August Burning (Book 1): Outbreak (13 page)

Adira laughed, feeling feisty. “You
can’t scare me, buddy.”

He rolled his eyes, exasperated. “I’m
not trying to scare you. Forget it. This is starting to make me sound insane,
and more than a bit creepy.”

The silence between them lingered
uncomfortably for a few seconds.

“No no. I think I know what you mean;
what did you mean?” She spoke more softly, her eyes running over his jawline.

He stared right at her, feeling his
heartbeat quickening. “Do you mean to tell me that you haven’t been staring at
me today? Where did that come from?”

She stuttered, “I mean I-“

“You’ve been staring at me, and I’ve
been staring at you. And there doesn’t seem to be any real point in fighting
the urge I have to touch you right now.”

Jaxton didn’t move though, and he
frowned at Adira, trying to judge her reaction as his own heart pounded.

She wished he would have reached out
his callused hand, knowing it didn’t make any sense but she was scared of the
future and nothing seemed to matter anymore. But he didn’t. He looked back out
over the houses and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“You see, that would have never even
come up if this infection hadn’t started. You’re with Bennett, and both of us
aren’t the kind to go behind a friend’s back.”

Adira struggled with a wave of
disappointment so powerful she almost spun on her heel. But she knew the man
beside her was right.

There was a crack like distant
thunder, but snappier and shorter. A series of them pounded in quick succession
and the sky was alight with fire off to the south. The booms continued as the
clouds flickered with flashes of light and fire. The muffled explosions shook
the wooden frame of the house slightly. Adira shivered, watching the inferno
licking the bottom of the clouds. She felt an arm around her shoulders, as a
friend would stand. She leaned into Jaxton’s well-built chest and leaned her
head on his shoulder, totally confused. His warmth felt good, and safe. She
felt herself abandon thoughts of past and future. Only the now mattered in such
times. The door creaked behind them.

“What the hell is that?” Liam
scratched his eyes. No one spoke, but the crescendo of firepower continued to
hammer unseen targets. Liam scratched the beard that was slowly growing bushier
on his face and wrapped his arm around Jaxton and Adira. The three of them
stood together, watching the world burn.

 
2 days after outbreak. Somewhere north
of Washington, D.C

 
“Got some in here sir.” Adira turned in her sleep. What the
hell was that? She opened her eyes.

There were three figures standing over
the couch. Adira screamed. Their flashlights came on, and Adira was suddenly at
gunpoint. Behind the black gun-barrels were three camouflaged forms, their faces
covered by gas masks and goggles.

“On your feet! Everyone up!”

Jaxton rose from the opposite couch,
shielding his eyes from the light. “What the hell is going on?”

One of the masked men lowered his
weapon. “You’re being evacuated. Let’s move. Everyone out! Grab your shit and
get outside!”

Adira fumbled with her backpack and
dressed quickly, sliding back into her damp clothes. She shivered against the
chill.

Stumbling, the group was prodded
outside, to the street. A series of trucks were waiting for them, already half
filled with bleary eyed and frustrated others. Adira felt Bennett draw closer to
her, as he always did, like her guardian. There were teams of soldiers moving
all around them, their little cones of white light sweeping houses and yards.

A tall, slender female officer urged
them forward. “Names?” Her mouth was tight, and small.

“Uhh, Adira Bitar.” Before she could
speak again, she was pushed forward from behind.

“Next,” she heard the female sergeant
bleat. Bennet stepped forward, his eyes swimming. As he opened his mouth, the
soldier’s radio crackled. “Latofsky, get them moving. I’m being advised the
line is changing.”

The female sergeant set her jaw, and
her eyes went wide. She affirmed the order with the radio and stepped aside.
“Everyone in the truck, now!”

Bennett and the others clambered up
beside her, and Adira felt the truck belch gutturally as it started. Her head
craned around, looking for the east. There was no sign of dawn.

“Sir, we don’t want to be moved. We
actuall-“

The sergeant cut Jaxton off
immediately. “I don’t care. Get in.”

Jaxton gritted his teeth in rage and
seated himself opposite Adira. A soldier jumped up beside him and slammed the
metal door shut.

“Where are you taking us?!” She
shouted over the engine.

The fresh-faced soldier picked at one
of his many red pimples. “South.”

Their truck exited the neighborhood
and entered a convoy of vehicles moving quickly down a two-lane road.

“Don’t worry. We probably should have
done this in the first place,” Bennett mumbled to her. She smiled and clutched
his hand. “I’m glad you’re with me.”

She looked up, to Jaxton. He looked
away immediately.

“What’s going on?” A man in his late
50s leaned over and asked. His portly belly was stretching a short-sleeved polo
to the breaking point. Why did he have white tennis shoes on with those slacks?

Adira shook her head. “My phone died.”

Another woman, across the truck,
leaned in. She brushed a strand of long hair from her face before whispering
with wild eyes. “There’s an infection in New York. The news people are going
crazy. They’re saying the Army was already retreating from the New Jersey. The
Boston evacuation started last night.”

“What is it?”

“Some sort of virus, transmits through
body fluids. They say New York was bombed with fire. Can you imagine?!” The
woman slapped her knee and cackled. Adira looked away.

The engine roared as the truck
struggled to clear a rise, and they abandoned conversation. Everyone had wild
eyes, Adira noticed. Their faces were worrisome and quivering. All save one.
Jaxton’s jaw was set and his brow was furrowed in anger. She was glad he was
with them.

The trucks peeled around a bend in the
road as the trees rushed past them, dark and whispering. There was some sort of
industrial strip mall, with loading docks that opened up to a riverbank. In
that parking lot, a dozen trucks halted. The metal door clanged open, and Adira
could see thousands of white pixels glittering overhead. She jumped as a clap
of thunder rolled across the landscape. There were pops and booms that echoed
in the night air, though she could not tell from which direction. All the
electric lights below were out. The soldiers with their black masks indicated
the wooden docks on the riverbank. “Move!”

Adira and her friends joined the mass
of civilians, three hundred strong, as they stumbled through the dark towards
the waiting river. She could feel Bennett clenching her hand tightly, and she
reciprocated. She kept her eyes on Jaxton’s broad back though, and let him
shoulder his way through the crowd. His limbs looked tight, like coiled springs
ready to explode.

A small platoon of soldiers in combat
gear awaited them on the wooden docks, which floated and shifted with the flow
of the murky waters. There were nearly two dozen rubber pontoon boats resting
in the dock ports, each with a driver and an armed soldier standing vigilant.

“I don’t like this,” Harley said. The
other civilians began to board the boats, calmly. Harley didn’t move.

“C’mon Harley, It’ll be ok. We’re
going south,” Liam said, still clutching a tissue to his nose. The bear of a
man approached her and wrapped an arm around her slender waist. “It’ll be ok.”

Bennett boarded one and reached out to
help Adira. Next came Jax and Tessa. Still Harley remained motionless, holding
her arms out for balance as the civilians around her were reduced to a dozen.

“No. I don’t like this. I don’t want
to get on,” she said emphatically, resisting the form that was urging her
along. She shook her head even as Adira noticed the booms growing louder, so
they shook her eardrums with their successive thumps.

Liam stopped, and drew closer to her
as several soldiers began to look on and approach. “Harley, we don’t have a
choice. They’re forcing us to evacuate.”

Harley shook her head as a soldier
drew up before her, his gloved hands clutching an M-4 assault rifle fitted with
a night-vision scope. “Get in the boat,” he ordered. His voice was muffled by
the gas-mask. The other civilians were watching the discussion with manic
interest, their eyes wide in the night.

Harley shook her head, and got a
little push from behind. “It’s for your own safety, miss. Into the boat now.”

Harley threw her elbow back wildly and
accidently caught a soldier in the jaw. He roared and cursed. His mates used
their assault rifles to herd Harley closer to the pontoon, and then shoved her
aggressively. Liam drew up and cocked a fist. “NO!” Jaxton shouted. “Get in,
Liam.”

Liam faced down the two faceless
soldiers with trembling lips. He spun on his heel in frustration and lumbered
into the pontoon boat.

Adira heard a radio crackle, and a
soldier shouted. The boat’s motor kicked and whined, and then they were lapping
quietly across the sluggish river, moving deeper into night’s embrace. She
could hear the other boats beside them, but it was still too dark to see much
of anything. The opposite bank drew closer, blocking out the stars, even as
dawn rushed to greet them. By the time they were approaching the other dock,
the landscape was glowing with a soft yellow hue. She heard another chorus of artillery.

“Aren’t those coming from this bank?”
She asked suddenly.

Bennett narrowed his eyes and focused.
“I can’t tell. Jax, can you?”

Jaxton turned around, his brow
furrowed. “I can’t either.”

They peered into the morning gloom.
The opposite dock was vacant. The water lapped lazily at the rotting wood as
Adira scanned the trees beyond.

She had an odd feeling.

The pontoon boats motored quietly to
the floating wood, and the groups began to disembark. As the civilians began to
gather on the docks, they eyed the tree line warily. The soldiers urged them to
pick up the pace. Jaxton steadied himself as their boat rocked against the
wooden dock. “Everyone out,” a masked soldier on the dock ordered them.

“Where the fuck is the Thor platoon?” The
driver asked harshly.

The soldier on the dock shifted
uneasily, “Lt sent em to the highway system ahead, to check on the traffic
jams.”

“I don’t want to do this,” Harley
whispered again. “I don’t want to do this.”

Liam exited the boat and reached back
for Harley, who did not move.

Several of the other pontoon boats
were now totally vacant, and the civilians began to mingle on the shore, though
there was only a single road that extended to greet the docks from the wall of
greenery.

There was a snap of sonic thunder, and
a series of quicker pops. Adira froze, and Jaxton turned to look.

“Tommy what the fuck was that?” The
driver asked.

Soldiers with gas masks un-strapped
their rifles and brought them to bear. The dawn was coming swiftly. Its hungry
glow made the water shimmer, and the soldiers were cast in shadow.

Adira looked to the other boats, where
the soldiers were beginning to stand and listen for more noises. The crowd of
civilians mingling on the docks froze in place, like deer caught in headlights.

There was an explosion of small-arms
fire somewhere in the woods ahead of them, and the entire contingent froze in
place.

“What was that?” Adira heard a woman
shriek.

 
Adira turned and gripped the driver, though he barely looked
at her. The red lollipop fell out of his mouth and he frowned at the forest.
“This is the south bank. I’m sure everything…is ok.”

“Get ready to turn this fucking boat
around,” Jaxton ordered the soldier, though he wasn’t paying attention. The
radio crackled. All the soldiers were transmitting from their hand-helds.

A frantic voice exploded in over the
airwaves. “Odin Company are you at the South docks?”

The commanding officer, standing
stiffly on the wooden dock, calmly brought his radio to his thin lips. All eyes
were on the tree line, bursting bright green in the prime of spring. “Thor,
copy. Odin Company is at the South Docks with another package delivery. What
was that small-arms fire? Over.”

The civilians began to crowd around
the sergeant, clustering closer to the boats. They shot fearful glances over
their shoulders. Liam stepped back into the boat.

The voice exploded through again, in a
whiny contrast to the sergeant’s measured drawl. “This is Captain Wilkerson.
Get those civilians off those fucking boats right now. They’re on this bank,
over, they’re on this bank!”

A flock of tiny birds soared into the
air from the forest as another series of pops snapped the cool spring chill. The
tree line was dark, ominously dark. The tight-lipped officer unsnapped his
holster and raised a single-shot flare gun. A white illumination flare
stretched skyward, hurtling up between the coming dawn and the lingering night.
In that sterile, white, light the gaps between the trees began to become
visible. Adira clutched Jaxton’s arm, and her mouth twitched. “I
saw something
,” she hissed.

At the same time, the civilians began
to hurry back to the boats, stumbling and shouting as they did so. The soldiers
looked to their officers for orders.

The radio sounded again, “Get them OFF
THE BOATS! WE’RE COMING IN HOT!”

There was a moment of indecision as
the civilians looked to the sergeant, who remained motionless on the docks.
When it appeared he would not act, they began leaping towards the boats like
frantic children.

“WAIT!” He called out. His boots
snapped on the old wood and his face was stone. “Offload the cargo!”

No one moved. The river-water lapped
lazily at the boats’ rubber sides, and the air seemed crisp and clear. Adira
inhaled. It wasn’t clear.

There was gunpowder in the air.

The tree line exploded with motion.
Thirty ragged, exhausted soldiers in camouflage came bursting out of the forest
simultaneously, up and down the line. Most were missing some part of their
equipment. They waved their arms frantically and screamed, their limbs pumped
ferociously. A full second later the tree line filled with another wave of
figures.

The infected pounded down the hill in
a flailing mass, one hundred strong in pursuit. Their tattered clothing and
flashing limbs sent a rolling panic across the docks. The civilians screeched
in panic, and charged the boats. Adira saw several soldiers struggle to keep
their boats clear and empty for the retreating soldiers, while others beckoned
the civilians back aboard. The commanding officer and several others formed a
firing line to halt the infected. The rifles rocked back against their
shoulders, and the snaps filled the air with kinetic fury. Their weapons spat a
continuous barrage of hot lead, but the infected did not falter.

Adira saw two children stumble off the
wooden planks and tumble into the river. Another burly man with a backwards
baseball cap leapt into a pontoon boat and wrestled the soldier on board to the
ground. The boat-captain drew his pistol and struck the man on the back of the
head with the handle. The burly civilian tumbled into the water, unconscious.
Every boat erupted into a struggle for survival as the infected bore down on
them, two hundred feet away and closing rapidly.