“Like I said, we’ve been shooting a long time,” James said.
James nodded to his brother and they started toward the doors.
Connor was taking point, so he was the first one through, having checked all the corpses to make sure they were dead. He came into the room, flicking on the flashlight that was attached to the rails of his AR. He took a quick scan and walked farther in. His brother followed him in a second later. Their lights cut the darkness as they slowly moved through the large waiting room. It smelled like pure death with a hint of rotting flesh. There was blood covering everything—the floor, walls, couches—and everything was torn up. There had been survivors in here at one point. Someone had been fighting back.
They approached two corpses on the ground, which they shot in the head for safe measure. They still had their suppressors on and the sound in the room was muffled.
“That’s twelve so far,” James whispered from beside him.
James switched his partial magazine with a fresh one, Connor following suit. They needed to be ready for anything in here. Shooting zombies in the head out in the open was one thing, but in these tight confines and in the dark, that’d be a whole different animal. James motioned with his hand to the door on the left. They crept up to the door, Connor leading the way. James eased it open as Connor stepped through, quickly looking around. A noise to his right made him turn and sight on the zombie that was trapped under an overturned set of shelves. A casing fell to the floor as the bullet entered the zombie’s head, ending its groans.
“Clear,” Connor whispered, having checked the rest of the room.
James moved in behind him, sweeping the room also, just to be sure. It looked like it was used for storage. They moved to the next door on the opposite side of the room. They posted up outside the door and Connor nodded. James opened it as Connor went through. There were three zombies in the small examination room that immediately took notice and started towards him. He shot the nearest one, then the next one. Before he had a chance to aim at the last one, it was on him. He brought his gun up, keeping the zombie and its gnashing teeth at bay with the weapon held in front of him. It was trying to get at him past his gun when the back of its head exploded, spraying blood and brain matter into the air.
James came up next to him, “Sorry for the mess, bro. Thought you might need the help.”
“Thanks. I’d rather be a little bloody than dead. But I don’t think much got on me.” Connor scanned the rest of the room. “Let’s move on.”
James nodded and they came up to the next door where they repeated their process, finding themselves in a hallway after exiting from the room. They looked both ways. To their left was a dead end, with another door a little ways down across the hall. To their right, the hallway went down and turned a corner, heading back towards the front of the building. Connor motioned with his hand, pointing to the left, and they moved towards the door there. James brought up the rear, looking back at the rest of the hallway and making sure nothing came up behind them.
Connor moved into the open doorway and scanned the room. It was another exam room, only this one was clean. The room still looked neat and tidy. He made sure to shut the door, knowing Butch and his people would be glad to find a room that was still pristine.
So far, their mission hadn’t been much of a challenge, and the brothers moved down the hall to finish clearing the hospital. They came to the corner and stopped dead in their tracks, hearing sounds. Connor poked his head around, keeping his light covered and trying to distinguish shapes in the darkness. He couldn’t see anything, but he could hear a lot of shuffling and groaning coming from down the hall.
He came back around the corner and looked at his brother. Connor shrugged, and they both came around the corner at the same time. Their lights revealed over a dozen zombies trying to break through a set of double doors that led into the main room they had started in. As soon as their lights hit the zombies, they turned and started their slow march at them as the brothers began to pick them off one by one. They had four down before realizing they wouldn’t be able to kill them all before the zombies were on them.
“The other end of the hall. We’ll wait for them there,” Connor said as he dropped another zombie to the ground.
James nodded and turned around, going halfway down the hall, then stopping to cover his brother. Connor followed, going past him and patting James on the shoulder as he ran to the door of the clean exam room. James came up next to him, and they waited for the zombies to come around the corner. A few seconds later, the horde began to swarm the hallway. The only problem was there were more now than what they’d first seen.
“There must have been more in the rooms down the hall!” James said as he began to fire.
“There has to be over two dozen of them!” Connor exclaimed as zombies began dropping to the floor.
They killed ten of them in the first few seconds, but still the zombies pressed forward, quickly gaining ground.
~~~
Felicia sat in the passenger seat of the truck, watching the men around her. The people seemed nice enough and had seen fit to leave her alone as they watched the hospital, but she felt uneasy about the whole situation. What if it was a trap? What if they knew the place was full of zombies and the brothers couldn’t handle them all? Or what if there were more men waiting inside to kill them? Then what would happen to her? She shivered at the thought, remembering what James had told her before he left. He’d warned her to be careful and watch the townspeople, saying not to trust them and keep a gun close, just in case. “We’ll be out soon,” he’d told her, “Don’t worry.”
She was worried however. No matter what she told herself, she was worried for a lot of reasons. First, it was the end of the world and she wasn’t sure how to come to terms with that. Second, she’d met these brothers who had saved her and made her realize that maybe the end of the world wasn’t the end after all. Now here she was, alone and waiting for the only two people in her life she could trust, surrounded by a bunch of strangers who might try to kill her at any moment. She didn’t know what to do or what to think, so she just sat there in the passenger seat, a rifle close at hand that she didn’t even know how to shoot.
~~~
“I can’t hold them much longer,” James said, bracing himself against the door to the exam room.
Connor threw the exam table over on its side, pushing it towards his brother.
“Hop over this and prepare for some close combat,” Connor said as he stood there, shotgun at the ready.
James let go of the door and jumped over the table, pulling his shotgun from his back to stand next to his brother. The door burst open and zombies began to pour into the small room.
Connor pulled the trigger and was rewarded as two zombies crumbled to the ground. James had his shotgun up and was squeezing the trigger as Connor pumped his shotgun. Two more zombies fell to the ground as he shot, followed by another from his brother and another from him. Connor had a pump-action and James had a semi-auto, but his brother could shoot just as fast as him. They stopped firing and the smoke cleared. In various positions on the ground in the doorway lay eight zombies, bleeding from holes in their heads.
“I think we finally got ‘em all,” Connor said.
He pulled some shells out of a pouch on his vest and began to reload his shotgun. James did the same as they walked over to the corpses, making sure all were good and dead. They moved out into the hall, swinging their shotguns onto their backs and grabbing their ARs, which hung from slings at their sides.
“So much for that room being clean,” James said, looking back.
“Do you think they knew?” Connor asked.
“I don’t know. There are a lot better ways to set a trap for someone. We’ll see when we get out.”
“Yeah, we will.”
“Just remember, bro, we have to tread lightly. Whatever their motives, we need to get through.”
“I know. I
’m not going to do anything stupid. Just pisses me off. There were over four dozen zombies in here.”
“Me too, but maybe they just didn’t pay attention when it got overrun.”
Connor grunted in response as they headed back through the hall and around the corner, still having two rooms to check. Both of these rooms were clear, all the zombies having already joined with the horde that had tried to devour them. Moving to the double doors, they removed a metal rod that barred them and exited into the waiting room, then went to the front doors but stopped when they heard shouting from outside.
“What the—?” James cut himself off as they heard a gunshot echo through the night.
“Let’s go!” Connor said and barreled through the doors, gun leveled at the men outside.
Only, the men outside took no notice of them. They were all running towards the north side of town. Felicia sat in the truck, looking at them, relief plain on her face. Butch ran over to them and Connor kept him in his sights the whole way. They could hear more gunshots towards the front gates now.
“We’re under attack. We need your help!” Butch said.
“Your hospital is clear,” James said, AR still at his side.
“Yes, good, but we need you.”
“No,” Connor said.
“But—”
“I said no, or are you deaf? We risked our lives to clear your stupid hospital of the four dozen zombies inside. Now you want more? No. We agreed to your deal, and now we’ll be on our way, one way or another.”
Connor still had his AR in his hands, and while it wasn’t pointed directly at Butch anymore, the meaning couldn’t be missed.
“Fine, you want to leave? Then leave, but know that if we die, it’ll be on your hands.”
Butch poked James in the chest but he brushed the finger off.
“You have too little faith in yourselves. You’ve survived this long. Now, you may want to head to the front gates. They’ll be needing your help,” James said, going over to the driver’s door and opening it.
Connor climbed into the backseat, never taking his eyes off of Butch.
“This is on you!” Butch yelled as he ran toward the front gate and the sporadic sounds of gunfire.
“Let’s roll out,” Connor said.
They pulled up to the semi that was used as a back gate. The big rig pulled forward and they sped out of town and into the night.
8
Death
“I know, I know,” Connor said as James looked over at him from the driver’s seat.
“What?” James asked.
“We should’ve stayed and helped them. That’s what you’re going to say, right?”
“Not at all. I was going to say ‘good job.’ We have to get to mom and dad soon or we’ll be too late. Those guys can take care of themselves.”
“Oh,” Connor said, looking out the window.
“I do feel a little guilty,” James said, “but we have to think about our own now. We have to focus on this group right here, our family.”
“Am I part of that family yet?” Felicia asked.
“Of course!” James said, looking back at her. “Not like a sister or anything, more like a…”
“Like a…?” she asked.
“Well, you know…” He paused, searching for the words. “Oh, hey! A gas station,” he said with obvious relief and pointed up ahead to a small, dark building with two pumps out front.
“Sure, change the subject,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“What? We need gas.”
They pulled to a stop next to the pumps and James looked around.
“We need to be careful here,” Connor said. “Hard to see far in the dark with no lights.”
“I’ll keep the truck running. Let’s make this quick,” James said, getting out and looking around with his flashlight and handgun.
“Clear,” Connor said from the other side of the truck.
“Clear,” James repeated. He holstered his handgun at his hip and began to fuel up the truck.
“I could really use a restroom. I never had time at the last stop,” Felicia said.
“Sure, let’s make it quick,” James said, coming over to Felicia’s door and opening it. “Top it off and we’ll be right back.”
“Got it,” Connor said, going over to finish fueling up.
“Now, stay close,” James said.
They moved towards the gas station, Felicia with a machete and James with his handgun, the light from their flashlights cutting through the darkness and illuminating the path ahead. Creeping up to the door, James tried to look through, but the light reflected off the glass, making it impossible to see inside. He quietly opened the door. Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, he took a quick step back as a zombie came at him from just inside, which caused him to run into Felicia, who stumbled and fell down behind him. The zombie was through the door and its reaching arms were mere inches from his face when it was halted by a .45-caliber bullet that made a splendid hole in its head.
“Here,” James said, turning and offering his hand to Felicia.
She took it and he hauled her to her feet, giving her a smile that she returned. Maybe there was something there after all.
“Behind you!” Connor yelled from the truck.
James spun around just in time to get hold of a zombie’s neck as it descended on him, and the momentum of it pushed him to the ground. He lay on his back, struggling to hold the ravenous zombie at bay. In the light of his fallen flashlight, he noticed more zombies pouring out of the darkened doorway. He heard a gunshot, and one of the zombies dropped, but the rest kept coming. He brought his handgun up to the head of the zombie that was pinning him to the ground and blew its brains out.
As he pushed the motionless body off, he felt something on his foot and looked down to see a zombie biting on him, unable to penetrate the thick leather of his boot. He shot the zombie in the head, careful not to hit his own foot. Another zombie dropped next to him as he heard a shot from the truck. He could see at least half a dozen zombies around him and he aimed at the closest one, giving the undead a new hole to breathe out of. Immediately rising to a kneeling position, he took out another zombie and then glanced at the doorway, seeing movement inside.
“There’re more in there! We need to go, now!” James yelled as he rose to his feet and took a step back towards the truck.
He glanced back, noticing Connor was at the front of the truck, shooting the zombies that were pouring out of the station, but he couldn’t see Felicia. Where is she? Sweeping the area again, he noticed something just out of the light and rushed over to shoot the zombie that had hold of Felicia.
“Thanks,” she said breathlessly as he helped her to her feet.
“Get to the truck!” James yelled as he turned and shot a zombie closing in on them. Then he shot another as his brother dropped one.
Felicia took off toward the truck and he aimed at a zombie between her and the truck, dropping it in its track.
“Behind you!” Connor shouted.
James spun around. He noticed vague shadows by the side of the building, so he quickly ran over, snatched up his fallen flashlight, and shined it in the direction of the shadows. This revealed a dozen zombies shambling towards them. He aimed and fired, dropping the nearest one, and watched as the next one fell from his brother’s shot. Just as he acquired his next target, he stopped, his blood going cold.
A scream split the night and pierced right through his heart.
NO!
James turned around and watched as both Felicia and a zombie fell to the ground. He ran to her, shot the zombie, and dropped to his knees, pulling her head into his lap. Her eyes looked up at him pleadingly as blood poured from the side of her neck and she reached up to touch his cheek with a blood-stained hand.
“Please…” she whispered.
He brought his gun to her forehead and she closed her eyes, a look of pain on her face.
As he pulled the trigger, her head jerked and her body relaxed in his grip. He stared at her beautiful face, once so full of life but now covered in blood with a bullet hole in her forehead. Something began to tear inside of him. It wasn’t supposed to be like this! She’d only had a few more feet to make it to the truck.
A voice called to him from somewhere faraway, but he just knelt there, staring at her lifeless eyes. He hadn’t loved her yet—he knew that—they’d barely known each other. But it was more than that. It was what she embodied to him—hope—a hope that somehow goodness could come from all this evil, that maybe there was still a chance at a life beyond just surviving. But all that was gone now, stolen away by a simple mistake.
My mistake.
“James, we need to go! Now!” a voice said. It was his brother’s voice, and James snapped back to reality, hearing the urgency of his tone.
He looked up at the zombies and saw that they were closing in on him from all directions except one. Glancing down at her one last time, he laid her head on the cold, hard ground and rose to his feet, steeling himself.
This is not the end!
He ran to the truck and jumped into the passenger seat as his brother climbed in. Connor put the truck in gear and they raced out of the gas station.
“I’m sorry, brother,” Connor said after an hour of driving in silence. James looked at him and wiped the tears from his face. “We still have each other. Don’t forget that.”
“It’s my fault.”
“How do you figure that?”
“If I’d just paid more attention, been more cautious of what was inside, maybe we all could have made it back to the truck.”
“Look, James, I love you. But shut the hell up. You have no idea what you’re even saying. You think you can plan for every outcome? Every decision? Grow up. You and I both know people are going to die. They always have, but now it’s gonna be even worse. We have to be ready for that. You have to be ready for that.”
They were silent for a long time.
Outbreak (The Brother's Creed Book 1) Page 8