He scanned the trees to either side, checking for Eaters. He was sure though that if there were any in the area they would be drawn by the smoke and smell of rotten flesh at the crash site.
Everything was empty and eerily still, as if the landscape was holding its breath.
Suddenly, there was a muffled crack of a distant rifle. It was too far away to guess what was happening. To be honest he didn’t care so long as it was nowhere near him.
There was a clank of metal to state the person had finished taking a shit. Down on the road behind them there was a clump of soiled toilet paper. He didn’t check the road too carefully.
He stood and rolled his neck from side to side.
He looked over to his brother who was pointing something out to Alex. Terrance scanned the area. He couldn’t work out what they were looking at. If it was important, he would be informed.
The jolting of the gear change made him reposition his feet. He became accustom to readjusting his balance without even realizing he was doing it. It was like being on the deck of a rolling ship.
He changed hands holding the shotgun. After so long his hands ached. It was from too many years boxing. Every part of him has had a battering, but none more so than his hands. Arthritis was starting to set in already, the doctor had told him mere days before the outbreak started. He was also informed his skull had taken too much of a pounding. He would have to consider early retirement from the violent sport.
Strange how things worked out, and the choice was taken away from me.
The outbreak was announced in America four days before the biggest fight of his life.
At thirty-one, he had been fighting for almost a decade – a lifetime in the business. He had slowly, with many false starts, worked his way up the amateur circuit. He had only one fight left to crown him, and propel him into the professional circuit.
Sods law, he reasoned.
At the time, he had been crashing on his brother’s couch. Well, crashing would be the wrong word; he had been sleeping on the couch for nine months. He needed the win to start earning real money.
His brother Lindell had the patience of a saint, but even he had started to complain. He had offered Terrance jobs working as a bouncer, with the same company he worked for. However, Terrance pointed out he had to train long hours, and he didn’t have time for a real job.
He looked over at his brother.
Lindell has a six-year-old daughter who lived with her mother and stepfather. As soon as the outbreak started, they both rushed over to the upscale, penthouse apartment. It was empty. She took his daughter and not given him a chance to say good-bye. Lindell was hiding the pain well. He reasoned that with the stepfather’s money, they should be safe, hidden away somewhere.
They were coming up to another town. They had been driving for hours. He wondered if Troy was going to pull over to allow those inside to stretch their legs. If it was him driving, he wouldn’t.
However, as the truck started to get closer to the town, he realized they might have to exit the highway and navigate through the town, due to the large multi car pile up.
34
Troy Cobb, and the others.
Inside the cab of the truck
Interstate 79 Express
New York City, Metropolitan Area
The window was cracked just a little, to allow some fresh air to enter the cab, but not wide enough to allow a hand to be thrust inside.
Troy was used to driving for a living; it felt strange he was now driving to survive. It would be nice if he had someone up front to talk to, but it was safer for everyone to stay in the container. Better safe than sorry. Better safe than dead. Metal would protect them better than the cab’s glass.
He missed his pipe. He gave up a month before the outbreak started. His hands miss it the most; they were used to fiddling with something, keeping busy. He finally managed to give up by using an e-pipe – an electric device that was now all the rage. He first marveled at all the different flavors. He enjoyed cherry the most. It only took him three weeks to completely quit. Modern science was a thing of marvel.
Movement caught the corner of his eye. As he turned, he saw nothing apart from a blurred tree line and scruffy fields, broken up every now and then with a dead cow or sheep.
The roads were clearer than he would have speculated. You see the disaster movies where thousands of cars littered the roads and verges. In reality, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad. Most people, it would seem, reached wherever they were headed.
Troy readjusted a photo that rested on the dashboard. “Sonja,” he muttered, “my love.” He kissed a finger and touched it to the photo. She was the love of his life. His soul mate and best friend. In five days, it would be the tenth anniversary of her passing. The tenth anniversary of the worst day of his life – the day she died and left him with half a heart and a broken soul.
He remembers the day so vividly, as if it was only yesterday. He remembers her smiles, her movements. The breeze through her long Auburn hair. Her slender legs. Her piercing green eyes. Her beautiful freckles. He remembers the trickle of blood out the corner of her mouth as a bubble of blood popped and speckled her pale face. He remembered thinking the blood looked so striking on her pale skin. The way her head looked like it had turned that little bit too far. Her wrist twisted the wrong way. The wreckage of the vehicle around her as if it had molded to her shape, not the other way around. How fragile her limp body looked in the metal cocoon.
Ten long years...
He was only thirty-six at the time. She was four years younger. So full of life – brimming with energy and love and wonder. She made the world a better place. She lit up every room she entered. Her smile and laughter were contagious.
One split second action from a stranger – a mere fraction of a second made his world crash down around him.
One second they were talking about having children, the next she was gone – her soul wrenched from her body and tossed into the ether, leaving behind an empty, damaged, bleeding husk.
The other driver was drunk, having spent all day in a bar after a fight with his girlfriend. Once he had enough courage racing through his veins he jumped into his pickup truck to confront his ex. He never made it to her door; instead, he slammed into Troy’s old Ford, ripping the car in two.
Even though he had on a seat belt, he was still tossed from the vehicle as his seat was ripped away. As the high-pitched hum droned on in his ears, and his eyes refocused, he realized he was lying on the grass twenty feet from his car. He didn’t have the strength to walk, due to a compound fracture of his left shin; he proceeded to crawl back to Sonja dragging his useless, bleeding leg.
His driver’s side door was missing, and the other half of the car was on its side. He had the perfect view of her mangled body. Troy crawled back and held her cooling hand. She was already gone. The paramedics found him unconscious still gripping her hand when they arrived at the scene.
“Shit,” he muttered. For the first time since getting onto the highway, it looked like there might be a blockage up ahead.
There was an off ramp down into a town. There was no choice; he slowed a little, seeing if there was an area he could squeeze through. Even with the powerful engine there were just too many. It looked like they had also caught on fire, leaving vehicles melted together, creating a mass of twisted metal and plastic. There was also no embankment to drive around due to the section of road being on concrete pylons.
Troy lowered the window.
“How’s it look up there?” he shouted.
“Not good. Looks totally blocked,” Lindell shouted down.
“Were sitting ducks, we need to keep moving,” Terrance shouted.
“Roger that!” Troy forced the truck into reverse. After about two meters, the loud beeping issued from the vehicle, with a loud clear voice stating, “Reversing... Reversing...”
“Shit!” He had forgotten all about the damn reversing alarm, which was there to inform pedestrians and
other road users that the large truck was backing up.
The only problem was; it was very loud and piercing – it had to be loud enough to be heard from inside a sealed vehicle. It carried a long way in the stillness of the silent afternoon.
On the roof, Alex kept sharp watch.
In the distance, there was movement from a section of warehousing to the right of the highway.
“We have incoming!” Alex announced as he counted at least twenty infected naked people charging towards the loud sound.
35
Doctor Bachman
Communication Center
Quirauk Mountain, Pennsylvania
Bachman’s eyes ached. He had been watching video footage for hours. He was unnerved by what he was seeing. The infected were working together, as a team.
The video footage was from England’s secret bunker, similar to Wonderland. However, theirs was hidden below a large prison that was situated on moorland that was nestled inside a small town called Princetown in Devon.
The footage showed thousands of the naked infected swarming towards the old prison from across the moors. The creatures overran the town.
The British army’s communication tower, which sat on a hill behind the compound, similar to where Bachman now found himself, was a towering six hundred and forty-three feet steel mast, called North Hessary Tor Mast. A video feed from the top, looking down over the prison complex showed the horde swarming like pink ants.
Why would they head towards the bunker? How did they know it was there? There’s no pod in England! What did they hope to accomplish? Bachman asked himself.
The woman who met him is called Lucy French. She is one of the communication officers in the building. She leaves him on his own in a small room filled with screens, after she first showed him how to use it all.
She returned after the second hour carrying some basic food and drink on a tray. It was some type of processed meat and rubbery vegetables all covered in a thick, tasteless sauce – like hospital food. He didn’t realize just how hungry he was.
The slight woman sat and watched Bachman eat. She didn’t say a word until he finished.
“Your opinion?” She stretched a kink out of her slender neck.
“You need a new chef.”
She gave a tired smile.
“The footage is certainly interesting, and raises more questions than it answers.” He wiped the gravy off his top lip.
“Such as?”
“There is no pod in England, none within thousands of miles of the small island, so how were they all being controlled as if they were all in someway linked?” He gulped down some cold, sweet coffee. “How did the infected know the location of the British bunker? And what was the purpose of attacking it? Did they mean to destroy it, or those trying to hide inside?”
The woman looked over his shoulder. Images of the naked people filled the screens. Some were eating, ripping apart those they chased down. Others seemed more determined to reach the towering walls of the prison.
“And this footage is the most interesting,” Bachman stated as he turned and fiddled with some controls. The largest screen’s display went from pause to play.
It was the base of the main wall of the old prison. Over twenty feet tall and two feet thick, it looked impenetrable. However, it was the infected around its base that drew the observer’s attention. As they reached the wall, it was as if a signal reached them at the same time, because as one, they turned on some of their numbers and started to consume them. Circles started to appear, as groups started to eat individuals. The creatures picked to be consumed didn’t struggle or fight back; they willfully lay down as serrated teeth ripped into their flesh.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” she announced, as she stood behind him with her arms crossed.
“Once the infected have eaten to the point their stomachs rupture, they start to transform into spore riddled piles of stretched flesh, a way to spread the infection. However, the way it is spread, as you know, is from a violent explosion of compressed gasses that build up inside the inflating body.”
“Jesus!” she remarked.
“Exactly,” he replied as they watched the infected that were gorged to the point of rupture drag themselves to the base of the walls, before they collapsed and the swelling process started.
“They are positioning themselves in the best location to breach the walls, after purposefully triggering the reaction!”
“This happens hundreds of times around the base of the wall and gates. These creatures are organized. The question as to whether these creatures are being directed by a sentient mind has been answered. Something out there is in control, and it looks like it has a plan!”
36
Alex, and the King brothers.
On top a shipping container, on a truck
Interstate 79 Express
The speed the infected run was phenomenal, as if human limitations no longer applied. They streaked across the car park, jumping vehicle’s and obstacles with the grace of Olympic hurdlers. Like a flock of birds, they moved as one. Guttural cries issued from their deformed, ruptured mouths. They could see the three people on the roof of the container. Warm meat waiting to be sampled.
The truck was reversing as fast as possible. With the sound of screeching brakes and tires, the truck juddered to a stop, before the sound of crunching gears and a forward jerk.
Alex was knelt down; all three were; the truck was wobbling and bucking, and if they tried to stand, they would be tossed onto the road – easy pickings.
Alex felt useless. The creatures were gaining on them, and there was nothing he could do apart from watch them close the gap. He witnessed their strength and determination. He realized without weapons humans would be helpless against such violence.
He heard a shout from inside the container; he wasn’t sure if it was Bonnie, Jessica, or Naomi. They were obviously being tossed around by the erratic driving. If only they knew what was happening. Dante’s crying echoed from inside. Then there was a dull thud that reverberated through the metal of the container. He realized one of the large tote bins full of water must have tipped over. He hoped everyone was okay.
Troy revved the engine as the truck bounced forward, slamming a car out of the way with a screech of metal and shattering glass.
Alex lurched forward on hands and knees from the jolt. His bat started rolling away from his grasp. He lunged for his only means of defense.
The first infected reached the truck. Either by luck or design the naked female jumped and hit the side of the container right where the metal ladder was welded on. She started scrambling up with inhuman frenzied speed, that made her hair whip about her head.
She was met at the top with the barrel of Terrance’s shotgun. One pull of the trigger straight into her maw of a mouth made her head vanish in a spray of pulp and bone and hair. The body tumbled like a ragdoll, twisting and turning unnaturally, no longer affected by the limitations of the living.
Alex grabbed the bat and swung around.
A teenage male slammed into the metal side with a resounding ding. He started scrambling for a purchase. There wasn’t anything to grab. He disappeared under the large truck’s wheels. His head popped like an overripe watermelon.
The main group of about ten hit as one, as the truck started picking up momentum. They used each other’s bodies to scramble up the side. A child, no older than ten gripped the edge by Alex’s foot. As her other hand gripped, ready to propel her onto the roof, Alex swung the bat. The audible crunch sent a shiver down his spine as the body tumble to the side.
The girl was already dead, reanimated by the spores. You didn’t kill her! He screamed inside his head.
Lindell used the butt of his rifle to crack the skull of a middle-aged man.
The truck was now going fast enough to leave most behind. Unable to keep up the momentum to stay level with the truck, and climb at the same time, the bodies started tripping and falling to the wayside. Nak
ed bodies rolled and tumbled onto the asphalt. Within a heartbeat, they were back on their feet and chasing after the truck like a pack of wild dogs, unaffected by the cuts and scraped skin. However, the truck was now going fast enough down the off ramp to leave the hungry horde behind.
A shout made Lindell look over the side towards the cab. A teenage female, with splinted ribs that stuck out at odd angles, caked in dried blood, was stood on the drivers step, repeatedly slamming her face into the window on the driver’s side, trying to get to Troy. The glass was smeared in blood and loose teeth. A long deformed tongue lashed at the glass like a striking serpent. She thrashed, and head butted with phenomenal strength and speed while issuing animalistic screams of fury at not being able to get inside.
Lindell aimed and shot her through the side of the face. She vanished under the truck, leaving behind a trail of blood and splintered bones that dripped off the cracked wing mirror.
The off ramp joined a road crowded with warehouses. Burnt-out vehicle’s littered the street. Trash was piled in the gutters. Graffiti was sprayed down one long wall, covering the brick and glass, it stated in five-foot sickly yellow: Welcome to hell.
Some roads were blocked by piled up rubble, trash, vehicles, and furniture, as if someone had tried to create a barrier that was capable of stopping the infected.
Christmas decorations hung limp and abandoned from one building to another, reminding those able to see them of the worst Christmas of their lives.
The truck moved along street after street of what looked like an abandoned town. However, it didn’t feel right to Alex. The blocked roads, which seemed random at first, now seemed to be herding them towards a specific direction. The large obstruction before the off ramp also seemed staged, what were the chances the pileup would happen in just that location?
As the truck moved through the winding streets, the feeling got worse.
The Sixth Extinction America Omnibus [Books 1-12] Page 12