Medora Wars (5 page)

Atash spoke, “My dear brothers, today we begin a journey that thousands of brothers just like us are starting all over the world. We will be bringing the world to finally know its end and ultimate redemption. I would admonish you to be grateful that you are instruments, and to be proud that you are enlisted in this last and final great battle of our mother Earth. I thank you and praise your patience in this process. I know many of you have waited months and even years, not knowing what you would be doing. You will find out soon.” He smiled and moved out of the back of the truck. “Let us begin.” He motioned his hands to the outside.

The men got to their feet and stepped out of the truck. As Malik let himself down, his heart beat wildly as he saw several large military planes on a long tarmac. He realized that he was most likely going to die soon. The thought rushed into his mind and clouded his thoughts with a dizzying panic. Sweat built on his back as he attempted to focus his breath. Feeling someone touching his back, he turned and saw Atash behind him.

“Malik, this is nothing. It’s just another day that will end like all other days,” Atash said.

It was something that Malik had never understood, but Atash’s words had taken on a certain inexplicable depth to him that he had never experienced. At that moment he was shocked of how his opinion of Atash had changed over the two years that he knew him. It wasn’t as if he ever said anything particularly profound, he was just a genius at saying the perfect thing at always the perfect moment. “Yes, Atash, thank you.”

“Follow me, now.”

Malik turned toward the group that had now assembled at the back of the truck and looked around, wondering where security vehicles and police were, but the tarmac was completely empty except for another group of people in the distance, who were walking toward a plane.

“Fellow brothers joining us today,” Atash shouted as he pointed to the group.

They walked while some slowly chanted, and others kept quiet with their heads down. Atash led the group toward a large plane, which Malik immediately recognized; it was a Lockheed Hercules transport used in various countries since the 1950s. He guessed that the fuselage measured around forty feet. The group was facing the nose as they approached the plane and walked under its long wings and slender propeller blades. Some of the men looked up at the motionless blades as they passed overhead and jumped up to touch them.

“Right to the back.” Atash made his way halfway down the fuselage and put one foot on a set of small stairs that led up to an open door in the side of the plane. “Be very careful in there, brothers. It should be obvious why once you’re inside.”

Being last in line, Malik watched as each man timidly walked up into the plane. Walking up the steps himself, he looked down at Atash, who continued to smile. Malik ducked into the airlock doorway of the plane and only saw the back of the man in front. He heard a small commotion from the men up ahead as they stopped moving forward. The man in front of him turned and yelled as he grabbed Malik’s shoulder and shoved him out of the way. He then tripped at the doorway and fell down the staircase to the tarmac below, where Atash stood.

Without hesitation, Atash drew out a long hunting blade from his thigh, bent over the man, and brought it deeply across his neck. Grasping at Atash’s robe, the man emitted a short sucking sound from his neck as bright red blood shot out in rhythmic spurts, and filled the pavement beneath him. Atash looked up at Malik. “Be calm, Malik, he will pass this quickly. He was not fit for the task. Please, get into the plane. We are in a hurry now. Do not be afraid, and do not turn back.”

Malik looked at the blood from the man’s neck as its pulsations died down and he became motionless. He was both afraid and impressed at Atash’s lack of hesitation to kill. Casting the scene from his mind, he turned around, and stepped into the plane.

An acrid smell immediately filled his mouth and nose. Gagging, he felt humid air brush his ankles, and fill his clothes as he stepped in. Turning a short corner, he saw why the man before him had fled from the plane. Standing on a walkway that overlooked a large cargo area below, he saw a herd of people. Men and women had been crammed tightly together into the confined area and didn’t speak. They could only moan while gurgling blood and saliva from their mouths. Most of them had no clothes, and many of them were missing limbs or other body parts. He saw a woman whose entire back scalp was missing, along with both her ears. She jerked her head back, showing a gaping black hole where her nose once was. Another man’s face had become droopy, with skin becoming so loose that Malik could see the white of the man’s cheek bones peeking through where the skin of his lower eyelids had dropped down to his jaw line. Malik looked at the crowd as they began jumping up at his direction. It was a small sea of writhing bodies that could no longer be called human.

“Do you see them, Malik?” Atash approached from behind. “They are the tool to bring about our great scourge.”

Right then Malik felt a shudder through the plane and heard the propellers turning on from the outside. “Someone has been very busy,” Malik said.

“My brothers,” Atash said, walking along the walkway behind the other men, “let us continue forward, no longer marveling at the weapons below us. We must take our seats for flight. We have a delivery for this fallen city.”

Chapter Four: Mexico City

“Bajen las armas!” Elise shouted as policemen advanced toward the crowd, firing bullets at any one who moved at them. One policeman hid behind the podium and shot at two infected men who wore body armor. They were crouched over a large man, gnawing on his thighs. Some of the bullets hit them in their backs, which only made them jerk from the impact as they continued feeding.

One of the terrorists from beyond the border of the crowd took notice of gunfire and sprayed the stage with bullets, hitting the policeman behind the podium in his abdomen. Falling to his knees, he grabbed his side, and lifted his palm to see dark blood dripping from it. In a panic, he rolled off the stage, and landed on the short steps down in front.

“Take cover under the stage!” Sheffield yelled at the bleeding cop as he tried to see around his blocked view of the podium. There was no response as he saw a man in a tank-top break away from the main crowd and shuffle over to where the cop lay. “Back off!” Sheffield yelled, raising his gun. As the man came closer, he saw his shoulder had been entirely opened up, exposing stringy muscle, with blood showering down his arm. The infected man picked up speed with a drunken gait and fell to the ground where the cop had fallen, disappearing behind the front of the stage.

“Let’s get out of here!” Elise yelled at Sheffield as she got to her feet. Armed men still surrounded the area and created a border that they couldn’t escape through without being shot.

The central crowd in front of the stage had become a riot of punches and lunging bodies. One person fought off an infected woman only to be swarmed from behind by a smaller group that had just been turned into crazed cannibals soon after being bit.

It’s moving fast
, Elise thought,
just as fast as in D.C
. As the crowd spilled out around toppled folding chairs and camera equipment, more people tried running out of the building—only to be shot down. The masked guards stood patiently, smiling as the crowd turned into an infected mass of bodies.

“They’re waiting until everyone is infected.” Elise pointed to the men and tugged at Sheffield’s elbow.

Sheffield put his arm around Elise and crouched down with her so that they were back behind the stage. “I think we’ve gotta wait,” he said. “Those guards are going to have to leave soon or they’ll get infected themselves. Let’s just... stay right here.” As Sheffield turned to look up, an overweight woman had walked up from behind him, and was propping herself up on the side of the stage.

“Don’t use your gun!” Elise yelled as he turned to face the woman. “It’s too loud.”

Standing, he walked over to the woman, who had a small baby strapped to the front of her chest. Inside a tightly wrapped blanket, the baby loudly wailed with each erratic movement from his now undead mother. The woman’s face was bloated with a carpet of blisters that ran down her cheeks. Green fluid seeped from her nose and pooled around the corners of her lips. She shuffled toward Sheffield, trying to maintain her balance while each of her legs jerked out wildly—trembling as they took her weight.

Sheffield took a step back from her, turned the barrel of the gun into the palm of his hand, and swung the butt sideways into her head, breaking through the skull. She wildly whipped her arms up and down, which pushed Sheffield off her—the gun remaining butt-end first lodged in her skull. The baby continued to cry as it bounced with its mother’s movements. Sheffield reached for the barrel of the gun as it bobbed up and down with the woman, grabbed onto the end, and yanked. Catching onto the rim of the hole in the skull, the movement of the gun brought the side of her skull off with it, exposing pulsating brain tissue that had now become gelatinous as it dripped down her hair. Coughing up blood, she fell to her knees. Sheffield crouched down and brought the baby out of the carrier on her chest.

“Is it infected?” Elise asked, getting back to her feet.

He wiped bloody mucous off of its head. “No, no it’s fine.”

The armed men shouted at each other and retreated back toward the shops of the mall as the infected crowd pushed outward. Elise saw a teenaged boy clumsily swing a fire extinguisher at a burly man who he missed. The man fell forward onto the boy, toppling him onto the tile below, and crushing him with his body. The boy cried out as the man brought his head by his neck and bit down, moving the flesh with erratic chewing.

“They’re leaving. The assholes are trying to run.” Sheffield pointed as the guards shouted on their walkie-talkies. Looking at each other, one of them by the mall entrance gave a few brief hand movements prompting all the men to turn and run, leaving the infected crowd behind.

“Now we move,” Sheffield said, handing the baby to Elise. “Take it.”

Elise brought the baby to her chest and shushed it while standing from her knees. She pushed Sheffield toward the woman whose brain now dripped onto the tile. They stepped around her body while crouching.

Sheffield led the way with his gun pointed outward. He saw that the armed men had now left, leaving the mall behind to its mayhem. Taking Elise by the back of her arm, they ran the opposite way as more of the infected took notice, and waddled in their direction. The other end of the mall was wide open and without people to stop them as they ran past a bank of escalators and through the food court.

“It’s…” Elise was trying to catch her breath, “a deliberate outbreak. Why would anyone—”

“Is the garage compromised?” Sheffield interrupted.

“How would I know?” Elise turned to him, and then realized he was talking into a mouthpiece in his shirt cuff.

“Understood,” he said into the mouthpiece. “Miss Whitten, I have backup agents in the area who will meet us the on street level, on the south side of the mall.”

“You think we should get out onto the streets? Those men could be anywhere out there,” she said.

“It shouldn’t matter. We’ll have pick-up in five minutes.” Sheffield motioned to a row of glass doors on the other end of the food court.

“Okay, fine. Were you in the D.C. outbreak?” she asked impatiently.

“No.”

“All right, then you need to listen to everything I say. I’ve been through this.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

They wound around a few tables and made their way to the entrance as the baby continued to cry. Elise began instructing Sheffield. “Don’t get too close to get bit, and don’t use a weapon that makes so much noise like that damn gun. Any sound draws them in immediately, and our biggest danger is being in a small space with a huge crowd of them. That is how everyone died. It’s going to spread extremely fast, and we’ve got to…”

“What?” he asked.

“We’ve got to get out of Mexico. We have to leave the country immediately.”

“Ma’am, we train extensively now for an outbreak scenario. I’m well aware of how to handle the infected. Let’s just get out onto the street.” They moved out double glass doors into the entryway of the mall and paused in front of the next set of doors that opened to the street. People ran in every direction, with all cars in a complete standstill in the road, and up over the sidewalks.

“The car won’t even be able to pull up here,” Elise scoffed.

“No, no they can squeeze in right along the building here.” As soon as he said that, a small car sped past the doors on the sidewalk. “Unless everyone else starts doing it first.”

“The gunmen might be out there,” Elise warned.

“Ma’am,” Sheffield looked over at her, “we can’t be sure of anything except that we’ve got to get in a car and get out of the city.”

“You’re right,” she said.

Annoyed, Sheffield turned around to check the mall behind them, and only saw the empty food court under dull lighting.

A small cry leapt from Elise’s lips. “There’s a weird dog,” she said, grabbing his shoulder, and spinning him back toward the outside doors. A German Shepard stood directly in front of the glass door looking up at them, its tongue hanging from the side of its mouth. It panted heavy as its belly moved briskly in and out with each breath. It had small tufts of fur sprouting out all over its body beneath a thick coating of black mange. Several large ulcerations on its chest had been weeping black fluid down the front of its body. One front paw was missing and several strands of tendons hung in its place. The dog barked, leaned back on its hind legs, and then placed its front paws on the glass door, stretching out its body. It then shook uncontrollably with an erratic bark at the potential victims on the other side of the glass.

“That is not a normal dog,” Sheffield said, a new shakiness in his voice.

“Of course not,” Elise said. Looking up, she saw another dog in the street jump onto the hood of a convertible car, and leap over the windshield into the passenger’s seat. The driver yelled in Spanish as the dog twisted its head and brought its mouth over his ear. With a few brisk jerks of the dog’s head, the man’s ear tore from his scalp. He cried in pain, pressing his palm to his bloodied head.

“We’re not going out there,” Elise said, backing away from the door, cradling the crying baby closer.

Sheffield stood for a moment, looking down at the infected dog in front of them. “Let’s get back into the building,” he said, leading Elise back. He looked past the food court as the people from the infected crowd had begun spreading out through the mall. There were random gunshots and screams echoing throughout the building.

Elise looked back as something thumped against the glass door. She saw the same dog trying to bite through but only managing to hit its muzzle and spread blood on the window.

“We’re going up,” she said. They moved once again through the food court where Elise shifted the baby into one arm while unhooking a fire extinguisher from a column. She held it by her side and ran. Over by the escalator banks, a small number of the infected had spotted them, and were now moving in their direction. Elise felt her nerves grow still as they approached. There was no bubbling anxiety pushing her into a panic attack now. Jerking away from Sheffield’s grasp on her arm, she reached the baby out to him. “Take him,” she demanded.

“I can take care of this,” Sheffield replied.

“Just take the damn baby,” she said as he reluctantly took the baby up to his shoulder. She turned and walked through a row of tables and came within a few feet of a young man wearing a white-buttoned shirt that had been stained by vomit running down his chest. The infected man’s eyes circled around in cycles, independent from one another, in an attempt to look at Elise. She timed his shuffle toward her and waited until he was in arm’s length.

“Ma’am, please step away from him,” Sheffield shouted, pointing his gun at the man, propping up the baby on his shoulder.

“Don’t use your gun! Would you put it away? We’re going to get swarmed any second,” she said. The infected man took another step toward her. She grabbed the fire extinguisher by the nozzle, with both hands, and swung it upward in an arc, striking the man’s jaw, and making him stumble backward. Her hair became undone from the pins holding it down, with strands now swinging in her face. Moving the hair from her vision, she yelled, “Just listen to what I tell you. I’ve done this before. We’re going to move up those escalators and get to the roof.”

Looking over at the loose mingling of infected people that had now made their way around the escalators, he walked forward. “We have to do it now.”

“Run!” she yelled.

They burst into a dash toward the escalators as the infected crowd flooded the open area. The infected took notice of their movements and groaned at them in frustration, reaching their arms out. Elise saw the same haunting faces she had seen before. They were men and women who had lost the countenance of rationality and who had now only become ghosts in an undead body.

The baby jostled as Sheffield ran, making it wail louder, and drawing the attention of the infected like a swarm of sharks. Following Elise, Sheffield weaved in between the loose crowd of infected as they reached out and turned their clutching fingers toward them.

Just run
, she thought,
if we stop, we die
. “Keep moving!” she yelled back. “Don’t stop for anything.” To her right was one of the infected men from the van, dressed in a bulletproof vest, Army fatigues, and a helmet.
The bastards tried to make them last
, she thought. She brought the fire extinguisher over her head, her arms extending toward the ceiling. Waiting until the man was directly in front of her, she lunged forward, releasing the extinguisher directly into the man’s face. It squarely hit his forehead, making his head collapse backward from his neck. As the extinguisher bounced off, a vertical tear on the front of his neck opened up, and exposed the white fleshy cartilage of his trachea. The wound released a flood of black, coagulated blood down the front of his vest. The man attempted to lift his head back to an upright position, but only fell over backward, cracking the back of his skull on the floor as his body crumpled.

Elise stepped over the man, pushed another woman who stood in front of her, and sprinted to the escalators that were free of the infected. Sheffield was right behind her as they ran up the steps to the open space of the second floor, void of people.

“We can’t get holed up in a store.” She turned to him. “If we get to the roof, do you think we can get a helicopter to pick us up?”