ROT Series (Book 2): The Spread

by Hunter, Damon

  When he opened the door, all that was in front of him was darkness. Corrigan was kind enough to have flashlights mounted on everything that was not a handgun. Bar got ready for something to come charging out of the darkness as he flipped on the light under the barrel.

  Nothing came for him, and it did not take much looking to find a light switch. In front of him was a staircase going down.

  He went down carefully, leading with the shotgun and looking for threats. All he found was another hallway. He was disappointed to find Corrigan did not have a stash of beer and/or booze down here either.

  Unlike the other hallways, this was more of tunnel, nothing but dirt on the wall and the floors. With all the shaking going on, Bar wondered how safe it was. He continued on anyway, finding another staircase not far down the tunnel.

  He did not count the stairs coming down, but this one seemed taller than the staircase leading into the tunnel. He could not find a light switch for this one. Using the light on the shotgun to guide him, he started up.

  He could not see the top and was about ten stairs in when he heard the explosion by the front door.

  Chapter 30

  Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA

  Vance went into the living room as soon as he felt the roof shake. He met Holiday halfway there, who was on his way to tell him what was going on.

  “Looks like they may have found us,” Holiday said.

  “Talbot?”

  “Yeah,” he said as they moved to the look at the screen.

  Vance saw the trio of heavy armored cars moving across the hill.

  “Maybe they won’t figure out we are inside the hill. This place is invisible from up there,” Holiday said.

  “Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it. If he was the type to give up easy, he would have ceased being a problem for us hours ago. Get everybody up and ready to go.”

  Holiday looked at the screen, took note of all the infected swarming around the compound, and said, “Go where?”

  “I don’t know, but if I think of something, I want everyone ready.”

  Holiday nodded and went to tell Donna and Katelin.

  While Holiday was gone, Vance noticed Barrington had gotten back to him. He took a moment to read the message. It was not exactly good news. Given the current situation, he felt Barrington might as well have said to meet on the moon. They would be lucky to get out of Corrigan’s bunker, let alone get all the way to Oregon.

  Vance was considering a response as he watched what was going on outside when a sleepy Ana rose from the sofa. She looked at Vance watching the screens and said, “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing good.”

  “Katelin?” she asked, expecting the worst.

  “So far so good. She may be immune.”

  “That is something good.”

  “Yeah, but if they figure out we are here, it may not matter,” Vance said, pointing at the screen showing Dr. Talbot’s convoy driving around above them.

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. Get your gear ready. We may have to fight our way out.”

  “My stuff is packed and ready to go.”

  Vance nodded and went back to the computer. He decided to tell Barrington he would try to get them that far north if that was the only option.

  As he was typing, Ana stepped to the front of Corrigan’s underground house. Standing this close to the doors and windows, she could hear the infected scraping and clawing at the door and windows.

  “They seem even more agitated,” she said.

  Vance did not look up from the computer as he said, “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Don’t they ever get tired? Do they ever sleep?”

  “Not that I’ve seen.”

  “It doesn’t seem possible. They should starve to death or drop dead from exhaustion.”

  “San Francisco has been infected for a while, and they were still moving around up there. We can’t really wait them out, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I know. It makes me think no matter what, eventually we will lose.”

  “Before the rot, were you going to live forever?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then nothing has changed. We are going to eventually lose anyway—doesn’t mean we give up.”

  “I suppose you have a point,” Ana said as she turned to go get her gear.

  Vance looked up from his computer to see the something land among the horde massed by the front door. Had he spent another three seconds sending Barrington the message, he never would have noticed.

  He recognized what it was and jumped up quickly from his chair.

  “What?” Ana asked as he moved toward her.

  “Fire in the hole,” he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her to him.

  He dove toward the floor just before the explosion. The blast tossed him and Ana across the room before he could get all the way to Corrigan’s carpet.

  Chapter 31

  Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA

  Holiday burst into the room saying, “Sorry, girls, but grab your shit. I think we are going to have to go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Before he answered, Holiday looked at Katelin and said, “You haven’t turned.”

  “I knew that—how about telling us something we didn’t know?”

  Holiday grinned. “I didn’t realize how much I missed smart-ass teens until right now.”

  “You spend a lot of time with teens?” Katelin asked.

  “I taught middle school history, so yeah.”

  “Good for you,” Donna said. “What is going on?”

  “Talbot and his crew are driving on our roof. Maybe they won’t find us, but we have to be ready if they do.”

  Donna nodded and went to gather up the weapons and things she had brought into Corrigan’s bunker. It wasn’t hard—nearly everything was still in the pillowcase she had stuffed things in back when they escaped from the hotel. She moved to Katelin’s pillowcase, making sure she had all her things.

  Holiday looked at Katelin again. “If you haven’t turned by now, I think you might be fine. How do you feel?”

  “Like shit, but more a general shittiness than an infected shittiness.”

  “Watch your mouth,” Donna told her daughter. She turned to Holiday. “Bar is sleeping in the other room—someone should let him know what’s going on.”

  Holiday nodded and went to rouse the old sailor.

  Katelin held out her hands to her mother. “Cut me loose.”

  “I don’t know about that. You could still be a danger to us and yourself.”

  “Tied up I’m useless. If this turns into a fight, you are going to need me.”

  “Katelin…”

  “You’ve seen me with a gun,” Katelin interrupted. “You know I can handle myself.”

  “It might not come to that.”

  “But if it does, we need to be ready. I screwed up tonight—let me make it up to everyone by being helpful. I can’t help like this.”

  Donna didn’t say anything but did not move to grab a knife out of her pillowcase and cut her daughter loose.

  “You heard him. I’m fine. I feel fine.”

  “You’ve never been infected before—how do you know how it feels?”

  “I don’t, but I’m not feeling anything right now I haven’t felt a thousand times before.”

  “I’m still not sure.”

  “If I turn, you are going to have to kill me. You know that, right?”

  “Katelin…”

  “It’s fine, I understand. Me being tied up or not won’t change that. If I have to go, let me help as long as I can.”

  Donna pulled a knife from her pillowcase and began cutting the duct tape from Katelin’s wrists, saying, “In the future when we are arguing over curfews or some other nonsense, don’t tell me I never let you win an argument.”

  “No problem.”

  With her hands free, Katelin stood and said, “I’m going to go get the guns I foun
d in the back.”

  She was out of the room before Donna could protest.

  Katelin ran into Holiday in the hallway. “You find Bar?”

  “No,” he said. “He seems like the midnight-snack type, so I was going to the kitchen.”

  “I’m going that way too. You should pick up a gun for yourself out of Corrigan’s collection.”

  “I’m not really a gun guy.”

  “He’s got knives and flamethrower too.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  They did not find Bar in the kitchen. They both headed into the armory. It was odd standing in the room with the dead, but both did their best not to look down and went about securing some weapons.

  Katelin found some nylon holsters with Velcro straps that could hold both her new guns and extra ammunition. She also found a box with a stack of full magazines for the AR-15s SWARC had brought, which were almost all out of ammunition. She looked but did not find any bullets that looked like they would work with the empty AK-47s they had.

  Holiday found a big Bowie-looking knife, and even though he did not plan on taking it with him, he strapped the flamethrower to his back.

  “Where do you think your big sailor friend went?” he asked as he examined the knobs that would turn on the gas, making the tank on his back a deadly weapon.

  Before Kate could answer, the bomb by the front door went off.

  “What was that?” Holiday asked.

  “Nothing good,” Katelin said as she moved to the door.

  They had both reached the hallway when they heard a shotgun blast behind them.

  Chapter 32

  Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA

  Bar was honestly not sure if his discovery at the top of the stairs was a good thing or a bad one. He could picture it being either one, and the reason the door was kept locked became obvious quick.

  He knew something was going on in the front of the bunker. Given the way things had gone the last twenty-four hours, he knew it had to be bad. His discovery gave him another option. But he decided not to take it and headed back to the front of the house.

  In his haste to get there fast, he missed a step and lost his balance. Bar was carrying a lot of weight, and once his bulk got going in a direction, it was impossible to get it going the other way. He stumbled and went down the stairs face-first.

  He put out an arm to catch his fall, but he was too heavy for it to stop him. He kept going down until he met the hard dirt floor at the bottom of the stairs. The impact fractured his forearm and made him fire a round from the shotgun into the door at the end of the lower hallway.

  The shotgun blast muffled his scream. He rolled to his back and looked at his arm. He could see bone sticking out. The sight of his own ulna poking out of his arm along with the pain had his head swimming.

  Bar was no doctor, but he knew this kind of break could lead to all sorts of bad things if he didn’t do something. The rot might be the worst infection around, but it wasn’t the only one. Exposed bone invited all sorts of potentially nasty infections. Plus, the longer it stayed out, the less likely it would ever go back in. As bad as what he needed to do would be, it sounded better than having to chop his arm off.

  He braced himself against the stairs and grabbed his wrist. The pain just doing this much was more intense than he thought he could take, but he gritted his teeth and pulled on his arm with his right hand while rolling his left shoulder. He was sure he was doing nothing but causing himself more misery, but with his arm stretched as much as he could manage, he rolled over and used the bottom step to push on the bone.

  The bone slid back under his skin. It was nowhere close to being lined up properly, but it was inside him where it belonged.

  Bar told himself passing out would be the worst thing that could happen, but he did it anyway.

  Chapter 33

  The TMRT Research Convoy - Fallbrook, CA

  Bo found himself and the kid hanging upside down as the transport fell to its side.

  He looked to Gavin and said, “You okay?”

  Gavin nodded, adding, “If we weren’t surrounded by the infected and mean soldiers, it would have been fun.”

  “Yeah, I guess it would have. I’m not going to ask them to do it again, though.”

  “Me neither.”

  Bo undid his belt and let himself drop. He unfastened Gavin and let the boy drop into his arms.

  As he set the boy down, he saw the axe he had been carrying at his feet. The soldiers had taken it from him, but after they got moving they had just set it aside. They must not have secured it, and the vehicle turning over had sent it along with everything else not tied down careening through the cabin. Bo got the idea that none of them thought getting flipped over like they had was a strong possibility. With the helmets on, it was hard to tell if they were looking at him, but they seemed to busy getting themselves upright after the crash. Bo picked up the axe. No one said anything.

  A soldier moved past them. If he saw the axe, he did not comment. He reached the end of the transport and unlatched the door.

  Bo was not the only one to see something worth grabbing on the ground. Gavin spotted one of the combat knives the soldiers carried just a little ways away from him. It was still in the sheath, but it was clear it was one of the knives. One of the soldiers must have set it aside for some reason just before the crash.

  Bo was watching the soldier by the door, and everyone else had concerns other than watching the kid on board. Gavin moved quickly to snatch it up. He was glad he grabbed his satchel before running out of his room, and through all that had happened since then he still had it. He had snagged it so he would not have to leave his tablet behind, but it was big enough to hide the knife. Gavin stuffed the big blade in his satchel before anyone noticed.

  He was sure if anyone saw him they would take it away, and he wanted something to defend himself with. Even if he did not feel the need for self-defense, the knife was super cool-looking.

  “Do not open that door, solider,” they heard someone say from behind them. The soldier stopped.

  “The other transport is coming to pick us up. Until then we stay put.”

  “Clay is out there, sir,” the soldier by the door said.

  “Clay will have to take care of himself until the other transports come around. It should only be a few minutes.”

  The soldier moved away from the door. He had not accepted the answer, however; he walked back to the man who had given him the order, saying, “We do not leave our people out alone in a horde.”

  “Tonight we do. Open those doors and it will be a clusterfuck of massive proportions. I’m not losing multiple men because Clay could not stay aboard the transport.”

  Bo saw this might be the best chance to get away. There was enough going on that he and Gavin had a chance to get past the horde and back to the road. It would be like the escape from his apartment. If they could get outside the horde, they had a good chance of getting away.

  How far they could go, or even where they would go, was an unknown, but the soldier Clay had made it clear sticking around was bad idea. The soldier had left the hatch unlocked, so all Bo had to do was pull it open. He grabbed Gavin and grabbed the latch.

  Everyone was focused enough on the two soldiers arguing that no one said anything until Bo pulled the door open.

  They yelled to stop, but he and Gavin were already out the door.

  Bo took two steps and found himself immediately face-to-face with a vampire rotter.

  The rotter’s head exploded a split second after Bo felt the rounds pass just inches above his shoulder.

  “Close the door and get in here,” the shooter told him.

  “Are you going to shoot me?”

  “Of course not—get inside.”

  Bo and Gavin ran into the field instead.

  He heard gunfire and looked back to see the TMRT step out and take out another rotter. With them firing guns, the horde began to move toward the transport. Instead of en
gaging the approaching infected, they went back inside and closed the door.

  Bo and Gavin were on their own now. He hoped he made the right decision. With the horde heading toward the transport, he and Gavin went the other way.

  He had not gone far when he spotted Clay surrounded by dead bodies. His machine gun had left a pile of infected all around him. He stopped shooting and the extended magazine on his rifle dropped. He was slapping in a new magazine when Bo saw a vampire rotter jump on Clay’s back. It hit him with enough force he went face-first into the ground. The rifle he was using came out of his hands on impact. Instead of trying to bite him right away, it was pulling on his helmet. The vampire rotter seemed to know his armor would prevent its teeth from finding his flesh.

  “Stay close, kid,” Bo told Gavin as he charged with the axe. After what Clay had done for him, he could not leave the soldier at the mercy of a vampire rotter. Gavin grabbed the back of his shirt and let Bo drag him into battle.

  The vampire rotter saw him coming and blocked Bo’s swing aside with its arm. Long fingers wrapped around the axe handle, and it yanked the weapon forward.

  Bo hung on, knowing that without the axe he had no chance at all. He never let go as the beast tossed the axe and him away.

  Gavin lost his grip on Bo’s shirt. When Bo looked up and spit out a mouthful of dirt, he could see the vampire rotter reach out and grab the boy. Gavin punched and kicked, but his blows had no effect. Bo got to his feet and grabbed the axe, but there was no way he would get there in time.

  Chapter 34

  Corrigan’s Bunker - Fallbrook, CA

  Vance could feel the metal in the back of his thigh, probably a piece of a window shutter. He rolled off Ana and looked at the young woman to see if she had caught any shrapnel.

  He didn’t see anything. Vance asked, “You okay?”