Riposte (The Redivivus Trilogy Book 2)

by Kirk Withrow

  Peering through the binoculars, Ethan traced the winding course of the untended fairway all the way to the clubhouse. Shuffling along a cart path that climbed a short rise leading up to the clubhouse, he finally caught sight of the man that had led them to the country club. “I’ve got him,” Ethan whispered as he handed the binoculars to John.

  John quickly located the slowly moving figure and observed him for several seconds. Panning the binoculars up to the clubhouse, he caught a brief glimpse of at least one other figure lumbering past the window inside the clubhouse. “There are more inside. I only caught a glimpse, so I can’t say if they are like our pied piper. We need to move closer.”

  Sticking to the cover of the trees, Ethan and John advanced toward the clubhouse to gain a better vantage point from which to observe the building and its occupants. After a sharp dogleg right, the rest of the former country club’s buildings came into view. Through the binoculars, they saw several more individuals scattered around the property.

  Although Ethan didn’t think they looked any less infected than the man they had followed, he noticed that they also exhibited behaviors not typically seen in the infected.

  A disheveled man whose mottled skin was sloughing from his neck caressed an equally unkempt woman wearing a tattered, multicolored dress that did little to hide her necrotic feet. Although John was too far away to count her toes, he was certain she would be at least a few short of an even ten judging by the discolored tissue that extended to mid-calf on her left leg and nearly as high on her right. Less than twenty feet from the pair crouched a shirtless man whose sallow skin was marred with oozing sores, as though he might be afflicted with cutaneous syphilis. Without any regard for the fact that the Rotting Couple was less than a stone’s throw away, the bare-chested man squatted with his pants around his ankles as he relieved himself in the grass. My God. This place looks like the leper colony of the damned. Muffled screams that sounded as though someone were torturing a Bassett hound came from within one of the buildings, causing the Rotting Couple to giggle like middle school kids after hearing a particularly dirty joke. On the contrary, the Shitter didn’t seem to notice anything at all.

  Suddenly, a loud bang reverberated through the air, echoing like a distant gunshot. A puff of thick, black smoke followed by a nearly inarticulate stream of profanity drew John’s gaze to another man who was busy dousing a small fire. While normal would be the last word John would use to describe the man, he certainly looked the least like one of the infected of everyone he had seen at the country club. The man wore a yellow-tinged, bloodstained butcher’s apron, a pair of oversized safety goggles, and gloves that looked as though they once belonged to a welder. His wild, nicotine-stained white hair blew in the wind as he scrutinized a rather elaborate hodge-podge of glassware, tubing, and burners. A perverse satisfaction gleamed in his eyes, like an artisan completely embroiled in his lurid work.

  To John, the man looked so much like a malign, backwoods, meth-cooking version of Doc Brown from Back to the Future that he half expected to see a tricked-out Delorean parked nearby.

  “Can you tell where the screaming came from?” Ethan asked, squinting to see through the afternoon sun.

  “No, but there is some seriously messed up shit going on down there,” John replied. “That bang was a small explosion that came from who-the-hell-knows what kind of experiment the Mad Scientist is doing.”

  A look of genuine concern spread across Ethan’s face as renewed screams erupted in the distance. “We need to get down there,” Ethan said with grim determination.

  John saw a trace of the same disgusted look Ethan wore when he told them about the bikers at Hermitage Estates.

  “Agreed,” John replied.

  The two men dropped into a low crawl and made their way along the edge of the long forgotten fairway toward the freak show underway at the clubhouse. When they drew close, Ethan was alarmed to find that the Shitter and the Rotting Couple were no longer in the same location. He scanned the area hoping to get a bead on them, but they were nowhere to be found. The Mad Scientist still lorded over the labyrinthine chemistry set-up, and they heard what sounded like incoherent gibberish as he carried on a rather involved conversation with himself.

  The ungodly miasma that filled the air stung their eyes and noses, making both water profusely. Smelling of burnt plastic and human hair combined with the chemical reek of ammonia and various organic solvents, the toxic fetor nearly rivaled the repugnant stench of the infected. Beakers and glass tubing connected by dry rotting rubber hoses brimmed with the acrid witches’ brew as the Mad Scientist monitored and manipulated the unholy reactions. A quart-size pot set atop a homemade stand over the white-hot flame of a Bunsen burner, its contents bubbling and burping their noxious fumes into the air.

  John and Ethan edged closer, intent on putting an end to whatever horrors were taking place, and learning the truth about the Pied Piper. The gentle breeze shifted directions carrying the inimical vapors straight to Ethan, who was on point. The intense burning in his nose and sinus cavity incited paroxysms of pain, and he fought to control his rising need to cough.

  Although severely muted, the faint expulsion of air from a partially escaping cough was just enough to capture the Mad Scientist’s attention. His insane eyes went wide when he turned to find the two men dressed in tactical gear, and armed to the teeth. Throwing his hands up in surrender, he ducked behind the table and yelled, “Don’t shoot! I didn’t do anything! They made me do it! I’m innocent! Honest!”

  John shot a confused glance at Ethan, who looked equally nonplussed. Before either man could reply, they heard the door to one of the buildings being thrown open behind them.

  “Dammit, Chef! Don’t be such a pussy! Those two soldier boys ain’t shit!” the man bellowed from within the darkened building. The blast of a shotgun rent the air as buckshot ricocheted off everything around them, shattering a beaker filled with a thick, boiling, olive green concoction. Another fire immediately sprang up on the cluttered table.

  John felt the sting of several pellets striking his back as he and Ethan dove for cover behind an overturned golf cart.

  Chef busied himself putting out the small conflagration even as more gunfire rang out all around him.

  Whatever the hell he’s working on must be pretty damn dangerous for him to risk his life in a hail of bullets to put out that blaze! John thought.

  Both John and Ethan returned fire, one shooting while the other kept watch over the Mad Scientist behind them. Although their weapons were suppressed, those of the country clubbers were not. The report of so many firearms being discharged at one time and place would serve as an irresistible dinner bell for every rev within earshot. Whatever they were going to do, they knew they needed to do it quickly.

  Crouching and leaning out from behind the front end of the golf cart, Ethan’s gaze fell upon a pair of deranged eyes filled with an unsettling, psychotic glee. The man stood in the open, framed by a shattered window, with a long barrel Smith & Wesson Model 29 held in a two-handed grip. OH SHIT! Dirty Harry’s got a .44 magnum! Not wanting to experience the cartridge’s substantial power firsthand, Ethan fired two quick rounds through the man’s forehead. The certifiable, unhinged look never left the man’s eyes even as he sagged to the ground. Only then did Ethan notice the woman with the rotting feet clinging to the man’s arm. Her lackadaisical expression instantly transformed into one of unadulterated rage as she bent down and scooped up the massive revolver. The gun had looked big in the man’s hands, but it was positively massive in the woman’s grip.

  Being slightly smarter than her now dead better half, she sidestepped to take cover behind the door leading out of the building. Eyeing the flimsy door, Ethan estimated her position based on where he had last seen her and shifted his aim. He fired three quick shots, two to center mass and one to the head, then waited for any return fire. Instead, he watched as the woman’s lifeless body slumped to the side, landing immediately on top of her signifi
cant other. Well, good. I would hate to separate a happy couple.

  To his left, Ethan heard the suppressed fire of John’s rifle. The Mad Scientist decided to make a run for it when he saw Ethan take the Rotting Couple down. A well-placed shot directly in front of the backyard alchemist sent him sprawling to the ground; John wanted him alive.

  Howling like a banshee, the Shitter exploded from the front of the building, charging toward the rear of the toppled golf cart like a civil war soldier trying to overrun an enemy position. In his muzzy head, he must have thought he was doing the smart thing by avoiding the front of the golf cart where he had seen Ethan dispatch his two compatriots with impunity. As he rounded the rear of the cart, sawed-off shotgun in hand, he never even noticed John hunkered low to the ground. He fired two rounds directly at the Shitter’s head, at least one of them finding its mark. The shotgun clattered to the ground at John’s feet as the Shitter pitched forward, his momentum nearly knocking the Mad Scientist’s worktable over.

  There was a brief lull in the gunfire, though neither John nor Ethan thought the fight was over. They had not seen the Pied Piper since they followed him there nor had they determined who had been screaming. As John was about to ask the Mad Scientist how many other people were with their group, another crazed man burst out of the clubhouse.

  Just like in every bad police movie ever made, the man yelled, “You’ll never take me alive, coppers!”

  A burst of fully automatic gunfire erupted, peppering the underside of the golf cart with bullets. Ethan peered around just in time to see the man dive headlong behind a lawn care truck parked in front of the clubhouse. Does Johnny Outlaw seriously believe we are with the police? Does he really think the police still exist? I wonder how long these guys have been hiding out here?

  Ethan and the Outlaw exchanged several bursts of gunfire, each one popping up in turn to send a few bullets in the other’s direction. After a couple of rounds, Ethan realized the futility of his current strategy and instead waited for the man to finish his next barrage. When the man ducked back behind the truck, Ethan sighted in on his lower leg beneath the vehicle.

  Clink. Clink.

  The two bullets struck the Outlaw’s left ankle nearly amputating his foot, and sending him toppling to his left side. When the man’s submachine gun hit the ground, Ethan saw his chance. Slipping out of cover, Ethan said, “Advancing! Cover me!”

  Ethan raced around the back of the truck, careful to stay out of sight of the front of the building. He kicked the machine gun away as he approached the wounded man.

  Despite the fact that his left foot hung at an unnatural angle, connected by only a few thin, tendrils of tissue, the Outlaw did not seem to be in any significant pain. He stared up at Ethan with the same psychotic eyes Dirty Harry had shown him. When his damaged mind registered Ethan approaching, he let out a boisterous laugh, and said, “You self-righteous prick! You think you’re better than us? You think you can just waltz in here and take us in? Well I got news for you, mister! The world’s over—I ain’t gotta suffer your unjust laws no more!” He resumed his maniacal laughter, as though he had just heard the funniest damn joke in the world.

  Confused by the Outlaw’s words, Ethan barked in the authoritative tone he had picked up during his years of military service, “I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Where was the screaming coming from? How many of you are here?”

  His questions led to another round of spirited laughter. “Kiss my rotting ass, pig!” the Outlaw said, as he held up his hand with his middle finger extended defiantly. The index and ring fingers were missing entirely, and the middle finger was a truncated nub. Only the thumb and little finger were intact.

  “What the hell is wrong with you people?” Ethan asked with disgust evident in his voice.

  When the Outlaw realized Ethan was referring to his gnarled digits, he said, “Asked the pot of the kettle. You know, you ain’t all there either, buddy.” The Outlaw’s continued laughter gave way to paroxysms of vigorous, rib-cracking coughing.

  Ethan felt the cool breeze in his exposed sinus cavity, drawing his attention to the fact that his prosthesis must have been dislodged at some point during the fight. As the meaning behind the Outlaw’s words became apparent, his mind went white-hot with anger. Lunging forward, Ethan planted his boot squarely in the man’s solar plexus, displacing a belch of air that was tinged with the biting odor of a dog’s clogged anal glands. In the blink of an eye, Ethan was on him, his entire body quaking with fury.

  John watched as Ethan leapt forward, and then dropped out of sight. From his position behind the golf cart, he could just make out Ethan’s voice, which came out as a low, guttural growl like that of a rabid dog. Despite the fact that his friend’s menacing words were unintelligible, he was thankful they were not directed toward him.

  “You listen to me, you piece of shit!” Ethan snarled. “I will gut your worthless ass in two seconds if you don’t tell me what I want to know! Do you understand me?”

  The petrified man simply looked at Ethan and nodded his head.

  “Good,” Ethan continued, slightly more calm, but with no less malice in his voice. “Now, answer these questions. What’s your name, and who are you people? How many of you are there? And what the hell are you guys doing here?”

  As though a levee had broken inside the man’s head, words began sluicing out like floodwaters after a torrential rain. “My name’s Scout, and we ain’t nobody, man! Honest! We’re just a bunch of damn junkies! They’s just seven of us countin’ Chef. We come out here because things dried up back in Atlanta when shit got bad at the start of the plague. Chef said he would take care of business as long as we helped him get out of the city. He’s been cooking us des ever since. Some folks call it krokodil, but I call it des. It’s real good shit! We’ll share, man! I swear! Just don’t hurt me no more,” the man whimpered.

  “What the hell are you taking about? Stop blubbering! And speak English!” Ethan yelled. He saw Scout’s frantic eyes flick to the side briefly, to a point just over his left shoulder. Taking some of his weight off the man, Ethan rose up slightly; pivoting to sweep the leg of the person he assumed was closing ranks on him from behind. The move paid off as his leg whipped around and slammed into those of the Pied Piper, who had been sneaking up on him.

  The Piper let out a shrill cry that nearly obscured the sharp crack of his fibula snapping under the force of Ethan’s blow. His entire body went limp, as though a switch had been thrown, and the knife clutched in his outstretched hands fell to the ground. It landed blade first, impaling the ground less than an inch from Ethan’s leg.

  A searing pain erupted from Ethan’s neck as something sharp dug deeply into his skin. The coarse sandpaper texture of Scout’s leathery skin told him the pain was likely due to the jagged bone protruding from the decaying stumps of his mangled fingers. Instinctively, Ethan threw his elbow back hard, striking Scout squarely in the liver. He felt the tenuous grip relax instantly. Scooping up the Pied Piper’s knife, he whirled on the man. The blade was buried to the hilt in Scout’s abdomen before he ever had a chance to register what was happening. Ethan rode the man’s sagging body to the ground before wrenching the blade free with a wet, sucking sound akin to a boot being pulled out of a foot of thick mud. A crimson spray spewed from the wound, spattering the writhing form of the Pied Piper, and sending him into an uncontrollable bout of screaming. The steady, bright red stream pouring from Scout’s abdominal wound held Ethan momentarily transfixed. Red blood—not the dark, pestilential fluid of the infected.

  Ethan watched for another instant, wondering if the gut wound would lead to Scout’s demise or if he would live through the otherwise mortal injury that did not destroy his brain. Having seen death more times than he wished to count, he did not think the man would survive. With every passing second the crimson rivulet grew thinner and thinner, evidence that the seemingly eternal spring from which it came was not eternal at all. His sickly skin grew increasingly ash
en before his unmoving eyes fixed on the sky. The Pied Piper’s renewed screams jolted Ethan from his musings.

  Advancing on him, Ethan realized that he needed to quiet the hysterical man before every rev not already en route to the little cesspool heard his wailing invitation. The Piper, in turn, began kicking and flailing wildly. He landed a lucky shot that connected with Ethan’s Achilles tendon, causing his leg to buckle. Off-balanced, Ethan collapsed forward onto the panicked man. The irritating smell of iodine, like boiled metal and burnt thyroid, flooded Ethan’s nasal cavities as the Piper’s screaming increased in intensity. The acrid odor was soon joined by the coppery scent of violent death, as his shrill cries were replaced by the gurgling sputters of air bubbling out of his severed trachea. The look of sheer desperation as the gushing blood quickly filled his lungs left no doubt in Ethan’s mind that he was not one of the infected. There was definitely something wrong with him, but he was no rev. Revs simply were not capable of the emotion he saw locked in the dead man’s glass-eyed stare.

  Although it had been a necessary part of his entire adult life, Ethan hated killing more every time he was forced to do it. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the ghastly slideshow of carnage left in his wake as it played through his mind.

  * * *

  John strained to see what was happening on the other side of the truck. He saw Ethan drop out of sight, but he did not think it was because he had been injured. Although he could not make out what was being said, he heard the occasional snarling word buried amidst grunts of exertion. Agonizing cries followed a snap like that of a tree branch breaking, and John assumed Ethan had broken one of the man’s ribs. His stomach turned at the thought, and he shifted his attention back to the Mad Scientist cowering behind the table. The anguished shrieks from the other side of the truck were mercifully short-lived, replaced by an odd, but brief, sound that John put somewhere between that of a babbling brook and a powerful geyser.