LZR-1143: Evolution (16 page)

Almost as one, they moaned and surged forward, even as the hot lead blasted them backwards, taking off body parts and slamming them to the ground in droves.

The Humvee accelerated sharply as I fired into the packed bodies. Chunks of flesh sheered off into the night air and heads and torsos exploded in red and brown mist. The confusion of the suppressing fire, which I shot to the right and left of our path—never directly in our way for fear that inert bodies were more of a roadblock—thinned the herd slightly, but enough to allow for the wheels to move cleanly against the tarmac.

We cleared the back of the plane, and moved into the horde, bodies thick around the armored sides. I could hear wheels snapping bones and I listened to bodies get crushed against the cement, like the sound of ripe melons being pressed into the ground. There were many more here than I thought initially. Maybe more than three hundred already, and growing quickly. In the light of the moon and the Humvee’s running lights, I saw no end to them. Only bodies pressed against one another and more streaming toward us from the main building and the gap in the fencing.

In front of the Humvee, to the left of the airplane, they thinned out, as I had suspected.

I shouted down to Kate, and looked back up as the machine shuddered to a halt. Expecting to move forward, I braced myself against the side walls of the turret. From below, I heard Kate curse loudly.

Around us, they moved in, clambering against the metal walls, hands slamming into our sides, managing to shake the heavy vehicle with their mass. Arms snaked across the unyielding brown armor. Teeth gnashed and hands smeared blood and other matter on the vehicle. I fired into the crowd again, pushing them back briefly.

But when the gun went silent again, they moved forward.

The situation was getting a little sticky.

“Um, Kate? I think we need to move forward now.”

I fired again, noticing the shortening length of the ammunition belt. I didn’t know if we had any more in the cabin, but I knew that if I left the turret once, in this crowd, I wasn’t coming back up again. They would swarm the top in moments. I started firing short bursts as the more aggressive creatures sought to climb on top of the vehicle. The bodies were so thick that they were virtually pushed forward onto the flat spaces.

I fired again.

And again.

“I can’t fucking ... I think I stalled out! This goddamned ... I think this is ...” She was pounding on things below; I could hear her screamed curses and frantic voice. Then, finally, “There you are, mother fucker! I got you now!”

The engine roared again, and the Humvee jerked forward.

Then stopped.

“Crap on a stick!” I heard her roar, wondering briefly at the absurd mental image that her vulgarity summoned.

I fired into the crowd again, grateful for the brief movement forward which had crushed several creatures below the treads of the thick tires.

I heard the metal clang behind me before I smelled the stench of death and I turned quickly, just as its head lashed forward for my neck. My pulse slammed through my neck as my hand shot up toward the rotting, bloody face of a middle-aged woman in a flannel shirt, the webbing of my palm between my thumb and forefinger striking her in the throat. I crashed back against the turret rim as the head detached from the body and my hand traveled cleanly through her spine and neck.

I shivered briefly, my hand shaking as the body fell like a sack of wet hammers, and I simply stared at it as the cursing from below stopped with another excited scream, and the Humvee jerked forward.

There’s no way I should have been able to decapitate that corpse with my hand. It wasn’t rotted; there were still muscles and sinews attached—the body was almost the same consistency and strength as a living human.

I stared at my hand, flexing my thumb and forefinger and trying to figure out how and why I had been able to take the head off of a human body with my bare hands, but soon, as the darkness foiled my curiosity and as we plowed through individual corpses passing under the wing of the C-5, my mind snapped back to the here and now.

“Where to now?” I heard Kate yell from the driver’s seat below.

We were weaving somewhat erratically as we passed the nose of the plane. The dead were becoming more sporadic and inconstant, most of them having been part of the horde that was now fading behind us. They were following, but at too slow a speed to be of significant concern.

A man in a green flight suit wandered in front of the Humvee suddenly, as Kate sped up in anticipation of more open roads ahead. A large, ragged chunk of flesh hung from his cheek and one eye dangled loosely from a mangled socket. His remaining eye flashed to my face briefly before the corner of the Humvee sent him careening to the ground.

Something about his presence and his countenance irrationally enraged me, and I sent the last of the large rounds from my machine gun into his mangled body. The corpse bounced against the pavement as the bullets ripped through the flesh and bone, but none of the shots hit the head. As we sped past, I turned around, watching as his arms pushed against the ground, causing the damaged torso to separate at waist level, entrails smearing against the dark concrete as he levered himself forward, now legless. I shuddered, and retreated into the relative calm and safety of the Humvee’s interior, making sure to firmly close the hatch on the top.

I stumbled as I sat heavily in the passenger’s seat, speaking loudly to Kate to be heard over the roar of the engine.

“Find the gates yet?”

She nodded, hands working the controls and eyes locked forward.

“Yeah, right in front here. They’re toasted, look.”

A guard booth stood between two lanes in the road, chain link fence topped with barbed wire extending off to either side of the openings. The barriers were down, but totally shattered. A troop transport truck lay on its side, nearly blocking one lane entirely. Badly burned bodies—too badly burned to reanimate—lay sprawled near the back of the truck. Bullet holes speckled the white concrete of the guard booth and dark stains inside the structure screamed of past violence.

“Must have been overrun quickly. I can’t imagine how many of those things they had to try to repel. Had to have been a damn stampede to have done this type of damage to the barriers.”

“Well, if our friends back there are any indication, they’re starting to mass up in groups, just like the Captain said.”

She shook her head, even as she turned the Humvee sharply to the right avoiding a burning car and piece of unidentifiable wreckage.

I simply grunted as I peered through the windshield into the windy, wet night. We had finally made it onto Route 1, the main arterial road running north-south through the state of Delaware; it was also the road that fed into the base. Cars lined the roadway sporadically, but there was very little debris or damaged vehicles so close to the military installation. Anyone that got this far probably just pushed a little to get inside the base, leaving the road nearby somewhat clear.

“We should get some distance and then find a safe place to stop for the night,” I said, putting my hand on Kate’s shoulder. She was tense, and I could feel her knotted muscles, even underneath the thick fabric of her borrowed uniform.

“Yeah, I know.” She raised her hand to her eye and wiped the nervous sweat from her brow. “We’re moving south, I think it’s away from the city, or what passes for a city in this area. I remember it being fairly deserted a few miles south of the base. If we can pull into a rest area or something, we can have quick access to the road if we need it, but stay out of an easy line of sight.”

She squirmed slightly in her seat, looking at me quickly and then back to the road.

“Plus, I could really use a pee break.”

I smiled, and gave her shoulder a quick squeeze before sliding to the back of the cabin to root around. There were medical packs secured to the back of the compartment, but I ignored them. I was looking for food, water and ammunition. Besides, I thought, flexing my shoulder, which had apparently healed since the debris sliced it open on the tarmac, Kate and I weren’t really in the medicine-needing business lately.

We were on the road for nearly forty minutes as I searched in vain for food or water, and while Kate drove, white-knuckled, through the wind and the darkness of the abandoned Delaware road. I watched out the window, staring at the pockets of civilization surrounded by farm land, fast food restaurants, and coffee vendors. I also took the time to think on the developments of the last few hours.

The vaccine, in its purest form, was lost and presumed to be destroyed. Hartliss was dead. We had no way to get to D.C. by air. We had no food, no water, and no idea how to get to where we needed to be: D.C., the only place we knew there to be a large vestige of surviving people and a chance at killing this disease. To top it all off, not only were we healing inordinately fast, but I appeared to have gained some sort of augmented strength, if my performance in the weight room in the Enterprise and on the roof of the Humvee were any indication.

As I focused on the last development, I decided to try out this latest skill. I opened a tool kit that I found underneath one of the seats in the cabin and removed a screwdriver with a foot-long dowel. They used these in large machines to access inaccessible fasteners through crowded machinery.

But I was going to use it as a test of strength.

I carefully grabbed the handle in one hand and the metal dowel in the other and tried to bend the one quarter inch thick steel bar. My arms tensed and my muscles flexed.

Nothing.

Nada.

I tried harder, willing the metal to bend to my wishes. My hands burned and my arms shook.

Nothing.

Crap. I felt really stupid.

In the back of my mind, I noticed that we had stopped moving, but I focused on the task at had, staring at the metal and ignoring the biting pain in my left hand as the steel pressed into my palm.

Just bend, damn it!

I realized that I wasn’t alone, and raised my head to see Kate staring at me like I was insane. Her hair was pulled back into a pony tail, with small strands of hair escaping the style, stuck to her forehead, which was wet with perspiration.

But I was pretty sure that I was the one that looked funny.

Her eyes were curious and her brow furrowed.

“What did the screwdriver do to you, Michael?” she asked quietly, in a mock concerned tone of voice.

“I ... never mind. It’s not important.” I felt foolish, thinking that I had some sort of superhuman strength. It must have been an adrenalin rush—after all, in both cases it was kill or be killed.

That must have been it.

I shrugged internally, and looked around.

“Are we at a stopping point?” I asked.

Behind me, she asked instead of answering, “Did you see ... Is there any hope that he survived?”

She was referring to Hartliss.

I sighed heavily, shaking my head.

“I can’t see how. Those choppers went up in flames. There was a lot of fuel involved in those fires, Kate. I wish ... But I don’t think so.”

I paused, remembering her words from earlier in the night.

“I’m sorry.”

She simply nodded and stared out the door for several minutes, silently taking it in. I looked outside and recognized the oddly normal surroundings of a rest stop off the highway. The brown brick walls, the green metal roof, and the glass enclosure on the wall facing the parking lot, with a map of the highway and various flyers enclosed within.

Suddenly, she spoke, her voice light and falsely cheery as I knew she was still digesting the death of our friend.

“So, I don’t know about you, but I really need to take a leak.”

I chuckled and turned around. Those things didn’t see very well in the dark, and we could use the chance to re-provision if there were any hapless, vulnerable vending machines roaming the area. Plus, we could use some fresh air before buttoning up for the night.

“Ordinarily I’d say we jump outside, go on the pavement and come back in, but there may be some food left in the vending machines, and we could really use some water. For now, it looks clear out there, let’s go at the same time, and we can cover each other.”

“Sounds good. But if there’s no toilet paper, you better believe I’m asking you to find some for me.”

“Deal,” I said, smiling and grabbing the handle of the heavy door, releasing the armored hatch and letting in the cool, windy night air.

Chapter 16

There were three cars parked in the lot with us. The Humvee sat in the middle of the road; Kate wanted to keep the vehicle ready to leave rather than park in a designated spot; besides, it just felt stupid to park in a normal spot, all things considered.

Two of the three cars had the doors shut and the windows were still in place. The third stood vacant and abandoned with the driver and passenger side doors open and exposed. Broken glass from the driver’s side back seat window littered the ground beneath the car, indicating that the attack had come while the car was parked.

Keeping our rifles raised at shoulder level, we moved slowly up the cement walkway. The wind raced through the trees, and a constant shuffling noise of leaves and branches above our heads was loud in the night air. No lights illuminated the building, and the lawn outside was dark. We moved deliberately but carefully, but saw nothing unusual outside.

I was concerned, since the Humvee was about as quiet as a pair of mating alley cats stuck in a dryer, but it appeared that most of the creatures in the area had moved on to tastier man-flesh pastures, or they hadn’t caught up to us just yet.

Either way suited me just fine, thank you.

We reached the large, open space between the women’s and men’s bathrooms, and Kate nodded her head to one side. I followed, shouldering my rifle and drawing my pistol from my belt. I just didn’t trust myself with a rifle in a tight space; I’d rather have my arms and hands free in case we had close-quarters company.

We moved toward the door to the women’s restroom.