“I don’t know. See what he wants I guess,” Bradley said.
Huh.
“Never would have thought of that,” Jared said honestly. Bradley shrugged.
Stewart must have caught their motion from his peripheral vision because he suddenly jerked his head toward them. His gaze was reptilian and unblinking. Oh shit, is he about to come at us?
“Hey Stewart!” Bradley called.
Jared waved, feeling a little foolish. It was like driving through a mobster’s neighborhood and waving so he hopefully won’t start shooting, because they’re just a couple of nice guys, right?
Stupid.
Stewart grinned. It could only be described as a grin. He bared his teeth so much that his molars almost showed. It wasn’t exactly reassuring.
“He’s happy to see us,” Bradley murmured.
Jared withheld comment about that.
“Hey man, what’s going on?” Jared called over to him.
Really?! What’s going on?! Fucking idiot.
Stewart made a jerky motion with his arm across his chest, then repeated it. Jared frowned. “That looked intentional.”
Bradley looked confused. He repeated the motion in a smoother fashion.
“What is that?” Jared asked.
Stewart repeated it.
“That’s weird. That’s the sign for Danger Area.”
“Danger area? Does he mean here? I mean, that’s not exactly a random arm movement…”
“Danger here?” Bradley called over while inching closer.
“Aaaaahhhhhh,” Stewart rumbled.
“I take it that means yes?”
“Seems so. Get Anna inside then watch my back. I need to see if I can get more info,” Bradley ordered, seemingly more himself now that there was a potential threat.
Jared ushered Anna in the house. She grumbled about it, but he told her to keep watch out the back window and to let them know if she saw anything. He went back out and kept one eye on the woods and another on Bradley’s careful approach toward Stewart.
He scanned the treeline, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. The birds had stopped chirping, but he attributed that to Stewart’s presence. The birds didn’t seem to like the sick people.
He glanced at Bradley.
The crazy son of a bitch was right next to Stewart, and Stewart wasn’t gnawing on his skull. It was a good sign.
It was an odd conversation. Stewart was growling and making his groaning vowels while doing his shaky, twitching, hand and arm wizardry. Bradley was asking half-assed questions while making his own hand signals. It was freaking bizarre.
“We need to go, now!” Bradley yelled and backed away from Stewart. Jared’s heart raced at that. He sounded a little panicky. Bradley never sounded panicky.
“What about Stewart?” Jared yelled, watching the trees more closely now. Whatever Stewart was warning them about couldn’t be very good.
“He says he’ll be fine. He’s going to hang out in the shed for a while,” Bradley said, sprinting back and then turning to make sure they weren’t being assaulted from the rear.
“You got all that from hand signals?”
“Pretty much.”
“What else?”
“There’s a small platoon heading this way,” Bradley shouted. “Over twenty of them.”
“Twenty regulars or muties?”
“He didn’t say. Just said enemy.”
“Oh hell,” Jared muttered.
“Yeah, it’s coming.”
◆◆◆
Five minutes later a large pack of mutants sprinted through the trees. They had decided that they couldn’t take the chance on letting these go through and hoping they didn’t linger around. They needed to be dealt with.
He wasn’t expecting them to all be the upgraded versions.
“Oh shit!” Hank shouted.
Oh shit, indeed.
“Hold steady! Wait until you know you have a headshot and take it down, if you can! These aren’t like the regulars; they don’t go down so easily!” Bradley yelled.
They were in the windows at the back of the house. The screens were no good anymore, but he wasn’t too worried about flies just now.
The herd was in the open field. Maria and the boys were lugging up the extra magazines of ammunition that Jared had prepped weeks ago. Thank God he had. They were going to need them.
He watched the strange, horrible creatures, shifting green, and brown, and yellow depending on their locations. They hissed and their snake-like eyes seemed almost gleeful. Jared drew a bead on the leader and fired. It hit it squarely in the face and sprayed globs of black blood on the ones behind. It went down hard.
Unlike the regular sprinters, these mutants didn’t trip over their fallen dead. They effortlessly leapt over and kept coming. They didn’t even miss a beat. It was eerie as fuck. His shot had been a catalyst for the others and now the house rang with sounds of rifle fire.
Jared fired, again and again. The others did as well, but he saw that the creatures were too fast. Some of them would make it to the windows before they could take them all down. He clicked empty, dropped the empty mag, and reloaded faster than he probably ever had before. He fired again. A handful were left by the time they made it to the boundary fence.
He wasn’t expecting them to cross it so easily.
He should have known better. It didn’t slow them down one bit and he resolved to do something about that later. If there was a later.
“Three still up!” Bradley shouted.
“Get to the basement!” he yelled at the women.
The first sprinting mutie reached the house and slammed against the glass window where Hank was firing. He had backed up, but not enough. Shards flew through the air with an explosion of sound and Hank fell backwards on its impact.
His strangled yell made Jared’s blood run cold. He ran over to the writhing, fighting mass on the floor and felt sick at Hank’s white, bloody face. He didn’t have a shot! He didn’t think, he just threw himself forward as hard as he could.
He heard a woman scream and his world stopped. Anna.
Tangled limbs and gnashing teeth blurred in his vision. He thrusted his hands up to keep the thing from decimating his face and throat, but he wasn’t going to last long.
He heard another crash, similar to the first, and a woman cried out again. He couldn’t go to her until he killed this one. He grunted, quickly losing strength against the stronger beast. He disregarded the flashing, crazy eyes that promised horror and the gnashing teeth that promised pain.
Its clawed hands were starting to scrabble up his chest to his throat. This was it. He made the split-second decision to let go and go for his pistol. He visualized it and counted down in his head.
Three…
Two…
One…
He thrust upward and shifted to the side. The creature was thrown off balance for a split second. Strings of ropey, black fluid dripped from its mouth and onto his chest. He had only a second to draw, and he did. He thrust the barrel up and fired in one simultaneous motion.
The blast was deafening, and black goop flew everywhere.
The whole ‘shooting-mutants-in-the-face-because-it’s-a-last-resort’ thing was really getting old. And gross.
The ringing in his ears masked the sound of a woman screaming. Hank’s bloody face blocked his vision for a moment. He shook off the fog and jumped up to deal with the remainders.
Anna was bleeding near the stove and Bradley had a gash over his eyes. They looked stunned, but alive. Hank’s injury was more serious. He had a hand clasped over his neck. Blood seeped from his fingers. He was leaning against the cabinet with part of the blackened monster’s corpse across his legs.
“Are they dead?!” he yelled, still dealing with disorientation and stimulus overload.
“It’s clear!” Bradley shouted.
Chapter Eight
Decisions
Anna
Anna took inventory of herse
lf. She was bleeding, but only from the flying glass and one scratch from the mutant that took out Bradley’s window. She was still reeling a little from the sheer violence of the attack. Three mutants in Jared’s house was just something she hadn’t expected to need to deal with today.
She leaned against the stove as Jared stood up and looked at her. Her hearing had been destroyed by all the gunfire. She saw Jared yelling and heard Bradley’s faint reply. She hoped it wasn’t permanent.
He rushed over to her and knelt down. He was covered with disgusting, dark, slimy stuff and she didn’t even want to guess at what it was. He said something, but she couldn’t make out what it was. Her ears were muffled and ringing still.
“I can’t hear you!” she shouted and pointed to her ears.
She saw Jared look worriedly to Bradley. Bradley said something back and Jared nodded. He spoke and she read his lips.
“You’ll be okay!” he said, and he held up the OK symbol.
Yeah, but would she hear again any time soon?
She nodded and pointed at Hank. “Help him!”
Jared rushed to Hank, where Bradley was prying his hand away from his neck. She crawled forward, avoiding the glass shards as best she could. Hank was pale and shaking. His neck wasn’t spurting blood, which would have been catastrophic and deadly, but it was seeping.
“He needs stitches,” Bradley said. “I’ll get Stewart’s kit.” She watched him race downstairs. Jared was talking to Hank.
She took his hand and squeezed. “You’ll be okay!” she said to Hank. She hoped she hadn’t yelled it too loud.
Jared flinched all of a sudden and leapt up, ready to fight. She was confused and her heart pounded again at his rapid movement. There was a threat somewhere. She scanned the windows and her eyes widened at the last one.
Stewart stood, looking in. His gaze was still unfamiliar and alien, but at least his mouth was closed. She heard Jared speak, and though her hearing was still muffled and ringing, it was getting a little better now.
“Thanks Stew. You saved us.”
Stew raised a fist and stuck out his thumb. Thumbs up. She smiled.
His fingers arced uncontrollably for a moment, then he raised a hand and pointed at Hank.
“He’ll be okay,” Jared said. “Just a scratch.”
“Braaaaaaaaaahhhhhh,” Stewart intoned.
Jared looked at her, his brow furrowed.
Braaaaaahhhhh?
“Bradley!” she said. “He’s asking about Bradley.” Stewart inclined his head once, then it twitched off to the side.
“Bradley’s fine. He went to get your suture kit. Hank needs stitches.”
Hank seemed to be okay. She watched him breathing normally, and a little color returned to his face.
“Can you get the thing off my legs please? It’s giving me the willies,” he said.
“Sorry,” she said, and immediately pushed herself to her feet. She was a bit shaky, but that was probably from the adrenaline. She looked down at the black corpse and wondered where to grab it. What if it crumbled in her hands? That gave her the willies.
She finally just kind of rolled the thing off by pushing on a clothed part of its body. It thudded to the floor with a strangely hollow thump. It was still heavy, just not as heavy as a regular corpse would be.
“Thanks,” Hank said.
Bradley came rushing back and jumped when he saw Stewart in the window. “Shit! You scared me. You saved our asses man. Thanks.”
Stewart grinned again.
She really wished he wouldn’t do that.
Bradley knelt down and she moved to help him. “Do you know how to sew someone up?”
“I’ve seen it done,” was all he said.
“Bradley,” Jared said and nodded to the window. She looked up. Stewart was holding up his hand. “What does that mean?”
Bradley squinted. “Ten?”
Stewart pointed.
“Ten stitches?” Bradley clarified.
Stewart nodded once again.
“You want to do it?” he joked.
Stewart raised his hands. His fingers twitched all over the place randomly.
“Yeah, probably not a good idea,” Jared said.
She could have sworn that Stewart shrugged his shoulders. Jeez, this was getting weird.
“Juan!” Jared called down the steps.
She held Hank’s hands as Bradley started to clean Hank’s wound. He grimaced and closed his eyes. “Do we have any kind of painkillers?” she asked.
“No,” Hank said. “I don’t need them, just get it done.”
“It won’t take long. Hold still,” Bradley said.
She watched as he made the first stitch, and she was surprised to find that it didn’t gross her out. It was actually pretty cool. Not that Hank was in pain or hurt, but cool that they could fix it. She felt an inkling of interest. Maybe she could learn to be a medic.
She looked up as Juan finally came upstairs.
“Sorry, Alejandro wouldn’t let go of me. What do you need?”
“I need you to keep watch at the front of the house with Fletch. Let me know if you see anything.”
Juan gave Stewart a wary look, then the blackened corpses on the floor. He mumbled something in Spanish under his breath but left to go do as Jared asked.
“Oh my, what a mess!” Violet said, coming up the stairs and holding the sharpened mop like a cane. “Looks like ya’ll had a little scuffle up here.”
“It was a little more than that,” Jared said.
“Well, I’ll go find a broom. We’ll want to get this glass up before someone gets hurt!” she said, poking at bits of glass and the mutant corpses with the mop. “Hello Stewart! You feeling okay today, young man?”
Anna’s head snapped up to look at Jared. He was shaking his head in disbelief. Anna gave him a look and he kept his mouth shut, thankfully.
Stewart’s head twitched in a jerky nod, and he raised a hand to point toward Violet.
“Oh, I’m okay. Got a touch of arthritis in my back this morning. It’s that soft mattress I believe,” she said, walking right over to the open window and leaning out of it to talk. “I’ll have to have one of these young men find me a nice firm bed sometime.”
“Ahhhhhh.”
“You staying hereabouts now?” she asked, resting her arms on the sill.
Stewart gestured to the shed.
You’ll want to be careful out there. Them copperheads like to curl up in places like that. You have enough to eat?” she asked.
He bared his teeth and chomped a few times.
“Well, we can’t have that!” Violet answered, somewhat indignantly.
Anna watched incredulously as Violet patted his arm. Stewart cocked his head and looked down at the patting hand but didn’t lunge for it.
“I tell you what. I’ll cook you up some cornbread once we get this mess all cleared up. How about that?”
He grinned at Violet, and Jared turned to look at her again.
The fuck, he mouthed.
She shook her head and shrugged. She had no words.
“Almost finished,” Bradley said, making the last few stitches. He had done a fairly neat job of closing the wound.
“I’ll find a bandage. We should keep it covered for a bit.”
She washed her hands with some dish soap that sat on the counter and a bottle of water. She hated to waste the water, but she didn’t want to spread germs. She went to Jared’s bathroom and opened the cabinet behind the mirror. Inside there was a roll of gauze, along with some antibiotic ointment and some other things. She grabbed them and jogged back through the house.
“Here,” she said and spread a light layer of ointment over the stitches. She loosely taped the gauze down and they helped Hank sit up. He was a bit dizzy, but he said it was just from sitting up so fast. She hoped that was all it was.
Stewart had gone away from the window. She didn’t know where. Violet was attempting to sweep the remains of the mutants into a pile
. Eventually she gave up and just swept around them. Bradley left to go patrol around the house with Juan and Fletch, and she was left with Jared and Hank.
They helped Hank back downstairs so he could rest, then Jared took her to the living room. She sat on the couch and a memory of her first night here flashed in her mind. She had teased Jared about his weird plate-labelling fetish. He made fun of her coupon book. It seemed like forever ago.
“Let me see your face,” he said, opening the curtains and the blinds.
The sun shone on her face, and she saw him scanning her various scratches. He probed one with his finger and she winced. She didn’t realize until now that her face felt tight and crusty. It was dried blood. She must look terrible.
“There’s a piece of glass embedded here. Let me go get some tweezers.”
He came back a moment later with tweezers, a cloth, and some water. He pried the small shard from her skin, and she barely felt it. He wet the cloth and started wiping her face. She closed her eyes to make it easier.
“I told you to go to the basement,” he said.
“I didn’t want to leave you up here.”
“I heard you scream, and I thought you were dying. You have no idea how bad that messed with my head.” She felt his breath against her face, and he gave her a light kiss on the lips. She tingled everywhere and warmth suffused her skin. He had always made her feel this way. It was the same feeling she used to get when they joked around and pulled pranks at work, only this was stronger.
It was a connection and she cherished it. She loved him one hundred percent.
“I love you,” she whispered with her eyes closed.
“I love you too, even though you are a disobedient survival wife,” he said.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to change much. Sorry,” she teased.
“Ah well, I’ll keep trying.”
“Do you two want to shift some bodies for me?” Violet interrupted from the kitchen. “Ya’ll can smooch later!”
Anna snorted in laughter at Jared’s skyward look.
“Come on. Let’s clean this up and make something hot to eat. I can’t wait!”
The Salvation Plague | Book 2 | The Mutation Page 6