The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege (30 page)

It seemed to work, because the infected
man’s eyes were drawn right back to him, and he started to shuffle
in Ethan’s direction, moving as if his limbs were arthritic. He
stopped less than a foot from Ethan, and the scent of filth and rot
filled Ethan’s nose. It was all he could do to not clap his hand
over his face to block out the smell. Instead, he kept his eyes on
the man, his hands down at his sides, his grip steady and sure on
the machete, ready to react to anything the infected man might try
to do to him. The man only stared at Ethan as if he were a
particularly interesting-looking insect. Ethan stared back, trying
his damnedest to stay calm; he’d never been so close to one of the
infected, not like this, not while he wasn’t fighting to kill one
before it killed him. He couldn’t understand how the infected man
could even see him with the cataracts clouding his vision, but the
man somehow knew he was there, knew exactly where he was standing.
He wondered what mechanism the infected used to track their prey,
especially the ones who were in that second stage of infection,
where someone had killed them and they’d come back, like they were
zombies. But ultimately, he wondered about how this man had gotten
sick and if it was anything like what had happened to him.

And that was the reason he lifted the
machete and drove it into the underside of the man’s chin, angling
the blow to slice through desiccated muscle and tissue, severing
the spinal cord. The man collapsed at his feet. Ethan wiped the
blade of his machete off with a rag from his pocket and then
sheathed it before motioning to Kimberly.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, taking her
hand and pulling her deeper into the trees. They walked in silence
for half a mile; the only sounds were their breathing and the
crunching of debris under their shoes. It was only after they had
put sufficient distance between themselves and the infected that
Kimberly finally spoke.

“So what was that all about back there?” she
asked, a little breathless with the exertion of climbing over the
tangled underbrush.

“What was what all about?” Ethan asked.

“That.” She motioned over her shoulder with
an emphatic jab of her thumb. “The whole thing with the infected
guy back there. It didn’t even try to attack you or anything. It
just stood there staring at you, and you were staring at it like
you two were having a…I don’t know, a
moment
or
something.”

Ethan glanced at her out of the corner of
his eye. “What, you jealous of mine and the zombie guy’s moment?”
he joked, barely suppressing a grin.

“No, of course not,” Kimberly said. “Only…if
you being able to stare down one of the infected and not end up
zombie chow is a side effect of Derek’s cure for you, well, that’s
definitely an unforeseen side effect that could be incredibly
beneficial.”

“And yet another thing to make me freakishly
set off from the rest of humanity,” Ethan grumbled.

“You’re not a freak,” Kimberly said.

The crunch of leaves underfoot from
somewhere to their right silenced her. Ethan stopped and grabbed
her arm, tugging her closer to him as he squinted into the darker
foliage, trying to decipher what was making the sound. As his eyes
registered the shapes in the darkness, he drew in a breath.

“Kim?” he said, his voice low as he nudged
her further behind him. “Do me a favor?”

“Yeah?”

“Run. Now.”

Kimberly didn’t hesitate. Ethan followed
her.

At least two dozen infected emerged from the
trees and gave chase.

Dominic paced the rec center’s dining area, glancing
at the barricaded doors every time he walked past. It had been less
than an hour since the gates had fallen, and things outside didn’t
seem to be getting any better. If anything, the situation was
worse. Hands banged rhythmically against the glass panes of every
door and window in the place, and it was loud enough to drown out
any conversation that wasn’t yelled. The infected weren’t making
any headway at getting inside, but they were sure as hell making
his migraine worse.

He massaged his temples with his thumbs,
trying to think past the ache and figure out his options. The
situation was, in a word, dire. Brandt had come down with a fever
and had begun to sweat since they’d brought him inside, and he
wasn’t sure if the man was going to turn into one of the infected
or not; Remy was apparently some sort of super woman with magical
camouflage abilities that made her virtually invisible to the
infected. Ethan and Kimberly were long gone, and Cade and everyone
else might as well have been on another planet.

He had few resources—at least in regards to
weapons—and precious few sets of hands to help use them. With
Brandt fallen ill and weakening, he had even fewer. It was just him
and Remy against the horde outside the doors, and if they got in,
he would be fucked. He stopped in front of the doors, scowling, his
arms folded over his chest.

“What are you over here being so growly
about?” Remy asked as she approached. She stopped beside him and
took up a stance similar to his, watching the doors carefully.

“You have to actually ask that question?”
Dominic asked. He motioned at the doors and added, “I figured that
that was answer enough for you.”

Remy shrugged and shifted to tuck her hands
into the pockets of her jeans. “Just making idle conversation,
since it seems like we’ll probably be stuck here for a while.”

Dominic rocked his head in Brandt’s
direction. “How’s the third part of our party?”

“Hanging in there. I think.” She glanced
behind them and added, “His fever has spiked pretty high. I’m
starting to get really worried.”

“Maybe that’s normal for him,” he
suggested.

“Yeah, maybe.” Remy sounded doubtful,
though, and Dominic couldn’t blame her. For all he knew, Brandt was
slowly turning and would, sometime soon, get up and try to eat
their faces off.

At that thought, Dominic turned to look at
Brandt more closely. Remy had helped Brandt dress and had built him
a pallet on the floor out of clothes from the storage room, and he
lay on it, his head resting on top of a rolled-up bundle of
t-shirts and blue jeans, his eyes closed in sleep. Even from where
he stood, Dominic could see the sheen of sweat on the other man’s
skin and the way his chest rose and fell irregularly. He wasn’t a
fan of Brandt’s, but he did respect him greatly, and he hoped—both
for Brandt’s sake and Cade’s—that Brandt didn’t turn, and that he
really was immune to the Michaluk Virus.

Dominic turned his attention back to the
doors, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Remy staring
at him. He looked at her, eyebrow raised, and she said, “I’m just
wondering what’s on your mind.”

“I’m trying to figure out how to get us out
of this,” he answered.

“Any ideas you feel like running by me?”

He hummed as he considered his options
again. “Well, right now, you’re our greatest asset. You seem to be
able to waltz your way right through those fuckers without them
touching you. And it even seems like you can get one or two people
out with you. Brandt doesn’t seem to be able to do that,
considering the infected tried to eat him.”

“So what exactly are you thinking?” Remy
asked. “That I can evacuate Woodside one person at a time?”

“The thought did cross my mind,” Dominic
admitted.

Remy shook her head. “It would never work,”
she said. “Psychologically, most of the people here could never
handle having that many of the infected around them. They wouldn’t
be able to keep their mouths shut, and they’d get themselves killed
while I was trying to get them out.”

“It’s a viable idea, Remy. What else are we
supposed to do? Leave everybody in their houses to rot?” Dominic
asked.

“Of course not,” Remy replied. “The infected
would get inside long before then.”

Dominic stared at her, aghast at the
nonchalance with which she discussed the deaths of all of
Woodside’s residents. He ground his teeth together and shook his
head.

“Remy, you shouldn’t say things like
that.”

“Why not? I’m just speaking the truth.”

“Yeah, and sometimes the truth isn’t
something that people need to hear,” Dominic said. “And I’m sure
the people in Woodside don’t need to hear you basically saying the
situation is completely hopeless and that they’re going to
die.”

Remy shrugged, as if she didn’t care what
the besieged citizens of Woodside thought of her defeatist
pronouncement, and Dominic gritted his teeth again. The people of
Woodside didn’t like him, and he wasn’t exactly a fan of theirs as
a result, but he didn’t think it was right to be so blasé about
their potential deaths, to basically give up on them without even
trying to save them. And he
had
to try; he couldn’t just sit
there and let them die.

He went to the storage room, and Remy
followed him, her face a mask of naked curiosity. “What are you
doing?”

“I want to check out what’s going on
outside,” Dominic replied. He opened the door and began pulling
mops, mop buckets, brooms, and cleaning supplies out of the way,
shoving them against the dining area’s wall.

“We’re surrounded by infected,” Remy
retorted. “What’s there to check out?”

“You would be surprised.” Dominic fished a
small metal flashlight out of his pocket, pressed the button on the
bottom of the light, and shined its beam up towards the closet’s
ceiling. There was a trap door at the top and a yellow ladder
bolted to the wall. A padlock held the door shut so no one could go
through it and get themselves hurt. Dominic frowned; he’d forgotten
about the padlock, and he wasn’t sure where to begin looking for
the key. But then he remembered: he didn’t need a key. A
screwdriver or some other similar tool would do just fine.

“Help me find something I can open that lock
with,” he said to Remy, not bothering to turn and look at her. “I
want to get up on the roof.”

Remy nodded and headed toward the kitchen to
search for a tool while he searched the closet itself. He pushed
cleaning supplies around, picking up one object before tossing it
onto the floor and choosing another. He made zero headway until
Remy brought him a sharpening steel, a long metal rod with a handle
that Cade used to sharpen the knives she cooked with.

“Perfect,” he said approvingly, and then he
stuck the steel between his teeth and grabbed the ladder’s rungs,
scrambling up it as quickly as he dared. Once he was at the top, he
hooked his arm through the rungs and stuck the steel into the lock,
twisting, prying, and trying to leverage the hasp to pop out.
Finally, after much cursing, the lock snapped under the pressure.
He tossed it to the floor, tucked the steel into his belt, and
shoved against the door. It opened with a squeal of rusty hinges,
sticking halfway before letting out a final creak and crashing to
the rooftop. The stench of rot and unwashed bodies flowed into the
cramped storage closet through the opening, and Dominic wrinkled
his nose. He glanced down at Remy to see her reaction. She stared
up at him, her hands on her hips, seemingly unaffected by the stink
rolling down into the building. The look in her eyes suggested that
she was debating whether to stay in the dining area with Brandt or
climb the ladder to join Dominic on the roof.

He didn’t wait for her to decide; Dominic
climbed the remainder of the ladder and emerged into the cooler air
outside, trying to ignore the smell as he stepped away from the
trap door.

Just moments later, Remy joined him,
crawling out onto the roof and finding her footing, carefully
testing each step for stability as she made her way toward him. He
stood several feet back from the edge of the roof where he wasn’t
easily seen by the hordes below. As she approached, he heard her
sharp intake of breath and a murmured, “Holy shit,” as she took in
the view.

To say there were infected as far as the eye
could see was a bit of a misstatement, because Dominic could just
make out the street that led to the community’s front gates. But
even so, there were more infected tumbling down to join the horde
that was already inside. The sight and scope of such horror was
breathtaking, and Dominic’s hopes of managing Woodside’s
evacuation, despite the mass’s presence, were dashed. There was
just no way anyone alive and uninfected could get through them
all.

Remy hadn’t said anything after her first
amazed utterance, and Dominic glanced at her, wondering what she
was thinking. She chewed her bottom lip, her eyes darting around,
closely examining one spot before moving on to the next. Just when
he was about to speak, she broke the silence, pointing toward the
right. “I think I could get through right there,” she said
thoughtfully.

“Through to where?” Dominic asked, hoping
she was putting together a plan.

“The main house, of course,” Remy said. “I
want to check on Cade and make sure she’s okay. Hopefully, that
will relieve any of Brandt’s concerns. And while I’m there, I want
to get some more weapons for us, or at least some more ammunition.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have very much on me, and I’ll
feel a lot better if I can get some more.”

Dominic nodded his agreement. “Can you make
it?” he asked, gauging the distance with his eyes. It was at least
four hundred yards between the rec center and the medical house and
then a little more to the main house. He figured that if anyone
could do it, Remy could, but all the same, he wanted her to be
careful. For all they knew, what had happened on the ground outside
the rec center had been a fluke, and the last thing he wanted was
for her to step outside and be killed. The thought of that
happening put a lump in his throat. He swallowed it down and
clenched his fist.