Slow Burn (Book 8): Grind

by Adair, Bobby

  “I wonder if the Smart Ones who run that naked horde left some of their boys to look for me after what happened last night. They have to be smart enough to know that somebody was driving that combine. They lost a lot of their minimum-wage help, and I’ll bet they’re pissed about it.”

  “Not so many they’ll notice,” Murphy disagreed.

  I pointed down the hedgerow in the direction from where we’d just come. “I think they did notice. I think these guys are their revenge.”

  “Fine. You’re right.” More sarcasm. Murphy looked back and forth, leaning over as he did so he could see between branches into the neighboring field. “Which way, Professor?”

  I pointed. “If we go that way, then we'll be moving back in the direction those Whites were coming from. I don't think any of them are smart enough to think we'd run that way.” I pointed the other way. “I think they'll likely keep searching in the last direction they saw us moving in.”

  “Except that some are coming this way down the fence.” Murphy’s nervousness was clear in his fidgeting. He wanted to stop talking and get moving.

  I huffed and pointed again in the direction of my choice. “That’s our best bet. But whatever.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Murphy shrugged, took a deep breath, and grinned. “Why don’t you just admit it’s all a guess and any direction is as good as any other. Let’s stop talking and get a move on?”

  I rolled my eyes, pursed my lips, pushed through some bushes, and hopped the fence. I’d made my choice, even if Murphy thought it was an unfounded guess.

  With no Whites able to see us for the moment, we ran at full speed. We only needed to cross a few hundred yards to reach the next fence line. Because trees and bushes grew up through most fences, they acted as barriers, limiting from how far away we could be spotted. At least where the fields were relatively small. Not all of them were.

  Once over the next fence, we stopped to breathe and unfortunately re-evaluate. We were at a road. Across the potholed asphalt, a field spread flat for miles in all directions. To our right and down the road a little was the barn we’d just left and the combine still smoldering black trickles of smoke into the air. Roughly to our rear and probably to our left, the band of Whites was searching for us.

  “How many rounds you got left?” I asked.

  Murphy patted the magazines on his MOLLE vest. “These two and what I’ve got in the rifle.”

  Shit.

  Seventy or eighty rounds.

  All I had were my machete and knife.

  A White made a long, undulating wail from back along the fence line we’d just come down.

  Murphy and I shared a look. We both knew that wail meant nothing but bad news.

  I pushed my face back through the bushes to look. Near the far corner of the field we’d just crossed, a White was standing with his face to the sky, shrieking at the clouds. Kneeling beside him and staring at the dirt while he touched it with his fingers, was another White.

  “Shit they’re tracking us.” I pulled my head back through the bushes.

  “No way.” Murphy peeked through. “Dammit,” he said, as he jumped through the bushes. “Let’s go.” He leapt over a ditch and onto the asphalt. “They’re coming.”

  I ran after Murphy.

  More infected voices howled behind us. And then, like nighttime dogs frightening one another with barks spreading through a neighborhood, hundreds of Whites screamed.

  At least we knew in which directions not to run.

  “You hear that?” Murphy panted.

  We were running through another field of knee-high sorghum stalks, and I was trying to gin up an idea to get us out of a mess that looked to be escalating past our ability to handle it.

  “You hear that?” Murphy persisted.

  I looked back the way we’d come. “Yeah. Of course, I do.”

  “No.” Murphy pointed. “I think more are over there.”

  No.

  I looked. I didn’t see anything but another fence with the shrubs and trees growing through it. I listened. More Whites were over there. They weren’t as close as those we were running from. If they came through that tree line, though, we were in trouble.

  Murphy veered away from the new band of screamers while he sped up.

  It was a long, long way to the next bit of useless cover, a collection of oil pumps, piping, and rusty tanks. A place great for hiding if no one saw you go in. That wasn’t a luxury we had. Whites were already on the road behind us. Their screaming made it clear we had already been seen.

  “Trees.” I pointed as we ran. A band of green and gray stretched across the horizon.

  “Why did they have to find us in the flattest part of the whole damn state?”

  Because that’s just the way being fucked works.

  I kept that to myself. I didn’t have the breath to spare. Whites were behind us. More were crossing the expansive flat field off to our left, but moving on a parallel course. Way back and toward our right, a mob of several hundred was coming.

  “We may,” I panted, “need some luck on this one.”

  “If things,” Murphy gulped a big breath, “go bad,” another breath, “same as before.” He looked at me. “Fall back with them.”

  “No way we can kill them all,” I pieced together between rapid breaths.

  “You’ll have a chance that way,” Murphy argued. “I should have gone naked like your dumbass.”

  “We’re in this together,” I told him. “Mighty Murphy and The Valiant Null Spot.”

  Chapter 28

  Despite the benefit of general painlessness—a gift from the virus—we passed the dormant oil well, feeling the strain of running so far so fast. The chasing Whites were stringing out behind us, faster ones in front, slower falling behind. Some jogged off in the wrong direction. A few stopped and stared. Some stayed on task—chasing Murphy and me—and gained ground.

  It had to be quite a job for the Smart Ones in those bands to keep their minions on task. Infected brains seemed unable to hold a thought in the center of attention for long.

  Bad for them. Good for us.

  Maybe if we ran far enough, that attrition rate would winnow down the number of chasers to a quantity we could successfully kill.

  Yeah, right.

  I find it helps to lie to myself in hopeless situations. It keeps me trying, and it keeps me thinking. And I knew that if I did enough trying and thinking, I tended to still be alive when opportunities arose—so far.

  The line of trees we’d seen on the horizon when we’d started racing across this particular giant flat field was now close enough for me to see that it was a line of tall trees and greenery, not straight along a fence, but snaking from south to north across our path. It had to be a creek or a river, with dense foliage and steep banks towering above a deep, rocky bed, with a shallow sputter of water running through.

  That’s what most of them looked like through the farm country.

  I glanced back to measure the distance of our nearest pursuers. Some were scarily close.

  We weren’t going to get caught in the open but were going to make it to the creek.

  Was I lying to myself?

  Who the fuck knows.

  Things had gotten pretty grim, but I was still breathing. I was still on my feet. I had a pair of boots and a utilitarian machete with which I’d killed more Whites than I could count. And Murphy still had a decent load of ammunition.

  One way or another, we were getting to that damn creek.

  Whether that would give us enough of an advantage to leverage into an escape remained to be seen. But it was hope, and hope can keep your feet moving no matter how much your body tells you to succumb to exhaustion and give up.

  “You gonna make it?” I asked.

  Murphy didn’t spare a breath for an answer. He nodded as he glanced over his shoulder.

  We passed out of the chopped sorghum, knee-high obstacles that had been slowing us for what seemed like a marathon of miles.
With the resistance of having to push my feet through the dried stalks suddenly gone, I felt like I could run forever.

  We bounded over a narrow dirt road and into a smaller field of nothing but scattered weeds growing in deep furrows that had been tilled but never planted. And of course, all the damn furrows were running across our path.

  I immediately stumbled because of a bad landing, but I kept my feet under me and continued running.

  “You okay?” Murphy asked.

  “The ground,” I answered, watching it closely now to make sure my feet landed on the top edges of each furrow. It made for an awkward gait, trying to measure my paces by the regularly spaced ridges of dirt.

  Murphy was doing the same but moving faster. The ridges between the furrows seemed better spaced for his natural stride.

  He looked over at me and eased off his pace.

  “Don’t,” I hollered.

  “No martyrs,” Murphy scolded.

  “Dammit,” I shouted. “Just get there.” I gulped a big breath. “Catch your breath.” More air. “You'll shoot better if you're not gasping.”

  Murphy didn’t speed up.

  “Go,” I ordered. “They won’t catch me.”

  Murphy’s burst of speed immediately created a widening gap between us.

  Damn, I didn’t know he was so fast.

  I risked a glance over my shoulder.

  Damn, again.

  Three sprinters weren’t fifty yards behind me.

  My foot landed badly and I went down, rolling and scrambling to my feet as I cursed myself for the mistake. Still, I looked again at my chasers as I got myself moving again.

  Maybe I wouldn’t make it.

  A pack of three were well ahead of the rest of the Whites who were spread out in a line behind, one or two every ten to twenty yards back until their numbers grew into a running mob of so many Whites it wasn’t worth guessing a number.

  Murphy was already more than halfway from where I was to the trees, which were looming large.

  Just as my foot landed, I chanced another glance back. I had some fractions of a second to spare.

  The three sprinters would never catch Murphy, but they were going to catch me. Another glance back confirmed that.

  It was time to make a choice between two crappy options. I could hope that my machete, boots, and choice to run beside Murphy all that way hadn’t marked me in the Whites’ minds as a target. If I wasn’t marked, I could let them pass and dispatch them as easily as I’d cut the legs out from the Whites who’d chased us away from the barn earlier.

  I didn’t have any faith in that choice.

  My alternative was to slow down and try something else. That appealed to me most, whether through logic or fatigue I couldn’t swear to know, but I told myself it was logic.

  I started taking efficient, slow leaps from furrow to furrow. My breaths instantly felt fulfilling rather than insufficient. Sweat still poured off my skin even though a chill flew on the wind.

  I thought through what I was going to do. I went through it again. Mental preparation, intellect, and imagination were my main advantages over the infected.

  The sound of rapid breathing came up behind me. I glanced back to get the timing right.

  A few more steps, slower and slower.

  I leapt with both feet, planted my heels in the bottom of a furrow, covered my head with my arms, and pulled my body into a tight ball.

  The Whites tumbled over me in a flurry of elbows, knees, and grunts.

  Knocked to the side, I caught my balance and jumped to my feet, swinging my machete at any body part I could reach. An ankle took a gash. A wrist spewed a fountain of red. I wasn’t going for lethal cuts. I’d only bought seconds to slow the three fast bastards down. More Whites were coming on quickly.

  Bleeders were on the ground with brilliant red—stark and tempting—on their white skin.

  That might give my other pursuers pause. But not me. My work was done.

  Successfully.

  Ha! Bitches.

  I stepped into a run as a hand grabbed my ankle.

  My face hit the dirt, as a mouthful of it mixed with the breath I was gasping for.

  The ankle-grabber, probably thinking he had me, was crawling on his knees and chortling through snapping teeth when I rolled over and cut a chunk of his skull away. Blood exploded into the brisk wind.

  Running Whites howled.

  I rolled over, bounced up, and sprinted for the trees.

  Chapter 29

  Murphy was out of sight.

  Good?

  I ran for the spot in the trees where he’d disappeared.

  A White wasn’t a dozen steps behind and coming fast.

  I angled toward a break in the foliage where the ground fell away, eroded by the creek.

  A muzzle flash gave away Murphy’s position.

  The White behind me tumbled over the muddy furrows.

  I looked back as another White’s chest splattered red.

  Yet another group of four was nearly a hundred yards back—they were the nearest.

  Without slowing, I took a chance and jumped from a full-speed run into the gap in the foliage with no idea how far I’d fall before hitting the ground below the ledge. Branches scraped and cut. Twigs snapped and leaves rattled. It seemed like the loudest announcement of my presence I could have chosen and I was cursing myself for the stupidity, even as I started to think I’d made a huge mistake by jumping into a hole I couldn’t see the bottom of.

  My feet slipped on uneven, sloping ground and I fell through more bushes and dead limbs. I slammed into a pile of dirt that knocked the wind out of me.

  Stars swam through my vision as I blinked to clear my head.

  I was still trying to collect my senses when Murphy’s big hand landed on my shoulder. “You okay, man? What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I thought I was Superman?” Really? I didn’t even know what I was saying.

  Murphy dragged me to my feet. “We gotta go.”

  My knees gave out.

  Where’s my machete?

  “Zed. Get it together. Dammit.” Murphy bent over, dragged my arm over his shoulder and lifted me to my feet.

  Where’s my machete?

  I started to panic.

  I looked down at my hand. There it was.

  Motherfucker!

  My boots were dragging the ground and my shoulder felt like Murphy was going to pull it out of its socket. I realized I should have been walking. I started to move my feet as I blinked the last of the stars out of my eyes.

  “I shouldn’t have jumped off the bank like that.”

  “Ya think?”

  Murphy loped through a muddy creek.

  When the cold water seeped into my boots, I said, “That’ll wake you up in the morning.”

  Murphy dropped me on the far bank and looked back the way we’d come. “You’re being a smartass. Now I know you’re okay. Can you stand? Can you run? Anything broken?”

  “Yes. No. Um…” I shook my head and got up on my hands and knees. “I’m okay.”

  Murphy put a hand under my arm and dragged me upright.

  I brushed his hand away. “I’m cool. I’m fine.” I wasn’t. But I’d run anyway. Thoughts started to come in clear, single lines, rather than random, dreamy bits. I pointed up the eroded slope on the side of the creek we'd crossed. “That way.”

  “Is this Superman or Zed talking?”

  Murphy looked like he was sure I wasn’t ready to give him a clear answer so instead I answered by hustling through some bushes and scrambling up the slope while my feet slipped on loose clumps of dirt and mud. No surprise, Murphy passed me on the way up, reached level ground before I did, and grabbed my hand to help me the rest of the way.

  Another impossibly wide field spread to the indistinguishable gray lumps at the horizon. I looked up and down the snaking path of the creek, picked a direction, pointed, and started to run. “This way.”

  Murphy jogged along beside
me. "You know something I don't? We need to stay out of sight, if we can."

  “We’ll make better time up here on the flat dirt.” Yeah, that made good sense.

  “They’ll see us when they come through.”

  “I know.” I looked back to see if any Whites were already following our path out of the bushes. “If we chance a few hundred yards, maybe a half mile, we can get a big lead on these fuckers.”

  Murphy looked back. He wasn’t a believer.

  “If the Smart Ones are running the show,” I told him, “they’ll think we’re staying in the cover of the trees down near the creek bed. That’s the intelligent thing to do. If they look for us down there, they’ll be moving a lot slower than we are up here. We can gain some ground on them.”

  “What if they come up on this side?” Murphy asked.

  “We get back in the trees.” It didn’t seem to me we’d be losing much of anything. Something moving out in the field—far from the creek—caught my attention. I turned my back to the creek and squinted to make out the shapes. “Look.”

  Murphy didn’t look where I was looking. Instead, he pointed in the direction the creek flowed, way off to my left and muttered, “Shit.”

  Chapter 30

  Whites were climbing out of the creek bed several hundred yards downstream in the direction we’d intended to go.

  How the hell did they get there?

  Murphy turned around and looked up at the winding path the creek flowed from.

  I’d already decided what we had to do. Though the trees and thick foliage blocked our view of the field on the other side of the creek, we knew a lot of Whites were over there. More Whites were downstream. For all I knew, even more were in the trees upstream. That left only the miles of flat field bordering the creek and the grazing cattle far out in it. I said, “The cows are our chance.”

  “Goddammit, Zed. You need to quit doing stupid shit and bonking your head.” Murphy turned away from the Whites who were still clambering over the crumbling bank. He started to run. “You can’t think straight.”

  One of the Whites was on his feet, swinging a big kitchen knife at the air and looking around.

  Oh shit. A Smart One.