by J. N. Chaney
Damnit, I thought to myself. One’s trying to convert me, and the other is giving me a peck on the cheek. I needed to focus.
I pushed away anything from my mind except for what I had to do. Like a fight, I saw the events happen in my mind’s eye. Then it was time to act. I made sure the last four canisters of Lestrium were secured to the back of my belt. I climbed down one level then leaped into the water. It was a fall of nearly eight feet. I held the flamethrower above my head when I landed to make sure the spark on the end stayed lit.
As soon as my boots hit the ground, I began to roar into the night.
“Hey! Hey, you infected spore-fed aliens, whatever you are,” I yelled as loud as my lungs would allow me. “I’m right here. Here you go. You want me off your planet then come and get me!”
I moved slowly through the water, leveling the flamethrower in front of me. What I saw now was something out of a nightmare. Burning bodies ran this way and that up and down the beach. Those unable to walk or run crawled toward me. The strangest thing was there were no cries of pain, only of anger and the need for revenge.
Burning bodies ran at me with a single purpose: to kill.
If I looked to my left and down the beach, I knew the others would be heading for the jungle interior. I refused myself the act of turning my head. I needed all the infected attention on me at the moment. I couldn’t give Stacy and the others away, even if it meant not witnessing their sprint to safety.
As I stalked toward the beach, the first group of infected rushed me.
They didn’t get far. I pressed the trigger on my impromptu flamethrower. A line of fire ten meters long whipped out like the breath of some ancient dragon. It lit them on fire, and for those already burning, intensified the heat.
There were plenty of screams of anger and violence, but none of pain, even when they were on fire. I hosed the first wave of infected, melting both skin and flesh.
I knew I should be more disturbed by what was happening in front of me, but the honest truth was that this wasn’t the first time I had burned someone to death. Memories of what I did to my wife and unborn child’s killers tried to suck me back into the void. I refused, focusing on moving forward and saving the lives I could at the moment.
What I’d done in the past could never be forgiven. Good thing I wasn’t looking for forgiveness.
“I thought there were more of you!?” I bellowed into the night. “Where are you now? You want us so bad? Well, here we are!”
The heat of the inferno licked at my face, making me blink as I finally reached the shore and began to maneuver through the walls of flames. The armor I wore kept the worst of the heat from my body at bay. My face, on the other hand, was another story. I found myself wishing David had picked up the helmet that went with the suit when he found it.
The beach was a fiery blaze of scorched sand, dying bodies, and other bodies that were either on fire and running at me or had somehow remained out of the blasts. These were still headed my way.
I used the flamethrower as sparingly as possible. Traveling up the beach was more difficult than I expected. The infected were coming from every direction. While being on fire didn’t seem to stop them, the act of the fire eating at them finally would.
A scream from my left warned me of danger as an elderly woman ran at me. I sent a shot of flame in her direction. The initial force of the flames only made her pause for a second before she was running at me again. A second burst of flame at her legs ate away at her muscle enough for her to fall and burn.
And so it went over and over again until the worst possible case scenario came to fruition. The flamethrower broke.
23
I still had four canisters of the Lestrium strapped to my belt. If the flamethrower had just gone out, it wouldn’t have really been an issue. Seeing the brief pause in my attack gave the infected courage. They came at me in a rush. Hands reached for me from all directions. They ripped the flamethrower from my hands. At the same time, I was wrapped up from behind.
“You will not kill us. We are many,” the man’s voice in my ear screamed.
I leaned forward, then sent my head back into my attacker’s face with all the force I could muster. There was a crunching as the back of my skull made contact with his nose. This didn’t cause him to fully let me go, but I did feel a moment where his grip on me loosened.
I took the opportunity to tear free. I was about to take a gamble. I unsnapped my belt and held up the last four closed canisters of Lestrium.
“You know what this is?” I asked. “You know what this will do to us all?”
My ploy worked at least for the moment. The infected surrounding me stopped their advance. Out of the group of infected staring at me, a young girl stepped forward.
She was the poster child for one of those old horror movies. Dark hair over half her face, black eyes, black veins running from her mouth and hands. Ebony liquid dripped from her ears.
“You think there aren’t more of us?” the kid from the horror movie asked. “You can kill us all here on the beach, and we will live on. We are spreading through your people, and we are many.”
“I’m not really sure who ‘we’ are, but we are about to get blown to kingdom come if you don’t get back,” I said, letting the belt sway in my hand.
“You cannot kill us.” The little girl gave me a creepy smile. “You may kill the hosts, but you will not kill us.”
“I know we came to your planet uninvited, but we don’t want trouble. We’re just trying to live long enough to find a way off,” I said, taking a chance. “I don’t know who or what you are. I don’t understand the hold you have on my people, but if you think we’re here for you or your planet, you’re wrong.”
“That’s what the others said.” The little girl was working her way into a frenzy. “The others burned us and banished us to the jungle! We will not let you do the same.”
Peace talks were suspended upon further notice as the little girl, and those around her rushed me again. All around me, flames were still licking the beach sand. I chose a patch of flames just five meters from my right and threw the belt of Lestrium toward it in a high arch.
I turned and sprinted like the dogs of hell were on my heels.
Seconds, I told myself. You have seconds before not one, but four Lestrium canisters go off.
The jungle line was in front of me. With every step, I got closer. A passing thought yelled at me. I put my gloved hands behind my head to shield me from the blast.
BOOM!
The canisters exploded in a wall of heat. For the second time in as many days, I was picked up off my feet and hurled forward. I could feel the heat touch my armor. The back of my head and neck not covered by the gloves I wore blistered.
As luck would have it, my landing pad was a thick tree trunk two meters in front of me. I flew through the air like some superhero still learning to fly. I struck the trunk of the tree with a thunk.
I fell backward, staring up at the night sky. At least I hadn’t lost consciousness this time. I couldn’t breathe. The blow from the tree, even with my armor on, felt like a punch in the gut from a heavyweight gladiator.
I lay on my back, just laboring to breathe.
Mutt appeared over me. He looked down at me, cocking his head to the side as if to say, “What are you doing? This isn’t the time or place for a nap.”
I didn’t have the oxygen to say something sarcastic back.
Get up, Dean, I said in my head. At least I thought it was my own voice. The tone in my head sounded very much like Natalie. Get back up.
I rose to my feet, testing my aching body. Oxygen was being forced into my lungs again. The back of my head and neck felt like they were on fire. The good news was my legs still worked, and that meant I could run.
I looked out at the beach in front of me. It was littered with dead and dying bodies. The infected still able to walk did so in my direction. I didn’t know how many were still left, but with a quick count, I saw there w
ere dozens, too many for me to make a final stand against.
I hope I bought you enough time, I thought to myself, understanding all these events had probably only taken ten to fifteen minutes to pass. I can buy you a few more.
I wanted to give Boss Creed at least a twenty-minute head start to figure out how to power the crawler. I could buy him another five minutes, I hoped.
“I don’t even really know your name,” I shouted. I made sure my back was to the tree. At least they could only come at me from three ways now. “You were saying ‘we’ a lot when we were chatting. Should I call you ‘we’”?
To my left, a young man in his early twenties stepped out of the shadows.
Mutt’s hackles rose on the back of his neck. He lowered to the ground, ready to pounce.
“We are called by a name that your kind have no words for.” The man took a step closer. The light of the fire showed the same black inky veins on his face. “Legion would be the closest word for what we are.”
“And you’re some kind of plant or spore that infects its host?” I asked, trying to put rational thinking behind the nightmare I found myself in. “Like a parasite?”
“Nothing like a parasite.” The young man chuckled. “We have more of a symbiotic relationship. We were dormant, asleep until your kind invaded our planet. When we woke, we were overjoyed to find your kind provided the perfect vehicle for us.”
As we spoke, I noticed more and more of the infected coming out of the shadows. Just like I was using this conversation to buy more time, Legion was doing the same. In minutes, I would be completely surrounded with no chance to escape.
“You will all fall victim to us when we introduce you to the spore,” Legion went on. “You will all eventually be brought into the—”
I had enough of his talk and I sure wasn’t going to allow myself to get hedged in. I lunged forward with my left fist, planting a punch to his face that sent the knife on the back of my hand into his right eye. The blade sank deep. He quivered then fell to the ground.
The infected around us sprinted forward.
Mutt went to work ripping out throats and snarling like an animal possessed.
For whatever reason, whether they didn’t deem him a threat or realized if they killed me, he would go, they ignored Mutt and focused on me.
I sidestepped the first infected that lunged at me, sending my right fist into the face of the next infected so fast I broke his nose before he knew what was happening.
The knife on the back of my left hand worked better than I thought. I slashed out left and right, aiming for vital organs and killing shots that would put them down for the count.
I know it doesn’t sound like a long time, but anyone who’s been in the ring, or any fight really, will tell you even a few minutes of nonstop fighting is exhausting, and I was out of shape.
I fought, always giving ground to the superior numbered force in front of me. I retreated where I had to, struck out as much as I could.
“Mutt!” I yelled. “Let’s go!”
I turned from fending off my attackers and bolted into the jungle. To say I was tired would be an understatement to how I really felt. My body felt like a punching bag after a long day at the gym. The back of my head and neck burned along with my lungs. Trying to see anything past a few meters in front of me in the jungle was pointless.
I used what little light came through the thick jungle canopy to guide myself as I recalled David’s instructions.
What if you didn’t give them enough time? The voice in my head was back. What if you get there and they’re not ready?
There wasn’t anything I could do about it now. I heard the crashing of the infected behind me as they gave chase. Mutt appeared by my side then began to run in front of me as if he knew where we were going.
The two of us booked it through the jungle, hopping over tree roots and dodging around bushes. My lungs burned more as oxygen came in short, quick breaths. I thought about trying to remove my armor to run faster, but there was no time.
Shrieks followed behind me. Whatever these Transients were now, they weren’t going to let me go. The most disturbing part was that they still seemed intelligent. I pushed these thoughts out of my mind to be gone over at a different time and ran.
Soon I saw the lightning-bolt-shaped outcropping looming in the jungle in front of me. It was clear the rocks were not natural. Someone or something had moved them here to stand in that exact formation.
I wished I had more time to look it over, but with a mass of infected colonists behind me, I thought I’d give the lightning bolt a look another time. I veered to the left, remembering David’s instructions.
My legs were beginning to give out. No sleep, no food, and my energy nearly spent. I began thinking of a place to make a final stand. If I was going to go out, then I was going to go out taking as many of those infected with me as I could.
“Dean!” A shout from somewhere high overhead ripped me from my thoughts.
I looked up to see Stacy in a tree to my left. She held a fist-sized rock in her hand as a weapon. The sky was just beginning to lighten as the twin suns of the planet transitioned from night to day.
Stacy jumped out of the tree. She landed hard then ran to me, hugging me so tight, it was only thanks to my armor I could still breathe.
“Stacy,” I said, then gave up and gave her a brief hug back. “We’ve got to go. They’re behind me.”
As if to punctuate my words, another shriek came from the jungle depth behind me.
“Right,” Stacy said, releasing me and waving me to join her as she plunged into the jungle. “This way, hurry.”
I followed to where the rest of the expeditionary force stood to help Boss Creed as he shouted orders. They were all wearing armor now, found in the crate David had discovered.
“Fire it up and see if it works,” Boss Creed said to Hannah.
She sat in the driver’s seat of the crawler, a massive vehicle with enough room for three to ride in the front cab. There was also a flatbed in the rear for hauling supplies, but it could easily fit another six passengers.
Hannah tried pushing the ignition button, but there was only a click. The sounds of the infected behind me grew closer. Then a new sound: a roar I was familiar with. The same roar that spurred on our retreat the last time I was in the jungle.
24
Everyone quieted for a moment. Doctor Allbright looked as if all the blood drained from her face. Tom’s mouth dropped.
“We’ve got to hurry,” Elon said, snapping everyone from their frozen panic.
“Dean, you made it!” David said as he worked with Lou and Tom to load the crate of armor onto the flatbed.
“Yeah, and not a minute too soon,” I said, running over to the front of the vehicle. I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help.
The shrieks from the infected were not dying out compared to the cavernous roars of the beast that ran us out of the jungle just days before.
The sounds of the infected must have woken the slumbering monster from its section of the jungle.
“Hannah, try it again,” Boss Creed shouted.
This time the crawler sputtered to life.
“Good to see you,” Boss Creed said from his position over the front of the crawler. “I knew you’d make it back.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, running with him to the rear of the vehicle.
“Everyone, load up,” Boss Creed yelled as he and Elon jumped into the front with Hannah.
If it weren’t for adrenaline, I knew I’d be dead. There was no way I should still be able to jump into the back of the crawler, but I did. Adrenaline was a hell of a drug.
I leaned down to help Lou up in time to see the first infected break through the brush. There was only a handful of them now, the front-runners to the rest of the pack.
They came shrieking like maniacs, jumping onto the bed of the crawler with us.
“Go, go, go!” Stacy yelled at Hannah.
/> “Hold on!” Hannah yelled back.
The crawler jerked to life, and we were on our way.
Three of the infected managed to get aboard before the tires under us started to move. I caught the first one with my knife as the guy vaulted into the bed. I stuck him through his neck before planting a boot into his chest and hurling him off.
Mutt, who was also aboard, was barking up a storm as he fought for traction on the vehicle bed while he tried biting at our enemies.
Stacy was grappling with a second attacker, and to my surprise, Tom with the third. His infected had gone for Doctor Albright. Tom stepped in the way, and the two were on the ground wrestling with one another. David and Lou, who also rode in the back with us, reached down to help.
It sounds easy since we had the numbers with only two of the infected onboard. It would have been a cakewalk throwing them off had it not been for the rough bouncing platform we all used as a fighting pit.
Hannah was doing her best, but the jungle terrain was uneven, and she had to maneuver around the larger trees. The crawler was a colossus, able to go over brush and smaller saplings, but the last thing we could afford was getting stuck going head to head with one of the larger trees.
Behind the crawler, the infected still gave chase. I couldn’t focus on them now. Giving aid to the rest of our party and throwing off the infected on the crawler had to be my main concern. I could see them springing across the jungle through my peripheral vision.
Stacy finally flung hers off while the rest of those aboard helped Tom wrangle his and do the same.
I understood Hannah was doing her best. I didn’t think any of us could drive any faster trying to maneuver through the jungle, but the infected were catching us. Already the bulk of the mob could be seen only meters behind us. More of the faster ones were already catching up, grabbing on to the side of the crawler and pulling themselves aboard.
I lashed out with my blade, taking one in the skull and the next in the throat as it tried to pull itself up.