He quickly tied the rope around a steel girder, ensured the knot was secured tightly, and threw it down to the boat. That way they wouldn’t lose the cargo if he dropped it, or if Barnes fell. The rope tugged taut, and Steele hauled as quiet and fast as he could manage. Keeping his back against an abandoned coupe, he watched every-way possible, aside from down. Hand over hand he heaved until the pack reached the top. He untied the knot and tossed the rope back down to Barnes and waited. Steele watched the infected near a break in the bridge, almost fifty yards away. Someone had driven a car through, or someone drove them through the railing. Five minutes ticked away. Where is the old bastard? Steele glanced down the hatch. A beet-red face looked up at him, cursing and shaking his head.
“Hurry up. I thought I was slow,” Steele hoarsely whispered down. The portly man continued his slower than death pace. A piece of car wreckage clanked nearby.
Steele looked down his optics in the direction the noise had come from. Fuck. What did that? Nothing moved. Steele could always feel it like a sixth sense when something or someone watched him.
Barnes pulled himself through the hatch, pushing his tactical girth onto the concrete.
Steele lowered his carbine. “What took you so long?”
Barnes panted on the ground. “Did. You. See. How. Far that was? I haven’t had to work that hard since the nineties. When you were chasing little Timmy around the schoolyard.” Barnes pushed himself off the concrete with a smile.
“Fuck off, Barnes,” Steele whispered back.
“Just saying, boy. Your generation doesn’t know what it’s like to be a man. You guys are all so metro.”
“Do you even know what ‘metro’ means?” Steele whispered.
“Yeah, of course. You like guys and girl stuff,” Barnes breathed.
“Jesus, Barnes. Just worry about the explosives. I’ll deal with any metrosexuals we run into.”
“That sounds perfect. You do have the experience.” Barnes grinned beneath his caterpillar mustache and collected his pack of goodies.
Steele had grown used to the fact that this man was going to call him boy for the rest of their lives, which Steele conceded at this point was probably going to be very short.
“We gotta make our way to about there. About thirty yards past that hole in the railing.” Barnes pointed. It was a long way through a maze of crushed metal and bodies. The last thing Steele wanted to do was fight his way back to the hatch.
“In and out before they know we were here,” Barnes said, licking his lips.
“I agree,” Steele said.
Scccrape. Scccrape. Sccccrape. Something dragged itself in their direction.
“Shit, should we take it out? Barnes said.
“No, let it pass,” Steele said. He pointed to a car with an open door nearby. They edged over and crawled in. Steele slowly reclined the seat to keep out of view. Barnes pulled a checkered blanket over himself from the backseat. An undead woman fell onto the hood, intoxicated with infection. Steele didn’t move. He held his breath. Long matted hair hung down, shoulder length. Its lips and mouth were worn away from the constant feeding, revealing rotting yellow teeth. Its body was covered in black, festering wounds. It clearly had taken a round through the shoulder recently as its arm hung in a black coagulated bloody mess.
The infected let out a falsetto moan. Steele rested his hand on the hilt of his knife. They were going to be screwed if this bastard drew attention to them. The infected smeared its functioning hand across the window, leaving a muddy, bloody handprint. Its dull cloud-like eyes ogled Steele. Keep moving. You nasty bitch. I’m not the piece of meat you are looking for. She stumbled off the hood and struggled away. The tension faded from the car. When the scraping became less audible, they exited.
Steele left the door open for fear that the sound would draw it back. He put a knee on the pavement, covering Barnes as he grunted his way out of the backseat.
“You should have gone in the back. It wasn’t made for a man of my stature,” Barnes mumbled.
“Lay off the candy bars,” Steele whispered back at him. Barnes humphed behind him. Steele slung his carbine and loosened the tomahawk from his belt. He stepped gingerly, knowing that a wrong sound could send a hundred infected upon him in a moment. They threaded in and out of the abandoned cars like fancy stitching on a quilt of car patches.
Cars had been rammed into rails, front ends crumpling, back ends smashed in by other cars. Some doors were open, the remnants of the occupants strewn about the ground. Haphazardly collected supplies and trash were thrown about the highway bridge. Holding their close combat weapons ready, they kept low, backs bent like they stalked deer in an urban forest. Steele stopped and ducked behind a white SUV near the middle of the bridge where Barnes joined him.
Barnes let out a heavy sigh. “I need you to watch my back while I set up the charges on the support beams.”
Steele scowled at him. “I thought I was going to help plant the charges,” he said.
Barnes shook his head. “That was the plan if Ahmed was here. Ahmed isn’t here. I can’t be plantin’ charges fast if I’m worrying about getting mauled,” he said.
Steele knew the truth to his words.
Barnes went to work near the beams. He worked quickly with surprising nimbleness in his hands, plugging in wires and setting bricks of explosives into place. Steele crouched down in front of the SUV so he could watch a group of six infected not more than ten yards away. Barnes joined Steele and they moved to the other side of the bridge.
Barnes hustled to the other side, but the position was exposed with no car to cover them. Steele kept his head on a rotating axis. He squatted near Barnes, holding his tomahawk close to his body.
Within a minute the infected had spotted them. It was as if the monsters could smell them. The motley pack of infected called to them with the audible groans indicating a good find.
“We got company,” Steele muttered under his breath.
“I need more time. Take care of it,” Barnes hissed over his shoulder.
The heads of the infected jounced as they shouldered into one another. They looked like they had been mud wrestling, their clothes soiled. Probably not mud. Black gore-stained mouths hung open. Skin was peeling away from their faces, rubbed away from ravenous feeding. Unblinking white eyes sought out Steele and Barnes, and their living, breathing flesh was the only thing they saw.
Steele calmed himself, taking in a deep breath. He re-gripped the handle of his tomahawk a few times, feeling the hard fiberglass reinforced nylon with his fingers. I have to make this fast. I have to make this quick, and I can’t make a sound.
The first infected got within a car’s length of Steele. A skinny man. His hair was short, almost as if he were bald before the outbreak and his hair had grown out over course of the collapse. He gave Steele an unintentional skeletal smile with gums and teeth perpetually exposed.
The infected man emitted a low moan almost as if he were trying to communicate a secret with Steele. The undead’s gait sped up, his broomstick-sized arms and long, skinny fingers grasping for Steele. Steele met its eyes and clenched his teeth. He hardened his core when he saw nothing behind its eyes, like he was about to battle a pack of sharks.
Not today, assholes. Steele exploded from his crouched overwatch and, with an underhand swing, cleaved the blade into the man’s jaw, splitting it. White bone broke apart as he yanked it free. He shoved another infected down to the concrete. It fell into a car and crashed to the pavement. It was always better to face one opponent at a time whether it was the walking dead or a living person.
Holding the tomahawk close to his body, he spiked another infected with a rapid jab to the head. He pushed another infected over the hood of a car. He quickly dispatched the fiend by hewing open the back of its skull with an overhead strike a little to the side. Steele exhaled, having held his breath for almost the entirety of the fight. A training scar from what seemed like a hundred years ago and a different planet.
/> He took a deep breath and looked over at Barnes. The man was in a death grip with two fiends, having one hand each around an infected neck. They clawed at his arms and clacked their jaws.
In two long lunges, Steele rammed a shoulder into the sides of the infected, forcing them to the ground. With sharp diagonal strikes, he slashed at either side of the first thing’s neck. It flopped back, jet-colored blood seeping from open wounds. Spinning, Steele sank his hawk deep above the remaining infected’s eye socket and into the frontal lobe. Its body shook as involuntary nerve twitches surged in its body. Steele bent down, wiping his hawk on the torn clothes of the dead.
“Thanks,” Barnes said, rubbing his throat.
The moans of more infected touched their ears. Steele scrambled on top of a car. The dead streamed for the two men in between the vehicles. He looked over his shoulder. More bloodied faces marched for them from the other direction. They were pinned.
“Don’t even bother. They were our cue to leave,” Barnes called out, hoisting his pack to his back.
“I would agree,” Steele said. He slid down the hood of a car.
They raced for a ladder secured to the pillar where they had climbed up. They weaved through the cars. Barnes forearmed an infected to the ground, and Steele finished him with a polo swing on the way by, knocking the infected’s head off the pavement. Grabbing the rungs, Barnes climbed like a madman to the next level. The dead were close, the stink of their rotten flesh stinging Steele’s nose. He leapt for the ladder and climbed. He gave one a kick to the face as it stared up at him longingly.
When he reached the next highway, he joined Barnes in catching his breath. Steele prayed that the infected would pass beneath them without taking note of where they went.
After a minute, Barnes stood. “Come on. No rest for the weary.”
Steele begrudgingly stood. No vehicles, no infected, no people lined the upper highway. “What happened up here? Where are the cars?” Steele holstered his tomahawk and unslung his carbine, putting it in the low ready. He couldn’t believe it was possible that there could be no threat.
“I think they blocked this highway to control the flow of traffic through the Fort Penn Tunnel. Still, watch my back while I plant these charges,” Barnes said. Then he added. “They can be sneaky devils.”
Steele took a place nearby and knelt. He searched with his carbine. Nothing was out there. Just the way he liked it.
“I’m up,” Barnes said. He threw his pack on his shoulders and made a jog for the hatch. Steele followed close behind. Barnes reached the hatch and spit in disgust.
“Fucking A,” he cursed.
A step behind him, Steele looked down.
A hundred chalky white eyes stared up at him. A chorus of moans hailed his appearance like a surprise birthday party.
“What a donkey dick,” Steele cursed. “Any ideas?”
“Not our biggest problem, Mr. Millennial.”
Steele pointed down at the dead. “That’s not our biggest problem?”
Dozens of cursed faces moaned up at them, hands reaching.
“The timer’s set,” Barnes grunted.
GWEN
Downtown Pittsburgh, PA
The convoy meandered through Pittsburgh. Craters lined the streets. Rubble from buildings lay scattered over the roadways and sidewalks alike. It reminded Gwen of scenes she’d seen on television from the Syrian War and the besieged city of Aleppo.
It was a miracle some of the buildings could even stand, held up as they were by exposed rusty steel beams. Glass had been blown out of windows, leaving empty spaces that should have been linear and clean. Windows that were still whole reflected only darkness. Abandoned vehicles littered their path ahead. A dark cloud of smoke filled the sky above the city. War had always seemed so detached from her and everyone in America that hadn’t served. It was only a daily television program you could turn off when you were tired of the misery.
Everything bad always happened far away to people, most of whom were never American. Even on her Red Cross deployments, she could go to an area destroyed by wildfires to help, but she always could detach and go home afterward.
Pittsburgh burned. No fire trucks swarmed the streets. No police controlled the scene. No paramedics helped the injured. Everything just burned. Yellow, red, and orange flames licked the sides of buildings. Other fires smoldered, the rain and lack of fuel putting them out. Twisted metal and rubble decorated the sidewalks. There was no place of refuge. Only movement and fighting.
The swivel-turrets machine guns atop the Humvees called out their war song. It was heavy and loud as it thundered. The convoy only left the dead in its wake.
On Fifth Avenue, an SUV began following the convoy.
“Tell them to stop,” Sergeant Yates said into his headset. “Well, I can’t fucking see them. So use your judgment,” he yelled. Within a minute, the convoy gradually decreased its speed and the people mover coasted.
“Why the hell are we slowing down?” Sergeant Yates called out. “Everyone, man your positions!”
The protective metal flaps were propped open and guns were aimed outward, bristling from the mobile lounge like an American military hedgehog.
The driver waved a white shirt out the window. It whipped frantically as he tried to flag them down.
“Tell them to back off,” Sergeant Yates yelled into his headset, holding a handrail with one hand, rifle in the other.
“REDUCE YOUR SPEED,” a soldier boomed over a loudspeaker.
They were answered with silence.
The SUV continued to follow the convoy, not heeding the announcements from the rear Humvee. Sergeant Yates rubbed his brow. His eyes crossed in anger.
“REDUCE YOUR SPEED, NOW,” a soldier boomed over a loudspeaker again.
The SUV flashed its lights and continued driving closer to the convoy.
Sergeant Yates jaw flexed. “Light ’em up,” he said into the headset. A fifty caliber machine gun riddled the vehicle with hot screaming lead. They weren’t followed again.
Flaps dropped closed and the people mover was a military armadillo, armor-plated and tough. The soldiers found solace in their dank stuffy coffin of a transport. There was little comfort for Gwen inside the lounge. Sweaty, blood-covered men sat mostly in silence. A few cried. Most were no more than boys. Gwen wouldn’t cry anymore. She lived while all of those around her died. She hadn’t kept any of her promises to anyone. She had smothered Lucia. Lindsay had been infected. She would most likely never see Mark again. Mauser was a small comfort in a sea of pain and suffering.
In the past, he had been good for a laugh; now, he could not bring cheer into her world. The people mover jostled her back and forth. Probably running over the bodies. She hurt on the inside. She thought she had buried that hurt with Lucia, but it was an internal wound that bled inside of her with each beat of her heart.
Then she heard that laugh.
The same laugh that had gotten them into this mess. High-pitched and shrill. That bitch, Ashley. Ashley sat near the front of the people mover in the arms of a soldier. A few other soldiers sat around her, doing anything to make her smile.
She had somehow found time to brush her dirty blonde hair, which fell around her shoulders. Her torso was adorned with a long-sleeved thermal that was clearly too big for her; must have belonged to some soldier boy who had signed up to the National Guard to be a weekend warrior, not a full time, active duty trooper.
Ashley had tied it up in a knot so it would expose just a little bit of her pig pink belly. Snuggling in close to a big, black-haired soldier, who looked more country big than athletic, she appeared content.
Gwen didn’t blame people for enjoying what time they had left. If some dumb eighteen-year-old private wanted to bump uglies with Ashley, then so be it, but it made her angry that Ashley got to have it. Ashley sat over there with someone she wanted to be with, while Gwen was forced to be content with watching her man walk away from her in some sense of perverted civic dut
y. Most likely he would die playing hero on a suicide mission, leaving Gwen alone, which made her even angrier.
She maneuvered her way to the front of the people mover and planted herself in front of Ashley. Ashley gave her a haughty look, as if she was saying, what the hell are you doing here?
“I need to talk to you.”
Ashley looked up at her coyly. “Well, hi there, sweetie pie. Don’t you look chipper today?” she oozed.
Gwen knew she looked like hell and couldn’t care less. “We have unfinished business,” she said, grabbing Ashley by the shirt. The soldier put a hand out to stop Gwen, but the others yelled at him.
“Let ’em go, Pennington.”
“Come on, hoss. A little girl on girl action,” said another. Specialist Pennington reluctantly let Gwen pull Ashley face to face.
“Now you kiss her,” a soldier shouted, adding misogynistic fuel to Gwen’s fire. Gwen held her face near Ashley’s. Ashley grinned with a mouthful of yellow teeth.
“You ruined my life,” Gwen spat. “My friends are dead. The love of my life is gone, and you sit over here laughing it up like it never happened?” she said.
Angry fear shone in Ashley’s eyes; like an abused dog, she bared her teeth. She gripped Gwen by the shirt and they stood like two judo grapplers.
“You killed my friends and family,” she exclaimed. “If it weren’t for our traitorous fucking cousin, none of that would have happened.” Ashley looked past Gwen at Kevin releasing the grip on her shirt to give him the finger. Kevin raised a flask in her direction and tossed it back.
“They were monsters, and if Kevin didn’t make it happen, I sure as hell would have,” Gwen shouted.
“My brother, my cousins, my uncle are all dead because of you. You lost some Spanish chick and a college girl. They weren’t going to make it. My family was born for this,” Ashley growled.
The End Time Saga (Book 2): The Breaking Page 28