August Burning (Book 2): Survival (29 page)

Jaxton shouldered his way past the other swaying beta-infected, who remained rooted in place, and spun around the edge of the door. He could see Agis glaring at him through the pale air, his eyes wide the sight. Jaxton pulled the trigger, and the rifle rocked back hard into his shoulder. “GO!”

The beta-infected charged, loping across the snowy, open ground barefoot in great lumbering strides. The line of officers opened fire, and lead raced across the snowy turf as Agis reeled, dropping to his knees and clutching his arm.

Elvis flashed a last look to Jaxton, nodded, and charged.

Muzzle flashes popped and flashed all over the field, as Agis’s men spread out in a firing line. The infected cleared the ground within five seconds at half strength. The others lay where they were hit, sprawled out in the snow.

Elvis skidded to a halt in the confusion, ducking low behind the bodies in the snow. The corpses vibrated as bullets punched through them. His heart rose to ecstasy. There! He snatched the flare gun from the ground and raised it skyward. It belched a red and yellow flare that raced skywards in the pale afternoon light.

But the lone alpha-infected was not yet dead. Adira backpedaled furiously in the snow as he approached her, its jaws snapping and clicking violently. It leapt on top of her.

Jaxton saw the incident from the door, and he stepped out into the light. He opened his mouth and roared as if wrath was his salvation, a cry of terrible fury that stopped the battle for a millisecond as all attempted to process its ferocity. The infected man atop Adira paused for just a moment, and though it was not in his nature, he knew fear. It grappled with Adira on the ground, struggling with a renewed zeal to bite into that soft flesh before it too was killed.

Jaxton advanced through the hail of gunfire as the wall of beta-infected reached the firing line with their hand-weapons. They swarmed the black officers even as they were shot from all sides, metal poles rising and falling with the vicious application of unbound violence. Jaxton snatched up a metal hatchet at the sprint, his furiously pumping limbs carrying him across that field in the blink of an eye. He could see dozens of survivors running away, across the field. Others advanced to support the officers, while his blue-faced allies fell upon the stragglers in furious hand-to-hand combat.

The infected man swept aside Adira’s arms for the last time and leaned down, his mouth ajar and trembling with anticipation. Adira wailed and hammered at his face with her gloved hands, to no avail.

Jaxton was too far. He could see her defenses were swept aside, and he raised the hand-axe, already dripping with scarlet. In a supreme effort of will, he launched the axe like a warhead through the cold air.

Adira closed her eyes as the flashing teeth drew near, and then heard a crunch. She saw a metal head explode through the front of the infected’s skull, and he collapsed on top of Adira’s shaking form.

The corpse was flung off of her, landing several feet away in the red snow. Jaxton was there. He wrenched her off the ground so hard she feared her shoulder would pop of its socket, and shoved her forward. “RUN!” Bullets kicked up snow to their left and right.

Elvis could see Agis’s men grappling with his blue-faced allies in the center of the melee, hammering into each other’s bodies with gloved hands and straining to gain purchase on a weapon. Two attempted to charge Agis and his bodyguards, but were cut down in a barrage of lead. Elvis sprinted to the nearest corpse and snatched up a loaded pistol. Lying down, he felt its retort he squeezed the trigger again and again.

“ELVIS!” A voice cried, shrill on the air. Wilder and Duke were caught in a savage dance with two beta-infected who had turned. Elvis rose, and got the pair in his sights. His next shot tore through an infected woman’s blistering face, spraying the snow. He adjusted to fire again, when he felt a punch slam into his shoulder, knocking him back. He turned, stunned, to see who his attacker had been able to generate such force. There was no one. He looked down, and then felt a wave of blood pumping out of his skin, where the shoulder met the chest. He had been shot. That was odd. Then the pain hit him in successive waves. Elvis screamed and dropped to his knees.

…

“NEED A MAGAZINE!” Bennett screamed, as he heard his rifle click empty. The beta-infected were driving them back with their hatchets, hacking into the men as nervous shots scampered left and right of their targets. Bennett could see his fellows writhing on the ground, clutching open wounds on their torsos and legs. One man’s leg had been sheared off clean at the knee, and Bennett thought the sight of white bone would make him puke.

He felt a pressure on his shoulder, and he found himself face to face with Agis, grim and steely eyed. “Take it,” he growled.

Bennett slammed the full clip into the weapon and pressed his thumb down on the bolt catch, careful not to get his finger caught in the weapon’s metal receiver as it slammed forward. He saw a blue faced woman taking pot-shots at another officer, too busy grappling with a great burly infected. She was in his sights, a mere fifty feet away across the snowy plain. Bennett shook his head visibly and got a beta-infected in his sights instead. Three of his rounds cascaded through the beefy man’s swollen chest and sent him tumbling backwards.

The field was chaos. The officers and their supporters in black had been driven back a hundred feet across the field, pursued by the relentless advance of the infected. Bennett could see the blue-faced survivors, at a distance near the factory, firing rifles and pistols they had snatched up from the frozen turf. Newly turned alpha infected were raging all over the field, attacking anyone in sight.

Bennett swept his gaze across the tapestry as the storm above ground to a silent halt. The dead and dying were everywhere, his allies and his enemies writhing about in puddles of their own frozen entrails. He looked behind him, to where Layla and the others had fled at the first sign of trouble. There were two dozen of them, streaking back towards the forest, and the Cathedral.

Through a haze, Bennett saw Agis struggling to organize his men as the infected staggered and fell within their ranks. A heavily armored man in black yanked off his helmet as his pistol clicked empty and used it to bludgeon the next two who came at him. It smashed into the skull of a woman, crushing it into paste with a sickening crunch. The next, he elbowed in the face with a bellow. But the third sunk her decaying canines through the heavy pants and into sweaty flesh. With a roar, the officer collapsed his attacker’s eye socket with the butt of his pistol.

Bennett fired off another string of rounds at an approaching pack, and turned to see Agis draw his pistol and in the same fluid motion send a round bursting into his officer’s already infected brain.

Agis pointed, and his cronies snarled with their weapons raised. Harley’s face was set in stone as she raised her own rifle, her lips trembling with the intensity of her decision. Bennett could scarcely make out the group that was huddling in the snow a hundred feet away, still in the shadow of the factory. His senses revolted. It was his friends, all in one group. They were lifting up Elvis, his blue face straining with pain. Adira and Liam propped him up by the shoulders, as Jaxton, Wilder, and Duke scanned the field, oblivious to the men that now targeted them in the swirling chaos.

…

“It’s not so fucking bad,” Elvis growled as he got to his feet. He tried to move his arm and howled in pain, his eyes welling with eager tears. “Ok, ok, ok, ok,” he whispered with his eyes clenched tight. “It’s pretty bad.”

Jaxton spun around, looking to the tree line, thick with brambles and boulders. “Did you shoot the flare?!” He demanded. Elvis nodded.

Jaxton could barely make out what was going on upon the field before him. There was fighting everywhere, and the cracks and rolls of gunfire still hammered his ears. “God, no,” he whispered. There was a small band in all black, their faces covered and helmeted, and Jaxton could look down their smoking barrels as they faced him, those messengers of death. There were too many of them, at a distance of a hundred feet.

Without thinking he stood in front of Adira, who clawed at his shoulders in confusion. The others stood, wide eyed, at his shoulders. Elvis would never make it, wounded as he was. He saw the threat at the same time, as he saw his friends remained motionless, facing down those pale demons in black. “Go! Go now!” He screamed. “Get away from here!” His voice was hoarse with dread.

No one moved.

And then, their savior moved with sudden kinetic violence. A man in black hammered the closest figure next to him in the face, sending him to his knees. Their redeemer pressed his barrel against the officer’s chest and fired twice. The others turned, and Jaxton could see Agis, screaming with red-faced rage. Harley spun with a flick of auburn hair, her eyes wide with terror.

Bennett fired again, striking Agis in the stomach.

Without speaking Jaxton’s group split and sprinted across the field, moving fast for the nearest weapons. Then Agis’s cronies opened up, rifles rocking back against their shoulders.

Jaxton saw the snow peppering in front of him as he moved closer to a lonely rifle in the snow. His lungs strained with the effort, and his heart was hammering in his head. Where was Adira now?

A steady thunder rolled across the frosty field of death, popping and snapping with intoxicating rhythm. The trees came alive. Masters of death were among them, and their vengeance was at hand. The revenants stormed out of the thick brambles astride the factory, their weapons smoking and hot. Jaxton hefted his fist into the pale air and roared in triumph.

Troy and his soldiers stormed out of the forest and dropped into prone positions to unleash their personal brand of hell. Their bullets tore into the remaining groups of officers and supporters, sending them reeling. They fell to the snow in great sprays of scarlet.

Jaxton heard Elvis laughing first, and then they were all giggling with the ecstasy of salvation. They watched as the blue-faced soldiers drove the survivors back across the field.

“We’ve done it!” One man cried, leaping into the air like a child.

Jaxton braced himself as he saw Adira sprinting to him in a giddy embrace. He ran his hands over her. “Are you alright? Are you injured? Anywhere?”

Her eyes gleamed. “I’m ok. I’m ok Jax.”

“What should we do Jax?!” Another girl cried, her face eager. The rifle she held had clearly been stolen off the corpse of a dead officer.

His friends gathered around him breathing heavily, looking to him for command with eager blue faces.

Jaxton set his jaw. “We finish it.”

Without another second’s delay Jaxton led them across the field, in close pursuit of Agis’s fleeing war band.

“Hold your fire!” He raised his voice to carry over their exertions. Two dozen of Agis’s civilian supporters had surrendered some distance ahead, all in a mass with their hands raised. Jaxton had no qualms with them, only their master. Bennett was among them, and he strove to make eye contact with his old friends. They sneered their distaste and kept moving, though he thought he saw Jaxton give him an unperceivable nod. Jaxton designated a handful of his own allies to supervise their surrender and care for the wounded. Justice for Bennett would have to wait.

Jaxton’s band rejoined with Troy’s soldiers, who advanced in a staggered line. There was no need for tactics in this pursuit- Agis made no attempt at any rearguard action. The ecstasy of survival enabled the predators to continue running far past the onset of their exhaustion. The prey, they ran to survive. Jaxton’s band caught them at intervals, tumbling through trees and across little frozen rivers, where the survivors would be shot and left to die like wounded horses on a forced march. Agis’s officers scampered like wounded curs being nipped at the heels, clumsy from a heady concoction of fatigue and terror. The surviving beta-infected, only a handful, pressed their attack with inhuman speed, loping on with cracked bones and bleeding bodies.

The pursuit took them through the old town, silent save for the pursuit of several haughty men destined to die. By the time Jaxton’s corps was rounding the driveway to the Citadel, all of Agis’s civilians had surrendered. Only his officers remained, a corps of seven in black including their master and his whore. The auburn hair swung with a little less intensity as Harley fell back; she could scarcely keep pace.

Ignoring the cramp building in his gut, Jaxton peered ahead. The men in black were surging towards the only open door, with Harley some distance behind. She was calling out to them, her voice laced with panic. They paid her no mind as they bustled inside to safety and sealed the entrance behind them. She hammered on the thick doors with her fists, to no avail.

“Cover the exits!” Troy roared at the quick step. A dozen of his troops in camouflage veered different directions to make sure all the doors were covered by a man and a loaded rifle.

Jaxton craned his head up; Joseph and the others were atop the school, waiting for their return. His band slowed to a walk, and they stopped in front of the entrance, their heads looked up to the roof three stories above. The other survivors straggled in as pairs or triples, their hands on quaking knees. Jaxton did his best to control his breathing, and he refused to double over- they would be watching him.

“How the fuck did that turn our way?” Wilder winced, his face hot with exertion. “And how did you keep up?”