Here We Stand (Book 1): Infected (Surviving The Evacuation) (24 page)

The vehicle rumbled up the dip. He could see it clearly now, one hundred yards away. He moved to his left, so he was better concealed. Ninety yards. He’d chosen the wrong spot, his angle of fire was restricted, but it was too late to change it now. Fifty. Forty. It would stop any second. It bounced over the first of the corpses they’d killed during the night. Thirty. It wasn’t slowing. Twenty. Bones cracked, dead skin burst as those thick tires rolled over the bodies. Ten. It wasn’t going to stop.

The APC slammed into the flimsy barricade. The air filled with the sound of wood splintering and metal scraping against metal. Tom sprinted for the only cover he could reach, the staircase that led to the motel’s upper floor. He rolled to the ground, coughing and wincing as the noise subsided. The engine cut out. A moment later, bullets flew, smacking into concrete, ricocheting off metal. He hugged the ground.

“Cease fire,” a voice drawled.

Tom raised his head. He thought he could see a rifle barrel, and the corner of a helmet behind it, but that was all.

“Mr Clemens, you mind if I call you that?”

Tom couldn’t see who was speaking. “Is that you, Powell?” he called.

“Powell? Ah, yes. Agent Powell. Call me… Herold.”

“Powell? Herold? What’s your real name?” Tom called.

“Oh, you’re hardly one to talk. Clemens? Finn?
Sholto
? Do you get all your names from books?”

Tom glanced up at the sky, hoping against hope that perhaps the helicopter might arrive. What Powell said next disabused him of it.

“You wanted an extraction, didn’t you, Mr Clemens? Well, here we are, ready to pull you like a rotten tooth.”

He was one of those, Tom thought, the kind of man who liked the sound of his voice. He wondered how long he’d spent working on the line. Still, it did confirm no help was coming.

His options were limited. He was fifty feet from the manager’s office. That was the only door that was unlocked. In front of the office were the raised flowerbeds. They would probably stop a bullet from an automatic rifle, but that still meant a dash across nearly forty-five feet of exposed ground. He supposed he could dive through the ground-floor window of one of the rooms, assuming he could break the glass, but then what? The only escape were the trucks on the track behind the motel. He might get to one, but what if that track led nowhere? Better to attack and get it over with.

“Who sent you?” he called back.

“Does it matter?” Powell replied. “There’ll be plenty of time for questions later. Throw out your weapons, come out with your hands up. You know the routine. Quickly, Mr Clemens, it won’t be long before we have company of the most
un
pleasant sort.”

Tom caught the inflection. He peered around the corner. He could see the assault rifle, the helmet behind it, and behind that… yes, he could make out the edge of a face with white-blond hair.

“Okay,” he said.

Shoot the window. Two shots and hope it broke. They’d think he was going to run through it, and so that was where they would aim. That would be his chance to fire the other four shots and hope they hit.

He breathed out. Aimed at the window.

“Hey!” someone yelled.

There was the sound of glass breaking. A whomph. A scream. He peered around the corner of the stairs. The front of the BearCat was in flames. The soldier’s arm was on fire, and he was beating at it with his other hand. Tom raised the revolver. Where was Powell? There, he saw him.

Another bottle sailed through the air, landing on the vehicle’s roof. A sheet of flame washed over it, and Powell was lost from view. Tom pulled the trigger twice before he truly understood what was happening. Someone – it had to be Helena – had thrown the remaining Molotov cocktails at the vehicle. He couldn’t see her, but when a third bottle didn’t come he hoped she’d decided to run. It was time for him to do the same. He ran across the motel parking lot, trying to get sight of Powell. Automatic fire sprayed across the asphalt. He rolled, fired, and changed direction. The shooting recommenced, though this time the bullets went nowhere near him. He reached the manager’s office, pointed the revolver at the vehicle, and pulled the trigger. The hammer hit a spent round.

“Tom!” It was Helena, calling through the door on the other side of the office. She had her bag across her back, her pistol in one hand, and a glass bottle in the other.

Bullets sprayed the window. She ducked out of sight, as he raised his hand to protect his face from the falling glass.

“Tom!”

“It’s Powell,” he said, reloading. “I’ve got to kill him.”

“The zombies, Tom. They’re coming. All of them.”

He paused. “What do you mean all?”

“They were following the BearCat. Didn’t you see? There are hundreds of them.”

He heard more shots, but no sound of impacts. Gingerly, he raised his head. Flames licked along the wood of the barricade and toward the motel rooms. He could make out the shape of the armored car, but not of the people beyond it. The gunfire intensified, but it wasn’t aimed at them.

“Tom, please,” Helena said. “While we still can.”

There was a scream. The gunfire slackened. A figure staggered through the gap in the burning barricade. It wasn’t wearing a uniform. He raised the gun.

“Tom!”

Another figure lurched through the barricade, and then a third.

Reluctantly, Tom stood and followed Helena outside. They jogged away from the motel toward the woods. When he turned back, he saw movement. He stopped, raising the revolver. He lowered it again. There was no point wasting bullets on the undead.

By the time they reached the two trucks he’d moved to the track the day before, the motel was an inferno.

Helena pulled a lighter from her pocket. “Get in the truck. Start the engine,” she said, opening the door of the second vehicle.

Tom stood by the lead truck’s door. He wanted to know that Powell was dead. The zombie that had followed them from the motel was getting nearer. There were other figures behind it. None wore uniforms. Reluctantly, he got in the truck.

Helena lit the rag sticking out of the top of the bottle. “I want to make sure they can’t escape,” she said, dropping it into the rear-most truck. “Go!” she yelled, running to the passenger-side door.

He didn’t need the encouragement. He put his foot on the gas, and drove away. When he glanced in the rear-view mirror, he saw a plume of dirty black smoke pouring upward from the motel and flames engulfing the truck behind them.

“Thank you,” he said. “For not leaving.”

“Yeah. Sure,” she said. There was a tremor in her voice.

“Thank you,” he said again.

“Do you think Powell’s dead?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

And maybe he was, but there were other conspirators in the cabal. They wouldn’t stop. Farley wouldn’t give up. Not now. Not ever. Not until he was dead. America was crumbling. The world was on fire. Nonetheless, as the truck bounced along the unpaved track, he thought there was hope. A small one, sure, but it was there. The slimmest of chances that maybe the world still might be saved. Maybe.

To be continued…

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Other novels:

Surviving The Evacuation

The outbreak began in New York. Within days, it spread throughout the world. Nowhere is safe from the undead. Books 1-3 are the journals of Bill Wright, a political operative trapped in London after the city is evacuated. Books 4-7 tell of Nilda, a mother searching the wasteland for her son.

1. London 2. Wasteland
(Zombies vs The Living Dead - a short story introducing characters that appear in Book 3)
3. Family 4. Unsafe Haven 5. Reunion 6. Harvest 7. Home 
&
Here We Stand -
the story of the outbreak, and Sholto’s attempt to stop it.

Strike a Match

In 2019, the AIs went to war. Millions died before a nuclear holocaust brought an end to their brief reign of terror. Billions more succumbed to radiation poisoning, disease, and the chaotic violence of that apocalypse. Some survived. They rebuilt.

Twenty years later, civilization is a dim shadow of its former self. Crime is on the rise, aided by a shadowy conspiracy. It is down to Detectives Mitchell, Riley, and Deering of the Serious Crimes Unit to unmask the conspirators and save their fragile democracy.

1. Serious Crimes

2. Counterfeit Conspiracy

Work Rest Repeat

Sixty years after The Great War, the last survivors of humanity have taken shelter in giant towers. The colony ships that will allow them to leave the diseased Earth are nearing completion when two murders are discovered. For our species to survive, the criminals must be caught, and the launch must go ahead.

Thanks for reading.