by Dirk Patton
Dog was back at my side as I approached the door. I was bending to rush through when a female stuck her upper body into the opening and screamed at me. Dog leapt, slamming into her face and both of them tumbled to the outside. Stepping through, I had to immediately begin firing at the small group that was almost right on top of me.
There were four of them and I shot two quickly before they were too close for me to use the rifle. One of them leapt, arms extended in front of her as she screamed. Twisting, I smashed the rifle butt into her face and she tumbled past me to the ground. The one immediately behind her tackled me against the wall.
Shoving her back I locked my hand on her throat to control her head and slammed it into the rough concrete of the exterior wall. Her struggle against my grip lessened slightly and I yanked her close and snapped her neck. Letting the corpse drop I turned to engage the one I’d hit with the rifle but Dog was on her throat, Katie standing on her legs to hold her down.
Trusting they had the situation well in hand I turned back to the open parking lot. The Dodge was twenty feet away, waiting at the curb, but a larger group of close to forty females was sprinting directly at us. They were still on the far side of the car, but at inside a hundred yards were close enough that there wasn’t time for us to get in before they arrived.
I dropped the rifle and brought the grenade launcher up, pulling the trigger five quick times and exhausting the shells loaded in it. Traversing left to right as I fired, I laid down a line of grenades at the front edge of the sprinting infected. The grenades detonated in a ripple across the group but this time the target was far enough away that I wasn’t concerned with shrapnel reaching me.
Watching the devastation, I brought the rifle back up and picked off the three females that weren’t either outright killed or injured too badly to keep running. When the last one fell I looked farther out across the pavement and saw another, larger group coming our way.
“Let’s go,” I said, dashing forward and raising the trunk lid.
Katie ran forward, tossed our loot into the car and jerked the rear door open, shouting for Dog to get in. Dropping the grenade launcher and bandolier on top of the bags I slammed the lid and rushed to the driver’s door.
The Dodge started easily and I slammed into drive and accelerated away from the fast approaching females. They changed directions, trying to intercept us as we headed for an exit, but despite their inhuman speed they were quickly left behind.
Ignoring the one-way sign at the bottom of the ramp I’d driven down to get to the mall, we were soon back on the highway. I relaxed slightly as our speed reached 100, looking over and smiling at Katie.
“Why is shopping with you always such an adventure?”
“But isn’t it so much more fun when you don’t have to pay the bill?” She smiled and ran her fingers through her thick hair, tilting her head back and shaking it out.
48
We blew past a sign welcoming us to Idaho, the freeway smooth, wide, fairly straight and climbing gently. I was glad we were nearing our destination as the Charger was beginning to show signs of more than a thousand miles of full throttle driving.
The first indication I’d had that the car was getting tired was a barely perceptible change in how quickly I could push us back to top speed after slowing for a curve. This had been somewhere in the desolate landscape of northern Utah after we’d left Ogden far behind. Progressively, I’d noted that we were losing more speed on inclines than before and taking longer to get the needle back up to 140.
I was concerned, but not too worried. Yet. The engine could very well keep running for another thousand miles. Or it could crap out the next time I accelerated. Or it could be a transmission problem. I suddenly realized I’d been careful to check and fill the motor oil as needed but had neglected to check on the transmission during any of our stops. I’d be sure to correct that oversight during our next fueling, which would be within a hundred miles.
Katie had drifted off to sleep after our last stop, her seat slightly reclined. Dog was on his back, legs straight up in the air as he snored loud enough to be heard over the exhaust and wind noise. I was fatigued from driving but alert and worried about Rachel.
I had called Jessica just prior to our last stop and she hadn’t had any good news for me. More weather was pushing into the mountains from the north and she was having difficulty even getting a thermal view of what was happening on the ground. She had identified a corruption in the archived satellite image data and still had not had any success in finding out what had happened to the group in the Bradley.
But the icing on the cake had been the report on the large herds moving east from Seattle and Portland. I was going to arrive ahead of them but by the time I switched vehicles, got up into the mountains and found Rachel, we would be cut off. The herds were still heading east and no one had any idea where the Russians were sending them.
As I pushed deeper into Idaho the external temperature readout on the dash steadily dropped. It had been in the upper 70s in Ogden and as I drove across northern Utah and the night wore on it had dropped to the low 70s. In the past twenty miles it had fallen another ten degrees. We were approaching the southern edge of the storm that had blanketed the mountains with snow.
Twenty more miles and something flickered across the windshield. Snowflake? It had been too quick for me to tell, but as I stared through the glass I saw two more somethings. I glanced at the thermometer readout, surprised to see it had dropped to 47 degrees outside.
Now I had something else to worry about. It was still well over a hundred miles to Twin Falls where Jessica had spotted the Jeep dealer and we would change vehicles. If I was already encountering an occasional snowflake it was certainly possible there was bad weather ahead that would slow me down.
A check of the trip odometer told me we were now forty miles from our next refueling point, a large truck stop in the middle of nowhere. Seventeen minutes if I could maintain our current speed. But we were climbing steadily and as the temperature continued to drop the snow changed from an occasional flake to what would have been a misty rain if it were warmer.
Still climbing, I caught a glimpse of a heavy steel gate mounted on the shoulder of the freeway that was large enough to completely block the entire road. It was locked in the open position and there was a sign bolted to the middle of it that would face oncoming traffic when in position. It read, “Road Closed Due To Winter Weather”.
We must have been climbing into a minor mountain range, as no sooner had the gate flashed past than I saw a yellow sign warning of curves and steep grades ahead. Right after it was another one with an arrow curving to the left. Below the arrow it read “50 MPH”.
I took my foot off the gas and let the speed bleed off as I steered into the curve. Even though the snow was falling faster the pavement was still dry and clear and I took the curve at over 100. There was another incline after the curve, and as we made our way higher the snow suddenly changed to larger flakes and was falling harder.
Cursing, I found the switch for the wipers and turned them on to keep the windshield clear. A thin layer of snow was starting to build on the road, not thick enough yet to obscure the pavement, but enough to force me to slow further. The Dodge was outfitted with summer performance tires and I knew there was no way I could scream through these mountains without spinning out and killing us. I couldn’t help Rachel if I was dead.
We went through another curve, much slower this time, and I felt the Charger start sliding. Taking my foot off the gas I didn’t dare touch the brake and risk sending us into an uncontrollable spin. Speed bled off quickly and the sideslip stopped as the speedometer swung below 60.
The forty miles to the truck stop took thirty-five minutes instead of the seventeen I’d expected. I was antsy with the lower speed, worrying that the weather we were in would continue all the way to Twin Falls. If it got worse and I had to slow any more we were going to have infected from the approaching herds showing up before we cou
ld make it into the mountains.
That would be a real problem. We’d lost a lot of time in Dodge City and if we didn’t make a clean exit into the wilderness, unseen, there was a very real possibility that there could be hundreds if not thousands of infected following us. I couldn’t let that happen. On foot, in deep snow in rugged terrain with infected attacking? That wouldn’t be good odds for survival.
I shook Katie awake a couple of miles before reaching our fuel stop. She stretched, raised the seat and looked out the windshield.
“Oh…” she said in surprise.
“Yeah. Not good. Really slowed us down.”
“How much farther to Twin Falls?” She asked.
“Eighty-seven miles from the stop,” I said. “Almost two hours if this shit continues.”
Katie dug out the ticket book she’d been using as a scratch pad. It was covered with her shorthand math, formulas obscuring most of the white space. She worked quickly, putting it down as I slowed for the turn into the truck stop.
“That’s too long,” she said. “We’ll very likely have infected in the area. We need to be there in no more than an hour to have time to swap vehicles and head north into the mountains.”
I didn’t have the time as precisely in my head as she’d just calculated, but I was pretty close. Wishing she’d had better news, I slid to a stop next to the fuel storage access plates.
The air was cold when I opened my door, a gust of icy wind greeting me with a slap to the face. Katie shivered as she and Dog took up watch while I got the fueling started and checked the oil.
Nothing was moving in the area and after a few minutes Katie popped the trunk and fished out a white parka she’d taken from the sporting goods store in Ogden. It was thick with insulation and the hood was trimmed with what looked like real rabbit fur. She shrugged into it without stopping her scan of our surroundings and pulled the hood up.
“That’s better,” she said as I coiled up the fuel hoses. “Want yours?”
“No. Too bulky to drive,” I said, starting the engine so I could check the transmission fluid.
I hated spending the time but if there were a mechanical problem that I could prevent it would be worth every second. Engine idling, I pulled the dipstick and wiped it clean on my pants leg before reinserting. When I drew it out again and checked, only the very tip of the spring steel showed any fluid. The tranny was very low.
“I’ve got to go inside and find some transmission fluid,” I said to Katie after looking around the area for a display like I’d been able to get motor oil from.
“Want me with you?” She asked.
“Stay with the car and keep Dog with you,” I said, hoping to make a quick dash inside and grab what I needed.
I shut the rumbling engine off so it didn’t mask the sound of any approaching threats and headed for the large building that was a combination convenience store and gift shop with a large restaurant to the side. There were a lot of windows and I looked through them with the night vision scope. Nothing was moving.
Pausing at the double doors I scanned again, still seeing nothing. Before pushing through I clicked on the flashlight and directed the beam through the glass. I was hoping to spot where the automotive fluids were kept so I didn’t have to search once inside.
Seeing a shelf full of plastic quarts of oil and tranny fluid I took a final look around and pulled the door open. Moving quickly I was reaching for a bottle when a sound from deeper in the store caused me to freeze. At first I’d thought it was a squeaking hinge but it had been so quick I wasn’t at all sure what I’d heard.
I remained rooted in place for several seconds and was starting to think it was just something being pushed around by the wind outside when it sounded again. Longer and louder. A child crying!
The voice was coming from around a corner, in a direction that I believed was the restaurant. Rifle tight to my shoulder I killed the light and carefully moved, pausing and listening when I reached the edge of the wall that defined the convenience store part of the building.
The crying was louder, more of a mournful wail with hiccupping sobs each time she took a breath. My skin was crawling as I eased forward and peeked around the edge. There weren’t supposed to be any uninfected people left alive unless they’d been vaccinated. Had I found another immune, like the man in the jail cell back in Oklahoma?
Stepping around I zeroed in on her location. She was young, not a child but not quite a woman yet either. Thirty feet away, she was on her knees, bent forward and holding herself as she wailed. Long hair hung to the dirty floor, obscuring her features.
I had been very quiet and was using the night vision scope so I didn’t think she knew I was there. Carefully I scanned the rest of the space, coming up empty. As far as I could tell the girl was the building’s only occupant. Lowering the rifle slightly I moved towards her, pausing ten feet away and clicking on the light.
She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and though I couldn’t get a good look because of the way she was sitting they appeared to be soaked in blood that hadn’t been visible in the night vision.
“Hi,” I said softly, taking a cautious step forward.
The crying continued and I wondered if she was in some sort of shock. Blocking out the world and retreating inside herself to escape the horrors she had to have witnessed. I took another step, then another until I was looking down at the sobbing girl. Bending, I was reaching down to touch her shoulder when she suddenly snapped her head up and screamed in my face.
Bright red eyes flashed in the beam of my light as she launched herself off the floor. I was momentarily frozen. My mind had already categorized her as a child in distress, not a threat. That moment of hesitation allowed her to slam into me and send me sprawling onto my back as she landed on my chest and went for my throat.
All that saved me was the rifle. It had been in front of my body when she attacked and as we fell it twisted and was pinned under my chin, inadvertently protecting my flesh. She pressed her face against it, trying to reach me then shifted her attempts to my face when thwarted by the weapon.
The extra second gave me a chance to get a hand up and locked onto her throat, barely avoiding having a bite taken out of the side of my face. Pressing, I opened room between her teeth and my head. Twisting, I threw her off of me and started to roll.
She was fast, not wasting time getting to her feet but rushing me on all fours. I snatched the pistol out of my thigh holster and whipped it up, pulling the trigger as her face came into contact with the muzzle. She was no more than two feet from my face when the bullet snuffed out the light in her eyes, her body flopping to the floor and coming to rest against me.
“Fuck me,” I whispered as the shakes took over.
49
Rushing out of the building I was half way to the car before I realized I’d forgotten why I’d gone inside. Reversing course, I dashed back in and grabbed several bottles off the shelf. I wasn’t worried about noise discipline, just wanted to get the hell out of there.
“What’s wrong?” Katie asked, aiming her rifle at the door I’d burst out of.
“Let’s get out of here first,” I said, slipping and sliding on the slush covered cement.
I was still shaking and didn’t have a funnel so I probably spilled about as much transmission fluid as I managed to pour into the Dodge. But I still got the level back to full, slammed the hood and tossed the extra bottles into the back seat. Dog and Katie piled in and I took off with a lot of tire spinning on the slick surface.
“Easy,” Katie said.
I took some deep breaths and backed off the accelerator. Snow was thick in the lights but I still pushed our speed up to 80. We were all but out of time and safety was going to have to take a vacation.
“What?” Katie asked, concern clear in her voice as she placed a hand on my arm.
I took another breath and told her about what had happened. Talking about it calmed me, or maybe it was just because the truck stop with the dead girl
was now several miles behind us. We began to drop down out of the mountains and the snow stopped as quickly as it had started.
The pavement cleared and I pushed our speed up, roaring through a long curve and onto a level, straight stretch of road. I stepped on the throttle and was glad to see the hesitancy I’d noticed in the car’s performance was gone. We were quickly up to 140 but I thought I could hear a faint whine from beneath the floor.
“She was crying?” Katie asked, shocked.
“Just like a normal girl,” I said. “I don’t know if she was really crying or it’s a new ploy. Regardless, it sucked me right in and damn near got me killed.”
“Next time you’re taking Dog with you,” she said, rubbing my arm.
Hearing his name, Dog stuck his head into the front and used his nose to pry Katie’s hand off my arm and onto his muzzle. With a smile she began petting him as he pressed as far forward as he could.
“I’m tired,” I said after a few quiet miles.
“Want me to drive?”
“Not what I meant,” I said. “I mean I’m tired of running and fighting. I’m fucking exhausted. Lucas’ offer is sounding better by the minute.”
“Not the Bahamas?” Katie asked.
“The fighting will never stop for them,” I said. “There’s always going to have to be raids into CONUS for supplies of some sort. Food, medicine, fuel, vehicle parts; always something. You know me. I won’t be able to sit on my ass while others are getting on a plane. I’ll be right in the thick of it and I don’t want to be. Not anymore.”
“OK, so how do we get to Australia?”
“I haven’t figured that one out. Yet. But I’m going to start working on it. Maybe get Rachel and head for the coast and find a boat.”
“Not that that’s a bad idea, but does Rachel know how to handle a boat and navigate half way around the globe? I sure don’t, and the last time I checked you weren’t in the Navy, so…”