by Dirk Patton
While he fought I had finished off the other female before dashing to Rachel’s side to check on her. Her face, chest and arms were all bleeding from furrows torn into her skin by the infected, but I didn’t see anything that looked too severe. She was moving slightly, but didn’t look up at me when I called her name. Running my hands over her body I checked for broken bones or other injuries I couldn’t see under her clothing, but didn’t find anything. Pausing my examination I raised my rifle and checked to make sure we weren’t about to be overrun with infected. First I looked up, but there weren’t any females waiting to leap on us. The aisle was clear in both directions.
Blood dripping from his muzzle, Dog trotted over and stood on the other side of Rachel, watching down the aisle. With his superior eyes keeping watch I turned my attention back to Rachel and was dismayed to find her unconscious. That was when I remembered the medic who had checked her out just after our escape from Murfreesboro. He’d warned me to keep her from hitting her head again for a few days. With a sense of dread in my gut I unclipped the small flashlight from my rifle, pried Rachel’s right eye open and flicked the light across it. Her pupil responded, but very sluggishly. I repeated the process with her left eye. Its pupil responded normally. Shit! I didn’t know what this meant medically, but I sure as hell knew it wasn’t good. Carefully, I slipped my hands under Rachel’s head and felt a swelling just a few centimeters from the bump that she had gotten from being knocked out in Murfreesboro.
Dog’s growl warned me and I spun, snapping my rifle up and sighting in on four shambling males that had just rounded the corner into our aisle. I dropped all four of them, scanned behind them then turned to scan in the direction we needed to move. Clear for the moment. I scanned the upper shelves again which were thankfully clear. We needed to move before more of them found us. The problem was, how was I going to move Rachel? The cart we had used for Dog would have worked but it was several intersections behind us and I wasn’t about to leave her unprotected to go get it. Dog was a ferocious fighter, but he couldn’t fend off a group of infected by himself.
Clipping the light back onto my rifle I tuned it on and scanned the aisle section we were in, hoping to see another cart, but there wasn’t one in sight. Extinguishing the light I said a couple of curses under my breath as I removed Rachel’s rifle sling and looped it over my neck. Next to come off was her pack. I knew there were items in there we needed, and took a moment to salvage all of her spare magazines and ammunition before shoving the pack out of the way against the bottom of a shelf. Swapping for a fresh magazine in my rifle I moved into a squat, straddling Rachel’s hips. Gathering her upper body in my arms I pulled her to me, held tight and stood up with her. Using one arm to hold her up I turned and slid down her body until my shoulder was just above her belt, pulled her upper body onto my back and straightened up again with her draped over my left shoulder. My left arm was raised and over her hips and the best grip I could get to balance her weight was by grabbing hard onto her ass. I made a mental note not to tell her about this when she woke up.
I took a couple of steps and bounced her weight to adjust to a more comfortable position, then started staggering forward. I still had my pack on, coming in at over a hundred pounds, had both of our rifles plus Rachel’s weight. Not my idea of a pleasant stroll, but there wasn’t an alternative. I walked with my pistol in my right hand, unable to handle the rifle and keep Rachel’s weight balanced on my shoulder. I had no peripheral vision to my left due to her body pressed up against my head and moved Dog to that side to keep watch. I almost paused when there was another clatter of objects hitting the floor to our rear, but I could tell that whatever had made the noise was far enough away that it was out of pistol range.
Lightning flashed again, freeze framing the aisle to my front and the five males that stood in a loose group at the upcoming intersection. I paused to check the shelves in front of us and didn’t see any females lying in wait so continued forward. I hoped I was only dealing with warehouse employees who had turned and become trapped in the massive building. Never having worked in a warehouse I assumed that one this size would have half a dozen or so clerical employees which are typically women and that most if not all of the laborers and forklift drivers would be men. If all my hopes and assumptions were correct then I might get out without encountering any more females. Small groups of males didn’t particularly concern me as long as I had room to maneuver and a weapon to put them down.
I reminded myself to not get complacent or over confident when it came to the males. They might not have the speed and agility of the females, but what they lacked in those areas they made up for in sheer strength. They could also bunch up and if I got cornered by even a small group of them I could be in serious trouble. Turning my upper body enough to see Dog, I verified there wasn’t anything else in the immediate vicinity that was presenting a threat. Telling Dog to stay beside me I walked forward and came to a stop ten feet from the group of males. They had heard Dog’s nails clicking on the floor and were turning their heads trying to locate the source of the sound, but none of them could tell what direction it was coming from.
Raising my right arm I shot the closest one to me in the back of the head. The pistol was shockingly loud after the suppressed rifle and all the hard surfaces in the warehouse reflected and amplified the noise. As soon as I fired the shot the other four males snapped their heads in my direction, snarled almost as one and started towards me. Standing fast, I methodically fired four more shots, dropping each of them in turn. When I could hear again after the crash of the pistol fire, Dog was growling and there were snarls from behind. Turning carefully so as not to unbalance myself and drop Rachel on her head, which was about the last thing she needed right now, I saw seven more males shambling down the aisle towards us. The leader of the group was twenty yards away and I decided to give him another few seconds so I would have an easier shot. Hey, you try shooting accurately with a hundred pound pack on your back and a full grown woman balanced on your shoulder!
He had closed almost half the distance and my finger was tightening on the trigger when a sound from above my head reached my ears. I didn’t hesitate or look to see what the noise was, I just moved backwards as fast as I could with my burden. The instant I moved a female landed on the floor in the spot I had been standing. Before I could shoot her Dog was in motion, taking her to the ground, and I refocused on the closest male and shot him from five feet away. OK, maybe I didn’t need to let them get so close. His buddies were right on his heels and I worked my way through the group with headshots until there was only one still standing. I had shot him and seen the bullet strike his forehead, but he was still coming. What the hell? He stumbled over one of the bodies on the floor as he came towards me, falling flat on his face. Taking advantage of his bad luck I stepped up and shot him in the back of the head at point blank range. The body spasmed then lay still.
Dog had killed the female and I took the moment to satisfy my curiosity. Using the toe of my boot I hooked the body under a shoulder and flipped it over. There was a long tear in the skin of the forehead from my first bullet. That didn’t make sense. Bullets only do that to flesh if they’re travelling at an angle. I had shot him straight on and the round should have penetrated directly into his head. While I was standing there looking down at him lightning flashed again and in that instant of brilliant white light I saw the metallic glint inside the wound. Son of a bitch. He had a metal plate in his head. All the first round had done was ring his bell. Probably quite literally.
Screams from deep within the warehouse snapped me back to action, but first things first. Shifting Rachel’s weight I leaned against a shelf so I could let go of her body without dropping her. With two hands in action I changed the magazine in the pistol and pulled my rifle around to the front of my body. With females on the way I wanted to be ready. Grabbing on to Rachel again I turned and headed off, stepping carefully over the infected bodies in the intersection. Lightning flashed again and
four intersections ahead I could see the back wall of the warehouse. Unfortunately the screams were getting closer, fast, and I was running out of time.
Looking around I found a shelf at waist level that was only partially full. Sidling up to it I worked Rachel off my shoulder and onto the shelf, shoving her arms and legs back into the darkness. I took ten seconds to pile boxes in front of her so she was hidden from view before stepping out into the middle of the aisle. Without her weight I felt light on my feet and Dog and I stood in place waiting for the females. Screams to my right and in front of me, all of them sounding close but they weren’t visible in my rifle scope yet. Keeping the upper shelves as a part of my scanning I paused when I spotted movement 15 feet off the floor and halfway between my position and the last intersection.
There were more screams from the same positions as before, but I kept my attention on the two females I had spotted. They were working their way down the face of the shelves, feet on the platform 15 feet in the air, using their hands to hold the next higher shelf rail as they moved sideways towards me. Others were screaming, but again didn’t sound closer. Suddenly I realized they were distracting me while these hunters were sneaking up. Not hesitating any longer I shot the closest one that was clinging onto the shelves. The second one reacted immediately and started climbing, going for the top, and she was fast. So fast she nearly made it before my bullet knocked her off and she crashed to the floor with the sound of breaking bones.
I’m not bragging when I say there aren’t many shooters in the world that would have gotten the second one. I know how fast I can acquire and engage new targets, faster than anyone I’ve ever worked with, and I barely got her before she would have disappeared over the top. Pushing that thought down I re-scanned the shelves and didn’t see any more movement. Dog growled and I glanced down to see him looking in the opposite direction. I spun in place and scanned, shooting another female that was on the very top of the shelving and working her way to a position where she could have dropped right on top of me.
No more screams. I kept scanning the shelves in both directions without seeing any threats. I knew there were a few more females, but they had gone quiet. Cursing whatever had allowed them to start thinking and working together, I kept scanning and also kept an eye on Dog. Normally I would have moved to force their hand, but I wasn’t going to leave Rachel. I had hastily hidden her and while she wasn’t obvious to a casual inspection I didn’t want to trust that they wouldn’t sniff her out, or that Rachel wouldn’t wake up and make noise that would attract them. Thinking about Rachel I glanced at the spot where I had hidden her and paused. I wasn’t exactly sure I hadn’t left a box partially sticking out beyond the front of the shelf, but I didn’t think I had.
I made a quick scan then moved to the spot where I’d hidden Rachel and pushed the box aside to check on her. At first I didn’t understand what I was, or wasn’t seeing, then I was frantically shoving boxes out of my way and reaching into the area behind them. All of the boxes from the far set of shelves had been removed, leaving the shelf clear and open into the adjacent aisle, and Rachel was gone.
15
Cursing, I stepped back into the aisle and did a quick scan to make sure there weren’t any females scaling the shelves on their way to attack me while I had been distracted. Nothing moved. I trotted to the closest intersection, scanned again as I moved into the adjacent aisle and kept scanning as I stepped toward the pile of boxes on the floor that marked where Rachel had been taken. There were no more screams and I didn’t see any females moving. Dog growled as two males moved into the intersection on the far side of our destination and I snapped off a couple of rounds and dropped them without breaking stride.
Reaching the location I looked at the boxes on the floor and the empty space in the shelf. Reaching out with my foot I pushed on one of the boxes with the toe of my boot and was mildly surprised at how heavy it felt. Whoever, or whatever, had moved the boxes had done so silently. Not even Dog had detected them. They had picked up and moved several heavy boxes then moved Rachel across a good six feet of shelving and presumably carried her away without any sound. The skin on my back puckered and crawled as I thought about the strength this would require. Were the females capable? They were strong as hell when enraged and attacking, but what about to do something like this? And when the hell did they start capturing survivors rather than killing them?
These were questions I needed to know the answers to, but right now the priority was to get Rachel back before something really bad happened to her. Kneeling on the floor I called Dog over and started tapping the floor in the middle of the piled boxes. He lowered his nose and sniffed the whole area then looked at me.
“Find them, boy.” I said, standing back up. I had no idea if this would work. Dog was smart, and certainly had the ability, but would he know what I wanted him to do?
After a long moment he lowered his nose back to the floor and sniffed, moved through the boxes and started trotting in the direction we had come from with his nose less than an inch above the smooth concrete. I followed, rifle up and head on a swivel. At the intersection we had come from he turned right and headed deeper into the length of the warehouse. I counted intersections as we went, Dog pausing as we approached number eleven.
We were now deep in the warehouse, equidistant between the front and back walls and not too far from the longitudinal center. Every alarm bell in my head was telling me this was a trap. It had to be the infected that had taken Rachel as survivors would almost certainly have made a beeline for an exit. I scanned all around us, aisles and shelves, but nothing moved. Nothing had moved since we had started following the scent and it had been too long since I’d heard a female scream.
Dog was still paused and the fur along the ridge of his back was stiff as he lowered his head below shoulder level and growled deep in his chest. I scanned in the direction he was looking but couldn’t find anything. After a second negative scan I stepped forward to the corner of the next intersection, Dog close to my side, and peered around the shelf. One hundred feet down the aisle to our left was a body lying on the floor. I was almost certain, but verified with the rifle scope that it was Rachel. Moving carefully I scanned the entire aisle, up and down the shelves, along the top of the shelving, but saw nothing. Turning to my right I repeated the scan and came up with the same results. What the hell? They had set up a perfect trap, using Rachel for bait, but where were they?
Pulling back so I was hidden from the aisle, I focused on calming my breathing and lowering my heart rate. After a minute I was able to hear more than my blood pounding in my ears and I stood stock still and listened. Dog was absolutely silent standing next to me and I concentrated on identifying the normal sounds of the environment so I could pick out anything that didn’t belong. I could hear the rain on the roof far over my head, two distinctly different sounds depending on whether the water was hitting the metal roof or the plastic skylights. There was a moaning of wind as it rushed over the exterior of the building. Other than that, there was nothing making any noise. After five minutes I decided I had to move, even though I knew it was a set-up.
Back at the edge of the intersection I did another careful scan of the aisle in both directions, again seeing nothing of concern. Rachel was still lying where I’d first seen her. I was worried about getting her up and on my shoulder. The maneuver was difficult under good circumstances, and both of us would be completely vulnerable to attack while I was performing it. I needed Rachel awake and able to move under her own power if I hoped to get us out of there alive. Pulling back I shrugged out of my pack and dug for the medical kit, pulling out a small tube of ammonia inhalant or smelling salts. I had no doubt that any doctor would tell me it was bad to force Rachel awake with an obviously severe concussion, but the risk I was going to take was better than getting eaten by a pack of infected females.
Another scan and I was ready to move, rifle up and ready and the small inhalant safely tucked into a pouch on the front of m
y vest. Stepping carefully down the aisle I paused when lightning flashed and lit up the interior, gave my eyes a moment to re-adjust to the gloom, and then continued. I was moving down the left side of the aisle, shoulder nearly brushing the shelves so I could keep an eye on the opposite side. Dog moved down that side and I trusted him to alert me if he detected anything on the shelving above my head.
In short order we reached the point where Rachel was lying. She was on her side, long hair covering her face. If she had been dropped where she was I only hoped she hadn’t hit her head on the hard floor again. Scanning in every direction possible I slowly moved to her side, let the rifle hang down my back and drew my pistol. Kneeling down in front of her I kept an eye on the shelves, checked on Dog and brushed Rachel’s hair off her face. Pulling the inhalant out of the pouch I squeezed the thin plastic until it snapped and was immediately hit by the sharp odor of ammonia.
Before I could put the ampule under Rachel’s nose a scream sounded from above and to my right, instantly answered by more screams from all around me. Snapping my head up I saw boxes tumble off a shelf high in the air, followed by a female who had hidden behind them. She leapt off the edge of the shelf and I fell to the floor on my back, dropping the inhalant, raised the pistol and fired three quick rounds. There was no time for aiming for her head, just blast away at center mass and hope for a heart shot. Luck was with me, one of my rounds finding the infected’s heart and killing her. I tried to roll out of the way of the falling body but didn’t make it, the woman crashing down on me with enough force to knock some of the wind out of my lungs.
Behind me Dog was fighting with a female that had crashed out of the shelves and as I scrambled partially out from under the body lying on top of me another one landed on her feet directly in front of my face. I swung the pistol towards her but she was too close and attacked before I could bring it to bear, knocking it out of my hand to skitter across the floor. She fell on me, hands grasping for my throat, her knees on my chest. I managed to kick the body off my legs then raised my legs and locked them in a scissor hold around her neck, pulling her off of me. Controlling the momentum, I spun up onto the side of my hip and onto my feet in a crouch, drawing the Ka-Bar. She had already recovered and lunged at me. I stabbed as I slipped to the side of her lunge, the blade going into the side of her neck to the hilt. Holding tight I let her momentum tear the blade across her throat, opening both carotid arteries and nearly decapitating her.