The Zombie Virus (Book 2): The Children of the Damned (27 page)

“You take care of that one!” Sarah yelled up
to him as she sprinted off behind a parked car and disappeared
behind it.

Jeremy waited until the old woman was well
within range before taking his shot at her limping form. His first
shot missed. However, the second shot connected on her shoulder,
spinning her sideways, while his third shot passed laterally
through her heart and lungs and she collapsed into a heap on the
street. He quickly climbed down and out of the crippled Humvee and
met Sarah when she reappeared from the side of the car.

She smiled slyly at him. “Never get in the
way of a girl with a full bladder.”

Echoing down the street they could barely
hear the distant growls of a larger pack of the infected somewhere
in the distance.

“I need to get on the radio and let Charlie
know we moved. Try some of those doors to see if any are unlocked
so we can hide out in case those things are headed this way.” She
indicated the commercial buildings that held auto repair shops on
either side of the street.

Jeremy ran to a gray-painted brick building
on the south side of the avenue. The door to the shop was locked
tight. With two blows from the stock of his rifle the window
shattered and he was able to reach in and unlock the deadbolt. He
swiftly entered the office that was adjacent to the garage. Thirty
seconds later Sarah joined him in the dimly lit room.

“A rescue mission is on its way,” she
announced quietly, rubbing at the gauze covered lump on her
forehead. They secured the front door of the office the best they
could and slipped through a service door to the garage bays, hoping
to put another barrier between them and broken entry door. They
slid over to the large garage door and peered out the grilled
windows that ran at head height along the door, exactly when the
first of a small swarm of infected washed through the street. Sarah
and Jeremy instantly ducked down out of sight as members of the
horde peered into the windows they passed while they prowled down
the avenue. The two held their breath as they heard them scraping
along on the other side of the garage door, holding tightly to each
other’s hand.

Sergeant Heinlich led the squad of exhausted
soldiers at a ground-eating pace along a neighborhood street lined
with newer middleclass homes. As the street had widened, the
Sergeant had split the squad into two three-man fire teams. The
first team consisted of himself, Nantz, and Benton. The other team
was led by Hernandez, with Carroll and Reese. Each unit advanced on
the sidewalk on either side of the street, keeping the pace that
the Sergeant set. They encountered only a few crazies in small
groups or alone that they immediately dispatched with the blades of
their bayonets. They only had to use their rifles once and that was
when they had run across a group of five creatures who had charged
at them out of nowhere from up a cross-street.

The Armory lay about two klicks north of
their present position and they needed to traverse a lot of
dangerous territory yet. Still out of range for radio
communications with Gypsy Hill they were on their own, and that
made it completely the Sergeant’s responsibility to see that they
all made it home alive. Slightly over a half a klick to the east
was the annex, and Heinlich briefly considered taking the squad
back there where they could refresh their ammo and hold a good
defensive position. However, he also deemed it now occupied
territory well behind enemy lines. He figured the chances of them
getting through the scattered swarm that was roaming that area were
low on the probability scale, so he had chosen to continue leading
them on their northern course toward the base.

They emerged from the neighborhood out onto a
larger thoroughfare called Middlebrook Avenue. It wound northeast
across some railroad tracks, past the Amtrak station, and through
the heart of downtown Staunton. The squad carefully stepped out
onto the wide four-lane main road and surveyed it in both
directions. Heinlich signaled all clear and to move out. They had
no sooner started forward when they all froze when they heard the
distinctive sounds of gunshots far in the distance.

“Someone is taking their time with aimed
shots,” Reese remarked to the Sergeant. There had been an
appreciable pause between each of the shots, indicating that
someone was choosing targets carefully. “There are two different
rifles firing.”

Something else heard the shots also. A half a
klick from the squad up toward the tracks and within another
neighborhood of houses, something big started to move. Sergeant
Heinlich put up his fist to stop everyone and motioned for them to
find concealment. The two units ran at a crouch to a couple of
abandoned vehicles pulled off to the curb of the road. They watched
from around the vehicles as a swarm began moving away from them in
the direction that the sound of the shots had come from. From this
distance it appeared as one giant amorphic blob spread out over
several blocks moving in a rippling wave of fluid motion.

“Fuh-uck!” Carroll exclaimed quietly from the
behind the adjacent car. “I’m glad that shit ain’t coming down on
us.”

The swarm disappeared like a swirling fog
through the leafless trees that separated the downtown area from
the neighborhoods to the south. When the last crazy had vanished
into the woods Heinlich stood up.

“Everyone on me! Get your asses moving.” He
led them across the street to a railway yard where a spur line
terminated. They hurriedly negotiated the tracks, trying to put as
much distance between them and the large swarm as they could.

“Who do you think was firing the shots?”
Benton asked, keeping pace with the Sergeant.

“I’m betting it’s the kids in the Humvee. I
was hoping they had shaken that group and were on their way back by
now,” he said in between breaths.

“They might be in trouble,” Hernandez said on
the other side of him.

“They’re in the Humvee. They need to un-ass
that area and get back to base.” Heinlich shook his head. “Besides,
we won’t accomplish much against that swarm with six of us wielding
nothing else except sharp pointy sticks.”

Benton didn’t like the idea of leaving Sarah
and the new kid out there on their own, even if they did have the
armor of the Humvee to protect them. She had seen too many times
what large groups of the crazies could do to any vehicle. There was
really no safe place from them. Sarah knew how to take care of
herself though, the girl was a survivor.

They were all survivors.

She jogged effortlessly with her gear next to
the Sergeant. One good thing to come out of this disaster was that
at 42 she was in the best shape of her life. Except for the
assorted moments of utter terror, she was kind of enjoying what
some were calling ‘the end of the world as we know it’. She knew
that of all the people at the armory, she had lost the least. She
had never married or had children, and her parents had passed away
a couple of years ago. She had a handful of friends and a boyfriend
when this had all gone down. Not that it had been any great romance
or anything serious like that, merely someone to ‘scratch the itch
with’ a few times a week, so to speak. Before the world had fallen
apart, she had been twenty pounds heavier than her present weight
and probably couldn’t have run a continuous mile if she had tried.
Hanging with these boys had leaned her out and now a mile was a jog
in the park that she could do effortlessly.

She glanced back at the running figure of
Private First Class Derek Carroll. He was the other perk of being
with this group and he was definitely first class. The man flashed
a white smile at her when he caught her glancing back at him and
she returned the smile coyly. He was twenty years her junior and
had the sculpted body of an African warrior, with long, strong,
talented fingers that were learning their way around her body.

Him being hung like an elephant more than
sealed the, and Benton was amazed that she was getting wet at the
thought of him. She had never been with a black man before they
met, having been raised in a strict Catholic family who frowned
upon such interracial unions, but now that she had that taste she
would never go back.

Once
you
go
black
,
you
never
go
back
! she
thought happily to herself.

She noticed that she was falling a few steps
back and tried to pick up her pace, then abruptly experienced an
overwhelming fatigue that coursed through her body. Getting old
sucked. She glanced over at the even older Reese. Where Derek was
twenty years her junior, Reese was almost twenty years senior to
her. He plodded ahead carrying his rifle with the stub of a cigar
jutting out of his clenched lips. She was amazed he was keeping up
without breaking a sweat. She was annoyed that her short dark hair
was matted to her skull from the layers of perspiration that
covered her body.

Okay
,
maybe
I’m
not
in
as
good
a
shape
as
I
thought
, she frowned to herself.
I
guess
Derek
and
I
need
to
increase
our
work
-
out
sessions
together
.

A cold chill washed over her in a wave just
as suddenly as the fatigue had hit her and she felt her legs
slowing. No way was she going to raise a complaint or show weakness
in front of the other men, or woman. ‘Dino’ Hernandez could be a
stone-cold bitch when it came to the other women in the company.
She was all Army and didn’t hide her disdain for any signs of
weakness. “Being weak will get people killed around you,” she had
once told Debra. No way was she going to let Hernandez know she was
tired.

Benton forced herself to keep jogging, even
as she shivered in the cool afternoon air and felt her legs turning
to rubber. Her breathing became more labored and she dropped back
from her position next to the Sergeant. They continued running down
streets in an older section of Staunton lined with Victorian style
homes, keeping a wary eye out for any signs of the crazies.

“You alright?” Carroll asked her when she
fell abreast of him.

She nodded without looking at him. She was
having trouble keeping up her jog. It was becoming a monumental
effort to simply keep moving. Before she realized it, she had
fallen to the rear of the squad. Her sight was swimming and a
headache was forming in her temples, pounding to the beat of her
heart.

I
gotta
stop
, she
thought to herself,
just
two
minutes
.
Just
stop
and
catch
my
breath
. Her feet tangled together and she tumbled to the
pavement, her rifle banging sharply on the hard surface of the
road.

Carroll, who had been keeping a close eye on
her, yelled at the Sergeant to stop. He ran back and knelt down
beside Benton.

The Sergeant swiftly ordered a defensive
perimeter be set up and joined Carroll next to Benton, who was
sitting up with a look of bewilderment on her face. Carroll held
her in place with his arm around her shoulder.

“Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?” the
Sergeant asked as he knelt on the other side of her.

“I’m okay,” she assured him. “I just need to
catch my wind a moment.”

Her head was pounding painfully now. It felt
like a rat was loose in her skull, gnawing at her brains with its
sharp incisors. She saw Hernandez glance her way with a deepening
frown. How she so wanted to plow her fist into that Latino’s pretty
red lips.

“I think I’m okay,” she whispered and tried
to stand. As Carroll helped her to her feet, her legs gave way and
she started to collapse again. Heinlich grabbed her by her other
arm and the two men kept her standing unsteadily between them.
Sweat was pouring from her face, drenching the top of her heavy
shirt.

The Sergeant put the back of his hand to her
forehead and she was startled by how cool it felt, almost like
ice.

“You’re burning up,” he stated bluntly,
looking around at the surrounding homes. “We need to move her
someplace safe, out of the street.” He called Nantz over to him.
“Find a way into that house.” He pointed to a red-framed house that
sat packed in amongst other homes on the east side of the street.
Nantz nodded and ran up the hill to the house and without
hesitating kicked at the heavy wooden door on the front. The frame
splintered and the door swung open. He made a sweeping gesture with
his arm indicating it was open for them to enter. Heinlich merely
shook his head at the antics and helped Benton up the cement stairs
to the home while Reese covered their six.

Debra had never felt so weary in her life.
I’m
better
than
this
! she tried telling
herself as she forced her legs to work the steps. The headache was
blindingly painful now. In fact, her whole body was aching with
waves of fatigue sweeping through it.
Just
gotta
lie
down
,
just
for
a
minute
. She wasn’t sure if she said that out loud or only in
her head; she was having trouble forming lucid thoughts. She felt
herself being led into the house and then laid back onto something
soft, maybe a couch.

Derek’s face swam into her view. “Are you
okay?” he asked in what seemed like a slow-motion distortion of
sound. She tried to answer him, but only a croak escaped her mouth.
She felt him brushing her sweat damp hair with the palm of his hand
and it felt strangely calming amidst the pain that was wracking her
mind. His face hovered in front of her again and she gasped, not
recognizing the apparition as her intimate partner.