The Rabid: Rise

by J. V. Roberts

  “Girl has to take fun where she can find it,” Katia says as she scrapes the muck from one of the blades into the grass using a boot heel.

  “Some kind of fun.” I watch her, still a little shocked by the joy she seems to get from the kill.

  Ruiz gives up and shakes his head. “Alright, kid, get up there on point. We’ve still got a job to do.”

  We exit the yard and crest a small hill,. We weave our way through some transplanted shrubbery and come face to face with a brick wall.

  “This is it,” Ruiz says, running up beside me, his knees unnecessarily cocked. The wall is over seven feet tall, easy. There’s not a chance of his head breaking cover.

  Katia and Tyrell join us by the wall. We gather in tight.

  “Okay, guys, we’ve got to do this right. I want all of us going home when this is done.” He checks us to make sure we’re with him. “Tim, you pulled short straw, so you’re first over; make sure the coast is clear.”

  I nod. Numb to the idea. I’ve made peace with the fact that I’m most likely going to catch a bullet in the face or a set of teeth in the jugular.

  “After that, I’m going to boost Katia and Tyrell over. Then, Tyrell, you’re going to pull me up and over. Got it? Don’t fucking leave me hanging down here.”

  “I gotcha, boss, I gotcha,” Tyrell says.

  “Okay,” Ruiz pulls a rough sketch from one of his pockets, “if our scouts are right, there should be some pretty good concealment on the other side of this wall; shrubs and shit. Then there is a small side street and then our checkpoint.” His finger dances across the crude pencil drawn portrait of our target. “We’re going to be coming up behind the gas station. That should give us concealment from the balcony sniper across the way as well as the street crew. Katia, you’re going to take the access ladder on the back of the convenience store and quietly bring down the guy on the roof. You take up his rifle and you get ready to cover us, clear on that?”

  “What if he’s doing circles up there and sees me coming, then what?”

  Ruiz hesitates. He clearly hasn’t planned for that. “Well, then, you run zigzags, we’ll do our best to cover you and get you out of the hot zone.”

  “Comforting.”

  “Hey, it’s what we’ve got. We’ll scope it out when we get on the other side and try to get a feel on things.”

  She nods. “Well, if it’s what we got, it’s what we got. But just know, I’m no expert behind the scope, just letting you know now. So, if you get your asses in a bind and need close support, be aware that I’m as likely to dump a bullet in you as I am them.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that. We do need you to nail the sniper on the hotel balcony across the street. Or, at least keep him pinned down until we can get close enough to do the deed ourselves. Also, if you can plant a round in the asshole on the .50, that’d be super.”

  She nods. “I’ll do my best.”

  “The rest of you, it’s pretty basic. We move in, keep our shots tight while she covers us from up top. Everyone clear?”

  “Clear.”

  “Roger dodger.”

  “Let’s get this shit done and get back.” Ruiz stands and backs up against the wall. “Up and over, Tim.”

  Here it is. My final moment. I’d survived all this to become target practice for some trigger happy pawn in dirty fatigues. I suppose there are worse ways to go, hell, I know there are, I’ve seen em’ first hand. I just never pictured myself going out like this. It’s a glorified version of Whac-A-Mole. Except, there’s no mole here. Just my head. Rising up like some metal target in a carnival shooter. No BB’s here, no pellets, no cushion coated plastic mallets; just 5.56mm rounds traveling at 4,900 feet per second. They’ll split my head like a melon. At least it’ll be quick. A blink to black rather than a fade.

  “Hold my rifle?” I extend it to Katia.

  “You really need a sling.”

  “If I survive this, I’ll consider it.”

  I rest my boot in Ruiz’s palms and set my hands against the wall. In one quick motion, he sends me sailing up, past the surface of the wall, at rocket speed, my hands frantically looking for something to hold onto. Before I can find a grip, I’m cresting the top. I throw my arms over the edge and hold myself there.

  Waiting for it. Waiting for the blackness.

  Will I hear the shot before the lights go out?

  Probably not.

  Nothing happens. I just hang there. The wind pounds my face, threatening to rip the hat from my head. Thick trees lay before me with overgrown shrubs crowding their base. They rustle in the wind like paper chimes. Speeding up and slowing down as each gust surges and peaks, surges and peaks.

  I throw a leg over, straddling the top as I reach an arm down to retrieve my rifle. Katia passes it up to me, straining on the tips of her toes. With my rifle in hand, I slide both legs over and take the plunge. I hit ground harder than expected and launch myself into a roll, coming to rest on my stomach, rifle splayed out beside me.

  I can see the back of the store through the brush along with a few lifeless gas pumps sitting towards the edge of the front parking lot. There are two thin lines of smoke casually rising from the other side of the building.

  Campfires? Boredom induced anarchy?

  Who knows?

  We’ll find out soon enough.

  The coast is clear. Crystal clear. There isn’t another soul stirring as far as I can tell. The roof of the convenience store seems void of life. There is a giant metal HVAC unit posted up in the center. Our sniper is probably on the other side of it, bored to tears and cold as hell.

  Katia lands beside me like a ninja. Perfect form. Knees bent. Arms out slightly to her side. The girl is pure ghost. She steps over and drops to her stomach next to me.

  “Where am I going?” she whispers.

  “See right there, backside of the building on the other side of that dumpster? That ladder is your way up.”

  “See anything yet?”

  “Just that smoke, they got something burning.”

  “Meh, probably a barrel fire. I call dibs.”

  “Looks like there’s two of em’. I got the second.” My breath rolls out in front of me and vanishes a few inches from my face like a wave hitting some invisible shore.

  Tyrell and Ruiz land seconds apart. Not quite as graceful as Katia, but a hell of a lot more nimble than my approach had been.

  “What’s the word?” Ruiz asks. He takes up on the other side of me, props up on his elbows, and begins scanning for targets.

  “We were just debating about who gets what fire,” I say.

  “Fire?”

  “Yeah, see those two columns of smoke coming off the other side of the store? They’re definitely burning something. We figure it’s gotta be a campfire or a barrel fire or some shit.”

  “Yeah, probably,” Ruiz says with no small amount of disinterest in his voice. “So have ya’ll seen anyone?”

  “Not yet,” I say.

  “Alright. Katia, you ready?”

  “As ready as I’m ever gonna be.”

  “Okay, we’ve got you covered. Go for it.”

  Katia nudges me. “A kiss for good luck, my prince?” She puckers her lips dramatically and closes her eyes.

  I peck her lips quickly, painfully aware of Ruiz lying next to me.

  “We’re gonna have to work on that,” she says, kissing me on the cheek and rising to the balls of her feet. “Wish me luck, fellas.”

  “You don’t need luck, sis, we’ve got you covered. Just get in there and get it done. No screwing around.”

  Katia breaks the brush line.

  “That hugging and kissing and whispering sweet-nothings; it’s all well and good. But this, right here, right now, is where you show me how you feel about my sister. Keep your eye on that sight and your finger near the trigger.”

  “Yeah definitely, totally understand.”

  “Don’t tell me about it, just do it.”

&n
bsp; Katia is across the road and hunkering near the dumpster at the back of the store. She raises a thumb. A gesture Ruiz quickly returns to let her know the coast is clear. She pulls herself up onto the bottom rung of the ladder. Her thin jacket and cargo pants ripple in the breeze; she shakes back and forth, clinging to the flimsy metal.

  “Don’t fall, don’t fall,” Ruiz is coaching her from behind the red dot while panning back and forth for hostiles.

  She regains her balance and resumes her ascension, moving fast, taking the rungs two at a time.

  “Slow down, Katia. Jesus, I swear, she doesn’t listen.”

  I have my sights set on the rooftop. Guarding her entrance. Anyone that isn’t Katia has a bullet with their name on it.

  “Where you lookin’, Tim?”

  “Rooftop, I’ve got her on the rooftop.”

  “Good, keep her in your sights. I’m scanning the perimeter. Where you at, Tyrell?”

  “I’m with you, boss.”

  “Good.” Ruiz sounds like a proud father taking his boys out for their first hunt. “Call out what you see, fellas.”

  “Yep.”

  “Copy that.”

  Katia comes down on the roof with the same cat like grace she’d used to come over the wall; knees slightly cocked, arms perched out to her side. Her body is still. Her ears and eyes are wide open. She removes her swords slowly, careful not to make a sound. With one in each hand, she moves forward, low, keeping her head below the top of the HVAC unit. She stops at the corner, her back pressed against the metal housing.

  “How’s she doing, Tim?”

  “She’s...okay, I think.”

  “Goddamnit,” Ruiz swears. He comes up off the ground and moves right, towards the nearest tree. He takes a knee by the trunk and sets his sights on the rooftop. “I can’t see shit from here either. Come on Katia, tell us something.”

  The seconds feel like hours. There’s nothing. Nothing but the wind directing the trees. Nothing but the two columns of black smoke rising over the gas station roof and dissipating in somersaults and cartwheels. Nothing but my shallow breathing and the rattling of my nerves against the cold steel resting in my palms. No sign of the foot soldiers or the snipers. No sign of Katia. Katia is quick. Efficient. I’ve seen her dispatch enough foes at this point that I know how she operates. She should be on the edge of that building right now clutching the rifle of her fallen enemy and waving us in for the attack.

  Something is wrong.

  Maybe she’s in trouble. Maybe we should move in and get her the hell out of there.

  Just as the words are forming on my tongue, there she is. Creeping and crawling around the side of the HVAC unit. She’s not holding any rifle. But that’s not what concerns me. She is frantic. Waving us in with a flurry of hand motions. Like a landing signal officer on speed. At any moment, she’s going to break the cover of silence and scream for us to pull her out.

  Ruiz doesn’t waste any time. He doesn’t bother ordering us to follow.

  He’s already in the middle of the street before I can make it to my feet.

  By the time we reach the back of the store, Katia is on the last rung of the ladder. There’s no grace in her landing this time. She’s just happy to be off the roof and surrounded by the familiar.

  “Sis, what the hell, what is it?” Ruiz isn’t whispering, exactly. It’s a terse hiss; the way a snake would sound if it could raise its voice.

  She’s holding onto Ruiz and I for support and trying to catch her breath. “The...the...camp...or, whatever, there’s no one down there.”

  “So,” Ruiz sounds confused, “that’s a bad thing?”

  She shakes her head, frustrated. “No, damn it. No, I mean they’re all dead.”

  I turn to check my back. Nerves re-activated.

  “Bodies? You saw bodies?”

  “Yes. Well...no, not exactly...”

  “So, no bodies? Rabid got them?” I pick up the line of questioning.

  “No!” She stomps a foot. “Fuck! Just come look for yourself.”

  I move towards the corner. Rifle up.

  Tyrell has his back to me. He’s turning circles, scanning the rooftops of the buildings around us.

  Ruiz hangs back with Katia, covering our advance.

  I round the corner and gasp in disbelief. What I see in front of me stops me in my tracks. No wonder Katia couldn’t put it into words, God knows, I sure as hell can’t.

  16

  The heads are situated in a perfect circle behind a small wall of sandbags. The excess flesh at the bottom of the necks pancakes out against the pavement, all jagged and clumped together. Definitely not a one and done job. Someone hacked away, switching their aim with each swing. Some of the mouths hang open, their tongues flopping from between their lips like swollen purple slugs.

  The pillars of black smoke rise from the remnants of two military transport trucks. They’ve been blasted to smithereens. The canvas tops, the metal overlays, even the cab, appear to have been blown out and sucked back in, left to crackle and pop in a blackened heap beneath the hazy midmorning sky.

  Even worse, there isn’t a gun or a box of ammunition in sight.

  “What the fuck?” Ruiz moves past me, slowly lowering his rifle as he takes in the grisly scene.

  “What’s that drawing supposed to be?” Katia asks, hesitantly, as if she fears the answer.

  A crude piece of art bursts forth from the weather beaten blacktop. A five pointed star etched in white chalk. There’s a head sitting on each of the five points. The placement is damn near perfect, someone had taken their time. Coagulated blood weaves across the surface of the drawing as if some other artist had attempted to go over it with a gore soaked brush. It pools together at the center. It feels like some modern day attempt at a medieval ritual. Part of me expects the earth to open up or a beam of light to come spiraling down from the sky.

  “Shit, yo, that’s a pentagram, bruh.” Tyrell is circling the scene, shaking his head and jamming an accusatory finger at the macabre art project. “This is some satanic shit, man. We need to get our asses up outta here.”

  “Where are the bodies?” Ruiz voices the question running through all of our heads as he crouches beside the scene with his rifle propped across his knees, a mixture of fascination and disgust twisting his features.

  Katia has drawn her swords once more and now stands behind Ruiz. She’s bouncy, falling from the balls of her feet to her heels and back again. She looks like she wants to run, just sheath her swords and disappear back through the brush and over the wall.

  Just like me.

  “They definitely weren’t killed here,” Ruiz says, “not enough blood.”

  “Yeah, well,” Katia is looking back over her shoulder as if she’s expecting the headless corpses to appear behind her at any moment, “we’re not crime scene investigators, whoever killed them took everything, there’s nothing for us here. Let’s get out of here.”

  Tyrell nods his head swiftly. “Took the words right out my mouth, girl. We ain’t got no business stickin’ around here.”

  There are droplets of blood on the pavement. They lead away from the sandbags back towards the gas pumps. I follow them with the barrel of my rifle, stepping across and around the path of carnage as it changes frequency and direction.

  “Tim, what are you doing?” Katia starts towards me, raising her swords, hunched down in that fighter’s stance, a hell of a lot more antsy than she’d been when taking on that trio of biters by the pool.

  “I think I’ve got something,” I announce as I round the pumps.

  “What is it?” Ruiz stands, turning his back on the ring of heads. “You got the bodies?”

  I halt beside the first gas pump. I’ve found the end of my rainbow. There’s a stack of cinderblocks and a blood streaked paint bucket waiting for me.

  Not exactly a pot of gold.

  I scan the storefront. I’ve got that feeling. That feeling that something is watching me. Waiting for the opportunity
to strike.

  There’s nothing.

  Just blackness and my broken reflection staring back at me via bullet riddled glass.

  “Not the bodies. But this is where the heads came off.”

  “Oh, shit,” Katia pants in my ear.

  Ruiz moves around the other side of the pumps and approaches the execution site. He toes at the bucket and peers in over the side. “They were intentional about this shit, huh? This is some Al Qaida type shit right here.”

  Tyrell is still over by the sandbags, turning like a top. “Yo, can we please get the hell outta here?”

  “They didn’t go down without a fight. Glass is all shot up,” I observe.

  “Yeah, there are a few track marks over here on this corner. Got a few shell casings on the ground too,” Ruiz says, shuffling his feet against the pavement, the high-pitched ting of expended brass kicking up from beneath his boot.

  “Who did...”

  There’s movement in the blackness. Four circles of white light kick on simultaneously. I stumble backwards against Katia, trying to regain my vision as I raise my rifle. She trips and goes back onto her ass, her blades slapping against the ground. Ruiz shields his eyes and ducks behind one of the pumps while Tyrell takes up a position behind the sandbags.

  “Don’t any of you fuckers move!” a voice echoes from the blackness.

  I’m pretty sure there are guns attached to those flashlights. I mimic Ruiz, dropping down behind the nearest pump and dragging Katia with me.

  “Listen to me. Whoever you are, you got yourself a death wish. We’re well armed and well trained. So, what do you say you walk away, we’ll forget about this shit, and all move on with our day?” Ruiz looks over to Katia and me, and nods, trying to reassure us that he’s got a handle on the situation.

  “You think you’re dictating this scenario? We’ve got enough artillery in here to turn you inside out. Also, check the roof; we’ve got your asses pinned down from an elevated position.”

  I’m not sticking my head out to look.

  When we turn towards Tyrell to see if he can give us the scoop, he’s already relinquishing his rifle to the pavement as a red laser bobs up and down on his forehead like a buoy on stormy seas.