by Matt Handle
Lynch ignored him, wiping his mouth across his sleeve instead. Jenny glanced at the priest warily and then leaned in closer to Angel as they both gazed out at the wreckage.
Deciding that Lynch apparently wasn’t in the mood to repeat himself, Sawyer adjusted the rifle strap on his shoulder and started toward the downed plane.
“Well we’re sure as hell not going to climb over the thing,” he stated as he began his descent. “Let’s go down there and see what we’re dealing with.”
Angel and Jenny set off after Sawyer while Lynch brought up the rear. When they reached the bottom of the ridge and stood beside the broken plane, Jenny began to cry. Parts of the fuselage had been torn open in the crash and charred skeletons could be seen inside, some still strapped in their seats. Their jaws were frozen open from the terror of their final minutes of life as the plane crashed down upon the earth.
Angel hugged the young girl close to her chest and closed her own eyes to avoid seeing any more of the horrible details. As she did, a raccoon scampered out of a large crack in the plane just a few feet away from where she and Jenny stood. The noise of its clawed little feet clicking on the aluminum skin of the 757 made both girls jump and Angel let out a yelp as her eyes snapped back open to find the cause of the intrusion.
Once outside, the frightened creature ran along the length of the plane and then disappeared into the swamp. Sawyer stepped close and gently put his arm around Angel’s shoulder, giving her a brief squeeze.
“It was probably just trying to get out of the rain,” he explained. “We’re going to be fine.”
“I just want to get away from here,” Angel whimpered. She ran a hand over Jenny’s wet mop of hair. “She doesn’t need to see any more of this.”
Sawyer removed his arm from Angel’s shoulders and then stepped up close to the widest of the holes in the fuselage to scan the interior of the wreckage. As he did, Lynch moved up beside him and looked at the damage as well.
The old man muttered, “Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.”
Sawyer’s eyes didn’t move, but he responded to Lynch under his breath, his voice rumbling with a tinge of warning. “That bible talk is going to scare the girls even worse, Father. I respect you, but I’m only going to ask you this one time. Please stop it.”
Lynch gazed at Sawyer for a moment with his red and swollen eyes and then nodded. “The fear of God is a powerful thing, Sawyer. Even the strongest of us must bow down before Him in the end.”
Then the old man walked away, choosing to be by himself near the edge of the road as the girls huddled a few yards back from the wreck and Sawyer continued to scan their options. After several more minutes, Sawyer stepped toward the girls and called for the priest to join them.
“There’s no good way to navigate through the plane,” Sawyer stated after the priest arrived. “I’d have to try to cut away some of the metal in order to avoid risking one of us cutting ourselves and even if I had the proper tools to do that, there’s enough death in there that I don’t want Jenny to have to go inside.”
Father Lynch broke into another coughing fit and Sawyer waited to see if he was going to spout another creepy bit of biblical verse. When he didn’t, Sawyer continued. “The swamp on the edge of the highway isn’t my idea of safe passage, but in this case, I think it’s our best option. If that raccoon could find solid ground, so can we. We just need to get around the edge of the wreck and then we can get back onto the pavement on the other side.”
“What if there are snakes?” Angel asked as she glanced in the swamp’s direction. “Or worse?”
Sawyer kneeled down and removed the long knife from its sheath that he wore on one calf beneath his pants’ leg.
“We take our chances either way,” he replied. Still kneeling, he looked over at Jenny.
“Why don’t you climb up on my shoulders?” he suggested. “I’ll carry you across so you won’t get wet.”
“I’m already wet,” Jenny responded softly, her eyes glued to the gleam of Sawyer’s blade.
“Climb up anyway,” Sawyer insisted. “If there’s anything in the muck, you’ll be safer up there.”
Jenny glanced at Angel who nodded her approval.
After Jenny was sitting upon Sawyer’s broad shoulders, they marched along the side of the wreckage and Sawyer led the way into the swamp, Angel and Lynch close behind. The first several steps landed on stable ground, but about eight feet into the detour, Sawyer’s right leg suddenly sank up to his knee in wet mud. He grunted in surprise but managed to keep his balance.
“Careful you two,” he said over his shoulder. “You break an ankle out here and we’re done for. Just follow in my footsteps and don’t be afraid to get dirty.”
A minute later, all three of them were wading through the muck. Angel, at only 5’2” tall, was in it up to her thighs. Lynch was really struggling, the mud making his already weakened body work that much harder.
When Sawyer reached the other side of the plane, he let Jenny climb off his shoulders and onto the pavement first. Rather than follow her, he stood his ground and helped both Angel and Lynch up next. Angel’s well toned body felt small but strong as he gave her a boost, but Lynch felt as if he were made of straw. The old man was skin and bones beneath his robe and he wheezed with every labored breath.
With the rain continuing to drizzle, Sawyer used it to swipe as much of the caked filth from his pants and boots as possible. Angel soon did the same while the priest just leaned against the side of the plane trying to get his wind back.
“I think he’s really sick,” Jenny whispered to Angel as she looked at Lynch with worried eyes.
“Would you like me to help wipe off some of that mud?” Angel asked the old man. “It’ll probably make it a little easier to walk without it weighing you down.”
Lynch dismissed the idea with a wave of one pale, bony hand before looking at Sawyer.
“Just get us there, Sawyer,” he said weakly. “I won’t last much longer out here.”
Twenty minutes later, the weary foursome approached the complex of white buildings, now yellowed by mildew and pollen, which stood behind a black iron fence. The words “United States Southern Command” stood out starkly across the front of the main building, the letters matching the imposing fence.
The main gate stood wide open, not a guard detail in sight. There was a scattering of cars and trucks in the parking lot, but all of them featured the same abandoned look as the building itself. The grass on the front lawn was practically knee-high, dandelions and other weeds slowly taking over the once-pristine greenway.
The rain had stopped and the southern Florida heat was already beginning to dry up the puddles along the street as well as the travelers’ hair and clothes. Sawyer had been helping Father Lynch for most of the last mile by offering him an arm for balance, but he gently pulled it away as they neared the gate, readying his rifle instead.
“Be alert,” he mumbled quietly, his eyes darting this way and that as he looked for any sign of trouble. “This place is usually crawling with security. Who knows what kind of shit they left in place when the plague started killing them off.”
Lynch, Angel, and Jenny each drew their own weapons, Jenny stroking her bunny’s ears once for good luck before tucking it under an arm so she could hold her pistol with both hands.
When they stepped inside the gate without incident, all four of them stopped, standing still as they waited for Sawyer to make his next move. It was completely silent, not even the sound of a bird or insect.
“So now what?” Angel asked after another minute.
Sawyer nodded his head toward the glass walled lobby of the main building that was about fifteen yards ahead of them, separated by a wide, paved walkway.
“It looks like we invite ourselves in,” he replied. “See what we can find.”
What they found wasn’t what any of
them expected. The lobby was huge, two stories tall, with dark wood paneling and a long marble counter beneath the aqua-blue colored shield logo of the station. Strewn all over the sprawling space were the bloody, rotting corpses of the station’s soldiers and civilian workers that had managed to survive the plague. There were over a dozen of them, piled on the floor, draped across the counter, and one flopped over the back of a taupe couch, her dead eyes seemingly staring at a speaker set in the ceiling overhead.
What surprised Sawyer about the discovery wasn’t the bodies, but the method of their demise and the rate of their decay. They’d all been shot, apparently with machine gun fire, and recently. He guessed that it had happened within the past two weeks based on their state of decomposition. Bullet holes riddled the walls and most of the bodies had multiple entry wounds. There was no sign of bite marks or the sort of mauling he’d gotten accustomed to seeing in the victims of the cannibal creatures that now roamed the country. This looked more like a war zone than an attack of the Afflicted.
“Who would do this?” Angel gasped as she looked around the room at the carnage.
Sawyer took a closer look at a desk clerk whose head lay in a pool of dried blood on the marble countertop and confirmed what he already suspected.
“Whoever it was, these people hadn’t turned. No signs of plague,” he stated.
Father Lynch grasped his rosary and said a quiet prayer as he bowed his head and closed his eyes to the massacre.
Jenny walked over to the wood paneling and fingered one of the bullet holes, probing it gently, her eyes a mixture of curiosity and fear. Her eyes swept over the 30-foot-high wall, taking in just how many holes had been made in its cherry finish.
“They must have had an awful lot of bullets,” she commented. “Look at all these holes.”
Sawyer walked around the room, inspecting each of the corpses, but careful not to move any of them. Lynch had sunk down against the counter, leaning his head back on it while he sat on the floor to rest, but Angel and Jenny were watching Sawyer with interest.
“What are you looking for?” Angel asked him.
“The shooters,” Sawyer replied. “Just in case they left any of their own wounded behind.”
“Can we help?” Angel asked.
“Sure, just don’t touch them,” Sawyer answered. “Even if they weren’t infected, they might be booby-trapped. Look for machine guns. The standard firearm for the men and women that served here would have been a Beretta 9mm pistol. Anything bigger is out of place.”
Sawyer looked at the girls to make sure they were paying attention. “Whatever killed all of these people, it wasn’t a handgun.”
Most of the uniformed corpses had pistols, some still in their holsters, but none were armed with anything heavier. Once they’d completed their inspection, Sawyer walked over to the priest to help him up.
“Come on, Father,” Sawyer said. “Let’s find you some place more comfortable. They’ll have barracks and a mess hall around here somewhere.”
He helped Lynch get back to his feet and then the girls joined them as they made their way down one of the hallways. A map on the wall showed that the mess hall was up ahead. They followed the signs, passing several doors and making several turns before Sawyer suddenly motioned for them to stop.
“What...” Angel began but Sawyer held a finger to his lips to indicate silence.
From around the next corner, about ten yards ahead, came a heavy thump followed by the faint sound of something being dragged along the floor. It repeated itself seconds later and now the others heard it too. Sawyer pointed his rifle toward the sound and the others followed suit. They waited, frozen in place, nothing but the sounds of their own hearts beating and the regular thump and rasp of whatever approached from the corridor that was just out of sight. When the noises sounded as if they were almost upon them, Sawyer began to backpedal. His gaze never wavered from the corner from whence the noises came. His friends followed his lead, each of them quietly putting distance between themselves and whatever approached. Seconds later, it came into view as it rounded the bend.
Sawyer blinked once as he took it in, his mind trying to make sense of what he saw. It was an Afflicted, a big one, and at first, Sawyer thought it was wearing armor like one might see on an ancient gladiator. But it wasn’t wearing it. The armor was part of the creature. It looked like some kind of cyborg. The Afflicted’s face and neck were recognizable, but its limbs and torso were made of dull, black metal. It wore a metal skullcap as well and most fearsome of all, instead of forearms and hands, its elbows ended in what appeared to be built-in machine guns. The sounds that he and the others had heard were one of the cyborg’s metal feet clomping down the hall while it dragged the other behind it, apparently damaged from previous combat.
“Run!” Sawyer shouted as he left all pretense of a slow retreat behind and bolted down the hall for the next corner that would put him out of the creature’s sight. Angel and Jenny were three steps ahead of him and he grabbed Lynch’s sleeve as he ran by, pulling the old man roughly around the bend just before the cyborg opened fire, spraying the hall in a hail of bullets.
“Keep going!” Sawyer shouted to the girls, urging them not to wait as he dragged the priest along beside him.
“Move your feet, old man!” Sawyer shouted at Lynch. “That thing is going to tear us apart if we don’t lose it.”
The priest stumbled along as best he could, grunting in pain from the effort and the strain on his feeble frame. “Can’t… keep up…” he gasped as he clutched at one of Sawyer’s shoulders. “Go…”
“Get back to the lobby and don’t slow down!” Sawyer shouted ahead at the girls that were already out of sight. He hoped they’d listen, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. He yanked open the first door he came across and shoved Lynch inside before kneeling down and grabbing the PMN-2 mine from his duffle bag. Running several steps back toward where he knew the cyborg would be appearing any second, he activated the mine and laid it gently down in the middle of the walkway. With nothing else to camouflage it with, he pulled off his shirt and draped it over the mine. If the thing had any brains at all, it would walk around the discarded shirt before finding and shooting them all dead. He could only hope it was either as dumb as the Afflicted it was made from or that its sensors were as damaged as its leg.
He darted back toward the door and was almost inside when the cyborg appeared from around the corner. It opened fire again, one of the bullets grazing Sawyer’s bare shoulder before he could duck inside and slam the door shut behind him. He backed away from the door, ignoring the blood and searing pain from his new wound as he waited to see if the creature would fling the door open and finish him and the old man off.
Lynch cowered in the far corner, sitting on his ass while pointing his gun toward the door in what he surely knew was a useless gesture considering the thing’s superior armor and firepower. Sawyer smiled grimly at the thought and then braced himself.
Five seconds later, an ear-splitting explosion rocked the room, shattering the outer window and crimping the door Sawyer had slammed shut, bending it like an accordion. Black smoke filtered in from the cracks the bent door had left between itself and the frame.
Taking a deep breath, Sawyer walked toward the door and wrenched it open, grabbing his gun as soon as he did just in case the cyborg was still standing and he had the chance to get off one last shot.
There was no need. The cyborg lay in pieces scattered along the blackened hallway. It looked like the thing had stepped directly on the landmine. Chunks of armor were all over the place along with a few bits of smoking flesh and the remains of its weapons, now bent into misshapen lumps that looked more like sixth grade pottery than guns.
Sawyer reflexively barked out a single laugh and then glanced back at the doorway he’d just exited from.
“Come on out, Padre,” he called. “The thing’s more jigsaw puzzle than robot at this point.”
Sawyer finally glanced at his
wound and saw that it was bleeding freely. He touched it gently and winced at the pain. He knew it would have to be cleaned and dressed pretty quickly if he wanted to avoid infection. It was only a flesh wound, but with little idea how the plague was spread, he figured he couldn’t be too careful.
The priest limped through the doorway and looked first at what was left of their pursuer and then at Sawyer and his bloody shoulder.
“You still in one piece?” he croaked.
Sawyer smirked. “Better than I was two minutes ago despite ruining a perfectly good shirt.”
Sawyer looked toward the direction the girls had run and raised his voice in the hopes they could hear him. “Come on back!” he yelled. “And bring the marshmallows!”
Lynch leaned against the wall and looked at Sawyer wearily. “I suppose I ought to be glad someone is enjoying this,” he grumbled.
Sawyer walked over to the priest and raised his good arm, laying his big palm on the old man’s shoulder. “Less than five minutes ago, I was pretty sure we were all dead,” he said.
Sawyer took a deep breath and let it out slowly, a grin spreading across his face. “Damn right I’m enjoying it,” he stated. “So should you.”
Chapter 6
Once Angel and Jenny doubled back to find Sawyer and Lynch, Angel set about helping Sawyer clean and bind his shoulder. The bullet had grazed him closely enough to take out a chunk of flesh, but it hadn’t been deep enough to do any significant damage to the muscle beneath. After she’d wiped away the blood, a three inch long gash was revealed which she dabbed with rubbing alcohol, then covered in gauze and wrapped in a cloth bandage. It took most of the first aid equipment they’d put together from their various raids along the way, but Sawyer assured all of them that they’d find plenty more at the complex’s infirmary before they left.
The priest was exhausted. He looked haggard, his eyes watery and red. What little skin that his robe exposed was loose and gray over his bony frame. He coughed incessantly. Angel walked Sawyer far enough down the hall to be out of earshot and then glanced back to make sure Jenny was watching over the old man.