Being pinned down and not knowing where the shooter was, Rose figured it’d only be a matter of time before one or both of her targets made a mistake or tried to make a break for it. Rose wasn’t disappointed. A short time later, the security guard left the relative safety of the SUV and began to slowly advance on her house, his gun pointed at the window Rose had originally shot from. Right away, the guard walked directly into Rose’s crosshairs completely unaware of where she was now, solely focused on where she’d been. A quick burst of fire dropped the guard on the spot. He didn’t take another step. Rose then returned her attention to the back of the SUV. While the guard had been advancing on the house, the man from the CDC had taken the opportunity to make an attempt at getting to the radio inside the car. The man had opened the SUV’s door and was moving inside. Rose put several bullets through the blue CDC letters on side. The man immediately fell to the ground, unmoving.
Not realizing she’d been holding her breath, Rose let out a long sigh. She lowered the rifle and checked around to see if there was anyone else she missed or anyone else coming. It appeared to her as if neither was the case. It was eerily quiet and still as her mind began to register that the threat had passed...and what she had just done The churning in her stomach returned, this time too strong to hold back. Retching on the floor, Rose grabbed the edge of a nearby chair for support. There was no going back now, she’d just killed four men. “I was defending myself,” she tried to tell the voice in her head, but the words sounded hollow and empty. Murderer...the word was stuck in her head. “I need to go,” Rose said aloud to herself, urging her body to raise and escape. She need to leave home as soon as possible.
Slinging her AR-15 around her back and grabbing her shotgun off the floor, Rose made her way through the house and out the side door to her truck. Rose did a quick check and found the truck and the contents of the back to be undisturbed. Rose then continued on to the front of her house. Rose checked the man in the driver’s seat of the SUV in the driveway. He was quite dead having taken shots in the chest and neck, the seat belt holding him up in a seated position, head drooping down toward his chest. Rose quickly searched him and found a fully loaded H&K 45 caliber handgun which she took and tucked into her waistband at the small of her back. Rose then moved to the other two dead guards in the middle of her front lawn. She checked the magazine in the first man’s handgun and found only two rounds left. Rose took both rounds and put them in her pocket but left the unloaded gun and magazine behind. Rose checked the other man and found another, this time fully loaded H&K handgun. She took the magazine from the unfired weapon and put it into a cargo pocket of her pants.
Rose then moved over to the second SUV to check on the man from the CDC, but found him gone. There was a small pool of blood on the grass where Rose had shot him, but the man wasn’t there. Rose chambered a round in her shotgun, checked the interior of the SUV quickly, then knelt down next to the SUV. Rose looked around the area for the man but she couldn't locate anyone or hear any movement.
Rose began to slowly move in a squatting position toward the back of the SUV. She rounded the back of the SUV and the man from the CDC was there. Crouched on the other side near the rear bumper, he was waiting. Rose came into the man’s view. He fired a shot. The bullet grazed her left forearm with a searing jolt of white-hot pain. Instinctively, Rose pivoted toward the man so they were facing face to face. Lined up with the end of the shotgun’s barrel was the middle of the man’s chest. Rose let loose a blast without thinking. She half-expected the man to fly backward like in the movies, but he just stumbled backward and then collapsed forward onto his face with a thump, eyes wide with surprise.
After watching the man die, Rose looked down at the wound to her arm. She was bleeding but the graze wasn’t deep. Somehow her injury made this man’s death seem more reasonable, more fair. Rose moved over to the dead man, ripped off a strip of white coat, and wrapped it around the graze tying a knot. The bandage slowly began to turn maroon as it soaked up her blood. Bandage secure, Rose ran over to her truck and laid her shotgun in the bed. Rose then jumped in the driver’s seat and placed her AR-15 in the passenger seat. Rose jammed her key in the ignition, cranked it over, and fired up her truck. Rose threw the shifter into reverse and looked out the back window ready to back down the driveway. Seeing the CDC SUV parked directly behind her with the dead man in the driver’s seat, Rose had a better idea.
She hadn’t the faintest idea what the CDC knew about her or how long they’d wait when they didn’t hear from this team before sending another. Turning off her truck and jumping out, Rose ran over to the body of the dead man from the CDC. Fishing around in the man’s pockets, Rose pulled out the bloody SUV keys. Wiping off the keys on the grass, Rose ran over to the SUV parked in her yard and started it up. Rose then circled the SUV and removed the blue CDC letters on the sides, all which were luckily just magnets. Leaving it running, Rose made several trips to her truck piling all of her things from the bed of her truck into the back of the SUV including an old, weathered wooden softball bat should she ever run out of bullets.
Before driving off, Rose decided to make one more quick run into the house. She knew this was going to be the last time she’d likely be at her home again and so she grabbed a few pictures off the walls along with her and Kate’s wedding album. Exiting the house out the back door, Rose said a final hurried goodbye to Kate. The sky was beginning to darken as the day shifted to afternoon. Rose made a silent promise to herself and Kate that if she could, one day she’d return and visit Kate again.
As Rose pulled away from her house in the SUV, she watched it shrink in the rearview mirror once again for the last time. Rose felt a single tear trickle down her cheek and she vowed that would be the last tear she would shed for Kate. For Kate and for herself, Rose was going to survive this.
Chapter 7
Rose had always enjoyed the drive into town from her house. The roads were never congested and the views of Green Forks were beautiful. It was midafternoon and the sun was shining brightly. Rose had a clear view of Green Forks and she was amazed by what she saw. Andy hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said they were losing ground against the infected. She could see several large fires burning in the distance, mainly concentrated downtown, but all over the city. As Rose got closer, she could see that pretty much every building was damaged in some way, many by fire, and most had no windows. They didn’t appear to have been looted, rather just destroyed. After seeing the destruction Kate had visited on their bedroom and basement, Rose shouldn’t have been surprised.
As Rose made her way downtown, the destruction became much worse as did the carnage. Rose could see places where people may have been attacked as evidenced by fresh and dried pools of blood, but not until she’d gotten into the downtown area did she start seeing the bodies. With some, it was hard to tell if the dead had been a person or possibly a dog or some other animal. Others were quite obvious as the dead person was just missing an arm or leg or head. Rose also caught glimpses of what she assumed were infected running from the sound of the SUV. Occasionally, off in the distance, Rose could see one or two people hunched over another but Rose had no intentions of investigating and trying and save someone that had already been attacked. Rose’s experience with Kate’s downward spiral was more than enough exposure to infected people. Enough to last her for the rest of her life. Remembering Kate, just for a second, was enough for Rose to find herself slipping into a daydream about her. Rose was only half paying attention to where she was going, despite the death and destruction all around her as she drove through town...
WHAM!!
Rose jerked the wheel to the right as something slammed into the side of the SUV. Rose skidded sideways and came to a stop, the driver’s side of her car facing what had run into her. It was a man with dark hair, jeans, bare feet and a ripped shirt. Dark chest hairs were visible and thick upon his chest as he staggered to his feet after having been knocked down, shaking his head. It took a few seconds
for the man to realize where Rose’s car had went but once he located it, he began to sprint toward the driver’s side door. Rose’s eyes grew wide as she sat there, foot still on the brake. The man was getting ever closer, his eyes wide with primal hunger, and focused on Rose. Coming to her senses, Rose slammed on the accelerator spinning the tires and fishtailing the car in the middle of the road. As she recovered from the fishtail and began to pull away, the man reached the SUV.
WHAM!!
This time the man struck the back side of the SUV. Focused on escaping, Rose sped away as fast as she could, the dark haired man giving chase but quickly disappearing behind her.
Speeding through town, Rose knew where she had to go. The weapons she had might not be enough for the near future, but if she was going to be holed up somewhere having to defend herself, what she had wasn’t going to last. If all the infected were as violent as Kate had been, then Rose needed to get more weapons quickly and then get out of town. The best place for this was the Green Forks PD’s armory. On the far side of town, Rose came to the turn, off which would bring her to the police department from the main road. On the corner under a street lamp, Rose could see gore covering the sidewalk, presumably from an attack, but no recognizable human remains were left. As Rose approached the police department, she could see barricades around the building and made the assumption that the police department had likely been made into a last hold-out for the town. It made sense, they had armed officers and an armory full of weapons people could use to defend themselves. Also, the PD had a generator so they’d have power to call for help if needed. Rose would have to initially make it seem as though she was back to help, but first chance she got, she needed to get into the armory and get out. If they found out what had just happened at her house...
As Rose pulled past the front of the building, she could see the large barricade erected in front of the front doors had utilized some large spikes made from what appeared to be flagpoles or light poles, one of which had someone impaled on it, limp and lifeless, but what disturbed Rose the most was she didn’t see anyone guarding the doors. Rose drove around to the rear of the building and parked her vehicle there. The lot appeared to be populated with nearly their full compliment of police cars as well as several personal vehicles, Andy’s included.
Rose exited the SUV, and took the H&K handgun she’d taken off the dead guard at her home out of her waistband at the small of her back and left it in the center console of the SUV. Rose then checked the magazine in her own Glock handgun to make sure there was a round in the chamber. Re-holstering her Glock, Rose grabbed her AR-15 and left the truck to make a quick check around the building. Most of the windows had been broken, and that was a bad sign. It was mostly dark inside and it being so bright outside, Rose had a hard time seeing in through the windows. Rose made it around to the front and found what was left of the front door guards between the barricade and the front doors, both dead and apparently mauled. One was a woman Rose didn’t know and one was one of her fellow officers, Jay Collins, his head and right arm missing but his name tag still visible pinned on his chest. Jay had been hired about a year and a half before she and Andy. She didn’t know him very well as he worked an opposite shift, but it still made Rose sad and angry that he’d been killed this way. Rose checked both their weapons and found both to be empty, all the bullets spent. Rose looked up and observed all the glass for the front entrance to be shattered as well as the front doors ripped off their hinges.
Rose considered entering the building, but thought better of it. She returned to the SUV and put the AR-15 back in the car. The AR-15 and her shotgun was both good, but in close quarters like inside the PD, they weren’t going to be as effective. Rose patted the holster on her hip double-checking the Glock was still there and reached into the trunk of the SUV. On a whim she had decided to take her wooden softball bat and she was glad she did. Not having anything like a large knife or axe to defend herself, having the bat was the next best thing to her Glock for close-quarters fighting.
Rose went up to the back door of the PD and found it still secure. It was the employee entrance and she punched her code into the pushbutton keypad on the door handle and unlocked it. Holding her bat at the ready, Rose slowly made her way into the building. The interior that had been relatively clean last time she was here now more closely resembled her basement at home. Everything that could be destroyed seemed like it’d been. Slowly, Rose moved down the hallway trying to limit the amount of noise she was making by stepping on shell casings, broken glass, or anything else but it was nearly impossible. Rose moved into the conference room where they’d been briefed on this disease just eight days ago and it was almost unrecognizable from that day. There were several dead officers in this room as well as several dead civilians, some possibly children. All the bodies were badly mutilated, but mostly still identifiable as human.
Rose moved into the dispatch area and observed several more dead bodies. These weren’t mutilated like the others in the conference room and appeared to have been shot to death. Rose assumed that these were some of the infected that had attacked here. Looking out into the lobby from dispatch through the shattered dispatch window, Rose could see at least ten or more dead infected, all appearing to have been shot to death.
Rose left dispatch and moved back into the conference room toward the hallway on the far side of the room from where she came in. Off the back side of the conference room was a hallway with several offices and the armory at the far end. At the beginning of the hallway was a stairwell that led up to the second floor where all the administrative offices were located. The first-floor hallway was a long row of offices on both sides with the armory at the far end. Rose could see in the distance that the armory door was closed and the hallway was littered with debris. Several dead bodies were draped over the stairwell leading up to the second floor. Rose slowly made her way down the first-floor hallway toward the armory door. Normally this hallway was lined with windows and doors on both sides, four offices on each side of the hallway: places officers could go to type paperwork, interview suspects, and perform other office functions. No glass remained.
Unsure what may be lurking in each office between her and the armory, Rose decided that she’d need to make sure each room was clear of danger before she moved by it. She couldn’t just stride down the hallway, Rose had seen enough horror movies to know something was definitely going to jump out at her if she made that mistake. Bat in hand, Rose crept to the first office and peeked her head around the corner getting a quick glance inside. The office was destroyed, but empty. A desk was overturned in the corner and the computer was smashed on the floor. There was a large blood stain in the middle of the room as well but no bodies, so Rose moved on. Working diagonally back and forth, Rose checked all the rooms slowly moving down the hallway. Each room was completely destroyed. In two of the rooms, she found what remained of a few bodies. Both were officers but she couldn't tell if they were male or female let alone identify who they were. This was the first time that Rose realized that any of these blood stains or bodies could be Andy. Things hadn’t ended well between them last time they talked, and that had been justified as far as Rose was concerned. Andy had sold her out to his uncle and almost had gotten her killed at her house. Rose had been forced to shoot her way out and then abandon it, the place where she buried Kate, because Andy couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
There were only two offices left to check, one on each side of the hallway between Rose and the armory door. Rose did another quick look into the next office and again found more destruction but no one lying in wait to attack her. This room had an overturned desk in the middle of the room but otherwise appeared empty. Moving diagonally across the hallway again Rose checked the last room on the left side of the hall. In this room was a dead person, likely an infected, who’d been shot several times. Rose moved closer to make sure this one was dead when she heard what sounded like a slurping sound coming from the office she’d just checked directly acro
ss from the one she was in.
Turning on her heel and bat at the ready, Rose spun around but found nothing waiting for her. Rose moved closer to the office the sound had come from, the armory door immediately to her left. As Rose got closer, she could distinctly hear a soft slurping sound interspersed with the sounds of lips smacking. Something was being eaten in this office. Rose approached the open doorway to the office very slowly, bat in her right hand. Peeking inside and around the desk, she could see someone hunched over another on the floor. They must have been hidden behind the desk when she’d quickly looked in on the room before. Rose grasped her bat with both hands, intent on a downward blow to the infected person which had its back to her. Possibly a woman, she was completely oblivious to Rose’s presence and focused on eating the victim on the floor in front of her.
Rose slowly raised the bat above her head and was about to bring it down on the infected’s head when Rose was slammed into on her right side. “Oomph” escaped Rose’s lips as she was shoved sideways. Rose stumbled back into the door of the armory loudly. The attack came from her blind side and it took her a second to recover. Her attacker was an infected boy around ten or twelve years old. Ramming Rose from the side had knocked the boy down but he was getting up and moving toward her.
Rose had other problems as well now. The infected person that had been happily snacking away moments before was now very much aware of Rose’s presence and had turned to face her. She had abandoned her dead meal in favor of a living one. Rose recognized her as she moved away from the half-eaten body on the floor and began moving toward Rose, eyes fixed hungerly. It was the Chief’s administrative assistant, Lindsay Atkins. Lindsay had always been nice to Rose whenever they’d crossed paths at work, which wasn’t often since Rose worked midnights and Lindsay worked during the day. Usually it was a passing hello as one was coming to work and the other was leaving. Lindsay didn’t appear to be interested in a hello today however. She had her mouth open and was hissing at Rose as she approached, blood and gore dripping from her mouth and down the front of her tattered dress. However, Rose’s first priority was the boy who’d reach her before Lindsay would. Rose had to think quickly. She planted a front kick in the chest of the boy sending him flying backward as he approached. Spinning, Rose then turned and deflected Lindsay’s charge with her bat like a swordsman turning an opponent's strike aside. Rose then spun and landed a sweeping kick to the legs of the boy as he approached, planting the boy on his back and let her momentum carry her through so she was facing Lindsay, a small gap between them. As Lindsay approached again, Rose cocked both her arms back, both hands choked up on the bat. Rose swung for the fences connecting with the side of Lindsay’s head. The force of the blow caused the side of Lindsay’s head to implode in a spray of blood and tissue as it wrapped around the bat penetrating deep into her skull. Lindsay’s momentum and the force of the bat striking her head caused her body to continue forward, propelling her back into the office from which she had emerged.
Break Away (Jordan Rose Duology Book 1) Page 9