Will used the creature's weight against it and got on top. He tried to hold its flailing arms down as he reached for the hunting knife, but it was too strong to restrain. It gnashed and bit at him as he barely held on.
Teeth tore his sleeve open. He checked- they didn't hit skin.
Will felt the old anger explode inside him. The idea that this monster would try to stop him so close to his family was like an atomic bomb at the back of his brain.
He pulled the knife from his belt and plunged it into the creature's throat. Then he pulled the blade from the gurgling blood and buried it in its heart.
The creature screeched in agony. Will pulled the blade out and stabbed it again and again, nearly going blind with rage. The blade punctured flesh and muscle repeatedly, the creature screaming and thrashing under him. Will pulled the knife out once more. The infected sat up, trying one last time to fight back.
"Just fucking try it," Will growled in its face.
The creature kicked and shook, blood oozing from its disgusting mouth, then it went limp.
Will's heart was racing, his lungs sucking down giant gulps of air. He slowed his breath down. Inhale. Exhale. He felt his heart rate start to come down. Then he stood up and looked around for his gun.
It wasn't where he thought it would be. In fact, it didn't seem to be anywhere on the ground around him.
He stiffened as a thought occurred to him.
Will turned to face Stan. His brother was bent down over the Glock. As Will watched, Stan stood and raised the gun at him.
-24-
Of course, Tanya and Ryan hadn't spent the entire week sitting on their asses. Using everything they could scavenge from the Conservatory, they had prepared for the inevitable. They'd made weapons from sharpening fence posts and placed them around the building, so they would never be caught unarmed.
They grabbed two and ran as a window shattered overhead, an infected tumbling down through the canopy of trees.
Then another window.
And another.
The infected were pouring in. Tanya and Ryan ran toward the Garden Court exit, but they were headed off by one of the creatures falling from up high. It hit the ground hard, briefly dazed from the impact. Ryan surprised her by smashing it across the face with his weapon, snapping the post in half and knocking the creature out.
"Wow," she said, impressed.
A second creature appeared behind them.
"The desert," Ryan said. They jumped off the visitor's path to cut across the dirt.
The creature followed them through the thicket. They cut around one of the larger tropical trees and ducked as they went around. The infected behind them was so blood-crazed it didn't see the rope they'd tied there until it was knocked on its back, but by then Tanya was already driving her spear into its chest.
At least three more infected were screaming and slashing through the vegetation. The sound of planes overhead was much louder now, as if they were flying directly above the building. Tanya and Ryan couldn't concern themselves with that at the moment. They could only pray it wasn't carrying bombs.
The sliding glass doors to the World Desert room were open, just as they'd left them. They ran up the stony path, through the maze of cacti and desert plants until they veered off to the side. Cactus needles pricked at them and tiny hairs stuck to their bare arms, but they reached the floor drainage near the wall. It was propped open with a large planter.
"You first," Tanya said. Ryan crawled down into the dried-up drainage area. She pulled the planter free and let the grate close before he could stop her.
"What are you doing," he asked her through the grate.
"You do whatever you have to, alright? I don't care what it is, you stay alive." She was starting to tear up again. Somewhere behind her, the infected were sniffing and scratching, following her scent. She had to lead them away, or they would never stop.
Ryan knew better than to argue, so he simply nodded. He looked so much like his father when he tried to be brave. "I love you," she said, grabbing a new spear before running off.
There were so many emotions running through her head, but she had to shut them all out and lead the infected away from the desert. She ran back into the jungle, noting how a strange mist was hitting the glass on the dome above.
She thought of the planes that could still be heard over the city. Had the higher-ups given up on D.C. and dropped Agent Orange or some other, terrible poison on them? The air was so dry inside the normally humid greenhouse that the mist was being drawn in through all the broken windows, filtering down into the jungle around her.
If it was poison they were dropping, these were her last seconds alive. She would spend them hoping beyond hope that the poison wouldn't reach Ryan where he hid.
A female infected jumped out from the trees at her. Tanya struck it in the face, then again, this time harder. The creature surprised her by falling to the ground and rolling over in the dirt. More infected started to emerge from the jungle. They surrounded her, three, four of them with hunger in their yellow eyes.
If she was going down, she was doing it fighting. She stood over the infected she'd knocked down, ready to finish it off with a final blow. She would start with that one and then kill as many more as she could. Every one she took out was one less Ryan would have to deal with.
The female infected at Tanya's feet thrashed in the dirt, making an odd sound with its throat. It took a second for Tanya to understand that it was choking. She was confused- had she hit it so hard she'd given it a seizure?
The others started in. All five infected start to convulse, dropping to their knees and onto their sides. Blood hemorrhaged from their mouths and eyes, erupting like red fountains from their choking throats. Yet she was fine. As she took another breath, the infected around her were taking their last.
What on Earth was happening?
Tanya looked up at the layer of mist that coated the Conservatory's dome. The airplanes. They hadn't dropped Agent Orange- they'd dropped a cure.
"Holy crap," she said, a smile taking over her face. She let the spear fall from her hand as she walked over to one of the infected and looked down at it. Its yellow eyes stared off into nothing- dead. For the first time in more than a week, she felt hopeful about the future. She could take Ryan out of that drainage he was hiding in, and they could simply walk out of there.
They were free.
She took a minute to compose herself. All the running had taken so much from her, she didn't want to pass out before she could get back to Ryan. When she was confident she could make the walk, she started to head back.
A growl came from behind her. Impossible. She turned to see what it could possibly be now that the infected were all dead.
Not all of them. The infected Ryan had knocked out had gotten back up. It stood five feet from her, somehow looking healthier than it had before. It licked its horrible lips, ready to pounce.
Tanya had dropped her weapon. It was too far to reach. After all this, after coming so close, this was the end of her.
A gunshot rang out, echoing in the Conservatory's high ceiling. Tanya winced. The impossibly alive infected before her froze, then fell to the dirt.
Tanya turned to see who it was that had saved her. Standing in front of her, gun in hand, was Will.
Stanley held the grate open as Will and Tanya pulled Ryan out of the ground. Ryan's confused expression when Stanley had appeared above him a minute ago was almost too scared to be funny. Almost. But the look on Ryan's face when Will stepped into view, when he saw his father alive and well and coming to rescue him, that was something else.
It was a look he wished he deserved.
As he stood back, watching the three of them hug each other, he never felt more alone. The family had fought tooth and claw- literally- to get back to each other. There they were, a unit, stronger together, and here Stanley was, by himself. Regardless of the blood in his veins, he just wasn't a part of them.
He felt a little
better about himself with the thought that Will was standing there at least in part because of him. On the way to the Botanic Garden, after Will had stabbed the infected, he'd been too busy looking for his fallen gun to notice the other infected coming up behind him.
Stanley had picked up the gun, aimed past his brother and fired. He hit his target right in the chest, dead center of the heart, and the creature fell to the street at Will's feet.
It was the first time Stanley had ever fired a gun, and he'd hit his target. At this point he had a one hundred percent accuracy rate. He could retire with a perfect score.
By the look on Will's face, Stanley knew what his brother had thought when he'd picked up the gun. But once Will realized the truth of what had just happened, when he saw the infected with a bullet hole where its heart should be, he cleaned the blood off the hunting knife and handed it to Stanley. It was a sign of trust, the first Will had shown him in years.
Now Will was with his family again. He pulled himself away from them and cleared his throat. "There's been too much noise, we need to get moving," he said, clearly saddened to cut the moment short.
"What's going on outside," Tanya asked. "Was it the airplanes we saw? Are all those things dying?"
"Not all of them," Stanley said.
"It's a good start," Will added.
"That I can agree with."
As they walked out of the desert and toward the exit, Stanley nudged Ryan. "Did you see what happened when that stuff hit?" Ryan shook his head. "Man, you missed the blood. It was coming out of every hole." He mimed blood gushing from his eyes, his ears, his ass, and Ryan snorted.
"Stan," Will complained.
"Relax. It's nothing he hasn't seen." He shrugged at Ryan.
"Stanley," Tanya added more forcefully, drawing his attention.
An infected stood in front of them, hunched at the center of the path.
Why it hadn't attacked yet Will didn't know, but he knew the moment wouldn't last. Scratching at its own skin, the infected made a sick sucking noise with its puckered lips. Will tried to go for the Glock in his belt slowly enough to not alert it before it struck.
Too late. It screamed and ran at them, sending everyone scattering. Tanya went one way, Ryan the other. Will pulled the Glock, popped the safety, aimed at the center of the infected and squeezed the trigger in less than a second, faster than he'd ever drawn a gun in his life.
It jammed.
The infected went left after Ryan and caught up to him in seconds. It jumped on him and took him down, digging its dirty claws into Ryan's back. Will watched in what seemed like slow motion as Ryan hit the ground. He heard Tanya scream. He heard himself scream, too.
Stan appeared on the creature's right. With no hesitation he launched himself at it, knocking it free of Ryan and into the foliage. Both he and the infected disappeared under the cover of thick plants.
A flurry of movement shook the leaves as Ryan scrambled to safety. Screams human and infected filled the earthy air. Then, they stopped.
After a few tense seconds, a face emerged. Two of them had tumbled into the man-made jungle, but only one walked back out.
"Shit, that hurt," Stanley said. He had a bloody hunting knife in one hand. With the other, he covered the massive chunk that had been taken out of his neck. Will rushed over to help him stop the bleeding.
"The first aid kit's in the van," Will said, "if we hurry we can get this closed up."
"I think you're putting too much faith in my first aid kit," Stanley said with a smile.
"What are you talking about? We have to try." Will pressed his hand harder against the hole, but it wouldn't stop bleeding. "We always try."
Stan looked him in the eye. "I know. But maybe just this time, you don't."
Will looked to Tanya. She looked back at him with heavy eyes. The same with Ryan. And the blood, the blood wouldn't stop flowing.
Two more infected survivors appeared in the dome's broken windows.
"You should get going," Stan said. He held his neck closed, putting himself between the infected and his family. He wiped the blood from the hunting knife on his sleeve.
"Stanley," Will said. His brother turned and met his look. His gaze softened a moment, then it refocused, becoming strong.
"What are you waiting for, you idiot? Get them out of here."
-25-
Marco had been on a roller coaster that would have made the devil himself throw up.
After he'd locked himself inside Washington's tomb, the crazed, axe-murdering looter had found him. He'd toyed with Marco a little while, taunting him to come out while scraping the axe blade along the metal bars. Marco tried repeatedly to tell him he didn't have the key, which only made the deranged man laugh. Then the man started chopping at the padlock with the axe, shouting, "I cannot tell a lie!"
On the eighth or ninth swing, the padlock broke. The deranged man laughed and pulled the lock free, letting it drop to the ground.
He was immediately killed by an infected.
All that noise had not only attracted the infected's attention, it had covered up its approach. It fed on the deranged man for a good few minutes before it noticed Marco.
Then it tried to get at him, too.
Luckily the deranged man hadn't opened the gate before he was killed, and the infected didn't know how to. Still, it had all the patience in the world. It would keep trying to get at Marco, and trying, and trying, until one of them dropped dead.
Which proved to be sooner than expected, when a series of airplanes passed overhead, releasing some kind of mist the way crop-dusters do. The infected convulsed and bled and screamed, and then it died.
When he was sure it wasn't getting up again, Marco pushed the gate open, shoving both bodies out of the way. He grabbed the axe from the deranged man's cold, dead hands and headed to the house.
Bodies seemed to be in every direction he looked. Some were human, some weren't, but all were dead. He headed inside the house as a faint shriek sounded through the woods.
As Marco stood in his new house, he knew another of life's simple truths- if he wanted to call a place home, he would have to protect it.
Huddled in the van together, Will, Tanya and Ryan took a minute to think back on all they'd been through to reach this moment. They thought of how lucky they'd been. What they'd lived through, the second chance they'd been given. It wasn't to be taken lightly.
Stanley's backpack caught Will's attention. He pulled it off the back seat and handed it to Ryan. "What's this," Ryan asked as he took it. His eyes were still red from crying, just like all of theirs.
"He would have wanted you to have it," Will said. Ryan simply nodded, hoisting the bag onto his lap. "You were right, by the way."
"About what?"
"About Stanley. He was a good guy."
"Not always," Ryan said, glancing at his mother. "But that's okay." She smiled back at him.
Will smiled, too. "You're right, not always. But when it counted." He looked at Tanya. "He just burned a little too bright."
Will walked to the front and sat in the driver's seat. Blood and bodies were spread out before them, dozens of oozing carcasses in the street. Puddles of red pooled and trailed to the sewer drains. More infected survivors howled and ran in the distance.
Tanya sat in the passenger seat. "So what do we do now," she asked. "This city has nothing for us anymore."
"We have to get away from here."
"But where do we go? It would have to be somewhere away from people. Somewhere isolated."
"There's a place up north, a bunker, but I don't know if I have it in me to make that drive again."
"What about south," Ryan asked. "There's a lot of woods down that way."
Will and Tanya looked at each other. "Mount Vernon is nice this time of year," Tanya said.
Will nodded. "Alright, then. South it is."
About the Author
Brian Martinez is a science fiction and horror writer known for his apocalyptic debut,
A Chemical Fire, as well as the serialized saga The Mountain and The City. His current project is the Dark Urban Fantasy series The Obscured, a multi-character, multi-world romp involving monsters old and new.
Martinez studied Film at Long Island University, where his short films played at the annual festivals. His works have appeared on screen and in print, as well as audiobook and podcast. He lives in New York with his wife and their pack of wild dogs.
Information about his and Max Boone's books can be found on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBrianMartinez/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bloodstreamcity/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bloodstreamcity
Website: www.bloodstreamcity.com
Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds): Extinction [Isolation] Page 18