August Burning (Book 3): Last Stand (10 page)

As they moved onto flat ground and broke into a wheat field, the straining Lion troopers saw another red flare arcing into the night.

“Who’s that?”

“No idea,” Jaxton whispered. And he didn’t care. He could hear the infected closing in behind them.

The men cut little tracks through the waist high wheat, and their path took them past an old farmhouse. Jaxton pressed his hand into his side to combat a cramp and tried to breath through his nose. It was too hard, and he could feel the spittle collecting in his dry mouth. He wanted to quit, but he heard another scream echoing behind him under the starlight. They had caught another.

For what seemed like a fiendish eternity Jaxton and his men ran alongside one another in full combat gear, their feet pounding the earth. Finally, they broke onto the main street, passing porched two story wooden buildings and little stores. Jaxton swept his head around as his heart hammered his nauseous body. About half. Half of his men were still with him. The infected were a stone’s throw behind.

“What’s that?”

Jaxton peered in the moonlight, and saw a firebrand burning brightly, alone against the night sky. It was sticking out of the church steeple a quarter mile ahead.

“Someone’s there.” He raised his voice. “Make noise men if you want to live! Let them know aren’t infected!”

The exhausted company hollered and screeched, their dry mouths rattling hoarse cries. Jaxton thought he could see a flicker of movement on the church steeple, and to his left and right. If it was more infected, he would never see Adira again.

“It’s the LION!” a single voice cried from atop the church.

Just ahead of them, the double doors to the structure burst open, and two torches emerged. In that firelight, the men of the Lion saw their salvation. There were a handful of survivors there, urging them forward with fiery desperation. “Keep moving! Come on!” They cried.

Jaxton could see their eyes, and he knew death was following closely. The men raced up the steps to the church and poured inside, past the other survivors. As soon as the last man crossed the threshold, the doors were shut and sealed with a heavy wooden beam. Within ten seconds there were booms and shrieks outside, and the door shuddered.

“I told you he wasn’t dead.”

Jaxton looked up from the floor, and grinned despite his exhaustion. Liam crouched down and embraced him warmly. “That would be the first time the Lion has ever called for the Bear’s aid.”

The Lion troopers collapsed in between the pews and reached up with trembling hands, begging for water. Liam signaled his men. They would pass out what provisions they had.

“How…I lost it. It’s the horde. There are hundreds, at least,” Jaxton spat out.

“We stopped shooting them hours ago. They’ve been all around the town since midday. Too many to count. We’re down to last rations on ammunition. Others have taken shelter here with us. Everyone is falling back,” Liam said grimly.

Jaxton tried to rise as the booming continued outside. “We need to get to the Citadel. The others must be warned.”

“They know. I’ve seen four flares in the sky today. Every settlement we have is under attack, Jax.”

Jaxton cursed, and steadied himself on a pew. “We need to get back. The Citadel has all the food, all the supplies. They have a skeleton crew. It’s too few to hold.”

“We have to wait till dawn. You know that,” Liam said quietly.

Jaxton wanted to punch the pew in rage, but his fatigue got the better of him. He slumped down, and motioned for a canteen. “At dawn, we go. No matter what. We have to get back.”

Liam nodded, “I’m with you.”

…

“What are you thinking?” Jaxton whispered in the torchlight.

Most of the survivors were huddled around them, collapsed in various states of exhaustion and hunger. The infected were still pounding on the doors, as they had been for hours.

Liam looked to Jaxton on the pew beside him, barely able to keep his eyes open. “I didn’t think we would make it this far.”

Jaxton guffawed lightly. “At what point did you give up on us?”

“That day we tried crossing that river, back in the initial Outbreak. Do you remember? The infected hit us as we got off the boats, and we had to tackle that boat driver to get him to turn us around.” A flicker of a smile touched his lips, and was gone when the doors continued to rattle. “Harley, Tessa, and Elvis were still alive. I never thought we’d make it home.”

“Nothing quite like home, eh?” Jaxton croaked, his lips cracked.

Liam managed a weak laugh. “I’ve been stuck in the past more and more here. I feel like it’s reaching out for me. I always think about the things we all used to do. You, me, Bennett, Elvis, Troy.”

“Don’t listen to it,” Jaxton ordered, suddenly alert.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Don’t let it convince you that you have any less reason to live. Don’t be careless, Liam.”

“I just end up thinking about her a lot.”

“Harley?”

“Even though I shouldn’t be. She betrayed us, she betrayed me.”

“So you’re still in love with a girl you aren’t supposed to be in love with? Don’t try to tell me that.”

Liam forced a smile. “At least Adira’s alive.”

A silence lingered between them. Normally, Jaxton would have rushed to fill the void with words to comfort this friend. But he was too tired. He didn’t care.

“I used to love snow days.”

“It was so simple. We always had to go to school the next morning, but for one whole day, that didn’t matter at all. Greatest feeling in the world.”

“Remember getting dropped off at the movies in the strip mall?”

“Ahhh, 8th grade legends.”

“I used to come here, for Church like…only on Christmas Eve and Easter. And literally no other time.”

“Obviously your family followed the Good Book closely,” Jaxton said with a wink.

“I don’t give a shit about the book. I care about you, about our friends. That’s what matters to me.”

Jaxton sighed and looked at the broken forms around them, huddled in the darkness. “We need to be ready to run tomorrow Liam.”

“Let’s not talk about tomorrow.”

Location Unknown

Adira quickly realized Joseph didn’t know what he was doing. She could praise his courage, but she would have to lead if they were ever to reach the western ravine and find Jaxton.

She hit her shin on something else in the darkness, and she wanted to scream. They would never make it up that hill. As soon as they had stepped outside, the cloud cover had blocked out the moon completely.

“Are you ok?” She heard Joseph whisper, though she could barely see him.

She bit her lip, and nodded.

Joseph took a step forward and she held him back. “Let me.”

Stepping in front, Adira took them out of the little backyards and onto the main road. It was too dark to be crawling through enclosed spaces. She led them down the road, and twice halted. Each time, she felt her life hanging in the balance, as she heard things moving in the dark around her. Each time, she advanced only after waiting several minutes in total silence.

After an hour, they had advanced a half-mile through the town. She could feel her body shaking, terrified at the prospect of failing Jaxton. After stumbling through a fence and hearing something stalking through the bushes behind them for a time, Adira conceded defeat. It was impossible, at least till the clouds cleared.

She took Joseph by the shoulder. “We can’t do this now,” she hissed.

“Do we go back?” Joseph asked.

She hesitated. “How far is the mill?”

Joseph mused quietly. “Maybe fifteen minutes, down that way.” She could barely see his arm pointing.

“We go there. There’s a Bear unit there. Or at least there was, yesterday.”

“If they are dead, the infected are likely to be there, feeding,” Joseph cautioned.

“I’m going,” Adira said harshly. “That way, we can set out at first light and be that much closer.”

Joseph exhaled. “So am I, but I need to warn you.”

“Come on,” she whispered, and they stalked through a grove of apple trees.

To her left, there was a crunching among the swaying trees. Adira halted them, and crouched closer. She could hear Joseph whispering for her to stop as she approached a tiny glade, surrounded by shivering leaves.

There was a mass of mottled humans feasting on a dead horse still attached to its carriage. Their rotten canines tore into the beast’s rough meat and through the leather that bound it.

Adira froze, transfixed by the spectacle of flesh and gluttony. Only Joseph’s shaking hands were able to pull her away from that grotesque spectacle.

Shivering in disgust, she lead the pair on, clutching weapons that, if fired, would mean their death so far from help.

They stalked into the forest and down the gully, using the faint moonlight as their guide. Their soft footsteps sent little pebbles scattering down the incline and into the river that gurgled at the valley’s floor.

“It’s not far now,” Joseph whispered. “There were a few workers trying to get the mill up and running again, for when we get the first grain harvest. There’s the dam.”

Adira followed his arm, and could just make out a dark pool of water, with a little stone structure to its side, under the leaves. She peered up, and cursed the trees. There was almost no visibility under those leafy boughs.

Taking Joseph by the arm, she crept closer to the stone walls. The walls ran almost three stories high, the remnants of an old mill from a century past. When she came to the first window, it was boarded up. She considered knocking, then thought better of it. Rounding the corner, she nearly tumbled into the dark, sloshing pool. She trembled, imagining how deep and cool it might be. Hugging the stone fragments of a path, she emerged onto the front side of the mill.

There was a great wooden wheel sitting in a trough, suspended below a wooden channel which led back fifty feet to a spot further upstream. The wheel was silent, as the survivors had not yet finished repairing the trough that would carry water to it and turn the wheel.

The trough shook slightly, though she could not see into it, as it ran ten feet above the ground on thick wooden stilts. The pair crouched.

A thin voice drifted to them on the air. “I think I can hear more. Let’s spray the area.”

“Spray the area? How much ammunition do you think we have? No let’s just take a look. See if we can’t pick ‘em off in the dark.”

“Wait!” Adira hissed.

“What was that?” The voice floated down from above. Two heads appeared above them, as shadows. “Jesus Christ. Not infected. Go to the main doors, now!”

Adira and Joseph hustled back around the structure, to a set of huge wooden doors, thick with rot. One of them eased open a fraction, and they dashed inside. A figure repositioned two logs to prevent the doors from opening, and beckoned them inside.

The mill had no roof, Adira saw at once. Above and past the walls of cold stone, the stars glittered. They stepped out onto a large open area littered with broken blocks and rotting wood. There were figures slumped here and there. Adira counted six.

“Make sure you whisper.” The figure murmured.

Adira wrinkled her nose at the figure’s body odor. “Who are you? What’s your unit?”

The figure shifted. “Jonathan. Bear. Who are you?”

“Adira. This is Joseph. We were trying to get to the Lion, in the western pass. The rear has been overrun.”

The figure sniffled, and remained silent. The other figures around merely looked on, though she Adira could not make out their faces.

Adira pressed him further, her voice touched with a twinge of barely contained anger. “Did you hear me? I said the rear has been overrun. Why are you still here? Has the Lion been called back? Where are the reinforcements?”

A torch sparked in the far end of the structure, revealing a beleaguered and twitching six individuals, shuddering in the dark. They jumped at the light, and then cast evil glances towards the newcomers.

“Adira!” Bennett strolled across the stone, shoving two others with dirty faces out of the way. “What are you doing here? Did you come from the reservoir?”

Adira nearly rushed to embrace him, so powerful was the anxiety that coursed through her. She stopped short, however. “Bennett. It’s so good to see a familiar face. What? No, I was at the Citadel. What’s going on?” She pleaded.

Bennett’s smile faded rapidly and his eyes lingered on the worn stones below their feet. “I left the Citadel yesterday with 4 Eagle troopers, heading south to find you, Adira. I lost two, and we showed up too late to the reservoir. The ravine was already overrun. I saw bodies all over that reservoir hill. I thought I had lost you, but I couldn’t stop to check them. It’s panic everywhere. I saw five flares go up today. Five. How many settlements were evacuated?”