The Redeemed
Page 5
“Ngh!” roared the Infected, gaping mouth leaking bloody saliva onto Kevin’s shirt.
Panic shot a bolt of adrenaline down his limbs. He worked his arm around into a grip on the man’s throat and forced him to the left, rolling onto his side. The Infected grabbed his wrist, squeezing.
Kevin let off a wail and bashed him in the temple with the handle of the .45, trying to get the creature to let go before the bones in his arm splintered. The fiend didn’t care much about the blow to the head; however, the hit distracted him into biting the gun instead of Kevin. Kevin thought about firing, but the angle sucked―he’d only put a hole in the man’s cheek and spray Infected blood all over the room. He jerked on his arm, crushing a tooth, pivoting the gun to put the barrel in line with brain stem.
The Infected’s eyes flared wider. With a desperate groan, he seized two fistfuls of Kevin’s shirt and hurled him to the side like a bowling ball into the arrangement of tables and chairs. He tucked fetal, guarding his head with his arms as he careened through dozens of steel legs.
When he stopped sliding, Kevin rolled onto his hands and knees and realized his right hand no longer had a gun in it. He looked up at the Infected crawling toward him. The once-man spat the .45 to the side, ignoring, or too far gone to comprehend its purpose as a weapon.
“Kevin!” yelled Tris.
“Infected!” shouted Kevin.
The man rushed forward. Kevin grabbed a table, pulling it down as a shield a second before the fiend slammed face-first into it. Fingers came around the edges, trying to grab him. Failing that, it tried to crush him. The creature’s superhuman strength shoved him across the floor until his back met the side of a booth seat. Behind him, Fitch and Neeley’s snoring reverberated in the private room.
For fuck’s sake. “Fitch!” Kevin thumped the door with his elbow twice.
Pressure pinning him to the wall ceased. Kevin didn’t have time to take a breath of relief before the Infected grabbed the edge of the table and yanked it to the side. For a second, with nothing between him and the Virus other than a torn shirt, time froze. Kevin shook off the paralysis of phobic panic and, emitting a keening howl, raised his legs to plant his boots in the thing’s chest as it leapt for him.
He shoved with both legs, launching the once-man over two tables. Kevin scrambled to his feet and pounded on the door behind him.
Tris ran naked into the room, katana in hand. “Kevin!”
The Infected leapt to its feet again and whirled at the nearer-sounding voice. It managed one loping step before her arms blurred into motion. Two swings in the span of one second severed its head and left the blade impaled to the hilt in its chest. Tris held the thrashing corpse steady with a two-handed grip on the sword until it ceased moving and fell limp to the rear.
A spray of dark blood painted her otherwise paper-white body. She held her arms slightly up, as if she’d stepped in something foul. “Where did he come from?”
Kevin couldn’t quite grasp the nuances of language yet, and gestured at the door with a ‘meep’ sound.
Sang hurried into the room carrying a shotgun. He glanced at Kevin, then Tris, and shook his head. “You two too rough. Wake up in middle of the night.” He blinked at her. “Too much blood. You hurt him.”
Tris pointed the katana at the dead man. “Infected.”
Sang paled. “Oh, no.”
“It’s fine.” She glanced down at herself. “I’m immune. Ugh, this is disgusting. At least I don’t have to burn my clothes this time.”
The door opened behind Kevin. The question Neeley almost asked stalled when he looked up and caught sight of Tris. A dumbstruck smile spread over his face.
“You two fuckers sleep too hard.” Kevin rasped.
“Sorry. What’d we miss?” Neeley kept staring at Tris.
“Infected.” Kevin stood and blocked the small man’s view. “It’s over. Go back to sleep.”
Tris speared the severed head with the sword and headed for the door. “I’ll clean this up.”
“Is that a risk?” asked Sang, gesturing at the mess.
“Yeah.” She grumbled. “At least he was kind enough to move all the tables out of the way first.”
Kevin’s legs, back, and butt throbbed. “That was me.” He smiled. “Figured I’d clear a nice spot out for a fight.”
She gave him a worried look. “How bad?”
“Just bruises.” He rubbed his leg, though his effort failed to conceal his shaking hands from her.
Tris took a step toward him, but hesitated. “Uhh.”
“Hug later. I’m fine. You’re covered in death sentence, hon.”
“Right. Can I get a couple pails of warm water, Sang?”
“Sure thing, Boss.” Sang rushed back to the kitchen.
“Uhh, we’ll be in here.” Neeley shut the door.
Kevin leaned against a table, allowing his body to tremble out the last bits of adrenaline. Tris went outside with the impaled head, and returned a few minutes later to collect the body. Thankfully, she didn’t use the katana to carry it out. This, of course, left a large trail of blood from the puddle where the man fell to the door. Kevin didn’t want to move even an inch closer to it. Screams filled his memory; the couple who’d taken him in as a boy searching for him after some Infected got into their little settlement.
Shaking, he bowed his head over his crossed arms and waited.
Tris hauled the dead man out to the highway and set the body on the pavement next to the head. She sliced off a large portion of his shirt where it remained clear of blood, and wiped herself down before cleaning the blade. Cheeks burning from embarrassment, she walked with deliberate purpose back to the building and padded to the kitchen. Sang glanced up at the creak of the door, and hurriedly looked away.
“Little while longer, Boss. Water’s still cooking.” He gestured at two metal buckets on electric burners.
“‘Kay.”
She backed out and headed for the smaller outbuilding behind the main roadhouse Kevin had set up as a garage. The Challenger lived there most of the time, though sometimes when a ‘gambler’ had an issue, he’d move it to work on someone else’s ride. Tris smiled at the indignation in his voice when he called a driver who couldn’t fix their own car a gambler. As if the very concept of a driver not bothering to learn how to fix their ride had insulted him, or he considered it the pinnacle of idiocy.
After snagging a small canister of ethanol, a glow plug tester, and a glow plug, she headed back out to the body. A gentle night breeze passed over her bare skin; the ethanol sloshed in time with her steps. Cold dirt and the occasional sharp rock underfoot kept her hustling. Once she made it to the highway, Tris poured fuel around the corpse, eyeing the road in both directions. Please don’t let anyone drive by and catch me out here naked. Satisfied the body had a liberal soaking of fuel, she poured a short trail off to a safe distance. After socketing the glow plug in the tester, she held it to the liquid and pushed the button. The trail erupted in blue flame, which raced back along the length of the trickle. In seconds, a bonfire raged on the highway.
Tris held the katana in the flames for a little while, perhaps longer than necessary to ensure any latent virus particles died. Despite the horribleness of a burning corpse, she stood close to the fire to ward off the chill of the night out in the vast open nothingness. Glancing at a sliver of reflection in the blade, she swallowed the dread that immunity might be another Enclave lie. She tilted the sword, moving the reflection down off her face to her blood-smeared chest. Something in the back of her mind welled up out of nowhere, bringing the assurance she had nothing to fear.
She leaned the point of the sword in the dirt and eyed the stars. Where’d that come from? Ugh why am I just standing here? Anyone looking at me would think I’m doing some kind of tribal ritual. Leaving the man to burn, she jogged back to the safety of the roadhouse. Kevin had passed out at a table with his head down. The want to cling to him battled with the worry the sticky residue all over h
er could kill him. She grumbled and sighed at the huge puddle of blood. Killing Infected was a pain in the ass when you had to clean up after it.
“Damn.” She sighed at herself, certain her cheeks had as much color as they could possibly get. Maybe everyone mistook her for an android because of her unusual skin tone? At least, unusual for out here. Most people in the Enclave had skin as white as copier paper. “Fuck it. I’d have to burn anything I wear.”
The storeroom upstairs contained a bundle of old curtains, likely removed during renovations not long before war broke out. The material flaked when she moved it, but offered the best (and most disposable) option to sop up the mess with.
An hour or so later, she dropped an armload of bloody cloth on top of the man’s ashes, added more ethanol, and lit another fire. Sang carried the buckets out and poured one after the other over her while she stood on the road, wiping herself down with her empty hands. Despite the heat in the water, within a minute, her teeth chattered from the nighttime wind. He’d been thoughtful enough to bring a blanket, which she eagerly wrapped herself in.
Back inside, she dribbled ethanol around the tile floor where the blood stained it, and lit it with the glow plug. A few of the tiles cracked from the heat, but at least she felt confident the virus was gone. With that done, she jostled Kevin to his feet, and carried him back to bed.
evin shot upright, fast enough to fling Tris aside. He stared at the pile of old cubicle wall panels stacked a few feet beyond the end of the bed. The vision of Infected Tris from his nightmare faded away. He drew his legs up and rested his forehead on his knees. A soft, warm hand slid across his back.
She leaned against his side. “Hey… you okay?”
He nodded, despite breathing hard. “Yeah. Freaky dream.” The scent of eggs and sausage got him to look up. “Last night… that really happened?”
“It did. I cleaned it up. Burned it out. It’s gone.”
“How…” He slid his legs off the mattress, feet on the floor, and rested his elbows on his knees. “What the fuck is an Infected doing here? We’re out in the middle of nowhere. They’re not supposed to be this far away from population centers.”
Tris shivered and drew the blanket tighter around herself. “Remind me not to go out into the desert at night while naked and wet again. I’m still freezing.”
“Mmm.” He raked his fingers up through his hair.
“There’s a van off in the scrub a little ways north of the road. Door was still open. He either had a ride or was still driving when the Virus destroyed his mental faculties.”
“I had a gun in his mouth.” Kevin’s head snapped up. Fuck. Where’s my Dad’s .45? “Where―”
She pointed at the desk by the door. “I got it. It’s okay.” She embraced him from behind and kissed his cheek.
Relief came over him. He guided her by a finger on the jaw into another, longer kiss. “One minute, he seemed to know what a gun was, the next he didn’t.”
“He couldn’t have been sick too long then.” She got out of bed, stretched, and reached for her jeans. “That’s actually a good thing. Most of the viral mass would’ve been in the CNS instead of the bloodstream. The first eight hours after the loss of higher brain function sees the lowest contagiousness in the blood…”
“So he wasn’t dangerous?” He palmed her ass, giving it a squeeze before she covered it.
“Oh, he was… just not as dangerous. Probably would’ve required getting five or six drops on your tongue instead of one.”
He froze with terror.
“Shit, I’m sorry.” She buttoned her jeans and stooped over to hug him. “I shouldn’t have said that. You’re phobic.”
“Anyone with any common sense is phobic.” He forced himself to stand and get dressed. “Whatever Sang’s doing down there smells amazing.”
“Yeah.” She wriggled in to a blue flannel shirt.
“Thanks.” He pulled her in to another squeeze. “For saving my ass yet again.”
She grinned. “Your shot woke me up.”
“Shit. Window.” He stepped into his boots, and grumbled all the way down to the main room. Nobody made windows anymore. He’d have to scavenge one from some other rest stop, leave a gaping hole, or do something. Tarp it is…
Athena perched at a table by an empty plate, a permanent scowl of impatience directed at the counter. As soon as their eyes met, she smiled. He gave her a ‘need a few minutes’ wave, and leaned his head through the hole to the kitchen.
“Morning.”
Sang waved without looking back. “You hungry, Boss?”
“Yep. That wonderful smell dragged my lazy ass out of bed.”
“Food order got here. Everything look good,” said Sang.
Athena approached the counter and leaned on her folded arms. “Okay, so I got your groceries. Can I have a real job now, Dad?”
Kevin chuckled. “Okay, but I’m going to ask you to run back to Carver’s on the way. I forgot to order flour.”
She sighed.
He waved her off. “Real job on the way.” Sixteen pages deep in the marble notebook, he poked his finger into a half-filled out line. “You know where Ween lives?”
“Oh for…” She grumbled. “That crazy old bastard on Heron Lake? That’s fuckin’ New Mexico.”
“You said you wanted a real job, right? One out of three real jobs is going to send you to Ween. Better get used to him.”
Athena tapped her fingers on the counter.
“Well, I understand if you can’t handle the run. That little car of yours doesn’t have much room to sleep in. Drivin’ between ’houses will add a day to the trip.”
“I can handle it,” yelled Athena. “Fine. What is it?”
“Standard Ween run. You’ll need to go to Spring Creek Nevada, which isn’t too far offa Route 80 west of here. You’ll be meeting a guy name ’o Geers… Daniel, I think. Anyway, he’ll give you ’leven hundred coins. Go to Ween, pick up his order of bullets. Give Ween 900 coins. Drive the ammo back to Spring Creek, then come here. Twenty coins come back to me, hundred n’ eighty are yours.”
Athena’s ice blue eyes shifted left and right. Annoyance, disappointment, anger flitted by in sequence. “That’s a lot of damn running around. Don’t you have any bounties or stuff sitting in the back for delivery?”
“I thought you wanted a ‘real’ job?” Kevin grinned. “What exactly did you think you were getting into anyway? All this life is, is driving O.P.S. around. Marauders can almost smell a load of ammo, or a sack of a thousand coins. Bet you’ll get your wish on that one.” He gestured at the hallway to the right of the counter. “I got a Kevlar-panel jacket in your size.”
“Gimme a job moving Opie S then.” She folded her arms.
“Heh.” He grinned. “I’m trying to. It means Other People’s Stuff. So, deal?”
“I don’t need armor. It’ll just slow me down.” She put her hands on her hips. “Okay fine. I’ll take the run. What did you want from Carver’s?”
“Flour. Twenty pounds if he’s got it. Whatever he’s got otherwise.”
“Okay. Whatever. What’s it pay?”
Kevin gave her a long stare. “That jacket. If you’ll wear it.”
Athena’s mouth hung open. “God dammit! I already have a father. I don’t need another one.”
Fitch and Neeley, seated at a table near the room they’d slept in, both laughed. Neeley leaned back a little farther to stare at her ass.
“Well…” Kevin smiled. “Okay, so I might feel a little guilty if you got yourself killed doing a job I gave you.” He pointed at her. “Before you scream at me that you’re not a child… that ‘untouchable’ thing of yours says you are.”
Tris glided in from the back with two plates. She set them on the counter and sat on the metal folding chair next to Kevin.
“Yeah, yeah. I know. You took six slugs before you ‘wised up.’” She rolled her eyes. “How much would you sell that jacket for?”
“Forty…”
“Only if you keep and wear it.” He winked. “It won’t make people think you’re a coward. Might even trick them into believing you’re competent.”
Athena gave him the finger while shaking her head along with an eye roll. “Fine. Whatever. You gonna pack me a lunch too, Dad?”
“Two coins.” He winked.
Tris turned away; she shuddered as if laughing in silence.
“Asshole,” muttered Athena.
Kevin grinned.
Far enough away that the roadhouse shrank to the size of a matchbox, Kevin found a dusty grey van wedged into the ruins of an old post fence. Judging by the lack of damage to the bumper, he figured the thing had been barely rolling forward when it hit. The tires, fortunately e-motors, had dug themselves in a few inches. He guessed the Infected hadn’t quite lost all of his mind at that point, and got confused at why the van stopped going forward. After accelerating didn’t work, he’d abandoned it and gone wandering… likely attracted to the lights across the road.
Above the passenger side front corner, a boxy .50 caliber machinegun sat on an armored ring with a gearbox on either side, hinting at a powered swivel mount with some manner of targeting optics.
Careful not to touch anything, he peered in the open driver door. The seat had no sign of blood or body fluids, and Tris had spent some forty odd minutes after Athena left reassuring him that the Virus was not transmissible via air. Not even sweat could do it.
“Saliva or blood,” he muttered.
Upon noting the van’s console lit up, he climbed in. An eight-inch screen in the center of the dash painted the interior light blue. Over the passenger seat dangled a military flight helmet. Bolts in the roof gave away the position of the gun, and a drum full of ammo hung from above a little behind the passenger’s headrest. Half the windshield and the entire passenger-side door window had armored plates instead of glass. A single joystick sprouted from the armrest with a trigger-style button. The interior of the helmet glowed soft green. Unable to contain his curiosity, Kevin slipped into the seat and pulled the helmet on.