A Plague on All Houses (22 page)

“Mother fu—” Kai stopped and got himself under control. “Okay, so we have to get him back to Big Red.”

“Go get Gabriel, okay? Just ask Kaitlyn to help cover him. But tell her to stay outside!” Kai ran out of the cabin and I hunkered down next to Jake, still not willing to touch him. “Jake, we're sorry about that. Kai thought you were a zombie, okay?”

“One of those things?” Jake's eyes narrowed, his expression switching from terrified to dangerous in the space of a few seconds. “I'm not one of those things. Don't you call me that.” A drop of blood trickled down his face to his upper lip. He flicked it off with his tongue, eyes closing briefly as he savored the taste. Then his eyes went wide with horror and he wiped the back of his sleeve across his mouth, scrubbing his lips so hard they'd soon be rubbed raw, if they weren't already. “I'm not one of them,” he whimpered.

“You're sick, okay? We have to get you to a doctor. Let's go outside.” I felt like a broken record as I repeated this several more times, but Jake responded to either my words or my tone and finally he left the damn cabin. You can bet Mack and I were right behind him. Kaitlyn waited for us outside.

“Just sit here,” I said, pointing to one of the gliders. He sat, limbs folding up underneath him like someone cut his strings.

Jack rocked slowly back and forth in the chair, pushing off with his feet. The chair creaked in protest, hinges in dire need of oiling. “I'm hungry.”
Creak. Creak. Creak
.

I ignored him, scanning the fog-shrouded parking lot and buildings for Gabriel and the rest of the team.

“I'm
hungry!”

“We'll get you food when we get you to a doctor.” It took an effort to keep my voice calm. I'd seen Jake's last meal, which hadn't been that long ago. Why was he hungry? Oh, right. He had that whole crazy thing going on.

“I've got a protein bar,” said Kaitlyn, reaching into one of her pockets and pulling out a Think Thin bar.

She held it out it to Jake.

Jake's eyes flickered towards the bar. He reached for it.

“Kaitlyn, no!” I lunged forward as Jake reached for the protein bar, then grabbed Kaitlyn's arm, jerking her off balance into his arms as he sank his teeth into her neck. She shrieked with surprise and pain, dropping her M4 as she clawed frantically at his head and hands, trying to throw him off. He clamped onto her like a leech, chewing and worrying at her flesh, ignoring whatever pain he must have felt from her hands clenched in his hair, pulling with all her strength.

I managed to wedge my arm in between his neck and her body, getting him in a chokehold and cutting off his oxygen supply. Kaitlyn jabbed a finger into one of his eyes; he screamed involuntarily, teeth losing their hold, and Kaitlyn immediately jerked away from his mouth, her neck pouring out blood from the ragged wound he'd inflicted. He still had a hold of her arm, however, and yanked her back towards him, growling in his throat even as I pressed my forearm harder into his neck.

The stock of Mack's gun smashed down against Jake's wrist, shattering bone and forcing him to let go of Kaitlyn. She staggered back, hands clasped against her bleeding neck as blood spurted out between her fingers.

Deprived of his prey, Jake twisted like an eel in my grip and went for my neck. I managed to shove my arm against his Adam's apple before his teeth sunk into my flesh. He snapped at me like a rabid animal, his breath wafting over me like a week's worth of spoiled meat.

I heard yelling, and out of the corner of my eye saw Mack raise his weapon and smash the butt end down on Jake's head with a sickening crack. Jake went limp and crumpled to the ground, blood oozing from an indentation in his scalp.

I scrambled out from under Jake's dead weight and looked for Kaitlyn, who swayed on her feet, hand still clasped over the wound on her neck, blood seeping between her fingers. Her face was chalky white from shock and blood loss. I grabbed her before she collapsed on the dirt next to her attacker, leading her to the glider as her hand slipped off the wound in her neck and fresh blood gouted out. “Shit!” Slapping my hand over the wound, I looked frantically up at Mack. “She's bleeding to death!”

Things happened really quickly after that. Mack dashed into one of the cabins, emerging almost immediately with a red flannel pillowcase. As he knelt by Kaitlyn's side and pressed the cloth against the wound in her neck, Kai dashed back across the parking lot, followed closely by Gabriel and the rest of the Wild Cards. Gabriel took in Jake's body, his gaze flicking to me and my blood-splattered hands and clothing. “Ashley, are you okay”

I registered the concern in his voice, but didn't have time to enjoy it. “I'm fine, but Kaitlyn … her neck. He bit her.”

Gabriel started to reply, then tensed.

“What—”

He shushed me with a slashing hand gesture, his posture one of intense concentration. Then we all heard it: rising moans coming from all directions, the sound muffled, yet echoing all around us as if rebounding off the thick fog. Nothing was visible yet, but they had to be close.

Gabriel didn't waste any time. “Get to the truck.”

“You're not leaving me here…” Jake pushed himself up on his hands, blood streaming from the wound on his head. I thought I could see brains through the blood. How was he even alive? He raised his head slowly and saw me. “You can't leave me… please, help me!”

I hesitated as zombies appeared in the woods behind the cabins. We needed to take him with us. Didn't we?

“Please…”

I took a step towards him, one of those stupid “yeah, I know better, but…” moves we all do on occasion, but Kai grabbed my arm and yanked me away, hard.

“Leave him.”

“But—”

Kai shook his head. “I don't care if he's a Wild Card. He nearly killed Kaitlyn. He can stay here and get ripped to pieces. You got me?” He stared me down until I nodded. He was right, but I didn't have to like it.

Kai let go of me, then helped Mack get Kaitlyn, Mack keeping the pillowcase clamped to her neck as they half carried, half dragged her between them to the truck. The rest of us formed a loose half circle around them as rotting figures began shambling towards us out of the fog.

“Please!” wailed Jake from behind us.

I risked a look back and saw zombies converging on him, then lurching right by as if he didn't exist. Jake continued to holler even though he remained untouched. And suddenly the missing piece of info that had been nagging at me clicked into place. There hadn't been any zombies trying to get into Jake's cabin. They would have known there was prey in there and would have been pounding on the door and walls to get at it. Jake wasn't just crazy, and I didn't think he was a Wild Card. Kai had been right to leave him.

In the meantime, zombies continued to pour out from the trees. Time to get the hell out of Bigfoot's Revenge.

“Don't try to take them all out!” Gabriel shouted even as he took out three zombies in rapid succession with precision headshots. “Just get to the truck!”

Zombies staggered out from the other side of the truck as we sprinted towards it.

“Someone get the door!” yelled Mack, stumbling under Kaitlyn's weight as she started to lose consciousness. Kai helped prop her up, but the three of them were out for the count as far as fighting off the approaching undead.

Slinging his M4 over one shoulder, Tony retrieved his sledgehammer from the ground and swung it in vicious arcs as zombies closed in from either side, knocking them backwards and roaring like a wrathful god with each swing. He looked like a teenage punk version of Thor. Lil ran up next to him, ducking the sledgehammer with almost choreographed grace. She reached the passenger side of the truck and flung open the doors, Tony beating the zombies away as Mack and Kai got Kaitlyn inside the backseat. Gabriel reached the truck as well; he and Lil covered the rest of us as we scrambled inside. Gentry and I clambered into the rear of the Suburban, slithering over the back seat, Lil using her M4 with good effect if not with Gabriel's lethal precision. Tony in the meantime, swung his sledgehammer in rapid figure eights, like some sort of primitive egg beater. Can't make undead omelets without breaking a few zombie skulls, y'know.

I shook my head; my brain really had no sense of timing or decorum when it popped off these thoughts.

Gabriel slid across to the driver's seat and started the engine, Lil jumping in next to him as Tony continued to bludgeon the approaching zombies, his face a mask of primal, bloody rage. “Tony!” roared Gabriel, “Get your ass in the truck now!”

Swinging his sledgehammer one more time and cracking the heads of several zoms, Tony dove into the back seat, slamming the door behind him as Gabriel hit the accelerator and peeled out of the parking lot, leaving Jake still probably wailing on the ground as the zombies ignored him. Undead hands grasped at the vehicle. The sound of fingers squelching on the windows mixed with the thud of metal hitting flesh. The Suburban shuddered with each impact, but held the road. Talk about a great advertising opportunity for Chevy. “Chevy Suburban, the perfect family vehicle. Comfortably holds a family of eight while holding the road when mowing down zombies!”

Out the back window all I could see were zombies staggering through the fog after us down the road. Out the side windows I saw more flesh-eaters came from the mist-shrouded trees. Where the hell were they coming from?

Thank God for good suspension ‘cause Gabriel drove like the proverbial bat out of hell (and did anyone ever explain what the bat was doing in hell in the first place?) down the road towards the highway that would take us back to Big Red, barely slowing for turns or potholes. Gentry and I didn't have seatbelts and were rattled around like dice in a well-designed Yahtzee cup.

After about five minutes the zombies receded into the foggy distance and Gabriel slowed down marginally. He looked into the rearview mirror. “How's Kaitlyn?”

Mack glanced up at him, still firmly holding the pillowcase against Kaitlyn's neck. “The bleeding's slowing down, but we need to get her back to DBP. God only knows what kind of germs his teeth were carrying.”

“She's a Wild Card,” said Gabriel. “She can't get infected.”

I shook my head, then realized he couldn't see me. “The guy that bit her … he wasn't a zombie. He was still alive when we found him.”

“What?” The word was explosive, like a bullet.

“He'd been bitten,” I said softly. “He said he could feel himself rot. But … he was alive … and he was eating his wife and son.”

Gabriel blanched, his skin actually turning pale as I watched in the rear view mirror.

“Dude had to be fucking crazy,” said Tony.

“No. He wasn't crazy.” Gabriel spoke in a carefully controlled voice, as if he was certain of his facts, but some emotion lurked very close to the surface of his matter-of-fact tone. “Or maybe it would be more accurate to say he wasn't
just
crazy.”

Gabriel paused and through the rear view mirror I saw a play of emotions rippling across his face so quickly I couldn't identify any of them before he'd schooled his expression back into Stoic 101. He started to speak again, but whatever it was got lost in the next few seconds as the Suburban plowed into a knot of figures standing motionless in the middle of the road. Gabriel jerked the wheel to one side in a knee-jerk reaction. Guess he thought we'd left all of the zombies behind us.

As the SUV left the asphalt and veered off into the trees, I got a glimpse of the would-be road kill Gabriel had served to avoid. Zombies. At least six of them, just standing there as if they'd been waiting for us.

Then the vehicle bounced over uneven terrain and off redwoods before hitting something, maybe a stump, and rolling over and over, all of us inside thrown around like rocks in a tumbler, only without the shiny polished finish at the end of the ride.

Gentry and I had the worst of it, without any seatbelts or ‘Oh Jesus’ handles to hang on to, our weapons flailing around as we rolled. Gentry did his best to shield me by wrapping his arms around my upper body, one hand pressing my head against his chest. Something hard hit the back of my head, but my helmet protected me from more than an uncomfortable
thonk
and a little bit of brain rattling.

When we finally came to a halt, passenger side on the ground and the undercarriage pressed up against a huge redwood, Gentry and I were smushed up against the side window, limbs entangled with scabbards, M4s and one another. Pushing his forearm off my mouth, I said, “You okay?”

He nodded, wincing as he did so. “Yeah, I think so.”

The SUV's engine gave a final death rattle, then cut out.

Assorted groans and little cries of pain filled the vehicle as the shock of the accident wore of enough to start moving around. We were all bruised and bloodied. Shaken, but not stirred.

Shut up, brain.

“Everyone okay?” Gabriel hung awkwardly from his seatbelt, suspended sideways next to Lil, now pressed up against the passenger door.

“Kaitlyn's in bad shape,” said Mack, voice thick with concern.

“Let's get her out of the vehicle.” Gabriel unlatched the driver's side door and gave a mighty shove. It swung open and then slammed shut again, gravity being what it is. “Shit. Lil, I'm probably going to step on you a little bit here.”

“That's okay,” Lil said bravely.

Gabriel unlocked his seatbelt and fell on top of Lil. I heard a small
oof
, but otherwise she didn't complain. The view from the back wasn't the best, but somehow Gabriel ended up feet first on the passenger window so he could use his height and long arms to open the driver's door with enough leverage to ensure it didn't slam shut again. He pulled himself out of the SUV, then reached back in and helped Lil out as well.

I heard the sound of his feet crunching on the ground around to the back of the SUV, where he popped the latch and opened the rear door, holding it as Gentry and I slithered awkwardly out into the fog, grabbing our guns as we did so.

Lucky for us they hadn't gone off during the accident.

I hit the ground, wincing as my body protested any movement after being put through an automotive spin cycle.