August Burning (Book 2): Survival (2 page)

“How do you feel?”

Elvis grunted his response, his pale face a mask of nausea and lethargy. He rose a flask to his lips before Bennett snatched it away. “Enough of that.”

The window behind slid open and a friendly face popped through. “How far to the bridge?”

“Just ahead,” Bennett replied. Joseph nodded his approval and checked his compound bow with gloved hands. A quiver of razor tipped hunting arrows was slung across his back.

The truck sped down deserted two lane roads, past sagging general stores and colonial houses with faded porch paint. Their deck-swings floated lazily in the autumn breeze. The western wall of the valley was drawing near. Bennett could see it through the dying leaves above him as the car strained to accommodate the growing incline. The houses faded swiftly, till the sole scenery became a collage of autumn colors. The incline pressed up aggressively as the truck passed into a deep gorge that cut through the ridge. The slopes rose on either side of them, and the road became winding, hugging a river that gurgled happily one hundred feet below.

Bennett swerved the truck to avoid the collection of abandoned cars that littered the town. The bridge appeared before them. Its wrought iron construction looked dated, Bennett noticed. A relic from the coal mining days. He eased the classic Chevy to a stop, and his crew dismounted.

Elvis hooked his head over the side, mesmerized by the churning white waters that passed below.

“This is the edge of town. Follow this road, you’ll pass through the western ridge and emerge to flat ground,” Bennett indicated the opposite bank with his shotgun.

Leeroy looked through his scope, scanning the wooded bank opposite. “What kind of roads are there, beyond the ridge?”

Bennett shivered, unable to shake the creepiness that Leeroy made him feel. Was it the pasty skin? Or the way he slept with several guns even inside the Citadel? “The main north-south highway has a junction there. Could get to Ohio in…2 and half hours making good time back in the day.”

“We don’t want to go to Ohio,” Joseph said, fitting an arrow to his bow.

Bennett noted the dissent with annoyance. “No? It’s gotta be more clear than east.”

“I remember the last TV report I ever saw, in mid-June. The infected had reached the Great Lakes.”

Bennett frowned. “Well. There have to be less infected in the western states than here. We’ll get a group together, get the best supplies and vehicles, and make a run.”

Leeroy hawked a wad of spit over the wrought iron bars. “You think Jaxton is guna let you do that?”

Bennett set his teeth together angrily. “Let’s move. We still need to scout it out.” Elvis made no motion to move from the iron bars. “Alright Elvis, watch our rear,” Bennett snapped. He needed better followers if he was going to compete with his steely-eyed
former
best friend.

Bennett nodded encouragement to the younger couple behind him. The wide-eyed girl clutched an ancient .22 caliber rifle with sweaty hands. Her boyfriend had eager eyes. He checked his pistol with elaborate and dramatic care, then said, “C’mon babe.”

Bennett suppressed a chuckle and strode forward. The group passed over the bridge and began an assent up the opposite bank. The trees hugged the road, pressing their boughs over the top to create a canopy of dying foliage. The space in the natural tunnel was muggy, despite the chilly day. Bennett breathed in deep. That smell of death was still there, sickly sweet. He shot a glance backwards; the bridge was just barely visible through the collage.

“Get down.” Joseph hissed. The company dropped to their bellies. Joseph indicated the forest to their right. Stalking through the trees, there were several infected, walking absent mindedly, like predators near starvation and too hungry to take any care of the world around them. Bennett counted six, all walking. Their clothes were tattered and decayed, as was their flesh. Any hair they had was thin, filthy, and matted. Leeroy was silent, his finger resting calmly on the trigger of his massive rifle. The annoying boyfriend crawled closer. “Let’s take them out,” he hissed. His girlfriend opened her nervous mouth behind him but he cut her off, chest puffed up with machismo, “I’ve got a full clip.”

Bennett sized the idiot up momentarily. “No.” He signaled the others: back to the truck. The group drew to its feet and paced slowly back down the asphalt, taking care not to scrape their boots on the loose gravel. All save one. The haughty boyfriend strode forward like a peacock displaying its plumage.

Bennett growled at him. There was a commotion on the asphalt behind them. A lone infected had stumbled onto the road. It regarded them with uncannily dead eyes, not yet processing what stood before it.

A chilly breeze rustled the thin strands of hair atop the sick matron’s head. As the leaves rustled above, a razor tipped arrow tore through her left shoulder, and she staggered back. Joseph swore softly, and nocked another arrow.

Leeroy raised his rifle. “Give me the word,” he whispered greedily, sweat collecting on the peach fuzz growing on his upper lip.

“Not yet,” Joseph whispered hoarsely, drawing the bowstring back with small, chiseled muscles. The second arrow struck the foe straight in the breastplate, and she fell.

“Move!” Bennett hissed. The group took off down the road, bridge in sight ahead.

It happened too quickly to stop. Bennett saw another infected stumbling along in the forest beside them, totally oblivious to their presence. The haughty boyfriend raised his 9-millimeter pistol and squeezed off a haphazard shot. It ricocheted against a tree, but the sound echoed in the vale. The forest came alive with motion.

Bennett rose, “MOVE!”

The group sprinted down the track, hearing pounding footsteps on the blacktop behind them. Bennett cursed aloud; Elvis was frozen with fear near the truck. At the end of the bridge, Bennett saw Leeroy spin on his heel. His AR-15 thundered its retort four times, in calm, measured succession. Another arrow flew past Bennett’s head. Bennett turned to see half a dozen infected in a full, unbroken sprint. They moved with horrifying speed.

“Start the truck!” The puffy boyfriend screeched from out in front, as his pistol snapped back again and again. Elvis stood motionless, watching the approaching foe. The girlfriend hopped in the cab and fired the ignition.

Bennett tried to control his breathing and stop the barrel of his shotgun from moving. He squeezed the trigger and swore. The pellets scattered wide, and ripped an infected man’s arm off at the shoulder in an explosion of sticky fluid. Bennett pumped the fore-end and felt another shell slide into the port. His next shot took half the man’s face off, and he fell. An infected child scampered closer and closer, bounding as the boyfriend’s panicky pistol shots skipped off the black asphalt.

Bennett stared wide-eyed; Leeroy was switching magazines. Bennett himself couldn’t pump the fore end again- it was jammed. Joseph couldn’t get a shot off, and the boyfriend wailed as his pistol clicked empty. Bennett looked to Elvis, who stood at an angle, his hands clutching his own rifle absent-mindedly. “TAKE THE SHOT!” Bennett roared in fury, but to no avail. Elvis made no move; his eyes were glassed over.

The infected child leapt up to the boyfriend’s neck and tore it out with primal fury. The blood continued to pump efficiently, spattering the road with scarlet. The bleeding fool fell to his knees to the grating accompaniment of his girlfriend’s screams.

Bennett heard Leeroy curse and flick his rifle to fully automatic. It rocked back rhythmically against his shoulder, each shell ejecting excitedly from the smoking port. The infected child fell along with her struggling prey, gurgling congealed blood ten feet from their firing line.

“YOU SHOT HIM!” The girl charged Leeroy and began striking him with frenzied fists. He bore the punishment with an admirable restraint, staring at her with tear-filled eyes. She tore his glasses off, far taller herself than the troll-like Leeroy. “Fuck you! FUCK YOU!” She screamed as her face reddened with pain and fury.

“He was gone! He was gone. He was bitten. They never come back,” Bennett said.

The girl jumped in the back of the truck, her fragile frame shuddering. Bennett laid his hand on Leeroy’s shoulder, and handed him back his glasses. The pudgy man re-settled them on his face with shaking hands, his normally methodical demeanor shattered. For once in the last two months, Bennett felt a touch of empathy. Then it was gone. He noticed Elvis regarding them with ambivalence. “Get in the fucking truck,” Bennett ordered.

Bennett pushed the truck to the limit on the ride back, furious. They had seen almost no infected for a week in their hometown, but the second they attempted to advance outside the valley, they were met with six of them.

The guard atop the school waved as he saw them, his dark figure cutting an outline against the brilliant blue sky. Bennett’s heart hammered. He saw Adira attempting to fit a saddle onto a horse in the circular drive way and grimaced. He pulled the truck into their makeshift garage, where several of the others were busy organizing cans of gasoline and trying to get several other trucks and ATVs to start. A crowd gathered around the Chevy and helped the girl dismount. She just pointed at Leeroy, who staggered off, alone.

Bennett dragged Elvis by the collar. He didn’t resist. They passed Jaxton and Liam, both of whom were testing out rifles in a makeshift range on the old turf football field. Bennett gave them a strained head jerk, and to his satisfaction they didn’t ask any questions.

Bennett stopped in the middle of the baseball fields, which had been roughly plowed and sown with cold-growth vegetables. A handful of survivors stalked around the lonely field in the crisp afternoon air, examining mostly failed crops of broccoli and carrots.

“What happened to you?” Bennett eyed the smaller man with a forced calm.

Elvis said nothing, staring him down with surprising intensity.

“Is this because of that girl you were infatuated with for a moment of time, Harley? Do you see me moping about Adira?” he challenged.

Elvis tried to pass him. Bennett cuffed him and threw him into the dirt. Wordlessly, Elvis rose and tried to pass again. Bennett shoved him violently in impatience. The earth stretched flat and unbroken around the two figures.

“You’re not leaving here till you talk to me.” Bennett’s breath could be seen faintly in the snappy breeze. He just wanted to eat. To sleep. He didn’t care about the Elvis. But he was good at pretending.

Elvis regarded him coolly, his elaborate haircut long gone. A poorly sheared replacement blew in the breeze instead, no doubt cut by one of the survivors. “Do you expect some sort of intervention?”

“Something like that. That stupid motherfucker died today because of you.”

Elvis shrugged, “He was a fool.”

“Yeah, but maybe that girl wasn’t. And now she’s guna be real fucked up. That’s on you.”

A tiny fire had been lit. Elvis peered. “Yeah. She’ll be fucked up for a while. But we’re all a bit fucked up, haven’t you heard?”

Bennett sputtered, spit flying. “Oh spare me the cinematics. Don’t you dare hide behind that bullshit.”

“Where did your family go? Any idea? They’re probably dead.”

Bennett clenched his teeth. “Deny your own cowardice and come at me. Good one, Elvis. Admirable.”

“My family…dead. Your family…dead. Everyone, no chance in hell against those things.” He looked over the fields, listening to the crack of Jaxton’s rifle far away. “God they’re so fast. How can they be so fast?” His voice trembled slightly.

Bennett sniffled, his nose dripping. They all had colds, all the time. “You don’t know your family’s dead.”

Elvis chuckled darkly. “The thing is, you see, I do. I do know they’re dead.”

Bennett clamped his mouth shut, knowing he was getting somewhere. He waited. He needed Elvis on his side.

“I know they’re dead, because I saw them die.” His beady eyes snuck to the horizon, where the sun was creeping closer to the western ridge. “I told everyone I got separated from my parents at the checkpoint in Delaware. That I lost them in the crush of people and the army forced everyone to keep moving, so I went on and continued after agreeing we would meet here. That’s not what happened.” Elvis took a seat in the dirt and crossed his legs, rubbing his muddy jeans with his hands repetitively.

He stared at the ground as he continued, voice… quivering, “We were crossing the bridge on foot. Mom was exhausted, she’s almost 65 you know, we had been walking for hours. There was an army convoy heading north, they shoved all the civilians off the road, forced us into this huge field off the highway…pretty much just gave us a bunch of blankets and water and said you have to wait till morning to continue. There was a summer thunderstorm. Just drenched the place. By the middle of the night my mom had a fever. Dad was no better.”