The colonel’s brow furrowed. “There was nothing we could do. Her fate was sealed when she was bitten.”
Joseph looked away from the colonel’s eyes. He knew Byrnes was right, but the sting didn’t leave him. He pushed away from the colonel and ran down the hallway to where she lay. Blood pooled around her head, dark red and almost black. He fell to his knees and took up her hand in his. It was cool inside his warm living hands. Her white eyes stared up at the ceiling, vacant.
Byrnes called to him. “Careful, Dr. Jackowski. Her blood is extremely contagious.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Joseph snipped at him.
Byrnes’s mouth flattened and he sighed. “I cared for her too. She was the last colleague I had and an amazing doctor. I don’t want to lose two of my doctors today.”
Joseph reluctantly released her hand, setting it gently on the floor. He turned to find Byrnes offering his hand in her place. Joseph glared at him but placed his hand in his.
“For her,” Joseph said. They had differences, but this fight was bigger than those.
Byrnes helped him up from the floor. “For her.” He sighed and looked out over the mess in the hallway. “I’ll get some biohazard technicians to clean this up. I’m going to check on the other doctors.”
“I’ll dig through her notes and see if she left us anything of value,” Joseph said.
Byrnes nodded at him and walked away.
The door to Rebecca’s room was only partially open. He rested a hand on it, letting the weight of his arm slowly swing it all the way open. It was dark. Her heart rate monitor was tipped over, and her bed looked like someone had used it as a wrestling mat. IV tubing was strewn on the floor. Her sheets hung off the bed along with a blood-smeared pillow where she had hemorrhaged out of her ears and nose.
Papers lay strewn about the entire room as if she were placing them to potty train a dog. He bent down and began shuffling them together in a pile. Most were his notes. Underneath a pile, he found her tablet. He picked it up and turned it over.
The sirens stopped outside her room. At least the outbreak was over quick. He pressed a button on the edge of the tablet and it powered up. The battery bar was still in the green, so it had enough power for him to study what she had last worked on.
He scrolled through her notes. Most of her notes were things they had discussed while she was coherent. He ran his finger along the right side of the screen. Her notes became more short and terse near the end of her page. Single phrases. The cat only has three legs. Can’t play unless it has four. Cat needs a leg. What does that mean? Her words became more singular down the page.
Cat missing leg. Cat need leg. The satellite virus was behind those incoherent words. A fevered hallucination going back to a childhood memory. Her typing became nothing but a mishmash of letters together and turned into pure gibberish.
Joseph suppressed a tiny chuckle. “You must have had a three-legged cat as a kid,” he said to the empty room.
He heard the technicians in the hallway haul her body up and drop her on a gurney.
He studied the phrases again. “The cat only has three legs. The cat needs a new leg to play,” he said under his breath. He looked around the room as if she would have left him another clue as to her meaning. Nothing stuck out in the trashed room.
Clutching her tablet he stepped into the hallway. He walked around the puddle of blood that was once Dr. Weinroth and hurried to his room.
KINNICK
Eisenhower Tunnel, CO
From the depths of the dark tunnel, fire leapt with scorching fury for the entrance. It was as if the tunnel were about to spit its inferno back out at the soldiers and cars along the highway. The flames came for them, step by hindered step.
Kinnick watched in horror as the first flaming bodies emerged from the tunnel. Clothes were aflame. Hair singed and burnt from the tops of their skulls. Flesh melted like burning plastic. Their skin was brown and black from the fire but cracked pink below the surface. Regardless of what horrible trauma had befallen the corpses, they still came onward, unwilling to give in to death. Second squad unleashed into the new infected, finishing them off.
“They’re coming,” Stark breathed through the radio.
“How many?” Hunter asked quickly into his radio.
“Too many. We have to fall back,” Stark replied between gasps for air.
“A thousand? Two thousand?” Kinnick said loud into his radio. Angry, he clicked off his radio, waiting for his officer’s response.
The microphone popped. Gunfire echoed over the line. “As far…as…we could see.”
Hunter and Kinnick locked eyes. Kinnick held his breath as if he would never be able to take another. Jesus Christ.
“We need to fall back, Master Sergeant,” Kinnick managed to get out.
“Second squad,” Hunter started. An infected stumbled through the flames, its clothes alight with flickering fire. Its exposed flesh blackened crisp. It was impossible to tell the infected’s gender. It stamped through burning fuel and around the burning wreckage of a car.
One infected turned into three and three into too many as the dead multiplied in the darkness of the earth. It was as if the tormented souls marched from the fiery bowels of hell itself.
“Fire!” Hunter screamed. His SCAR was to his shoulder, cracking rounds quickly. As he moved to the side off the highway, hundreds pushed their way from out of the tunnel. Arms and legs were alight and the infected continued onward as if nothing was wrong. Bullets ripped through organs and flesh, pieces of flesh blown straight off their bodies.
The infected poured out faster than 1st and 2nd squads could shoot. The dead surged around the cars, flooding onto the road. No gunfire could slow them down enough to make a difference. A private was bulldozed to the ground, screaming as the burning infected scorched his skin with their scalding hands. They immediately tore into his flesh with mouths afire.
“Up the hills,” Kinnick screamed. He sprayed rounds out of his M4 in their direction. They weaved in and out of the highway debris, racing for the rocky terrain. Kinnick cut through the cars, running for the mountainous hills that made the Eisenhower Tunnel a necessity. From behind him, he could hear Elwood’s entrenched hillside squad firing from the other flank. He knew they wouldn’t be firing close to 2nd squad, leaving the most threatening of enemies unhindered in their pursuit.
The screams of Stark’s 2nd squad sounded off as they were caught from behind. They had no clear path to safety, trucks and cars blocking them. A smoky haze filled the air clouding everyone’s vision. Visibility low, Kinnick found himself zigzagging and banging into cars as he followed close behind Hunter.
Hunter jumped the hood of a car, firing both left and then right as he ran. Kinnick started to lag behind. He dodged the open door of a GMC Yukon, his shoulder catching it painfully on the way by. When he looked back up, Hunter was gone. Smoke, infected, and fire took his place. Kinnick’s heart felt like it was going to explode in his chest.
Glancing to his left, and only a car away, an infected closed in on one of his men. Kinnick squeezed the trigger of his carbine. His first round exploded in its shoulder, causing its arm to flinch backwards and dangle like a Christmas stocking as it hung by only loose flesh and shredded ligaments. Kinnick rushed his next shot. His second round caught it in the collarbone, denting it inward. Following up his first two shots, his third hit its open mouth. The back of the infected’s skull blew out, causing the top half to dip in front, its mouth snapping closed.
“Hunter,” he called out. Black smoke sat low in the air blanketing rock, man, and concrete alike. Kinnick scanned left and right, peering through car windows and over car rooftops. He coughed and spit on the ground. “Where the fuck are you?” he yelled. Stinking, flaming flesh rounded a car. Kinnick instinctually point shot his M4. It was more muscle memory than actionable thought. The infected’s head popped as a round went into its temporal lobe. His mind discarded his action as reaction before the infect
ed rolled forward into a pile of bones and skin on the concrete.
Finding himself holding his breath, he spit the smoky taste from his mouth. He wheezed as he ran for large jagged rocks on the hillside. His body was only beginning to realize how exhausted it already was. His feet hardly obeyed as he attempted to make it up the incline.
Slinging his M4 behind him, he clambered up on all fours, reaching for a rock and then another. His men fought for survival up the rocky pine-filled slope, slowly being pursued by infected.
“To the top,” he choked out. Infected were the only ones to hear him. Dozens followed his voice, struggling up the hill much as he had done. Kinnick leaned upright. He shuffled his feet using a rock as a stepping stone to propel himself farther up the hill. The only way to go was farther up the slopes.
Tall spire-like pine trees coated the hillside like a thick toupee leaping up before him. He clambered on up the slope, making for the trees, crawling part of the way on all fours like a dog. Sucking in wind, he peered over his shoulder. Infected were still on the hunt behind him.
Twisting back around, he fell onto his backside. His legs thanked him. His mind screamed danger. He jammed his palm down onto his Beretta M9 9mm pistol. He wrapped his fingers around it, feeling the coarseness of the grip. He pulled it free of its holster and fired into the oncoming pack.
Kinnick’s heart’s rhythm exploded in his chest. The tension coursing through his veins caused him to jerk the trigger too fast, causing most of his shots to go low left. Two infected dropped to the ground before his mag ran dry. He crawled upright and ran into a cluster of trees more closely pressed together.
His feet dug into the loose gravelly rock. The ground seemed to chew up his steps, sucking him down into the earth. The infected walked as far as they could; some fell and clawed the earth trying to reach him. He scrambled around a tree and put his back against its solid coarse trunk. His heavy breathing rubbed the bark as he caught his breath. He could hear the infected’s hasty pursuit. He looked to his left, and a man in camouflage hit the ground with a grunt.
“Sir, help.” The soldier crawled toward Kinnick’s spot. Kinnick recognized the short corporal, named Davis, from Stark’s 2nd squad. Shadowy forms closed in on the soldier from behind.
“Behind you,” Kinnick yelled. He raised his sidearm, slipping over the loose sloped ground for the soldier. Click. Click. Kinnick’s finger worked the trigger but nothing happened. In his panic, he had forgotten the reload. Almost numb fingers reached for a new magazine on his hip. Davis rolled over onto his back and sprayed bullets into the infected, but they were too close and he was aiming instinctively center mass. They fell upon Davis before Kinnick could get his magazine seated and the gun operational.
Davis screamed as their teeth tore off his nose and part of his cheek. Kinnick stopped and steadied himself, shooting three rounds. Two for the infected, one for their newest indoctrinated infected. Moans flowed up the alpine mountainside and hundreds of forms walked through the trees.
Kinnick ran farther up the slope. His quads shook, giving everything they had. Breathing burned his chest, and his calves were filled with as much blood as they could hold, but he continued to dig his feet into the rocky slope, showering the infected behind him, struggling through the rocks and steep incline. His vision was blurred with stinging sweat. Blood pounded inside his skull, and his vision was a haze. Dark shapes ran down the slope ahead of him. Dear God. Kinnick stopped standing upright. This way too. I’m done and I killed all these boys.
The ones coming down the hill were different than the ones coming up the hill. They held their guns in a meaningful way as if they were ready to use them. The lead man neared Kinnick and he recognized the brute.
Stark bounded down the hill with fifteen men at his back. He slid on his ass part of the way down. He leapt up, his carbine bursting fire past Kinnick. Stark’s gun blazed so fast it sounded like it was on full auto. Kinnick went to his knees, crawling in the dirt until he felt a hand on his belt.
“Move your ass, Colonel,” Stark yelled in his face. Veins bulged in Stark’s neck.
Kinnick mountain-climbed his feet but mostly scrambled until he was upright. Several agonizing minutes later, he reached the top of the ridge. His legs were overcooked noddles. He was so fatigued that he was afraid he might actually be having a heart attack as pain shot down his left arm and up into his neck. He forced himself upright and joined his men, aiming down the ridge. Don’t have time for that. He shook his arm out, trying to catch his breath.
The remnants of Stark’s 1st squad fired down the steep slope into the infected. Kinnick took up his carbine and listened in misery to the faint calls for help through the gunfire.
A private struggled through the trees. Two infected converged on him and dragged him down from behind. The private crawled, hands gouging the earth as he tried to escape. He spasmed as the infected dug their hands into his lower back pulling pieces of bloodied uniform, skin, and chunks of kidneys from his body. They shoved the bloody guts in their mouths, tearing into the meat while his soldier convulsed in shock on the ground.
“Where’s Hunter?” Kinnick shouted. His carbine pinged as he fired it.
“Don’t know, sir,” Stark said over his shoulder. He slung ten rounds in quick succession, dropped his magazine then reloaded by shoving a fresh one in its place. “Not going to matter if we get overrun,” he shouted.
Kinnick picked out a pack of the dead scrambling up the slope and pulled the trigger repeatedly. The bodies stumbled and jerked as rounds penetrated their rotting flesh. He calmed his breath and lined up his sights on an ugly infected’s head. The carbine sounded off and the infected dropped to the ground to be trampled by the other dead. It didn’t cry out when struck. It didn’t scream when its guts were splattered against the rocks. When limbs were severed from their bodies or their bones broken into tiny white fragments, they only let out a low moan like a distant train.
“Get those 2-40s going,” Kinnick yelled over to the remainders of 2nd Platoon. Two soldiers laid prone on the ground. One hastily flung out the bipod legs of an M240B machine gun. The supporting soldier laid out the belt of ammunition. It thundered out rounds. A fast-paced, dud-dud-dud-dud spewed from the barrel. It hammered at the infected gathering along the slope. Guts sprayed out their backs as bullets raced through rotting flesh. The hot rounds penetrated multiple bodies, going through entire groups of the dead. The infected knocked into one another, the incline of the hill causing some to collapse and roll into the others. Hasty feet flattened the rest.
A truck roared on the cluttered highway before Kinnick saw it. A white semi pulled a long silver cylindric fuel tanker behind it. Infected were brushed to the sides as the truck divided them into two halves on the edge of the road. An infected clung to the passenger side door, pulling itself alongside the driver. It fell backward as bullets punched through the door of the truck. With a crunch, the driver hit an abandoned car and shoved it to the side like a bigger sibling would a smaller as they raced for presents on Christmas morning. The semi slammed perpendicular to a smoldering car near the entrance, t-boning it several feet. The force of the impact drove the car sideways into the median. The infected swarmed the semi, beating it with fists and the weight of their lifeless bodies.
Kinnick’s radio crackled. “Who’s that guy? Do you want us to clear out some space for him?” Elwood said. His voice was skittish as if he would sound the retreat at any moment. The glass shattered on the driver’s window. Arms shot through. Heads exploded and the bodies fell back onto the others.
“Hold your fire, Lieutenant. We don’t want to hit the fuel tanker.”
“Copy that, sir.”
A man’s head popped up from a rescue hatch atop the semi. He looked around before he pushed his arms through the opening. A soldier pulled himself up from inside the semi’s cabin. Kinnick raised his binoculars back to his eyes. A brown bearded soldier huffed as he pulled himself free. Master Sergeant Hunter. The man crawled ac
ross the top of the tanker as hundreds of infected assaulted the semi beneath him. Kinnick glanced at the remainder of 2nd Platoon.
“Stark, how many of your men are operational?”
The bull of a man stared down his firing line.
“Fifteen, Colonel. Farrell is a bit banged up, but he’ll fight.”
Kinnick pointed. “Move down the ridge.”
Stark’s eyes flashed. “Sir?”
Kinnick pointed. “Fire your way down the hill, and clear out a path for Master Sergeant Hunter. Do not hit the tanker.”
“Second Platoon, you heard the Colonel. Clear a path for the master sergeant. Move!” Stark screamed. The soldiers ran down the ridge directly perpendicular to the tunnel. They fired between sprints. Kinnick ran with them, following a scrawny soldier tasked with carrying a light machine gun. Dust rose up as boots beat the rocky ground with tread. As they grew close to lining up with the edge of the tunnel, the squads split into a V, aiming down the hill.
“Don’t hit the truck,” Stark screamed at his men.
They fired into the mass of infected, bringing them down in slow, controlled shots. Hunter stood, feet widespread, balancing atop the tanker. He quick-fired into the infected’s heads, and the bodies piled up around the tanker. There was a method to his extreme violence.
As the infected thinned, Hunter jumped down from atop the silver tanker, using the pile of dead to break his fall. He rolled over the fallen bodies, all that his kit would allow. The infected swiped, grasping hands reaching for Hunter and missing. He pushed up onto his knees and scrambled upright. He lowered his head and sprinted for the hill. He cross-checked an infected woman in the face and bounded up the slope. Second Platoon slow-stepped down the hill, closing the gap between themselves and the insane master sergeant.
Hunter hustled up the hill. Infected would turn and lunge for him as he ran the gauntlet of the dead. Most he ignored on his way by. Others he popped off rounds into when they were too close. The steep incline caused his cheeks to puff out and turn red as he ran. The gap between Hunter and the infected widened.
The Rising (The End Time Saga Book 3) Page 30