Free for a moment, he swam a little more and then tried to pull himself into the boat without swamping it. As he struggled, his legs and arms felt weighted with lead. Then the Fiend with the knife still in his shoulder caught up with him, grabbed his left leg and bit down hard. It hurt like hell and he begged the god of Scorpion’s Titanium-Tanned Racing Armor to let its product hold up under three hundred pounds per square inch of biting power. He turned, twisted the knife and pulled it out. The monster gnashed and bit at him. This was the most deadly kind of proximity with an infected person and Jon could feel his repulsed and frightened body try to levitate from the water. He jammed his gloved thumb into the Fiend’s eye and then drove the knife into its sternum and up into the heart. The blade wasn’t coming free this time and he had to let it go. He kicked away from the dying thing as fast as he could, lest he ingest some of the growing blood blooming in the water. The one he had hit was the baton was nowhere to be seen. He had to assume that it had drowned.
With a do or die heave, he pulled himself into the boat, got the oars into the oarlocks and turned the boat toward the burned out house. He had to get his helmet and gun. Then he saw more of them, dozens more running through woods, heading toward the shore. He stopped rowing. The breeze was coming up and it gently pushed him away from land. He looked over his shoulder at the island and pointed the boat there instead. Then his stomach growled. He didn’t have a single morsel of food. If he weren’t such an optimistic guy, he’d swear he was screwed.
The female Other that led them, stopped short of the shore and just watched. It and the Others with It arrived too late to get the Fresh One that was rowing away.
As though channeled up from the swelling in its belly, a pregnant Other felt its stomach churn, and the sense of frustration from the Others around It entered its mind. The thing that grew inside It was speaking to It again – not speaking, but feeling. Mostly It liked the feeling; the thing in its belly guiding It, helping It track down the Fresh Ones. But when It was hungry, the feeling became very harsh and It even considered cutting out the thing that grew inside.
The one that led them held its own little guiding thing in its arms – that baby Other was asleep. When it was awake, all of the Others around It got the feeling together - the baby Other guiding them.
The pregnant Other could see less panic in the Fresh One’s eyes as it moved away in the boat. Another pang of hunger feeling shot up from the thing that grew inside, and It held Its growling belly with fierce frustration. They would watch for a while then the Other that led them would renew the hunt for other Fresh Ones – the infant Other that the one that led them held always knew where to find more Fresh Ones.
When Jon got close to the island’s shore he heard a new woodpecker and chuckled, deciding that he wouldn’t count on them to raise the alarm in the future. He quietly tied up to the dock and walked up a path, holding his police baton at ready.
In a clearing was small house, a shack really. Its windows seemed intact. The front door was closed. There was a fire pit out front with a bunch of split log benches around it. It appeared to be an overnight camp, a place to come out to, cook hotdogs and tell ghost stories. The fire pit had some old damp ash in it. Tales of lovebirds, poets and profanity users were carved into the benches.
He walked the perimeter of the shack; reminding himself after the garage incident, don’t walk into a house without sweeping the outside first. He cursed himself for having let his guard down. His excitement over the car overrode all caution. He told himself he wouldn’t do it again.
Sniffing the air, he could smell no evidence of death. After whacking the baton on another tree and getting an echo in response, he walked up to the front door and tried the latch. It opened with a light creak. Inside there were several bunk beds, a potbelly stove, a kitchenette with a slop sink for cleaning fish. There was no food and nothing to eat with. Clearly, the camp was for overnights only. He could sleep in safety, but he wasn’t going to fill his stomach. Heck, he didn’t have an appetite anyway. The adrenaline rush had taken so much out of him that all he wanted to do was sleep. Snapping himself out of it, he decided he’d better go back out to the dock and make sure one of those infected sons of bitches wasn’t a better swimmer. He scanned the water with his binoculars and then the shore. The Fiends had gone - for now.
He found a path that appeared to circle the island. It followed the shore and he was able to scan the mainland as he walked. He noted a surprising lack of other houses around the lake until he reached the opposite side of the island. On the far shore stood a huge mansion. He guessed that this end of the lake was privately owned or at least the eastern shore was.
The sun was getting lower so he finished circumnavigating the island and went back to the cabin. He hadn’t gotten any real rest in weeks. The empty cabin called to him like some kind of magic sleep chamber and his eyelids got heavy. For the first time in a long time, he felt relatively safe. He finished off the last of his water, curled up on one of the bunks and was asleep in moments.
CHAPTER FOUR
BREACH
Jon woke to the sound of gunfire booming and echoing across the lake. For the first few moments, he couldn’t get his bearings. He sat up in the bunk, hit his head on the one above and cursed, reminding himself to slow down.
KABOOM! More gunfire, small arms, and then the thunder of a heavy machine gun. His memories transported him to the tank turrets at the Orlando Wall – the machine guns blazing away in unison. At the Orlando Wall, the military had pulled together nearly every piece of fighting equipment left in the continental US. Nothing was going to get across. They’d learned from Everglades about gaps in the line and this time the Fiends were contained. But they weren’t. Now, the bulk of that hardware was abandoned in the chaos that followed the exodus to Canada.
He carried a small flashlight on his belt, the one he’d taken off the dead cop. It had a red filter option so he wouldn’t screw up his night vision. He turned it on and walked out to the island path. With no Fiends at his door, he was fairly confident that they either continued to drown trying to get to him or they figured out it was hopeless.
Across the water he saw the mansion’s perimeter lit up with floodlights, the glow giving a sparkle to an otherwise black lake. Fiends surrounded the perimeter wall while several people on the roof were picking them off. The fifty cal blazed away and half a dozen infected exploded into red pieces of meat.
It was the lights that were the big attraction. Jon shook his head as he watched the display, idiots.
At Everglades, Fiends were like moths to light. They just couldn’t help coming. The Brass actually recommended the lights at first, better to corral the creatures into kill zones, just like these folks were doing, but when the right flank of the wall was overrun by a million hungry ghouls, they rethought the idea. It was night vision only after that. Jon wished he had a way to signal the fools that they were just inviting thousands more to run through the night to come and eat them. He watched for a while and then got tired of the carnage. He walked back to the cabin and tried as hard as he could to get back to sleep.
The assault went on for hours and he tossed and turned as the barrage continued. A dying Fiend sounded no different from someone who wasn’t infected. The screams of pain were only slightly drowned out by the louder screams of rage mixed with steady gunfire. Finally, around three AM, he gave up and walked back out to see what was happening.
He had to decide if he wanted to signal these folks. He had no food and damn if he wasn’t out of bottled water too. The chances of the lake being tainted by terrorists were near zero, but on the other hand, several Fiends had died in it. Who was to say that their corpses wouldn’t foul the water? A look at the number of infected still assaulting the outer wall confirmed his opinion that the defenders didn’t understand their enemy. He decided that for now, it would be better to remain unseen. Then the gunfire got even more intense. The infected had discovered a couple of trees overhanging the wall. T
hey were climbing up and jumping inside as fast as the people on the rooftops could kill them. Like the Army at Everglades, the people in the mansion had badly underestimated the resourcefulness left in a Cain’s-addled mind. Jon had written a post about this entitled The CW Will Kill You. Like nearly everyone else in the country, the folks across the water were victims of popular culture, handicapped by conventional wisdom. People equated the infected with the mindless automatons that were cinema zombies. Zombies they most certainly were not.
Suddenly, the gunfire from the roof stopped. The screaming and howling of the Fiends stopped as well. But for a few pops from individual arms from the upper windows, it was eerily silent. Then the defenders on the roof began to scream in protest, yelling, "No," begging for something to stop, and just as suddenly, they shot at each other; in seconds, gunning each other down. Jon was stunned. Then a door opened and an unarmed man stepped out fitfully walking, almost as though he was struggling with himself while walking toward the heavily fortified front gate. Another man stuck his head out the window and yelled at the walker, the echo of his panicked voice carrying across the lake – “Roger! What are you doing?”
Roger hesitated by the fence and then hurky-jerky reached out, flipping a switch. The gate rolled open and he was instantly overcome by vast wave of waiting Fiends.
Jon winced as he saw them charge for the open door. A heavily armed woman stepped into the breach, trying to pull it shut, but it was too late. The Fiends pushed their way through and were met with the sound of hollow gunfire, muffled within the big house.
Madness. Why give up and let them in? Jon’s hungry stomach filled with bile as he thought of the fate of those people. The ones who survived the attack, who escaped into another locked room but were nevertheless infected, would be out killing their fellow men by the same time the following night. Everyone else would be eaten alive if they didn’t take their own life first.
With the same part of the mind that was reserved for rubbernecking a highway crash, Jon found himself settling in to watch the rest of the show. Within ten minutes, the gunfire became more random and undisciplined. It was mixed with agonizing screams and useless pleas for mercy. Then flames started shooting out of some of the upper story windows.
The shooting diminished to a few pops now and again and he stood and stretched, thinking that it was basically over. Then, out of the randomness, there was a steady organized burst of gunfire. A group of ten heavily armed people came running out of a smashed picture window. Jon found himself smearing a light film of tears from his eyes in order to look again through the binoculars.
As they ran down to the dock, the group stayed tightly formed, keeping up a steady and disciplined hail of fire. The Fiends swarmed them, but they kept on moving. Jon found himself cheering them out loud, like a fan screaming for a running back to get into the end zone.
Five of the ten made it to the waterfront, punching and kicking and then finally getting to the dock. A short tug of war took place when one of them was yanked back and forth between her comrades and the pursing Fiends, her terrified screams rising above all the others. The Fiends won and the four survivors dove off the dock, swimming for their lives.
Jon had a decision to make: As exhibited at the mansion, strength in numbers meant little in terms of self-preservation. When you’re alone you don’t have to turn and help the one being pulled to the ground. Yet, he’d been alone for a long time. He could use a little human companionship. He pulled out his flashlight and hailed the swimmers. They spotted him and angled for the island. Jon had a sudden desire to take back his signal, but it was too late. He’d see what fortune would bring.
The swimmers came to a halt about thirty feet off shore and dog paddled. One of them called out, “You alone?”
“Yeah, it’s safe.” (Other than reflexively screaming obscenities, it was the first time he’d spoken out loud to someone in more than a week. His voice almost sounded alien to him.) “There’s shelter and the bastards continue to prove that they can’t swim for shit.”
The group came on, one of them clearly in distress, the man swimming with just one arm. As they waded ashore, Jon stepped in up to his ankles and offered a hand. “I’m Jon. Jon Washington.”
“Tom Newman. Guess you saw what happened to us back there.”
“Yeah, I saw. I’m sorry.”
A thin man and a woman with short cropped dark hair helped a third over some slippery rocks. The third guy was built like a pro wrestler and held his arm while swearing, “Shit! Mother fucking shit! Now what?”
They all seemed to be in their mid to late twenties, except for the wounded man who looked a little older.
Tom turned to the guy. “You’re bit Bob. You might as well be dead.”
The woman looked stricken or was it pissed off? “What if… I don’t know. What if he doesn’t come down with it?”
Tom snapped, “Everyone who gets bit comes down with it, Nikki! Everyone. Mark, back me up here.”
Mark, the thin man, just nodded.
Nikki balled her fists in frustration. “Well, fuck, Bob! You fucking promised that we’d get through this thing!”
Bob sucked against his teeth in pain. “Thanks for the sympathy, Nik.”
Mark said, “What if we just tie him up. You know, watch him overnight. I mean we can’t just… We can’t shoot Bob.”
Jon said, “We tried that a bunch of times in Florida. There was always hope we’d say. Hell, I had to kill my own grandmother with a fire poker when she turned." He realized he was being insensitive and changed his tone. "My point is we got to where everyone decided it was more merciful to let the people do the deed themselves. If they weren’t willing… well, the Heavies do that now.”
Nikki said, “Who asked you?”
Tom looked at Jon anew, “You were in Florida?”
Bob said, “Um, hello? I’m the one who’s bitten here. Obviously I have to end this thing. I’m certainly not going to become one of those fucking mindless things.”
“But what if it’s not… what if it… what if you’re immune? That could happen, right?” asked Nikki, desperation in her voice.
Tom put a hand on the wounded man’s shoulder. “What do you want to do, Bob?”
Despite the pain, a look of clarity came across Bob’s face. He turned to Nikki and looked into her eyes. “I want this to be the last thing I think about, looking into your eyes and loving you.”
She said, “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re going to hit me with that cheese? We’re Marines, Bob.”
“I still love you.”
Nikki softened a bit. “Nice of you to mention it when you’re dead.”
Bob let out a sigh and then shrugged. He looked at the others, “I’ve read that drowning isn’t a bad way to go once the initial panic is passed.”
Jon said, “I just had the same thought, a few hours ago.” He realized how callous he still sounded and said, “Sorry, that was - It’s amazing how this situation seems to take the humanity out of all of us.”
Bob continued, “I don’t want my girl to see or hear me get shot or strangled. I think drowning is best. Maybe tie a rock to my waist and I jump off your rowboat there, out where it’s deeper.”
Nikki said, “I’m not your fucking girl, you halfwit. I never said I’d be your girl.” Then suddenly her hard face became stricken, “Why the fuck did you have to try and save Mary? That girl was nothing but trouble and you got bitten for it.”
Bob shrugged again, “I’m sorry, Nik.”
Tom and Mark rowed Bob out a hundred yards or so from the island. Nikki watched until they stopped and then went into the cabin. Jon stood between the cabin and the water’s edge regretting inviting these people to his haven. He could just make out Mark and Tom securing a big rock to a line and tying that to Bob’s waist. Bob made sure the knot was tight and then let them tie his hands behind his back. Bob stood up, saying something to his friends that Jon couldn’t make out. The condemned man glanced back at the islan
d, took a long look at the sky and nodded. His friends tossed the rock and he jumped in after it, disappearing in a blink. Mark and Tom waited for a few minutes and then rowed back to shore, their return journey lit up by the mansion, which was fully engulfed in flames.
As Jon tied the rowboat to the dock, he asked, “I know you guys escaped with just the shirts on your backs, but any chance you got any food?”
Mark opened a pocket on his parachute pants and tossed Jon a food bar. Jon opened it with his teeth and nearly ate the thing in one bite.
“When was the last time you ate, Dude?” asked Tom.
“Day and a half ago. You got another?”
Mark handed him another and then pointed back toward the mansion. "Plenty more of that on our boat over there, if we can get to it. Maybe tomorrow the fuckers will have moved on."
Jon bit into the second bar. “Who thought it was a good idea to shoot the Fiends? You know, attracting them with the lights?”
“The guy that owned the house. It was his setup,” said Tom. “He had stockpiled the place with food and ammo - a real survivalist dude. You know the type. He invited anybody in the area to come in, even let in a few stragglers at the end. It was the stragglers who led the Shitfobs to us.”
Mark picked up the tale, “They were right behind them. The mansion guy had watched the Army at the Miami Wall on TV. I guess they called it Everglades for some PC reason, something about not wanting to offend Latin Americans. Anyway, they had figured out that the devils were crazy attracted to light and they could mow them down like ducks in a barrel. We figured we’d just do the same thing.”
“Ducks on a pond,” said Tom. “Fish in a barrel.”
“Whatever. Fuck you.”
Jon asked, “You didn’t watch the follow up I guess. The part where Everglades got overrun? They attracted more of the things than they could handle.”
The Exodus Is Over Page 3