The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy

by Tony Battista

  “I don't know,” answered Tom. “There were a lot of sportsmen in this part of the state, lots of good hunting and fishing. There should have been quite a few people who had guns in their homes. They would know where the guns stores were, where the grocers were. You're right. We should be running into a lot more survivors.”

  “What was it that Dr. Warfield said? Eighty percent die-off?”

  “Dead or infected,” corrected Tom.

  “Same difference, really, isn't it? And that was, what, two months ago? How many of the remaining twenty percent have the infected accounted for by now?”

  “He estimated around two thirds of that eighty percent would be infected.”

  “So, best case scenario then, the infected outnumbered the survivors by at least two or three to one; and that was over two months ago. The cities would be the hardest hit, since most people wouldn't have quick access to guns there-”

  “Depends on the city,” countered Tom.

  “Whatever. Unless they were at home and had at least some warning, most didn't have access to them. How much warning did you and Liz have?”

  “Hmm. It was a Sunday morning and we were on our way home after church. Before we got halfway there, it seemed the whole world had suddenly gone mad, so I see what you mean. We really didn't have any warning at all.”

  “Same story,” said Carolyn. “I was with my ex at his jobsite and all of a sudden the streets were full of crazy people. When I was finally able to get home to check on my parents, mom was resting after being nipped by a patient and had turned by the time she woke up again. Without any warning, she was all teeth and nails, foaming at the mouth. She was like a wild animal.”

  “Same thing with us,” Pete recalled. “It was like someone threw a switch and the whole neighborhood was gone. Maybe twenty percent escaped the infection, but how many escaped the infected?”

  “That means we're facing a lot worse odds than we imagined,” Liz shuddered. “What do we do now, Tom?”

  “Honey, what can we do? You and Eve and I have found a group we can trust; a new family. This place is as good as we're likely to find and I believe we can make it work, last until winter and hope Jake was right about them starting to die off.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Carolyn agreed. “The small number of alphas we've seen might, just might, have sense enough to find somewhere to hide out during the winter where they won't freeze to death. But the great majority of them will keep wandering around and won't even realize the cold is killing them, might not even be aware it's getting cold at all. All we have to do is survive the winter.”

  . . .

  Only two infected wandered by all that day, both of which Pete dispatched with a ball-peen hammer. The next day, a group of three stumbled down the road just before noon, another single a couple hours later and a final two before dusk. In the meantime, Pete and Tom began cutting wood for the winter from a large grove of trees half a mile from the farm house, glad that Jake had had the foresight to pick up a couple of chainsaws from the hardware store, taking either Vickie or Carolyn along to stand watch for them. Eve and Liz picked bushels of corn, stripping the cobs and canning dozens of quart jars full, joking that they'd all be so tired of corn by the end of winter that they'd never want to see another ear. Both evenings they had roasted corn on the cob with their usual supper of canned meat and green beans or peas or whatever canned vegetable they had on hand.

  Vickie seemed to become more distant and withdrawn as the days went by and the men had to quit asking her to stand watch for them as she was becoming so detached as to be unreliable. Carolyn was troubled about her deepening depression and either she or Eve tried to keep an eye on her at all times. In the evenings, she would sit on the porch and just stare off into the distance, seemingly unaware of the movement and conversation around her, responding when someone talked to her only after repeated attempts to get her attention; she just didn’t seem to care about anything now that Jake was gone. Liz and Eve began taking an increasingly lethargic Vickie with them to the cornfield every day, hoping that having something to do with her hands outside in the fresh air and sunshine would start to bring her around. For her part, Vickie was apathetic and picked at the corn absently, just going through the motions, sometimes dropping the ears on the ground instead of into the bushel, sometimes dropping the bushel and dully kneeling down to refill it, always a vacant expression on her face and a faraway look in her eyes.

  Eve was watching her fumble with the bushel, heartsick over her worsening condition, and was taken by surprise when a hand shot out from between the stalks, seizing her wrist, pulling it toward a drooling mouthful of sharp, yellowed teeth. She screamed and, before Liz could even react, Vickie had plowed into the infected, knocking it to the ground. She knelt on its chest and beat at it with a fist-sized rock until the skull cracked and blood and brain matter began splattering all over her and the ground around them. Liz and Eve had to pull her off and she looked at Eve for a moment with terrified eyes, then threw her arms around her and cried, hugging her tightly. That was the moment she seemed to have passed the low point and slowly began to return to her old self. Still, she cried herself into a fitful, restless sleep again that night and several more afterward.

  After another four days, the men decided to take a day off from cutting wood. The chain saws and the axes had taken their toll in blisters and aching muscles and they relaxed underneath one of the huge willows.

  “I could get used to this,” Pete commented as he smoked a cigarette.

  “How about this?” Tom said and, with a flourish, produced the bottle of Jack Daniels Jake had opened before the attack. “Let’s all have a drink; a toast to Jake.”

  He looked to Vickie and she nodded, saying, “He would like that. Hell, pour me a shot of that nasty stuff and I'll drink to him, too.”

  Everyone had a teacup, brought out from the house by Liz, and Tom poured a small amount in each, a tiny trickle for Eve and quite a bit healthier slugs for himself and Pete.

  “To Jake,” he said simply, and they all upended the cups, Vickie and Liz coughing afterward and Eve gagging and nearly being sick.

  “An acquired taste,” Vickie laughed. “That's what Jake told me,” she added, seeing the blank expression on Eve's face. Then, in a more somber tone added, “Did you know he was married?”

  “No. Not until that nightmare,” Tom said.

  “He never mentioned it to me, either until then.” She briefly related the story about Becky and Mikey to her friends.

  “Oh, good Lord,” Pete sighed. “What a horrible thing to happen.”

  “I know what kind of man Jake was,” Vickie said with a faltering voice. “He'd have said it was no worse than what happened to you, with your wife. He didn’t want to talk about it, just tried to keep going day by day, but I know now how much pain he must have suffered. I dearly regret that he and I were never able to be together. I didn't realize it earlier, but he must have felt guilty about being with me, about being happy again, after what happened to his family. Still, I'd give anything to have been with him just one time.”

  “You know, I didn't really think much of him at first,” Carolyn mused. “When we first got together, I thought, here he was, an older guy stringing you along, using you. When you told me that he never tried to take advantage of you, how he protected you, well, I really began to admire him for that. Even then, though, I guess I was jealous of your relationship and that's why I teased him with my nude sun-bathing.”

  “Say what?” Pete piped up.

  “Long story,” Carolyn smiled. “I'll tell you later.”

  “Well, he made a hell of an impression on me, too, coming up out of that ditch with a shotgun pointed at my back like that,” Tom laughed. “I think I wet myself.”

  “I actually had the drop on him at that TSC,” Pete said. “That is, until Vickie shoved that pistol into the back of my neck. I guess that was actually my lucky day. I needed to get away from the Carltons, but where else could
I have gone?”

  “What the hell,” Tom said. “One more round, one more toast, then we'd better get back to doing something useful.”

  He poured another round, but they never did get up, all staying in the cool shade and talking about their old lives, their friends and loved ones, the things they missed and the things they hoped to do when and if things did return to normal until the sun finally set.

  Chapter 30: Welcome Visitor

  “God, isn't this enough wood already?” Pete complained after another three days of cutting, hauling and splitting.

  “I got no idea,” Tom said, wiping his brow with an already wet bandanna. “We had a fireplace when I was a little kid, but that was more ornamental than functional so I don’t remember how long a load of wood lasts. You don’t think about that stuff when you’ve had a gas furnace your whole life. I don’t know how much we’ll need to see us through the winter.”

  They both heard the twang of Vickie's bow and looked up to see an infected fall about forty feet beyond them.

  “You boys are doing more complaining than cutting,” she teased. “It’s about lunch time, let's take this load back and you can take a break for a while. But we'll be coming back here this afternoon. You've noticed it's getting cooler at night. It was probably down in the forties last night.”

  “I wish we had ice,” Tom mused. “I've been thinking all morning about a nice glass of iced tea.”

  “Sorry, but you'll have to settle for some cool well water when we get back,” Vickie chuckled.

  “All the stores we've been to, I can't believe no one ever thought of picking up any tea bags,” Tom sounded offended.

  “Next run, I'll load up all the Nestea I can carry,” Pete told him.

  “Lipton, if you please,” Tom countered. “Decaf, preferably.”

  “Yeah. I'll do my best.”

  . . .

  After unloading the wood back at the farmhouse, the two men, after some prodding by Liz and Vickie, began sawing it to length and splitting it with axes, sometimes resorting to a wedge and sledgehammer.

  “I've been wondering,” Eve said in a too-innocent voice. “Why have you been going to all that trouble to split the wood?”

  “Well, sweetie,” Tom explained, “the logs have to be small enough to burn in the fireplaces. If we leave them too thick, only the outside will burn well and we'll have a lot of waste.”

  “Oh, I realize that. I just wondered why you don't use the gas log-splitter.”

  Both men stopped to stare at her.

  “The what?” Tom asked.

  “The log-splitter in the big shed. Wouldn’t that be a lot easier?”

  Tom and Pete looked at each other.

  “There really is a log-splitter in the shed? Honey, how long have you known about it?” Tom asked in a deceivingly calm voice.

  “Oh, I saw it the first day we arrived,” she laughed, but when she saw the look both men gave her she quickly added, “I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Mom and I just found it this morning under a tarp behind those planks. We don't even know for sure if it works!”

  Once Pete worked it over, stripping and cleaning the carburetor and spark plug, both men breathed a sigh of relief when the engine finally fired up after many pulls on the starter cord. Their workload was immediately cut nearly in half and they spent the next hour splitting the enormous amount of wood that had piled up already. When Liz called them in to supper, they had gotten through about a quarter of it and were feeling pretty happy about the time and work it saved them.

  “Oh, good! Corn on the cob again. Just can't get enough of that,” Tom laughed.

  “Hey, if you don't like what we make, you can always open up an MRE,” Liz chided.

  “Be nice if we had some butter,” Pete reflected. “Least we have plenty of salt.”

  “How about a little wine with our meal tonight?” offered Carolyn, taking a bottle from one of the cupboards.

  “How about a little more of that Jack?” Pete asked.

  “Between that and those damned cigarettes, your breath is about all I can stand!” Carolyn told him. “Use some Listerine tonight, would you please?”

  Vickie suddenly burst into laughter and, the more she saw of the puzzled looks everyone was giving her, the harder she laughed.

  “Why is that so funny!” Eve finally said. “Let us in on the joke.”

  “The... ride back... from the gun store,” Vickie managed to get out between laughing fits. “Carolyn, do you remember what you told me the night Eve caught me and Jake together?”

  Carolyn blushed fiercely and Pete's face reddened when he realized what she meant, which made Vickie laugh all the harder. The others began to chuckle and smirk and laugh outright as they too began to realize the implication. Pete and Carolyn were caught up in the mood themselves and were soon laughing along with everyone else.

  The laughter finally died down, mostly, and Carolyn poured everyone a glass of wine, giving Pete a kick when he again asked for the Jack, and they enjoyed a supper occasionally punctuated with a sudden burst of laughing.

  “Okay, everybody outside,” Carolyn declared when the meal was finished. “You can do your laughing out on the porch while Liz and I clean up. And Vickie, you keep your mouth shut!”

  “That's funny! I was going to tell you the same thing!”

  “Enough!” Carolyn fumed. “Don't you say another word about that subject!”

  “Oh, no,” Eve teased, “I want to hear all about the Listerine story!”

  Carolyn glared at Vickie and held up a warning finger, which only made her break out into another laughing fit.

  Pete stretched his tired muscles and yawned enormously before sitting on one of the porch chairs, Tom following shortly after, and both allowed how they missed the gas well on the old farm.

  “I don't know if I've got calluses or if the blisters are just piled up on top of each other,” Tom shook his head.

  “I can't believe we didn't notice that log splitter just sitting there in the shed,” Pete laughed. “All the work that would have saved...” He reached into his pocket and drew out a pack of cigarettes, offering one to Tom, who declined, before lighting one up himself.

  “There is a lady here, you know,” Vickie chided him, and he passed the pack to her, lighting her smoke with a disposable lighter.

  Carolyn came out a minute later, followed by Liz, and walked up to Pete and snatched the cigarette from his lips, tossing it into the yard.

  “Such a filthy habit,” Vickie mocked. “You'll need some Listerine now.”

  Carolyn's icy glare just made her giggle.

  “Don't get so mad, Carolyn,” Eve told her. “It's not like we all haven't done it at one time or another.”

  “Eve! What the hell?” Tom scolded.

  “Cigarettes! I mean smoking cigarettes! You've seen the friends I ran around with. Some of them smoked worse things than tobacco.”

  “Well, I sure as hell hope you didn’t join them!”

  “Not me!” Eve protested. Then, turning toward Carolyn she added, with a wicked grin. “I'll keep my mouth shut, too.”

  That was enough to start Vickie laughing again, especially as Eve sat straight-backed with a look of innocence on her face.

  “Okay, can we change the subject, please?” Carolyn asked.

  “Yes, please,” Tom agreed. “I'd rather be cutting wood than having this conversation”

  “Loner!” Eve suddenly shouted, standing up and pointing toward the road.

  All faces turned to the road and, sure enough, a stumbling figure was making slow progress along the road, head hanging to stare at the ground in front of it.

  Sighing, Pete grabbed a hatchet and said he'd deal with it.

  “No,” Vickie said. “I can use my bow to take it out silently from a distance. You relax and let me take him down.”

  Vickie headed toward the road, Carolyn following carrying an AR. Even at a distance, they could make out the filthy, torn and bloodstained clothes and C
arolyn cast her glance around to make sure there was only the one infected. When they closed to about sixty feet, Vickie began to ready her bow and the figure raised its head and looked at her. Vickie lowered the bow as Carolyn came up even with her.

  “Oh, God! Oh, God, no! It's Jake!” Vickie moaned.

  Carolyn looked hard at the figure clumsily making its way toward them, picking up the pace after having spotted them and she recognized Jake through all the dirt and grime and blood.

  “Oh, dear God! Go back, Vickie! Go on back to the house! I'll do what needs to be done; you don't have to see this!” Carolyn said, raising her rifle. At that moment, Vickie dropped her bow, pushed past Carolyn and ran forward, straight at Jake.

  “Vickie! Vickie, stop! What are you doing?” Carolyn called out frantically. The others were already running toward her, shouting at Vickie, trying to get a bead on their former comrade. Carolyn put her rifle to her shoulder but was afraid she might hit Vickie and began running frantically after her.

  Vickie reached him before any of the others could get him in their sights and threw her arms around him. Jake hugged her, kissing her neck, her face and her lips. Carolyn stood, dumbfounded, and realized he really was alive and tears were streaming down her cheeks by the time she caught up to them.

  “You smell really bad,” Vickie told him through her sobbing.

  “It's nice to see you, too,” he said in a hoarse, rasping voice, barely above a whisper.

  “Jake! Oh, my God! You're alive!” Carolyn shouted as she drew up to the happy couple. The others soon caught up to them and were equally amazed at his survival.

  “You were bitten!” Tom shouted. “I saw it! You were bitten!”

  “No one's more surprised than I am,” Jake assured him as, supported by Vickie and Pete, he slowly sank to the ground, thoroughly exhausted. “I caught up with the last alpha at last and put him down. Then I was all set to put a bullet in my own head when it all seemed to catch up to me and I passed out,” he explained, voice weak and cracking. “When I woke up, I was still me. I was too weak to travel much and I made my way back to the farmhouse. The stench was unbelievable, but I had a box of MREs and a case of water in the barn loft and it wasn’t quite as bad there. I holed up there for about a week, maybe longer, I don't know, I kind of lost track of time, until I started to get my strength back. I've been trying to find you ever since,” the last he said while gazing into Vickie's eyes.