Fade to Grey (Book 1): Fade to Grey

by Brian Stewart

  She caught the incredibly faint outline of his head nodding in the darkness as he answered, “Yeah, I agree.”

  “So, do you want to wait till they wake up, or do you want to start now?” Michelle asked.

  “Let’s wait.”

  Chapter 34

  The next half hour saw several more cups of tea distributed between the two of them, accompanied by an equal number of trips to the bathroom to get rid of it. Michelle put on more water to boil and turned off the alarm a few minutes before it was set to sound. A little after nine she softly called out, “Hey ladies, time to get up.” Several repeated calls, each slightly louder than the last followed until both Sam and Thompson had groggily wedged themselves into an upright position. Hot tea was distributed, another round of acetaminophen was dispersed to Sam, and the cream of broccoli soup was heated up and equally shared. A replay of bathroom tag took place before they all retreated again to the living room. The heavy drapes were still closed, and Michelle used the small light to locate a pumpkin spice scented candle she'd had for years. It was still unlit, nestled in a squat glass jar with a lid. Borrowing a lighter from Thompson, she charred the small wick until enough of the wax melted and the flame caught. Forgoing any base plate, or even a folded sheet of aluminum foil, she lowered the small light onto the center of her living room floor. The shadows pushed aside, Michelle watched as Sam raised his hand.

  “Sam . . .” she said, inclining her head in his direction.

  Several hours of sleep and the effects of the anti-inflammatory doses had dramatically improved Sam’s speech, and they were able to follow along relatively easily as he spoke.

  “Hey,” Sam started, “I know I told you before, but I’m going to say it again. Thank you. Thank you for risking your life and pulling my ass out of the fire. I don’t know how you manage to pull it off, but I’ve got to say that I am, and will be forever grateful. And if you don’t mind me asking, how did you even know I was there?”

  “That would be due to a very brave and informative young private who goes by the name of Thompson,” Andy said while nodding his head toward Thompson.

  “So you told them I was at the school? How did you know?” Sam asked.

  “I was there man. I was standing in the hallway with the rest of my squad when you cold cocked the colonel. I saw what went down right after that also,” Thompson answered.

  Sam shook his head. “I . . . don’t remember you. Sorry. But I’m damn glad you remembered me. So how . . . what . . . shit, I’m so lost. Anybody wanna fill me in?”

  “We’d be happy to,” Andy said, “but first maybe you can help us out. The last we saw of you, you were heading up to the quaint little border town of Carson. What happened, and how in the heck did you end up at the school?”

  “I never made it. After I left you . . . and let me say that the idiot you stuck me with would not shut up. Hell, I was tempted to put a cap in his ass just to get some peace and quiet. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I made it with no problem to highway 403. Once I turned north, the flow of traffic was pretty steady both ways. Lots of cars off the road, lots of people just standing there. Some of them would try to flag me down, and I stopped for most of the ones that looked coherent. I really couldn’t give them any information. Shoot, I didn’t really have any. About eight or ten miles north of Fort Hammer, there was a bad accident involving a semi truck and about a half dozen cars. There was, oh I don’t know, maybe fifteen or twenty people standing around the scene in various stages of discontent. Traffic was still flowing around the pileup, but I pulled up and got out. That’s when I heard the gunshots. From somewhere behind the semi there was shooting and screaming. People—the crowd that had been standing around—started scattering. I drew my SIG, but then I remembered the barracks and Fernandez, so I popped the trunk and grabbed a shotgun and some extra ammo. It was already dark outside, and with the chaos at the scene—people screaming, running past me, not to mention the gunshots—I was more than a little on edge. I about plugged some meaty, bingo-wing-armed lady who latched onto my shirt like it was the last bag of Doritos in her house. She was huffing and puffing trying to catch her breath in between attempting to use me as a shield for whatever was on the other side of the semi. I actually had to pop her in the chin with the stock to get her to let go. After that I scooted around the edge of a Range Rover that was on its side, and from there to the back corner of the jackknifed semi. I peeked around, shotgun ready, and it was just . . . damn, just a freakin’ mess. What I couldn’t see before was that the semi and the five or six cars were just the ass end of the wreck. There was another ten or so cars in various stages of destruction scattered up ahead. Part of the left lane was clear, but as I learned later that was due to a dump truck that pushed people and cars out of the way, whether they wanted to go or not. Anyhow, the cars were not the worst of it. I mean, I’m looking around the edge of the semi and there’s probably a dozen people moving my way in the dim glow from the dying headlights. It wasn’t bright enough for me to get a clear picture, but there was enough visibility for me to see that some of them were wounded. And I didn’t want to use my flashlight and call attention to myself either. Well shit, how was I supposed to know if they were just wounded from the wreck or if they were sick? Just about then some girl crawls out from under the tires of the truck. I’m damn lucky she wasn’t sick because the first time I noticed her was when she grabbed onto my waist screaming and sobbing. Before I knew it I had my left hand in a death grip choking her scrawny little neck up against the semi. I guess the pressure I was exerting caused her little eyes to bug out, but it was enough for me to see that they looked normal color. I relaxed my grip and held a finger up to my lips, well, a shotgun and a finger. Anyhow I think she got the point and didn’t say anything. I’m telling you it was happening so fast, it was just unreal. It couldn’t have been more than three seconds after I ‘ssssshhhh’d’ her that she got all big eyed again. You know those icy cold feelings you get when the shit is about to hit your personal fan? Well, all I’ve got to say is listen to your gut, and it’s a good thing I did. My knee-jerk reaction made me drop and spin, and as soon as I did that . . . WHAM . . . right where my head had been was a hole in the truck big enough for a baby to come out of. Well, maybe not that big, but it was huge. Then the girl start screaming ‘Don’t shoot, we’re both OK.’ I popped up in time to see this old guy pointing a lever action rifle at me. It had one of those octagonal barrels with a hole in it big enough to . . .”

  “We know, big enough for a baby to come out of,” Thompson cut in.

  Andy laughed, and Sam chuckled along as he nodded his head. “Let me tell you, if that gun were any bigger it’d need wheels. So anyway, this old guy with the canon points to the truck and says ‘Get on up that ladder, I’ll cover ya.’ Well, before he was even finished, this girl is halfway up and I’m right behind her. There was another BOOM from the old guy as we made it to the top. I turned around to return the favor and cover him but it was too late. He was on the ground with a guy on top of him, just flailing away trying to keep from being eaten. I was two steps back down the latter on my way to help him when another infected piled alongside the first. I was still undecided when the girl screamed, ‘Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me.’“

  Sam paused, shaking his head a little bit. “Nothing else I could do except maybe save him a little bit of pain at the end. They weren’t but fifteen or so yards from me, and so I sent five rounds of double-aught buck rolling their way. I did risk a short ‘look see’ with my flashlight at that point, because the headlights from the cars on the highway and the ones in the wreck were both adding to and subtracting from my visibility. You know, they helped where they were pointed, but they also made the shadows deeper and ruined my night vision. And the bitch of it was that the line of traffic was still snaking around the left side of all this, you know, right when it was going on. So anyhow, I looked around with my flashlight . . . and the first thing I see is a group of people near my cruiser. It
looked like they were trying to get organized into some type of, I don’t know, protective circle or something. On the other side of the truck I could see movement in a couple different places, but hell, I didn’t just want to just shoot at someone . . . like I said, they may have just been injured from the wreck. And the whole time this girl is sobbing and moaning, grabbing on to my calf and not wanting to let go, like a four year old throwing a temper tantrum. I’m halfway between trying to console her, or kneeing her in the temple to get her to shut up so I can think, when this head pops up over the edge of the truck. Bloody face, blood red eyes. Son of a bitch was climbing up the ladder! My first shot dug a little trench in the aluminum skin of the cargo top about two feet to the right of him. The girl starts screaming even louder and I’m trying to back up with her hanging on to my leg at the same time I’m attempting to put a bead on Mr. Bloody’s head. My second shot connected and knocked him off the ladder. I managed to dislodge my leg from the girl, but damn, she was still trying to hold on to me. I finally had to threaten to cuff her before she stopped trying to grab me. I went to the edge of the truck and shined my light as best I could toward any movement, but I swear those things were purposely staying in the shadows, so I crouch-stepped toward the back of the truck by the ladder and peeked over. The guy I just blasted was laying on the asphalt, but there was another one, some lady standing at the bottom of the ladder looking up. Her face and shoulder were half mangled already, maybe from the car wreck . . . I don’t know. But I do know any normal person wouldn’t have been standing there with those injuries. That, and the fact that she was snarling at me sealed the deal and I put her down. I went back to the girl to try and get her calmed down, and managed to do it after a few minutes of reassurance. I don’t even remember what I said. Probably some crap like ‘everything will be OK’ or something like that. It was full dark now, and I’m trying to force myself to come up with a plan, especially since it was starting to rain and my weather gear was still in the cruiser. Up to that point I hadn’t really noticed the cold, but it was starting to creep in all at once, or maybe my adrenaline was starting to tank out. Anyhow, I knew I couldn’t stay on the metal roof of that semi truck cargo container for long without freezing my very valuable Indian balls off, but at the same time I didn’t want to just climb down the ladder and make a run for the Crown Vic. The crowd around my cruiser had vanished, and the girl was starting to cry again. I heard a quick horn followed by a brief tire screech then THUMP as one of the cars heading north smacked into . . . somebody. So I trotted along the top of the truck over towards the line of traffic. You ever run on a big hollow aluminum box? Sounds like war drums. But as I’m trotting I’m looking down into the mess with my light and I see a few bloody faces peering back at me; some of them look like they’re starting to move my way. So I freeze, literally as well as temperature wise, and use my flashlight to search between the cars in the pileup for another . . . whatever they are. I finally see two of them leaning over another one and biting, or chewing. They were about twenty-five yards away and their backs were to me. Man, I kept my light on them and stomped on the metal roof twice. Like a pair of cats they twisted around and looked right at me. I swear the look they gave me was like them saying, ‘We know where you are, we’ll be there in a minute.’ It totally creeped me out. So I stomped again, about three or four times in a row. The two that I had my light on started to get up and come my way, but I also caught movement down below near the tires. There was someone I hadn’t noticed before pinned underneath some of the drive wheels on the rig. Crushed, but somehow still alive. Reaching up for me. Shit. I don’t have a weak stomach, but the cumulative effect of the previous twenty minutes had me almost losing the ‘cinnamon buns a la’ Sheldon,’ and that would’ve been a waste.”

  Sam took a big slug of tea and moved his jaw left, right, and up and down to try and work out the stiffness. A couple of neck rolls followed before he continued. “So I was standing still looking down at the guy crushed under the tires for a few seconds, wondering just what was going on when I remembered about the other two. I shined my light back where I had saw them, fully expecting them not to be there, like in all the movies where the creatures disappear only to jump into your face three seconds later. But they were back at their, um, meal. I could hear the girl crying louder now, and I was about to tell her to shut up, but then it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe instead of me getting off the truck, I could bring them, funnel them really, into a kill zone by the ladder. So that’s what we did. I explained my plan as best I could to the girl and we both started stomping on top the roof. A couple minutes later, we had put three more down. Another ten minutes or so of stomping, and two more joined the pile. It was weird though. I’m almost sure they don’t like bright light. They’re not afraid of it after a certain point, I mean it’s like when they’re close to a . . . target or something . . . that the rage, or blood lust . . . whatever it is takes over. And that’s not the worst of it. I don’t know if you know this, but whatever is changing these people, they’re not all the same.”

  Andy, Thompson, and Michelle exchanged glances with each other before turning their attention back to Sam.

  “I take it,” Sam said, “that this is not news to you.”

  “No,” Michelle said.

  “We’ve had a couple run in’s with what we’ve been calling ‘ferals’. Yellow eyes, bad attitudes, faster than greased lightning. Hard to put down,” Andy said.

  “Yeah, those bastards,” Sam replied. “And according to some of the scuttlebutt I picked up at the school, there are other kinds as well. Do you remember back when I was telling you about the fax from USAMRIID?”

  They nodded.

  “Well if I remember right, there was something about sub-variants in it. Just what we need, more problems. Anyway, we stomped and whooped on top of the semi for a bit more, but nothing came up to the ladder. I’m telling you though, my gut was doing jumping jacks. I knew that there were more of those things down there. Somewhere. I also knew that I was going to freeze to death if I didn’t get off of the roof. I scooted over to the ladder and looked down. Well let me tell you, there was no way I was going to climb down a slippery, blood spattered metal ladder only to end up in a pile of seven infected corpses who I hoped were really dead. And the girl, she was beyond useless. Switching between catatonia and bawling her eyes out any time I wasn’t personally holding her hand. It didn’t matter though, we had to get off of the truck. The only other real option was to jump from the cargo box onto the cab roof and then down across the windshield to the hood. From there it would be fairly easy to get to the ground without breaking an ankle. Don’t get me wrong, I know that I could have hung from my fingertips off the roof and dropped to the ground fairly safely, but the girl would have never done that, and in any case it’s hard to hang from your fingertips and keep control of a shotgun.”

  “What was her name . . . the girl on the roof with you?” Michelle asked.

  Sam gave half shrug and a quick shake of his head. “I don’t know. Never got it. Kinda glad about that.”

  “Why? . . . Crap. Never mind, I’m sure I know why,” Michelle said.

  “Yeah. Anyway, I went up to her and told her that we needed to get to my cruiser. She was nodding like she understood but I had to almost yell at her to get her to focus on me. I topped off the shotgun ammo and pulled her over toward the edge by the cab. I looked all around with my flashlight but I couldn’t see anything moving besides the cars on the highway. I put my flashlight back through the belt ring and grabbed her hand. It was now or never, so we backed up and got a little running start and jumped onto the cab roof. I managed to stay on my feet, but whatever flat soled shoes the girl was wearing turned into a pair of ice skates and she went down. Hard. She almost pulled me down with her. I managed to stop her slide quick enough that she didn’t go over the edge by the passenger door, but it put me out of balance and I half stumbled down the windshield and landed flat on my back on the hood, pulling her wi
th me. She was scrambling on the slick windshield, almost tap dancing on me trying to regain her balance. That’s when the windshield exploded outward, covering me with little fragments of safety glass as I rolled off the front of the hood and crashed onto the ground. I lost my grip on the shotgun, I heard it clatter somewhere but things were happening so fast I just . . .”

  Sam was looking down, shaking his head with the memories. He took another sip of his tea and chased it with a deep sigh of resignation before continuing. “I just . . . I just couldn’t do anything. When I got to my feet I drew my SIG. Luckily I still had the flashlight on my belt, so I grabbed it and shined it up towards the windshield and I saw her . . . get . . . folded in half and pulled through the shattered windshield into the cab. I was so, I don’t know, pissed . . . scared . . . probably both I guess . . . that I just emptied my 45 into the cab. I hope I hit her . . . in time.” Sam took a couple of deep breaths before continuing. “Cars were whizzing past me about ten feet away, and I finally snapped out of it enough to get my shit together. I dropped the used magazine out, but my hands were so numb that it fell to the ground. I managed to get a new magazine in the SIG but I couldn’t find the one that had dropped. Anyhow, it was time to get out of Dodge. My car was maybe one hundred feet away, and I started trotting toward it. About halfway there I saw . . . her.”

  “Who, the girl that was on the truck with you?” Andy asked.

  Sam shook his head. “No. An older lady, and by older I mean maybe thirty. Drop dead gorgeous in the face. Long dark hair all matted down from the rain. She was wearing this sheer white sleeveless dress that was so wet it was practically invisible all clinging to her skin. But that wasn’t all. Her arms were covered, I mean really covered with bite marks and actual ragged holes where chunks of flesh had been torn off. And her eyes, man, her eyes were coal black. All of her eyes, not just the iris.”