The Rabid: Rise (7 page)

***

“Timmy, wait.” Katia’s feet slap against the pavement as she races to catch up. “
Hang on a second.”

By the time I relent
, we’re halfway around the pond and she’s breathing heavy.

“Ruiz, he didn’t...”

“Yeah, I know, he’s just
passionate.
Save it, Katia. I don’t have time for the excuses. Your brother is a psychopath. He’s got some circuits loose. And the next time he pulls a fucking gun on me, I’m going to shoot him, so yeah, it’s best that I leave.” She grabs my arms to keep me from turning.

“Don’t...”
she lifts her hands and shrinks back, “just listen to me for a second.”

“You’ve got
one.”

Katia grips the black gate and
stares out over the lake. The water chops against the cement embankment on the back of a breeze that whips her hair around the side of her face. She doesn’t attempt to fix it. “We lost both of our parents. These things...they turned my dad. My dad, he attacked my mom. He turned her too. I didn’t see it, but, Ruiz did. Ruiz is also the one that put them down.” She ducks her head and swipes at her face to try to conceal the tears. “He’s angry, Tim. Can’t you, of all people, understand that?”

I shake my head. “It’s not that I don’t understand it
, I understand it, very well. I spend every waking second pissed off, but it’s focused. I go, I kill the General, and I get Momma back. I’m not going to pollute the rest of humanity because I’m pissed off. Your brother, he’s holding what equates to a nuclear trigger. What gives him the right to make that decision for the rest of us? We’ve all lost someone. He’s not looking to gather what little we have left and rise up out of the ashes. He’s going to go and destroy the only chance we’ve got at a future because he’s pissed off.”

“
Timmy, if you’d just let him explain...”

“No, that’s the problem
, there’s nothing he can say to make that okay with me. Your second is up.” I start walking again, hands in my pockets, eyes watering up against the breeze blowing in.

She runs up behind me again, grabbing at my arms, trying to turn me. “Damn it, will
you wait, please?”

I windmill around, knocking her hands away. “Just stop it already
. Stop following me. Just let me go.”

She
does.

10

Bethany and I really didn’t have much packing to do.

We’d never unpacked.

We decided to rest up for the night and leave at daybreak.

Fresh.

Our minds and bodies rested.

Well, at least one of our minds. One of our bodies.

Sleep isn’t going to find me tonight. The thoughts are speeding through my head so fast I’m lucky
if I can catch a glimpse of the tail lights.

Ruiz and his insane plan to hold the country hostage.

Katia and me by the lake. Her trying to get me to stay.

Grabbing for me.

Pleading with me.

Maybe there was something there after all.

Or, maybe, she knows her brother is as unstable as a glass house in a gravel yard and she wants someone with a level head around to balance out the equation.

He won’t do it.

He’s a crazy sonofabitch with a gasoline temper, but he won’t push the button. He loves his sister too much.

The way I love mine.

I hope.

Either way
, it won’t be my problem come sunrise.

Bethany doesn’t like
the idea of us leaving. She wants to stay.

She likes the security.

She’s starting to like Katia.

She told me so.

But, she understands. She trusts me. She’ll follow me into hell. We’ll knock on the front door. We’ll get Momma back on our own, just like we’d planned to do before. Before the rescue. Before the hot meals and the security.

We don’t need them.

There’s an explosion outside. The building shakes. Windows shatter.

The rapid firecracker
pop
of automatic gunfire fills the air.

Screaming.

More explosions.

The
glass on the balcony door reflects the aggressive flickering orange glow of fire.

I jump off the cot and grab my gun. I don’t bother
with a shirt.

“What is it, Tim? What’s going on?” Bethany is in the room. She’s got a flashlight and her pistol.

“Stay here, okay. I’m going to check it out. You don’t come out until I come back to get you. Understand?”

“I’m not letting you go alone, Tim.”

I move to the balcony door and try to get a glimpse of the action. My sightline is blocked off by the other apartment buildings and a tangle of thick trees.

There’s a scream. It’s loud.

More gunfire.

Another explosion.

I see it blossom this time. It rolls up over the rooftops and extinguishes in a cloud of black smoke.

“Bethany, there’s no time to argue. I need you to hold things down here. Please?”

Her face is hidden behind the intensity of the flashlight beam.

“Fine. But, if
you’re not back soon, I’m coming out there to find you.”

“Fair enough.”

I exit through the front door and Bethany secures it behind me.

The cold night air slaps hard
at my bare chest and the cloud covered moon leaves me running blind.

I turn right,
following the explosions and the gunfire, the cries for help, the orange flicker of flame. Headlights break the corner behind me. They envelop me. I stagger backwards, off the pavement and onto the grass. The open air jeep grinds to a halt beside me.

It’s
Katia. There’s a man I don’t recognize in the driver seat.

“Running into battle shirtless, that’s a sight. Very...charismatic.”

“Cotton isn’t going to stop a bullet,” I respond.

“It’s not bullets you’ve got to worry about.
Deadheads have broken through at the back gate. You ready to step into some shit?” Katia holds a rifle out.

I accept.

It’s black, heavy, and familiar.

“It’s locked and loaded
. Just point and shoot. Save the pop gun for when your ass is in the fryer. Now, get up here.”

I hop in behind them.
“Where’s Ruiz?”

“He’s on the frontlines with the rest. We just came to get you. Didn’t expect to find you barefoot and shirtless.”

“Yeah, well, I sort of just grabbed my shit and went.”

“You’re not wearing the lucky hat.” She turns in her seat, most of her face still concealed by
a fluttering curtain of shadow.

“Guess I’ll be making my own luck tonight.”

We round a sharp turn and sweep beneath a metal parking shelter. Another explosion lights up the night sky, casts us in its glow, and illuminates the path in front of us.

The gunfire grows louder.

More frequent.

The cries of pain and fury in between
grow more intense.

A battlefield opens up before us. It’s a flat expanse of pavement flanked by an apartment building on one side and the black
security gate on the other. War wages. Men with their rifles, their blades, and their blunt instruments push back against an encroaching tide of Rabid. Vehicles burn. Men huddle behind cars, they lean out to fire their magazines dry and duck back down to reload before they’re overrun. Rabid charge across the flat expanse of pavement, some fall as bullets destroy their heads, while others rattle against ineffective body blows. Rabid flow through and over the black gate. For every one that falls, two more take its place. Sniper fire rains down from the rooftop to my left. I hear the reports but as I crane my neck, I am unable to catch a glimpse of the men behind the triggers and scopes.

“
Grenade out!” a disembodied voice yells from somewhere to our left.

I
don’t see it, but, between the barrage of bullets, I am able hear the heavy metal explosive device
thunk
against the pavement. The resulting concussion takes place further up to our right. It’s brief and ferocious. The shrapnel shreds three Rabid, removes two legs, and then flies back towards our vehicle and cracks against the windshield.

“Holy shit,” t
he driver yells and slams the brakes.

Katia is on the ground
and in the shit before the Jeep comes to a complete stop. She pulls her swords as two Rabid charge her. As the first one lunges she ducks to the side and runs the blade in her left hand across his torso, doubling him over. As she comes back up, she turns her second blade and brings it up through his trachea and out the back of his neck. The second of the undead duo stumbles over the fallen body of his comrade. Katia catches him on the tip of her sword, driving it through his eyeball and out the back of his skull. She plants a foot against his chest and pushes him back to dislodge it.

I hop down off the back of the
Jeep, follow behind her and keep my rifle shouldered as I move.

K
nees cocked.

Fan of fire.

Just like Bo taught me.

I squeeze the trigger.

The recoil is familiar. Just like home.

My target, a rotted mound of flesh with shoulder length clumps of hair, jerks back and falls against the gate.
I squeeze twice more, headshots. My targets fall from the top of the gate and disappear back into the darkness on the other side.

Katia creates a path of carnage in front of me. She’s like water through a drain pipe,
she twists and turns, taking arms and legs. The torque of her body and the slash of her swords are notes that lead towards a deadly crescendo.

“
Watch your fucking fire, assholes!” she yells as bullets hiss past her head and plant a Rabid to her right. “I can fucking handle it, aim wide!” The man taking cover beneath one of the metal overhangs to our left doesn’t respond, but he adjusts his fire, lest Katia turn her blades on him.

“Kid, you got ammo?” It’
s Loco. There are three Rabid on his ass. The all American family: a man, a woman, and a little girl dressed in a puppy print nightgown. Loco swings a machete back and forth to try to ward them off. He catches the little girl across the throat. Black blood oozes from the gaping wound, but it doesn’t faze her.

“Move!” I shout
as I turn on one foot and draw aim on his pursuers.

Loco drops back as I let off the first round. It tears through the
girl’s temple and empties her brain matter against the woman’s white skirt as her body topples over sideways and slides to the ground. The next shot downs the woman. I don’t compensate enough for the height difference as I zero in on the head of the household. My first round tears his throat out. Lucky for me the second enters in near the bridge of his nose and takes the top of his skull with it. He goes down where he stands. Like a puppet without strings.

“Holy shit, thanks
, kid!”

I
toss him the Ruger. “Not much ammo left, but it’s something.”

I turn back
around to find Katia still swinging and bodies still falling. She slices low and takes a man apart at the knees. Her other blade lands in the center of his forehead shortly after he falls. She follows this by sweeping up and through a little undead boy’s armpit. The blow sends the limb spiraling off into the darkness right before she cuts his head in half at the ears. It’s as if she can sense them. She doesn’t look. She just moves.

Men to my left and right, their ammo supplies spent, bash and batter the skulls of the undead horde.
They scream obscenities into the night sky as they bring the butts of their rifles down and up, down and up. The violent motion turns the skulls of their attackers into dust. Few still have the luxury of ammo. The shots that do sound off around us are spaced further apart. Single rounds. Well placed to avoid hitting the growing crowd of ammo hungry survivors forced to resort to fisticuffs.

“
Goddamnit, they’re still coming over the gate.” It’s Ruiz. Clutching his pistol, he appears between Katia and me. He fires once and a body skids to a halt at our feet. “How many rounds you got left?” he asks me.

“I don’t know. Not enough.”

“Fuck! I can’t get Tyrell on the goddamn radio. They’re supposed to have the Humvees here. If we can get the .50’s up, we can turn this shit around.” He fires two more times. Two more undead bodies fall.

Ruiz, Katia
and I bunch up, back to back. We cover our sightlines. Ruiz and I conserve our bullets. It’s gotta be a sure thing. A single squeeze of the trigger. A single body on the ground. Katia breathes heavy, her swings come with less velocity, but the damage dealt is still fatal.

“I need those fucking .50’s! We can’t hold out like this!” Ruiz screams into the radio.

“On the way boss, on the way.”

Something bulky hits me from behind and sends me flying f
orward onto my face. I roll on my back to see Ruiz covered up by two Rabid.

“Hold
em up, hold em up!”

Ruiz presses up, his forearms buried in their throats.

I still my breathing and squeeze the trigger. The gun settles and I squeeze again.

The dead weight collapses
on top of Ruiz. I stand to help pull them off and notice that Katia is missing.

Her swords are on the ground
in the same spot she’d been standing seconds ago.

Her scream
s come from somewhere behind me.

There she is!

Concealed by the shadow of one of the car shelters.

She’s flailing, c
urled up against the back bumper of a blue Civic as a single Rabid beats at her with its fists and seeks her neck with its teeth. My first instinct is to shoulder my rifle and look for a shot.

There isn’t one.

I don’t think. I just react.

I jump ac
ross Ruiz and the two dead Rabid, breaking into a sprint, moving full bore, no hesitation, bare feet and all. I smash the Rabid across the side of the skull. It spins to the pavement. Before I can follow up my assault, I trip over my own damn feet and land on the ground right beside my foe.

The damn things don’t feel pain.

But I sure as hell do.

It’s on top of me before I can
gather my senses. Its fists beat at my ribs. Its mouth is inches from my own. Blood and putrid saliva drown my face. I close my eyes as the vile soup of bodily fluids streams over my nose and mouth. The desire to puke is trumped only by my desire to escape and survive.

Infected.

I’m fucking infected.

My hands are around its throat. The flesh is like cold rubber. Pliable. Oozing between my fingers.

Super soldiers.

Ruiz said that it had been a super soldier project. I believe it. Now more than ever. I can’t gain a single inch. The gap between us is closing at a steady pace.

This is it Tim. Your ass is grass bubba. Good ride.