Infected (Book 1): The First Ten Days (31 page)

He’s not even holding it.

At some point between when he heard my gunshots and when he entered the house he put his gun away. Rafael planned to overpower his opponent; he planned to overpower me.

As fast as this large man was, I could easily outmaneuver him. If I used agility to my advantage and obstructed his path, I could lose him in the house and then focus on Adam who was faster and more agile. The advantage was I could take Adam in close quarter combat. I could disarm him and subdue him with ease.

I listened closely while I patiently listened to Rafael’s movements.

Rafael left the room and went to the one across the hallway.

I was tempted to take a dive out through the window, but the chances were Adam would spot me and shoot me instantly if he heard me. I needed to deal with them here so I could safely leave the area.

By then I figured the two kids would have manage to get themselves out of the neighborhood and back on the way to Richard. I wished I didn’t have to send them ahead to stop that monster, but options were limited.

I moved away from the shadows and aimed the gun squarely at the door. I slide my boots against the floor quietly to avoid the sound of the boot coming down onto the wooden floors. The floor was eager to make my location known and squeaked under my weight.

No more than the fraction of a second could have gone by before you could hear Rafael rush out of the room he searched and back into the one I was in. The moment I came into his line of sight he tackled me into the wall behind me.

The gun flew out of my hand and landed somewhere in the darkness.

I could hear Adam rush through the house to get up the stairs and to Rafael’s aid.

Rafael pinned me against the wall and tried to enable me further with punches to my kidneys and stomach. The first few hits left me without air. I took the cheap shot and kneed him between the legs. Whatever could help would help. He went down instantly. I took this moment the cheap shot opened up and ran to shut the door to the room. I was going to have a hard enough time with Rafael alone if he didn’t manage to toss me around like a rag doll. I tried to save every second before Rafael stood up and pushed a dresser in front of the door to stop Adam from getting inside to make things this much harder.

Now it was me and Rafael confined in a small bedroom. Things were not looking up, but I pushed forward. By the time I finished pushing the dresser in front of the door Rafael composed himself and stood back on his feet. Nothing but shards of light from the soon to rise sun made it to our side of the window, slowly but surely visibility would increase. I needed to last long enough for this to happen so I could find the gun and change things to my advantage.

Adam banged on the door and tried to knock it down. He couldn’t blindly shoot and risk hitting Rafael, which was precisely the plan. Rafael brushed himself off and stood up ready to fight me. He didn’t even reach for his gun; he wanted to take me out with his own two hands.

“You’re not leaving this room alive!” Rafael said and readied himself to attack me.

“Think about this, Rafael! You don’t have to do whatever Richard says. And anything that happened between us in the past is in the past.” He was not easy to reason with because he didn’t understand reason, but it was worth a try if it could get me out of a fight with such a massive man.

Out of nowhere Rafael rushed at me swinging. His right fist swung at me first, I dodged under it and moved around him to give him my own right hook on the ribs. As if I didn’t even touch him, he turned around and swung again. Right, left, right, left; he swung to end me instead of beat me. Two of his punches made contact, his left fist met the right side of my face, cheek and cheek bone and the following right hook made contact with my ribs. It wasn’t the time to whine about the pain so I fought through it. I jabbed him in the throat which stopped him cold in his rampage. I followed up with a right kick to push him back and catch my breath before going back for seconds.

This time I rushed Rafael, instead of the other way around. I slammed him back onto the dresser I put in front of the door that Adam still failed to knock down. I took shots at his jaw, his chest, his stomach, kidneys and neck, all of which made impact, none of which made a difference. Rafael used his arms to protect his face and when I took my last shot he grabbed me and with his raw power he flung me across the room. I landed next to the bed. Rafael then walked over and kicked me repeatedly in the abdomen. He disabled any further attacks from me. I was forced to change my position out of anything I could attack from and go into a defensive one, this way I could protect myself from damage too serious which could be caused by Rafael’s repeated kicks.

My eyes focused on the reflection of the increasingly blue sky, off of a silver barrel. I could see the clouds in the reflection. An L shaped sky slowly moved about in its calm and peaceful day.

Focus, it’s a gun!

The gun, I looked at the gun. I was thrown right next to the gun by Rafael.

Take it and do it! It’s either me or him!

I was forced into a corner, I had to do this.

I waited till the next kick made impact and broke my defense to reach for the gun. My fingers wrapped around its cold frame and a sense of safety and power rushed through me combined with complete awareness that humanity was desperate, Rafael was desperate, and this resulted in my own desperation.

Three pops left me temporarily deaf and down came two hundred and eighty pounds of pure muscle packed in a six foot six meat bag, right on top of me.

“Rafael?” Adam knew what happened. I didn’t bother to answer for Rafael; I was more concerned with stopping his body from crushing all the air out of my lungs.

I pushed him off of me and I stood up.

“RAFAEL!” Adam yelled. He knew Rafael was dead.

Eleven rounds left.

I aimed the gun at the door. Pop, pop, pop, I was deaf again. Three holes the size of small beetles poked through the door. I wasn’t going to check if I hit Adam. Those were warning shots as far as I was concerned. Whether it turned out the truth or the justification was not my problem.

Eight rounds left.

I heard nothing from the other side of the door, but I couldn’t risk Adam hiding out ready to ambush me so I scanned the room and found a chair against one of the walls. This was my escape plan, I was going to throw the chair through the window and make my exit down a two story drop. I avoided all thought on the matter and let my body take over. Survival instinct dictated a few bruises from a well placed two story drop was a safer choice of bet than going out through the bedroom door and getting shot multiple times.

Out went the chair, a sudden crash followed, a sprinkle of glass hit the ground on the other side.

It was only a matter of time before the infected tracked the sound of the gun shots the entire way back to this neighborhood. Since I shot the gun to attract Rafael and Adam in the first place it was obvious the infected were already on their way to us, these extra gunshots confirmed which direction they needed to go. The woods offered some support to slow them down but based on their numbers back at the warehouse, it was not going to be pleasant to be around when they made it through.

Out I went. I gave myself a running start so I could achieve more of a horizontal angle on impact and roll with the momentum, this way the pressure and damage would spread out through my body and lower the risk of serious injury.

Cold air rushed right by me and I hit the ground on the other side. There were no infected yet. There was some time to get away before they reached the house.

The front door to the house was kicked open and Adam walked out, he applied pressure to his right shoulder. His handgun tightly gripped in his right hand.

I took cover behind a tree by the sidewalk. When I looked around the side of the tree at Adam he held his left hand to support his right one up and take aim.

Pop!

I took cover again.

One bullet slammed right into the tree and cut a small entrance into it with no exit on the other side.

The more shots fired the more effectively the infected could track us. He had to be stopped. I was done trying to reason with Richard’s control over people. Anyone under him was ruthless and in order to deal with them I was going to have to be equally as ruthless against them.

I turned around, still behind the tree, and aimed the gun at the tree towards where I thought Adam could be if the tree wasn’t in the way. I prepared myself to take three steps to the right, get him into my sight and open fire.

One deep breath

Two seconds in between

Three steps two the right

Four flicks of my finger over the trigger

Five pops…

I hit him three of the four times.

Tightness in my chest and stomach caused my arm to jerk and clench in pain. He hit me too.

Adam’s lifeless body met with the floor and my still living body did the same.

Infected yelled nearby in the woods as they made their way to me. I didn’t know if the round pierced any major organs.

I assumed the round missed anything important and forced myself up, dealt with the pain and tried to find somewhere I could stop and apply pressure to the wound. But first of all, I had to get the hell out of there.

I placed my cold right hand under my clothes and over the wound to act as a plug till I patched myself up.

Time to move!

Blood tried to push its way out and warmed my hand.

Fences and gates were going to be my best friends. I ran through a backyard away from the woods and made my way to its gate. My goal was first to get out of sight, and then vanish from the general area.

Out the back gate and onto the next street I went, and I repeated through the next yard and onto the next street. I kept this pattern going for about two blocks before I decided to stop.

I should be far enough by now.

Thankfully, the homes were nearly untouched by comparison to some of the other cities and towns I came through to get where I was. I found a house, went inside and locked myself in a room.

I put a belt in the backpack and a first aid kit I found in one of the buildings I scavenged. I placed one of several Zippo lighters I found on the floor lit to shine up at the ceiling, the light bounced off of the ceiling and onto the walls and floor. It was enough light for a quick patch up.

Disinfectant was applied first and some antibiotic to protect the wound. I wrapped the wound up with some medical tape and followed it with a compact notebook placed flat over the wound to prevent too much muscle movement in the area. More medical tape went around the notebook to hold it in place. Finally the belt went around the notebook to apply even more pressure over the wound and cause a clot to happen sooner. It was the best I could do for the time.

If I couldn’t catch up to the kids I would never forgive myself.

I wasn’t going to waste a second.

Indescribable pain consumed me entirely. I was weak and faint but I had to continue moving.

I managed to get far enough from the infected to move at a relatively slower pace than I would normally. I knew there was going to be no infected for a while. They were too busy looking for the source of the gunshots, too busy devouring what was left of Adam.

I found my way back to Route 23 and moved forward from this point on.

The highway was empty of infected, empty of both life and death. Crashed cars emptied out by scavengers who came by however many days ago made up the entire highway. As far as the eye could see, a pile up, miles and miles long. All of the infected who were present at some point left in chase of something else, and any dead bodies inside the cars simply came back to life as one of the infected and took off after something along with the rest of them. A traffic jam, several miles long, it must have resulted in thousands of lives lost.

An hour or two went by and I only became weaker. The morning sun was now in the sky. The bleeding stopped but the pain continued, on top of this I moved too slowly to catch up with anyone. Almost like a miracle sent directly from a God who went missing when this outbreak started, a person who made it through the mess behind me caught up to me and my slow pace.

“Hey!” a stranger with an accent too strange for me to identify caught up, a young girl who traveled alone as far as I could tell.

I didn’t think twice about it, I stopped. If I was going to die, I was going to die, whether or not this person was going to be the cause of it.

The girl slowed down when I turned around. My slow shuffle and pain could have confused anyone to think I was one of the infected, and she was alive for being careful in the first place. She observed me from twenty feet away or so and waited for me to speak or show any sign I was still human, still conscious, still me.

“I’m not infected,” I told her. This didn’t change her stance or distance, she was still careful for who I could turn out to be. “I’m also not going to hurt you. I have a handgun almost empty of round.”

I threw the gun in the snow in front of her and she rushed over to pick it up. She aimed it at my head, I didn’t fear her caution. She was still alive, she had to be cautious.