Gene, apparently in a panic, ran face first into a tool cart and fell. Screaming, he rolled upright, seated, and offloaded his grenade launcher into the oncoming throng. As soon as the loud foomp sound went off, Marty flung his arm up, putting the trenchcoat over his face before an explosion showered him with gore. He backpedaled, gagging and puking on the run.
Kevin sighted on Marty’s face, half tempted to put a bullet in his brain when no one would notice… but he had no blood or fleshy bits anywhere near his mouth or eyes. He switched aim and triggered twice, taking down a handful of Infected with each bullet as the slugs seemed capable of piercing three or four close-stacked bodies.
An infected fell in from a hole on the roof, landing within feet of Gene. Another rifle fired twice, detonating a rotting woman’s head. A patch of scalp trailing once-ginger hair sailed off like a frightened flying squirrel. Gene leapt to his feet, shrieking, and ran for the door while looking back over his shoulder.
“Gene, look out!” yelled Paul, firing a short burst into the two once-women pursuing him.
Gene tripped over the ridge of a maintenance pit under one of the jacks and fell out of sight. Orange light flashed on the walls of the sunken chamber as an M-16 went off on fully automatic. Tris joined in from the left with the AK, detonating about eight heads. Though she likely fired single shots, she triggered fast enough to sound like a machine gun. Kevin fired as fast as he could pull the trigger into the onrush. Between all the bullets flying, Infected bodies burst open and rained gore. Some fell by the wayside, trampled by the unrelenting press of an endless stream of disease-riddled people forcing their way in. The throng, despite the assault, spilled like a lava flow into the pit.
Gene’s scream cut off with a gurgle as if he’d gone underwater.
Marty emptied the SPAS and seemed half tempted to jump in after him. He stood in place, screaming “Gene!” over and over.
“Come on!” yelled Tris. “He’s gone!”
Paul somehow managed to contain himself, firing deliberate single shots into one Infected after the next.
“Time to go!” shouted Kevin. “This is fucked. Stop wasting ammo!”
Marty jogged out of the garage, looking dazed. He stuffed shells from his pocket into the SPAS and kept trying to force another one in after he’d filled it. Tris ran up behind him, yelling at him to get rid of his coat. While Paul and Tris fired into the crowd, he scooped shotgun shells out of his pockets and dropped them to the ground. Once he emptied his pockets, he peeled the coat off and flung it.
Tris looked him over. “I don’t see any blood on you.”
Marty stared at her. “Gene’s gone… Gene’s not supposed to die; he’s one of the player characters.”
She grabbed his arm and dragged him to the bus. Paul hustled over to the shotgun ammo and collected it in the thigh pockets of his fatigues. With the Infected occupied by the momentary distraction of a screaming body in a pit, Kevin ran for the bus, disconnected the charging cable, and sprinted to the driver’s seat.
Tris shoved Marty up the stairs. Paul followed, headed right away for the rear ladder and climbing it high enough to allow him to aim over the edge. Kevin grabbed the wheel and exhaled. Here goes. He shifted into reverse and stepped on the pedal. The lights faltered, but the bus didn’t go anywhere.
“Oh, shit.” Tris jumped on to the forward ladder.
Kevin stomped the accelerator to the floor. The bus lurched backward, causing Tris to swing away from the rungs for a second, screaming. Marty fell into a seat, his forlorn stare going into space. Creaks and groans shuddered in the frame as Kevin maneuvered the bus into a turn. Tires chirped when he slammed it into drive and charged the yard gate. The bus laughed at the chain link fence, launching it against the brick wall to the left.
Paul’s Mp5 went off a few more times and fell quiet. An empty magazine clattered to the floor inside the bus a few seconds before he reloaded.
Marty roared. “I’m gonna kill them all!”
“Save your ammo,” yelled Kevin.
Small cars bounced like tiddlywinks off the front bumper, spinning into collisions with walls or bashing through storefronts. The sand-filled construction barriers burst open on impact. He veered left, brushing the tail end of a box truck. Paul’s legs swung off the ladder, but he held on to the roof.
Not prepared for the boggy braking, Kevin came close to crashing into the face of a building on the first right turn. He took out a few more parked cars, tossing old fallout ash into the air. Cracks splintered the windshield. Something flew up and slammed into the left side with a hollow metallic whump, but stalled on the scrap metal.
Tris slid down the ladder. “Road’s clear behind us.”
Marty climbed to the roof, armpit deep in the hole, muttering ‘sons of bitches’ in an endless loop.
Kevin didn’t bother trying to avoid the crude barricades of dead cars, relying on mass and a steady, albeit slow, pace to push them out of the way. Paul twitched, but held his fire.
“Couple behind us,” yelled Marty. “Four blocks back, looking confused.”
Oh, good. He’s sane again. He counted side streets and cornered left where Rod’s map indicated. The next right put him on Fullerton about a half mile from the building. With the street relatively clear, he accelerated for a little while until the building came into view. He brought the bus to a halt, half turned into the little parking lot.
“Move the Challenger.” He gave Tris a light nudge.
She blinked. “Really? You want me―”
“No time. Go.”
Tris darted out the door, ran around the bus, and hurried to the car. The mere sight of it made him long for a vehicle with agility and acceleration. She hopped in, and within a few seconds, rolled it backward out of the way. Kevin eased the bus forward, parking it as close to under the ladder as the first floor columns would allow.
He slapped it in park and climbed the ladder after Marty, onto the roof. Patricia’s head poked out the fifth-floor window.
Kevin waved. “Change of plans. This train is heading out now.”
“They’re coming,” yelled Marty.
Patricia nodded, and disappeared into the building, shouting orders.
The two men and the Asian woman who had first met him shimmied down the flexible ladder to the bus. Marty and Paul helped guide them to safety. Six more people, three women, two men, and Cody, clambered down soon after. Kevin hovered at the side of the flexible ladder, spinning in a paranoid’s dance, and aiming the Enclave rifle at every shift in shadow. Cody seemed intent to stay on the roof with a handgun out, but Paul stuffed him down into the hatch.
A child’s wailing at the top caused a delay. Star shrieked and threw a tantrum when they brought her to the window. “I don’t wanna!” echoed in the canyon of skyscrapers.
“Duct tape,” yelled Marty.
Danielle backed off, letting others go while she tried to quiet the girl. Nine more men came down. The last, in his seventies, lost his grip on the ladder when his shoe slipped. He fell three stories, landing flat on his back on the bus roof. He made no attempt to move, face twisted in a grimace of pain. Paul and one of the fifth-floor sentries carried him to a hatch and lowered in him inside. An elderly woman made it down intact, followed by Dennis, Patricia, and two more women in their early twenties, one of whom screamed at the top of her lungs.
Everyone turned to look where she pointed. A handful of Infected, all in shredded business suits, crept around the corner of the building by the front of the bus. Marty, Patricia, and three of the fifth-floor sentries opened fire. Star, wailing and sniveling, crept out onto the ladder at Danielle’s prodding. Kevin moved under, rifle over his back, arms out. The girl clamped on to the swaying ladder, refusing to climb. Gunfire roared everywhere. The younger women hurried down the hatch into the bus. Cody tried to climb up, but Paul roared at him to stay down.
A stream of obscenities flew from Marty’s mouth before and after each discharge of the SPAS.
&n
bsp; Danielle shouted, “Star, honey, you have to go now!”
The child stared up at her mother and started to climb down. Her trembling shook the flexible ladder, making the tail end whip against the bus.
“Come on, Star. You’re okay. Don’t look down. One foot after the other,” yelled Dennis.
When Star reached about halfway, Danielle backed out the window and got on the ladder. An unusually loud moan drew Kevin’s attention to the shambling throng as a rotting man pulled a handful of gore from his chest and hurled it. A wet splat came from the right. Kevin ducked and spun that way. One of the fifth-floor sentries had a patch of Infected skin on his face, blood everywhere. Dennis pushed him to the far edge of the roof.
“I’m sorry, Tarik…”
The man spat to the right and gagged. He smacked his lips, making a face as though he tasted something foul. When realization dawned, he sent a defeated look down and handed his rifle to Dennis.
“Ain’t right. They throwing pieces now.” Tarik closed his eyes and nodded. “Don’t wanna be one of them fuckers. Do it.”
Dennis shot Tarik in the chest, and he fell backward off the bus. People inside screamed.
“Watch for that shit,” yelled Dennis. “Virus-bearing projectiles.”
Metallic clattering announced a hand grenade skipping across the parking lot from the direction of the Challenger. Tris had tossed it to the side of the building, out of sight. When it exploded, a spray of crimson and pieces rained. Fortunately, the building shielded the survivors from particles.
A surge of Infected swarmed around the building from the other side, overwhelming the continuous barrage of fire.
Marty yelled, “I’m out!” and waved his shotgun around.
Dennis tossed him Tarik’s M-16.
Star’s high-pitched scream seemed to freeze time. At the level of the second story, she hung by one hand. An Infected had made it past the defensive fire and gotten a hand on the tail end of the ladder. The rotting woman yanked and jerked on it, staring at the little girl dangling overhead like a dog after a bit of filet. Kevin reacted fastest, shooting the crazed Infected in the face.
The ladder sprang upward when the dead woman’s weight no longer burdened it. Star’s grip failed, and she fell. Kevin’s grab passed an instant too slow. The child bounced off the corner of the bus roof and hit the parking lot. Two infected surged toward her.
“Star!” Danielle shouted and let go of the ladder.
She fell three stories onto the back of a lumbering Asian man with no skin left on his face. Her impact knocked the Infected flat, his fingers inches from Star’s toes. The child shrieked and backpedaled, heading for the recessed wall of the first floor―away from the bus.
Kevin stared at the girl, and at the nine or ten Infected desperately trying to rush her. Without thinking, he jumped to the ground and charged to her. He skidded to a halt at her side, one-handing the rifle and firing at the oncoming group as fast as he could pull the trigger.
“Mommy!” screamed Star.
Kevin glanced to his right. Three infected advanced, seconds from swarming over Danielle. Dennis flung himself off the bus, flying sideways into a tackle that took all three of them down. Star let off a scream that felt as if it ruptured Kevin’s left eardrum. The stream of Infected coming around the building by the front end of the bus trailed off to one man. A fast-walking figure with dark skin, wearing pink shorts and a tank top, loped into view. He had a thin and lanky build, but stood close to seven feet tall. Most of a puffy afro dangled against the side of his head on a strand of skin, exposing skull. He moaned, head tilted to an unnatural angle, and headed right for Kevin.
Star shrieked and lapsed into hysterics at the sight of him.
“Oh, God!” Danielle took a step as if to run to the Infected man, but backed against the side of the bus. “Carl!”
Kevin started at a flash of white that zoomed by. Star vanished with a brief squeak of a scream. Kevin, on the verge of total panic, spun toward the motion. Tris carried the terrified girl at a superhuman sprint to the bus door. A burst of automatic fire came from high and right. Carl’s chest splattered open. Reason returned to the man’s brown eyes. For an instant, he stared at Kevin and then convulsed as if to vomit.
A symbiote serpent burst up from Carl’s mouth. The writhing, jet-black creature seemed to zero in on Kevin, staring for a half second before it launched from the dead man’s throat. Kevin twisted to the side, swinging his rifle. His first (and hopefully only) attempt at playing eel baseball resulted in a line drive that splattered the creature into the jagged metal bars on the side of the bus, where it draped like a limp hose, twisting and squirming. Silver ooze leaked from numerous slices in the fleshy sheath the nanites constructed. Three corpses rolled away from Dennis, killed by Paul and Marty from the roof. The Asian woman and Patricia stood at the rear end of the bus, firing at an onrushing crowd a block away.
Kevin almost shit his pants at the sight of the street packed wall to wall with thousands upon thousands of infected. On autopilot, he sprinted to Dennis and Danielle. “Go! Get in!”
Danielle ran toward the bus door, rushing toward the wails of her daughter inside. Dennis didn’t move.
“Dennis… get on the fucking bus!” Kevin pushed him.
“No.” He turned to face Kevin. A bite hole in his cheek exposed several teeth, and blood streamed down his arm from two more wounds.
“Shit.”
Dennis didn’t seem the least bit frightened or sad. He glanced to the left at Danielle, safe inside the bus, and smiled before looking at Kevin’s rifle. “Do it. I’m dead already.”
The second and a half Kevin stared into the man’s eyes felt like forever. I can’t. He pulled the Glock-17 out from under his left arm and offered it. “Seventeen in the mag, one in the pipe.”
Dennis took the gun. “Get them outta here. Tell Tris her father was a good man. He wasn’t wrong… and I’m sorry.” He walked past the bus, headed for the oncoming crowd.
People atop the bus with weapons stared at their leader’s injuries. Funeral quiet, broken only by the fast approaching moans and shuffling noises of Infected, fell over everyone.
“Sorry?” yelled Kevin.
Dennis stopped. “For helping them make this God-awful virus. I thought the resistance could stop it…”
Kevin couldn’t move. Half paralyzed by his terror of Infected, half by his inability to process what the man said. Dennis shot the closest infected in the face. A fat man fell, causing a minor domino effect to spread over the front of the swarm.
“I’m here. Come get me you rotting bastards. Come to Daddy!” Dennis shot another one and headed north toward the nearby ash-covered park, still yelling and taunting.
“Two,” muttered Kevin.
“Nowhere for me to go!” yelled Dennis. He fired again. Another Infected moaned and slumped dead.
The last of the survivors hurried down the ladder as Dennis hustled away, attracting the attention of the crowd. With each shot, Kevin muttered a number. Soon Marty joined in.
“That’s it you stupid bastards. Come and get me!” Bang. Bang.
“Thirteen, fourteen,” said Kevin and Marty at the same time.
Dennis, leading the flood of Infected, vanished amid dead trees.
Bang.
“Fifteen,” muttered Kevin.
Even people inside the bus had caught on, and repeated it.
Bang. A distant gurgling moan echoed off nearby buildings.
“Sixteen,” whispered everyone.
Silence hung thick for almost a full minute.
Bang.
Kevin lowered his head. Seventeen.
Bang.
No one spoke the word. Everyone knew where the last bullet went.
evin came close to shitting his pants a second time when Tris grabbed his arm from behind. The lingering moment of silence gave way to fear and worry. None of the people on the roof wanted to fire at the confused crowd of Infected three blocks away. They sh
uffled about, waving their heads as if trying to smell people on the wind. Dennis had led them far enough away to momentarily lose track of the survivors. He glanced at the window, at the muted screams of a child. Inside, Danielle kept her hand over Star’s mouth and tried to rock her. Fog on the windows reduced most of the people to blurs of color.
“Car or Bus?” asked Kevin.
“What?” Tris blinked.
“You wanna drive the car or the bus?” Kevin grabbed her arms. “I don’t wanna let go of you.”
She sniffled.
“I got the bus,” said Paul. “I can drive this pig. Cover us.”
Paul hustled to the forward ladder and hurried to the driver’s seat. Kevin hesitated for a second before grabbing Tris by the arm and hauling her toward the Challenger. Their footsteps echoed loud enough to draw notice. A few Infected outside the parking lot let off loud moans and proceeded to walk repeatedly into the chest-high stone wall. They bumped and jostled, staring at him with their arms raised, as if they couldn’t figure out why forward motion wasn’t happening.
“Good thing they’re stupid sometimes.” Kevin threw the Enclave rifle in the back seat and jumped in.
The bus backed out onto the road, stopped, and pulled away.
As soon as Tris got in, the Challenger’s tires smoked. Kevin let off the accelerator enough to let them catch and squealed out onto the road.
“Oops. Damn, that thing’s a pig. Gotta floor it to notice anything.”
Infected came racing out of side streets and from between cars, flinging themselves at the bus. Muzzle flare lit up the windows, as bits of glass and gore sprayed from both sides. Kevin swerved right, firing the M60s into a large pack a few seconds before the bus smashed them like biological bowling pins.
Eight or nine clung to the side, holding on to and impaled by the spiked metal slats. Kevin dodged out of the way of an upside down car sticking into the street, swerved back into the right lane, and accelerated. Marty climbed up and roof-surfed the bus, shaving two Infected from the side with the SPAS.
One More Run (Roadhouse Chronicles Book 1) Page 41