Season of Rot (8 page)

O’Neil left in search of a map, leaving
Steven alone once again in the darkness of the room.

6

No stars lit the sky. Thick, dark clouds let
loose what seemed a never-ending shower of rain. Brandon slept
peacefully under the small tarp Riley had set up for him. Hannah
rested against a tree, drenched to the bone. Her long red hair
clung heavily to her neck and shoulders. Riley leaned over and put
his arm around her. To him, she was beautiful no matter the
circumstances.

“How far do you think we made it today?” she
whispered, trying not to wake Brandon.

“A pretty good distance despite the weather,”
he assured her. “We’re safe here for the night, I think.”

Hannah’s .30-.06 rested beside her, propped
against the same tree. “Riley, do you think there’s anyone else
left?”

“Sure, honey. Sure. There’s got to be. If
we’ve made it this long, it just makes sense somebody else,
somewhere, has made it too.”

“It’s not fair,” she muttered with a fresh
wetness sliding down her cheeks. “Brandon doesn’t deserve this. He
should be in school or playing video games. Think of all the things
we took for granted, Riley, things that Brandon will never know
except from our stories. If there are other people out there, we
have to find them for his sake and start over somehow.”

Riley listened to the rain as it bounced off
the leaves of the trees around them. “Hannah,” he said softly, “I’m
sorry.”

“Sorry, Riley? It’s not your fault that the
dead woke up or that we’re living through the end of the world. If
it weren’t for you, Brandon and I would be dead. I’m grateful for
the time we had in the cabin. How many other people even had a
chance like that? To pretend things were going to be okay? Those
months were like heaven. It’s just... it’s just Brandon.” She
nestled her face into Riley’s chest and sobbed hard against the
muscles she found there.

Riley’s arms encircled her. “I swear, Hannah,
if there is a place to start again, we’ll find it or die trying.
We’ve just got to hold it together for a while longer. Rain or no
rain, we’ll start moving again in the morning.” Riley shut his eyes
and thought only of his wife’s body pressed against his until
dawn.

The clouds broke as the sun rose. Riley
checked over their weapons to make sure the dampness hadn’t damaged
them as Hannah and Brandon made a game of packing up and preparing
to get on the move. The three shared stale granola bars for a quick
breakfast and drank water from their canteens, then set out in the
direction of the sun.

7

Scott didn’t like David’s plan. In fact he
loathed it, thought it was insane. He had no better ideas to offer,
however, so he went along with it. They’d carefully selected which
guard to make their offer to, and the chance to go through with it
had arrived. The guards were out in full force today, as it was
time for the prisoners to be rounded up for a breeding session.
Chief Hole in His Neck was in command, flanked by six more of the
dead, each carrying some type of fully-automatic military weapon.
His subordinates opened the gate to the pen and led the prisoners
out.

Scott, having been a captive for weeks, knew
how things worked. He gave Hole in His Neck the sign that he wanted
to make a trade. Hole in His Neck studied him, then motioned for
his men to leave Scott behind.

When the others were all outside of the pen,
Hole in His Neck stepped inside. Scott could swear he saw the
hunger burning in the dead man’s eyes.

“Screw it,” Scott mumbled, hopefully too
quiet for Hole in His Neck to hear. He cleared his throat and said,
“David and I don’t want to go inside today.”

A look of utter confusion settled on the
guard’s features. A human male who did not want to get laid was
beyond his understanding.

Scott saw the look and misread it. “David’s
the new guy. The one you just brought in.”

Hole in His Neck signed the question “Why?”
He wondered if Scott had lost his mind, and he toyed with the idea
of dispatching the human then and there. He needed more help
tending to the women’s needs anyway; a new dead body walking around
would help with his duty roster.

Scott gritted his teeth, steeling himself for
what he was about to say. “Look. We’re gay, okay? We just want to
be by ourselves for an hour to breed in our own way. Just this one
time,” he added hastily.

Hole in His Neck smiled. A sick wet sound
came from his exposed windpipe as he tried to laugh. He shook his
head and shoved Scott towards the gate.

“Wait!” Scott urged. “You haven’t even heard
what I’m offering in return.”

Hole in His Neck paused. It was not permitted
to feed on the prisoners unless they broke the rules or offered
non-vital pieces of their meat freely. Scott had been anything but
a normal prisoner, and Hole in His Neck admitted to himself that he
enjoyed the way Scott was begging for such an unnatural and
shameful act.

“You could send one of your people with us,
to make sure we don’t escape. I’m only asking for an hour.”

Using gestures, the dead man asked what he
would get in return and indicated that it had better be worth such
an affront to the rules.

“My legs,” Scott said firmly. “Both of them,
all yours. I don’t need them to breed, and if I die from you taking
them, you can stick me out here so you’ll have a permanent watchdog
over the others until I rot away to nothing from the heat.”

Hole in His Neck held up his fingers, saying
two guards would go with them, not one. Then he added that this
would be the only time, one way or another.

Scott breathed a sigh of relief as the
commander of the watch went to fetch David and the guards who would
take them to the woods. Maybe, just maybe, this was going to work
after all.

8

Bullets sparked and pinged off the asphalt as
Riley ran for cover. He half fell, half rolled behind the carcass
of an abandoned truck. The spray of bullets followed him, thudding
into the truck’s frame.

Hannah and Brandon were nowhere to be seen.
Riley had been cut off from them when the jeep full of dead
soldiers appeared out of nowhere.

Riley cursed himself for leading his family
here. There shouldn’t have been a road at all, not this far out in
the country, much less a major one littered with the ruins of cars
and trucks. The only things that should have been up there were
trees and dirt trails. Riley didn’t have the faintest idea where
the road led, but it had seemed safe. Figuring they didn’t have
time to follow it in the woods until they could cut around, he
chose to walk it. Now he was paying the price.

He heard the crack of Hannah’s .30-.06
somewhere in the distance.
Damn the woman!
he thought. If
she and Brandon had reached the trees, they should’ve just kept
going; they shouldn’t have stopped to save him.

Left without an alternative, he leaned around
the end of the truck to see what was happening on the road. One of
the dead stood several yards away, focusing its AK-47 on the tree
line. Riley’s military training took over, and he seized the
chance. His M-16 opened up, sending a stream of rounds into the
dead thing’s chest and up its torso until, with a wet popping
sound, the corpse’s rotting head burst like a melon, spewing brain
matter onto the road below its feet. Its body spun, headless, and
dropped. Riley was on his feet and running for a better vantage
point before the body hit the ground. He’d only seen three of the
things, and he figured he could handle them as long as he knew
Hannah and Brandon were safe. But that was the problem, wasn’t
it?

Riley felt fire tear into his shoulder, and
the impact knocked him down. His rifle went skidding away from him.
Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the dead man who’d shot
him. The thing charged forward and lowered its rifle, to which was
attached some kind of blade.

Riley didn’t move, waited to the last
possible second and grabbed for the weapon as the thing tried to
spear him with it.

Close combat with the dead was extremely
dangerous. A bite, or sometimes just a scratch from their nails,
was enough to infect a person with the lethal virus, or evil
spirit, or whatever it was that gave the dead life.

Taking his opponent by surprise, Riley ripped
the weapon from its hands and sent the creature sprawling to the
pavement beside him. It rolled at him, biting and clawing for his
flesh. The thing never saw him draw the .45 automatic. He blew the
brains out the back of its head.

“Hannah!” Riley screamed, praying for an
answer.

In the distance, the monsters’ jeep roared to
life. Riley scrambled for his gun, then stopped and let out a
whoosh of breath as the vehicle retreated. The road fell
silent.

Blood stained the front of his shirt, leaking
from the wound on his shoulder, but he didn’t feel it. He bolted,
his legs pounding beneath him, to where he’d heard the shot from
Hannah’s rifle. He skidded to a halt as he reached the tree line
and saw Hannah in the dirt. His heart felt like it stopped beating
as she looked up at him, revealing the tears on her cheeks, the
blood on her hands. She was kneeling over Brandon, who lay in a
growing puddle of red.

Spots engulfed Riley’s vision, and Hannah
watched him collapse.

9

Scott and David put on a show for the two
guards accompanying them outside the breeding center. They held
hands and acted eager to reach a place in the hills where they
could be together intimately. The guards led them about a mile and
a half from the compound before the group stopped and one of the
dead men pulled out a stopwatch from its pocket. “This is as far as
we’re going,” the guard informed them, and he started the watch.
“You better get to it. The clock is ticking.”

“You’re going to watch us?” David asked,
horrified. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Tough,” the other guard grunted. “Get to
jerking each other off or whatever so we can get back.”

“What’s the matter?” Scott laughed. “Are you
horny too? Wanna join us?”

The guard blinked his single eyelid while the
other laughed at him. Scott sprang forward, grabbing the laughing
guard’s head and twisting it around so fast the neck broke
with a sharp crack. It wouldn’t kill the dead man, but
breaking his neck would immobilize him and leave him
helpless. 

The remaining guard raised the barrel of its
weapon toward Scott, tightening its finger on the trigger, but
David tackled the dead man; they went down in a mess of tangled
limbs as the guard’s rifle blazed away.

Scott instinctively ducked out of the line of
fire and snatched up the rifle of the guard he’d killed. He whirled
to see David lying atop the other guard, his intestines scattered
everywhere. The burst from the thing’s weapon must have
disemboweled him.

Scott squeezed the trigger of his rifle and
held it, emptying the clip into David’s corpse and the guard below.
Done, he tossed the rifle aside. Neither David nor the guard would
be getting up again.

He felt a pang of loss and guilt over David’s
sacrifice, but he didn’t have time to think about it—the whole
compound must have heard the brief battle. So Scott sprinted into
the trees and didn’t look back.

10

O’Neil and Captain Steven studied the map
spread out on the table before them. Steven stabbed at a point on
the map with his finger. “We’ll put in here.”

“South Carolina?” O’Neil asked.

“Why not? This port here is out of the way in
terms of the old commercial traffic routes, and it’s close enough
for us to reach it within two days.”

“It’ll still be guarded. If nothing else
there’ll be those things all over the docks. I don’t like the idea
of taking the
Queen
that close to land again.”

Steven smiled. “We’re not. Not this time.
We’ll sail in just close enough for the lifeboats to make it
ashore.”

O’Neil looked at the captain and blinked,
completely baffled.

“Stealth, Mr. O’Neil. It’s something we
haven’t tried before. If we go in at night instead of all guns
blazing, the
Queen
herself may still face an attack, but the
dead may not notice our smaller boats until we’ve had time to do
everything we need for once.” Steven saw the way O’Neil was glaring
at him. “Yes, it’s more of a risk to the raiding party if the dead
do notice them, and it’ll mean less supplies brought back overall
because we won’t be loading straight onto the
Queen
, but I’m
willing to take the gamble in hopes that it will save us some
lives. If it works, it’ll give the raiding party a better edge than
they’ve ever had before, and, well... if the
Queen
does
become engaged, I think she can handle herself. We have before, and
we’ll do so many more times, I’m sure.”

“Sir,” O’Neil said, “I think you should know
most of the crew and the people onboard still just want us to take
some little island, put down some roots, and finally get off the
waves.”

Steven grinned. “No, our mobility is what’s
keeping us alive, Mr. O’Neil. Perhaps you should remind these
people that if we lose it, we’ve lost the war.”

O’Neil changed the subject, avoiding an
argument. “How many men will be needed for the lifeboats in this
plan of yours?”

“I was thinking about sixteen, total. That
should give them the firepower and the free hands they’ll
need.”

“But who’s going to lead them?” O’Neil
asked.

11

Scott hadn’t stopped moving for nearly twelve
hours, pushing his underfed and exhausted body far beyond its
limits. He nearly fell into a tree, grabbing its bark to keep his
balance, but finally he dropped to his knees and vomited into the
wet grass.

So far he’d seen no signs of his pursuers.
When he’d first started running, it had been like something out of
a nightmare. Jeeps full of the dead had come roaring out of the
breeding complex. The first two hours of the chase had been the
roughest, ducking in and out of the trees, zigzagging his path,
eluding both those chasing him and the normal patrols in the area.
He hadn’t seen or heard a jeep or dead man in the past seven hours
though, and he couldn’t force himself to go any farther at this
point. He needed rest desperately.