The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy

by Tony Battista

  The farmhouse was very crowded by now and living quarters were set up in the barn for the time being until more of the other houses in the area could be prepared for occupation. The buildings would have to be fortified and the surrounding grounds would have to be cleared to provide unobstructed zones of fire. Some system of warning and of signaling for help would also have to be devised to tie all the separate households together. All this had to be accomplished before the winter cold settled in, before harvest time when virtually everyone would be otherwise occupied. In the end, three other houses on two separate properties were selected. Over the next weeks, there was much travel back and forth between the properties, a number of Hollington residents pitching in to help, and several more supply runs to hardware stores and lumberyards.

  Tad Jamison watched from a distance, curious about all the activity. He didn’t fully understand what, exactly, was going on, but he did notice that some of the people, particularly the young females, were getting careless about being alone and away from the others. He sensed opportunity but also great danger. Since his group of followers had been wiped out, he’d taken to following the small, dark haired female when she went off by herself, discovering that she was apt to leave fresh bodies in her wake upon which he could feed. For some reason, though, her outings unexpectedly ceased after she brought back an even younger female and an injured male. When the latest gang of outlaws made a failed attempt to assault the farmhouse, he managed to drag off one of their bodies, but it was gone now, too, and he craved the warm flesh of a human again over the smaller prey he’d been forced by necessity to pursue.

  Tad was also aware that other eyes observed the goings on around Hollington. Three men, known to each other only as Sarge, Mac and Sonny watched and waited for their own opportunity. They were the remnants of the gang that was all but annihilated in the attack of a few days ago. Two of them carried fully automatic assault rifles and one an AR-15 and they all wore at least two pistols. Sarge was ex-special forces, serving a life sentence for armed robbery and the murder of six civilians in Afghanistan when the confusion and panic caused by the outbreak provided him the chance to escape. He’d since made his way across three states leading varying numbers of ruthless, desperate men, robbing and killing to support themselves. His biggest miscalculation so far was in underestimating the residents of Jake’s farmhouse. The presence of women and a young girl along with their seemingly casual attitude led him to believe they’d be an easy mark, that a quick hit and run would allow them to abscond with one or more vehicles, some supplies and, if they were lucky, one or two of the women. He was surprised by their quick and efficient response and shocked by the way they hunted down his gang afterward. He’d lost more men than he cared to count since taking up a life of banditry and felt no remorse or concern over their lives, but he took this defeat personally, vowing to make these people suffer.

  Mac was a career criminal, armed robbery and assault having been his main offenses. Since joining the gang, he’d added murder, rape and torture to his résumé and his complete lack of morality well suited him to a life of crime. Sonny had been a pimp and dealer of hard drugs. Like Mac, he was also no stranger to violence, though most of it had been directed at the women he ran on the streets, preferring to prey on those who were smaller and weaker than he was. None felt any particular loyalty to each other, staying together only because of Sarge’s dominant personality and the relative safety brought about by numbers.

  . . .

  Everyone was still asleep except Bernie, who was taking his watch in the tower. Kim slipped out the back door and made her way to the tree line without being detected. Hearing of the latest attack and seeing her beloved Kate once again injured by a criminal gang, she was determined to continue to hunt, to track down the surviving gang members and kill them.

  Tad was in position watching at first light and saw Kim sneak out of the house. He noted that she carried her bow, knife and two pistols but no rifle and decided to trail her in the hope she’d again provide him with a fresh kill. A few hundred yards away from the house, she set her bow on the ground and deftly climbed a sycamore tree, perching some thirty feet off the forest floor and scanning the area with binoculars. He was careful to stay concealed and watched her for nearly twenty minutes before she stopped moving the glasses and focused them on one spot. Soon, she climbed down, collected her bow and moved off toward whatever she’d been examining. Tad pursued just closely enough to keep her in view, being as silent and inconspicuous as he could. Fortunately for him, her attention was focused on her target and she was unaware of being followed.

  Sonny yawned and stretched, tired and bored after long hours of keeping an eye on the farmhouse. He’d missed seeing Kim sneak out because he thought it was pointless to keep watch all night long when they should be on their way already and searching for easier targets. Mac was due to relieve him any time now and he looked forward to curling up in his bedroll for a few hours. He pulled the bottle from his backpack and took a long pull from it, grimacing and shaking his head as the potent liquid burned his mouth and slid warmly down his throat. Reluctantly he put the bottle away and began chewing a piece of jerky, hoping it would mask the odor of alcohol on his breath when he reported back to Sarge.

  After yawning again, he put a pair of field glasses to his eyes and trained them on the farmhouse. The guard was still in the tower, alert as ever, and it looked as though the household was stirring to life. A blonde woman with a bandaged hand came out the front door and called up to the sentry. At this distance, he couldn’t hear the exchange, but the man shrugged and shook his head and the woman seemed distressed. Another man came out and talked to her for a moment and she shook her head in frustration and went back into the house. The man also called up to the sentry, then went back into the house and emerged a minute later with a coffee cup and sat on the front steps and lit a cigarette.

  Sonny desperately craved a smoke, but he was down to his last three butts already and, in any case, couldn’t risk the smoke being seen. Envious and resentful, he watched until he felt the shock of a sharp, stabbing pain in his thigh and yelped, looking down to see the shaft of an arrow sticking out a few inches below his hip. Instinctively, he grabbed the shaft, sending a wave of agony through his tortured flesh and fell to the ground just as a second arrow hit the trunk of the tree next to him. He grabbed for his rifle and was just bringing it to bear when he was hit a second time, the arrow slicing through his forearm just above his wrist and the head emerging behind his elbow. His eyes widened and his mouth opened in a silent scream, too shocked to actually give it voice. The last thing he saw before eternal darkness closed in on him was a tiny Asian woman standing over him and a swift flash of steel.

  Kim quickly dismantled his AR-15, tossing vital parts off in different directions. She took his pair of pistols, both .40cal Colts and put them in a pouch on her belt along with three spare magazines and thirty-two loose rounds. He also had a cheap hunting knife and she stabbed the blade hard into a tree trunk and snapped it off. Sonny’s binoculars took up the rest of the space in her pouch and she bent over him, slashing and slicing off his genitals, smashing them into his face, then wiping the blade clean on his shirt before disappearing back into the woods.

  Tad watched appreciatively, the whole series of events taking no more than two minutes. He actually felt something akin to admiration, almost fondness for the female. Just as he started to approach the fresh meal, he heard a rustling off to his left and hunkered back down under cover.

  “Sonny, it’s Mac. Where the hell are you?”

  Sonny, of course, was incapable of answering and it wasn’t until he was only a few yards away that Mac saw his body. He held his rifle at the ready and, seeing his comrade was very obviously dead, he turned and headed back quickly. Tad waited until he could no longer hear Mac running off, then quickly smashed what was left of the rifle against the tree trunk, hoisted Sonny’s body over his shoulder and carried him off to feed.

 
Bernie and Jake both heard Sonny’s sharp yelp and Bernie scanned the landscape with his binoculars, but Sarge himself had picked out the observation point and it was well concealed. Since Kate had reported that Kim was missing, Jake had little doubt about what probably happened and, despite Kate’s pleas to send out a search party, decided to wait for Kim to return. They didn’t have to wait long; Kim showed up about twenty minutes later. Kate rushed to her, throwing her arms around her and hugging her tightly, almost sobbing in relief, then stepped back and began scolding her for breaking her promise to stop the hunts.

  “He was hiding in the woods, watching us through binoculars. He was heavily armed and I dealt with him,” she answered simply.

  “Kim, you can’t keep this up,” Jake told her. “We can’t afford to lose you. All of us are in this together; you can’t keep going off on your own like that.”

  “More rules?” Kim asked acidly. “Are these Hollington rules? Should we have waited for another attack, for more of us to be injured or killed?”

  “Are you even sure he was a threat?” Ethan challenged her. “Are you absolutely certain he wasn’t just trying to get a feel for us before approaching us for help? What if he was just another survivor who was looking for a safe haven, looking to be part of a stable community? Did that thought even cross your mind?”

  “I did what needed done,” she answered, but her tone was not quite as defiant, not quite as certain now.

  “Could you have possibly taken him alive, Kim?” Kate asked, but Kim sullenly turned away.

  “The question is, are you one of us or not?” Jake stated. “Are you a part of this community or not? If you are, then there are rules within which a civilized society is obligated to abide.”

  “Is that an ultimatum?”

  “No, it’s not. It’s not like we’re going to banish you or try to confine you. I just hope you’ll have enough respect for the rest of us and for what we’re trying to build to operate within a framework of basic human decency. Not everyone out there is a threat; not everyone is evil and has to be hunted down and killed. You can’t be a law unto yourself.”

  “There’s been no law since this infection started!” Kim protested vehemently. “There’s been no one to turn to except ourselves!”

  “That has to end,” Ethan said. “Civilized society can’t exist without law, without rules. Isn’t that the point? Isn’t that what we’re trying to accomplish; to rebuild a society destroyed by plague? It’s time to take those first steps to reestablish civilization and we have to all be together on this for it to have a chance of actually working.”

  “Please, Kim,” Kate took her hand, “please promise me you’ll stop going out there alone. Promise me, but please mean it this time. If you love me, please stop this.”

  Kim’s shoulders slumped and her face twisted with a look of anguish. She looked deeply into Kate’s eyes.

  “I do love you,” her voice faltered. “I promise.”

  . . .

  “So where’s the damned body?” Sarge demanded.

  “I don’t know! He was right there! You can see the blood on the ground! There’s the arrow still stuck in the tree!”

  “Why the hell would they carry off his body?” Sarge bent to examine the broken knife and the rifle butt smashed over a rock. “There’s tracks here. They’re a lot deeper leading away than coming in.”

  “Should we follow them?”

  “Are you positive he was dead?”

  “He had two arrows stuck in him and his throat was cut wide open! Whoever did this even castrated him! He was dead!”

  “No use following then; these tracks might lead us into a trap. Arrows, huh? Must’ve been that chink bitch then.”

  “Yeah, she was carrying a bow when we hit them the other day. Look, let’s just get the hell out of here and look for easier pickings!”

  “No! Sonny makes six of us dead because of those people; I’m not leaving until we get some payback.”

  “Damn, Sarge, if we couldn’t take them with eight men, what do you think the two of us can do?”

  “We’re not leaving until we make them bleed,” Sarge stared the other man down. “We’ve still got Kelly’s sniper rifle. I’m gonna set you up in that big oak grove with it; there’s only two ways to approach it from the house and I’ll be in position to cover both. We put at least two or three of them down hard and we can move on. I want them to know they’ve been hit.”

  “I don’t know, Sarge. They’ve got a couple of shooters themselves.”

  “The place I have in mind, they won’t spot you before you get off three or four shots, then we’ll take off. They’ll send someone to look around up there and they’ll run into a couple surprises I’m gonna set up. It’ll take me the rest of today and part of tomorrow to get things ready. We’ll hit them late tomorrow afternoon, when the sun’s at our back and in their eyes. Don’t you crap out on me now, damn it! We’re doing this!”

  “Okay, Sarge, I’m in. I don’t much like it, but I’ll do it.”

  . . .

  Kim heard a voice call her name and turned to see Chloe coming down the porch steps.

  “I’m glad you’re not going out there by yourself again. You aren’t, are you?”

  “No. No, I promised I wouldn’t. I just hope that wasn’t another mistake.”

  “How can it be a mistake to stay here, where it’s safe?”

  Kim wanted to tell her that no place was safe, that maybe no place would ever be safe again during their lifetime, but she knew what Chloe had been through already. She knew Chloe needed a sense of security, a sense that she was safe with family again.

  “You’re right, Chloe. As long as we’re all together, we’ll be safe.”

  “I wish I could stay here with you, instead of moving to that other house. I wish we could all keep living together.”

  “There just isn’t enough room for all of us here. I won’t be far away. We’ll still see each other as often as you like.”

  “I don’t mind sleeping in the barn. I’ve had to stay in lots worse places since this all started.”

  “I know, sweetie; I have too. We want to start changing all that now. We have to start somewhere if we’re ever going to get back to having a normal life again.”

  “How can life ever be normal again? Everyone I ever knew is dead. My parents are dead; I watched them turn and I watched them being killed. How does anyone ever get over something like that?”

  “It isn’t easy,” Kim’s voice was trembling softly. “This probably doesn’t help you much right now, but there are worse things that could happen. I know.”

  Chloe looked at her questioningly, but Kim would say no more about it.

  . . .

  Later that afternoon, Tom suggested that the deer Vickie shot the day before and which had since been hanging in one of the sheds should be ready for a cookout. He and Pete dug a shallow pit in the yard and built up a low, hot bed of coals from split logs and the last of their bags of charcoal. When Tom judged the fire was ready, they set the deer on a spit and took turns rotating it over the coals while Hannah basted it with a concoction of her own design. For a few hours, everyone was able to put aside their cares and worries and enjoy good food, good company and, not least of all, good libations.

  Jake and Pete, bellies happily full, were sitting on lawn chairs, both with a bottle of beer in hand and a mild buzz on. Carolyn sat near enough to Pete to rest her feet in his lap and Vickie had her own lawn chair pulled up close to Jake’s side, his free arm around her shoulder. Both women held a glass of wine and both also were a bit buzzed. Ethan and Karen reclined on a blanket nearby, as did Garth and Larissa. Most of the rest of their group were gathered around the now dying embers with the exception of Bernie, who was taking a turn in the watchtower and the Kays who were off “communing with nature” as Tom liked to put it. Jake dropped his cigarette butt into a sand-filled can and smiled at the sight of Tom and Liz together on the back porch swing. With a full belly, surrounded
by family and, especially, with Vickie at his side, he was happy and content.

  “I used to have such beautiful nails,” Vickie lamented with a sad sigh while looking at the stubby, cracked remnants on her right hand. “That was something I always thought was important before. I spent a lot of my salary on manicures, pedicures, makeup, expensive shampoos and conditioners, lotions and skin creams, not to mention perfumes, clothes and shoes.”

  “None of that matters,” Jake gave her a squeeze and kissed her lips. “You’re still the most beautiful woman in the world to me.”

  “There aren’t that many women left in the world anymore,” she sighed, “but you’re sweet for saying that. Or is that the beer talking?”

  “That’s me talking. The first time I laid eyes on you that day near the island, you were dirty and sweaty, hair matted to your head, your clothes were filthy and, to put it mildly, you smelled pretty ripe! But, even then, I thought you were beautiful.”

  “Yeah, the first thing you did when you got me back to the island was to undress me!”

  “Just for sanitary reasons! Even though I thought you were beautiful, with the way you smelled, sex was the last thing on my mind then!”

  “Oh, thank you very much! You really know how to sweet-talk a girl!” she laughed.

  “What do you miss most?” Carolyn asked Karen.

  “Oh, I don’t know. A lot of the things I had or did just don’t seem very important anymore. It would be nice, though, to be able to just turn a tap when I want a nice, hot bath instead of having to heat the water over a fire and carry it to the tub.”

  “Central heat would be nice in the winter,” Carolyn added with an involuntary shiver. “Keeping a fire going all night is a major pain.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Pete said sarcastically. “It’s such a pain for you to have to poke me in the ribs in the middle of the night and say ‘Pete, honey, put some more wood in the stove, I’m cold’.”

  Carolyn kicked him with her heel and stuck out her tongue.