by Damon Hunter
“Doesn’t seem too bad yet,” Clay said.
“I’m not worried about them,” Ana said, “I saw a pair who were moving on all fours turn into the trees over at the top of the hill.”
“Then we ought to get going before they get here,” Clay said.
“I don’t think they’re coming for us. I’d bet they are going for the Corrigan brothers.”
“They made their choice,” Clay told her.
“Did they choose to give us their weapons?” Ana asked. “They’ll have no chance.”
Clay was about to say something about how they brought that on themselves too when he was distracted by Bo pulling a bike off the trailer. Vance drew his Sick Slaying Stick and climbed on the back as Bo kick started the motorcycle.
“Aw, Hell,” Clay said as he looked back to Ana. “Get the car started and cover us.”
She did not answer as she was already getting in the Urban Assault Wagon to do just that.
Chapter 14
Caroline Rutherford’s House - Oceanside, CA
Donna saw the dog’s eyes and extended green tongue and had no doubt about Tanner’s story of infected dogs. The dog knocked Gavin over as it came through the door. He fell on his back and the dog jumped on top of him.
Caroline grabbed the dog’s collar and pulled it off of Gavin as it snapped its jaws, looking for anything to sink its new jagged teeth into as Caroline pulled it away.
The dog kicked and arched its back, trying to put a bite into Caroline, but could not get its head around enough to put its fangs into the person holding its collar. Holding onto the thrashing, infected beast was difficult but Caroline held on, shuffling backwards to keep the dog from getting to Gavin.
Donna was going for the gun holstered on her hip when she saw the big black combat knife on the floor next to Gavin’s satchel. It must have fallen out when the dog jumped into him.
Donna grabbed it and jammed the long blade into the dog’s exposed belly. Getting stabbed did not slow its thrashing as it bit the air by Donna’s arm. She pushed the blade down, slicing the infected beast from the base of its neck to its hind legs.
Donna stepped back as the dog’s intestines hit the floor. Even without internal organs, the rotter dog kept violently thrashing to get free of Caroline’s grip on the collar for almost an entire minute.
“Gross,” Gavin said as he looked at the pile of steaming, wet canine guts on the kitchen floor.
Caroline held the dead dog at her side and looked at the mess. She shook her head, saying, “I hope that doesn’t stain the grout.” She lifted up the carcass, saying, “I’m going to throw this outside.”
While Caroline opened the door a bit wider to toss the infected dog into the yard, Gavin looked at Donna. “Can I have my knife back?”
Donna would not normally give a ten year old a deadly weapon, but things were far from normal. “Let me clean it first,” she told him.
Caroline turned and said, “There are paper towels under the sink.”
Donna was about to say thanks, but instead said, “Look out,” as an infected Yorkie came around the corner and latched onto Caroline’s ankle.
Caroline screamed and kicked, trying to get the small canine to let go of her leg, but the infected dog held on tight. Caroline stepped into the insides of the dead dog still in her hand as she flung her leg forward. Her foot slipped on the gooey intestines and Caroline went down head over heels into the gore on her kitchen tile.
Donna moved to try to help her when she noticed more dogs running toward the open sliding glass door.
“Close the door Gavin,” she yelled as reached over and got a grip on the Yorkie’s fur.
Gavin did as he was told and slammed the slider shut just as an infected toy poodle leaped for the opening. The poodle bounced off the glass but was up immediately scratching at the door.
Donna was getting ready to stab the dog when a desperate Caroline kicked out with her free foot, catching Donna in the knee. Donna stepped in the pile of canine organs as Caroline kicked her. The slippery intestines had Donna’s foot sliding out from under her and she joined Caroline on the floor.
The dog let go of Caroline’s leg and turned its sick eyes to the fallen Donna. Donna tried to scramble away but hardly moved as her hands and feet slid in the muck from the first dog. Donna managed to swing her leg away, narrowly avoiding the infected little dog’s sharp teeth as the rotter Yorkie snapped at her foot.
She was so focused on the dog that she did not see that Tanner had bolted into the kitchen. He kicked the dog across the kitchen, bouncing it off the wall and into the sink as it got ready to launch itself at Donna.
If getting kicked across the room hurt the rotter dog, it did not show as its head popped up out of the sink. Fortunately for all of them, its paws failed to find purchase on the damp stainless steel and instead of leaping out to infect more people, it skittered in place for a few seconds.
Tanner stepped forward and plucked an iron skillet off the counter. The dog was just about to jump out of the sink when he crushed the infected beast’s rotting skull. The right side of the Yorkie’s skull was completely caved in, but even with its head misshapen it still tried to skitter out of the sink.
Katelin, Bar and Jennifer had all come into the kitchen to see what was going on. Katelin pushed Tanner aside as she drew the sword from the scabbard on her back. She brought the blade down with enough force to split the Yorkie’s head down the middle. It quit moving after that.
While Katelin was finishing off the dog, Jennifer went to Caroline’s side. With all the blood and gore on her from the dog, Jennifer could not tell if she had been bitten or not.
She was about to ask Caroline if she was okay when the woman turned and opened her mouth to sink her teeth into Jennifer.
Donna pulled her away just before Caroline could pass her infection on to another person. Caroline kept coming, crawling through the insides of the dead German Shepherd to get to them as Donna, still on her back, kicked her in the face, popping one of the quick-growing sores which had sprouted on Caroline’s cheek.
Caroline rolled to her feet and was about to jump on both Donna and Jennifer when Bar grabbed her by the hair with his one good arm. Bar whipped her around and smashed her head into the stainless steel refrigerator behind them. He kept smashing her face onto the silver surface until her skull was so shattered he could almost feel the stainless steel through her crushed face. When he let go, Caroline’s face oozed slowly down the refrigerator, leaving a trail of blood and brain matter all the way down.
“Damn. That was harsh,” Tanner said.
Bar waited until the middle-aged woman slid all the way to the floor before saying, “Yeah. Sorry you had to see that, it may be hard to believe after what I just did, but I liked her.”
“No worries,” Tanner said. “I’ve done worse to my own dad. Well maybe not worse, but still pretty bad.”
No one was sure what to say as they all stood in the bloody kitchen. Finally Tanner said, “Good thing we are leaving. I don’t think I will be able to eat anything cooked in here for a long time.”
“Like forever,” Jennifer added.
“Yeah, about that long.”
“Maybe we should wait in the living room,” Donna told them.
Everyone nodded in agreement. They were all on the way out when a voice by the sliding glass door called out, “Son.”
Chapter 15
Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA
Both brothers were looking at the approaching motorcycles, which meant they were not looking at the two vampire rotters coming out of the avocado grove. Bo pointed and yelled, but they could not hear him over the motorcycle engines and his pointing just confused them.
The faster of the two of leapt toward an oblivious Ben Corrigan. He turned just in time for the rotter’s head to explode as Ana fired from the roof of the Urban Assault Wagon. She was not able to draw a bead on the second one and it hit Billy, knocking him to the ground.
&nbs
p; Ben stepped to his half-brother and grabbed the rotter from behind as it opened its extended jaw. He pulled it backwards, keeping his brother from being bit. The vampire rotter twisted as Ben yanked it off of Billy. It hit Ben with a clawed hand, knocking him to the dirt. Billy jumped on the rotter’s back looking to return the favor and save Ben, but the rotter moved and Billy ended up diving into his half-brother.
As they tried to untangle their arms and legs, they looked back to see the vampire rotter open its extended jaw and make the low, guttural sound the vampire rotters used to call the infected. It kept the massive mouth open as it turned to prepare to put two rows of jagged teeth into both of them. Instead of attacking them, it spun to the oncoming dirt bike on a collision course with it.
Bo swerved so he did not hit it and Vance swung the blade end of his Sick Slaying Stick, taking the rotter’s head off before it could even react.
Bo brought the bike to a stop as the brothers untangled from each other and stood. Clay joined them a few seconds later. With the bikes idling, they could hear Ana’s rifle.
They looked to see amblers starting to come out of the trees on either side of them, converging on the sounds of the rifle and the vampire rotter’s call.
“Either of you ride?” Clay asked as he dismounted the bike.
“I do,” Billy said.
“Take the bike, then,” Clay said as he took the rifle off his shoulder and threw back the bolt to chamber a round.
“You sure?” Billy asked.
“Hurry up before I change my mind.”
As the Corrigans got on his bike, Clay turned to Bo. “Take him back and then come get me.”
Bo didn’t like the idea of leaving Clay in the field, but in the short time he had known the TMRT soldier, he did not seem like the type of person who lost an argument. He and Vance sped back towards the road as Clay opened fire on the nearest amblers.
By the time they reached the Urban Assault Wagon, a pair of amblers had climbed onto the hood while Ana fired into a group at the back of the Suburban.
Vance hopped off as well as an essentially one-legged man could, telling Bo, “Go,” as he limped towards the amblers flanking Ana.
Vance swung the blade end of the SSS, cutting off the foot of the nearest one. He let the Sick Slaying Stick spin in his hands and smashed the ball end into the legs of the other ambler on the hood, knocking it off its feet as well.
He was going to finish them both when he sensed something behind him. He turned to see a vampire rotter come out of the trees headed straight for him. He was trying to swing the Sick Slaying Stick into a defensive position when Billy drove the bike right into it.
Instead of going down, the vampire rotter took the hit and held onto the handle bars. It leaned forward and sank its teeth into Billy’s face. With a vampire rotter on his face, Billy could not control the bike and all three of them went down. They went skidding along the dirt road until they were well into the field on the other side of the road.
Vance wanted to go help, but the ambler he had not cleaved a foot off of was headed his way. Vance unleashed the spikes on the ball end and crushed the ambler’s head. He gave the staff a spin to get it into position and did the same to the one-footed ambler laying across the hood.
He put the Sick Slaying Stick in the holder on his back and unslung the AR-15 off his shoulder. There was no reason to worry about gunfire drawing them in since the horde was already coming. He moved around the Urban Assault wagon and headed for the field where Corrigan’s sons had crashed the bike.
As Vance expected, the first one to rise from the motorcycle crash was the vampire rotter. He double tapped it in the face and it went down for good. The next one to rise was Billy, who already had sores growing on his neck and shoulders. Vance put a single bullet in the back of his head and kept moving toward Ben as fast as he could on one leg.
The shirtless Ben was a bloody mess from sliding on gravel and dirt at thirty miles an hour, but was able to stand. With his skin being as torn up as much as it was, it was hard to tell if he had been bitten too. Vance kept the gun pointed at him, looking for the exploding sores as he got close.
“First my dad and then my brother,” Ben said.
“He was bitten and had already turned,” Vance said.
“He saved you.”
“And I appreciate that, but it would be kind of a waste for him to go to the trouble and then for me to let him infect you and kill me.”
Ben did not look convinced.
“You want to live or not?” Vance asked.
Ben did not say anything.
“If the answer is yes and you can walk, go get in the Suburban. If it’s no, then good luck,” Vance told him as he turned and started limping back to the Urban Assault Wagon. He expected Bo and Clay to have already arrived and Ana to be behind the wheel ready to get them the hell out of there but Ana was still on top, firing at approaching infected and Bo and Clay were nowhere to be found. He looked to the field but a growing group of infected blocked his vision.
“Do you see them?” he yelled back to Ana.
She dropped the spent magazine from her rifle and said, “No,” as she slapped in another one.
Chapter 16
Caroline Rutherford’s House - Oceanside, CA
They all turned to see the one-eyed rotter standing in front of the sliding glass door.
They could see what was left of the garden shears’ handles when it opened its oversized mouth and gargled out the word “Son,” followed by, “come to me.”
Katelin stepped in front of everybody and drew both Tec-Nines. She paused, thinking taking out the glass door which was keeping out the growing number of rotter dogs in the Rutherfords’ back yard might be a bad idea. She was about to decide to fire anyway, since the glass would not stop the vampire rotter in front of them, when it loped away.
“That seemed like a tactical retreat, like it knew you could kill it,” Bar said.
“That’s new,” Katelin replied.
“Where do you think it’s going?” Jennifer asked.
Before anyone could answer, they heard glass breaking in the front of the house.
Bar was the first one out of the kitchen. He went straight for the shotgun he had foolishly left in the living room by the supplies they had scrounged up from the neighbors. He picked it up, expecting to see the one-eyed talking rotter in the room with him, but it was nowhere to be seen. None of the windows in the living room were broken, either.
“I would have sworn I heard the glass breaking in here,” Bar said.
“Could it have come in upstairs?” Donna said as she chambered a round on her Glock.
“Maybe,” Tanner said as he picked up the bat he had left by the sofa, “Dad has gotten a lot more spry since he got bit, he could have easily climbed on the roof.”
“One way to find out,” Katlin said as she turned and started up the stairs.
“Katelin wait,” Donna said, but her daughter was already heading up. If she heard her mother, Katelin did not acknowledge her.
“I’ll go with her,” Bar said. “You three make sure nothing comes up and flanks us.”
“Maybe we should all stay together,” Jennifer said, but Bar was already heading up.
“Either of you know how to shoot?” Donna said as she saw Gavin draw his big knife.
“I don’t,” Jennifer said.
“It’s probably better for all of us if I stick with the bat,” Tanner told them.
Jennifer saw Gavin brandishing his knife. “Am I the only one without a weapon?”
“You should fix that,” Donna told her as she pointed to a pile of weapons they had brought in the Urban Assault Wagon, including a broadsword and a baseball bat with nails in it with the S.W.A.R.C. logo painted on the side.
Jennifer hustled over and picked up the bat. She checked the weight and took a few practice swings. Seeing everyone looking at her, she said, “I played more softball than I did sword fighting.”
“Can I
use the sword?” Tanner asked.
“Ever use a sword before?” Donna asked him.
“No, I guess I’ll stick with the bat.”
Jennifer joined them, standing back to back with the others as they made a small circle, getting ready for a threat to come from any direction. She asked, “Do you really think he could have climbed up on the roof and broken in that fast? It was only, what, seconds before we heard the glass break?”
“Like I said, getting bit made him a lot more spry, and faster, too,” Tanner replied.
“But that fast?”
Tanner shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Are you alright up there?” Donna called up the stairs.
“All clear so far,” Bar yelled back.
Tanner looked across the room to the door to Grampy Gary’s room which was just off the entryway to the house. The door was closed. Caroline liked it to be closed when Grampy Gary was sleeping. She worried the noise from the other people living in the house would wake him up. As far as Tanner could tell, Grampy Gary could sleep through anything these days, but his stepmom still insisted on shutting the door.
He thought about the big window in Grampy Gary’s room looking out into the front yard, the one Grampy Gary liked to be wheeled in front of so he could look outdoors. His vampire rotter dad might not be able to climb up on the roof and break a window in the time between seeing him at the back door and hearing the breaking glass. He could, however, make it to Grampy Gary’s window easily in the that time.
“Grampy Gary,” Tanner said as he realized what probably had happened.
Hearing him say this, Donna looked at the door to Grampy Gary’s room and came to the same conclusion.
Tanner started moving to the door, saying, “I can’t let him kill Grampy Gary.”
“Wait,” Donna said, “Grampy Gary wasn’t going to make it regardless.”
Tanner listened to her about as well as her daughter did. He reached the door but did not open it.
“You think if he was in there we would have heard him?” Tanner asked. “Last time he was on the other side of a door, all he did was ram into it until it fell down.”