After The Virus (21 page)

She swayed as if she couldn’t stand without him, and he bought it.

“I’m so happy you are still you,” she whispered in his ear.

He shivered.

And this time, there was no mistaking the stiff dick.

She brushed her fingers across his lips and then kissed him lightly, lightly, lightly…

He moaned, he closed his eyes, and then she bit his fucking lip.

He shrieked; blood spurted.

He tried to tear away, but that made it worse.

He boxed her ears and the pain of it caused her to bite through his lip; a hunk of it came off in her mouth.

He howled and twisted away.

She couldn’t walk properly from the ringing in her ears, and she ended up on all fours, spitting out lip and blood at the base of the bed.
 

She was vaguely aware of the amped moans from the monster duo, and that the Boss had calmed enough to inspect his face in the dresser mirror.

The room churned; she couldn’t find her feet.

He came at her then, and if that particular rib hadn’t been broken before, it was after his kick.

She hit the foot of the bed, and then fell back to all fours.
 

He liked this position, and leaned over her doggie style to fumble with the dress. He tried to part her thighs but she was strong there.

The room settled a bit.

He decided he had enough access anyway and went for his belt.

She smashed her skull into his nose.
 

More blood.

But he didn’t stumble much.
 

He got her around the back of the neck and slammed her head into the floor. She was thankful the carpet was plush, and relaxed into it for a moment. This concerned him, and he leaned over to make sure she wasn’t out of the game.

Suddenly he cursed and started to scramble over the bed.
 

He’s after Snickers
, her brain informed her body, and then she was on her feet. It took her a second to piece together the scene and realize that Snickers had managed to get her hands on the Boss’s gun when he leaned over.

The Infected, enraged by the blood, were making it almost impossible for the Boss to get his hands on Snickers, who was grappling with the big gun.
 

Snickers got the weapon turned around in her hands and pointed at the Boss.

He froze.

Snickers squeezed the trigger and nothing happened.

“Try a little harder,” the Boss laughed.

Snickers steadied her aim and squeezed again, just as one of the Infected knocked the gun from her hands.

The Boss, still laughing, caught Snickers' foot and dragged her, kicking and fighting, off the bed.

The Infected wanted in on the grabbing as well.

The Boss, completely focused on Snickers, turned to violently vault the girl across the room. Instead, he discovered the three-inch-heel of Rhiannon’s previously so impractical shoe buried in his throat, which was a bitch, as she’d aimed for his eye.

He stumbled, but she managed to snag Snickers before he dropped her. He was momentarily down but not completely out of the fight.

Of course, the next problem was the Infected. They were tired of all this blood going around with none for them. So they snapped their chains. Well, so far, only one chain each, but they were each at work on the second.

Rhiannon scrambled for the door, but realized Snickers wasn’t with her.
 

The child was crawling underneath one of the Infected to try to get at the gun.

The Boss had yanked the shoe heel from his throat.

“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!”

Snickers looked back and Rhiannon realized — it was a moment for realizations — that she had yelled that out loud.

There was a knock at the door.

“Boss?” a male voice asked. “Everything okay?”
 

The Boss struggled upright with the help of a bedpost, and at the same time, struggled to speak.

Snickers laid hands on the gun, just as the Infected snapped the second chain.

The first one went after the Boss; covered in blood, he was an obvious choice.

The second swiped at Snickers, who rolled under the bed.
 

Thus foiled, it came at Rhiannon.

It was fucking fast.

It backed her into the bathroom.
 

In fact, it smashed her right through the glass shower, only to drop her amid all that glass and then seem oddly confused about its leg.

Snickers, with gun, stood at the entrance of the bathroom. She shot the monster again, in the chest this time, which got its attention. It growled.

Rhiannon crawled, ignoring the glass, to the toilet. She grabbed the tank cover and, glad it was a pompously large bathroom with room to swing —
 

She smashed it across the monster’s head.
 

It went down.
 

Gunfire erupted in the bedroom.

Snickers hid underneath the sink.

Rhiannon retrieved the lid; she’d lost it in her first strike.

She bludgeoned the Infected a few more times. Between the tile and the tank lid, its brains were mush.

Then she crept to the door to look out. Snickers snagged her hand but stayed under the sink.
 

Three men huddled around the prone form of the Boss. The other Infected was lying nearby.

The Boss’s legs moved, and Rhiannon must have moaned because Snickers' grip got more intense. She wondered how many bullets were left in the gun.

She reached down for Snickers, and the girl climbed into her arms like a monkey. She turned her around so she could cling to her back, and then took the gun.

Then she slipped out of the bathroom and made a beeline for the bedroom doors.

Someone yelled, “Hey!” behind her, but she kept on going.

As she hit the living room, a series of thoughts went through her head:

A. Buddy was gone.

B. They’d even cleaned up his blood.

C. The elevators were too slow; and

D. She could really use a swig of that champagne.

She sprinted toward the far door, through which the driver had dragged Stupid earlier.

Shouts came from behind.
 

Her escape route door slammed open, and with two guns blazing, Stupid stepped through.

She ducked, praying he wouldn’t hit Snickers, but he wasn’t aiming for her. No answering shots came; they hadn’t expected friendly fire.

Rhiannon didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but as always, true to herself, she didn’t give a fuck. So when she stood, she brought her gun into play.

Her first shot didn’t hit; Snickers off-balanced her.

Stupid cringed and held his guns up as if surrendering.

“Strawberry plant,” he yelled.

Which was odd enough to give her pause. He risked a look at her and saw her waiting.

“Tex, sent me… well, sort of… he… you… left your strawberry plant,” he stuttered to explain, but kept his hands in surrender position. “I’m Clarence. Will calls me Stupid, but he doesn’t mean it anymore.”
 

So Stupid was a mole. Will had sent him… but wait, why not come himself?

Her doubt must have shown, because Stupid added, “He’s on his way.”

She stepped forward and gifted Stupid with a blazing smile that nearly knocked him off his feet. His face went all slack.

“Rhiannon Wells, I’ve wanted you since I was sixteen years old,” he breathed.

“Get over it,” she replied, and hitched Snickers higher on her back.

He did.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

WILL

He’d thought about abandoning the tank a bunch of times even before they hit the bridge; bridges, he corrected himself with a groan. Storming a city without a tank would have little effect, except there’d be less bad guy bloodshed, whereas they, the supposed good guys, would all be slaughtered.

He kept trying to actually listen to what Big told him, about the breeding factories and dead women, but Will really was in this for his girls.

His girls.

Anyway, the bridges slowed them. There was no simple way to shove cars off into the river through steel beams and girders. So they reverted, using the tow truck or moving cars under their own steam if possible. The Port Mann Bridge spanned 2,093 meters; 6,866 feet. It bothered him that Rav knew that, and also thought, erroneously, that Will would like the knowledge. A lot of cars fit into four lanes over 6,800 feet. He’d glared at Rav until he went away, but not before Rav had started to estimate how many cars blocked them from the other side of the river.

He pulled the dead husk — not registering sex or age or anything — from behind the wheel of the next car, and reminded himself they only needed two lanes clear to get the trucks across. The tank, of course, could have just driven over just about anything in its path, but they couldn’t move an army with just one tank.
 

Sunrise was well dawned, which was helpful for the fact that they could now really see what they were doing, but made Will even more tense about the time stretching between him and his girls.

As he looked up from the car he was trying to start, he noticed all the others fanned out in front of him. Many more people were with them now. Their numbers had continually swelled.

Why hadn’t these people fled once they’d gotten out of the city and why were they willing to head back into occupied territory now?

He’d expected to be attacked as they got closer, maybe by small outposts, as that’s how he would have set up exterior defenses if it had been his city to secure.

It was mostly men joining, so maybe Big wasn’t exaggerating about the genocide of women.

They were now, given the devastated population, a large force.

These volunteers didn’t seem scared or intimidated. They often just stepped out in twos or threes from the fields or buildings and sought out Big.

Later, they would often try to catch Will’s eye or clap his shoulder as they moved to their assigned tasks. They didn’t engage him further.

He was accustomed, way back, to being a touchstone. The quarterback often was, but this was different.
It’s not a game anymore.

He spent much time with maps and Rav. Few routes led into the city, especially for a tank. Downtown was the goal according to One Ear.

Boomer complained more than once about the lack of gun stores en route, but so far — despite the Canadian peacekeeper reputation — they had more than enough guns and ammo to go around.

Will tried to figure a way to minimize their impact on the city, but this was a road map of an extinct society; it told him nothing of the now.

He also put very little faith in One Ear’s hand-drawn map, and even though he worried about wasting precious time, he wasn’t stupid enough to follow its suggested route into downtown.

From here, he could see skyscrapers in the downtown core, and he wondered if Rhiannon knew he was close. He hoped to God she did and would wait. ‘Course, he knew he didn’t have a hope in hell that she’d hide out waiting for him to blaze in and save the day, but he still silently prayed.

Plus, Snickers was usually reasonable if she wasn’t armed. Actually, the thought of her being reasonable or unarmed didn’t really comfort. He hoped she was armed and completely unreasonable; and sick though it might be, that made him smile, which made everyone around him smile.

They were going to kick some ass and save their women. This is what men were made to do, whether you believe in God or Darwin. He just hoped, once more, that he wasn’t too late, and that he didn’t make things worse by storming the castle.

A feral growl snapped him out of his head pretty quick, but not quick enough to avoid the body that lunged across the backseat, or the knife suddenly at his neck. He had left the driver’s side door open, and they, he and his attacker, tumbled out of it and hit the pavement. Will tried to twist away while the creature on top of him tried to slice his neck open. It took him precious seconds to realize the following:

A. The creature was actually a man. A scrawny, unnaturally strong man, though that strength might be fueled by the feverish rage that seemed contrary to the tears streaming down his almost skeletonized face.

B. He’d barely managed to block the first strike of the knife, and could, in fact, feel it cutting into the flesh of his throat.

C. He was going to die within spitting distance of Rhiannon and Snickers.

Then in the moment that he acknowledged the possibility of his own death, someone booted the salivating, manic creature off him. Though it quickly turned out that this abrupt intervention wasn’t exactly a smart move. Will recognized Big’s boot and pant leg — Big favored desert army fatigues — just as he felt the knife slit completely through the skin of his neck.

He clutched his throat.

Big stepped across him to boot the creature a second time.

Will struggled to his feet, but with all the others grabbing and pressing him back, he couldn’t even manage to get to his knees.

The creature, having lost the knife, launched itself at Big with its teeth as weapons; and seeing this, Will realized what was wrong with the man.

“Don’t let him bite you, Big,” he tried to say, and was rewarded for this effort by warm blood flushing through his fingers.

“He’s rabid. Rabid. Rabid.” He didn’t realize he’d been repeating himself until Rav’s voice cut through the din.

“We got it, Tex. Now you’ve got to let us help you,” Rav pleaded. “Tex, you let go, let go of your neck. I’ve got it.”

“Just a scratch,” he croaked, and he could hear Big’s booming laugh in response. Rav looked a little pissed at them both.

“It’s not just a scratch. You got to let us help,” Rav reiterated.

This finally seemed, to his foggy, blood-deprived brain, like solid advice, so he let Rav tend to the neck wound.

Big’s face swam in the air above him.

“We’ll put him down, Tex. Humane thing,” Big informed him.

“He’s just protecting his family. I disturbed them,” Will tried to say, but Big had moved away. He struggled to make himself heard, but all those hands were pressing him down again, and Rav looked more scared than pissed now.