Fracked (15 page)

John and Rebecca leapt over the fallen corpses as the black substance slithered around the floor and searched for new hosts.

Outside on the porch, Rebecca fired on two men wearing pajamas that were sprinting towards them.

Both men spritzed blood as the bullets found their mark; they tumbled down into the dirt.

John and Rebecca stood in front of the house and scanned the dark with their rifles.

They heard frantic footsteps and screaming closing in on them from every direction.

The couple ran towards the armored vehicle; the deceased gunner was slouched over the mounted machine gun and the driver-side door was wide-open.

A black helicopter adorned with the Triburton logo swooped out of the darkness overhead and kicked up a plume of dust. It turned on its searchlight and centered it on John and Rebecca.

“This is the United States Army! Put down your weapons immediately! Stop where you are! We’ll take you to safety!” a voice boomed over the helicopter’s PA system.

Ignoring the helicopter’s orders, they squinted and covered their face as they neared the vehicle.

“Get inside!” John shouted.

Rebecca climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut.

John climbed atop, snatched the gunner’s corpse, pulled him out of the nest, and let him flop to the ground. He climbed into the gunner’s nest and repeatedly pounded his closed fist against the roof of the vehicle.

“Go! Go! Go!” John shouted.

Rebecca mashed the accelerator to the floor as infected emerged out of the darkness and sprinted towards the vehicle.

The armored vehicle plowed through the besieging infected and tossed their twisted, mangled corpses aside like ragdolls.

Rebecca spun the vehicle across the gravel driveway and took a hard right turn onto the street, nearly tossing John out of the gunner’s nest.

The infected horde chased after the vehicle on the ground, while the helicopter followed it overhead with its searchlight centered directly on it.

John grabbed the machine gun and spun it around towards the helicopter.

He fired.

The helicopter’s searchlight shattered and black smoke started churning out the cabin.

The craft spun out of control and crashed into an empty field off of the side of the road. It blossomed into a massive fireball and sent smoldering debris scattering across the dusty landscape.

The infected horde immediately lost interest in the vehicle and started running towards the fallen craft, screaming and snarling.

John let out a sigh of relief as he sunk out of the gunner’s nest and crawled back down into the vehicle. He crawled over to the passenger seat and sat beside Rebecca.

Rebecca kept her gaze fixated out the window and her hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. Her red eyes started tearing and it wasn’t long before she started sobbing quietly.

He looked over at her and watched her, frowning...

Rebecca pretended not to notice him staring at her as she kept her steadfast gaze on the desolate country road.

John turned his attention down at his feet, ashamed.

After all, he knew that she probably felt frightened and lost.

He knew that she needed him to say something, anything, but he had no words.

He simply had no words of comfort to offer her.

He lost his family’s home…

His grandfather’s land…

His past…

That damned virus consumed everything in its path.

John felt… broken.

He knew she was frightened, but, in truth, he was just as frightened as she was.

About fifteen miles away from the small town of Tilden, John and Rebecca approached a massive roadblock that stretched across the narrow highway. Rows of halogen floodlights, concrete barricades, and two small tanks blocked the roadway.

The only way past the roadblock required going through a tight security corridor.

A small battalion of soldiers wearing black uniforms was busy searching every military vehicle that passed through the narrow corridor while another team decontaminated the outside of the vehicles.

Rebecca slowed the armored vehicle to a stop in the middle of the road.

“What do we do?” she asked with a defeated tone. “They think we’re one of them, but if we try to drive through, they’ll search the vehicle and find us…”

John frowned and stared at the roadblock, thinking.

“We could always ram through or just drive around it,” he said.

Rebecca shook her head and sunk down in the driver’s seat.

“You know that won’t work…” she said with a sigh. “It looks like they have Tilden on lockdown. The road leading up towards Pleasanton is nothing but sixty miles of desert. Those goons will chase us down and murder us long before we make it anywhere remotely near civilization.”

John nodded and crossed his arms over his chest.

“You’re right,” he admitted.

He thought about the news report he saw on television...

“The interstate is our only option,” John muttered.

Rebecca looked over at him, confused.

“John… if they’re covering the smaller back roads like this, don’t you think they’ll have even tighter security on the interstate?” she asked.

“You don’t understand,” John said as he held up his hand and furrowed his brows. “I saw the news back at the house… They had a reporter on the scene. Behind her, I saw tons of cars and real police. Sure, the soldiers will chase us and try to stop us, but if we make it to the edge of the quarantine zone, we may have a shot of escaping this if we get in front of some eyewitnesses and, more importantly, some cameras.”

Rebecca frowned, not convinced.

“That sounds risky,” she said. “Even if we escape the soldiers, we may never make it to the edge of the zone safely. They’ll chase us down and kill us.”

John nodded.

“True,” he said. “I never said that they’re good odds, but they’re the best odds we got.”

“So… we turn around and go back through town?” she asked.

“Unfortunately I don’t see any other choice,” John said as he gestured towards the barricade. “We need to get out of here quick before they try to figure out why one of their vehicles is parked in middle of the road. We’re far enough away, but I’m sure that they spotted us by now.”

Rebecca remained quiet for a few moments, considering it.

She finally sighed and nodded.

“Fine… We’ll try it your way,” she said as she squeezed the steering wheel and vacantly stared out the windshield. Dark circles surrounded her eyes. At first glance she appeared pale and ill. “I’m completely exhausted though and my head is killing me… do you mind taking over for a while?”

“Sure,” John said as he maneuvered over the center console towards the driver’s seat. “Scooch over.”

Rebecca crawled over into the passenger seat while John took position behind the steering wheel.

John turned the vehicle around and headed back towards town while Rebecca curled up in the passenger seat and closed her eyes.

They rode in silence.

After driving for about fifteen minutes, they passed their house.

John glanced over at it briefly…

It looked like it’d been through a war. The entire front of the house was riddled with holes and every window was shattered. The center of the roof caved into the attic and the smoldering remnants of the pick-up truck sat in front of the carport. Dead bodies littered the dusty lawn.

John’s eyes started to water at what his house had become, and, even more heartbreaking, was the realization that he’d never see it again.

He quickly looked away and focused his attention back on the road.

Rebecca didn’t even open her eyes.

Suddenly a message started crackling through the vehicle’s radio.

“Command to all units still inside blast vicinity! Fallback immediately to Tilden for demobilization and extraction. I repeat, fallback immediately to Tilden for extraction. Thermobaric sterilization has been cleared and is a go. ETA for high-capacity FAEs will be t-minus sixty minutes,” the voice ordered.

Rebecca slowly opened her eyes and looked over at John with concern.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

John frowned.

“They’re pulling out,” he said.

Rebecca stared at the dash and shook her head.

“Pulling out? I don’t understand… What’s an FAE?” she asked.

John hesitated before answering.

“It’s… a fuel-air explosive,” he finally said. “It’s like a massive firebomb.”

“But… they already tried that,” she said as she massaged her forehead.

John shook his head.

“No, that was napalm localized to the downtown area,” he said. “This time, well, I think they’re going to vaporize the entire area. They lost all control and they damned well know it.”

A convoy of armored vehicles and black Triburton vans sped away from Tres Rios towards Tilden and flew past John’s vehicle, nearly pushing him off of the road.

“Jesus…” Rebecca muttered as three Triburton helicopters followed the retreating convoy overhead. “Will we make it out in time?”

John glanced down at his scuffed Timex and nodded.

“An hour is plenty of time,” he assured. “We’ll be fine.”

“Do you think many are left?” she asked weakly. “In town I mean…”

John shook his head.

“No, I imagine that the napalm took care of most of ‘em,” he said.

She didn’t seem convinced by his words.

They passed a burning oil rig and a row of destroyed armored vehicles. Badly burnt infected shambled around the rig in circles, looking lost and confused.

John stared at the scene but couldn’t make sense out of it.

Why were the soldiers mounting attacks against the rigs?

Even more curious, why did the infected seem to care?

Rebecca groaned and wrapped her arms around her abdomen.

John glanced over at her, concerned.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

She quickly nodded.

“I’m fine, I just feel nauseated. Just drive and get us out of here,” she said without looking at him.

John frowned, but didn’t press the issue. He turned his attention back towards the road.

As they drove, he spotted numerous other rigs were engulfed in flames. The ones that weren’t, however, were covered with infected corpses.

The corpses scaled the sides of the rigs like grotesque monkeys, clawing and battering the rig’s pipes in attempt to attain the substance inside. They ran their tentacle appendages up and down the pipes and sucked the oily pipes clean.

The more they drank the more grotesque and muscular they became. Boils covered their skin and strange black growths formed over their bodies. They hardly even resembled humans anymore.

Worse yet, there were thousands of them.

It became apparent to him why the soldiers were attacking the rigs, but it was also apparent that their efforts were too little too late.

He glanced over at Rebecca to see if she saw, but she had her eyes closed and didn’t seem to notice a thing. Her forehead was covered with sweat.

John knew something was wrong, but he had to stay focused on the mission at hand.

All he knew was that he had to get her out of there.

After nearly thirty minutes of driving in silence, John finally saw the edge of Tres Rios’ smoldering downtown.

A man ran out from the shadows into the middle of the road, brandishing a shotgun. He was wearing a dirty Triburton uniform. He pointed the shotgun at the windshield and stood his ground.

John’s eyes widened as soon as he spotted the man.

He slammed on the brakes.

The vehicle screeched to a halt a few feet away from the man with the shotgun.

Rebecca was jolted out of her uneasy, feverish sleep and looked at the armed man with a fearful expression.

“What are you doing?!” she asked John in a panic. “Don’t stop! Keep driving!”

John looked at the man in disbelief.

Gregory Lopez’s dark skin was covered with scratches and scars. A bloodied bandage was wrapped around his hand. His brown eyes were bloodshot and his peppery hair was oily and messy.

“I can’t… It’s Greg,” John said as he started to open the door. “I know him… He’s a friend.”

“Toss out your weapons and let me see your hands! Get out slowly or I’ll shoot! That glass ain’t bullet-proof!” Greg yelled as he started to step towards the driver’s side door.

“Greg! It’s me!” John shouted as he opened the driver-side door and stepped out onto the pavement with his hands in the air.

Greg blinked, narrowed his eyes, and lowered his shotgun.

“John…?” Greg said, shocked.

John nodded and smiled.

Greg laughed and walked up to John. He wrapped his arms around him and hugged tightly.

John chuckled and slapped Greg on the back.

Greg stepped back and looked at John with disbelief.

“I never thought I’d say this, but damn it’s great to see you!” Greg said.

John laughed.

“Well it’s good to see your old scruffy face again too,” John said.

Greg looked at the vehicle and nodded, admiring it with a whistle.

“How did you manage to grab one of these monsters?” Greg asked. “There isn’t a working vehicle around for miles… Believe me, we’ve looked.”

“It wasn’t easy,” John said with a frown.

Greg nodded and stepped around John to look inside. He saw Rebecca and waved.

Rebecca gave a half-hearted smile and waved back, uneasy.

“So… is it just you two?” Greg inquired with a smile, turning towards John.

John gave him a quizzical look and nodded.

“What about you, Greg?” John asked. “How is your family…?”

Greg sighed and shook his head.

“We tried John, we really did,” Greg said with his head lowered. “I mean, after stuff started popping off downtown, I got Reba and the girls in my truck and tried to get out of dodge. We didn’t even make it half-way to Tilden before we were attacked.”

“Attacked by those ghouls or the soldiers?” John asked.

Greg shook his head.

“Neither,” Greg said with a shrug. “McCoy’s boy and some of his friends carjacked us.” He pointed at his scarred face. “I tried to put up a fight, but they were fighting dirty, John, real damn dirty.”

John thought for a moment. The name was familiar but it took a while for him to place a face to it.

Recognition finally struck him.

“Jesus… Robbie did that to you?” John asked.

Greg raised his eyebrows and nodded.

“Yep… Just two days ago he was helping me paint the shed… We even had a beer together. Imagine my surprise,” Greg said, shaking his head again. “It’s frightening what fear makes some people do. It’s just… so…”

His voice trailed off as he looked at the ground.

John frowned.

“How are they holding up?” John asked with concern.

“Who?” Greg asked as he looked back up at John as if broken out of a trance.

“Your family,” John emphasized.

“Ah, yeah, yeah…” Greg muttered, nodding. “We’ve been hiding, mostly, avoiding the soldiers and the sick people. Reba and the girls are safe, thank God. Robbie and his crew didn’t touch them.”

“That’s good to hear,” John said with a stern expression.

“Yeah, it is,” Greg replied flatly. “Yours?”

“She’s safe,” John quickly answered.

“Good… Good…” Greg muttered. “John, I’ll get right down to it... I have a serious problem.”

“I know,” John said. “They’re going to vaporize the whole town. We need to get out of here.”

“Yeah, I figured that they were going that route when I saw their caravans leaving,” Greg said. “They’re about to do something really nasty… and I don’t have a vehicle.”

John extended his hand towards the armored vehicle.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re more than welcome to ride with us,” John said.

Greg looked at John with a dismissive, sad expression.

“I have kids, John…” Greg said. “Riding with others… Well, that’s just a risk I can’t afford. What if you get sick? What if your wife gets it? What if one of you already has it and just don’t know it?  I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, John…”