Our group stood behind Billy Rain as he introduced us to our radical troops. "These are the leaders of the resistance that will take us inside the quarantine zone in which our families, friends and loved ones are supposedly being held and medicated..." he slid his open hands to his side, turning his head to look each of us in the eyes as he continued, "I don't have much to say. So for that I will leave the rest up to them." then, crookedly, half-ass smiled. I guess he was happy we were there, but, wasn't too thrilled about giving up his authority to a group of ordinary survivors with a half-ass chart, but, obviously, the only method of rescue and escape; or that thought they knew a method.
Maria took the platform, nervous and soft spoken. "What you all have heard from this Master Sergeant Steven Sworn are all lies. There is no vaccine and there is no world health facility. There's only prisoner camps and psychotic, disease-giving experiments. It is the work of a vile, elite force that, we think, planned this attack on the people of our city."
The people looked to each other as if unconvinced. Billy Rain looked to Maria bedazzled.
Maria loudened, "I’m a registered Nurse at the Warwick City General Hospital, and I know for a fact this virus or plague is not from any mosquito or fleas; or any animal at all. It's from an unknown source that was created in a lab. It came with the storm. Possibly the mercenaries that patrol our streets now." she overlooked the crowd. "I don't have to tell you that everyone here is at risk of losing their lives... we are all captives here until those soldiers decide they want to take us all out. We have to come together."
“Then why haven’t they done it yet?” A man yelled out through the crowd.
“Where are you getting the details?” another asked.
The people began chattering amongst each other.
“What’s the plan, lady?” someone else mentioned.
“Why should we trust you to lead us?” a hood questioned.
The crowd was attentive but some still scratched at their heads or gave us blank stares, until Mike stepped onto the platform beside Maria and sternly said, "Our plan is to take control of West Warwick City Hospital, rescue anyone that hasn't contracted the virus, take out the soldiers by any means, and take back our city. If not, our option for escape is the docks at the east end of the city."
The crowd cheered. Billy Rain raised his hand then placed a finger over his lips and the crowd went silent.
Mike continued, "It sounds simple but it's more complicated than it sounds. They're blind… and if we stay quiet and in their tracks it's unlikely that we'll be detected. But that's only part of the problem solved. Those of you that are experienced with shotguns and pistols but haven't any weapons," he signaled for me to give him the duffle bag, "We’ll supply you with what we have. Anyone is welcome to join us, but know that for some of us… this is going to be a one way trip."
Rebekah took the platform beside Mike, forcing Maria to step down because of space. "My name is Rebekah Morgan..." she said in a confident and very sure tone, "I ask you all... are you willing to die for the sake of our children’s future, the safety and security of our women and children’s survival and the betterment of our society which is already in shambles? They have taken every option we have to contact the outside world. These animals that have come into our city are planning on erasing us from off the face of the planet. We think this is an effacing to control the population count by trial of era. And they're going to say we perished by the hurricane that swept thru less than a week ago. All of our boarders are being well guarded and patrolled by a force we have no clue as into where they came. They're slaughtering our neighbors, piling them up and burning them, and leaving us to inhale the fumes of death into our systems. Our children are being traumatized and infected with this. We have the frame to succeed in our uprising, and we need everyone who is willing to fight for our survival to take a stand with us. All able bodies are needed for us to succeed in this mission. Experienced or not."
Mike began to tell everyone our mission and objectives to overthrow West Warwick City Hospital, and the need for a helicopter pilot before he was interrupted by screams and crackling shots from the streets, ten flights below.
“What is it?” Mike asked Billy.
“Don’t know what it is.” Billy headed over to the ledge.
The sun began to rise faintly thru the dark clouds, just enough to make its presence. Rebekah tossed up her hood and backed into the building. People began to raise weapons: machetes, Katana blades, hunting knives, wooden baseball bats with large nails extending from the tips, and firearms. A few people peered over the edge of the rooftop. Ann and Maria raised their guns preparing for the worst. Myself, gaining my confidence due to the past days of slaying Bleeders and tired of running, laid my assault rifle across my shoulder. Mike handed Frank a semi-automatic and ordered him to move his family back into the building with the rest of the women and children. Mac was prepared; gripping his Tec-9 firmly with his finger on the trigger, and Conrad covered his ears, frightened by the rapid barrage of shots, howls and war cries, which echoed below us.
Billy Rain made it to the edge of the rooftop, peered over, and extracted a semi-auto pistol from underneath his shirt.
POCKA! POCKA! POCKA! POCKA! POCKA! POCKA!
Everyone close to the ledge fired downward from the rooftop.
"We need to get off the roof!" Billy yelled to everyone. Then he continued to unload his clip.
POCKA! POCKA! POCKA! POCKA! POCKA! AAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!
Billy Rain unloaded his clip before he went over the ledge.
Something was wrong and different. What was it? Bleeders can't climb.
“Stand guard! We got trouble!” Mike yelled out to the crowd.
Ann yelled, “Mike! We need to get off the roof!”
Mike ignored her, and ordered the people, “People of Centre City… hold your ground! It starts here!”
I watched as others went over the edge. But what was it that made them do so?
The remaining crowd began backing up. The unexpected was taking place in what we thought was a safe haven. Dirt and blood-filled claws appeared at the ledge, followed by the blooded faces; their dark, blood-red eyes sunken deep within their skull, just barely visible. Teeth, sharp as a piranha when they opened their mouths to let out their deafening scowls.
“Trackers,” I screamed. “It’s the Trackers!”
Fully visible, the Trackers seemed to have built an incredible mass of muscle which made them extremely powerful, pouncing onto people as they scurried from their poisonous rage, tearing through their flesh like a Tyrannosaurus on his herbivorous prey. Our supportive civilian regime was being attacked from every corner and from all angles. It seemed as if the Trackers grew in strength as the Bleeders did; only they were scaling a brick building. I counted ten of them as I observed with my rifle aimed at chest level.
Mike grabbed a shotgun from the duffle bag, pumped it, and casually walked to where Billy Rain once stood. He stood close to the Tracker that threw Billy Rain over the ledge, and then he blew the Tracker's head right off its shoulders. The Trackers blood - along with half of its brain - flew over the ledge, and its muscular form fell back over the same way it came.
Moans and war cries came from the lower levels inside the building.
"Mac," I turned to our southern-accented comrade with the shiny bald head, "Take Conrad with you through the building and watch our backs!" I said, fast paced with the onslaught that unraveled before us.
I passed Conrad two .45s out of the duffle bag and he went into the building with Mac.
It was hard to just, flat out, open-fire into the massive crowds of people, and it surprised me how Ann pulled her small, ridged hunting knife from its holster and rushed into the crowd to assist our courageous patrons. Maria followed, aiming at point blank range towards Trackers craniums, and I made it my duty to watch everyone’s back from the distance; my eye in the scope of the rifle.
A Tracker crept up on Maria from behind.
&
nbsp; POP!
I had another one-shot kill, center-back of the head to the hairy Tracker that stood erectus behind Maria with its mouth wide, ready to feed on her silky, fragile flesh. She looked to me surprised for a split second, and then continued to assist Ann.
The onslaught continued, we toppled the Trackers quickly, and then gunfire echoed inside the building.
The Trackers on the rooftop were defeated. Dozens of people were losing their lives trying to save the lives of each other. At that moment, I knew they were ready to fight for us. Even more, I knew they were ready to die for the future of our families’ bloodline to continue in our absence, just in case we didn't make it. They knew we didn't have a choice.
But now lay another problem ahead of us, the dead bodies began to reanimate. We were forced with no other option but to take down our slain accomplices with the help of their own family, friends, and loved ones. It was terrible to see some of those people who had loved so much, now forced to eliminate their own flesh and blood; their tears ran down their gloomy and angered faces, while some, shamelessly obliged the living dead’s hunger for flesh and blood, becoming their victims. Some of them were in prayer with their eyes closed, and others were in pain, screaming at the top of their lungs while being devoured or branded with infectious bites.
More rapid-fire came from inside the building.
Mike's commanding voice echoed with the gun blasting to the remaining survivors, "Everyone back in the building!"
I stood at the door like a bouncer at a gentleman’s club, ready to send unwanted patrons away with the authority of an off-duty cop, waiting to reunite with Mike, Ann, and Maria, as everyone else darted past me into the building.
Maria made it back, and said, “Thanks for that shot back there.”
“Yeah,” I answered. “You can thank me later. We’re not done here yet.”
She smiled.
I said, “You and Ann need to get inside.”
Ann checked her ammo, and said, “Looks like you two are finally starting to get along.”
“You wish.” I said.
“Fag!” Maria exclaimed, with a slight grin.
They went inside the building.
Everyone was clear. Mike gunned down an approaching Tracker before noticing a muscular figure at the far edge of the rooftop, crouched, shoulders broad, arms stretched to the pavement, keeping balance on bloody knuckles and bare feet, knees and elbows parallel; its sunken, blood-filled eyes were making contact with Mike's from that far a distance. It was a much more powerful-framed, tad-bit hairier, Fisher.
Mike handed me the shotgun and aimed his rifle, looked in the scope, and then lowered his weapon.
KHWOP!
Fisher fell limp.
Mike jerked his head to the left from where the shot was fired. He had seen no one.
I looked around. “We got to get off the roof.”
The slain began to rise. I grabbed my temporarily paralyzed, in-shock older brother inside the building and slammed the door.
The Bleeders were storming the building. Our defiant community of Runners was steadily decreasing in numbers. The tenants of the deathtrap building were letting their fellow Warwickites inside their rooms and shutting the doors to keep them safe, while those of the band of men fought outlandishly to diminish the infected as swiftly as possible.
“Get those women and children inside those rooms!” I cried, moving through the hall.
Mike snapped out of his trance, and said, “Move, move, move… Hurry, hurry… Who’s with me? Let’s move out.”
As the crowds of people vacated, I realized the darkened walls were tatted with blood, bullet holes and scrapings from blades and blunt objects. The floors held the corpses of slain fighters and Bleeders, gun shells and destroyed wooden weaponry. It was a dead zone for the recently deceased, and only a few members of our assembly remained with us, unscarred; although I didn't check to make sure as they scuffled down the hall, headed for the next stairwell.
“It smells worse in here than it did earlier.” Ann mentioned.
“Stay focused.” Mike advised her. “Maria, watch our rear with Dale.” He ordered.
“Nothing’s coming off that roof.” I said.
As things began to settle on the top floors, I heard doors slamming and infants’ cries hushed by their representatives.
We caught up to Rebekah on the fourth floor. Her head was lowered, face cloaked within her hood. Her dark brown hair was matted together and glistening, hanging toward the floor as if she had worked up a bloody sweat; she held an ever-ready grip on the blood-dripping Katana Blade by her side, standing guard to a door that was partially open. Was she infected?
"Rebekah?" I called out.
Ann and Maria froze in their steps.
“What the fuck is wrong with her?” Mike questioned himself out loud, holding Ann back.
“I don’t know.” I answered him. “Maybe she’s infected.”
“I don’t know, man. She’s not moving.” He raised his gun. “Be careful…” he moved closer. “Rebekah?”
A moan came from beyond the door. The rest of us lifted our guns and moved in behind Rebekah, but kept our distance in case she was infected and turning. Then a shadow raced across the crack of the door and she barged in behind it.
Mike and I followed on instinct, and Ann and Maria stayed behind, hopefully to watch our back.
I walked in just in time to see Rebekah skillfully slice the head off a freshly-turned male Bleeder. The blood from his neck poured down his open chest, as his body slumped to the floor, his head rolled into the corner where the Wildes family huddled; Frank's jammed and discarded semi-automatic stopped the severed head from going any further.
“That’s one way to lose your head.” I said.
At the far end of the small studio apartment was a shattered window and pieces of glass surrounding a dead Tracker that took a few shots to the head and body. It appeared the tenant who sheltered the Wildes had a cold-hearted visitor barge in on the warm welcome, and the tenant ended up being a snack before becoming Rebekah's Jack-o-lantern.
"Oh shit." I muttered.
Rebekah swung around and hurled the blade in my direction, stopping just inches from my throat. The sweat dripped from my peach-fuzzed chin onto the tip of her long, blood-dripping killing utensil.
She lowered her weapon, "Shit. Don't do that." she finished with a sigh of relief.
I swallowed before claiming, "Don’t do what? You almost killed me!"
"I could of." She turned to the Wildes, "Follow me... we're getting out of here."
Rebekah led, the Wildes were next, and Mike and I followed them out the room. It seemed as if the assemblage had done their job clearing the way, and now it was time to get out the building and link up with everyone else before something, or someone, decided they wanted to get back up with a craving for fresh meat.
CHAPTER XII
Black smoke and ashes drizzled. A barrage of automatic fire and the deafening howls and moans of citizens infected with something so far-fetched and unexplainable was hard to witness first-hand. The building reeked with the smell of burning wood boards and melting rubber. It was mixed with a calinté touch of defecation left by the dead bodies of Bleeders, Trackers, drug addicts and resistance runners, from the roof down into the lobby that lay slumped. We crept across their bodies as if they were slumbering wolves, knowing every second that past, any one of the slain victims could have awakened from their comatose transition and taken on the role of the infected beasts that injected their blood-filled saliva into some poor souls system before they became victims of the all you can eat slaughterhouse.
“Be quiet and careful,” Mike said. “We don’t want any surprises.”
“Stay alert.” I advised everyone, looking at the tatted faces of the slain.
Maria grabbed my shirt. “Yuck, the smell is horrible. I don’t know whether it’s the bodies or the building. ” she whispered, fingering her throat again.
Ann just gave her that look, without saying a word.
As we made it back to the lobby doors, I spotted Mac taking cover at the rear of his cab with Conrad and two others, only popping out to fire on the dozens of Bleeders that invaded the Centre City streets before them. I knew at that moment that there was virtually no way out. Then, from out of nowhere, a black Hummer, followed by three diesel fueled pick-up trucks - full capacity - thugs and hostile residents of Warwick City blasting their guns at Bleeders, roared from the far right side of the building. They ran over a couple Bleeders before parking behind Mac's taxi. They poured out the pick-ups and engaged the Bleeders, on top and in control, as if their only fear was to survive after being left leaking like bad meat in your local grocery market. That was my only fear.
“Holy fuck!” Maria detailed.
Maria took a second observation at the Hummer - it couldn't be. She left us in a rage.
We pursued her.
As I got to the Hummer, I was stunned to see the driver was a kid wearing a riot helmet, geared up in military fatigues. The fatigues were the same as the soldiers, and when Maria ran up on the kid pulled the helmet off.
It was Baker.
"You little fuck!" Maria exaggerated her words, reached out to touch the pint-sized car thief.
Baker looked coldly into Maria's brown eyes.
Mike stepped in just in the nick of time, held Maria apart from Baker, "Not now. We need him." he assured her.
She backed off slightly and looked Mike directly in the eyes, desperate, "Losing one more won't make a difference."
I’ve seen Maria go from the soft-spoken, nervous entry level insider nurse who'd never fired a pistol to a woman with a strong voice. Now being in our tightest situation yet, I see her with more attitude? It made me feel like she'd been playing a role since we met her, or she was just realizing we were involved in a game called survival in a dog eat dog world. I lustfully craved her even more.
They Came With The Storm (The Effacing) Page 11