When the guard on the roof was again looking in another direction, Tad quickly and quietly made his way back to the female and, together, they rejoined the band. By now, he was beginning to be able to communicate more complex instructions with gestures and the other alphas were capable of understanding most of his directions with ease. After having all the bottles and the gas can placed together on the ground, he divided his group into two roughly equal units, keeping the female and three others with him, and indicated that the other two alphas would move their units into position on opposite sides of the house. While waiting for them to reach their assigned stations, his ears perked up at the sound of whistling. Though he didn’t recognize it as the notes of a melody, he knew it meant that one of the prey was getting closer.
Forcing the drones with him to the ground and leaving the female to keep tabs on them, he cautiously worked his way to a vantage point where he could see the green and brown man moving in his general direction, carrying an axe over his shoulder and a pistol in a holster on his hip. The man stopped by a sapling and began swinging the axe, chips of wood flying from it with each blow. Intent on his task, he didn’t notice Tad creeping up on him and shouted in surprise and fright as Tad pounced on him, pinning his arms to his sides and sinking his teeth into his neck. There was a shout from the woman with whom he’d shared a cigarette and, a moment later, a bullet zinged past and smacked into a nearby tree. The not quite a drone female appeared at Tad’s side and helped him drag the now limp body deeper into the brush. The three drones with them charged after the fresh meat and began to feed even as Tad tried to beat them back and drag the body further away. One of the drones fell after a bullet tore into its chest and the other two, driven back by Tad’s fists, began to devour him, both falling in quick order to shots fired by the roof sentry.
Tad and the female dragged the corpse out of sight and she waited obediently but impatiently as Tad searched the body until found the lighter. He began to examine it, turning it over in his hand, figuring out how to open the lid before the female growled with annoyance and he motioned that she could begin feeding. As for himself, he was so excited to have the lighter in his hands that he ignored her tearing open the man’s belly and pulling at his entrails, his fascination with this new tool temporarily overcoming the desire to feed. He found the little wheel on one end of the lighter and discovered that he could turn it with his thumb. Recalling the quick motion the dead owner had used, he was able to produce a few sparks and, after a dozen or so tries, a flame. Ecstatic, he filled one of the bottles with gas, spilling only about a quarter of it on the ground now that he’d had some practice, and stuffed a piece of cloth into the neck. He then did the same with a second bottle.
Armed now with what he considered a miracle weapon, he furtively moved to another spot well away from the dead bodies and with a clear path to the house. When he thought he’d given his minions enough time to move into position, he screamed at the top of his lungs. The two groups of infected responded to the signal and began to advance on the house as quickly as they were able. Tad worked his way closer as all fire from the house was intently focused on the two attacking groups and he was able to make it to a wood pile no more than thirty feet from the porch without attracting attention. He set one of the bottles on the ground and struck the lighter several times before again producing a flame. Then he lit the rag on the other bottle, rose up, and hurled it at the house. It shattered against a window frame and spread flaming gasoline over the side of the house and the porch floor. Grinning from ear to ear, Tad lit the other bottle and threw it also, setting another fire a few yards from the first, the two merging into one impressively furious blaze.
Fourteen infected lay dead or wounded on the ground by the time the occupants of the house turned most of their attention to a futile attempt to put out the spreading fire. In only a few minutes, it was obvious they had no hope of stopping the flames and two men charged out of the house, firing rifles and pistols with both hands, trying to clear a path for the two women and three small children. Another eight drones fell, but there was never any realistic chance of escape and the infected swarmed over the now doomed clutch of terrified people.
Tad claimed one of the children’s bodies for himself and carried it away from the house to feed while the remainder of the band busied themselves with the other five ill-fated souls and their own fallen brethren. He paused in his meal to watch the flames fully engulf the house and at that moment felt like he was on top of the world.
In a moment of startling clarity, he realized that the prey’s greatest remaining advantage lay in the weapons they used to cut down his drones before they got close enough to engage them hand to hand and those weapons were now his for the taking. He carefully searched the bodies and the ground around them, setting one rifle aside for himself for later examination and smashing the rest against a big rock until pieces broke off and the metal was battered and bent. The pistols he found also represented a danger and he placed them in turn on the big rock and used a smaller one to smash these also. Satisfied, he returned to his grisly meal.
Chapter 12: Relocation
“The surgery went well,” Dr. Vargas told Vickie as he walked out of the operating room. “This is what was causing him so much pain,” he said as he held out a metal pan containing a conical piece of metal about half the size of a dime. “It appears to be a chrome cap of some kind, probably a decorative cover for the end of the peg you said impaled him.”
“He’s going to be okay then?” Vickie asked anxiously.
“It will take weeks, but he should regain most of the use of his arm, though I think he will never be entirely free from pain. I’ll want to keep him for at least a week to be sure there is no infection, but he’ll be able to sit up by tomorrow and I foresee no problems with his recuperation.”
“Can I see him?”
“Not just yet. Carolyn and my aide are getting him settled into recovery right now and it will be perhaps an hour or so before he wakes. You can see him then.”
“Thank you, doctor. Thank you!” She threw her arms around him, sobbing with relief.
“I knew it all along,” Pete told her after Dr. Vargas left to see to his patient. “You’re the one who always calls him a tough guy.”
“I suppose you’ve just been pacing the room for the exercise then?”
“Well, it’s over now anyway. And that farm Ted showed me looks to be about ideal for us. I think Carolyn and I will head on back first thing in the morning and let the others know what’s going on here. They might start getting a little antsy if we’re away too long. Tell Jake we’ll have a party when he comes home.”
“Home. That has a nice ring to it. It sounds almost normal.”
“Yeah, well this is about as normal as it gets anymore. There’s some more coffee down the hall. Want me to bring you a cup?”
“No, thanks. You go ahead. But I can’t say I ever noticed you drinking more than one cup after I made it!”
“Hell, no one drinks more than one cup of yours.” Pete mumbled.
“What was that?”
“I said there might be sandwiches, too.”
Vickie chuckled as Pete made a hasty exit and she sat down and leafed through a two-year-old issue of People magazine, wondering how she could ever have thought the doings of these so-called celebrities actually mattered. Forty-five minutes later, Carolyn walked into the room and told Vickie that Jake was coming around and she could see him.
“He’s still a bit groggy from the anesthesia and pain medication, but he’s doing fine.”
They hugged and Vickie gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before heading in to see Jake.
“So, tough guy,” she said as she sat in a chair next to the bed, “how are you feeling?”
“All things considered, not too bad,” he smiled weakly at her as she took his hand.
“Dr. Vargas took a chunk of metal out of your shoulder. He said he expects you to make a full recovery.”
; “I’ll try not to disappoint him.”
“It was my fault you were in so much pain all this time,” Vickie mumbled in a tiny voice.
“Hey, none of that! Let’s not dwell on the past. We have a future to build, the rest of our lives to spend together.”
“That does sound nice.”
“Yeah, it does. For a while, I didn’t care what happened to me. I was just existing and trying to get by, day by day. Now, I can’t imagine being without you. Until you came along, well, let’s just say you saved my life the day I met you.”
Vickie couldn’t find any words. She just leaned over him and pressed her lips gently against his. When she stood up again, his eyes were closed and there was a trace of a smile on his face.
“I love you, Jake,” she whispered. Then she sat in the chair and held his hand, listening to his soft breathing and thinking that they really did have a future after all.
. . .
Eve wanted to stay at Hollington until Jake recovered so she could spend more time with Owen, but Vickie convinced her, after some discussion, to return to the farm with Pete and Carolyn, telling her they’d all be together again soon enough. They said their goodbyes, Vickie giving Carolyn a more than friendly hug and Eve lingering with Owen until the last possible moment before the three of them climbed into the Hummer.
Pete decided to swing by his old car dealership on the way back and the detour caused them to miss the outlaws’ new encampment. The Ford Transit he’d taken in on trade on the last day before the contagion flooded through the state still sat parked in the service garage and he spent most of half an hour getting the standby generator going and another two making the van road-worthy and changing the oil and putting new tires on both vehicles. After topping off their tanks and several gas cans they’d found at the station across the street and loading what spare parts and supplies into the van that he thought he could use for their other vehicles, they decided to spend the night and get a fresh start the next morning. The three of them took turns standing watch and the night passed without disturbance. Up again early the next morning, they had a quick breakfast and were ready to travel shortly after daybreak.
“Oh, hell,” Pete said as he carried one of the gas cans to the Transit. “Damned cap is cracked. Sure as hell don’t want to smell gas the whole drive back.”
“Yeah, and you won’t be able to smoke in a van full of fumes either, will you?” Carolyn chided him.
“I don’t have one that often,” Pete responded defensively.
“You shouldn’t be doing it at all! Jake’s not going to be able to smoke while he’s recovering; I already confirmed that with Vickie and Dr. Vargas, and we’re going to break him of the habit once and for all when he comes home, so you might as well get used to going without, too!”
“Well, we’ll see how much luck you have with Jake,” Pete chuckled as he set the gas can on the sidewalk by a fireplug and climbed into the van. Carolyn drove the Hummer, Eve in the passenger seat, and they started out for home.
Avoiding built-up areas as much as possible, they passed an electrical substation on a side road surrounded by chain-link fencing. Two men with rifles watched them drive by from behind a car blocking the gate, one an older man with sparse gray hair and the other in his twenties with dreadlocks and a bright red kerchief tied around his neck. Eve spotted the younger man and waved to him from the open window. He smiled back and hesitantly returned her wave but she saw the older man frowning at his companion, obviously not anxious for company, so they continued on their way. Except for that, they saw no other signs of life, human or infected the rest of the way home.
Carolyn spotted Kim on the roof, aiming a rifle as the two vehicles approached late that afternoon and she stopped the car a couple hundred yards away and all three got out of their vehicles and waved. Kim lowered the rifle to wave back and they drove up to the house.
“I see you picked up a new vehicle,” Tom called out as they parked.
“Yeah. I thought this would come in handy. This is one of the biggest they make, or rather made. We can carry a lot more in this than in that mini-van.”
“What happened to Vickie and Jake,” Hannah asked, looking around worriedly.
“They’re fine,” Carolyn assured her. “Dr. Vargas operated on Jake’s shoulder and found a piece of metal in the wound and excised it. We’ll bring him home once he’s recovered from the surgery; Vickie’s staying with him.”
“Oh, good!” Hannah was relieved. “That’s why he was having so much pain?”
“That’s Dr. Vargas’ opinion. We’re finally going to get him to give up those damned cigarettes, too.”
“Hah. Good luck with that.”
“What about this new place?” Tom asked.
“I think it’ll be perfect for us,” Pete told him as they began unloading the van. “The house is bigger, has an addition with another bedroom and a sewing room that’s big enough for another yet. There’s one big barn and a smaller one sitting a good fifty yards behind the house, a big shed, a few, small outbuildings, good water. There’s a thick wooded area a good hundred-fifty or so yards behind the house and no roads for several miles beyond that so I don’t think we’ll get many visitors from that direction. Too bad it doesn’t have a gas well, but we should be able to fit all that wood we cut and split into the Army trucks. Ted promised some of their guys will help us with whatever needs done, still, it’s going to be a lot of work getting it set up the way this place is.
“How far is it from Hollington?” Liz wondered.
“Easy five minute drive. Less, if we need to hurry.”
“It’ll be nice having neighbors again,” Liz sighed.
“What are they like,” Kate asked. “How are they going to feel toward people like us?” She glanced at Kim.
“I sort of felt them out a bit,” Carolyn answered. “That kind of thing really isn’t important anymore. There won’t be any trouble.”
“That’s going to be one hell of a commute,” Tom offered. “I mean, going all that way to work on the new place, coming back to keep tabs on things here while we’re waiting for the crops to ripen. We’ve had visitors while you were gone.”
“Infected?” Pete stopped while carrying a box from the van.
“Worse. Armed men have come by twice. Kate convinced them to go on about their own business with a few well-placed rifle shots, but I don’t doubt they’ll be back.”
“She should have killed them all,” Kim growled. “I would have.”
“That puts a whole different light on it then, doesn’t it?” Pete said. “I don’t much like the idea of us being separated if they come back again. It’ll take, I don’t know weeks, to prep the new place, even with Hollington helping and I hate the thought of splitting forces and travelling back and forth over that length of time, especially now that the infected are starting to show up again.”
“Yeah, well at least the infected don’t shoot back.”
“True enough. Oh, hell, let’s not even unload until we talk this over some more.”
“They know we’re here,” Kate put in. “No doubt they’re planning how to get to us right now. We can throw them off if we get out of here before they’re ready to come at us.”
“Or we could hunt them,” Kim put in menacingly, caressing the handle of the big Bowie knife strapped to her thigh.. “We won’t have to worry about them at all if they’re dead.”
“We don’t know how many there are or how well they’re armed,” Pete interjected. “I want to avoid losing any people; we’ve lost too many already. Anyway, are we sure these people mean us any harm? It could be they’re just survivors, like us, trying to connect with their fellow humans.”
“They were armed to the teeth and spying on us with field glasses,” Kate said. “It didn’t seem to me that they were just innocent wanderers.”
“We should find them,” Kim insisted. “They must have a camp somewhere; we should track them down and eliminate them!”
“
Okay, Kim, I think we’re all aware of your opinion now. Maybe you’re the one who’s right here, but it still comes down to dividing our forces between guarding the house and tracking them down and we still have no idea how many they are. Maybe we should think about making our move now, start loading up today.”
“But, the crops…” Tom began.
“We have enough food stored to last us through to next spring, if we’re careful,” Hannah informed them. “There are still stores that haven’t yet been looted, so we can probably gather enough to keep us going after that. And there’s hunting, fishing, trapping, there are wild crops to augment our stock. I don’t see us starving before we can get next year’s harvest in.”
“Still, it’s a shame to let all that hard work go to waste, to lose everything we’ve built, everything we’ve planted,” Tom lamented. “Is there good crop land around this other farm?”
“You’d probably be a better judge than I am. Ted says they raised corn and soybeans mostly when the farm was still working. They had dairy cows, too. Ted said they took most of them to Hollington, but they’d let us have one or two back once we were settled in. And a half dozen chickens besides.”
“Fresh eggs and real milk,” Hannah mused.
“Has Jake seen this new place?” Kim asked.
“No. Dr. Vargas said the sooner he could operate the better, so Jake said he’d trust Pete on that,” Carolyn answered.
“It looks ideal to me,” Pete continued. “I think the sooner we get started, the better. These goons that have been coming around might be part of the same gang that set up that roadblock last year, the same gang that shot Jake, not to mention the car we found on the way to Hollington. It was like a scene from an old gangster movie, the way it was shot up. I say we get out while we can.”
“It’ll take us a few days to pack everything up here. I hate to think Jake and Vickie might be on their way back while we’re heading to Hollington,” Tom said.
The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy Page 36