“Move!” he heard a grizzled voice shouting from the doorway as he saw Steven running toward him. Above his head, Steven held the nail-studded baseball bat, and at the exact moment Walt moved his foot, Steven brought the weapon down onto the top of the child’s head. The force of the blow smashed the child’s skull, and all that was left was brain and splintered bone.
Steven worked the nails out of the zombie’s head and floorboards and handed it to Walt.
“I believe this is yours,” Steven said as he handed Walt the bat.
“Thanks, Steven,” Walt said, out of breath. “I owe ya.”
“No shit,” Steven replied. “Come on… there’s more of these fucking things in the house.”
*****
Elsewhere in the house, the residents and staffers fought for their lives and the lives of each other as they tried to kill the deadly intruders.
Cheryl broke a wooden broom handle in half and pinned one of the infected to the wall through its chest. She snapped the infected woman’s neck with a roundhouse kick and ran to help others.
Joe found the stash of gardening tools they gathered, and used the hedging shears to take the heads off two of the zombies, and stabbed another through the eye socket as he rammed it into the wall.
A total of seven zombies managed to find their way into the center. In a short time, those seven had managed to reduce the survivors to only thirteen.
The remaining survivors gathered in the dining room and made sure none of them were scratched or bitten during the battle.
“What the fuck is everyone doing!” barked Steven. “Let’s go! Time’s running out!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Joe barked back.
“What am I talking about?” repeated Steven. “Didn’t you hear a damn word I said earlier?”
The survivors just looked at each other.
“We’ve got less than twenty minutes to round up the fallen and burn the bodies,” Steven said. “If we don’t, then we’re gonna have twenty of those fuckers to deal with, and by the looks of y’all, I don’t think you have any more fight in ya today.”
The thought of twenty infected people waking up and attacking spurred them all into action. Jonas grabbed some latex medical gloves, and they all went room to room collecting the dead.
As Steven was dragging the body of a staff member down the hallway, he saw the others had piled up the bodies in the common room.
“What the hell are you doing?” Steven asked rhetorically. “Get these bodies outside. We can’t burn them in the fucking living room, can we?”
They all knew that time was quickly running out as they grabbed the bodies and dragged them outside.
“Let’s get these bodies to the pool,” said Cheryl.
They all looked around, trying to figure out the quickest way to get the bodies to the pool.
“Let’s move, everyone!” shouted Dennis. Walt was glad to see Dennis had made it through the battle. Dennis was there for alcoholism and had already lost his wife and kids. He was a fighter, though, and that was exactly the kind of person they needed on their side.
“Ya can’t burn bodies in water, ya idiot!” barked Steven.
“Well, then it’s a good thing the water was drained from the pool a few months ago,” said Cheryl.
They dragged the bodies and began throwing them unceremoniously into the waterless pool. Jonas ran over to the tool shed and grabbed a container of gasoline that was previously used by the groundskeeper’s for the lawnmowers.
Cheryl noticed some movement toward the bottom of the pile of dead bodies.
“Hurry up, Jonas!” Cheryl called out. Everyone heard the edge in her voice and looked down into the pool.
Jonas poured the gasoline onto the bodies and saw Steven drag the last body to the edge of the pool.
“This is the last…” but Steven never finished his sentence. Just as he was about to dump the body into the pool, the body sprung to life and sunk its teeth into Steven’s calf muscle.
Steven screamed when he felt the creature’s teeth penetrate the muscle and thrash its head back and forth.
Walt immediately swung the nail-studded baseball bat like a golf club, striking the zombie on the side of the head, and pushing it into the pool.
Steven immediately fell to the ground and held his leg as blood gushed from the wound.
Joe lit a small twig on fire with his zippo lighter and threw it into the pool. With a huge “whoosh” sound, the bodies went up in flames. They heard noises coming from the pool and realized it was fingernails scratching against the pool’s concrete walls as they tried to escape.
Walt dropped the baseball bat as he bent down to attend to Steven.
“Get away from me, Walt,” said Steven through clenched teeth. “I’m infected.”
Walt ignored him as he held Steven in his arms. Walt pushed Steven’s head onto his lap and let the tears begin to well up in his eyes.
Steven would be dead in a few minutes.
“I’m so sorry, Steven,” said Walt through the tears. “I… I’m so sorry.”
Steven breathed heavier, and Walt watched him as he tried to catch his breath.
“Promise me, Walt,” said Steven, his voice getting weaker. “Promise me you’ll fight on and never look back.”
“I owe you everything,” said Walt, fully crying now. “I owe you my life.”
“You don’t owe me nothing, Walt,” Steven said as he smiled. “Just never forget to keep putting the nails in the baseball bat. You need to be a sharper than ever now on if you’re gonna survive.”
Walt couldn’t talk as the tears ran down his cheeks.
“Just promise that you’ll throw my body into the pool after I’m dead,” Steven requested. “I don’t wanna come back and hurt anyone.”
Walt shook his head. “I promise.”
Choking back more tears, Walt took one last look down at Steven. “I love you, Steven.”
Steven never heard Walt’s words. He was already dead.
Walt kissed Steven on the forehead and rolled his body into the burning pool. He watched as the flames engulfed Steven’s body and said goodbye one last time.
Walt looked at the others and then bent down and picked up his nail-studded baseball bat.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Walt as he nodded in the direction of the center. “We’ve got a lot of work.”
The bat felt heavy in his hand, but he refused to drag it through the dirt and leaves. The bat was a symbol of his accomplishments and strength of overcoming his addiction. But now the bat would forever be a tribute to the man who had saved his life and had given him a new one.
From now on, Walt would never let Stevie out of his sight.
6
Will to Heal Center
Spicewood, TX
Present Time
The tears fell from Walt’s face as he thought about losing Steven. He allowed himself to mourn Steven a few moments longer, but knew that just like there was a lot of work to be done two years ago, there was still a lot to be done today.
Walt wiped away his tears, grabbed Stevie, and headed down to the common room.
It was time to get back to work.
7
Somewhere Outside Austin, TX
Her feet shuffled through the dirt and dead grass as she made her way through the park. She had a faint memory of playing here in a different time.
In a different life.
All she could recall with any accuracy was that she was something new. Something inside her kept saying that she’s a new creature; a new player to the chessboard.
She knew the others around her had the hunger. She could see it in their dead eyes as she walked past them. She couldn’t imagine what that felt like—that feeling of constantly being hungry and being unable to satisfy it no matter how many you killed and how much you ate. She was glad she didn’t have that insatiable hunger.
Fi did, though, have anger. It was always present, but she co
uld control it most of the time. The anger was always there as a faint ache in the pit of what was left of her stomach. She could ignore the anger at this point, but Fi knew that it would grow. The anger always grew. It built up over time like an air pump slowly filling a tire. Eventually the anger would spread through her until it was the only thing she could focus on. By then the anger would have consumed her, and the only way to dull and deaden it would be to release it on the others around her.
Sometimes she released her anger on uninfected humans. Humans, though, weren’t much fun to play with. They died so quickly and didn’t quell her anger.
Fi knew the only thing that eased the pain was to play with other infected creatures. Only when she tore and ripped apart a body did the anger go away. The longer she played, the longer the anger subsided. Humans just didn’t provide enough play time.
A small smile came across Fi’s face as she walked through the park.
Humans were good for meals, Fi thought.
On some level, Fi understood how different she was from the other infected creatures. They constantly ate and needed to constantly eat. Sometimes she sat and watched the other infected things eat after they’d caught a human.
Fi thought back to the time when she’d watched four of the infected chase down a group of six humans. She’d thought the humans would get away, but the zombies—she remembered someone using that word around her once—had just been too fast.
She remembered being impressed as the zombies took down all six of the humans. The humans had run so far they’d been visibly exhausted, and as such, easy prey.
Then the feast had begun. Some of the creatures had gone right for the body and ripped open the stomach, while others had torn limbs off the torso, and ripped the flesh off still-bleeding arms and legs with their teeth. Looking into their lifeless eyes, Fi had seen the creatures take no pleasure in what they did. They didn’t enjoy it as they tore apart and ate the non-infected. It was just something they needed to do. Something inside them compelled them to eat.
She knew it was their insatiable hunger.
Fi also knew that something other than hunger drove her. Something different was inside her.
At first she fed all the time like the monsters before her. Nowadays, she ate once every few days. When she killed the uninfected, it was just for meat. But she preferred to kill the monsters rather than the weak, non-infected. When she killed the infected it was for fun. The monsters were more fun, put up more of a struggle, and fought back. The humans were weak and not worthy of her playtime. They died so quickly and never dulled her anger.
The nearby infected left her alone. Occasionally, one or two would approach as they tried to figure out what she was. She usually ignored the curious, because as much as she liked to play, she also liked to hunt.
When her anger became too intense and she felt the urge to play, nothing would ease the anger as she hunted and butchered the infected.
Fi had trouble remembering what her life used to be like, but she remembered in the tiniest details all the times she played with the infected. Her first playmates were her mommy and daddy, though she didn’t really remember what those words meant anymore.
She did, though, remember how fun they were.
The feel of her fingers sinking into the dead flesh of those playmates made her smile. Cracking bones to get to organs, and then squeezing those organs, was so much fun. She used her sharp nails as she pulled long strips of flesh off her playmates. This was one of her favorite games. She would flay the flesh from her playmates and then line the bloodied lengths of flesh besides one another to see which was the longest.
She liked the daddy kinds of creatures best. They had extra flesh between their legs that was fun to play with. The first time she discovered this, she just tore it off, but after she played with other male zombies she learned there was more fun things that could be done with them.
Fi liked to crush the two round, semi-firm ovals in her hands. She liked the feeling in her palms as they popped. It was also fun to use her fingers to dig into the sack they were held in and remove the crushed ovals. There was no denying that simply tearing the sack off whole also provided her with a lot of fun.
The long, fleshy thing wasn’t as fun, but she always gave it special attention. Sometimes she tore it off her playmate with her teeth, while other times she liked to see how long it could get before she ripped it off with her hands.
Some of the infected creatures were too decomposed and didn’t have enough flesh to make it a fun playtime. Sometimes the flesh was so rotten that when she raked her fingers down a monster’s arm, it was like tearing wet tissue paper.
When she got a rotten playmate, she didn’t spend as much time on them. They came apart too easily and didn’t ebb her anger.
Fi also thought the really rotted ones didn’t feel anything when she played with them.
That was a surprise she stumbled upon one day. She never even considered the dead things she played with felt anything. She realized they reacted to her invasions, fought back, and even tried to get away from her, but she never thought they felt anything.
The one time she played with a creature and realized they felt something was an especially fun time. The anger in her at that time had been more than others. She tried ignoring the anger inside as long as she could until she thought she was going to explode. Fi had found, and then tracked down, one of the monsters and was having so much fun with it. When she ignored the anger and let it grow, that made the playing part even more fun.
She’d used her teeth a lot on that one. She had stripped many long pieces of flesh from the body and even bit off the hard little pointy things on the chest. Fi had pinned the monster on its stomach and straddled it. She’d leaned over it and sunk her teeth into its neck. She’d wanted to see if she could tear a strip of flesh from the neck all the way down its leg. As she’d secured a mound of flesh between her teeth, she’d heard the monster exhale as it made a sound. The sound had been faint, but Fi was certain there had indeed been a sound.
It’d sounded like a whimper.
At first Fi had ignored the noise. She’d been able to get a strip of flesh from the neck down to the buttocks until it ripped. When she’d leaned over the monster this time, though, that faint whimper was more audible. Fi couldn’t ignore it that time. She’d turned the thing over onto its back and had started to experiment.
That monster was strong and had clung to whatever kind of existence it had longer than most. Fi had paid more attention with this one. With everything she did she waited for a reaction, waited for that whimper. Fi had made the thing whimper many times and had even managed to make it physically wince in what she assumed was pain as she tore out parts of its colon through the ass hole.
That day had changed everything for Fi.
She continued through the park but picked up the pace more. Many of her injuries from the daddy-thing were fading away. The place where she tucked her intestines back into her tummy had healed over. Her skin still had a faded bluish-grey hue to it, but she had the full use of her arms and legs.
She walked through the park with the memories of discovering that the monsters still felt pain. A tiny smile spread across her face.
Deep in her stomach, she could feel the anger beginning to get warmer. Soon it would become more aggressive and spread throughout her body. Fi smiled when she thought about seeing how long she could ignore the anger.
I’m gonna ignore it for a long time today, Fi thought. I wanna have a really fun time later.
Fi walked a little faster and could feel the spring in her step as she anticipated the fun she would have after the anger grew too strong for her to ignore.
She walked faster to make sure she was in a location where there were many monsters. She always liked choosing just the right one.
And then Fi would play. She was going to play for a long time.
Chapter Three
1
Around Lago Vista, Texas
&nbs
p; Wilder sat behind the wheel of the M939 heavy truck that led a caravan of one other M939 as well as two M1161 Growler fast attack vehicles. What was normally a sixty-five-mile, one–and-a-half hour trip had taken the convoy two days to travel. Wilder doubted there was such a thing as a clear and open road anymore. Whether it was a side road or a major highway, every road was littered with the debris of abandoned vehicles, hundreds of dead animals, and the decayed victims of zombie attacks that were so devastated there was nothing left to reanimate.
Outside of Georgetown, TX, there was even the debris of two airplanes that had collided mid-air. The debris was scattered over a few miles worth of land and the fires long ago extinguished.
Wilder’s mind drifted back two years to the time when he was unknowingly dragged into this war. He and his team had transported the body of what Wilder now knew was one of the first human victims of the mutated bio-nanites. He’d taken the body to the Sils Advanced Research Lab where Butsko had waited.
The faces of his old team flashed before his eyes. Laning, Kane, and Reynolds had been great soldiers and great men. None of them could have known what had waited for them at the Sils lab. They hadn’t even known what, or as it turned out who, they were transporting.
Jim, Wilder remembered. I think the subject’s name was Jim.
“Wilder, come in,” said the voice over the truck’s CB radio. The sudden noise shook the memories from Wilder’s mind.
“This is Wilder,” he said.
“We just entered the town of Lago Vista,” the gruff voice on the other end of the CB replied. “Let’s find a place to hole up for the night.”
“Roger that,” Wilder said as he started looking around at the landscape.
When the small convoy had left Fort Hood, they’d purposely went southwest in order to give Austin a wide berth. Though none of them had been there for over a year, the last reports hadn’t been good. The city was overrun with the infected. It drove Wilder crazy knowing that there were pockets of survivors in the city, and that there was nothing he could do to help them. They had neither the manpower nor the backup to stage a successful rescue operation. Besides, there was no way to know exactly where the survivors hid. His best guess was underground, and how the hell would they be able to find them there?
Outbreak (Book 2): The Mutation Page 6