Green Fields (Book 3): Escalation (30 page)

At the very margin of my field of vision, I saw Bates—what was left of him, anyway—lurch forward with uncanny speed and agility, sinking his teeth into the calf of the guy right next to the one I had lined up. A grab up with his hand and he was pulling the guy down, going straight for his groin—or, more likely, the femoral artery that passed right by it. I didn’t need Nate’s “go” to know that their time was up.

My first shot missed, likely because the guy was jerking away from where his friend was getting mauled, but the second made his head disappear in a spray of blood, bones, and brain. Something deep inside of me howled with triumph, but outside I remained calm—or what semblance of calm my focused mind could produce. Without lingering, I swung the rifle to the right until I found another, still-standing target, and pulled the trigger. I hit his shoulder, but that was still enough to down him. Then the next guy that was crouching by a corpse that was missing half his neck, blood gushing everywhere. Make that two corpses. And between all the screaming and shouting, that unmistakable zombie howl rose when Bates let off the lifeless body he’d attacked and started dragging himself forward, using that one arm he had left to move surprisingly quickly.

Within the first minute, at least twelve bodies hit the ground, but they weren’t stupid. As soon as they realized that the zombie in their midst wasn’t the real problem, they remained under cover as much as possible. That didn’t make our work impossible, but somewhat harder. Unless with that one guy who thought that the open door of his truck would protect him. Another shot, another kill.

“Move in,” Nate commanded, and I heard the grass rustle softly as he ran by me, down the slope. “Snipers, remain in position until anyone is approaching your position. You know what to do.” That, I did.

Two more targets hit the ground, although the second managed to crawl for cover before I could finish him off. I didn’t bother with waiting for him to reappear, but scanned the yard below for a new target instead. Maybe he would bleed out in the meantime. If not, he’d present an easy target for one of the others.

It was sheer luck that I pulled away from my rifle scope for a moment to wipe sweat off on my arm, noticing movement on the slope to my side, vaguely from the direction I’d come after rolling off the truck. I scanned the area over my shoulder, feeling unease creep up my spine. I turned back to my rifle, but kept my focus on the very edge of my vision. Yup, there it was again. Someone was sneaking up on me—or trying to.

I considered what to do. I could of course jump up and try to shoot them first, but the fact that I still had something attached to my shoulders above my neck told me that they weren’t carrying a sniper rifle themselves. I couldn’t really count on them only having short-range weapons like a shotgun or pistol. That left me with a dilemma—did I try to shoot them before they were too close for the sniper rifle to be effective and risk getting gunned down? Or did I wait until they were close enough for the shotgun to be of use?

What made me decide to go for option two wasn’t common sense, but our people barging into the barn from the back, making a couple of men step into my direct line of sight as they tried to put up defensive fire. If taking a few more of the bastards down meant that I was going to bite it, so be it.

I didn’t hesitate, didn’t even take the time to line up perfect shots. I emptied the remaining four shells into the bastards below, quickly reloading to take another five shots. Rustling in the grass made me tense and the last two shots went wide, but I didn’t care. As soon as the last round left the barrel, I dropped the M24, gripped my shotgun, and threw myself to the right, rolling twice before I ended up on my back. Rearing up in a half-crunch that strained my abs, I brought the Mossberg up and fired, immediately pumping another round into the chamber and firing again. The first shot went wide, making the guy that was maybe twenty feet away from me jerk up. The second didn’t miss.

I didn’t bother with getting up but threw my body into another roll, making the two shots from a small caliber handgun hit the bare ground where I’d been seconds ago. As soon as the moment of vertigo passed, I aimed and shot, coming to my feet in one jerky motion due to the recoil slamming into my chest. I hit, but only his leg, making him crumble and drop his gun, screaming. And because it was that kind of a day, I didn’t leave him there but shot him straight in the face, finishing him off.

With my cover blown for good, there was no sense to stealth, so I simply snatched up my rifle, slung it across my back, and high-tailed it down the slope and into the fray. It was probably more dumb luck that got me down there unscathed, my shotgun fully loaded once more. Across the yard I saw Burns crouch behind the red pickup, so I made my way over to him, whistling softly as I advanced to let him know I was there. He briefly looked back, giving me a jerk with his chin to fall in behind him. He laid down a barrage of fire as soon as he stepped out of cover, and I followed suit, aiming at slightly below chest area at the three men coming at us. Burns’s rapid-fire rifle staccato made them duck—leaving their heads right where my slugs chewed into them. I reloaded as soon as my back hit the side of the barn, giving Burns the “go” as I chambered the next round.
 

That was what I continued to do until I ran out of ammo, then ran out of the shotgun shells I managed to scavenge from the dead. Few of them carried good weapons, and even fewer the grade of ammunition I’d gotten used to. Then I was down to my Beretta, and more shooting and slamming fresh mags into the gun.

And then there was no one left to shoot anymore.

Not quite, I realized, as I followed Burns back into the center of the yard that was now heaped with the dead and the dying. The guys had five of the fuckers lined up, kneeling on the hard-packed dirt, arms locked behind their backs with zip-ties—among them the guy who had first shot Burns.

Adrenaline surged, burning the exhaustion right out of my veins as my gaze fell on him. I’d never understood the meaning of something bringing your blood to boiling, but that was exactly how I felt right now. My breath came in heavy pants that had nothing to do with being out of air, and I felt my fingers grip the gun so hard that they hurt.

Nate stepping into my field of vision briefly diverted my attention, but what I really wanted to do was stalk over to that guy, ram my Beretta into his damn mouth, and blow his brains to hell, right where he belonged. And maybe punch him in the face before that until my knuckles were bruised and hurting. And castrate him. Cut him limb from limb, just as he had his men do to Bates. And—

“I think you will be needing these,” Nate said. I forced my eyes up to his face, scanning it without the words taking on any meaning. When he looked down at where his hand was between us, I did so, too, recognizing what he held as some of the shotgun slugs from my pack. That they were actually mine was no question. I doubted any of the cannibals had been so fucking bored during the past week that they’d started drawing doodles on the shells of their spare ammo.

My gaze shifted to what was making those disgusting noises over by the shed.
 

My fault. My business.

My grip on the Beretta went slack and I put it back where it belonged before I could fumble and drop it. Inhaling sharply, I plucked the shells up and slammed them one after the other into my Mossberg, not needing to take my eyes off the spectacle to do what had long since engraved itself into my brain.

Stepping up to where what was left of Bates was happily tearing into the remains of a heap of flesh, I hefted the shotgun, feeling my throat burn with tears that I would never allow myself to shed. The sound of me transferring the first round into the chamber made him look up, blood and strings of saliva dripping from his mouth. He screamed, or tried to, his mouth too full to let much of a sound come out.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” I said, my voice so raw that the words were barely audible.

I shot him in the face, decapitating him with a second shot.

Another piece of me, deep down inside, died for good.

The repeat loud boom of the shotgun reverberated through my body, but shook me right back out of my funk. I waited a moment longer to turn away, making sure that the zombie wouldn’t come after me. Only then did I look back to Nate. His face was blank—and rather dirty, smeared with blood, grime, and sweat—but there was not a hint of blame in his eyes. Just a deep kind of understanding that I could tell he wished I’d never come to experience.

My gaze skipped to our captives, and whatever hint of a positive emotion had been forming in my heart was starkly quenched again. Only the sound of voices—several voices, too high to belong to anyone male above the age of thirteen—made my head snap up and turn toward the now open doors of the barn. I blinked, my mind needing a few moments to process what I was seeing.

“Guess we found the pantry,” Nate remarked wryly. How he managed to sound amused was beyond me.

Andrej and Pia were busy cutting chains and busting locks, freeing what were easily twenty women and children—all in rags, looking scared beyond relief as they were clutching at each other—from honest-to-God iron cages they had been kept in. Somehow, the fact that none of them looked particularly malnourished under all that filth just made it ten times worse. And while they let themselves be shooed out of the shed, they kept clinging to each other, eyeing us with the same wary gazes as their captors. Guess we weren’t looking like the most trustworthy bunch right now. I couldn’t exactly fault them for that, even if my first reaction was contempt—something I really wasn’t proud of. I knew that it should have been compassion or something similar.

This was one more variant of madness that I so didn’t want to deal with. Thankfully, there was something else I could occupy myself with right in front of me.

“What about them?” I asked Nate, not needing to look at the captives—ours, not theirs—for him to know who I was referring to.

His shrug could have meant anything, but in this context I was pretty sure it was a true, “What do I care?” if there’d ever been one.

With everyone else busy with guard duty or liberating the women and children, I thought it might as well be me who dealt with what remained of the scourge of Illinois.

Walking up to the captives, I focused on the one who had shot Bates, ignoring the others for now. Covered in just as much dirt as the others, I couldn’t have made a very neat picture, but he still held a manner of contempt in his eyes as he leered up at me. Without saying a word, I rammed the stock of my shotgun into his face, busting his nose. He grunted but didn’t even scream—most dissatisfying, that.

Glaring down at him, I brought the shotgun back into a ready position in front of my chest.

“Recognize me? Not that your good-for-nothing trackers actually found me.”

Through the blood streaming down his face, he grinned. “You’re his bitch, aren’t you? Thought you were so smart when you tried to hide your panties? Guess in a way you got what you deserved. Want more? Just untie me, and I’ll gladly give you what a whore like you is asking for.”

I wasn’t sure if he was simply baiting me into killing him quickly, but that wasn’t what I intended for him. For some reason that I didn’t want to explore, grinning back at him was easy.

“Oh, don’t worry, you and me? We’re going to have some fun with each other.” Looking over to the other four, I tried to get a better read of them. Two looked scared enough that they’d likely already shit their pants—one was crying and sobbing quietly—while the others seemed more petulant but still clearly afraid. Considering what had happened to all the others, they didn’t seem to harbor any false hopes about their fate.
 

The urge to just have a go at them with my fists and boots, or maybe a baseball bat if I found one, was strong enough that it threatened to choke me, but I did my best to keep a lid on the hot fury raging through me. From Nate I knew that cold, restrained anger was much more powerful than just lashing out—at least until I got what I wanted.

“I have a proposition for you,” I told the captives, letting my eyes flicker to the guy with the busted nose, too, although I’d already mentally excluded him from my offer. “First one that talks gets away easy.” I hadn’t really expected them to spill their guts, but the guy who was scared but hadn’t completely lost it looked up at me with a sudden glimmer of hope. The one next to the leader just spat at the bloody ground in front of my feet. I ignored him.

“What you wanna know?” Scared Guy asked, ignoring the growl coming from the man kneeling right next to him.

“Situational intel,” I forced myself to say, because screaming at him how the fuck they could ever have sunk so low just didn’t cut it. “How many men are here at this compound? Do you have patrols out that haven’t returned yet? A second base or hideouts? Weapon caches or food stashed away that didn’t come from dubious origins?”
 

From the corner of my eye I could see Nate take position behind and slightly to my side, but he looked completely at ease—which he obviously wasn’t—and a strange sense of… could that be actual approval that he was radiating? The captives seemed unaware of that, mostly focusing their low cursing on me.

Scared Guy hedged for a few seconds, but when the sobbing one opened his mouth and tried to cough up some garbled words, he quickly started to talk.

“Thirty-seven men. No, thirty-six, we lost one last week to sepsis from a broken ankle.” I wondered if he’d ended up on the grill, too. “No hideouts, and all patrols should have come in. You can count.”