The Infected [Books 1-6]

by P. S. Power

  Charlot picked up, her voice sounding strained and brittle, with more than a little anger underneath her professional demeanor. “This is Charlot Chambers, to whom am I speaking?”

  “It's me, Brian. I'm calling with an update on things and to check on you three, is everything all right? I mean, other than the obvious stuff, of course. You have enough money, people are treating you well, that kind of thing?”

  Nothing came from the phone for a while, long enough that Brian wondered if the phone had died or if the signal had gotten lost. When she finally spoke the tone had shifted from anger to filled with sadness and tears.

  “For years we've all worked to build a life for ourselves, even Infected as we are, tried to make things work, and actually help people. Not like you do maybe, but we all did what we could... Now everything is stripped away from us and all the people we thought we could count on have proved themselves to be... well, let's just say we can't trust anyone right now. Except you. You're the only one left...”

  “Nope. That is simply and completely not true Charlot. A lot of people here would have stopped what happened today if they could. People you may not even know were pulling for you and trying to protect you, all of you. Yeah, most of them weren't able to take down some of the more...aggressively angry people, but that doesn't mean no one tried. Like that new guy on Team Two, Hobbs? He really worked to get things calmed down you know. You saw him step in front of Lauren to protect you and Scott, and let me tell you, that's not something you do lightly. Plus, Rachel Chambers is coming. Your mother in-law, so I don't know if that thrills you personally or not, but it might help Bridget feel better. She should be here in four and a half hours or so, and then I've arranged transportation for her from here. Look, Charlot... This whole thing may go a lot deeper than any of us can even imagine. I know it's not fair, but do you think you can try to keep things calm there for a bit? I don't think there should be any physical attacks for now, but if there are, you have backup. Not just me either, but some very tough people here. I can't fix this... it's already happened. I know that, but I really want to do something about the people that made this happen in the first place.”

  They talked for a bit, and he talked to each of the others in turn after Charlot ran out of things to say. When Bridget got on the phone she sounded glum, but didn't complain about anything.

  “It'll be good to see grandma. Will you come with her to see us? If you can, I mean? Please?” This set off a chain of pretty pleases with sugar and other confections on top until he told her he'd come if he could. For all he knew Rachel Chambers would hate him on sight, since Brian was the one that told her about the whole thing, she might be setting him up as the bad guy already in her mind. People thought weird things in stressful situations, crazy things sometimes. He'd done it himself more than once, so knew that one first hand.

  Brian walked over to Karen, letting her have the phone back, and collecting a hug in return, which was a sweet deal considering it was hers to begin with. After a few seconds she kissed him, then held him for a while as they stood in the middle of the courtyard or whatever it was called. Brian realized he didn't know, which made him smile a bit.

  Dharma came out then and Brian got ready to ignore her. Nothing he was willing to do with her sister in front of the whole world should really get her too worked up, right? True, if it felt like his kissing her was a first hand thing, that could be creepy, but it happened almost daily now, so she should be used to it.

  “Brian! Emergency in about fifteen seconds. Melany again, bad! Bad! You need to run and hard!”

  He pushed away from Karen, hoping she'd understand and did just that, ripping past people as fast as he could go just as the tingling started.

  He was suddenly in another place, dark, open and filled with creatures all heading straight for him. As he expected they were the same as before, a weird hybrid of movie werewolf and zombie, gray skin, long jaws and hundreds of different kinds of clothing.

  As he ran he wondered if wetting himself would help anything at all. Maybe lighten him so he could run faster?

  Hundreds. Closing from every direction but one. Brian ran as hard as he could into that gap, throwing himself into it completely. His legs started burning seconds into the sprint, fear and adrenalin pushing him faster than he'd ever gone before. It very nearly didn't matter, the fastest of the beings caught up to him in seconds. Fast, as he'd noticed before, but not at the level of some of his friends. They moved along at about thirty miles per hour, which seemed to be about their top speed, about eight miles per hour over his own.

  A hand, at least it was most likely a hand, struck him in the back hard. Brian flew through the air, rising higher than anything had hit him before, about twenty feet up. He'd fallen from that high before in practice, higher actually, down on level fifteen. As he flew he tried to stabilize his flight and realized that there must be a cliff if front of him, the pale ground that could barely be seen giving way to an inky blackness. Probably why none of the beings had rushed him from that direction. Brian didn't bother to panic, since that ship had sailed a good ways back in his run.

  Whole seconds before.

  In training this had been discussed, but never practiced. Even Carl, who thought a few broken bones should just be expected now and again, thought it was too dangerous.

  A dark fall.

  Because the ground couldn't be seen, the force absorbing roll had to be started in flight, tuck as tight as possible and create enough momentum to influence what happened when contact with the ground was made.

  If the hit came head first he'd die, but it would give him a small survival window. About a forty percent chance he figured, the numbers just popping into his head as he fell a long string of them. Brian made it happen, spinning in such a way that he landed on his back, then rolled over and over again until the momentum faded. The impact hurt, worse pain than he'd ever felt before, at least with the flex armor on. The fall must have been hundreds of feet at least. He'd have to remember to send Jeremy and his lab buddies a nice Christmas gift. Maybe he could talk Pixie into taking photos with them or something. Brian didn't laugh, but wanted to, mainly in relief. If he wanted Pixie, Georgia he remembered, to do that, he might want to actually meet her first.

  He decided to work on that. From what he'd seen Georgia wouldn't make it hard to be her friend or anything.

  The ground beneath him was hard and flat. He could just make out the yellow lines of the street beneath him. None of the creatures had made their way down yet. Probably a simple hop for them, if they were willing to take a leap into the dark. If he got lucky they'd think there was water down here. Brian wondered if he could fake splashing noises well enough to fool the creatures? Probably not.

  Not waiting he climbed slowly to his feet, forcing himself not to gasp or lose consciousness, and ran without bothering to look back. The creatures made too much noise to sneak up on him, or at least they had so far. He ached all over, his skin feeling slightly burned and raw, but movement wasn't restricted. Probably a miracle that nothing seemed broken. If nothing else Jeremy and crew were going to get a thank-you card.

  He ran for about two hours, not fast, but steady, his chest twinging now and again to remind him that, even if not specifically forbidden, jumping off of cliffs in the dark was probably going against what Doctor Burrows would have wanted to see as far as his healing heart wound went.

  Lights came from behind him. A vehicle. A large one at that. He moved into the road, into the head lights and started waving his arms. The truck had driven right past the edge of the cliff behind him. If those things had seen the lights or heard it, they may – or may not – follow. Brian had to let the guy know the situation and see if he could get a ride. Mainly the last part. He couldn't really outrun those things if they were coming.

  Breaks squealed and the truck stopped suddenly, so he ran to the passenger's side door and opened it quickly. “IPB! I'm a federal agent, U.S. Don't shoot or anything.” He climbed in and sa
w a man, about forty, thin except for the paunch of a beer gut on an almost wasted frame, clearly on drugs of some kind, eyes wild. That last could be fear, Brian having just jumped into the passenger seat like he did on a deserted road calling out that he was a fed.

  “Drive! As fast as you can. We've got between one and two hundred hostile class five Infected coming after us right now, if they saw your truck. If we can do better than thirty miles per hour we should be able to outrun them. Drive!” He pounded the dash with his right hand.

  “Dude! Who the fuck are you? I'm driving, just don't hurt me man. I don't carry much money or nothing, I just carry the goods...” The man started the truck and slowly, ponderously got it moving forward, Brian popped his head around and looked out the side window, not able to find anything in the dark yet. Maybe they hadn't followed? That would be good. They picked up speed until they were going around sixty miles an hour. That should be enough to buy them some distance.

  When Brian faced forward again he found a sawed off shot gun pointed at his face. Without thinking about it he took it from the man and looked at it carefully, loaded, but something like this, deadly against people, wouldn't do much against the things coming after them at all. Not unless it was put in the mouth directly. He told the man next to him this and handed the weapon back, then looked out the window again.

  When he turned again the man just had the sawed off sitting next to him, on his right side, ready to shoot out the driver's side window if he had too. Good.

  “Sorry for interrupting your drive like this. I'm Brian.” He didn't shake the man's hand, not wanting the guy to have to take his hands from the wheel. The slightly seedy looking man murmured that his name was Toby. Tobias actually, he made a point of saying, as if it were just the way he introduced himself to everyone.

  “Nice to meet you Toby. Um, so, it's like this, I'm an IPB agent and we have a huge threat behind us. I don't know if they followed us, but just in case, we have to avoid any cities or towns for as long as we can. Do you know what a power class is?” Brian asked, because he hadn't known himself before working with the IPB.

  Toby surprised him.

  “Class one is regular like me or near enough, two is minor abilities like being a bit stronger or faster than regular, or extra smart, better senses maybe. Three is the next up, stuff like bench pressing cars and shit, good, but not so great that you should get full of yourself, cause a gun or a kung-fu expert might kick your ass. Class fours can take down like, military teams by themselves and a class five can like tackle tanks and not be hurt by anything....”

  Brian told him that was a little off, but gave them a good place to start from.

  “What we have behind us are about two hundred class fives, maybe more. I went over a cliff back there and I couldn't tell how high it was, not exactly, but I don't think any of them followed me. If we lucked out we have until daylight to get away, but if not, then we need to be ready to fight. If it comes down to it, I'll need you to run and let the authorities know that Brian Yi from the IPB told you to report this location, wherever this place is, and what I said. Two hundred or more class fives. Can you do that?”

  Toby's answer wasn't eloquent, but it was certainly heartfelt.

  “Fuck! God. Fucking. Damn it! I can't go to the police! I'm loaded down with five tons of weed in the back man, taking it to Toronto for delivery across the border. If they catch me with this shit they'll put me away for about fifty years.”

  “Toby, listen to me carefully. With what's following us back there, the cops won't care if you walked into their station naked with a box of the stuff and started trying to sell it to them. Plus, I promise, if they arrest you for this, I'll get you broken out. This is too important to try and hide from just because you're afraid... Trust me, I don't like the cops either as a rule, most of them are dick-wads, but better to go to prison forever than let this go unreported.” Toby stiffened but nodded, swallowing visibly.

  Brian got the location from the man and used his radio to try and get in touch with the authorities.

  Finally after half an hour and with the help of no less than three anonymous voices crackling on the black box in front of them, they raised someone. Donahue, RCMP. A Mountie.

  Cool, Brian thought, like that old cartoon show. Toby said “shit” softly and moaned, apparently not thinking that real Mounties were anything like the cartoons at all. The woman on the radio didn't bother going through the twenty minute procedure of trying to make Brian prove who he was, she already knew his name. The first question out of her mouth after making sure the name and government body was right was simple.

  “Is it happening again?” Her voice sounded scared. Good, somebody that knew what was going on, much better than Brian dreamed he'd get.

  “Worse. Many times worse.” His own voice rasped this out, sounding harsh and dead.

  He didn't mention Toby at all but got the specific information as to the coordinates from him quietly, making sure that the man wasn't ever heard on the radio at all. They arranged to meet Brian on the highway they were on, about the only major road in the area it turned out, about ten miles ahead of where they were. Brian explained to them that they might be met by him, or a little girl named Melany, and that the girl needed to be cared for, having been chased by these things for weeks, maybe a lot longer than that.

  There was a road two miles from the meeting spot according to the GPS map, so Brian had Toby stop. “Turn here and don't stop. Avoid towns for as long as you can, if you have to stop for gas or food, backtrack out the way you came for a mile or so before turning around. Don't think this is a prank or something Toby. These things get into a town and that town dies. One hundred percent. The ones that don't become more of these things.”

  “Serious?”

  “Yeah, deadly serious. As in it would be better to be torn apart ourselves than lead them to a city. If you mess this up, millions could end up dead. Be careful.”

  Running the last bit was almost relaxing, even if the people he was running toward were police. He didn't tense up until he saw the flashing lights. Then, and it took an act of will to do it, Brian forced himself to keep going to where five cars were parked in the road.

  His skin started to tingle before he could report anything, luckily everything had already been said over the radio. The Mounties had more normal looking uniforms than television showed them in all the time, not scarlet red at all. Something that looked a little brown or tan in the dark, but could even be blue for all he knew. Didn't matter. He called out loudly before he left.

  “Don't take the girl into any towns, they're tracking her somehow! Get her food and water and anything else she needs. Get in touch with...” He didn't have any working numbers to tell them he realized. He'd used peoples cell phones earlier but their numbers were a mystery to him. He didn't call people normally, if Brian wanted to talk to anyone he just went to them and did it.

  Something occurred to him, one of the only numbers he could remember off the top of his head. “Call that number and tell her that Brian asked them to help you. They'll know what to do...”

  He stood, suddenly, in the same spot he'd been running before, more or less. People started to gather, but he didn't say anything, looking around for Moore and his crew, running over to them as soon as they were spotted.

  “Those things, the class fives – they're back – in Canada still, hundreds of them. The girl's with the RCMP now, we need to get in touch with them as soon as possible and fuck, the army, every one we can. Ours... theirs, Mexico maybe too. Guys with fuel air bombs and possibly nukes. If we don't contain this, we're screwed.”

  Even before anyone else could speak, the cell in the old man's hand rang. A call from Canada. They apparently weren't waiting around this time, or trying to keep secrets from the IPB. About time they got with the program.

  The Director and his team took over from there much to his relief. He limped over to the medical area, slowly. Burrows looked at him and winced, so he must have lo
oked pretty good. Brian looked down at his hands, which were covered with burst blood vessels, giving him a nice red color. As the woman helped him get first clothes off, then flex armor he froze. Looking around he noticed that everyone was staring at him. Karen walked toward him, a frightened look in her eyes. He smiled at her and waved.

  “So, get hit by a truck?” The cute, but currently tired looking doctor asked, pushing her straight black hair back over her ear, a habit of hers that he'd almost gotten used to seeing.

  Smiling he shook his head. “Fell off a cliff. Well, knocked into the air first, then flew over it. It was pitch black, so I don't know the actual distance I fell, hundreds of feet at least... I managed to roll out of it. No big, the armor saved me.” It took work to keep the reaction out of his voice, but the run had helped with that part.

  Karen came all the way over, not even bothering to check out the fact that he was naked. Brian suppressed a sigh, mocking himself a bit. After all, his entire body was literally covered from head to foot with an even coating of broken blood vessels and bruises, just starting to turn slightly. Hardly looking his best. She stood back not daring to touch him.

  He wrinkled his nose at her. “Hey other than the brain damage I'm fine. Seriously, looks a lot worse than it feels, it's... kind of like a bad sunburn, that's all.”

  Before she could say anything Marcia worked her way over and raised her eyebrows. “Hah! You don't even rate cat calls. I win.” Her smile looked a bit forced, but he laughed.

  “That,” He gestured at her sweat pants and what was underneath them. “Trumps what I've got any day of the week. No worries though, another riot here would be overkill today anyway, don't you think?”

  Mark had gotten a bunch of the good drugs from the seventh floor, which didn't have a lot of damage apparently, so he got a nice couple of shots, including one to help him stay alert for a while and one for pain. Doctor Clinton looked at him, worried as the shots were being given, but didn't say anything out loud. Finally Brian threw his hands up.