by A. J. Sikes
“Shit,” Kuhn said.
The SAW gunner followed with a question. “Where’s their marshall?”
“Marshall?” Jed asked.
“The guy with the LAW rocket. He’s supposed to be at the back of the bus in case anyone inside is infected.”
“In case?”
“He takes the infected person down,” Sergeant Kuhn said. “Or takes them all down if he has to.”
Jed couldn’t believe it. They’d had a guy in there with a fucking LAW rocket to put the whole bus down just in case—
A spray of blood coated the windows inside the bus, and then another. A guy in a Yankees hat was leaning up against the glass coughing out blood. He tried holding his ball cap on as he started shaking and spitting all over the place. A lady a few seats back was doing it, and then another guy. They were all sitting near the back of the bus.
The SAW gunner went to work and Jed felt his world fall apart.
Those are people. They’re not all infected.
The bullets kept flying into the bus. The gunner aimed for the ones that were going all crazy first. A couple of people ran for the back of the bus. Sergeant Kuhn dropped them before they got to the door. Everyone else was up at the front. The driver tried to get them away, but the SAW gunner shifted his aim and then the bus went off to the side, grinding against the concrete divider and sending sparks all over the place until it screeched to a stop up against a wrecked pick up truck.
Upper East Side, Manhattan
Meg had her axe in her hand as soon as the barricade fell away from the wall. One of them sat crouched in the doorway staring at her. It was much bigger than any of them she’d seen so far. This one looked like it might have been a boxer or a wrestler when it was human. Thick veins crossed its pale white skin. And blood stained its sucker lips and clawed hands.
Rachel shoved the boards up so she could roll out from under them just as another creature came in behind the first. They seemed to trade looks. Meg couldn’t believe it.
They’re communicating?
Jason rolled under Meg’s guard and came up beside her. He helped Rachel to her feet and they both lifted their axes from where they’d set them down. For a tense moment, Meg and the others faced off with the monsters through the doorway.
The big one leaped straight for Meg. She swung as it flew toward her, but her aim was off. The axe head slid off the thing’s shoulder, barely slicing into its flesh. It rolled away from the blow and came up in a crouch against the shutters.
Meg heard Jason and Rachel shouting behind her.
The one in front of her made a hesitant step forward. Meg held her axe across her body, ready to swing or shove the thing if it came for her.
It tilted its head and let out a hiss, then a fast shriek.
Jason shouted from Meg’s right, but she didn’t dare turn to look. She heard axes impacting on bodies and sometimes the wall or floor. Rachel yelled, and Meg finally caught what they were saying.
“Rex! Help!”
The one in front of Meg tilted its head upward and sniffed. That’s when she recognized it. This was the one from outside, the one she’d seen when she was nailing the barricade together upstairs.
Is it the leader? My god, do they have leaders?
She stepped forward, passing by Eric’s still and silent body. He was dead. They’d been too late and he lost too much blood.
She’d be damned if she’d go down without getting some revenge.
Meg readied herself for the leader to charge her. But it seemed to be waiting for her to make a move, like it wanted to give her a chance before it killed her.
“Well fuck you, too, then,” Meg said. She gritted her teeth and raised her axe for a swing right as she heard the sound of shattering glass from upstairs.
Shit!
The leader jerked its head up and shrieked again. Meg swung as it was lowering its head. She thought she saw a hint of recognition it its yellow slit eyes just as her axe came down into its skull.
Meg wrenched her axe out of the monster’s shattered head and spun to take in the floor behind her. Rachel and Jason had the doorway covered, taking turns swinging axes at the monsters as they tried to get in. They held them off pretty well, but eventually one would get up onto the wall and crawl along the ceiling, out of reach of the axes.
If they could get another hose connected . . .
Rex shifted from one foot to the other at the back of the bay, in front of the survivors. He had an axe in his hands and looked at the staircase. One of the monsters had come down, and sat crouched on the bottom step. It turned its head around halfway, looking at the dead one Jason had thrown there. As the new one turned its head and rolled its shoulders, a sickening echo of cracks and pops came into the bay. Then the monster leaped out and raced along the floor to the far wall. Meg watched Rex track its movement, turning to face it as it hung on the wall and approached him and the survivors.
“Rex!” Meg shouted just as another one launched from the stairs and landed in the middle of the survivors.
Screams and shrieks echoed around the room. Meg raced for the end of the app floor. If Rex could hold them off—Meg cringed inside as she watched Rex swing his axe half-heartedly. The one that jumped into the survivors was tearing people apart and all Rex could do was back up against the wall beside the stairs.
Another one came down the steps just as Meg got there. She missed with the first swing and had to swing upward quickly. Her second blow landed, and caught the thing in its throat. Blood sprayed out, covering Meg’s face shield.
Screams and cries of pain surrounded her. Meg swiped at her shield with her jacket sleeve. That only smeared the blood. She could see better, but still not good enough to fight.
“Rex! Help them!” she screamed. Somewhere nearby she heard someone grunting, like they were fighting. She had to hope it was Rex and that he’d finally grown a spine.
Jason roared from somewhere behind Meg. She spun in time to see him swinging his axe into another big creature, like the leader Meg had killed before. It fell to the ground with the axe in its chest. Blood poured from the wound as Jason yanked on the axe handle to dislodge his weapon. Rachel had her back to him and swung her axe back and forth to fend off two of the things that crawled from the doorway along the walls.
Meg wiped at her face shield as she ran to help Rachel. She could see enough to swing now and brought her axe down on a monster’s head. Rachel bashed the other one with the flat of her axe, knocking it from the wall. It reared up to strike when Rachel swung back to sink the blade into its face.
Meg wiped a glove down her face shield over and over until her vision was clear. She had a good view now. The app floor was a bloody mess. She heard people behind her cowering, whimpering, and sobbing. Rex was still near the remaining survivors. The one that leaped into them had taken down Abeer and her child. They lay on the floor in a heap next to the pink sweater lady and at least five others. Dayone and the punk girl were alive, though, and hid in the corner with the remaining survivors. Dayone’s little girl cowered behind them all.
“Where’s Mrs. Cannady?”
Rex to a step to his left, revealing the woman lying on her back with her blouse covered in blood.
“It moved too fast,” he said. “I couldn’t—”
“Meg!” Rachel yelled.
Meg turned in time to see Eric staggering across the floor toward the other two firefighters.
He launched himself at Rachel and tackled her. Jason moved fast, knocking Eric aside, but he rolled with the blow and got his legs under him just as Rachel jumped to her feet. She and Jason held their axes ready and circled around so they had Eric from both sides. His face was already changing. His lips pushed out and he made a sucking motion with his mouth.
Eric reared back and lifted his face to the ceiling to scream. Then he doubled over and began gnawing on his own arm.
“Eric!” Meg called to him. He lifted his head and looked at her. She watched as his eyes narrowe
d and yellowed, with blood leaking from them. Jason and Rachel approached him, ready to strike. But Eric flicked his head to the side, eyeing them. He dropped to all fours and scrambled away from their swinging axes.
More shrieks and howls came from the doorway as another group of the creatures raced into the chief’s office. Jason filled the doorway and swung like a man possessed. His axe moved in a blur, left and right, and blood spattered into the app floor with every strike.
Rachel went after Eric, tracking him along the far wall. Meg wanted to join her, to help.
They both need me. But Eric—What the hell is happening?
Eric had gotten around Meg on the wall while she stared at him, tears dripping from her nose and chin.
“Meg,” Rachel said, prodding her in the shoulder with her fist. “You need to kill it. That’s not Eric anymore. That’s not your friend up there.”
He was getting closer to the back of the floor now. Meg and Rachel moved with him, axes up. They had to kick the cots aside to reach the area where the survivors were hiding. When they were only feet away from the survivors, a scream to Meg’s left startled her and she had to move her attention from Eric.
Some of the people who had been attacked were standing up as monsters. Three of them were up on their knees with blood streaming from their eyes. Their fingers curled into claws as they pulled and then tore at their own skin.
Mrs. Cannady was hunched over like a grotesque football player hell bent on killing anything that got in her way.
Rex finally got his axe over his head and managed to swing down into Mrs. Cannady’s back before she could step toward Dayone and the others. The punk girl pressed herself back against the people behind her. Dayone’s little girl grabbed her mother’s hand. Their screams were agony in Meg’s ears.
The moment stretched out for Meg. She couldn’t move even as she heard Rachel yelling at her. In that instant, Eric leaped from the wall, tackling the punk girl.
He brought her down in a tangle and Meg’s knees buckled as she watched Eric tear into the girl. The others who had changed rushed into the mass of survivors, clawing and ripping their way through them. Rex used his axe to swat at some, but he’d landed his only effective blow of the day. All he managed to do was redirect the monsters’ attacks onto other people.
Rachel screamed as she raced into the crowd, smashing two of the monsters in the head with a single swing. Jason gave a monstrous roar behind them and Meg turned in time to see him finish off the last ones in the chief’s office. He stepped back, arms shaking and his axe hanging down to scrape the floor. Jason staggered back a step and Meg worried he’d been infected. But he’d only slid his foot through the blood and water on the floor.
“Jason!” Rachel yelled. Meg snapped her attention back to see Rachel was surrounded by three of them.
And the people . . .
Dayone?
They were all dead. All of them. Cut down by Eric and the others who had turned. It had taken only seconds.
Rex had backed himself into the opposite corner and faced off against one of them. Rachel swung at one and caught it in the head, but that left her open for the others. Eric and three more were crawling on the walls above them, flicking their tongues out of their horrific mouths.
They move so fast. I can’t—I can’t.
You’re good, Meg. You’re good.
Lurching to her feet, Meg stepped up to stand beside Rachel. Jason tore through the cots to join them. They stood with their backs together, axes out and ready. Meg kept her eyes on Eric. He kept looking at the people on the ground at Meg’s feet. She risked a glance at Dayone and her little girl. They’d both been bitten, and blood welled from Dayone’s throat. She held a hand over the wound, but Meg knew it was hopeless. The girl was only bleeding from a bite on her shoulder, but already showed symptoms of the infection.
Meg’s heart broke over and over again. A hiss from the wall above her tore her attention away just in time. Eric leaped down to land in front of her, blocking her view of Dayone and her girl.
“I’m sorry, Eric.”
She swung and put the blade of her axe into his skull, dropping him to the floor. Beside her Rachel did the same to another one that had leaped down beside Eric.
Jason’s shouts filled the bay and she turned to see him taking out the last two that were mobile, including the one that had Rex pinned in the corner.
Dayone died as Meg got to her. She went down on her knee and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. Dayone’s face shook as blood began leaking from her eyes.
“My gir—”
And then she was gone, shuddering as the virus consumed her.
Meg felt a hand on her back. It was Rachel.
“Let me. You help Jason get the barricade fixed.”
Meg fell backwards onto her hip. Her axe slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor beside her. She closed her eyes, but she couldn’t block the sound of Rachel’s axe as the woman ensured no more monsters would rise from the bodies in the corner.
Long Island City, Queens
Jed kept his weapon up and stared at the ruined bus as they came up beside it. The truck slowed down and the SAW gunner had his weapon up and ready. Jed copied the guy, keeping his rifle aimed at the bus. But his finger refused to touch the trigger. Jed saw some movement, a man crawling out of a busted window with his hands up. He screamed that he was all right, that he wasn’t infected.
But Jed saw the blood leaking out of the man’s eyes.
“Take him out, Welch!” Sergeant Kuhn ordered.
Jed couldn’t do it. Couldn’t even shoot to put someone out of his misery. The guy wasn’t a monster yet.
All them people. They weren’t infected. They weren’t—
The SAW gunner lit up the bus and the man in the window toppled backwards as the bullets tore into him. Jed fired then, snapping two rounds into the bus at two other people moving around in there. He didn’t know if they were infected or not. But they’d have to be if the first guy was.
They had to be. Right? They had to be.
Sergeant Kuhn mumbled something up at the front of the truck, but Jed didn’t catch it. He was too busy hating what he’d just witnessed
The guys on the other side of the truck both grunted. “Looks like they’re gone, Sergeant,” one of them said.
“So you want to take a nap? Eyes out, goddammit.”
Least it’s not just me getting shit on.
The truck sped up and they left the bus behind. They were halfway across the bridge now, and moving fast again. Wrecked cars sat scattered on the road in places, up against the concrete barrier. A little Miata was halfway off the bridge on the right side up ahead. Jed wanted to see if anyone was in the car, but they passed by it too fast, and he had to keep his attention up top and on the left side.
One of the things chewed on a body inside a car on the other side of the road. Then Roosevelt Island went under them and was gone just as fast. Jed figured he should say something about the one in the car, and the ones moving on Roosevelt Island and climbing the bridge towers that they passed. But his mouth wouldn’t work. His tongue felt like a dry hunk of stone in his mouth when he thought about the people in the bus.
They just killed them all. We did. We killed them all.
☣
Queensboro Bridge, Manhattan
The convoy made it across the bridge and Jed could see the sky approaching through the grillwork cage that covered the bottom deck of the bridge. Up ahead the top deck split into two separate roads on either side of the cage. Jed didn’t see anything moving up there. Nothing crawling in the dark. No shadows jumping from the road above. He still caught his breath each time they passed under the metal beams that crossed overhead.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
And then they were under the fading sunlight again. The sky came through the cage in weak streams, but enough that Jed could see their truck clearly.
Str
eaks of blood and gore seemed to cover every surface. The bodies behind him were covered in bright red pools of infected blood that had begun to go dark at the edges. The seat to his left and right was smeared with blood. It was like he occupied the only clean spot on the truck.
Sergeant Kuhn hollered at him to keep his eyes out, and Jed did what he was told.
When the NCO slammed his hand on the truck cab, and the truck slowed down hard, Jed had to look. What he saw put him on the back foot quicker than shit.
The road up ahead was jammed tight with a tangle of cars and trucks. The bottom deck of the bridge emptied onto a four-lane exit ramp that dropped back down to street level. The ramp was a fucking mess. Shit everywhere. Sandbags all over the place spilling out or just in the way. Cars rolled up on their side, some slammed tight against the barrier beside the road, crushed between the concrete and a bigger vehicle.
There’s gotta be people in them.
As they got closer, Jed noticed the people in the cars. They’d all been shot. Most of the cars were just wrecked, smashed to shit. Pebbles of window glass covered the street. But the ones that still had windshields . . . they all had bullet holes in the glass, and the people inside didn’t look like they’d been infected. Someone had shot them all, just like the guy on the SAW did to the bus. It was like killing the disease was more important than helping people who weren’t infected yet.
This ain’t how it’s supposed to be. Ain’t what I signed up to do.
Their truck came to a stop and Sergeant Kuhn told them all to dismount. The SAW gunner and the guys on the other side all hopped out quick. Jed hesitated one second too long. Before he knew it, Sergeant Kuhn had him by the LBE and was dragging him off the truck.
“I can get down myself!” Jed hollered once they were on the ground and his had his feet under him.
“You can? Really? Okay. Can you take some fucking orders? What about showing some respect for rank? Or—Goddammit, Welch!”