Escape from the Damned (APEX Predator Book 2) (19 page)

“I know.  I just like hearing you ER nurses admit that us Neanderthals have brains too.”

She stuck her tongue out and turned back to Jackson.  “It looks like you’re on the mend Private Jackson.”  She re-bandaged the young soldier’s wound and sent him on his way.

Indira squeezed through the door to the infirmary past Captain Reynolds .  She couldn’t see the look on his face, but his neck and shoulders were tensed up. She could tell when she put her hand on his shoulder as she passed.

He shut the door.  “You should have asked me before you took one of my people and one of my trucks.”

“Would you have said yes?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then she was right,” answered Indira.

“No she wasn’t,” he shot back at the girl

“Yes, she was!” The girl began to yell at the older man.  “Frank didn’t hesitate to take her out.  She didn’t steal anyone.  She asked for help and got it from someone who used to be a public servant.”

“Bullshit!”  He yelled back.  “She stole a truck, and put one of the people I’m responsible for in danger, without consulting me about it first.”

“She didn’t steal that truck, you moron!  It was…”

“It was my fault,” Jen cut the girl off.  “I take responsibility here.  Just like you are responsible for your group of survivors, I’m also responsible for our people.  If we wouldn’t have gotten something for that abscess, Jackson would have eventually turned septic and died.”

“You mean I could have died from this?” asked the young trooper.

“Yes,” Indira added.  “When I was on my last shift as an intern, we had a guy come in from down south.  He had sliced his leg on some wire that was half-submerged in the swamp.  He waited six days until his fever was over 102.  His leg was full of pus and red up to his groin.  He was septic.  I found out from a classmate that he died in the ICU the next day from all the bacteria flowing around in his blood.  That could have been you.”

She looked back at Captain Reynolds.  He knew he was outnumbered.  He simply shook his head, turned and left.  Indira was so mad, she couldn’t think straight.  These people had saved her.  Jackson was there on the roof when they pulled her to safety.  She owed these people everything.

“I need some coffee,” she said as she stormed out of the room.

“Could I really have died from this thing Mrs. Jen?”

“Yes, Jackson, you could have.  She was right.  I’ve seen people come in very sick from infections like this.”

Before she could react, he threw his arms around her neck and squeezed her tightly.  She could just barely make out the sound of his thanks whispered into her ears.  She could feel tears as they fell on her shoulder.

“Thank you, Mrs. Jen,” as he released the hug.  She could tell he was searching for the words.  She’d seen it before.  Patients and families have a brush with death and they become speechless.  They want to show gratitude, but don’t know how.

She guessed it was only fair.  She was never good at accepting too much gratitude.  She always did what she did for people because it was part of the job.  It’s what she did.  It’s who she ass. She didn’t do it for the gratitude.  She did it because she couldn’t do anything else.

“You’re welcome Jackson,” she told him softly.   At that, he pulled on his ACU jacket and strode out of the infirmary.

12 miles west of the Mississippi River

Shane looked at SSgt Brown again for directions.  This was the third road they’d turned on that ended in a dead end.  Damn it!  They had gotten back to Highway 80 and only made it about a mile before they ran into another traffic jam.  They’d backtracked and found a road leading north, but didn’t know where it went.  Several turns later and they found their first dead end.

To make matters worse, they were running low on gas.  The truck had less than a quarter of a tank at the beginning of the day.  Now the little yellow fuel light was on and they really hadn’t made any headway.

“This is getting ridiculous,” the older man said.  “Pull the truck over here.”

They dismounted.  SSgt Brown made sure they had all of the supplies they could carry.  He looked to the sky.  The weather had cleared and the sun was bright and high in the sky.  He looked at his watch:  11:45.  This time of year, the sun went down about 7 pm.  That meant that they had a good seven hours to reach the river.

He figured they were still between 12 and 15 miles away from the river.  On a road march, he could expect his troops to cover those twelve miles in about 3 hours.  Unfortunately there were two things he was missing: a nice road and physically fit soldiers.  He was going to have to lead these three civilians, one who was constantly slowing them down yesterday, across country to the river.  Seven hours seemed about right.

“Ok, we’re humping it.”  He pointed to the east.  “Sergeant Procell, lead the way.  Theresa, you back him up. I’ll bring up the rear.  You two stay between us.  Stick to a nice easy pace Sergeant.  We’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”

Sgt Procell led them through a small thicket of trees, then into a large open field.  The combat engineer in him was already becoming uncomfortable.  There were several small groups of dead meandering around in the field.  He thought about their trek yesterday, constantly being dogged by an ever-growing horde of undead.  A repeat of that act today could pin them against the river.

He looked back to SSgt Brown and pointed an open hand towards the stand of trees to the north that bordered the field.  The signal was easy to understand.  “Why don’t we stay in the woods and not out in the open?”  After an approving nod, he backed into the wood line again, and led the group north.

From behind, Theresa could see the large field and the large amounts of zombies in it.  She thought that they would be able to avoid the groups.  But, she wasn’t in charge.  She continued to follow 10 feet behind the soldier.  Suddenly, he stopped and threw his left fist up next to his left ear.  Jackson had taught her that was the hand signal for freeze.  She did.

She could hear something moving in front and off to the left of them.  That was bad.  If it was zombies, it meant that they were inside the woods; they might have to escape through the big, open field anyway.  She watched Sgt Procell let his rifle hang from its strap across his chest and he pulled out his bayonet.

SSgt Brown crept past her, stopping beside the other soldier.  She saw him hold up 3 fingers and point.  She assumed that meant that there were three zombies over there.  The older man pulled out his bayonet also.  Neither man mounted the sharp knife onto the end of their rifles.  She didn’t understand why.

SSgt Brown turned towards the civilians with a finger held in front of his lips.  Then he pointed that same finger towards the ground:  Stay here.  Then he and Sgt Procell crept slowly towards the unseen threat.

There!  She could see them now.  It was three zombies, meandering towards the field.  Two were male, one was a female.  All were adult.  One of the males had on a military uniform or some kind of camouflage.  The female looked like she was out for a jog.  Her jogging suit was torn in several places, covered in her own blood.

The others slid up next to her, watching as the trained soldiers practiced their art.  The pair circled deeper into the woods as they approached the zombies from behind.  As they closed in on their prey, the two rose almost as one.  The woman and the soldier zombies fell to the ground as the soldiers withdrew their blades from the zombie’s heads.

The third zombie turned slowly at the sudden commotion behind it.  A loud moan emanated from its throat as it began advancing on the two soldiers.  The moan was cut short as Sgt Procell drove his blade under the zombie’s chin and into its brain.  The monster dropped to the ground instantly, taking the soldier’s bayonet with it.  Theresa believed she could hear the sucking sound as Sgt Procell shoved the monster off of his bayonet with his boot.

Suddenly, she realized that she heard other sounds.  More to the point, it was like one sound coming from many directions: moaning.  It was very faint at first, almost indiscernible. But it quickly grew louder as zombies in the field and unseen zombies in the woods began to answer the call of the now fallen zombie.

She looked at the two adults kneeling next to her.  They were beginning to hear it too.  They cocked their heads from side to side as if a bug was buzzing around them.  They didn’t get it.  She whispered loudly.  “Zombies!”  Then she pointed in a circle around them.  Ms. Hebert’s eyes became wide with fear.  She got it.

Theresa stood and ran to the soldiers, waving the others on as she did.  The soldiers were both kneeling turning their heads side to side, trying to gauge the danger from each direction.  SSgt Brown turned as Theresa slid in behind them, followed by the other civilians.  Good girl, he thought.

“That way,” he pointed.  It was more of a northwesterly direction, but he believed there were less voices coming from that direction.  “Two columns behind Sgt Procell, go!”

Sgt Procell led the way.  The rest of the group followed.  SSgt Brown and Ms. Hebert were behind and left of Sgt Procell.  Theresa and Shane were in a column on the right.  This allowed SSgt Brown to have more firepower forward if he needed it, but it kept everyone close for tighter control.  He just hoped nobody shot anyone.

Sgt Procell suddenly veered to the right, north.  There were two zombies moving from his left to his right.  This would put the zombies behind the group.  More moaning from the two as the group skirted past them.  Sgt Procell was picking up the pace as he continued to try to weave between groups of zombies that would suddenly appear in front of them.

Suddenly, he realized there was a large group of zombies, ten or more, moving in from their left again.  They were being driven to the field by all these zombies coming from the west.  Shit, he thought.  The trap was closing, and closing fast.

He turned left.  “Going loud,” he shouted over his shoulder.  He hoped the others understood it was time to use their weapons.  The field was about 50 meters away.  There weren’t any zombies between him and the open space.

He dared a quick glance around as he broke into the field.  There was a group of four zombies about 15 yards to his front.  He stopped and raised his rifle.  He felt more than saw someone come on line to his right.  He fired into the head of the closest zombie. Pink mist exploded in a jet behind the zombie’s head on his second shot.  By this time, several other zombies had fallen.

As he aimed at the last zombie, Theresa’s shotgun exploded next to him.  The zombie went down, its head vaporized by the shotgun blast.

From his left, SSgt Brown yelled for them to go.   Just as he began to run, a scream came from over his shoulder.  He turned to see Theresa being pulled to the ground by a zombie that had come from behind them.  There were several others close by.

The fiend that had pulled Theresa down had been a large woman before she died.  She was wearing a moo-moo that was covered in blood.  She had apparently grabbed the girl by her shirt as she began to run.  The force of the girl’s legs had caused both to fall to the ground.  The zombie’s hand still grasped the back of the girl’s collar.  Theresa was on her back, trying in vain to scramble back to her feet.

The monster pulled itself to the girl.  It’s mouth open in anticipation of the fatal bite.  In an instant, Sgt Procell realized he wouldn’t get his rifle up in time.  Shit!  He lunged at the creature, shoving the heel of his boot into its gaping maw.  He could feel the undulation on the bottom of his foot as the monster tried to chew through his shoe and get to his heel.

Gunshots continued to ring out from all around him.  He began smashing the zombie’s face with the butt of his rifle.  He was afraid to shoot for fear of hitting his own foot or damaging his boot.  Finally the undulating stopped and the hand on the girl’s collar relaxed.  He smashed his rifle into the zombies already caved in skull several more times for good measure.

Suddenly, someone grabbed him by his collar and jerked him to his feet.  He turned, coming face to face with Shane.  “Go,” he shouted as he shoved Sgt Procell.  The soldier watched for a moment more as the paramedic pulled Theresa to her feet.  He fired two quick shots into the head of a zombie that was closing in on the girl from her left.  It fell at Shane’s feet.   He turned and ran after the two people he had just saved; ducking a zombie’s reaching arms as he did.

Sgt Procell turned and ran towards the northeast corner of the field.  “C’mon!” he yelled.  “Follow me!”  He risked a glance over his shoulder.  Theresa and Ms. Hebert were close on his heels.  SSgt Brown had stopped to fire at a zombie closing on Shane from his right.  The paramedic was limping as fast is his overweight body would go.

Two quick shots later and SSgt Brown was again running after the group.  He could see that there were two groups of zombies that would cross their path at about the same time.  Four zombies were closing on them from the north and seven or eight were closing in from the south.

“Hit the ones to the north and keep going!”

Sgt Procell was already veering the group in that direction.  He slammed the butt of his rifle into the side of a zombie’s head as he passed.  Theresa slowed just enough to shove her shotgun under the chin of another zombie and pull the trigger.  Another zombie’s head was blown into a bloody-pink mist.  A quick side kick by Ms Hebert knocked the third zombie to the ground.  It wasn’t dead, but by the time it regained its feet, the group was yards past it.  The fourth zombie was too far away to be a threat and was therefore left unmolested.