The soldiers were infected. Every one of them.
"Come on," Dietrich shouted, but Harmel was in a trance. He watched the wave of terrified citizens wash past him. Infected soldiers ran on all fours, taking people down and making quick, bloody work of them.
There was a sharp pull on his arm. He wrenched his hand away, turning to find a soldier looking up at him.
"We have to move," the young man said. It wasn't one of the infected ones, it was the other soldier he'd come here with, the one whose name he didn't know.
Harmel nodded. "Okay," he said. With a hand from the soldier he jumped down to the street.
The three men ran back toward the west shore of the river, weaving between the cars. The snarls and screams of the first infected started to creep up on their tail. Dietrich and the other soldier fired their sidearms as they ran. A body hit the street. People were screaming. Jumping off the bridge. Trying to get back into their cars. No matter what he heard, Harmel didn't dare look back.
There was something in the sky, some movement over the Lincoln Memorial. A cluster of jets flew low over the city. At first they flew in formation, but then they broke off. As the men watched, small objects began falling off the jets in long, dark streams.
The bombing had started.
Explosions rocked D.C., flashes of light followed by orange and black fireballs rising up into the sky. One of the jets hadn't dropped its payload yet and was flying directly toward them. It would reach them in no time.
Harmel stopped running. The two soldiers stopped as well, firing and killing one of the infected that had broken through the dying crowd. The bronze statues they'd passed through minutes before caught his eye.
Valor and sacrifice.
His staff. His friends. Any of them who hadn't left had to be dead by now. "Jesus," Senator Harmel whispered. He turned to the second soldier and looked at his name badge. "Smith."
The young man looked confused. "Yes, sir."
"What's your first name?"
"Louis."
"Tell me they really sent a car for my family, Louis. Tell me my wife and daughters made it out."
Smith lowered his weapon. "I can't do that, sir."
"God damn you, Louis. God damn every one of us."
The jet hesitated a moment before dropping its payload just clear of the Lincoln Memorial. A line of bombs rocked the ground under their feet, making its way toward the bridge.
Dietrich and Smith ran, taking their chances with the crowd of infected brothers and sisters-in-arms. Harmel watched as the bombs reached the bridge, preferring to see death come for him.
Until the cars ahead began exploding with drivers and passengers still trapped inside. Then he ran.
The bridge rocked under his feet as his shoes pounded the pavement. People were fleeing the city in every possible direction. There were even boats on the water, people paddling, others swimming. Dietrich and Smith were already far ahead, pushing through the crowd of panicking citizens. The only thing that waited for them ahead was more infected, more death, more pain. The senator's eardrums must have shattered because he couldn't hear the explosions and the screaming anymore.
Suddenly he felt weightless. The bridge crumbled and disappeared all around him as the Potomac River rushed up to meet him.
-14-
After killing the hunter, Will had tried to call the cops one more time. The call failed. Then the two of them walked over to Will's truck and got the hell out of there.
The hunter's rifle was in the back seat, along with Stanley's backpack. Stanley was glad his brother had decided to keep the gun. He had a feeling they would need it.
Will concentrated on the unplowed road. He hadn't said a word since the cabin. "Are you still embarrassed you threw up," Stanley asked.
"I'm not embarrassed."
"It's okay if you are. I won't tell anyone."
Will threw him a pissed-off look. "The day I'm comfortable with killing a man is one I don't want to see. Believe me when I tell you, I'm not embarrassed."
"He wasn't a man if it makes you feel better. I mean, how did he get up on the roof like that?"
"He had to have climbed up."
"That quietly? Come on, we would have heard him. He got onto that roof like it was nothing, with no sound at all. Whatever it was that let him do that, it wasn't the Ebola."
Will was quiet. Stanley could tell it bothered him, too. His brother just wanted to put this whole chapter behind him and get back to his nice, simple life. Stanley only wished it was that simple. Whatever was happening out there, he knew the cabin was just the start of it.
The world was about to get a whole lot uglier.
"Listen," he said, "I don't think we should go back to town. If some hunter out in the woods was infected, I have to think the town is infected. I mean it stands to reason."
"We're not hiding out in your little Unabomber cabin until someone tells us we can come out. We have to hand that gun over to the police, file a report, and then I'm bringing you back to D.C. so you can serve your time."
Stanley nodded. "Be careful, Will, that Unabomber bit was almost a joke. It wasn't funny or anything, but it's nice to see you try."
"You're the joke," Will said as he finally turned off the private road and onto the one that led to town.
"Wow. Thank you."
"I'm serious, when are you going to grow up? You've been doing this computer crap for how many years? Put it to good use. Become a programmer. Build something instead of tearing things down. It doesn't matter what it is, just get a damn job like the rest of us."
They were getting close to town now, the final turn just a minute away. "I'm not having this conversation with you," Stanley said,
"Why not?"
He turned in his seat, his face hot with anger. "Because if you think designing mobile games or some other bullshit is a better use of my skills than trying to prevent the end of the world, I have nothing to say to you."
"The end of the world," Will scoffed. "You conspiracy freaks. Every six months it's the end of the world. I'm curious if you really believe that or if it's just another way to avoid responsibility."
"You know what? Pull over. Let me show you what I found."
"Absolutely not."
"Why, because you're afraid I'm right?"
"Because first of all, I'm in charge here, not you, so you don't get to tell me to pull over. And second of all, I don't care what you think you found, it's not the end...of...the..." Will trailed off as he let off the gas. Stanley turned to see what he was looking at.
The town. It was tearing itself apart.
Ryan had watched so many videos of explosions, from demolition crews to gas station accidents to drone footage in third world countries. It wasn't the death he liked, it was the destruction. He liked fireballs and shockwaves. They were the best special effects, the practical kind made with real physics and fire.
This was nothing like that.
The bombings had lasted for more than an hour, though it felt like much longer. Each blast vibrated his fillings and made his eyes feel like they were loose in his skull. The basement walls shook each time a new explosion came. Dust shook loose from the pipes over their heads and fell down on them, making them cough and choke.
In real life, where they could actually kill you, explosions were terrifying.
"What if they hit the house," Ryan asked.
His mom rubbed his arm. "They won't."
"But some of them seem really close."
"I think they're more concentrated on the middle of the city," she said. His mom wasn't the kind to hide things from him, to shield him from reality the way some parents did. She was always honest with him, even when he wished she wasn't. When their cat died, she didn't tell him he'd gone to a farm like parents do to most five-year-olds. She told him the truth, explaining it was a part of life. She was brutally honest, even when it hurt.
So the fact that she was lying to him now, about this, scared him even more.
"What is it," Ryan asked, already wishing she would move away from the window.
She looked back at him, a glow lighting the side of her face, and said, "Fire."
The town was in chaos.
Men and women with blood-streaked faces dotted the main strip. They galloped on all fours, leaping on the terrified citizens of the small town before tearing them open with sharpened teeth. One man was trying to put out a small fire with an extinguisher. Just as he did, a pale woman jumped on him and opened up his neck.
Will stared at the monsters that had overrun the streets. When he'd rolled into town less than twelve hours ago, looking for his brother, he'd found a peaceful place blanketed in pure snow. A town that liked to drink and gossip. Smalltown, USA. He marveled at how quickly it had become a dirty, bloody, screaming place crawling with people just as crazed and disfigured as the man who had attacked him in the woods. They were savage things. Hungry.
Infected.
"I usually like being right," Stan said softly.
A brown delivery truck surged into the street from between two stores, driving in reverse. The driver hit the gas, and its tires squealed and slid on the snowy road. They could see why- an infected man was clinging to the driver's-side door, trying to claw its way inside.
The truck was heading right for them.
"Uh, Will," Stan said.
"I know." Will popped the truck into drive as the back of the much larger vehicle bore down on them.
"Will."
He gave it gas, but the tires spun in place from the sheet of ice that covered the road. They went nowhere.
"Will!"
The delivery truck smashed into their side. Both of them became rag dolls inside the truck's cabin. The impact was strong enough to flip the vehicle onto its side and push it along the slick road, metal scraping in their ears until a telephone pole stopped their noisy slide.
They were pinned sideways, both men in a pile against the driver's side door, which was now against the ground. As Will tried to pick himself up in the cramped space, he found his left hand was bleeding badly. A shard of glass had wedged into the center of his palm. The pain didn't hit until he pulled the glass out and tossed it aside.
"You alright?" He called out to Stan. His younger brother was lying on the floor of the truck, jammed shoulder-first against the pedals. Not moving.
"Stan?" A moment of panic hit him. Turning his brother over to the police was one thing. Losing him was something entirely different. He thought of how he would have to break this to his family, especially Ryan. But then:
"Shit, that hurt."
Stan rolled over painfully, revealing a scraped-up forehead. "I think I broke my finger," he moaned.
"Next time wear your seatbelt," Will said. He stood up and kicked at a crack in the windshield until it gave out. The whole thing spilled onto the street. He helped his brother through, then crawled out himself.
They'd been lucky the truck hadn't caught fire, but there was still a chance it could go. All it took was the tiniest spark. Will scanned for a safe place as he pulled his brother away from the truck.
"My pack," Stan cried, pointing inside the truck's cab. The hunter's rifle was in there, too, but there was no time to grab it.
"Leave it," Will said quietly.
"You don't understand, the-"
"Leave it," Will cut him off. "And keep your voice down." He nodded to the delivery truck. Its front end was still jammed up against Will's truck, wedging it against the telephone pole. It had taken a lot less damage than Will's truck except for one, glaring difference.
The driver was being eaten.
The infected man who'd been clinging to the door was devouring the man behind the wheel. Streaks of blood ran down the windshield. Stan stopped complaining about his backpack. They took off before the infected man noticed them.
The town's main strip was alive with fighting and shouting. A teenage kid was being dragged inside the bar Will had visited the night before. A pony-tailed guy in a flannel coat fired a shotgun wildly into a crowd, even though not all of them looked infected from a distance. It was hard to tell friends from enemies.
All that gunfire was attracting a lot of attention. Half a dozen infected converged on him, licking their bloody lips. Will and Stan used the distraction to sneak across the street, down the sidewalk and into an open store.
Stan quietly locked the door behind them, though neither of them knew if it would help. The store was only half-lit. It was a typical, small town hardware store, four aisles of tools and supplies; cords, wire, switches, gaskets, faucets, aerators, planting pots, hoses, soil, seeds. A paint section took up the far left wall. Fishing rods on the right.
More importantly, there was someone in the store. Whoever it was couldn't be seen, but their presence was given away by the convulsing and choking sounds coming from behind the old, wooden counter.
Will grabbed the most solid hammer he could find off the shelf and snuck toward the counter, crouched out of sight while Stan stayed back. As he came around the counter, the smell hit him first, a sour combination of bile, blood and piss, followed by the sight of the man bent over in his own pool of sick. His white hair was falling out by the handful, his old, wrinkled skin gone nearly see-through. He sniffed at the air, picking up the smell of new blood.
The white-haired man turned and blinked his new eyes at Will.
With no time for hesitation, Will rushed forward and attacked. The hammer came down on the top of his head. Thud. Once. Thud. Twice. Thud. Three times.
Crack. The man's head opened up as he fell to the floor. Will stepped back from the growing puddle of blood and looked down at the hammer. It still had the price hanging from its handle.
Dead Blow Hammer, the tag read.
He expected to get sick again, but his stomach felt fine, his nerves only faintly buzzing. He was half-relieved, half-saddened to realize he was already slightly more used to killing. He looked back at his brother, who was keeping his distance.
"Get away from the windows," Will ordered. Stan stepped away from the front without complaint.
The store was a treasure trove of weapons and tools that could very well save their lives, and both men knew it. They also knew that it painted a big, red target on their hiding place for anyone else who knew it.
They did a quick search of the store. Stan found the door to a small office they decided would be a good place to lay low in for a while, at least until things quieted down outside. They gathered some food and drinks from the store's small food display by the counter, went into the back office and closed the door.
Will found the store's electrical panel and switched off all the lights. There was a desk in one corner, with a dusty, old computer.
"This is what I was trying to warn people about," Stanley said, peering out a crack in the blinds.
"There's no way you could know this would happen."
Stan ducked down as a shadow passed by. Not so soon. Not like this. But it's been a long time coming. No one is safe so long as the government is allowed to operate in the dark, with zero repercussions."
"Just stop it. There is no secret military bioweapon. This is that Zaire Ebola everyone's been talking about."
"Don't be so fucking naive. Does what you see out there look like Ebola? Their faces? The way they run? They're fucking eating people, Will!"
"Viruses change all the time."
"Sure, it's called mutating, but this is a lot more than that. I'm not dreaming this up. I have proof."
"I know what you're doing."
"What am I doing?"
"Whatever you think you found, it's not real." Will scoffed. "The military didn't release a weapon on its own soil. They wouldn't do that."
Stan stared at him. "September, 1950. The U
.S. Army is deployed to San Francisco. For eight days, they release clouds of two different pathogens in thirty minute intervals. They do this to study the viability of attacking a seaport city during war. A man named Edward Nevin contracts an infection. He dies."
"That's terrible, but-"
"Ten more patients are admitted with bacterial infections over the next six months. They all recover, but no one learns the truth about the testing for twenty-five years, and only then because of the efforts of a reporter named Drew Fetherston."
"That was sixty-five years ago. People have changed since then."
"Have they? Or are we the same, scared monkeys we've always been? Technology moves fast. Evolution doesn't."
"I'm not saying the government doesn't make mistakes, but they exist to protect us."
Stan laughed. "Take a look outside, tell me how that's working out."
Will was silent. He had no answer.
"They're the worst kind of evil, Will, the kind that believes it's good. Just do me a favor- don't let yourself become one of them."
The fire was getting close. It was spreading from house to house, carried by the wind and working its way up the block with frightening efficiency. Tanya knew the painful truth- they had to abandon their home.
If they acted now, they might be able to save a few things. Credit cards. Birth certificates. The wedding album. Ryan's baby pictures. Each second they waited, another would be lost.
"Alright, we have to go," she told Ryan from the bottom of the basement stairs.
"But those things are still out there."
"I know, baby, but that fire's coming our way. We can't trap ourselves down here if the house-" She stopped herself. Ryan looked back at her with big, scared eyes that reminded her that, despite his smarts and his love of horror, he was still just a kid. "I know you're scared. I'm scared, too. We just need to make it to the car and we'll be okay."
He nodded and joined her at the stairs. She ran her hand through his hair and they walked up together.
Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds): Extinction [Isolation] Page 10