slipped behind Renshen like a ghost.
Kara's lips parted, a silent shout trying to escape her throat as Meredith drove her fist into Renshen Bui's back. Whatever she did, it drew an agonized scream from her father, and he tried to spin around to shoot at the thing attacking him. Gencho had no weapon and went for Meredith as Renshen fell to his knees. Meredith shoved Gencho back, hitting him again and again, forcing him closer to the wall, and then grabbed him by his face and slammed his skull into the metal sheeting.
The cry of rage and fear that tore its way out of Kara sounded faint to her ears as she abandoned the tower and went right for Meredith. Gencho was on the grass. He wasn't moving.
Kara grabbed for anything she could, which happened to be a brick from a bunker, and tried to smash it into Meredith's hateful, snarling face when she got close enough.
Meredith moved out of the way, grabbing Kara by her shoulder, her other hand gripping her left arm by the elbow. In one fluid motion, the sensation so painful that Kara couldn't even muster a cry, Meredith snapped Kara's arm, breaking it. Kara lost her balance as she was tossed to the side, her body hitting the wall and her senses suddenly swimming. She fell to the grass, struggling to get up, her left arm useless and throbbing.
“I will leave nothing here. No trace of any of you,” Meredith hissed. “You've killed him. My Michael. My precious, precious Michael. I will kill all of you now. All of you.”
Kara used the wall to support her weight as she pushed herself off of the ground. Her one good arm went for the brick again. “Then come get me, bitch.”
“You. I'll kill you last,” Meredith said. “I want you to watch me kill everyone you love.”
Meredith's eyes burned, the black pupils huge, the white around them bright in the dim light. Her smile was devoid of joy, her teeth exposed, tinged with black spit. She laughed, backing away from Kara, and glanced toward the tower.
“Leave her alone. Fight me. Fight me,” Kara said, staggering toward Meredith. She felt sick to the stomach, the effort of swinging the brick at the woman making Kara dizzy.
“There is no future for my paradise, so I will burn yours to the ground,” Meredith said and then went sprinting off toward the tower.
Russell saw her and, despite being engaged with three others in combat, attempted to make a run for Meredith. She called out and he was promptly grabbed, pulled back into the fray. He was shrieking like one of them, trying to fight his way out of the writhing mass of other bodies.
Kara could see them actively subduing him now, their weapons held to the side. Still, he fought back, and the ten Infected had become five. Four then, when Russell freed an arm, grabbed one by the neck and crushed her windpipe.
Kara couldn't run. She felt her head spinning. She crouched over Gencho briefly, saw that he was breathing, and clenched her jaw. Looking over at Renshen, she saw that he was dead.
Still, she crawled over to him. “Dad?”
The tears threatened to come. She did not let them.
She forced herself up and into a trot to go after Meredith, who was already beginning to climb the tower. She wasn't using the ladder. She didn't need to. She was sweeping from rafter to rafter, grabbing the support beams and pulling herself up to intercept Lena.
“Lena!” Kara called at the base of the tower.
Tengen yelled from behind her. “Kara!”
She turned and saw him, twin swords drawn, running toward her. By the look on his face, he'd seen the corpse of their father. His cheeks were flushed, his hair damp with sweat.
“Up there! Tengen!” Kara indicated upward, toward Meredith, and then grabbed for the ladder. With only one arm it was going to be difficult to make any headway.
Tengen stopped her, shaking his head. “I'm the better climber, Little Sister. And you're in no shape to deal with that thing.”
One of the Infected gave up on Russell and ran at Tengen, who maneuvered deftly to the right, pivoted on his heel, and swung both swords in to slice the thing's head off. It happened so quickly that Kara barely had time to react. The body twitched for only a moment.
“Stay here. I'll take care of her,” Tengen stated.
Meredith was most of the way up to the nest when Tengen Hai took chase. His swords sheathed behind his back, he grabbed the support beams and swung himself upward. Like Meredith, he chose not to use the ladder. His deft gymnastics were impressive; Tengen was agile, swinging and reaching upward, pulling himself up to the tower faster than Meredith had climbed. He would reach the top at the same time she did.
Unable to see Lena anymore, Kara stepped backward, trying to get a better glimpse of what was going on up there, so many feet above her. Her arm hurt, as did her head and shoulder.
Russell had two more Infected to contend with and Kara, stumbling over for her brick again, made her way to him. She brained one of them, bringing the brick down into its skull. It hadn't even seen her coming. Its limp body fell backward and the other, realizing it was alone, blinked wide, bloodshot eyes at Kara. It was a young male, hair short, beard trimmed. Surprise worked its way into its features as Russell overpowered it and threw him down, repeatedly punching him in the face until the cracking sounds became wet crunches.
“Russ.” Kara dropped the brick. When he looked up at her, eyes wild and lost, Kara took a step back. He looked like he might have been preparing to lunge at her. She swallowed, holding her good hand out toward him. “Lena's in the tower. With Meredith. Tengen. Help Tengen. Please.”
There was a soft cry, muted, somewhere nearby. Kara heard the impact, saw Tengen on the hard ground ten feet away. He'd landed on the leftover foundation of one of the bunkers, the cinder blocks under him turning red with his blood. His
eyes were open, unfocused. His throat was torn out. One of his swords had pierced his chest. Lena was screaming in the tower.
Kara gagged and stumbled over to where he'd landed. When she fell to her knees next to him, she leaned over Tengen, grabbed for one of his hands and took it, squeezed his still warm flesh. “No. No. No.”
Russell passed by like a shadow, rebar still gripped in his hand, and went up after Meredith.
Fighting her way to her feet, Kara watched as he scaled the ladder, and she heard them up there. Lena was still crying out. Kara saw Russell push Meredith hard into the wooden gate up there. The boards were splintering, bowing out. She kicked him backward and then lunged at him. Back and forth, the two fought, Meredith wrenching the piece of rebar away from Russell and then sinking it deep into his ribs.
Russell grabbed her, wrapping his arms around Meredith. Kara squinted her eyes, unsure of what she was seeing. Russell was holding her in a bear hug, not letting her go. He charged for the broken boards and went crashing through, Meredith trapped with him.
They were in the air then, their trajectory long from the power he'd put into his jump. Meredith howled. Perhaps there had been words in her cry, the language foreign to Kara's ears. Their entwined bodies hit the lake and went down into the water.
“Lena!” Kara yelled.
The girl was coming down the ladder, looking down every now and then as Kara hobbled over to the shoreline. Eyes searching the surface of the water, she saw Meredith come up and thrash only to disappear once again. Kara swallowed hard, swaying side to side as more than a minute went by. Her gaze moved to Tengen, to Renshen, and then back to the lake. Air bubbles erupted on the surface. More movement. Then, the pale back came up, the hair like white tendrils around her head. Meredith's body bobbed along with the waves, lifeless.
Kara wasn't sure how long she'd been standing there waiting. Lena's presence came as a shock when the little girl reached over to touch Kara's side.
“Russell is down there. Help him. He can't swim,” Lena said to Kara.
“I... I don't think I can help him, Lena,” Kara said.
“If I get sick, I'll kick his ass. Then I'll haunt you forever,” Gencho muttered, limping up beside Kara. He was taking his chest plate off, shaking his head.
Kara blinked at him. “Gencho?”
“You heard me, Little Sister.” Gencho waded into the water.
Kara moved away from the shoreline as Gencho Jones swam out and disappeared under the surface. How he would see down there, in the dark depths of the lake, Kara had no idea. Her gaze drifted over to Meredith's body and Kara shivered, tearing her eyes away from the dead woman. Her broken arm still hurt, but the flesh felt oddly numb as she struggled to sit down on the grass, a wave of dizziness rolling through her skull. What remained of the Infected were being taken out, one by one now, by the other guards. There were no more sounds of the Red Brethren rovers from outside of the walls. The shrieking, however, was getting louder somehow.
Kara heard the sentries yelling back and forth. She saw them scaling the wall, taking point, gesturing to one another. There was a guard on a radio hollering for them to get up, to get away from the ground. She narrowed her eyes, body aching as she pulled herself back to her feet and grabbed for Lena's hand. Gencho was in the water, unaware of what was going on within the walls.
The sentry called again, radio in his hand, and waved to Kara, told her to get up.
Fifty Wailers, maybe more, poured in through the breach while sentries fired down at them from up on the wall. They were making that terrible, horrible sound, but it was different. They seemed to be harmonizing together, acting as one entity, one body. Legion. They swarmed in, their destination clearly around the western curve of the lake, toward Kara. Their Mother floated dead in the water and her children were coming to avenge her.
Kara pulled Lena away from the edge of the water, turning back to look for a ladder leading upward on the wall, hoping to see one close by. The girl gasped, her words muffled and hard to hear over the sound of the Infected. Kara got Lena to the ladder and gave her a push with her free arm, turning around to see how much time they had. What was the use of climbing up and away? Those things would scale the ladder with no difficulty. Kara searched the ground for a weapon and grabbed a hold of a machete, wrenching it from a dead Wailer's grasp. The things were rounding the curve of the lake, hundreds of feet away but closing the gap quickly.
From the garage, on the opposite shore, the Bella roared out onto the grass, her UV lights bright, and made a sharp turn toward the southern wall. She came to a rough stop, and then the top gun exploded into rapid bursts of gunfire, the barrel twisting back and forth.
The horde of mindless Wailers fell, the bodies hitting the ground just as fast as the Bella could unload into the swarm. The sentries were calling out in victory. As soon as it had started, it was over.
Her breath momentarily stolen from her, Kara managed to fill her lungs and cry out in celebration as well, though her victory felt less joyful. Hand in the air, Kara waved at the other sentries across the lake and saw them wave back at her. A movement in the water caught her attention and, along with Lena, she returned to the shoreline. Gencho was dragging Russell's body behind him, laying it down on the rocks, and then falling down on the grass to huff and puff.
“Is he dead?” Lena asked.
Kara stared at Russell, breath caught in her throat. The rebar was jutting out of him, just under his ribs, the blood dark, still flowing. He wasn't moving, and in the low light he looked paler than she expected him to. Eyes closed, mouth open, he lay quiet on the rocks while Gencho coughed on water.
Kara threw her machete to the side, ignoring the cheers from the other shore. She dropped down next to Russell, checking his pulse. Her broken arm hanging useless at her side, Kara ignored the pain, her attention focused entirely on her fallen friend. She felt a weak heartbeat and glanced at Russell's face. She held his left eye open for only a moment, saw a sea of red with a sliver of black near the top, then allowed it to close again. She bent to listen close to his lips, straining to hear. “He's not breathing.”
“Take it out,” Lena said.
“We'll need to apply pressure. Lena. Come here,” Kara said. “I'm going to take it out, and I need you to keep your hands here, on the wound. I need you to push down, firmly.”
“Kara, he's bleeding. Don't touch him,” Gencho stated.
Kara looked to Lena. “Can you do that, Lena?”
Lena nodded. “Yes.”
“Kara...” Gencho sat up and crawled over to her.
“He'll heal. It just needs to come out. He heals fast,” Kara breathed.
Gencho hesitated. “They do, but...”
Kara pulled the rebar out and saw Lena press her palms down, one hand over the other. Heart pounding in her ears, Kara's brows lifted. She blinked at Gencho. “He's got a pulse, but he's not breathing. Chest compressions. Gencho. Please.”
“Kara?”
“Please!”
“Fuck.” Gencho positioned himself over Russell and began to push down on the other man's chest in quick, rhythmic bursts. He was counting to himself, singing an old song that Renshen used to croon while they were on the road.
Kara hung her head close to Russell's face.
Gencho paused. “Little Sister, don't...”
Kara tilted Russell's head back, pinched his nostrils shut with her good hand, and breathed into his mouth. She almost vomited when she tasted the bile. The smell had been bad enough, but the black phlegm had a taste and texture like putrid mucus. Images of decaying flesh on a hot summer day, left to rot in a filmy pond, flashed through Kara's mind.
It took everything she had to give him the second breath before she pulled back and began to cough, suppressing her gag reflex through will alone. Her eyes watered, her vision blurry. Checking his pulse again, Kara spit on the grass.
Gencho was cursing under his breath.
“How many people have to die tonight? The Pla
gue...” Gencho asked, voice low. He resumed the chest compressions, wincing as he heard Russell's ribs crack.
“You were given the vaccine from my blood,” Lena stated.
“Yeah. Yeah, we did.”
“You won't get sick.”
“We won't get sick,” Gencho echoed.
They counted the compressions together, and Kara sang along with her brother. Kara breathed into Russell's mouth again, twice. He wasn't breathing on his own and by the fourth time she attempted it she felt her stomach threatening to empty its contents onto the rocky shore. Gencho pushed her backward, his hand out. He had stopped, and he was now stopping her.
“What are you doing?” Lena asked, eyes wide, her light hair hanging in her face. “He's dying. You can't give up now.”
“He's gone, kiddo,” Gencho said.
The cheering voices had died down and Kara could see the others at the breach, the Bella parked there now guarding the hole. Most of the guards were scrambling to take point near the weak point in the wall while a few were headed over around the southern curve of the lake toward Kara. They didn't seem to be in any hurry and her head was swimming anyway; she didn't want to talk to them.
Kara looked at Russell's body, her lungs feeling empty. Lena wouldn't leave him, her hands soaked in his blood as she stayed knelt by his side, keeping the pressure on the wound.
“He's still bleeding. That means he's still alive. Please, Kara!” Lena said.
Kara grimaced and then, using her good arm, tried to continue the chest compressions that Gencho had abandoned. She counted, paused, and then breathed for Russell, watching for his chest to rise. She did it again. And again. The other guards were now there, taking off their helmets.
“What is she doing?” one asked.
“Saving our friend,” Lena replied.
“You're putting your mouth on the Infected's?” a second guard asked.
“We're all vaccinated,” Gencho said. “She doesn't want to let him go that easy.”