“Cigarettes. And that damned Gabe, he’s the leader of the gang, smokes big, foul smelling cigars when he can find them. If I don’t jump and do what they tell me right away, they like to punctuate with cigarettes. Sometimes they’d do it just for the hell of it, just to hear me squeal. When he really wanted to make an impression, Gabe used a big leather strop.”
“Telling stories, Bernie?” Kim sneered from the doorway, not bothering to hide her disgust that they were all sitting at the same table with him. “You talk a good game; let’s see if it’s true!” and, with that, Kim grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it roughly up over his head. She gasped and took a step back at seeing the ugly raised welts and burn marks on his back and sides. It was plainly obvious he’d been cruelly whipped more than once and she shuddered at the memory of Melissa being beaten at the diner. She pulled his shirt back down gently and stood to the side, looking at him in a new light. Bernie looked up at her, eyes pleading for understanding but her expression again hardened and she turned and left the room, going back to her station.
“Well,” Jake allowed, “I guess you really don’t want to rejoin the gang. I’m still not a hundred percent sure about you but, I’m guessing at least now you don’t have to worry about Kim cutting your throat while you sleep.”
“You aren’t kidding about that, are you?” Bernie said wide-eyed. “She really might have done that?”
“If she was feeling generous; you’ve no idea what she’s capable of,” Jake answered.
. . .
“Think they’re in position yet?” Dan asked Gabe. “The sun’s getting pretty low.”
“Frank’s the one person I can count on every time,” Gabe said, glaring at the man. He looked at his watch. “We start the party in three minutes. You got everyone in position?”
“Everyone’s where they’re supposed to be.”
“Okay. As soon as he figures we’ve got their complete attention, Frank’s men will move against the back of the house. Rick and Dylan are watching the road from the country club. They’ll set off the dynamite as soon as the first vehicle reaches it and hose down any others with their rifles. That should buy us enough time to overrun the farmhouse.”
“Man! Food, guns, women-“
“I want them women alive,” Gabe threatened. “That little chink is mine! And I want that blond sniper alive, too. She’s gonna wish we just left her for the infected.”
“We’ll take ‘em alive if we can, but none of us is gonna die over a piece of tail!”
“You’re getting’ awful damn mouthy,” Gabe snarled. “Okay. Try to take ‘em alive, but take that house. Once we take it, them Hollington people ain’t gonna want to die trying to take it back. We’ll grab everything we can carry and get the hell out as soon as we can. “Almost time,” he added, checking his watch.
“I don’t see anybody,” Dan complained. There should be somebody walking around outside doin’ something. There’s been no movement at the door or the windows either. I don’t like it.”
“I ain’t happy about it myself, but it’s too damn late to worry about it now.”
Gabe raised the Uzi and squeezed off a long burst at the front porch. Nine rifles barked a moment later, peppering all the windows on the north side of the house as two men rushed from cover to try to cross a cleared zone the length of a football field.
Everyone in the kitchen was moving before the first burst of fire ended. Jake popped off a few rounds from behind the railroad tie barrier by the front door while the others made their way up the steps, then headed upstairs himself. In all the excitement, no one gave a thought about Bernie.
One of the gang made it to a woodpile a hundred twenty feet from the house, the other taking a round square in the chest. The fire slackened off for a few moments, then picked up again as another two made a dash for a small tool shed. From the second story window, the machine gun opened up and the exposed men twitched and jerked as a stream of .50 caliber slugs ripped through their bodies. He swung the barrel and began chewing up the tree line, eliciting screams of pain and terror from the men crouching there.
“Get that damned machine gun!” Gabe shouted and all who were able concentrated their fire on that one window. Pete and Hannah had to duck and move back under the hail of metal, Hannah taking a bullet through the flesh of her upper right arm. As Pete helped bind her wound, more bullets wrecked the loading mechanism of the machine gun, rendering it inoperable, so he moved to another window and returned fire as best he could with an M-4. The man who had made it to the woodpile exposed a little too much of himself and a burst from Vickie’s rifle chewed his face and shoulder to hamburger before she had to duck from return fire.
Jake pulled Liz from the south side and Tom from the west to reinforce the north. He also sent Carolyn from the front of the house to tend to Hannah’s wound.
. . .
Joaquin was on guard duty at one of the towers facing toward the farmhouse and was the first to hear the gunfire. Training his binoculars in that direction, he could just make out the first group of renegades rushing forward. He called down that Jake’s group was in trouble and, in minutes, three cars were loaded with four armed men apiece and headed out the gate. Ted was in the lead vehicle, racing to the rescue when, after covering three-fourths of the distance, he noticed a wooden crate just at the right shoulder of the road that had not been there before. Too late, he sensed danger and slammed on the brakes, trying to steer away when the dynamite exploded, the force slamming against the right side of the car and peppering it with roofing nails and broken glass. The right front tire flattened and Ted lost control of the car, the left wheels hitting the soft shoulder, and it slewed into the drainage ditch at the side of the road, bouncing and skidding several dozen feet before coming to a jarring halt on its left side.
Both men on the passenger’s side were dead, victims of shrapnel coming through open windows The man in the driver’s side back seat was also dead, his neck broken as the dead weight of the other passenger pressed against him and forced his head out the open window during the skid. Ted tried to push his companion’s body off him so he could climb free, but found that his arm was broken and he was bleeding from half a dozen wounds. Semi-automatic fire raked the other two vehicles, killing another man and wounding three more. Those who could exited their cars, taking refuge behind them and firing back at the unseen assailants.
. . .
Frank heard the explosion and took that as his signal to move. Before breaking cover, he spotted movement in an upper floor window and rapidly squeezed off a half dozen rounds toward it. His men were spread out at about ten foot intervals and moved forward in a crouching run, quickly covering the distance to the back porch.
Kate had also heard the explosion and instinctively turned toward the front of the house, lifting her head as she did so. Bullets shattered the glass in the raised window, showering her with sharp shards and she lost her balance and fell, striking her head hard against a bedpost. She didn’t see the men crossing the yard or hear them battering at the back door.
. . .
“No!” Joaquin shrieked as he witnessed the explosion and saw the car overturn. Brooke and Susan as well as most of the men left in the compound wanted to rush immediately out to their aid, but Phil headed them off, explaining that there had to be a more organized response, that simply piling in cars and charging down the road left the compound itself vulnerable to attack. There was no shortage of volunteers as he sent out two more vehicles and six people while everyone else in the compound manned the walls. He sent the cars out one at a time, a hundred feet between them, each person on the highest alert.
Tad, too, heard the gunfire and the explosion and led his band toward the sound, leaving the ravaged remains of the three bandits behind for the lure of fresh meat.
No fool, Frank let the other men scale the porch steps ahead of him. He directed them to pick up a wooden garden bench and use it as a battering ram and, after a few strikes, the door gave w
ay and they were in the house.
Meanwhile, Bernie heard the pounding and ran to the stairs, shouting; “They’re in the house! They’re in the house!” Due to all the noise from the firefight, only Kim and Eve heard his warning and both raced to the stairs. The door burst open and Kim reached the landing just in time to see Bernie, hands still cuffed, cannonball himself headfirst at the invaders as they emerged from the kitchen. He knocked two of them to the ground and Kim was upon them before the rest had time to react. Leaping at the nearest one, she slashed out with her Bowie knife, tearing open his throat. She disemboweled a second man and ripped the knife up through the inner thigh and crotch of a third while Bernie knelt on a fourth man’s chest and tried to wrestle the gun away from him. By this time, Eve caught up with them and pumped three shots from her Glock into the fifth man who, still on the floor after Bernie’s charge, was bringing his rifle to bear on Kim. Bernie pummeled the man beneath him unconscious and yelped in pain as Frank shot him in the shoulder. Kim flipped the knife around in her hand and in a lightning quick movement propelled it across the kitchen to bury itself nearly to the hilt in Frank’s chest. He stared, wide-eyed at her before slowly sinking to his knees and falling backward.
While Eve tended to Bernie, Kim planted a foot on Frank’s chest, took hold of the hilt of her knife with both hands and, with a grunt, wiggled it and jerked it free. She then turned and drove the blade upward under the ribcage of the unconscious man on the floor, slashed viciously across the throat of the one she’d stabbed in the groin and then ran to the back door, peering out past the broken wood into the yard to make sure there were no other unwelcome callers. Once she was certain it was clear, she helped Eve drag Bernie to a sofa, then took her bow, a quiver of arrows and a brace of Glocks and headed into the woods behind the house.
Still dazed, Kate got to her hands and knees, head throbbing painfully and a steady drizzle of blood running down into her eye. She crawled to the window just in time to see Kim go into the woods. Struggling to her feet, she made her way to the other bedroom where most of the group was involved in the fighting. Carolyn spotted her and went to her side immediately, getting her down on the floor and calling Jake over. After Kate groggily related what happened, Jake rushed down the stairs to find Eve tying a crude bandage over Bernie’s wound. Exchanging a few words with her, he raced back up the stairs and sent Vickie to keep an eye out the south and west windows, then headed into the woods behind Kim.
Gabe could see movement in back of the house, but was too far away to identify anyone. He assumed it was Frank’s group and hoped the fight would be over soon. Meanwhile, beside the four men killed in the yard, two others had been wounded by the machine gun before it was silenced. The fire from the house had abated somewhat and he felt the battle was being won despite the high casualty rate.
With their attention concentrated on the house, it was an easy matter for Kim to work her way into a position from which she could make out most of the attackers. She set an arrow, drew back the string and sent it flying thirty yards into the back of the skull of the closest man. He died without making a sound. Setting another arrow, she hit the next man in the side of the head, just behind the ear. The man next to him saw him fall, noted the arrow and turned just in time to take a third one in the throat. Dan noticed the slackening of fire and watched Kim dispatch yet another man and he swung his rifle in her direction, only to be taken down by a long burst from Jake’s M-4. That got Gabe’s attention and, without a moment’s hesitation, he turned and ran for his life.
The convoy from Hollington pulled up to within a few hundred feet of the wreckage from the first convoy and everyone dashed for cover and began firing at the two ambushers. Dylan took a bullet through the forehead and Rick tried to run, only to be shot to rags by the enraged reinforcements.
Tad couldn’t understand why these people were fighting and killing each other. It made no sense to him. He tried to restrain his drones, but the smell of fresh blood was thick in the air and they charged clumsily up the road toward it.
Brooke was the first to see them approaching and she took down the female and one of the drones with single shots. Then one of them was upon her, plowing into her and sending her tumbling to the ground. The breath knocked from her, Brooke struggled hopelessly to hold him back and smelled and felt his rancid breath in her face as his ragged teeth came within an inch of her nose. Joaquin swung his rifle by the barrel like a baseball bat and connected with the side of the drone’s head hard enough to crack the stock and fracture its skull. He pulled the lifeless drone from atop her and spun around at her warning to intercept a second drone, wrestling it to the ground and stabbing it repeatedly with his knife. The last of the infected fell in a fusillade of fire from most of the Hollington survivors. Tad could have cried. A tear, in fact, did roll down his cheek as he faded back into the brush.
Joaquin extended his hand to Brooke and helped her to her feet. She held onto him a few moments longer than necessary and began to see him in a new light.
By this time, there were only four gang members left alive and Kim, taking a running leap, drove her knife downward into the throat of one, driving him backward to knock down a second one. Before the second man could react, Kim pulled her knife out of the first and slashed left, and then right across his throat as Jake shot the other two, both of whom had dropped their weapons and raised their hands.
“Sorry, fellas. Too little, too late,” Jake pronounced as he swapped out his magazine. He scanned the area quickly but carefully before calling to the house that the fight was over and that he and Kim were okay.
Kim repeatedly stabbed and slashed at the bodies beneath her and looked all around at the corpses that surrounded her, head jerking from one to another, prepared to strike at the slightest movement. Her eyes blazed furiously, her whole body shaking as she held the knife at the ready in a white-knuckled grip.
“Kim?” Jake’s voice was calm and quiet but Kim spun around instantly, a feral sneer on her bloodstained face. Her eyes narrowed to slits as she sighted Jake and began to advance toward him in a crouch, ready to spring into action at the slightest provocation. “It’s over, Kim. They’re all dead,” he told her softly and gently.
Stopping and cocking her head, she looked at him and, as recognition finally seemed to dawn upon her, the tension slowly drained from her body. She sank to her knees and sat back on her heels, a look of bewilderment on her face as she noticed as if for the first time the bloody knife and the gore splattered up her arm and all over the front of her body. Jake approached her unhurriedly, stopped, and held his hand out to her. Kim studied it for a moment before taking hold of it and allowing him to help her to her feet, falling trembling into his arms and sobbing quietly.
Ted’s left arm was broken in two places and Susan was carefully applying temporary splints until they could get him back to Dr. Vargas. Four others were dead and three had sustained wounds, none crippling or life threatening.
Brooke approached Jake and Kim, Joaquin close at her side.
“Are you both all right?” she asked.
“We’re okay. Thank you for coming to our rescue.”
“It doesn’t look as though you really needed any help,” Joaquin admitted. “Senorita,” he said, addressing Kim, “my error in pursuing you has been explained to me. I hope you will forgive me.”
Kim looked at him, but he could tell she really didn’t see him, her mind still recovering from the trauma of battle. Jake thanked them again and excused himself, saying they had to get back to the house to check on their own.
Back at the house, Kim rushed to Kate’s side at the sight of the bandage on her head and the drying blood from the many minor cuts inflicted by flying glass. Carolyn assured her that Kate would recover with nothing worse than a small scar above her left eye. Hannah was sitting up in a rocking chair, bandaged arm in a sling, and told Jake she was fine, dismissing the wound as a trivial thing.
“Looks like we have matching accessories,” sh
e smiled.
“You’re a helluva woman, Hannah,” Jake laughed.
“Jake! Such language!” she teased.
He looked down at the shirtless Bernie on the sofa, Carolyn wrapping a dressing to his shoulder.
“I think he’ll be okay,” she told Jake. “The bullet passed through and we’ll need to have Dr. Vargas look at it, but I don’t think it’s too bad.”
“How did he get shot?” Jake asked.
“It’s an honorable wound,” Kim spoke up distractedly, then added; “I think he’ll do.”
Jake and Kate both stared at her for a moment, surprised.
“It looks like you’ve got a new home,” he said to a very happy Bernie.
. . .
Gabe hid in the brush until the wounded were carried off and the dead were taken away, some to Hollington to be interred with honors, the infected and his own men to be laid out in a mass grave. It was well after dark when he emerged and headed back to where they’d left the vehicles. The night was clear and enough moon remained that he had little difficulty finding his way. He had his Tahoe in sight when a bullet hit the back of his right leg, just above the knee. Dragging himself to the cover of a small outcropping of rock, he tied a dirty bandanna around the wound and scanned the area behind him. He didn’t think anyone from the farmhouse had followed him, but he might have been mistaken.
Seeing no one behind him, he dragged himself along, trying to reach the Tahoe and safety when a three round burst kicked rock splinters into his face and he pointed the Uzi in the direction from which he thought the fire originated and loosed several long bursts, emptying his magazine. While trying to switch to a fresh one, he heard the rustling of foliage behind him, as of someone rushing through the weeds and bushes and he drew his .45 and fired three times at the noise. Everything was quiet for a few moments, then another burst of fire stitched the ground near him, one of the rounds creasing his forearm. Gabe fired again and again in panic, until the pistol was empty, then again set about swapping magazines for his Uzi but the rushing rustle returned and a muddy, worn shoe kicked the weapon from his hand.
The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy Page 44