The reanimated corpses effortlessly tore through the zipped plastic flap and pursued the white-suits outside into the parking lot, attracted by the sounds of the sirens and the commotion.
In a few seconds, the lobby was vacant aside from John and Rebecca.
Outside, gunfire erupted and screams drowned out the sirens.
Chapter 13
Inside the abandoned lobby, John wasted no time.
He ran and picked up one of the M-16s that the soldiers left behind. He turned towards Rebecca and couldn’t help but feel a little proud as soon as he saw what she was doing.
She had an M-16 slung over her shoulder and was busy stuffing extra magazines into her pockets, making sure to only take ones that still had ammunition left.
Rebecca was a country girl through and through. When things got tough, she was type who’d rise to the occasion and he honestly couldn’t be prouder to be with her.
“What?” she asked as she looked at him.
“It’s nothing,” he said as he wiped the grin off of his face. “Are you ready to head out there?”
Rebecca frowned and shook her head as she stood up and tossed him two magazines that were half-full.
John caught them and stuffed them under his belt.
“Honestly, no,” she answered. “But I know we can’t stay in here…”
Despite her country-raised fortitude, it was obvious to him that she was scared; her eyes alone gave her away.
Hell, who was he kidding? He was terrified himself.
“I agree,” he said. “Eventually they’ll come back inside or the rest of them upstairs will make their way down here. Either way, I’m thinking that we shouldn’t hang our hat here too long.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Yeah,” she said. “What’s the plan?”
John listened as the gunfire outside intensified, frowning.
“We need to get out of town before they shut down the whole area,” he said.
“Austin?” she asked with a thin smile.
John chuckled and shook his head.
“You know what? Austin sounds pretty damn good to me right now, darling,” John said as he readied his weapon. “Let’s go find us a vehicle.”
They walked through the plastic tunnel, exited the lobby, and stepped outside underneath the hospital’s awning.
It was dark outside and humid.
Multiple fires were burning out of control.
People were running in all directions, panicked and screaming. The flimsy Tres Rios police barricade had been overrun and the infection ran rampant throughout the hysteric crowd. Tres Rios’ main street, the street that ran in front of the hospital, was completely clogged with traffic and the storefronts were shattered.
Riot police were shooting canisters of teargas into the besieging masses while soldiers were busy indiscriminately firing live rounds; neither tactic seemed to have much effect.
One by one, the riot police officers fell; their bulky body armor did little to stop the black substance from entering every facial orifice.
As their numbers rapidly diminished, the soldiers started to retreat to their vehicles and let the infection run its course amongst the unlucky civilians who had gathered around earlier to gawk at the spectacle.
A black helicopter haplessly circled overhead while the sniper on board fired into the crowd.
As John and Rebecca stared awestruck at the carnage, a man sprinted towards them with gore smeared around his mouth. The man was wearing a plaid shirt, denim coveralls, and a trucker’s cap.
John quickly aimed the rifle at the man’s head and fired.
The man’s cap flew off as his forehead shattered. He fell backwards and convulsed on the pavement.
A group of nearby infected turned towards the sound of the gunshot and started running towards John.
“Let’s go!” John shouted as he ran towards the parking lot.
Rebecca followed and popped off a few quick shots, striking one of the women that was pursuing them in the abdomen and hitting an elderly man in the shoulder.
Both the elderly man and the woman fell as soon as they were struck, but quickly got back on their feet and kept running.
John led Rebecca through a massive crowd that was huddled near the front of the parking lot. The crowd was cowering from the carnage on the street.
The crowd screamed and started to panic as soon as they spotted the infected horde advancing towards them.
“Move!” John shouted as he pushed his way through the group.
A lanky, bald man wearing a stained t-shirt and thick glasses grabbed John’s gun out of desperation.
John tore away and slammed the butt of the rifle against the man’s face.
The man let go and fell to the ground with a bloody nose and broken glasses.
Two other men wearing orange safety vests grabbed Rebecca and tried to pry the gun away from her.
She drove her knee into one man’s crotch and the butt of the rifle into the other man’s throat.
Both men let go and stumbled backwards; one wheezing and one grasping his crotch.
Rebecca looked over her shoulder and watched as both men were struck down.
“Don’t look back, just keep running!” John shouted, struggling to catch his breath.
John and Rebecca broke free from the crowd and entered the parking lot.
The entire parking lot was full of vehicles. Vehicles were parked wherever there was space; there was no order, no sensibility. Panicked people were backing up and revving forward, slamming into whatever cars were parked in front of them and behind them, but their efforts to break away from the gridlock was in vain. Most honked their horns, but all that did was call the attention of the infected.
The sniper perched on the edge of the helicopter stepped back inside and slid the door shut as the helicopter banked away from the scene and disappeared into the horizon.
As the couple weaved in-between the narrow spaces between the vehicles, they watched as people were helplessly pulled out of their vehicles kicking and screaming by the ravenous infected.
John and Rebecca took cover behind an empty van, breathing frantically.
“Are you okay?!” John asked as he looked over at her, drenched in sweat.
Rebecca nodded and continued to hyperventilate.
John peaked around the front of the van.
On the street, a Tres Rios police cruiser weaved through the crowd with its lights flashing. It was being chased by a growing throng of recently infected men, women, and children. The cruiser had a man wearing a firefighter’s uniform sprawled across the hood and a woman wearing a tattered shirt clinging onto the roof; both of them were repeatedly striking the windshield, trying to break it and get inside.
The police officer driving looked terrified as he swerved through the crowd, striking down both infected and non-infected. He lost control of the vehicle as it skidded across the gore-slathered pavement.
The police cruiser jumped the curb and slammed into a telephone pole, knocking both the man and the woman off of the car.
The transformer on the pole gave a thunderous boom as it erupted in a shower of sparks.
Downtown Tres Rios went dark; every streetlight and every storefront went out in an instant.
A skinny police officer wearing tactical gear got out of the wrecked cruiser and took off on foot.
Moving like a flock, the group of infected ran after him in the dark.
John and Rebecca stayed quiet and remained hidden as they listened to the men and women who were chasing them dash across the parking lot to join the others in their pursuit of the terrified officer.
The parking lot was left abandoned.
In the distance, the police cruiser was left kissing the telephone pole with its frontend damaged and blue lights flashing.
Its doors were open.
“Now’s our chance,” John whispered as he looked at the cruiser.
Despite a little steam coming out from underneath
the car’s dented hood, it appeared drivable and was the closest viable option.
John and Rebecca sprinted across the parking lot towards the cruiser, weaving in-between the parked cars.
At the edge of the parking lot, they threw their weapons on the floorboard and got inside of the wrecked cruiser; John behind the wheel and Rebecca in the passenger seat.
John threw the transmission in reverse and mashed down on the accelerator.
The engine made a loud grinding noise as the cruiser backed away from the curb and stopped in the middle of the street.
The noise captured the attention of some sprinters nearby. They turned towards the car and started running towards it.
John switched the transmission into drive and sped down Main Street, blue lights flashing in the dark.
Rebecca stared out of the passenger window as the blue light reflected off of countless pale faces that were all making their way towards the car from seemingly every direction. She buckled her seatbelt, hands shaking.
Infected carelessly threw themselves against the car and splattered like insects as they crumpled onto the pavement. They were flung over the hood and went tumbling across the top of the car, knocking the LED light bar off of the roof and cracking the windshield.
Within seconds the entire windshield was smeared with gore.
John turned on the wipers.
It didn’t do much, but it offered a limited blood-streaked view of the road ahead.
Despite the rattling engine and the steam that shot up from underneath the hood, the cruiser managed to pull away from the encircling crowd and approached the edge of downtown.
John kept glancing up in the rearview mirror at the crowd as it fell further behind.
“John!” Rebecca shouted as she gripped the dash.
He glanced back out the cracked windshield and saw an armored personnel carrier flatten a barbwire fence as it pulled into the middle of the road. The vehicle was all black with no identifying emblems or numbers. It had a high caliber machine gun mounted on the roof.
It stopped in the middle of the road as the solider manning the gun turret pointed the weapon at the police cruiser.
A line of halogen flood lamps lit up behind the armored vehicle and revealed a barricade that had been erected across the road. The barricade was constructed out of concrete highway dividers and multiple spools of barbed tape, or ‘razor wire’.
John slammed on the brakes.
The police car skidded to a stop in the middle of the road about a block away from the armored vehicle.
The mob of infected townspeople quickly closed in.
The gunner started laying a line of fire up the middle of the road towards the cruiser, creating a shower of sparks and riddling the asphalt with large holes.
John mashed down on the accelerator and took a hard left, narrowly escaping the barrage of gunfire.
The gunfire tore through the infected townspeople, eviscerating those who were gathered in the center of the street. The townspeople lost all interest in the police cruiser and started running towards the armored vehicle.
John spun out in the street and slammed through the sprinting crowd, smearing the pavement with their blood. He turned right onto state highway 72, the very same road he took to go home every day.
The road was empty and dark. The police cruiser only had one working headlight and it was pointing askew towards the side of the road.
John leaned over the steering wheel and squinted, struggling to make sure the path ahead was clear.
Rebecca turned her head and looked out the back window towards the darkened downtown area.
At least nobody was following them.
Relieved, she turned her attention back towards the road ahead.
“Well… what do we do now?” she asked. “They have the road towards the interstate blocked off…”
John thought for a moment and shook his head.
“We can take 72 past our house into Tilden and then ride 16 all the way up towards San Antonio,” John said. “It’ll be all country roads until we get into San Antonio so it should be clear. Once we get there, we can hop on I-37 and head up towards Austin.”
Rebecca looked over at him.
“What about Lucy?” she asked.
John nodded.
“Don’t worry. We’ll stop and get her,” he said. “While we’re there we may as well grab a few supplies for the road. The less stops we have to make between here and Austin, the better we’ll be.”
Rebecca reached over, turned on the radio, and scanned through the stations.
None of the stations coming through from Corpus and San Antonio were saying anything about what was happening. The stations all played music, commercials, and even had the normal annoying DJ banter.
No news, no warnings, and no official messages; it was as if nothing was wrong.
“I don’t get it,” she said as she sat back and stared down at the radio.
John frowned.
“Well, at least we made it out of there,” his said.
His voice was drowned out as a line of black helicopters flew low overhead.
The helicopters flew in formation towards downtown. They each fired their payload and quickly veered off into different directions.
Tres Rios erupted as soon as the bombs struck the heart of downtown. Napalm engulfed every building, corpse, and vehicle in the vicinity.
The concussive force of the blast spread outwards and flattened the sparse mesquite trees and thorny bushes that peppered the desert landscape.
As soon as the shockwave hit the cruiser, John lost control.
The cruiser spun across the road, ran off of the asphalt, slid down a dusty embankment, and broadsided a toppled mesquite tree.
The disabled vehicle sat with its engine smoldering while Tres Rios burned behind it.
Chapter 14
John slowly regained consciousness and looked around the wrecked cruiser. Every window was shattered and glass shards were everywhere. He looked over at his wife, coughing.
Rebecca was slouched over in her seat with her eyes shut, still wearing her seatbelt. She had a small laceration on her forehead and blood trickled down her face.
“Becky?” he said hoarsely as he reached over and gently shook her shoulder. “Becky?!”
She groaned and slowly opened her eyes and looked over at him.
“John…? What ha– Are you okay?” she groggily asked.
“I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about. How do you feel?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”
“No… I think I’m fine…” she said as she struggled to take off her seatbelt.
John frowned as he looked at the small gash on her forehead.
Rebecca looked over at him and slowly reached up to touch her forehead. She touched her wound with her fingertips and looked at the blood.
“I’ll be fine,” she said as she wiped her fingers on her pants. “Let’s just get out of here.”
John nodded and tried to open his door, but it wouldn’t budge. He groaned as he pushed his aching body against the door, straining to get the dented door open.
Rebecca managed to kick her door open and stumble outside. She leaned inside the car and held out her hand towards John.
“Come out this way,” she said. “I’ll help you.”
John groaned in pain and climbed across the passenger seat. He took her hand and slowly stepped outside, coughing.
He brushed the glass off of himself and looked towards downtown…
Tres Rios had a faint orange glow as multiple fires continued to burn out of control. Most of the buildings appeared to be gutted by the napalm.
“Jesus Christ…” John muttered as he looked at the surreal scene.
“Do you think that stopped them…?” Rebecca asked as she stood next to him.
John regretfully shook his head.
“I hope I’m wrong, but from what I’ve seen of… well, whatever this is, it’ll take more than a little fire to knock
it out,” he said. “The further we get away from this place the better we’ll be. Let’s stick to the plan.”
Rebecca furrowed her brows and looked down.
“How?” she asked. “We don’t even have a car now.”
“I know, so we best start walking,” John said. He leaned inside the car and grabbed the two M-16s they had tossed inside. He got out, popped his back, and handed one of the rifles to her. “Cooper’s farm is just up the road a few miles.”
Rebecca took the rifle and slung it over her shoulder as she climbed up the embankment.
“You still got those extra magazines, right?” he asked as he followed her.
She patted her stuffed pocket to answer his question.
They started to walk along the side of the road, Rebecca in the front and John in the back.
Rebecca kept her eyes on the ground and didn’t seem to have much to say.
John stared at her and frowned.
“Becky?”
“Yeah?” she answered without stopping or turning around.
“We’re going to get through this, you’ll see,” he assured. “We’re going to be fine.”
“Yeah… I know,” she said without much emotion.
He frowned.
He knew she didn’t believe him.
A few miles up the road, they came across what appeared to be a traffic accident next to a dying cornfield.
A Triburton van was overturned in the middle of the road with its rear doors open.
On the other side of the road, a Tres Rios police cruiser was stuck in the ditch with its rear end pointing up towards the sky.
Rebecca and John slowed their pace as they approached the scene…
The whole area reeked of gasoline.
“Stay here a minute while I check it out,” John said.
Before Rebecca could protest, he readied his rifle and started walking towards the back of the van.
John slowly pushed the van’s backdoor open with the tip of his rifle and peered inside.
Gasmasks, white hazmat suits sealed in plastic, sealed cardboard boxes, and oxygen canisters littered the back of the van. One of the cardboard boxes had burst open during the accident and revealed various tactical uniforms and multiple Velcro patches.
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