Pox Americana 3

by Zack Archer

  “It’s been a long time,” she said.

  “I got it. Be gentle.”

  “That’s not what I meant at all,” she said, smiling as she pulled me forward. She eased back onto a wooden bench and spread her legs. I got on my knees and she grabbed the back of my head and buried it between her legs. I went to work. She had remarkable strength in her lower body, pushing her hips up and down against my face.

  My tongue commenced thrusting into her wet, welcoming notch, creating jolts of pleasure that made her moan and rock the bench. Almost immediately she came, her love juices running hot and thick across my stubbled face.

  “Do it again,” she said, rubbing her nipples.

  I did, bringing her to orgasm two more times before she grunted and grabbed my hair. She forced me back and told me she needed me inside her. Then she grabbed my dick and guided it into her love triangle.

  Legs wrapped around my waist, her heels digging into my back, I buried my shaft deep inside her and soon, we were moving as one. I pounded her, and she bucked her hips up and down to keep pace with my thrusts. The sound of our hips slapping filled the air and another orgasm surged through her as I lifted her and repositioned us.

  I leaned back on the bench and she rode me, bouncing up and down, the structure rocking and the tree swaying. I wondered whether anyone could see us from the ground, but I didn’t give a damn. I was too focused on Sadie who was clenching her vaginal muscles, bringing me to the brink of climax.

  Just as I was about to explode, she climbed off me and pumped my dick while kneading and patting my balls. I grunted several times as six huge spurts of salty goodness splashed her sweat-slicked chest. She smiled and pumped me dry as we kissed, lying on the floor of the observation post and listening to the sounds of the night creatures. At some point, I fell asleep. When I woke, dawn was breaking in the distance and Sadie was dressed.

  “It’s time,” she whispered, kissing me on the forehead. “We’ll move out soon.”

  Later, we climbed down the tree and moved back to the communications shelter. Dixie and the others had found a way to raise Professor Dershowitz and Boz. The two made it out to an underground Air Force base in Wyoming, made contact with the other remaining elements of the federal government, and were eager for us to report back after we—hopefully—tracked down the antidote.

  “The fate of the world may hang on what you do tomorrow,” Boz said. “No pressure or anything.”

  I looked up as the sky lightened. Hollis, Scarlett, Lucy and the other ladies were emerging from the trees, carrying their weapons. Sadie smiled.

  It was time to move out.

  19

  We moved briskly through the ‘Glades, crossing the rickety boardwalk that spanned the spongy ground. Locating the pier and floating dock, we pulled the tarp back, boarded the boat and helped Sadie push it off into the shallow channel.

  Sadie let us know that they had three other boats stashed upstream and that Dixie and two of the other fighters would shadow us on one of them, acting like overwatch in the event that we needed some backup.

  We drifted through the channel and across the slough. In fifteen minutes we were back out in the flooded areas and shooting across the water, headed toward what remained of downtown Miami.

  “Stay low,” Sadie said.

  My eyes found hers. “What’s the matter?”

  “The Turk sends out patrols this time of day.”

  Everyone crouched. I looked over the side of the boat as we sluiced hard left. Out on the right was a black speck, what might have been the outline of a patrol boat. Sadie saw this and piloted us through a row of palm trees whose crowns were just above the water. The trees acted as camouflage and concealed our boat as we motored toward what looked like an island in the distance, a spit of raised ground that jutted from the water.

  We scanned in either direction, looking for sharks, alligators, and snakes, but didn’t see any sign of them or the zombies.

  I focused on bringing up the HUD. “Coast looks clear, Slade.”

  The HUD populated with images of the surrounding area. The images were incomplete, but Slade was able to analyze the way forward, checking for traps, and potential ambushes.

  “Things actually don’t look that bad,” Slade said.

  “Sweet.”

  “Don’t fuck it up, Dekko.”

  “Always a pleasure chatting with you.”

  It was winter, but the sun was breaking overhead. Hollis and Lexie were near the back of the boat, heads tilted back, catching some rays. I moved back next to them and elbowed Hollis in the knee.

  “Working on your tan?”

  “Working on my SAD,” Hollis replied.

  “What?”

  “I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD. Lots of sun helps.”

  “So, the trip was worth it.”

  “If we find the antidote,” she said.

  “Not ‘if’ but ‘when,’” I remarked.

  Someone whistled. I looked back to see Sadie motioning, and noted that the island was coming up fast.

  “The water’s too shallow around the lab for the boat,” Sadie said. “We’re gonna have to walk the rest of the way.”

  She cut the motor and we drifted forward. I moved up next to her and peered out. The island was smaller than I’d first imagined, maybe twenty yards wide, and it rose only four or five feet above the water line.

  The majority of the island was given over to a thick mat of green vines on the ground and little nests of shrubbery that sprouted in every direction. The mass tapered off to the left and right, plunging into the water while narrowing up ahead, and ended at a raised section of highway, an upside-down U of concrete and steel that stretched over to another piece of what looked like dry land.

  Sadie’s crew stayed behind as we exited the boat and dropped to the ground. Sadie carried a small Yeti cooler.

  “Looks a little like Chiswick Eyot,” Lucy said.

  “What’s that?” Deb asked.

  “An island in the Thames River. Near London. Just a little nub of land, barely more than a patch of scrub, but a man, this pensioner, lived there like Robinson Crusoe for many years.”

  Lexie pointed at the island. “Here’s hoping there’s nothing alive on that island.”

  Sadie’s crew stayed behind as we exited the boat and dropped down onto the ground. Sadie carried a small Yeti cooler and her crossbow.

  I pointed to the cooler. “Bringing some drinks?”

  “Ice packs are inside,” Sadie replied. “Sharla said the antidote would need to be kept chilled.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “That I’d be gifted the Florida Keys if I helped you. What are you getting once we carry the mission out?”

  “Cold hard cash,” I answered. “Gonna make it rain all over South Beach.”

  “How much?”

  “Enough to buy the rest of the state.”

  I planted a foot and sank to my knee. Looking around, I noticed that water and muck were welling up with every step I took. Indeed, a close inspection revealed that the “land” was actually a massive collection of tree branches, garbage, construction and other materials that had fused into something relatively solid.

  “There’s a massive wastewater plant that failed just down the street,” Sadie said as we tromped forward.

  “So, what?” Deb asked.

  “So, don’t look down because half of what we’re walking across is probably poop.”

  “Great,” Raven said. “We are literally in a world of shit.”

  We laughed and held our noses as we soldiered across the island, headed toward the overpass. The path forward was soon overgrown with weeds and snarls of vines, so thick that we were forced to use our weapons to hack and slash our way through them.

  I kept my eyes on the buildings out to the east of us the entire time, a cluster of ten-story office structures and apartment complexes. Most of the windows on the buildings were shattered, and graffiti tagged the brick
, stone, and steel. Thankfully, there were no signs of snipers as we reached the overpass and hauled ourselves onto it.

  Sadie led the way, crouch-running up over the U. She stopped at the apex and pointed to a building in the distance, maybe a quarter of a mile away. It was relatively tall and wide with a façade of smoked glass. There were no markings on the exterior or any other sign that it was a government facility, let alone one that might contain an antidote to the zombie virus.

  “There it is,” she said. “The CDC building. The Vortex Lab.”

  I traced the path over the overpass with my eyes and noted that in order to reach the CDC building, we had to cross what looked like a homemade catwalk that had been designed by a madman. A jumble of wooden planks ran crazily in all directions, including over a swampy area that was filled with bodies.

  Thousands, possibly tens of thousands of waterlogged, bloated bodies.

  “Jesus,” Hollis said. “We have to cross that?”

  “Relax,” Sadie replied. “They’re all dead. The city used barges to dump the first wave of bodies here before everything flooded.”

  “You’re sure they’re dead?”

  Sadie hesitated, then marshalled a broad smile. “Yep. They’re all gonzo.”

  We moved quickly down the overpass and then hopped over a railing and landed in the swampy water, which came up to our ankles. There was trash and debris everywhere and pockets of rats and snakes hanging onto huge chunks of floating Styrofoam.

  It was evident that the catwalk had been hastily constructed from thousands of wooden planks positioned across lengths of thick, metal leader that were fastened on one end to the overpass and on the other to one of the buildings adjacent to the CDC facility.

  “Some of the first survivors camped out here,” Sadie said. “They built the walkway to move around between buildings. When conditions deteriorated and the water rose, they left.”

  I looked around. If we were lucky, we’d be able to traverse the catwalk, climb into the first building, and then cross that building, exit it and find a way into the CDC facility.

  “Who’s first?” I asked, eying the catwalk warily.

  Sadie set off, moving gingerly across the planks, some of which were fastened to the leader with wire loops, others which were not, which meant you had to keep your eyes locked on your feet at all times. I struggled to bring the HUD back up, to study the route ahead, but the feed was patchy and so I powered it down.

  “Um, guys,” Lexie whispered. “Check it.”

  She pointed, and I saw that the swamp five feet below our feet was alive with movement. There were alligators in the dark, swirling waters. Dozens of giant alligators.

  “See,” Sadie said, stopping to look back. “I told you the zombies were dead. The gators killed them all.”

  Raven flipped Sadie a middle finger as everyone stopped to brood on what was before us although we realized that we were out of options. We could either go forward or head back and cancel the mission. Since the possible solution to the zombie plague was only a few hundred yards away, we knew what we had to do.

  Hands out for balance, we moved collectively across the catwalk at a glacial pace, praying that nobody slipped and fell into the pit o’ death.

  Time slowly ticked by. I began calculating the number of bodies beneath us but stopped because there were too many for my feeble mind to process. The sound of an engine arrested our attention. We spotted the other boat, the one with Dixie behind the controls out in the distance, bobbing in the deeper water beyond the island.

  We were in the middle of the catwalk when Lexie’s cat, Stevens, began hissing at one of the alligators. I turned just in time to see the feline creating quite a commotion. Lexie made a motion to comfort the cat and that’s when it happened.

  She reached down to grab the testy feline and her hand brushed against the metal leaders. A burr on one of them sliced her flesh and blood welled up. Lexie grabbed Stevens before he fell into the waiting jaws of the gator and in the process, a flurry of crimson droplets smacked into the bodies in the pit.

  “Let’s go,” Sadie said, some steel in her voice.

  Scarlett gave Lexie a hand towel to staunch the flow of red, but the beads of blood continued to dribble down her hands, pinging against the catwalk and those black, bloated zombie bodies.

  For a moment, one of the bodies stirred and I felt my palms quicken with sweat. And then a long black snake emerged, slithering through the eye socket of the dead zombie. I aimed my cannon at the snake and then pulled it back, not wanting to make a sound. I watched the snake disappear into the chest cavity of another zombie and then I followed after the others.

  The catwalk ended fifty feet later at the side of the building. There was a row of shattered windows five feet over our heads. We boosted each other up and entered what had once been an office building. We trekked across a bullpen full of cubicles, past the rotting bodies of zombies and office workers who’d died at their desks. Nearly every surface was covered with a thick, fuzzy black mold that caused us to pinch our noses and close our eyes.

  On the other side of the bullpen was another row of broken windows which revealed a large tower crane outside. We moved to the windows and looked out to see that the opposite end of the crane extended to within a few feet of the CDC building.

  Sadie looked from the window to each of us. “I better not hear anybody say that this was easier than they thought it would be.”

  Nervous laughter from us and then we went out the window one by one, dropping onto the tower crane that was stout enough to hold our collective weight.

  I shuffled behind Layla, who was squinting at the crane. “Jib,” she said.

  “What?”

  She pointed to the thick metal arm we were walking across. “It’s called a jib.” She pointed to other pieces of the crane. “That’s the operator’s cab, that’s the trolley, and those are the counterweights,” she added, gesturing to a series of large metal blocks lashed to a series of metal ropes.

  “How do you know?”

  “My old man worked construction back in the day,” she said. “He always wanted a boy but was stuck with me, so he used to let me tag along to the job sites.”

  Suddenly, the jib moved, dropping lower toward the water.

  “Separate!” Layla said. “Don’t bunch up or your weight will unbalance it!”

  Everyone separated and the jib stopped moving.

  Advancing more cautiously, I saw that the jib ended ten feet from the CDC building, which meant we’d have to drop into the water and swim for it. There were several ill-defined shapes cruising through the water several hundred feet away but the water directly below us was only four or five feet deep, shallow enough for us to see whether there were any sharks or alligators waiting to attack.

  The water was warm and smelled of garbage as we landed in it and began slogging ahead.

  Deb stopped once and pointed. I saw zombies in the distance, wading through the water and climbing onto piles of debris.

  There were only ten or twelve of the flesh-eaters, but my experience taught me that there were others likely in the area.

  Deb placed a finger to her lips. We’d have to be very careful and very quiet to avoid drawing them in.

  Sadie took up a position against the wall of the CDC building. I noted that while the lower windows on the building were broken, there was a row near the top of the building, tinted black, that was still intact.

  “Bottom floors are completely flooded,” Sadie said.

  “Where are we headed?” Deb asked.

  Sadie pointed up to the black-tinted windows. “Sharla told me there’s supposed to be an actual vault inside the building. A lab within a lab.”

  “Is it dry?” I asked.

  “We’re about to find out.”

  Sadie crouched, set her crossbow down, then cupped her hands.

  “You’re first, big boy,” she said.

  I moved forward and planted a boot in the middle of her hand, and
she boosted me up. I was heavy so the other ladies helped, several of them grabbing my ass as they pushed me up.

  I reached out, grabbed the edge of the window sill with both hands, and pulled myself up.

  Digging my elbows into the sill I positioned myself and looked through the open window. There was an office on the other side with a desk, a computer, shelves, and a whiteboard pinned to one wall. Someone had scrawled a smiley face on the white board.

  Crawling forward, I lowered myself into the office and then reached back and helped the others up. Lexie was the last one. Raven helped me snag her wrists and pull her and Stevens up.

  We exited the office and went down a winding corridor, stopping only to squeeze past obstacles where necessary. Like all the other buildings, the air was thick with motes of dust and mold spores, steamy, and smelled of mildew and rot.

  There were holes in some of the walls, but the interior of the building was heavy with shadows. Sadie held up an old cellphone, waving it from right to left to illuminate the path ahead.

  Suddenly, she stopped and held up a hand, pointing toward the ceiling.

  A creaking sound echoed overhead.

  We hesitated, our faces tight with fear. The farther we went, the darker it became, and not knowing what might be around the next corner made everyone’s heart beat just a little bit faster.

  Near the end of the corridor was a door that we shouldered open to reveal a stairwell. We headed up, weapons out and ready for anything.

  At the top of the stairwell was a metal door with a keycard scanner. Sadie tried to open it and discovered that it was locked and rusted in place.

  “Stand back,” Raven said.

  We did, and she shouldered her rifle and fired an explosive round that ripped a hole through the door.

  I kicked the door down and brought my cannon around.

  A skeletal woman greeted me. She reared back, homicide in her black eyes, and I fired two metal darts into her forehead.

  The zombie collapsed and several more, including two men in security guard uniforms, rose. I put quickly put them down and whispered for the others to follow.