Recovery: V Plague Book 8 (25 page)

The ramp
curved sharply and dropped to pass under the highway.  Following the pavement I
steered us into the parking lot, bypassing a series of speed bumps as I aimed
for the entrance to Dick’s.  Several males were still in the area, turning and
heading for us when I pulled to a stop.

“We’re going
to need flashlights inside,” I said, shifting into park and shutting off the
rumbling engine.  “Going to be lots of tight spaces and hiding places.  Take
your cues from Dog.”

Katie was
adjusting well to the new world we were living in where you didn’t go shopping
without at least a rifle, but she hadn’t been in many tight spaces with the
infected.  I didn’t want her learning the hard way just how easy it was for
them to surprise you inside a dark building.

We all
stepped out and I took a minute to put down the half dozen males who were
closing in on us.  A quick look around and I was satisfied that, for the moment
at least, we hadn’t been spotted by any of the others.  For good measure I
grabbed the grenade launcher and bandolier before softly closing the back door.

The doors
into the store were the automatic sliding kind and made of glass set in a metal
frame.  Without power they didn’t open as we approached.  Katie took up a
position to watch our back as I worked on getting us inside.  I was glad to see
Dog stayed next to her, looking out into the momentarily empty parking lot.

Automatic
sliding doors are equipped with hinges that allow them to be pushed out in the
event of a malfunction or power failure.  Unfortunately they don’t swing in as
well, and when I clicked on my flashlight and looked closer I could see that
the deadbolt style lock was engaged.  Taking a step back I pulled the rifle to
my shoulder and looked into the dark interior through the night vision scope.

The area I
could check was very limited, really not much more than a few cash registers. 
Right past them was a large display of women’s yoga pants and that was as far
as I could see.  Pulling the trigger three times in burst mode I punched nine
holes through the heavy safety glass that protected the entrance.

Kicking with
my steel-toed boot I began working on creating an opening large enough for us
to get through.  The glass was really tough and since I was trying to be as
quiet as possible it took several minutes to clear the lower half of the doorframe. 
Calling Dog, I waved at the opening I’d created.

He stepped
up to it, immediately growling as he got a sniff of the air from inside the
building.  Great.  Infected inside.

“Let’s go,”
I said to Katie in a low voice.

I tapped Dog
on the back and he jumped through the hole.  Bending, I stepped through and
stood with the rifle up, scanning with the night vision scope.  I nearly shot a
female mannequin posed in a running shoe display, then did shoot the male that
stepped around her.

He was
dressed like a store employee, half his face missing from some gruesome
injury.  Katie appeared next to me and brought her rifle up as well, both of us
firing at two more males as they stumbled into view.  I was hopeful there
weren’t any females in the store, expecting them to have already shown up at
the noise I made breaking in. 

Not seeing
any more infected for the moment I scanned until I spotted a large display for
snow skiers.  Grabbing several oversized plastic bags from one of the register
areas I pointed and began moving towards that part of the store, Dog at my side
and Katie right behind me.

The flashlight
attached to my rifle was on, as I didn’t want to try and navigate with just the
night vision scope.  I quickly learned that moving through a dark store full of
mannequins could be a bit nerve wracking.  I managed not to shoot any, but
Katie did drill one of them dead center in the forehead when we stepped around
the corner of an aisle and it suddenly loomed in the beam of our lights.

“Nice shot,”
I mumbled.

“Oops,” she
said quietly with an embarrassed grin.

While I kept
watch, Katie loaded up the bags with about five thousand bucks worth of Under
Armour cold weather gear.  The stuff isn’t cheap but in my experience it’s
worth every penny.  Fortunately I wasn’t going to have to swipe a credit card
on the way out the door.

“Ready,”
Katie mumbled, stuffing dual layered gloves into the top of the bulging sacks.

Dog growled
before I could take a step.  Glancing down I wasn’t happy to see him looking
intently in the direction of the doors.  I turned my flashlight off and
motioned for Katie to do the same.  Moving forward I looked around the corner
of the aisle, using the night vision to scan.

Five females
were standing near the registers, and as I watched another one pushed her way
through the opening.  What the hell had attracted them?  We’d been quiet and
careful with the lights.  Had they been coming to investigate what all the
noise was from the vehicles I’d blown up and seen us go into the store?  I
shook my head.  It didn’t matter.  What mattered was getting out and back to
the Dodge.

In the few
seconds I’d been thinking about how they found us, two more appeared.  Eight,
probably more coming, and there was a lot of cover for them to use when I
started firing.  I didn’t think there was any way to easily take them out with
the rifle.

Lowering it,
I raised the grenade launcher, aimed for the counter where they were clustered
and pulled the trigger.  The instant I fired I pulled back around the corner of
the aisle in case any of the shrapnel made it this far.

The
explosion was ear shattering, preceded by a bright flash of light when the
grenade detonated.  The pressure wave blasted over our heads and dust and smoke
began filling the air.

“Move!”  I
shouted at Katie, my ears ringing so much that I could hardly hear my own
voice.

  We ran,
Katie with heavy bags swinging from each hand and me with my rifle up.  Dog
raced ahead and I saw him attack a crawling female.  There were two more still
alive but so badly damaged they couldn’t even drag their bleeding bodies
towards us as we passed.  The rest were dead, several of them having had limbs
amputated by the blast in the enclosed space.

Dog was back
at my side as I approached the door.  I was bending to rush through when a
female stuck her upper body into the opening and screamed at me.  Dog leapt,
slamming into her face and both of them tumbled to the outside.  Stepping
through, I had to immediately begin firing at the small group that was almost
right on top of me.

There were
four of them and I shot two quickly before they were too close for me to use
the rifle.  One of them leapt, arms extended in front of her as she screamed. 
Twisting, I smashed the rifle butt into her face and she tumbled past me to the
ground.  The one immediately behind her tackled me against the wall.

Shoving her
back I locked my hand on her throat to control her head and slammed it into the
rough concrete of the exterior wall.  Her struggle against my grip lessened
slightly and I yanked her close and snapped her neck.  Letting the corpse drop
I turned to engage the one I’d hit with the rifle but Dog was on her throat,
Katie standing on her legs to hold her down.

Trusting
they had the situation well in hand I turned back to the open parking lot.  The
Dodge was twenty feet away, waiting at the curb, but a larger group of close to
forty females was sprinting directly at us.  They were still on the far side of
the car, but at inside a hundred yards were close enough that there wasn’t time
for us to get in before they arrived.

I dropped
the rifle and brought the grenade launcher up, pulling the trigger five quick
times and exhausting the shells loaded in it.  Traversing left to right as I
fired, I laid down a line of grenades at the front edge of the sprinting
infected.  The grenades detonated in a ripple across the group but this time
the target was far enough away that I wasn’t concerned with shrapnel reaching
me.

Watching the
devastation, I brought the rifle back up and picked off the three females that
weren’t either outright killed or injured too badly to keep running.  When the
last one fell I looked farther out across the pavement and saw another, larger
group coming our way.

“Let’s go,”
I said, dashing forward and raising the trunk lid.

Katie ran
forward, tossed our loot into the car and jerked the rear door open, shouting
for Dog to get in.  Dropping the grenade launcher and bandolier on top of the
bags I slammed the lid and rushed to the driver’s door.

The Dodge
started easily and I slammed into drive and accelerated away from the fast
approaching females.  They changed directions, trying to intercept us as we
headed for an exit, but despite their inhuman speed they were quickly left
behind.

Ignoring the
one-way sign at the bottom of the ramp I’d driven down to get to the mall, we
were soon back on the highway.  I relaxed slightly as our speed reached 100,
looking over and smiling at Katie.

“Why is
shopping with you always such an adventure?”

“But isn’t
it so much more fun when you don’t have to pay the bill?”  She smiled and ran
her fingers through her thick hair, tilting her head back and shaking it out. 

We blew past
a sign welcoming us to Idaho, the freeway smooth, wide, fairly straight and
climbing gently.  I was glad we were nearing our destination as the Charger was
beginning to show signs of more than a thousand miles of full throttle
driving. 

The first
indication I’d had that the car was getting tired was a barely perceptible
change in how quickly I could push us back to top speed after slowing for a
curve.  This had been somewhere in the desolate landscape of northern Utah
after we’d left Ogden far behind.  Progressively, I’d noted that we were losing
more speed on inclines than before and taking longer to get the needle back up
to 140.

I was
concerned, but not too worried.  Yet.  The engine could very well keep running
for another thousand miles.  Or it could crap out the next time I accelerated. 
Or it could be a transmission problem.  I suddenly realized I’d been careful to
check and fill the motor oil as needed but had neglected to check on the
transmission during any of our stops.  I’d be sure to correct that oversight
during our next fueling, which would be within a hundred miles.

Katie had
drifted off to sleep after our last stop, her seat slightly reclined.  Dog was
on his back, legs straight up in the air as he snored loud enough to be heard
over the exhaust and wind noise.  I was fatigued from driving but alert and
worried about Rachel.

I had called
Jessica just prior to our last stop and she hadn’t had any good news for me. 
More weather was pushing into the mountains from the north and she was having
difficulty even getting a thermal view of what was happening on the ground. 
She had identified a corruption in the archived satellite image data and still
had not had any success in finding out what had happened to the group in the
Bradley.

But the
icing on the cake had been the report on the large herds moving east from
Seattle and Portland.  I was going to arrive ahead of them but by the time I
switched vehicles, got up into the mountains and found Rachel, we would be cut
off.  The herds were still heading east and no one had any idea where the
Russians were sending them.

As I pushed
deeper into Idaho the external temperature readout on the dash steadily dropped. 
It had been in the upper 70s in Ogden and as I drove across northern Utah and
the night wore on it had dropped to the low 70s.  In the past twenty miles it
had fallen another ten degrees.  We were approaching the southern edge of the
storm that had blanketed the mountains with snow.

Twenty more
miles and something flickered across the windshield.  Snowflake?  It had been
too quick for me to tell, but as I stared through the glass I saw two more
somethings.  I glanced at the thermometer readout, surprised to see it had
dropped to 47 degrees outside.

Now I had
something else to worry about.  It was still well over a hundred miles to Twin
Falls where Jessica had spotted the Jeep dealer and we would change vehicles. 
If I was already encountering an occasional snowflake it was certainly possible
there was bad weather ahead that would slow me down. 

A check of
the trip odometer told me we were now forty miles from our next refueling point,
a large truck stop in the middle of nowhere.  Seventeen minutes if I could
maintain our current speed.  But we were climbing steadily and as the
temperature continued to drop the snow changed from an occasional flake to what
would have been a misty rain if it were warmer.

Still
climbing, I caught a glimpse of a heavy steel gate mounted on the shoulder of
the freeway that was large enough to completely block the entire road.  It was
locked in the open position and there was a sign bolted to the middle of it
that would face oncoming traffic when in position.  It read, “Road Closed Due
To Winter Weather”. 

We must have
been climbing into a minor mountain range, as no sooner had the gate flashed
past than I saw a yellow sign warning of curves and steep grades ahead.  Right
after it was another one with an arrow curving to the left.  Below the arrow it
read “50 MPH”. 

I took my
foot off the gas and let the speed bleed off as I steered into the curve.  Even
though the snow was falling faster the pavement was still dry and clear and I
took the curve at over 100.  There was another incline after the curve, and as
we made our way higher the snow suddenly changed to larger flakes and was
falling harder.

Cursing, I
found the switch for the wipers and turned them on to keep the windshield
clear.  A thin layer of snow was starting to build on the road, not thick
enough yet to obscure the pavement, but enough to force me to slow further. 
The Dodge was outfitted with summer performance tires and I knew there was no
way I could scream through these mountains without spinning out and killing
us.  I couldn’t help Rachel if I was dead.

We went
through another curve, much slower this time, and I felt the Charger start
sliding.  Taking my foot off the gas I didn’t dare touch the brake and risk
sending us into an uncontrollable spin.  Speed bled off quickly and the
sideslip stopped as the speedometer swung below 60.

The forty
miles to the truck stop took thirty-five minutes instead of the seventeen I’d
expected.  I was antsy with the lower speed, worrying that the weather we were
in would continue all the way to Twin Falls.  If it got worse and I had to slow
any more we were going to have infected from the approaching herds showing up
before we could make it into the mountains.

That would
be a real problem.  We’d lost a lot of time in Dodge City and if we didn’t make
a clean exit into the wilderness, unseen, there was a very real possibility
that there could be hundreds if not thousands of infected following us.  I
couldn’t let that happen.  On foot, in deep snow in rugged terrain with
infected attacking?  That wouldn’t be good odds for survival.

I shook
Katie awake a couple of miles before reaching our fuel stop.  She stretched,
raised the seat and looked out the windshield.

“Oh…” she
said in surprise.

“Yeah.  Not
good.  Really slowed us down.” 

“How much
farther to Twin Falls?”  She asked.

“Eighty-seven
miles from the stop,” I said.  “Almost two hours if this shit continues.”

Katie dug
out the ticket book she’d been using as a scratch pad.  It was covered with her
shorthand math, formulas obscuring most of the white space.  She worked
quickly, putting it down as I slowed for the turn into the truck stop.

“That’s too
long,” she said.  “We’ll very likely have infected in the area.  We need to be
there in no more than an hour to have time to swap vehicles and head north into
the mountains.”

I didn’t
have the time as precisely in my head as she’d just calculated, but I was
pretty close.  Wishing she’d had better news, I slid to a stop next to the fuel
storage access plates.

The air was
cold when I opened my door, a gust of icy wind greeting me with a slap to the
face.  Katie shivered as she and Dog took up watch while I got the fueling
started and checked the oil. 

Nothing was
moving in the area and after a few minutes Katie popped the trunk and fished
out a white parka she’d taken from the sporting goods store in Ogden.  It was
thick with insulation and the hood was trimmed with what looked like real
rabbit fur.  She shrugged into it without stopping her scan of our surroundings
and pulled the hood up.

“That’s
better,” she said as I coiled up the fuel hoses.  “Want yours?”

“No.  Too
bulky to drive,” I said, starting the engine so I could check the transmission
fluid.

I hated
spending the time but if there were a mechanical problem that I could prevent
it would be worth every second.  Engine idling, I pulled the dipstick and wiped
it clean on my pants leg before reinserting.  When I drew it out again and
checked, only the very tip of the spring steel showed any fluid.  The tranny
was very low.

“I’ve got to
go inside and find some transmission fluid,” I said to Katie after looking
around the area for a display like I’d been able to get motor oil from.

“Want me
with you?”  She asked.

“Stay with
the car and keep Dog with you,” I said, hoping to make a quick dash inside and
grab what I needed.

I shut the
rumbling engine off so it didn’t mask the sound of any approaching threats and
headed for the large building that was a combination convenience store and gift
shop with a large restaurant to the side.  There were a lot of windows and I
looked through them with the night vision scope.  Nothing was moving.

Pausing at
the double doors I scanned again, still seeing nothing.  Before pushing through
I clicked on the flashlight and directed the beam through the glass.  I was
hoping to spot where the automotive fluids were kept so I didn’t have to search
once inside.

Seeing a
shelf full of plastic quarts of oil and tranny fluid I took a final look around
and pulled the door open.  Moving quickly I was reaching for a bottle when a
sound from deeper in the store caused me to freeze.  At first I’d thought it
was a squeaking hinge but it had been so quick I wasn’t at all sure what I’d
heard.

I remained
rooted in place for several seconds and was starting to think it was just
something being pushed around by the wind outside when it sounded again. 
Longer and louder.  A child crying!

The voice
was coming from around a corner, in a direction that I believed was the
restaurant.  Rifle tight to my shoulder I killed the light and carefully moved,
pausing and listening when I reached the edge of the wall that defined the
convenience store part of the building.

The crying
was louder, more of a mournful wail with hiccupping sobs each time she took a
breath.  My skin was crawling as I eased forward and peeked around the edge. 
There weren’t supposed to be any uninfected people left alive unless they’d
been vaccinated.  Had I found another immune, like the man in the jail cell
back in Oklahoma?

Stepping
around I zeroed in on her location.  She was young, not a child but not quite a
woman yet either.  Thirty feet away, she was on her knees, bent forward and
holding herself as she wailed.  Long hair hung to the dirty floor, obscuring
her features.

I had been
very quiet and was using the night vision scope so I didn’t think she knew I
was there.  Carefully I scanned the rest of the space, coming up empty.  As far
as I could tell the girl was the building’s only occupant.  Lowering the rifle
slightly I moved towards her, pausing ten feet away and clicking on the light.

She was
wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and though I couldn’t get a good look because of the
way she was sitting they appeared to be soaked in blood that hadn’t been
visible in the night vision. 

“Hi,” I said
softly, taking a cautious step forward.

The crying
continued and I wondered if she was in some sort of shock.  Blocking out the
world and retreating inside herself to escape the horrors she had to have
witnessed.  I took another step, then another until I was looking down at the
sobbing girl.  Bending, I was reaching down to touch her shoulder when she
suddenly snapped her head up and screamed in my face.

Bright red
eyes flashed in the beam of my light as she launched herself off the floor.  I
was momentarily frozen.  My mind had already categorized her as a child in
distress, not a threat.  That moment of hesitation allowed her to slam into me
and send me sprawling onto my back as she landed on my chest and went for my
throat.

All that
saved me was the rifle.  It had been in front of my body when she attacked and
as we fell it twisted and was pinned under my chin, inadvertently protecting my
flesh.  She pressed her face against it, trying to reach me then shifted her
attempts to my face when thwarted by the weapon.

The extra
second gave me a chance to get a hand up and locked onto her throat, barely
avoiding having a bite taken out of the side of my face.  Pressing, I opened
room between her teeth and my head.  Twisting, I threw her off of me and
started to roll.

She was
fast, not wasting time getting to her feet but rushing me on all fours.  I
snatched the pistol out of my thigh holster and whipped it up, pulling the
trigger as her face came into contact with the muzzle.  She was no more than
two feet from my face when the bullet snuffed out the light in her eyes, her
body flopping to the floor and coming to rest against me.

“Fuck me,” I
whispered as the shakes took over.