“No,” Joseph yelled. He ran around the table and lunged for Richard. He wrapped his skinny arms around Richard’s shoulders. He barely felt his stitches tear as he clasped his hands together.
Richard shoved Rebecca down. He bucked Joseph, but Joseph refused to let go.
“Stop,” Joseph managed to sputter.
Patient Zero backtracked and rammed Joseph into the sterile white padded wall. Joseph’s breath was forced from his chest and he wheezed. Patient Zero spun in a circle like a madman.
Byrnes was donning his HAZMAT suit inside the pressurized chamber. He pointed at a soldier dressing himself. He screamed at the man to hurry. Rebecca pushed herself up the wall near the two-way mirror.
Joseph found himself flying through the air and crashing into the ground. He could even feel the blood trickling down his arm. Richard lumbered away from him.
“No,” Joseph said. His eyesight was disoriented as though he’d had too many vodka sodas at the bar.
Rebecca made a run for the pressurized door, but her blue HAZMAT suit made her clumsy and she tripped.
Richard leapt onto her body. She rolled on her back, fighting and pushing him in desperation. His hands ripped at the seams of her faceplate. Blood erupted from his fingertips as he clawed her. She screamed.
“Please,” she screamed. Joseph’s arms felt like lead, but he pushed himself off the floor. He wobbled as he found himself upright.
Plastic flew in the air as Patient Zero ripped her faceplate to the side in a cracked mess. Joseph stumbled toward Rebecca, his hand reaching out for her, but he moved slowly as though he were under water.
Patient Zero leaned in close to her face, and she let out a bloodcurdling cry. Patient Zero’s head jerked back, Rebecca’s flesh in his mouth. Blood dribbled down his lips. His jaw worked as he chewed.
The pressurized doors whisked open and a scowling Byrnes stepped through with two soldiers armed with tasers and long batons. The colonel ran forward and struck Patient Zero in the face with his baton. Patient Zero flipped onto his side, sprawling across the floor. He convulsed, his limbs stretching in painful strained positions. One of the soldiers used his baton to pin Patient Zero and he writhed against the constraint. Joseph raced for Rebecca and wrapped an arm around her with the help of Byrnes. They dragged her over the floor into the pressurized chamber.
They set her down and the doors rolled closed behind them. Rebecca’s hand covered her cheek. Blood seeped between her fingers. Pressurized air hissed as it was driven inside the chamber. Ghostly white air fogged inside enveloping them.
Joseph got close to her face, holding her. “Are you okay?” Joseph shouted.
She nodded, tears streaming down her face.
Byrnes pounded on the door. “Open this thing up. We don’t have time for decontamination.” Batons flailed inside the other room, the faint zap of tasers reaching their ears. Patient Zero’s screams sounded like the old Richard Thompson, but Joseph’s only focus was on Rebecca.
Rebecca’s eyes read Joseph’s, blinking her pain back. Her eyes were wide like those of a scared doe behind her bent glasses. Watery tears engulfed them and fear surrounded them.
No, not her.
Byrnes reached past Joseph and gripped her face with hard fingers. “Let me see your face,” he commanded. Her hand shook as she removed it from her cheek. A blood-filled crater defiled her.
Byrnes mouth downturned into a fierce snarl. He held his baton with two hands and shoved her into the corner.
She held up a hand in defense, covering her head. “Please,” she cried.
Joseph’s heart dropped because he already knew.
“She’s infected,” Byrnes hissed.
STEELE
Little Sable Point, MI
Gwen’s eyes were distrusting; and their color had changed to a drab mossy green. Single blades of blonde hair hung down around her face, outlining her high cheekbones.
“Why are only you two going to look for him?”
Steele removed boxes of ammo from his pack and set them on the ground. “I don’t know. She asked and I said yes.”
“Why’d you say yes?” Gwen asked.
He continued to replace the ammo with MREs from Gwen’s pack. “Must I ask your permission to search for my mother and Pagan?”
“When you go somewhere without me, yes. Were you even listening when we talked yesterday?” Her eyes set in a steadfast position, unmoving and unwavering.
“Of course I was.” Listening to the parts I wanted to hear. He met her eyes and clenched his jaw tight, causing the top of his skull to ache. Is it the gunshot wound that makes my skull ache or the continuous clenching of my jaw brought on by her everlasting woman’s tongue?
He shook a box of ammo at her. “Make sure to hide these, and make sure your pack stays with you at all times. These people have been kind, but they are a very loose confederation. They come and go, and I wouldn’t put it past any of them to snatch up one of the packs if left unattended.”
“We’ll keep them nearby, but why did you say ‘yes’ to her?”
Steele stopped packing. “My mother is still out there. At least I think she is.” He gestured behind him. “Pagan went on a limb for us, and I have a responsibility to bring them both back.” He stood up and pointed the weapon angled safely upward. He twisted the carbine and grabbed the changing handle with his left hand, pulling it back to view in the ejection port. A brass round rested inside.
“What about all those biker guys? Can’t they help?”
“I don’t know. I’m not in charge.” He released his magazine from the carbine and looked inside. With a rectangle to rectangle alignment, he seated the magazine back inside the gun. “I will be back, one way or another.”
Gwen didn’t laugh. Her face gave away that she wasn’t amused by his morbid humor. He bent down face level with her and kissed her cheek. He pulled himself upright and shouldered his pack. It was better to have cold goodbyes. If he lingered long enough, he might never leave. He walked the short distance to the entrance of Little Sable Point.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she yelled after him.
“I’m building our world,” he growled back at her over his shoulder.
The ring of vehicles sat parked around the lighthouse. Inside the ring, tents were set up in a haphazard manner. Trash littered the ground. People that were there yesterday were gone today. Others idled in front of campers and cars in lounge chairs watching the others come and go. Some grilled. It didn’t look like much. Fish? Steele couldn’t tell what they were grilling, but it stunk like campfire smoke.
Tess awaited him at the entrance, her shorter black hair combed straight back so it ran down the back of her skull. She wore a shoulder harness that held a 1911 and extra mags over a tight-fitting black thermal and black hiking pants. A small pack hung off her back.
“You have a big pack there,” she said with a smile as he drew near. He chose to ignore her quip.
“Can’t be unprepared. Don’t know how long we’ll be out there.”
“You’re right, but I don’t suspect long. That idiot Pagan will wish he was dead when we find him.”
Steele nodded. “What are we driving?”
“I would take a motorcycle, but if there are wounded, those are useless. So we’ll have to settle on one of the gas guzzlers.” She slapped the metal side of a boxy red 1980s era Ford Ranger pickup.
“That’s a gas guzzler?”
“Anything that ain’t a motorcycle.” She tossed her small pack in the pickup bed. “We won’t be hauling a ton of rocks in this thing, but it does well enough on gas, and we could lay multiple injured in the back if need be.”
Steele nodded. “Or shooters. Good choice.” He tossed his pack in the truck bed then reached for the driver’s side door handle, popping it open. “Keys?” He raised a stiff eyebrow at Tess, hindered by the scar tissue on his scalp.
“Sorry, soldier. You get shotgun. I know the area, and no one drives this puppy except fo
r me. It got Pagan and me out of a few tough spots in the beginning, and I don’t let anyone else drive Red Rhonda.” Steele was a bit taken aback but nodded his acknowledgment.
“Your car, your rules,” he said, trying to hide a grin. He circled around and hopped in the passenger side. The seats were a worn faded gray fabric that originally may have been black. It was hard to tell. Steele cranked the window down, resting his M4 carbine across the truck’s windowsill. He felt a bit like he was riding shotgun on a stagecoach in the Wild West.
Tess turned the key and the pickup sputtered to life. She waved at a couple of Red Stripes and the entrance pickups rolled away, giving them access to the outside.
She gassed the old pickup away from Little Sable Point Lighthouse and onto a large sidewalk. They rolled down the sidewalk and a sandy field of dune grass and small trees that lay between the lighthouse and a thicker forest. The sidewalk took them into a state park parking lot, and finally, they turned onto a sand-blown road leading away from Little Sable Point Lighthouse. For over a mile, they wound back and forth down the forested road until they hit a green and white Lakeshore Drive sign.
“This is where we split the other day,” Steele said. He leaned near the dash, peering left and then right.
“Right. South we go.” She twisted the steering wheel, taking them to the right.
The pickup rattled down the deserted road at about thirty-five miles per hour. Yellowish brown leaves leapt up behind them as they cruised down the two-lane road. Fall was in full effect in Michigan. Turning leaves became falling leaves, and a deep, bone-chilling cold would soon coat the coast of Michigan.
Tess turned a knob and the radio clicked on. Static blared as she switched from station to station. Nothing came through. No DJs spoke. No music played. Bored, she clicked the radio back off and slapped her hand on the steering wheel.
“Guess we’ll have to talk.”
“I’m not a big talker.” He made sure to look out the window after he spoke, outwardly making sure she knew he wasn’t interested in the fine art of small talk. He could feel her eyes on him.
“Sorry, bud. You get to be a good listener then.”
He was silent. Cold air blew through the open window and rippled his beard.
“I never would have gone for Pagan before the outbreak.” Fucking relationship talk. Is she serious? Kill me now. Six thousand ways to die out here, and I get talked to death about feelings. He continued to avert his eyes out the window.
She sat in silence as if she expected him to respond. He didn’t say anything. Relationships were not his strong suit and to add input on a relationship he knew nothing about was bound to make someone upset. He watched the coastal trees instead.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled under his breath.
“Hmm. You got nothing?” she prodded him. He could feel her glancing over at him every few seconds before looking back at the road.
He gave her a short glance and brought a hand up in defense. “I’m not a leading expert on relationships. Best to leave me out of it.”
Tess ignored his words. She looked at him and back at the road a few times before she continued. “Let me explain more.”
Please God no. What have I done to deserve this?
“I’m always down for a good time, but you know, more of a long-haired rocker in a band type. Never thought I’d shack up with a goofy, smiling all the time Force Recon Marine. Never saw the man not smile, even when we were facing a horde of infected. It’s like he’s always laughing on the inside. Ya know. Like nothing could get him down. I guess he was just made for this.”
“The Marines have a twisted sense of humor, but you definitely want them on your side.”
“You aren’t one of them, are you?” She glanced over at him. “But you’ve seen some shit. I see it on your face.”
“I’ve seen enough to know better. I don’t enjoy it. I’d rather be somewhere else, but most of the time, I don’t have a choice.”
She draped a single hand over the steering wheel. “You in the business of playing hero?”
Steele half-laughed and ran a hand down his beard. “No. I’m in the business of keeping my folks alive.”
“So? Like going out of your way to help a Marine you’ve only met in passing.”
“He did the same for me.” Trees passed by, waving dying leaves like parade flags.
“He did. But I have a feeling you would be out here either way. Some people, that’s all they know.”
Steele sat silent for a moment contemplating his reasons for his actions.
“I would.” It’s the right thing to do. Pagan could be an ally. It could gain your group’s trust. It may lead to a clue to finding my mother. The reasons went far beyond being helpful.
“Those are the markings of a leader.”
He shook his head, still scanning the trees and the two-lane road.
“I wouldn’t call leading a group of four a leader. You have a band of a couple hundred people. You’re the leader.”
She snorted. “Nobody there follows me. They’re there because it’s safer together. No one else volunteered to help me search for Pagan. I make decisions, but I don’t lead. A man like you inspires.”
“I only do what I have to do to keep my folks alive. Not leading some rebellion.”
She gave him a half-smile. “A warrior with a heart of gold. I assume that’s how you got that nasty scar?”
He tenderly ran a hand over his scar as if he still didn’t believe it had happened. “The results of an ambush in West Virginia. Good people died because of decisions I made,” he said. He finished with a look at her to see if she understood his survivor guilt. He gave a painful smile under his bushy beard as if thinking about the wound somehow reopened it. “I was hoping my hair would cover that up.”
“You’re going to have to grow a hell of a lot more than that to cover that puppy.”
“I suppose I should be thankful to still have a head.” Darkness from his peripherals made him look ahead quick. “Tess, look.” He pointed out. A thick-trunked tree lay across the road, blocking their path forward. He pushed his carbine up to his shoulder and scanned the fallen tree. Clear chainsaw cuts and grooves cut through the bark revealing the white of the inner trunk. Shiny bits of metal lay in the brush on the side of the road.
“Looks like a motorcycle,” Tess pointed.
“Someone has set this up. I don’t like it. We should get the Red Stripes and come back,” Steele said.
A determined look fell upon Tess, and Steele knew he was going to regret whatever happened next. “If he’s here, I’m not leaving him.” Jesus, they’re all trying to get me killed. Either by infected, bullets, or a heart attack.
A shaved-head infected stood up near the tree and hobbled through the ditch then up onto the roadway. White creamy bone had been forced through its riding leathers. Red Stripes motorcycle club colors covered his torso. Pus oozed from large wounds covering his legs where the skin had been worn off by sliding on the pavement uncovered by leather. Lower layers of epidermis were exposed and reddish pink.
“Damn. Looks like Joker and he’s all fucked up.”
Steele peered hard at the trees looking for anything and anybody that could pose a threat. Their exposure in the middle of the road gnawed at the back of his mind. “I don’t like this.” He spun in his seat, looking out behind them and trying to get a three hundred and sixty-degree grasp on everything around them. “I’ll go put him down. But then we go.”
“No,” she asserted. Her eyes were the darkest of brown. “We put him down, and we search for the others. I will not abandon Pagan when we finally have a clue to as to what’s going on.” She stared at him, mind made up but waiting on him to respond. Are these people worth the danger?
“We put him down. Take a quick look around and then come back later from a different way.”
“Deal,” she said with a smile, slipping out of the pickup’s driver side. Steele hopped out and put his carbine to his shoulder i
n the high ready. He eyed the trees. Soft-needled white pines grew between jagged-leafed bigtooth aspens; a few thick-trunked oaks grew amongst their smaller brethren.
Ambushers could be waiting behind every tree and rock to put bullets in him again. He steadied his breathing with some tactical breaths, drawing up alongside the slender woman. He let himself ramp up into a heightened state of readiness.
“I’ll do the honors. Payback’s a bitch,” he breathed.
“But,” she got out. He ignored her and charged the former biker. Letting his carbine swing to his hip, he drew out his tomahawk, and with a heavy downward strike, he sunk the rounded axe blade through the front of Joker’s ugly hairless skull. Joker stopped mid-step, his body almost suspended in the air. Steele let the man fall back. Joker’s jaw clicked open then closed one last time and he went limp. Steele wrapped his other hand around the shaft and ripped it free with a spray of brain matter.
He put the tomahawk back and his carbine whipped back up to his shoulder.
“Look here.” He pointed with his gun to a red streak running along the pavement toward the tree. Small chunks of flesh made it look like he had hit an animal, turning it into roadkill, but in reality, those were pieces of Joker.
“What do you think happened?” Tess asked.
“It looks like Joker laid his bike down back there going pretty quick. You see?” Pieces of metal, engine fluid, and Joker lay scattered along the cracked branches of the fallen tree.
Steele circled the downed tree, stepping around branches. He frequently checked his flanks expecting the shit to hit the fan at any moment.
“I got nothing over here,” he called over at Tess. The trees rustled in the wind and the drying fall leaves crackled together like ten thousand pieces of crinkle paper. He bent down, putting a finger on a deep gouge in the flesh of the tree.
“Somebody definitely did this on purpose,” he muttered.
“Come quick,” Tess called. Gripping the giant tree trunk with one hand, he hopped over the log, landing near Tess.
The Rising (The End Time Saga Book 3) Page 12