“Are you sure you want me to do this?” he asked, looking up at her.
She took a deep breath, steeled her nerves, and nodded.
Dominic gently pressed on the syringe, embracing it with three fingers around the plastic cylinder. The needle slid into the skin and settled in the vein. Then, without tearing his eyes away from hers, he found the plunger with his thumb and pushed.
Chapter 17
Brandt waited until the basement door swung closed behind Kimberly and he heard her footsteps descending the stairs before he left off his pacing and retreated to the dining table where Cade sat. She still had her head in her hands, but she lifted it a fraction to look up at him as he slumped into the chair closest to hers. The moment his butt hit the chair, he felt tension pour off him in a wave. He hung his head and let out a low groan. A headache was starting to pound at his temples, an incessant throb that wouldn’t leave him alone, brought on by the unceasing noise from the infected outside coupled with the stress that sat on his shoulders. He rubbed his eyes with the thumb and middle finger of his right hand and looked at Cade. She stared at him, her face a mixture of worry and stress.
“What are we going to do, Cade?” Brandt asked, dropping both hands to the table with a thunk. “I refuse to just sit here and wait for those things to get in, but I think I’m at a total loss.”
“I’m not going to say that I didn’t predict this was going to happen,” Cade agreed. “But I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.”
“We’ll have to break out the contingency plans, see if we can modify one to fit the problem at hand,” he said. “But none of the plans allowed for short-term planning. They’ll all take time to execute, and it’s time I don’t think we really have.” He sighed. “I expected us to have some warning and time to really plan, if we ended up with a mob coming this way.”
Brandt fell silent, listening to the moans of the infected outside the gates, which were barely a stone’s throw from the main house. For the first time since they’d taken over Woodside, he realized just how close he’d placed Cade to danger by choosing the house nearest to the front gates. The thought of those things getting in and attacking—and killing—Cade was too much for him.
“We need to evacuate,” Cade said, breaking the silence that had settled over the dining area.
“But how?” Brandt asked. “The infected are at the community’s only exit. We never finished planning out the back exit. And we can’t stroll out the front gates without getting everybody eaten.”
“No, but we can figure out how to stroll out the back,” Cade said.
Brandt raised an eyebrow. “How do you propose we manage that? Just climb over the wall? We have elderly in this place. I hardly think they’re capable of doing that. Besides, moving fifty people is going to be really risky and noticeable.”
“Of course we can’t ask the old folks to climb over the wall,” Cade said, rolling her eyes. “Not to mention the pregnant women. I’m not the only one here who’s pregnant. And even I’m not stupid or gutsy enough to attempt to climb over the wall as pregnant as I am. No, I think we need to go through the wall, not over it.”
“And how are we going to do that?” Brandt asked. “The wall’s not just made of wood. There’s wrought iron on the other side of it. We’re not going to be squeezing out between those bars anytime soon.”
“Look, I just know Dominic has a way he’s getting in and out of the community, and it’s not through the front gates,” Cade said. “I say we talk to him about how he’s been leaving. Then we make plans to move the survivors out that same route.”
Brandt rubbed his eyes again, tiredly. “Does this mean we’re calling another committee meeting?”
“Probably, yes,” Cade said. “The more input we get from others, the better. Maybe they’ll have ideas on the finer details that will help us get all these people to safety.”
“I hate meetings,” Brandt muttered, pushing himself out of his chair. “See if you can round up the others. I’ll go get Dominic. If he knows a way out of here, then he’ll need to be at the meeting with the rest of us.”
Cade stood with him, stepping around the edge of the table and stretching to press a light kiss to his cheek. “Be careful out there, okay?” she said.
Brandt raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never been worried about me being careful out there before,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, but this time is different,” she said. “This time, we’ve got the infected actively trying to get in. The way our luck goes, you’ll still be out in the open when they break through the gates and get yourself eaten. I’d like for that to not happen.”
He smiled. “Believe me, Cade, you’re not the only one.” He gave her a quick kiss on the lips and dropped a hand to his hip in a habitual check for the presence of his Beretta and spare magazines before heading to the front door.
As he headed for Dominic’s, Brandt was struck by how calm, how normal, everything seemed. If it weren’t for the fists pounding against the wall and gates, it would have been easy to think that everything was as it should have been.
Everything was still and quiet—too quiet. There was neither a bird in the air nor a breeze rustling through the trees. There was no one in sight; everyone was locked away in their homes like he’d instructed. Brandt glanced toward the community’s front gates and saw Keith standing on his platform, his eyes locked onto the hordes beyond the wall, his rifle in his hands.
Brandt stepped onto Dominic’s porch and knocked, scowling once again at the graffiti marring the house’s front façade.
There was a long pause. No one answered the door.
Brandt pounded harder, trying to rouse the man he knew was inside—assuming he hadn’t slipped out of the community again. When he didn’t get an answer, he decided to look elsewhere. Anger and irritation surged through him. This was no time for Dominic to pull a disappearing act.
He was halfway across the overgrown lawn when the whistle split the air for the second time that day.
A burst of gunfire cracked the air. Brandt swore and ran in that direction. He drew his Beretta even as he moved. Another blast of the whistle guided him to the front gates.
It’s too soon. It’s too fucking soon, Brandt thought. They hadn’t even had time to make plans to evacuate the community. The gates loomed in view, and Brandt skidded to a stop, eyes wide, as he observed the scene.
Keith stood on the platform, firing his rifle into the crowd beyond the wall. And lying on the ground just inside the gates were three infected men, their bodies still twitching from the bullet holes Keith had put in their heads. Brandt raced to the platform’s ladder and climbed it rapidly. His head barely cleared the edge before Keith was shouting at him.
“They’re coming over the gate!” Keith called over the gunfire. “They started climbing over each other until some of them reached the top and just spilled over. Those three down there made it over before I could even move. I put them down before they could do any damage.”
“Good job,” Brandt said, hauling himself to his feet on the platform. He went to the edge and looked over, watching as Keith shot down another of the infected that were climbing each other toward the top of the wall. The infected woman he’d shot tumbled straight down. She slammed into several others and knocked them to the ground as she fell, landing on a pile of corpses that Keith had already shot. Brandt couldn’t tell how deep the pile was, but he didn’t like that they were stacking up. “Shit, we’re going to have a problem,” he said. “And it’s probably going to show up really soon.”
“What do you mean?” Keith asked, taking aim at another climber. Brandt grabbed his arm, pushing his rifle down, and pointed at the pile of bodies at the foot of the wall.
“Look at them,” Brandt said. “They’re doing this on purpose. They’re building their ladder.”
Keith looked at him uncomprehendingly.
“Cannon fodder,” Brandt explained. “The smarter ones want you to shoot a bunch of the dumber one
s and let them pile up. Then, once the pile gets high enough, the others can climb them and come right over.”
Keith frowned and stared down at the mess below before shaking his head. “Shit, sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize…”
“It’s okay,” Brandt said. “Most wouldn’t.” He scratched his head and stared out at the infected, trying to figure out a solution to the problem, but his mind came up empty. They were in a catch-22 scenario: if they didn’t kill the infected that were climbing each other to get into the community, then they’d get in quickly; but if they did kill them, they’d just pile up until the pile got high enough that they could get in. He didn’t like either option, but ultimately he needed to go with the one that allowed for the longest period of time between now and them getting in. “We don’t have much of a choice. Shoot them for now, but try to do what you can to minimize the speed they’re building their body ladder with. I’ll be back up here soon to check in with you, and hopefully I’ll have a better plan for you then.”
“Gotcha,” Keith acknowledged. He turned his attention back to the mess below, and Brandt turned to descend the ladder. He’d stepped onto the top rung when he saw movement off to the side of the community, behind the houses directly across from the main house. He squinted as he tried to make out what it was in the late evening shadows cast by the wall.
He drew in a sudden breath when he realized what he was looking at.
“It’s a diversion,” he breathed, and then he was moving, grabbing Keith’s arm, and jabbing his finger in the direction he’d been looking. “This is a diversion!” he exclaimed. “We’ve got a bigger problem! Blow that whistle again, and let’s get some people out here!”
“Oh hell,” Keith uttered.
Brandt grabbed the ladder bolted to the platform and descended rapidly, his boots skipping a few rungs in his haste to get to the bottom. He’d barely gained his feet on the grass before he was off and running, charging across the grass and sidewalk and pavement and the yards across the street, pulling his Beretta out of its holster. He shunted aside the fleeting thought that he might not have enough ammunition. He didn’t even have a melee weapon on him!
Brandt stumbled to a stop against the front of the house, skirting around the corner of the building without hesitation, his pistol up in a two-handed grip as he readied himself for battle.
The first infected man stepped from the shadows at about the same time Brandt reached the halfway point to the backyard. Brandt ducked into the shadows alongside the house. He didn’t think the infected man had seen him, and he wasn’t eager to draw attention to himself until he had backup.
Boots striking pavement somewhere behind him heralded his arriving backup. Brandt lifted his pistol again and stepped into the infected man’s view. They stared at each other for several seconds, the man glaring at Brandt and Brandt staring at him over the sight of his pistol, sizing each other up. Before Brandt had time to wonder why the man wasn’t throwing himself at him yet, the infected lurched forward, lifted his hands in a classic Romero-style fast stagger, and Brandt squeezed the trigger. The infected man fell backwards, a neat, round bullet hole in his forehead, the back of his head a shattered mess.
The shot echoed against the house’s wall and bounced off, amplifying in the late evening air. Even though he’d been prepared for the sound and the inevitable attention it would draw, Brandt still swore. “I really hope that backup is good backup,” he said out loud as he started toward the back of the house.
“I always bring good backup,” a voice said from behind him, and Brandt glanced over his shoulder to see Isaac hurrying after him. Isaac’s presence didn’t surprise Brandt; the man had always been enthusiastic about jumping feet-first into danger. But what did surprise him were the O’Dell twins, who were bringing up the rear.
“What are they doing here?” Brandt hissed, jabbing his finger at the two teenagers.
Isaac shrugged with one shoulder. “They’re tough and they can fight, and options are limited. Why shouldn’t they be out here?”
Brandt opened his mouth to argue—they were just kids, and they had no business being out in the middle of an ugly fight, regardless of their skills.
At least a dozen infected circled the corner of the building, drawn toward them by the sound of Brandt’s bullet. There was no time for further debate. The twins would either fight or die, and it wouldn’t be Brandt’s responsibility either way.
He glimpsed Sadie before her raised his pistol and advanced on the crowd. She had drawn the two machetes she wore on her back, twirling the blades in her hands in a manner that suggested long hours of practice. Jude was just behind her, racking the slide of his shotgun. Isaac had his own pistol out, and he raised it at the same time Brandt raised his, taking aim at the group that had made it over the wall.
And then the infected were on them.
Brandt shot two more infected in the head—an older woman in her late-sixties wearing the tattered remains of a track suit and a twenty-something woman in what appeared to be a leotard.
The gap between them and the infected closed, and Brandt pulled his black-bladed knife from its sheath for backup. He pressed the barrel of his pistol against an Asian woman’s head and squeezed the trigger. She dropped back with a convulsion, and Brandt whipped around, blade leading. He slashed at a young black man who’d slid in around his defenses. The rotting man’s teeth grazed Brandt’s forearm. Then he staggered backward from the force of Brandt’s fist against the side of his head.
“Brandt, down!” Sadie shouted, and Brandt didn’t hesitate to obey; every battlefield instinct he had forced his compliance. He slid to the grass like a baseball player sliding into home plate, bowling over two more infected in the process. A blade flashed over his head.
Sadie leaped into view, swinging one of her machetes and decapitating one of the infected with a single, impressive blow; blood arced across the grass and several of the other infected as the body and head tumbled to the ground. Brandt didn’t take time to ogle the young woman’s fighting skills or strength. Instead, he whipped his knife up with one hand and his pistol with the other. He shot one in the head just before he drove the knife’s blade into the temple of a second attacker. Warm blood from the knifed victim’s head splattered on his face and chest. He wiped at it haphazardly with his sleeve and scrambled to his feet, gave Sadie a short nod of thanks, and scanned the rest of the fight.
The number of infected had been reduced to just three. Brandt had to hand it to the twins: they could fight, far better than any eighteen-year-olds he’d ever seen. Even as he thought that, Jude jacked the slide of his shotgun again and blasted one of the stragglers at close range, blowing it off its feet even as he blew its head into something unrecognizable.
But there was no time for back patting or congratulations. Brandt glanced at the wall in the rough direction he guessed the infected had come from, and even as Isaac and Sadie finished off the last two infected, he could see two more heads popping up over the top of the wall. Gunshots, presumably from the front gates, were still echoing out, sporadically for the most part. The community was still far from secure, and he cursed mentally, wishing there were more hours in the day, more time to complete all of the safety features they’d wanted to add to Woodside, like, for example, the barbed wire at the top of the wall.
“Isaac, we’ve got more coming over,” Brandt pointed out. “We need to do something about that. Otherwise, us being out here is pointless.”
Isaac glanced back and forth between Brandt and the wall, then took aim at the head of an infected that was slowly dragging itself over. “I’ll stay here for the moment—”
“No,” Brandt interrupted.
“—and keep an eye on the wall and shoot anything that starts to come over it,” Isaac continued, speaking louder to drown out Brandt’s objections.
“I don’t think so, Isaac,” Brandt said. “I already have plans for you. I want you with Cade.”
“That’s fine,” Isaa
c said. “But someone has to do something about this wall. We can’t just allow those things to come over it.”
“So what do you propose we do then?” Brandt asked as he knelt to wipe his knife on the grass. He sheathed it before he stood and looked at Isaac, waiting on the man’s proposal.
“We should get a sniper out here, or at least someone with shooting skills that are good enough, and get them up on that house.” Isaac pointed to the house they were beside. “Up on the roof. They could stage there and take out anything that tries to get over that wall while we try to get everyone out.”
Brandt considered for a moment, and as he thought, one of the infected climbing over the wall tumbled to the ground with a meaty thud. He looked up at the top of the wall, checking to make sure another one wasn’t about to come down on top of him. Then he strode over to his newest victim and put a bullet in his head. There was no real solution to the problem at hand; it was clear that, even if he put a sniper on the roof to monitor that area of the wall, they’d be in the same situation. He cast one last glance at the top of the wall and then returned to Isaac, speaking in a lower voice.
“It’s not perfect, but it’s going to have to do,” he said. “Either way, we’re going to end up with a problem on at least two sides of the community.” When Isaac gave him a questioning look, Brandt gave him a brief rundown of what was going on at the gates and the mess that Keith was dealing with on his own. Isaac swore under his breath as Brandt continued, “We have to do something, right? So let’s go with your plan. It’ll only be temporary until we can get these folks out of here, since we don’t have the ammo to do this for a long period of time. Any suggestions on who we can approach that’s a good enough shot for this? We’re low on options since Joseph’s team never came back.”
“Peter?” Isaac suggested.
Brandt thought it over. Peter Davies was the very definition of a grizzled war veteran. He’d been in his mid-thirties when he’d seen action in the First Gulf War, and he’d gotten injured while he was overseas and honorably discharged soon after. Now, he was in his fifties. There was grace to aging for most people, but in Peter it had left nothing but scars, wrinkles, and bitterness. Peter had an attitude problem, and he disliked Brandt almost as much as Brandt disliked him. Brandt wasn’t sure exactly where or when the animosity had started or what had caused it to start. He’d always assumed it had to do with Peter not liking to take orders from someone younger and—to his perception—more inexperienced. But now was the time to set aside their mutual animosity and work together.
The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege Page 13