August Burning (Book 3): Last Stand (8 page)

He checked his analog watch. Thirty-five minutes since the flare from the Mansion. The band of five raced along a tiny, single lane road that clung to a brackish lake. They had been here before, on the night the traitors were executed in the dark house.

Wilder could see the opposite bank, rising swiftly from the water’s edge at a steep incline. The friendly survivors had fired the flare from atop that rise, in the abandoned mansion that sat atop those wooded hills.

Lengthening his stride, Wilder led the band raced along the water’s edge. Their trek took them to a stone dam at the lake’s edge, its one hundred year old blocks slick with moss and crashing water. Wilder slung his rifle over his back, and stepped out onto the dam, where the water was only a foot deep as it flowed over the precipice to the river below. The men crossed the dam silently, without complaint, and with little drama. On the other side, Wilder gathered them close.

Wilder halted. “Recommendations?”

“Sir, I suggest silencers from here on out. There can’t be that many of them; we’re inside the valley. We move up the incline and hit the house from the south side. Find the infected and take them down before they have a chance to breach the house.”

Wilder nodded, and drew his silencer from his thigh pocket and screwed it onto the end of his rifle. The others did the same. “Good idea. Let’s go.”

The men jogged up the hill under dense tree cover, leaning forward to compensate for the aggressive angle. Reaching the top, Wilder could feel the sweat making his eyes itch. He could see a structure, made of brick and ornate, rusted iron. There it was. The turn of the century steel tycoon’s summer retreat, a massive fortress surrounded by unkempt gardens and broken stone fountains.

He had been here before, only several nights past. This time, the team would be breaching the fortress to save the survivors within, not kill them for treason.

The men entered the garden from the forest, and dodged fallen statues and overgrown planters. There was a shriek from above, and a window on the fourth floor broke open. A girl clambered out, shaking, and hung from the window’s lip.

Greedy hands reached out from the window and clawed at her, drawing blood. With a cry, she let go and fell into freefall. Her body hit a low stonewall with a mushy snap, and her blood ran in little rivers over the ornate inlays.

“What the fuck!” Wilder shrieked. “They’re inside! Move!” How were the infected inside? The team raced over the wall and emerged onto a long circular driveway, which surrounded an empty reflecting pool lined with massive oaks. “There’s the door.”

The team approached the mansion’s front door and stopped. Wilder felt the fear building inside him. Was the valley compromised? Was that black and red flare real? Had others been fired throughout the day that he failed to notice? They had to move. Wilder hammered on the massive oak and iron construction, to no avail. All the windows on the first floor were barred.

The team took off around the back, to the servant’s quarters adjacent to empty stables long since collapsed. They leapt down from a grassy rise into a stone walled courtyard, and found a glass hallway that led from the main house to a stone colonnade. One of the glass panels was broken, and three infected lay shot to death inside. Wilder had his team advance. They followed the trail of broken glass and blood till it led them into the mansion.

They emerged in a wood lined room, with grand bookcases and an ornate chandelier. Wilder heard more screams, and thuds from above. He erupted into a sprint, stepping over two more infected corpses. His team passed through room after room, each more ornate than the next. The survivors had placed cots in several rooms in their attempt to take up residence, and their garbage littered the floors.

Wilder tiptoed to a halt, and took a knee. There was an infected standing slack jawed ten paces ahead, his eyes transfixed on the ceiling above, from where the thuds had emanated.

Before Wilder could raise his rifle he heard a muffled punch, and the infected’s right eye exploded. As the corpse hit the marble tiles, Wilder was leading his men up the double curving stairs. There were more corpses underfoot, both survivor and infected. Wilder spotted two more infected feasting on a woman’s corpse, and he peppered their backs with rifle fire.

It was two minutes before they found two more staircases, to take them to the fourth floor. There was a struggle ahead. His team advanced, lungs heaving with rifles at the ready. Rounding the corner, they saw a dozen infected hacking at a flimsy wooden door with their backs to him. Its entire upper frame had been beaten out, and Wilder could see several survivors battling with the infected, lashing out with the butts of their rifles and a single hammer.

Wilder immediately waved his hands, signaling the woman to drop the hammer. They didn’t have masks. Wilder knew melee weapons were only used with a mask. She shrieked wildly at the soldiers’ arrival and, misunderstanding him, unloaded a strike at a greedy face struggling to gain entry. The infected blood sprayed in a great geyser, over herself and the other infected. Stumbling back, she wiped her eyes in a desperate attempt to see.

“Jesus Christ, take them down!”

The soldiers dropped to their knees, and their rifles hissed and cracked, echoing off the marbles floors despite the silencers. Their barrage of lead took the infected unawares, and their corpses began dropping to the hard floor with sickening thuds. In seven seconds a dozen fresh corpses were bleeding on the marble. Two of his men advanced to the pile and fired an extra round into each.

His most trusted, bearded and grim, looked back to him. “Sir.”

Wilder rose, not understanding why his men were not entering the room. When he got to the fractured wooden door, he understood why. The woman with the hammer was lying on the ground, her face covered in blood. Four others kneeled around her, assaulting her with their frantic words.

There was a voice in Wilder’s ear. “Sir, she’s been infected.”

“Are you sure?”

The soldier stared at him with an unbroken gaze, and almost lifeless eyes. “Yes, sir. She needs to be dispatched before she infects the others.”

Wilder hesitated.

A crouching older man snapped his head back, his eyes pleading. “I don’t think she had any cuts, I don’t think the blood could have entered her body, I-“

When the soldier saw Wilder hesitating he acted. Drawing his sidearm, he kicked the door open and moved close to the woman. “She’s infected. You’ve got about thirty seconds.”

A younger man wept at her side, as the girl attempted to sit up. “I’m fine. I mean I feel fine, I’m guna be ok.” A crazy smile swept her face and she gripped her lover hard. “I’m ok! I’m totally fine!” She laughed manically and gripped him hard. “I’m not infected! Thank god! I’m guna be ok! I-“ her voice faltered as her spine contorted. She screamed, fighting back tears. Her compatriots rose and backed away as she crawled towards them, screaming in horror.

The soldier grimaced and pulled the trigger, and the silence was ecstasy.

“Sir. We need to move. They’re advancing up the driveway.”

Wilder turned. “More? My god. It’s happening. This is no fluke.”

“What’s happening?” The crying boy stammered through his tears.

“If we do not move right now, this house will be our tomb. On your feet, now,” the soldier said.

The survivors struggled to their feet, and Wilder raced to the window. The infected were moving through the trees.

The Western Ravine

There were fireflies in the air when they came. Todd awoke with a start, to the roar of men. Angry men, armed with iron and steel.

Todd sat up quickly, knocking his sniper rifle off the tower. He watched it fall with amusement, but his heart skipped a beat when he saw the infected. There were at least fifty, all crowding around his tree, clambering over one another like one celled organisms with no awareness of their fellows. It was a giant, seething mass of rotten meat, fluid, and bone that reeked in the cool summer air, spoiling its natural magic.

Towards this mass, his brothers advanced. He could see them advancing now, in a tightly packed line. They chanted rhythmically as they walked, letting only trees break their formation. Five men held great torches aloft, behind the unbroken line of heavy riot shields. Todd could see their faces, masked and goggled, peering out in the shields’ little square glass windows. The chanting grew louder, and it awoke the summer forest.

The infected below the tower turned to meet this new food source, and clawed at each other gleefully, in a sickening attempt to reach the survivors first. The first several infected hit the riot shield line, but the wall did not stop- it rolled over them. Makeshift spears fastened to heavy wood lashed out from over the line, striking the infected in their path. As these fell, the riot shielders crushed them underfoot with heavy steel-toed boots. As a guaranteeing measure, a line of men at the very rear hacked into each corpse with wood-axes, splitting their necks.

The line of men did not waver as the infected came in greater numbers; it surged against them, the men with Lion patches striking out with a terrible frenzy under the torchlight. Where others used bows, or guns, these only used steel. Todd’s heartbeat was hammering inside him, so moved was he by his compatriots’ savage efficiency. They would never die.

Todd could see the leader, the head of the Council, the one who had created all the factions. Jaxton’s dark hair fell from his helmet and mask, and his spear was dripping with crimson.

“CLEAR!” A gravelly voice called out from the left wing of the line. Jaxton took a step out from the shield wall, his body shaking. “Check them.”

The shield wall opened up, and those with hand weapons disengaged from it, moving among the corpses to bloody each one again. Jaxton heard a yelp, and saw a figure in the trees. His throat tightened, till he saw it climbing down a ladder in the gloom.

“Identify yourself.”

“Todd, Todd Kravel. I’m in the Wolf,” he said quickly, tapping at the insignia sewn to his camouflage. Extracting his rifle from underneath a fallen corpse, he smiled. “You might have hurried a little more.”

“Where’s the rest of your unit?” A masked figure demanded.

Todd stood a little straighter. “They fled, sir. I stayed to hold them off.”

Jaxton indicated the tree. “Is that so. Seems to me you were stuck.”

Todd looked back, and shrugged. “It’s a matter of perspective.”

Jaxton laughed heartily
and took several paces forward.  There was a sudden movement at his feet and one of his men shoved him back. Todd blinked, and an infected boy, no more than ten years old, was working at the flesh of his thigh through the light
camouflage. Todd wailed and drove his rifle butt into the boy’s face, collapsing its structure.

He looked up, his eyes watering in pain. He held up his hands.

“Wait. Sir.” Todd took a step back. “Sir. I’m good. Didn’t break the skin. Just, let’s… I’m good.”

The men in black were all facing him, gripping their dripping weapons in the flickering torchlight. Todd turned and ran, and the others did not move.

“Shall I kill him?” One of the officers asked quietly.

Jaxton shook his head and hung it. “He’ll die on his own.”

…

Todd cursed loudly as he ran, spittle flying from his thin lips. He stumbled through the hazy summer night, and heard movement all around him. His leg radiated pain as he sprinted through the shadowy pillars and sighing trees. He had to get away, had to keep running and he would be fine. But the leg wouldn’t hold. It failed him as he strained to crest a tiny rise in the forest, and Todd tumbled into a thick patch of thorny berry bushes. He shrieked in the night, seeing tiny peeks of starlight drifting down through the floating boughs.

Todd shuddered involuntarily, and felt his skin was boiling. It felt stifling, and his head was throbbing. He clutched his sweating head with shaking hands, and felt his limbs begin to quake involuntarily. Todd collapsed back onto the bush, and contorted as a war raged in his brain. There was a hazy pain, and a feverish aching that drove him deeper inside his mind. He felt aloof, and detached, and he knew his mind was losing. Todd stopped moving his limbs voluntarily, and the infection claimed them. He could still think, and struggled to exert control over his motions, but it was folly. His mind was all alarm bells, vicious and horrific bells that slammed his senses, shouting at him, telling him there was a foreign presence. He was not alone. Todd was driven to the back recesses of his fractured mind, and he was alone with his mind, which urged him that he was ok, that he would be ok. And then a sinister corruption tickled his mind and it turned on Todd.

It stood up, and it did not feel the thorns as they entered its feet.

…

Jaxton heard screaming in the deep woods.

The men gathered under the torches, and heard motion all around them.

“They’ve breached the ravine. They’re in the valley. What do we do?”

“We hold the ravine. Send a messenger back to the settlements, and bring up more men to clear the stragglers that made it through.”