She sat down.
Max chuckled and turned to Ryan. "Guess your mom's not such a fighter after all." He returned to the driver's seat and gave Herman a scratch on the head. "Let's get back to sight-seeing, buddy." The dog smiled and laid back down.
Ryan's mom pulled him in close. He knew what she was thinking- this Max guy was dangerous. Either they had to get away from him, or he had to go.
For the moment, Ryan was just happy to be safe.
Will gripped the bundle between his hands. Stan reminded him he would have to be quick about it. There was no room for error here- he had about a ten second window, and anything past that involved them dying in some way, including but not limited to having their faces eaten.
"No pressure," he added.
"Just open the damn door," Will replied.
With a turn of the key, Stan activated the electrical box. He started the door and it began its loud rise. The effect was immediate- the infected became agitated, stirring from their rest. They screeched as they scrambled down the side of the storage building and out from the trees.
They had five seconds left in their window. The door was only a few feet off the ground, but Will had to make it work. He palmed the ball, wound it up behind his back and launched it through the opening. As soon as it cleared the building, Stan reversed the door. The cloth ball hurtled through the air and landed in the snow about twenty feet out, bouncing once before coming to a stop.
The door closed a second before the infected reached it. Their angered cries, while blood-chilling, were a relief to hear.
"How long do we have," Will asked.
"Less than a minute."
"Then get ready."
They moved to the other side of the building, climbing past the piles of salt and sand, where their backpacks waited for them by the opposite door. Stan inserted the key. They put on their packs, waiting for the signal.
The alarm went off. A baby's cries filled the air.
The infected reacted exactly as planned. Their excited shrieks grew as they headed away from the storage building. Will pictured the bundle of cloth lying in the snow. It was such an effective image he felt a pang of guilt, as if he'd doomed a real baby.
Stan said, "Now?"
Will raised a finger, quieting his brother. In the other he gripped the Glock. He waited until he heard the monsters fighting over the bundle.
"Now."
Stan activated the door. He stopped it after a few feet and they squeezed underneath, out into the brisk, morning air.
There were no infected in sight. They were still on the other side of the building, fighting over the crying package. Will had to admit, Stan's plan was a good one.
It might just have saved their lives.
Will and Stan snuck away from the storage building and into the woods. From what they'd been able to figure out, they were about a half mile from the cabin. If they hustled they could make the trip in about twenty minutes. They traveled in silence for a while.
"You had to pick the most remote cabin, didn't you," Will asked.
"Just to remind you, everything we've gone through in the last day happened because you didn't listen to me about staying put."
Will shot his brother a look. "That's a can of worms you don't want to open." They were nearly there now. Just a few more minutes.
"Are you still blaming me for all of this? I didn't create this mess. I didn't release it on the public and then lie and cover it up."
"You could have come forward with the information you had."
Stan scoffed. "Let me explain something to you, since you're still not getting it- if I had tried to go public with this, you never would have known about it. They would have shut it down and made me disappear before you or anyone else heard a single word."
"That's not true."
"It is true, Will. It is. It's happened before, and it'll happen again. You can't be so thick that-"
A snarl came from somewhere far behind them. The men fell silent. A snapping of teeth followed. It sounded like a pack of hunting dogs, each one fighting to be first.
Will looked back at Stan. "They tracked us," he said.
They ran. The snow was uneven and difficult underfoot. Weighed down by their packs, they strained to move quickly between the trees and stay ahead of the hunters on their scent.
Stan stumbled over a clump of tree roots, but he kept running. Will glanced off a tree stump. The clearing was just ahead. The creatures gained on them with every step.
They ran out into the open. The cabin was just ahead, the van beside it. As they closed the distance, the infected broke free of the tree line behind them. It was the second time Will was running for his life toward that same, damn cabin.
Will looked over his shoulder. Stan had fallen behind. Three infected had followed them through the woods, and they were coming up fast, their yellow eyes ablaze. Their tongues rolled in their sucker mouths as their hands and feet pounded the snow.
Will aimed the Glock at Stan. It would be so easy to end his troubles right there. One shot and he could shake the infected, leave them the meal they wanted while he got away. Back to the family that needed him.
Stan stared back at him, his eyes full of fear, the infected coming up behind him.
-19-
The D.C. Armory was a ten-thousand seat stadium topped by a huge, curved ceiling with suspended lights. Originally built as an armory during World War Two, now it was mostly used to hold concerts and sporting events.
Tanya and Ryan sat in the stands. On the open court below, the group was collecting all their things in one place. Others were fanning out to look around. "Remember we went to a roller derby match here," she asked Ryan.
"I remember."
"That was fun. I think you enjoyed it."
"It's a bunch of girls in shorts pushing each other around, what's not to like?"
She shook her head at him. "You're growing up way too fast on me."
Max was in his element on the court below, ordering people around with Herman at his feet. It wouldn't be long before he assigned Tanya and Ryan some task to complete. Considering they were being kept safe by these people- and they still didn't have their guns back- it would be hard to refuse any requests Max made. She appreciated what he'd done for them, saving her and Ryan from certain death in front of Donegan's shop, but it didn't mean she had to like him.
Angry voices rose up from the court, quickly turning to shouts. An argument had broken out between two men. The men, one much taller than the other, started shoving each other as others shouted for them to stop. Tanya squeezed Ryan's hand to let him know he was safe.
A few others including Max closed in on the two, pulling them apart. After a bit more arguing, the tall guy took a swing at Max. Max ordered him to be taken out of the room. Things calmed down after that, but a while later the guy still hadn't come back.
Tanya was starting to worry about how Max was running the show. She stood up from her seat and walked down the steps, crossing the open floor to approach him.
"Where did you take him," she asked.
Max turned to see who was addressing him. "Who?"
"You know who."
"I sent him to search the armory. He needed to cool down."
"Sure."
He looked her up and down, then glanced up at Ryan in the seats. "What are you two doing?"
"Waiting."
"Sitting on your asses, you mean. There are no favorites here, everyone has to pull their weight."
Tanya put her hands on her hips. "I have no problem with that."
"Good. You can start by clearing out the bodies." He pointed to a small group by one of the side entrances who were putting on gloves and surgical masks. Tanya's expression wavered. She looked down at Herman, who licked his lips at her. "Is there a problem," Max asked.
"No problem."
He grinned. "Don't forget to wipe your feet. This is our home now, I expect you to treat it that way."
Tanya waved for
Ryan to join her as she walked away from Max and Herman. "How did it go," Ryan asked.
"We're on body detail."
"So not very good."
They hooked up with the small cleanup crew and took two sets of gloves and masks before following them out into the hallway. They began dragging bodies and piling them by the exits to be dumped outside. Ryan was staring at the face of a young girl whose neck was covered in bites. He had the girl's feet while Tanya had her by the arms.
"You okay," she asked him.
"I'm pretending they're movie props."
"Don't. Don't do that."
He looked up at her, his concentration broken. "Why not?"
"If you pretend the dead don't matter, it's not long before you start doing the same with the living. These were people, not things."
They rounded the corner and headed toward the pile of bodies. "I know it's not easy, but you can't tune out to make things easier on yourself. Being numb isn't the same as being strong."
They laid the girl's body down next to the others. As Tanya looked around, she noticed a few of them looked relatively clean. No bites. No sucker mouths. No creepy, yellow eyes. She thought back to the gunfire when they'd arrived. They were told to wait in the bus while the others cleared out the armory. It took a while, but eventually the others reemerged and gave the signal to join them.
Max said there were no survivors inside, only infected. More and more, she had serious doubts about how honest he was being with them.
As they walked away from the pile of bodies, Tanya leaned in toward Ryan. "I don't like what's happening here. We have to get to the-"
"What are you two whispering about?" The black girl with the machine gun, who Tanya had learned went by CiCi, had come up behind them.
"I'm talking to my son. I'm still allowed to do that, aren't I?"
CiCi scowled at her. "Get back to work."
"Before there's two more bodies to clean up?"
"Something like that." CiCi smirked at her as she walked away.
Stanley's van weaved along the private road. The partially-melted tire tracks of Will's truck were still visible from the first trip back to town, mixed with occasional hand and footprints that had appeared since. The morning sun blanketed the snow, lending a peaceful glow to the scene.
Stanley looked down at the bandage wrapped around his arm. He winced as he thought back on the cabin, especially the part with Will aiming the gun at him. He'd seen the look in his brother's eyes, that look that told Stanley everything he needed to know.
His brother was capable of pulling that trigger. He knew things were bad between them, but in that moment the distance between them became clearer than ever.
Except Will didn't pull the trigger on him. Instead he'd shouted to duck and fired inches over his head as Stanley moved out of the way. A scream came. Stanley didn't look, but he felt a weight land on his back and then the snow on his face as he hit the ground.
A terrible pain shot up his arm. Stanley knew in that moment, knew with certainty, that he was dead. More gunshots. Will pulled him to his feet, but Stanley knew he was already dead.
One of the infected on the ground was dead, the other bleeding but alive. Will cursed as another came at them from the trees. More of them had tracked Will and Stanley through the woods.
Will was shouting in his ear and then they were running, running, out of breath, running toward the cabin. They got to the van, a miracle itself. In a daze, Stanley used the keys to open the driver's side door. Stanley jumped in first, then Will pushed him in and took the driver's seat. He closed the door as the two other infected ran at them. Will said something about having to leave the rest of the supplies in the cabin, but Stanley already knew that. He didn't care about that right then. Looking down at his arm, he didn't care much about anything.
It was nothing more than a scratch. He wasn't dead.
After they'd driven out of there, and Stanley patched up his arm with the first aid kit, they headed back to town. Will drove carefully around his overturned truck and the delivery truck that had it pinned. Both the driver and the infected were gone.
He continued through town until they came to the small creek bridge where the group of infected had been attacking the snow plow. The plow was still in the same spot, but the infected were no longer there.
As Will slowly pulled up next to the snow plow, they saw the side window had been shattered in. There was no need to get out and check on the plow driver, they could see the bloody mess inside the truck just fine from where they were. Bits of sticky flesh were stuck to the windshield, and what looked like a foot was resting on the dashboard.
"If they can get into a truck like that, we might need a tank to get you home," Stanley remarked.
"We'll have to settle for being smart."
There was a flash of motion from under the bridge, then another under the snow plow. The infected started to come out of the woodwork like cockroaches with the lights turned off.
"Smart like not falling for traps?"
"Yeah. Exactly like that." Will put the van into drive and stepped on the gas. The infected converged on the van. One of them leapt and hit the side as the van fishtailed. Will regained control and they sped away, the cluster of hungry infected running after them.
A banging echoed from the back of the van. One of them had managed to cling to it with its mutated hairs. "We need to take care of that," Will said, taking a sharp turn at speed.
Stanley checked the side view mirror. The others hadn't fallen far behind. Their speed was incredible to see, but it meant they couldn't slow down to deal with the thing working its way along the roof to the front of the van.
Will took another turn onto a country highway. They'd gotten a little distance from the town, and though they couldn't see the infected following them, they knew the monsters couldn't be far behind.
The infected on the roof reached the front. It was over their heads now, scratching and clawing at the metal. The sound made Stanley's spine shiver. Will swerved, trying to shake it, but the creature held on.
It crawled over the edge and looked at them through the windshield. It was a woman, or it used to be. She was naked and covered in rotting bite-marks. She bashed the windshield with her fist, trying to break the glass. Will tried to shake her loose again. She struck the glass a second time, a hairline crack forming near the top.
"That's it, hold on," Will said.
She raised both fists, ready to smash them down on the glass. Will stomped on the brake pedal. The van's tires screeched on pavement as they stopped suddenly. The infected woman launched off the van's roof. She tumbled down the street, a bloody ragdoll rolling in a jumble of limbs before she came to a stop.
She started to stir. Will floored it again, aiming directly at her. Her head bounced off the bumper. The vehicle jumped and jostled over her body and she let out a final scream before being silenced completely.
Will and Stanley were finally on the road.
-20-
April 24th, 2015
Day 7
Calvin had been hiding in the hospital for four days. Maybe it was five, he wasn't sure. He was starting to lose track of time. The days and nights blended together without the sun, and the battery on his useless phone had gone dead long ago.
However many days it was, it had been quite the ride. He'd spent that first day hiding in the bathroom, a mop pushed through the door handle, wedged between the wall and the closest sink. It wouldn't have done much if those creatures tried to get in, but it was all he had.
For the first time in his life, he prayed.
Minutes became hours as he drank from the faucet and pissed in the urinals without flushing. Meanwhile, people young and old ran through the halls, slamming into the walls, shouting, trying to help each other as Calvin hid in the furthest toilet stall. The monsters out there, the ones that let out those high-pitched shrieks that sent him into a panic, overtook the hospital like a fire to dry leaves. At first there was more sho
uting than shrieking. Then there was more shrieking than shouting. Then the shouting stopped altogether.
On the second day, he woke up to the sound of planes flying over the city. His initial excitement turned to horror as the first explosion hit. Bombs fell on Chicago. Calvin crouched under one of the sinks with his hands over his head and his feet tucked under him.
When the first bomb hit the hospital, it was the single loudest sound he'd ever heard, the kind of noise that shook his bowels and turned his thoughts to jelly. The floor rumbled under his feet until he thought it would tear open and suck him down. It sounded like he was inside an avalanche, shifting metal and stone mixed with inhuman screams. He pulled his head down, squeezed his eyes shut, and prayed for the second time.
He lived, but the building was no longer secure. He could hear it groaning whenever a strong wind picked up. It threatened to come down on his head at any moment. Still, he would rather take his chances in a compromised structure than out on the streets, where death was certain.
When the hunger became too much, he ventured out into the building. He wolfed down half-eaten hospital food left on bed trays until they no longer looked safe to eat. Then he went searching for more. He eventually learned that half of the hospital had been taken down in the bombings. That he had survived it at all told him his prayers had been answered.
The cafeteria had been on the side of the building that was rubble now. He came across a food storage room, but the door was locked and he couldn't find the key.
There was one more wing still standing that might have some food left: the maternity ward. At this point he would settle for baby formula if it kept him alive. Besides, he hadn't heard one of those infected things in a day, maybe more, plenty of time for all of them to wander off and find easier food. If he was starving after hiding this long, those beasts running around had to be ravenous.
He only half-believed the logic, but his growling stomach wouldn't let him turn back.
Calvin snuck through the darkened ward on tip-toes. The lights had long gone out, leaving only the yellow glow of emergency bulbs. He struggled to see very far ahead of him. He kept his eyes and ears attuned for the tiniest of sounds. After passing a few empty incubators, the sight of which always made him uncomfortable, he searched the front desk for stashed food. Behind one of the monitors he found some mints, which were unfortunately sugar-free, but he pocketed them anyway. In a drawer he found a bag of jellybeans left over from Easter. He practically inhaled them. They were the sweetest things he'd ever tasted, and he felt his energy spike instantly from the needed sugar.
Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds): Extinction [Isolation] Page 14