Slow Burn (Book 2): Infected (13 page)

"Those guys must be starved," I said.

From across the room, Murphy said, "I think these guys heard that, because they're hauling ass now. Shit! They didn't turn like the other guys!!"

“Stay calm.” I ran to the front window and looked out. The wave of infected rolled across the street and broke on the block of houses. They spread out and flowed between the houses and into the backyards. They became very vocal.

I heard them running along the sides of our house.

"Shit!" I nearly shouted. "The back door is open."

"Oh, no," Mandi burst into tears.

We all stood there for a second, frozen as the sudden danger of the situation sank in.

Murphy said, “The infected might bypass the houses and go straight for the burned corpses…Maybe.”

But as Mandi cried, and Murphy hoped, I’d passed hope and sprung to action with a few steps toward the door.

I was already too late. The calm in the house shattered when the clumsy sounds of the infected burst into the living room below.

Mandi wasn't ready for another bout with danger. She fell to her knees, with her face in her hands, trying to cover her mouth and muffle her cries.

Russell just stood beside me with a blank look on his face.

I looked back at Murphy, who raised his M-4 and ran his free hand across the bulges of grenades on his vest.

Thinking out loud, I looked around and mumbled, "No, this isn't going to happen. There's got to be a way out."

I looked out the windows. There was no way to escape that way. I looked around the room and at the flimsy interior door. Its protective properties were nil.

I looked at the landing at the top of the stairs. Could Murphy and I shoot them all as they funneled onto the stairway?

I spotted a framed-out square in the center of the bedroom ceiling.

The attic!

The house was old. The ceilings weren't that high. It might work.

I pointed at the attic access panel. "Murphy, get Mandi up there, now!"

I heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. I jumped out onto the landing. Over the rail on my left, I spotted several infected were hurrying up, likely prompted by the sound of my voice.

I shouted, “God damn! We’re out of time!”

I drew my pistol and my machete. The last thing I saw before tunnel vision narrowed my sight to the lethal white monsters mounting the stairs was Murphy, jumping onto the bed and pushing the access panel out of the way.

The house was old so that the stairway was narrow, perhaps the only sparkling crumb of optimism in a rapidly deteriorating situation.

A shaggy-haired woman led the pack of infected charging up after us. As her foot landed on a step near the top of the stairs, her head came up above the edge of the rail.

Without a sliver of pause, I swung the machete in a powerful backhand that took off the top of her skull. A fountain of blood exploded in the air. She stiffened, but stayed upright as those behind her pushed ahead.

My momentum carried me the last four feet across the landing. Another half-turn put me face to face with the coming mob.

As the dead woman crumpled, I swung my arm down and clove another’s skull down through the eye socket.

Blood was everywhere, as the beating hearts of the two dying infected pumped the last life out of their bodies.

The infected behind the dying pushed and howled. The woman’s body was pushed up by my feet with the guy crumpled on top. As the next one climbed over, she caught my machete in the neck and went down.

Russell caught my brief attention with a shrill scream, and swung down over the railing with the baseball bat I’d put in his pack. The bat connected with an infected woman’s head, but Russell was too uncoordinated to be much more than an irritating distraction. Still, he bounced his bat off the woman’s head again, and she stumbled.

With three dead infected and one down, it started to get harder for those below to push the mass. But the count of infected below was swelling, their frenzy growing. In seconds they’d scramble over the dead.

I was in a losing position.

Murphy stepped into my field of vision with his M-4 ready. He leaned over the rail and emptied his magazine down the stairs. In that moment, every one of those hundreds of infected outside knew we were there.

Firing the rifle was a mistake. That guaranteed our end.

Murphy yelled, “In the attic! Go!”

“But…”

“Go! God dammit!”

I spun and ran, shaking my head as I went.

Was Murphy sacrificing himself for the rest of us?

I felt my heart break.

I bounded up to the bed as a grenade explosion rocked the house. I fell of balance, bounced off the bed and hit the wall on the other side.

As I got up, Russell was standing on the bed, looking into the attic.

Murphy leapt into the room and screamed, “Get in the fucking attic! We only have a few seconds!”

I regained my feet and jumped up to the bed.

Murphy threw the front window open, pushed out the screen, and heaved a grenade.

I jumped and grabbed a two-by-four beam and hauled myself into the attic. Mandi tugged on my clothes to help me up.

A grenade explosion sounded from in front of the house just as Murphy ripped open the back window.

Russell screamed like an abandoned monkey and reached for the attic as tears poured across his face.

Another explosion rattled the house from the backyard.

“Jump, Russell!”

Russell waved his arms and bent his knees but was afraid to make the leap.

“Jump!”

Russell cried louder.

Then Murphy was on the bed, grabbing Russell in a bear hug around his thighs and lifting him up.

Mandi and I both grabbed whatever we could and pulled Russell in. As soon as his feet cleared the hole, Murphy hauled himself up.

“Get him quiet. Now!” Murphy hissed.

Mandi immediately put her arms around Russell and cradled his head on her shoulder.              

Able to think of nothing else to do, I hugged Russell. He started to calm.

Murphy slid the attic access panel back over the hole and whispered, “It’s time to pray. Silently.”

Outside, the infected were howling and screaming, preying on the wounded. Downstairs, it was much the same, until the sounds of infected running through the house reached the top floor.

Murphy drew his knife, reached over and pushed it into my hand. His look at Russell told me what he expected.

Mandi’s face turned to anguish.

If Russell made a sound, I’d need to kill him as silently as possible. It would be him or all of us.

But he wasn’t a monster anymore. He was just like me.

Wanting to cry out under the burden of my choice, I begged the gods of every form to please keep Russell silent. I breathed as quietly as I could and sat as still as a statue. Our options were used up. Meager shreds of hope were all that remained.

With an outside temperature in the low nineties, the attic was dangerously hot. If not for a couple of attic fan domes sucking the oven-hot air out, we wouldn’t have survived for long.

As soon as the noise from the room directly below us dissipated, Murphy withdrew bottles of water from his bag and gave us each one. We had to hydrate.

Thank God for our luck in finding those in the pantry.

Russell settled down and sat quietly beside Mandi, content to do nothing at all except remain in our company. The rest of us sat still and poured sweat onto the insulation below, despite expending no physical effort.

I returned Murphy’s knife to him, glad to be rid of it, glad to be rid of the mortal responsibility that it implied. Mandi glared at both of us during the handoff.

I wanted to judge Mandi harshly for her resistance to the possibility of killing Russell. Mandi was too kind. I wondered if she’d be able to harden her heart enough to survive.

I knew I’d spend a lot of time wondering over the potential immoral necessity of killing Russell to preserve three other lives. I wondered who I’d see the next time I looked in the mirror. Would it be Zed, the underachiever, or Zed, the child murderer? After all, that’s what Russell was, a child in a man’s body. But those were thoughts for another day.

I let my breath drain out of me.

I spent a long time staring into the insulation between my feet after that, deciding whether I was worth the effort of inhaling another breath.

The sounds of the infected downstairs, fighting over the carcasses of their dead brought my thoughts back into the now. Like the infected who were eating the immolated dead piled behind the house, those downstairs had to have gone hungry for days before happening upon us. Whether that meant that they’d run out of uninfected to eat
, or if it meant the uninfected who were left had gotten good at staying off the dinner plate, I didn’t know.

I was coming to learn that well-fed infected were a lot less dangerous than the hungry.

An hour into our internment, the light coming in through the attic vents began to dim. An hour later, it was pitch black in the attic. Noises in the house below diminished significantly and finally disappeared. I pushed my flashlight into the loose insulation between the beams and turned it on. The dim light it provided was barely sufficient for me to make out the shapes of the others, but I couldn’t risk letting any amount of light leak out of the attic.

Murphy leaned very close and whispered, “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” I answered.

He said, “We can’t stay up here.”

“I know.”

Murphy said, “We can make it through the night, but when this attic heats up tomorrow afternoon, we’ll all overheat. We’ll stroke out or we’ll die of dehydration.”

I had no doubt that Murphy was right. We’d have to do something, which meant we needed to know the situation in the house below and outside. I said, “If we’re quiet about it, we can open the access panel and I’ll sneak down and scope out the situation.”

Murphy shook his head.

“What?” I asked.

He said, “If you go, Simple Russell might have a fit again. The dude has separation anxiety.”

I shook my head, “I don’t think that’s what he was screaming about.”

Mandi leaned close and said, “Yes, it was, Zed. He’s attached to you.”

“I’ll go,” said Murphy. “I’ll check things out and come back, and we’ll figure out how to get out of here.”

The issue was settled. I turned off the flashlight and Murphy very quietly moved the attic access panel out of the way. A big breath of relatively cool air followed the dim light that flooded up from below.

After checking that the room below was empty, Murphy stealthily lowered himself down to the bed.

I cringed as the mattress springs creaked under his weight. I strained to hear any other sounds in the house; only breathing and snoring. We were safe for the moment.

Once Murphy got to the floor, I slid the panel over and covered most of the hole, leaving a six-inch gap on one end. I positioned myself so that I could sit on a ceiling beam and watch the bedroom door through the gap. We waited.

Impatient minutes passed. I looked at Mandi’s and Russell’s ghostly gray shapes in the darkness. Whether Mandi was feeling as anxious as I was over the elapsed time, I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t make out the features on her face.

I wanted to check my text messages, but that’s as far as that thought went. The bright light from the smartphone’s screen could give us away.

I wondered about Amber and Steph. I thought about the state of the world. I thought about the future. I tried to imagine a way for us get out with all the infected below. They had to be down there. Otherwise Murphy would have returned right away with the good news. The primary question on my mind was what Murphy was up to. What was taking him so long?

Whether thirty minutes or an hour had passed, I didn’t know, but when I heard a creak from the stairs below, I sat up at full attention, put a ready hand on the access panel, and waited.

Several long moments later, I heard another creak. Another step?

I looked at Mandi for confirmation that I wasn’t imagining the sounds. But that was just a habit of normal communication, nulled by the darkness.

A muffled bump on the wall from somewhere below refocused my attention. I scanned what I could of the room through the gap in the ceiling, but saw nothing.

No sounds distinguished themselves from the background noise.

Long minutes passed.

Another creak.

Another muffled bump.

Something was going on in the house below us. The sounds were distinct, but so patiently dispersed that it had to be Murphy.

Through the bedroom door, in the shadows of the landing, I spotted movement and tensed. I put a hand on my holstered pistol and prepared myself for whatever might come next.

Another bump on the wall was followed quickly by a second and a muffled groan.

I was surprised when I saw the end of a ladder come through the bedroom door followed by Murphy, who was carrying it.

I exhaled a long breath and felt some of my tension melt away.

I slipped the attic access panel open. Murphy carefully pushed the top of the ladder into the attic and leaned the lower part against the edge of the bed.

He climbed the first few steps as the aluminum ladder squeaked. He stopped with his head and shoulders through the hole.

Mandi and I leaned close enough for whispers.

Murphy said, “They’re all still down there. Maybe twenty or thirty in the house. Hundreds outside.”

“Hundreds?” Mandi asked, her tone telling us all we needed to know about how defeated she suddenly felt. “You guys go. Leave me here.” She sounded on the verge of tears again. “You should save yourselves.”

Murphy shook his head. “No. I have an idea. It might not work, but…”

I finished, “…But if we stay here, we’ll die.”

Mandi said, “If our choices are between dying or taking a chance, I choose the chance. I’ll do whatever you want, Murphy.”

I said, “I’ve got nothing. What do you have in mind, Murphy?”

After several long minutes of whispering reassurances and instructions into Russell’s ear, I asked him to follow me down the ladder and to do his absolute best to make no noise at all.

I swung my feet through the hole and onto the rungs. I stopped and motioned Mandi to come close. I whispered, “If Russell starts screaming again, things are going to go to shit pretty fast. If that happens, go to the far end of the attic, cover yourself in some insulation and pray.” I stepped down the ladder.

Half way through the hole, I stopped and coaxed Russell over. I guided his feet onto the rungs. It was just like dealing with a child.

Thankfully, Russell stayed quiet.

Murphy held the ladder steady under the combined weight of us both, but it creaked loudly in protest. I fretted with each step until my feet found the floor.

While Murphy held the ladder for Mandi, I pulled my machete and pistol and went to stand by the door. My hands felt electrically charged. My blood was ready to burst from my veins and my heart was beating a manic rhythm. I was frightened out of my wits
but I was catching a familiar, addictive adrenaline wave. I was ready to taunt the reaper.

The Ogre and the Harpy.

Russell came up behind me and looked over my shoulder. His baseball bat was in his hands, ready to annoy another infected.

When I turned to see how Mandi was progressing, she was already down and lying on the bed. Murphy wasted no time in wrapping the bed’s comforter around her and tossing her over his shoulder. She was small for a girl. He was big for a man. It was the only pair of factors in our favor.

Murphy hefted his hatchet in his right hand. Our eyes met. We understood each other. I crossed the landing at the top of the stairs.

The stairs themselves were a bloody mess. I eased down
, one slow, precarious step after another. Russell mimicked my motions and we reached the bottom without arousing any of the sleeping infected.

In the living room, the moonlight revealed the infected cuddled together on the floor and on the furniture. A path to the open back door was clear. All we needed was silence and luck.

I checked over my shoulder for Murphy. He carried his load with little difficulty.

I stepped over sprawled legs and avoided broken bits of porcelain. Russell and Murphy followed, placing their steps in the spots I’d chosen.

When my first foot landed on the patio outside the back door, I froze and surveyed the backyard. We had surpassed my most optimistic expectations for the plan. It was no time to let carelessness ruin it.

My night vision was adjusted for the darkness inside the house so the backyard seemed almost bright. I heard the familiar sound of feeding infected and had no trouble seeing the spot where the grenade Murphy had thrown out of the back window had destroyed the fence and left numerous dead infected. At least two dozen
living infected were still greedily feeding on those bodies.

Alerted by my movement, heads turn in my direction. I waited. In turn, each went back to his or her meal. At the moment, I was of no interest.

Whether they’d show any interest when they saw Murphy’s makeshift camouflage, we’d know soon enough.

With Russell on my heels, I skirted the house going left. I stopped at the corner, one eye on the feeding infected, and held my breath.

The Ogre and the Harpy.

Murphy came out of the house with his cargo.

No reaction.

I couldn’t believe our luck. Would the chips finally fall in our favor?

I rounded the corner of the house and stepped into the deep shadows among the shrubs between the houses. The ground was covered in a carpet of dead, crunchy leaves.

I pressed slowly forward with all following behind.

I turned at a gap between two tall shrubs to get onto the neighbor’s carport and out of the noisy leaves.

I froze.

A tall, infected man stood three feet in front of me, knees slightly bent, hands out to his sides, teeth exposed, ready to pounce.

He’d heard us coming through the bushes and waited on his prey. When he saw me
, he paused, trying to understand what I was.

I didn’t take time to think so much as react.

His pause would come with a high price.

I stepped forward in a move that the predator never expects from the prey.

His inherent reaction was to step away, but with a move I’d learned from a high school buddy who studied Kung-Fu, my left foot came down on top one of his, and all of my weight came over on top of it, pinning the foot in place.

The infected man lost his balance and fell backward.

Whether he intended to roar in anger or try to catch his balance before he fell, his brain would never have a chance to tell his body. My machete was already following an arc into the top of his head, which split down to the bridge of his nose.

The infected man died as he collapsed with my machete lodged in his skull.

The machete made a loud, metallic clank on the concrete.

Russell was immediately beside the dead man and smashed him once across the chest with his baseball bat.

I looked around for more danger. I spied no other infected, no other movement.

Murphy emerged from the behind the shrub with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. His hatchet was up, ready for action.

I stepped up to the end of the carport and scanned what I could see of the yards and the ash-covered desolation beyond.

Nothing moved.

I breathed.

I scanned again.

I listened.

I heard nothing unusual. No frenzied infected howls, no running feet, no crashing bodies.

We were safe.

For the moment.

I walked down the driveway to get a better view up and down the street. I saw the spot where the grenade heaved out the front window had exploded. The only human remains were torn clothes and scattered bones.