Kevin smiled. “Looks like it’s the only clean cloth within ten miles.” He grasped the elastic waistband in preparation to cut it to make a bandage, but stopped when the wound didn’t gush with blood as his hand came away. “What the hell?”
Traces of crimson foam bubbled from an angry red scab, as if he’d dribbled hydrogen peroxide on it. The edges stuck together. It no longer bled at an alarming rate, though the cut appeared liable to pop open if disturbed. He let go of the waistband, which snapped back against her stomach, wiped the blood from the knife on her jumpsuit leg, and slid it into its sheath on his belt.
Tris let off a soft moan.
He caught himself admiring her profile and fixating on her lips. Her voice replayed in his memory, offering to give him a blowjob in exchange for untying her. For a few seconds, he regretted passing on the offer. Even days later, it still seemed too much like ‘taking advantage’ of her.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” He wiped dust from his face.
Thud.
His head snapped up. The demolished hallway came alive with shambling figures.
Infected.
“Damn.”
The weight of handguns pressed into his ribs under each arm and tugged at the right side of his belt. Too many… I’ll only attract more. He quick-crawled to the Beretta Tris dropped and grabbed it. After tossing it on her bare stomach, he zipped her jumpsuit closed and scooped her up.
One of the Infected groaned and surged forward when her limp leg hit the desk with a hollow, metallic thump.
Shit! He contemplated leaving her for two seconds. Having to carry her might doom them both. Aww hell.
Kevin cradled her with one arm around her back and the other behind her knees. Her feet bobbed as he ran for the door they’d come in from. Throaty wheezes and moans intensified. Flakes of concrete skittered away from shuffling feet; desks and chairs bumped and banged as the swarm of barely-alive people zeroed in on them. He swiveled to slide her headfirst past the opening and kicked the door with a weak attempt to close it, not wanting to put her down to see if the latch even worked.
Tris opened her eyes while he sprinted around the improvised crates and boxes fortification her former allies made. Bastards could’ve at least left a machine gun or something I could sell… Inconsiderate fucks.
“Ngh. Ow.” Tris grabbed her gut. Her eyes widened “What the?”
“You dropped the Beretta.”
She leaned her head back, white hair trailing like a gossamer spirit. “Damn! There’s―”
At an offshoot, he skidded over a metal grate bridging a deeper channel. “I noticed. Don’t suppose you have that little map thing pointing the way out?”
“No… Only a waypoint.” She cringed. “Shit this hurts.”
“Bomb would’ve hurt more.”
“I doubt that.” She cringed. “Wouldn’t have felt shit.”
An infected’s moan roared down the tunnel a second before a splintering crunch.
Tris glanced to the rear, then up at him. “They smashed the barricade.”
“I think I’d have preferred not knowing.” He jumped another deep channel, walls stained green from whatever awfulness it once carried. “Can you run?”
She pressed a hand over where he’d opened her up. “Not fast enough. It burns so bad.”
Sweat flew from the sides of his head. He pumped his legs, arguing with himself about wearing twelve pounds of armor. It took him years, and nine bullets, before the burden seemed worth it. Much like the Challenger over his old Marauder, sometimes speed did prove better than toughness. Constant moans, scrapes, and wails behind him kept him moving. The wisp of a woman in his arms might’ve weighed a mere hundred pounds, but she seemed to get heavier with every step.
She glanced back for another second, unzipped her jumpsuit, and grasped the Beretta. Kevin cringed when she reached an arm around and fired three shots. His right ear felt like it flooded with water while his left rang from the discharge in a tight concrete tunnel. A hint of bodies smacking to the ground pierced his temporary deafness.
“Save your ammo,” yelled Kevin. “They’re strong, but I’m faster.”
Tris looked forward and pointed at a torso-sized grey box mounted to the wall near an offshoot. Two arm-thick pipes connected to one side wrapped around the corner. “Go right by the junction box.”
He risked a peek to the rear while rounding the corner. His heart thumped at the sight of an avalanche of once-people spilling over three dead bodies. She’d shot them within a step or two of the sewage trench. The first ones tripped over the dead and fell in, the next wave followed suit. More Infected kept piling on until the unfortunates struggling to climb up became a fleshy bridge, trapped under the weight of their mindless brethren.
“Shit!” he yelled.
The branch-off she’d indicated did look somewhat familiar. Maybe they had come this way, but everything down here looked the same. More boxes, cans, and cots―signs of early survivors seeking refuge underground from fallout. Up ahead, a square of sunlight illuminated the left wall. Inspired by the promise of escape, he pushed himself up to another hard sprint. Tris put a hand on her wound and gasped.
“It itches so bad.” She whined. “It’s gotta be loaded with bacteria.”
“Next time you’re about to detonate, I’ll make sure to sterilize the room first.”
She closed her eyes and hissed. “And wash your hands.”
Kevin stopped at the base of a plain metal ladder. A narrow storm drain slit overhead glowed with daylight two feet away from a manhole cover. Tris reached for the ladder.
“You sure you can climb?”
“Yeah.” She grunted and pulled herself upright. “The tunnel’s full of motivation.”
He pulled his .45 and aimed, hesitating at not wanting to waste ammo. It didn’t matter much if he killed one, ten, or zero. Infected were supposed to die in a couple months anyway. Why are there so damn many of them?
A skinny middle-aged man in a doctor’s white coat broke forward from the pack, windmilling his arms and moaning. Kevin raised the gun and squeezed the trigger. The Infected’s face imploded, gore sucked out the back of his head, following the bullet. The body took two more steps, collapsed forward, and pulled itself another foot closer before going still.
Kevin gawked. They’re alive, right? He jumped at a clang of metal overhead. Tris’s mousy grunt echoed in the narrow shaft a second before the heavy scraping of the manhole cover she dislodged one-handed. A column of sunlight fell on him, illuminating flakes of dust. He stuffed the .45 under his belt and hauled himself up. Tris slithered over the rim and rolled onto the street. Kevin scrambled out behind her and dragged the cover back in place before tamping it down with his boot.
Out of breath, he slumped forward, hands on his knees. “Shit. Glad they can’t figure out ladders.”
“We shouldn’t stay out in the open.” Tris cradled her gut in both hands.
Kevin swayed his head from side to side, trying to dislodge a ten-inch ribbon of snot from his left nostril without touching it. “Yeah, we shouldn’t.”
Minutes passed without words, as they both gulped down air.
Tris rolled her head to the side to look at him. “You’re not moving.”
“Neither are you.”
“You cut a hole in my gut. I’m not feeling much like standing right now.” She gazed up. “Gonna be dark soon. Maybe I’ll lie here and bleed.”
Kevin frowned at the manhole cover, and the continuous, confused moaning beneath it. “Sorry. If I knew it would hurt so much, I’d have let the bomb go off.”
“Heh.” Her body convulsed. Stands of her hair shifted in the breeze like cobweb on the macadam. “Ow.”
“Don’t try to laugh.” He forced himself to stand straight and leaned backward to stretch.
Tris pushed up to sit and grimaced with a hissing inhale. “I’m sorry. I had no idea there was a bomb inside me. Damn. Fuck this itching. Argh!”
“I
believe you.” He offered a hand. “Can’t fake a face like that.”
She reached up; they grasped forearms. “A face like what?”
“Like you’re about to shit yourself.” He pulled her upright. “After what that little thing did to the tunnel, I can’t say I blame you much.”
“Thanks.” She looked around and slumped into him.
“Come on.” He picked her up again and headed down the street, trying to figure out where in Harrisburg they’d wound up. “Car’s in the southwest, but we’re losing light. No way am I gonna risk running that far in the dark.” A heavy rolling security door, a quarter of the way open, caught his eye. “There.”
She held on as he carried her up to an old service station garage. Safe bet if anything lurked in the underground tanks, it was far removed from usable fuel after fifty years. He set her back on her feet, and crouched to peer under the door. At the center of a garage big enough to house one car with a small ‘office’ in the back corner, a V8 dangled on a chain from a bright orange engine lift. Bare grey cinderblock walls peeked from between ancient centerfold images. Tits of every imaginable size, color, and shape adorned the two longer walls from magazine cutouts. Three windows on the right, covered by heavy steel gridding, sat above a row of hubcaps and a single door in the back left corner connected to the service station.
“This’ll do.” He braced a hand on the lower edge as he slipped under and crawled inside.
Tris followed, cradling her gut and grunting.
He locked eyes with a bikini-clad blonde gracing a Budweiser calendar showing August 2021.
Tris sidled up behind him. “No one’s been here since the war happened… All forty-five or so minutes of it.”
“You ever wonder what it was like before?” He looked around at the pre-electric car parts. If it wasn’t surrounded by Infected, this would be a gold mine. “I haven’t seen a gas engine since I was knee high.”
Tris stumbled past him and stifled a scream as she lowered herself into a rolling chair at a desk in front of a shelf overflowing with rotting cardboard boxes containing air filters, spark plugs, and belts. “You’re older than me.”
“Yeah, but you had school, right?” To the right of the rolling garage door, a hanging loop of chain wound up and over a gear sprocket at the end of a housing. Kevin pulled on it until the door closed, muscles tensing from the amount of noise it made. He eyed the interior door, wanting to push the old engine block in front of it, but the lift wouldn’t fit close due to the desk and shelves. “I don’t like leaving a back way in.”
“We didn’t go too deep in pre-war history. Only bits and pieces. Before the war, most people went to offices and typed on computers for eight hours a day.”
Kevin squinted. “What the hell for?”
Tris shrugged. “Jobs. I dunno. There was a lot of street violence in the months leading up to it. Riots, protests, and stuff.”
“Trying to stop the war?” He dragged a metal shelf in front of the inside door, spilling a few dozen oil filters.
“No. They were angry about jobs going overseas. The government had to subsidize everyone too lazy to work, so it needed money. Probably why they started the war.”
“Wait.” Kevin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Didn’t you say that they sent the work overseas? How are people lazy if there are no jobs to get?”
Tris shrugged. “It’s what the teacher said.”
“Enclave. Right.” He shook his head. “They used to be some kinda military corporation, right?”
“I guess. They never said much about it, only how they’re the only hope for humanity to continue.” She put her feet up on the desk and closed her eyes. “Damn this stings. I’ve had cuts before, but not like this.”
“Fifty years of germs in that dust.” He ripped open an air filter and held it up. “No water in here, but you should try to clean it.
“That’ll rip open the scab and hurt more.”
She hadn’t zipped her jumpsuit up since taking the gun out. Kevin removed his jacket and walked over. He started to put it over her like a blanket, but froze, watching her stomach rise and fall with her breathing. The cut had receded to a mark resembling an angry housecat’s scratch. He lowered his arms and took a knee, mesmerized as the skin moved. Inflammation faded, leaving a thin red line as if drawn by a ballpoint pen. Moments later, the scratch disappeared. He stared at a spot of pristine skin, save for smears of dirt and blood.
Tris muttered when he traced his fingers over the spot.
“What the fuck…” Kevin whispered.
“Hmm?”
He pressed his fingers down, light pressure. “Does that hurt?”
“No, why.” A moment later, his poking and prodding made her giggle. She sat up and grabbed his hand. “Stop! That tickles.”
“Tris… what the hell.” He pointed. “I don’t think it’s been an hour since I cut you open.”
She took an air filter out of its box and used it to wipe at the almost-dried blood. “Nanites.”
“English please.”
Tris stuck her tongue out. “That was English. Tiny robots inside me. I told you I have some cybernetics, right?”
“You’ve got little robots inside you?” He blinked and leaned back.
“Microscopic. They help repair damaged tissue.” She zipped up her jumpsuit and settled back in for a nap.
“How long do their batteries last?”
“No idea. Couple weeks maybe.”
He draped his jacket over her and sat on the floor. “So it’ll eventually stop working?”
“Maybe. As far as I know, the system keeps making more as the old ones are recycled. I don’t really know how it works.”
“Not sure I’d be so calm about havin’ little machines running around inside me.” He considered covering her with his armor, but changed his mind at the scuff of shoes outside. When signs of activity faded, he leaned close to her and whispered, “Stay quiet, they’re outside.”
Tris held up one thumb.
Kevin sat cross-legged, .45 out and ready. Red-orange squares on the wall faded as the sun disappeared into the distant horizon. He eyed the black windows with suspicion. All sorts of rumors about the Infected played through his head. They could hear a heartbeat from two hundred yards, they could smell people the way dogs do, or they could see body heat. He grinned to himself. The third one he had proven false. He’d stayed still, not making a sound, and one had tottered by less than forty feet away. Either they can’t smell us, or I stink as bad as they do.
He watched Tris sleep for some time, until the weight of fatigue tugged on his eyelids. The next thing he knew, he’d slumped face-first into her. Kevin sat up straight and wiped his eyes. All three windows remained dark. He stood and stretched stiffness out of his body from his earlier sprint, and availed himself of an oil drain in the ground. Pissing made him feel like a new man.
A second after he’d zipped up, a hand at his side almost stained the back of his pants.
Tris’s face took on a normal skin tone with a pronounced blush. He walked off to give her some privacy, and stretched out on the floor next to the chair, keeping his back to the front part of the garage. In the deafening silence, the creak of her zipper opening seemed loud enough to draw every Infected from here to New Mexico. He tried to get comfortable on the concrete garage floor, and kept his eyes closed.
A few minutes later, the chair next to him squeaked, followed by the hollow thump of shoes hitting desk.
“You need to get rid of that jumpsuit,” muttered Kevin.
Tris sighed. “What, because this is the Wildlands, a girl’s gotta run around naked?”
“Not where I was going, but”―Kevin grinned―“sounds like an awesome idea.”
The chair springs screeched, and she kicked him in the side. “Ass.”
“I got a metal bikini in the trunk.”
“Ass,” she muttered, and kicked him again.
“I’m kidding.” Kevin laced his fingers behind his
head and opened his eyes. “At least about the bikini.”
A hint of color returned to her face. “I am not―”
“Shh. Don’t get loud. I mean the jumpsuit, not clothes in general. That outfit will tell everyone you’re Enclave.”
“Former.” She scowled. “They want to kill me, remember?”
“How can I forget? So who was that shithead on the screen?”
Tris kicked the desk. “Nathan. Argh! I can’t believe I trusted him.”
“Sounds like he’s the one who sprang you from jail?”
“Detention. Yeah.” She glanced down, lip quivering.
“There’s gotta be something more to it than you not wanting to marry who they told you to. Enclave are a bunch of fascist shitheads, but that seems like a bit much even for them.”
She shrugged. “If there is, I have no idea what I did. Probably all a setup to send me out here.”
Thump.
Both of them jumped. Kevin shot upright, glaring at the rolling door. Tris cringed, her expression apologizing for making noise. He held his hand up and made a running motion with his fingers. Tris nodded and patted her gut before giving another thumbs-up.
Damn. I need me somma them nanite things.
Seconds of silence passed before another heavy slam rattled the entire rolling door. Kevin held a hand up to her as if to say ‘relax.’ The unmistakable moan of an Infected emanated from outside, so close he pictured it pressing its face against the metal.
“Will that hold them?” Tris whispered as she leaned forward in the chair and put her feet down.
Kevin nodded. “We should―”
Wham!
A human arm punched through the slats, flailing for something to grab inside. Bloodshot eyes locked on Kevin, pupils narrowing to points. Shattering glass echoed from the right, on the other side of cinderblocks. He pictured Infected pressing past the gas station’s convenience store window like a lava flow of warm corpses.
One More Run (Roadhouse Chronicles Book 1) Page 7