The Infected Dead (Book 6): Buried For Now

by Howard, Bob

  The floor had dirty smudges on it where wet combat boots had tracked through blood, but they were as old as the smears on the lamp. Janice noticed the smudges only went one way in the hall outside. She stuck her head around the corner keeping low to the floor and strained her eyes against the dim light. She couldn’t see any footprints going in that direction.

  To the right the footprints went back toward the common areas and the kitchen. Her memories of the night before became a bit more clear, and she was also becoming more sure that she was alone in the crew quarters.

  Without windows she was suddenly aware that she could still see well enough not to be staggering around in pitch black darkness. The lamp laying on its side was off, so her eyes scanned the room. There were several wall outlets, and low power nightlights were plugged into each of them. One more thing she had forgotten about the night before.

  “There’s power in here.”

  It came out as a low whisper, but the lump in her throat was all that prevented her from shouting it.

  A rifle was leaning in the corner by the nightstand on the other side of the bed. The one thing David had made sure she would learn, besides survival cooking, was how to handle guns. They didn’t have one of their own at the beginning, but they were easy enough to find in the months that followed. Janice quickly retrieved the heavy weapon as if it would disappear. She didn’t know what type of gun it was, but it didn’t appear to be terribly complicated.

  With the barrel pointed ahead of her, Janice walked out of the bedroom into the hallway. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom, and she found the light switch. They weren’t terribly bright, but the lights were a welcome addition. With them on, the quiet quarters weren’t as foreboding as they had been, and Janice boldly went from one bedroom to the next.

  There were ten bedrooms all together. None had anything special about them, and only the first one showed any signs of ever being inhabited. Whoever had stayed in the room where she had slept, they had been traveling light. Besides the rifle, nothing else had been left behind.

  The last room at the end of the hallway was a large bathroom that had private showers and a row of sinks.

  “Must be coed,” she said.

  There were medicine cabinets above each sink instead of fixed mirrors, and Janice was happy to see each was stocked with first aid supplies, as well as toiletries. She saw her reflection in a mirror when she smiled, and she was immediately flooded with guilt. Her husband was dead, but she smiled when she saw bandages.

  The feeling washed over her the way she had felt on days when her blood sugar had dipped dangerously low, or how dizziness made her sway when she stood up too fast. Her mouth went dry, and she desperately wanted water. Through a wave of nausea she saw a glass sitting on the edge of a sink and clumsily grabbed at it, fumbled it, and tried to stop it from falling to the floor by pinning it against the sink.

  She tried to stop herself, but the whole thing happened in one tick of the second hand on a clock. Her hand went through it as it broke into razor blades of glass. There was no pain at first, just lots of blood. Then came the pain.

  Nausea, dizziness, vertigo, and blood meant only one thing to her. She would pass out. She knew what was happening and somehow managed to keep from hitting her head on the sink as she went by.

  She woke up covered in her own blood, and there was a new pain traveling up her right arm toward her shoulder. When she twisted her arm around to see what hurt so much, she saw she had fallen on a shard of glass, and it was sticking out of the back of her arm about midway between her elbow and shoulder. She almost passed out again, especially when she impulsively grabbed it and yanked it from her arm.

  Blood followed the glass in a gush, but she knew she had been lucky and missed the artery because it didn’t shoot from her arm. Janice clamped her hand down hard on the cut and couldn’t even feel the pain from the cut on her hand because the new cut hurt so much.

  “Give yourself first aid, you idiot,” she said through clenched teeth. She said a lot more, and it included a few words she had never been comfortable saying.

  A towel rack behind her offered the first thing she needed, and she grabbed the towel with her good hand. It wasn’t easy, but she managed to tie one end of the towel around her upper arm using her teeth to draw it tight. The other end of the towel reached her right hand where she struggled to tie a second knot around the cut that started all of this.

  She didn’t see another glass in the bathroom, and before she could even consider cleaning her wounds, she was going to need a drink of something. Instead of water she was hoping someone had the brains to put a bottle of bourbon in the place.

  The rifle would be safe if she left it in the bathroom, but right now it was making a passable cane just to keep herself steady down the long hallway. She fell into the wall on the right side and let out a scream with a long smear of blood before she could push herself to the other side.

  White dots floated across her eyes, and she didn’t think she would make it, but something kept her going. She knew she would feel better if she just had a moment of rest with some water. One final surge of adrenaline, and she found herself reeling into the kitchen and throwing up into the sink.

  Even through the heaving she had the presence of mind to reach up with her good arm and turn on the water full blast. She stuck her head under it and shuddered when the cold hit her. That was when she realized she had to be careful not to let herself go into shock, or she would die.

  The cold water was enough to revive her, but she couldn’t overdo it. Leaning on the sink using both elbows she surveyed the kitchen. She saw plenty of cabinets, a large refrigerator, and what had to be a pantry. Across the kitchen in the common area there was a bar with plenty of bottles lined up along a shelf.

  “Just what the doctor ordered,” she said.

  She almost fell again because the rifle now rested on top of her foot. She picked it up and laid it across the counter then staggered toward the bar. The cuts on her right arm and hand had taken on a different kind of pain. It wasn’t that pain where the skin had been cut. It was that deep ache down in the muscles that said she might have nerve damage.

  “Right now, I’ll medicate myself. If I have nerve damage, I’ll medicate myself again.”

  She knew she was only trying to keep herself going by saying out loud how she felt, but she fully intended to take the biggest gulp of bourbon she could handle. As soon as her body was in range to lunge across the bar, she let herself fall forward. It knocked the wind out of her, but it got her where she wanted to go. She carefully gripped the neck of the bottle and held it against her body as she unscrewed the cap. The brown liquid rushed down her throat, and for the first time since reaching for the glass in the bathroom she felt like something went the way it was supposed to.

  Janice eased herself onto a barstool and slowly lowered her head onto the cool bar. She stayed there for almost an hour, and every few minutes, she managed another sip of bourbon while she collected her strength.

  “Okay, I’m a mess, but I can fix this,” she croaked through a throat that had been numbed by the bourbon.

  Before getting off of the barstool, she rotated it left and right, taking in everything. She couldn’t wait to go through the cabinets, but that would have to wait until after she gave herself the medical attention she needed. She eased her feet to the floor and got herself steady before she let go of the bar.

  If she hadn’t been injured she probably wouldn’t have been looking toward the floor, but something made her check every inch from the bar back to the hallway. In between was where she had come in through the front door, and light from the hallway washed over that spot. Something was on the floor that she hadn’t seen when she had first come in the door, and she had gone right by it when she came in search of bourbon. If it was what she thought it was, she had to be sure it was dead.

  Janice gingerly supported her right arm with her left, leaving the bourbon where it was. She sidestepped her way acros
s to the kitchen and retrieved the rifle from the counter. She had to carry it in the cradle of her left elbow, and she wasn’t sure she could even shoot it, but using her right arm was out of the question.

  The rifle felt heavier by the time she got close to the big lump of brown fur, but from what she could tell the rat was dead. She poked it with the barrel, and it didn’t react. She circled it to get a better angle from the light. She knew she would fall apart if it moved, but she also knew she would have to do something with the body. No matter what she could find to put it in, she didn’t want to keep it inside.

  She poked it again and then pushed hard enough to turn it over. That was when she saw how it had probably died. She had the vaguest memory of slamming the door shut, yanking it open just a little, and slamming it shut again. Now she knew why.

  The rat had gotten inside with her, and when she closed the door the first time, she had closed it on the rat’s head. When she yanked it open and then slammed it again, the rat had been freed just long enough to fall away from the door. It was probably dead as soon as its head was crushed, but its body was pushed aside by the door when she opened it. There was a streak of blood on the floor where it had slid. She was glad she didn’t see it happen.

  Janice was in no condition to make a big project out of rat disposal, but she was determined not to live a single day with the body inside. Moving as if she was on a mission, she forced herself across the room to the bar and took an even bigger swallow of bourbon than she had before. Before she could change her mind, she went back to the rat and lifted it from the floor by its tail.

  It hurt like hell, but she used her bandaged hand to open the crew quarters door and put all of her weight into swinging the rat through the opening. It sailed through the air and landed at least twenty feet away, but Janice didn’t see how far it went because she had already closed the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Losing the War

  Year Six of the Decline

  When someone close to you dies, the world seems different the next day. Not just the fact that a loved one is gone. The pain, the emptiness, the strangeness of a world without them all add up to such a high total that the planet appears wrong to the eyes. The sky is not a blue or a gray you’ve ever seen before, the air smells different, and in this world all noises are the sounds of danger. The senses are in chaos.

  The other side of that coin is a total shut down of what can be felt, and in Iris’ case the coin was being flipped from one side to another. When the numb side came up, she was ready to walk into a burning building, over the edge of a high cliff, or into the path of the horde that was advancing on the city of Charleston.

  When the chaotic side flipped up, she was a one woman army that could cut down that entire horde. She was afraid of nothing, but she felt the purpose in living to avenge her friends deaths, even if she had to destroy every infected that was walking the earth.

  When they retraced their steps from the previous day, they knew they had accomplished their goal of reaching a high enough place from which they could see the terrain, but the cost had been high. They all felt the loss, but George and Sherry weren’t at all surprised when Iris took the lead. In a sad sort of way they were pleased that she did, but only because they knew it was a better thing for her to be responding to the death of her friends with anger than resignation.

  Iris had been especially close with the Oriental couple. They had left Wilmington with almost three hundred people, but they were not prepared to support the logistics of a group that size. Just feeding them was impossible, but protecting them all was even harder.

  In a group that big there would always be someone who thought they should be the leader. Their ideas were always better than anyone else’s, and the alpha mentality would lead to violent challenges to authority. The first time a challenge rose up against Iris as leader, the Tanakas had taken up positions to protect her. Their loyalty had caused others to rally around her in a way that had permanence.

  Over a hundred of the group broke away from the pack for various reasons. Some wanted to go in different directions thinking things would be better closer to the nearest military bases or even Washington DC. Some didn’t want to follow her but were afraid to confront her or the Tanakas. Others died in different ways, and of course some were bitten by the infected but kept it a secret from the rest of the group.

  By the time they reached the safety of the shelter on Ambassadors Island, they were down to less than ninety people. Some were relatively new to their group, but most were from the original survivors of the cruise ship in Wilmington. Among them were the Tanakas, and Iris was feeling the empty space they had left behind.

  Clouds were rolling across the sun filling in the gaps between the trees, and it would be raining within the hour, but rain had its advantages. It would cover the sounds they made as they worked their way through the thickly overgrown grounds of the hotel. If it was heavy rain, the sound of the drops hitting the wrecked boats and docks of the marina would be deafening, and they could move about even easier.

  Iris set the pace, and as long as she was moving without being reckless, George and Sherry were content to let her decide when it was safe to move and when it was time to stop and listen. She did both, or the others would have been worried. Her right hand came up, and they immediately dropped to a knee. Both of them strained to hear or see what she had.

  Two fingers stayed up on her hand while the others folded downward. That hand signal was obviously letting them know there were two infected between them and the marina. It was the next signal that made them get ready for combat. Her fingers came back up, and she placed her hand on the back of her neck. That signal meant the infected were coming straight at them.

  They didn’t expect Iris to make a move so soon. One moment her hand was on the back of her neck, and the next moment it was wrapped around the hilt of her machete. She sprang from her knee and used every muscle in her body to launch herself at the two infected that had barely come into view. As a matter of fact, George only saw them because Iris was moving their way. He doubted the infected had seen them before Iris attacked. It only took a split second for him to know which side of the coin had flipped up for Iris, and he hoped it was anger that kept her alive and not resignation that got her killed.

  Iris was much faster than the infected, and even though one bite would be lethal, at the moment she was more deadly. Her first swing was a powerful forehand, and it neatly severed the head of one infected. What amazed George and Sherry was that the swing continued onward to the second infected until the blade sank deep into the side of the skull.

  Iris was well aware that getting a blade stuck in the bone of an infected was a good way to lose your weapon when you needed it the most. In this case it had disposed of both infected, so she had time to plant her foot on the head of the corpse and pull her blade free…or so she thought.

  The gardens surrounding them smelled wet and thick, and the humidity made it a happy place for insects of all kinds. Fetid pools of water were great breeding grounds for swarms of mosquitoes. Gnats were already biting at their exposed skin and burying themselves in their hair. Even worse than the other insects were the black flies that fed on the infected dead even as they walked on the bricks that were slippery with moss.

  When Iris had suddenly sprung into the open with her blade high in the air, a group of infected between her and the entrance to the marina turned to face her. One of them turned too quickly on the moss and fell in front of the others. Iris watched the inevitable pile up, frozen at the sight of so many and knowing she had just made an amateur blunder. The first one was already getting up by the time she broke free from her mental paralysis, and she pulled frantically on the machete. George and Sherry hadn’t reached her yet, but they could see by the expression on her face followed by the desperate energy she suddenly put into retrieving her blade, that there was something around the corner she hadn’t seen.

  The black swarms of flies were everywh
ere. There were so many that they were even landing on the blade of the machete still embedded in the skull of the infected. George made the mistake of opening his mouth to yell that they should retreat, and the flies that hit the back of his throat sent him into a spasm of coughing and gagging. Every time he involuntarily sucked in air through his blocked throat, he sucked in more flies. He was making a great whooping sound with each breath, and he had become the new target of the infected.

  Sherry yanked a scarf free from around her neck and literally pounced on her husband. He was doubled over at the waist and was an easy take down. She had to fight him to get his hands away from his mouth and nose, but she eventually had the scarf in place and tied behind his head.

  “Chew and swallow,” she screamed in his ears. “Chew and swallow.”

  He heard the words, and to a man who was choking on flies, the words didn’t sound like he was being asked to do something. It sounded like an order, and the changing world had made it necessary to follow orders. George chewed and swallowed.

  When the bolus of dead and alive flies made it from his mouth to his throat, he threw up with so much force that Sherry had to hang on hard or he would break away before she could pull the scarf from his face. He almost wrestled her off of him, but she knew he would have to gasp in a huge gulp of air one more time. As he reared back onto his knees and threw back his head, she slapped the scarf across his mouth again.

  They went down in a heap, but Sherry had accomplished what she had intended. George still had more than his fair share of flies stuck in his teeth and nose, but the majority had landed in a big mess on the bricks.