Pet From Hell (Infected Series Book 1) (7 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Standing up he walked over to the pile of gear that Chris was lying beside and picked up a rifle and carried it over to where I was sitting. Together we sat for the next few hours going over how to strip and clean the rifle. He then took me through how to use the optical sights. When I had trained on the SLR I had been trained how to use the iron sights and if you showed proficiency then you were shown how to use an optical sight. I had never been anything more than an average shot and therefore never used anything but iron sights. Just as I was practicing how to load the magazine Chris woke up and looked over at what we were doing. I half expected him to come steaming over and snatch the rifle from my hands but he just rolled on to his side and watched.

“Jay you showing a civilian how to use our weapons?” Chris called out.

“Fuck you Chris, this civilian used to be a blanket stacker but only knew SLRs.” He said smiling.

“You were in the R.A.O.C?” Chris said pointing at me.

“Yeah, did six years before buying myself out.” I replied.

“Well I’ll be dipped in dog shit.” He said standing up laughing.

He picked up another rifle and walked over to me and said “Come on let’s get you reacquainted with things that go bang.”

I stood and followed him the edge of the roof. He lay down with the rifle pointed over the lip. I followed suit and managed to remember how to lie in the prone position, which he smiled at.

“Right remember that this is going to be different than the range that you learned on. You are going to be shooting at moving targets and you have to hit the head. Like you said earlier body shots don’t do shit. The other thing you are going to have to think about is counting your rounds. The mags hold thirty rounds and you can go through them quicker than you think. Before we get down to actually firing I want you to show me how to load and unload the rifle. The last thing you will want to happen is you dropping a mag or getting it jammed.”

For the next half hour I practiced loading and unloading the rifle, till Chris was happy with my reloading.

“Ok that’s enough, I think you have got that sorted. Let’s try some shooting out, see if you can remember what you were taught in basic training.” Chris said.

I lifted the optical scope to my eye and aimed at a large man bashing his head against the fence. He must have been a doctor or something because he had those green pyjamas on but the top hung from him in shreds and from what you could see underneath didn’t leave much to the imagination. His intestines hung out between the rips and his legs were coated with blood and gore. Again like all the other infected his eye and ears ran with the same green slime I had seen on all the others. Placing the cross hairs on his forehead I took a deep breath and as I exhaled I slowly squeezed the trigger. Now I had shot rifles before and had fired a shotgun since leaving the army and I was well aware of the sound but I forgot about the recoil and I nearly dropped the rifle to the floor.

Chris screamed at me “Make safe that weapon now!”

Flicking the safety I released the magazine and pulled the charging handle back to eject the round that was in the breach. When he was satisfied that the rifle was safe, Chris looked me in the eyes and just grinned at me.

“Now that you’re not going to blow your foot off or kill either myself or Jay. Have a look through the scope at your target and tell me what you see.” He said.

Looking for the man I had shot at I found him climbing to his feet and started to bash against the fence with more determination. The only difference was the hole in his chest just below his neck.

“Shit I was aiming for his head. I must have pulled the shot when I flinched.” I said feeling disappointed.

“Nope you did nothing wrong, I mean yeah you did flinch but I gather it’s been a while since you last fired a weapon, am I right?” He answered.

I nodded, but still felt a little bad about the shot.

He continued “Look you only forgot to take one thing into consideration when you fired and that was the drop. You remember from your training that a bullet will start to drop as soon as it leaves the barrel even more so when you are firing from up high to target below you. Just remember that for the next couple of shots.”

The next hour or so we fine-tuned my shooting till I was hitting every other target and if I missed on the first shot I would get them with the second. When I had fired off a total of two magazines of ammo Chris called an end to the shooting and we went over to where the sleeping bags lay and set up for the night. Jay had started to boil some water on a small hexi burner and we sat and talked about what we should do next. After all living and sleeping on the roof for the last few days Chris and Jay were getting tired of not having a roof over their heads.

“Chris this roof is going to start getting to cold to sleep in our bags soon.” Jay said.

“I’ve been trying to think of somewhere to go that’s just as secure and will give us walls and a roof mate.” Chris replied.

I sat watching them and an idea screamed in my head.

“Can I ask do either of you guys know if there are any army bunkers or something like that near here?” I asked.

Chris looked at me for a few seconds before laughing. Jay just looked puzzled at the reaction. It took a few minutes before Chris could get himself under control.

“You know I had forgotten about them. There is a large one on the other side of York. It was built for the senior army staff in case there was either a biological or nuclear attack.” Chris said with a grin on his face.

“How the fuck did you know about that Chris?” Jay asked.

“Well I did a small stint as security for the General here at Catterick and it was part of the security brief we got. I know that the General didn’t get away from here to the shelter. So it might stand to reason no one did.”

“How do you now that the General is dead?” I asked looking a little bewildered.

“Well he’s down stairs with a bullet in his head.” He said looking down.

Standing I looked away from the small light cast by the hexi burner and looked at the stars. It was a fair distance from Catterick to York and I needed Chris to give me more information on how far past York the bunker was. There was also the doubt that I could trust either of these two. I mean we had known each other for less than a day and we were planning on this trek to find this bunker and even if we did find it what would we find when we got there? I must have been stood a while because I heard movement behind me.

“Penny for your thoughts Marc?” Chris’ gravelly voice said from behind me.

“I don’t know just seems it might be a long shot. I mean what happens if we get there and find it full of people would they let us in? Or we find it and there is no one but infected inside? It just seems a lot to pin our hopes on that’s all.” I said.

“That and the fact you don’t trust us.”

“What! I didn’t say….”  I started to say.

“Whoa don’t worry about it. I would have had the same thoughts if I was in your shoes. To tell you the truth if we had wanted we could have got you up here took all your stuff and threw you over the side to those things down there. So here we are three people trying to survive, with one slim hope. I for one would like to go and find out if that place is safe and secure. Hopefully there are other survivors there but even if there are infected in there, we could clear it out room by room and then we could find other survivors and make that place a home whilst these things rot.”

Chapter Sixteen

Everything he said did make a kind of sense and the thought of having a really secure place to live in ignited a small hope inside of me.

“Ok we’ll see if this bunker is still secure and we can take it from there.” I said.

Picking up my sleeping bag I rolled it out and lay down on the roof.

A small rumble of laughter came from where Chris was lying and he said “Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

Lying on my back looking at the stars my eyes started to close, I could still see the points of light behind my lids and then the darkness of sleep stole me away.

Waking up to the sound of gun shots is never a good thing and I am sure I pissed myself a little. My eyes shot open and the bright daylight blinded me for a short time. Sitting up I hooded my eyes with my hand and looked round to see Jay stood with his rifle at his shoulder shooting over the side of the roof.

“What the fuck?” I shouted above the crack of the rifle.

He turned round and grinned at me.

“Well good morning sunshine, nice to see you awake.”

“Jay, what the fuck is going on mate?” I said standing up.

“Distraction.” Was all that he said, turning to fire some rounds at the crowd of infected.

Walking over I looked to see a large crowd of infected bashing against the fence below and from the looks of things there were more of them out there than there was yesterday. Jay had managed to put quite a few down and the pile at the foot of the fence must have been two or three feet deep. This gave the infected something to stand on.

“What did you mean distraction?” I asked as I watched Jay switch out mags.

“Well first off Chris went out early this morning before the sun came up to get some gear for you. He said that you needed it because of the shit stuff that you came here with. That and we needed another rifle and some more ammo plus a few other toys and those were his words not mine.” He said lifting the rifle to his shoulder and dropping two infected with two shots.

I had to admit after looking at their gear I found mine to be somewhat rubbish. I walked over to the other side of the roof and had look over the edge and saw a large figure moving past the trees that I had hidden in the day before. It paused at the edge before making the small run to the back gate. Opening it I saw Chris carrying what looked like a couple of rucksacks and a rifle. When he turned I think he saw me but I wasn’t sure, he closed the gate and ran to the side the side door and disappeared from sight. It wasn’t long before Jay and I heard the sound of someone climbing the ladder and then saw Chris’ head pop up through the opening.

“Marc a little hand here mate these are fucking heavy.” He said.

Running over I grabbed the strap of a rucksack, pulled and I nearly put my back out. What the fuck did he have in these things? Pulling it out and on to the roof, I managed to get it away from the opening as Chris climbed out with the other rucksack and the rifle. You could tell he had been running for quite a while because the sweat was streaming off him and his BDU’s where soaked under his arms and on his back.

“Well that was a bit tense.” He said.

“What do you mean tense? Where have you been?” I asked carrying the heavy rucksack across the roof.

“There are a fucking boat load of them out there and I was trying to keep out of their way. We first off you’re welcome, and secondly we are going to have to leave either today or at the latest tomorrow morning.”

Jay turned round to face Chris letting his rifle hang on its sling “Why?” he asked.

“You know the barracks on the other side of town?” Chris asked him.

“Yeah, my mate Jimmy is stationed there.”

“Well this infection had got them all and they were stacked ten deep behind the fence the last time I was over that way. Well the fence has failed and they are streaming out in all directions, but the majority of them are heading this way.”

“Aww, shit.” Jay replied.

I just looked at Chris and asked “How many?”

“Let’s just say that fence down there isn’t going to last very long.”

He came across and passed me the rifle and then bent to go through the rucksack I had carried across. After a short while I had two sets of BDU’s, a set of webbing, eight full magazines and a better sleeping bag with bed roll. As I got changed into a set of BDU, Chris walked to the edge of the roof and looked down at the infected.

“Jay, check to see if the back is still clear will you.” He asked.

“There’s only a couple of them out there that I can see.” Jay shouted.

“Chris how about we head for my car and drive out. It has got to be faster than walking out on foot.” I said.

“The thing about taking the car is, that it makes noise, but if we are walking then we can sneak past them. The other thing that worries me about using the car is that we could get trapped in it.”

To be honest I hadn’t thought of that and I had only seen a few of the infected at a time, I suppose had lulled me into a sense of safety. Well that was until I got here and saw the crowds at the fence.

“Look if it makes you feel any better I have an idea. There is a vehicle depot on the way out of the Garrison we could pick up something there.” Chris said.

I nodded and went back to filling my new rucksack with the stuff I had brought with me and the new gear that Chris had managed to get me on his scavenging run. For the next hour we talked about what life had been like for us before the infection. We all had similar tales to tell and they didn’t differ too much except that Jay and Chris had stayed in the Army whilst I had left.

“Ok, I think we need to get a move on lads, I think I can hear that lot from the other barracks coming.” Chris said holding up a hand to stop our conversation.

I strained my hearing and I could just make out some quiet moans floating on the air. How the hell he had heard them I don’t know, but I stood anyway and lifted the rifle up swinging the sling over my shoulder. Chris lifted his gear and headed for the ladder leading down into the building. I followed with Jay bringing up the rear of our group. We climbed down and walked through the darkened hallways to the side door that took us outside.

Chris stopped just before opening the door and said “Head straight for the gate and once it is open head for the tree line. Meet up about twenty meters inside it, head east for about three miles until we hit a small road, we cross that to get to the vehicle depot. Whatever you do try not to use your rifles it will only pull them our way. I’ll use one of the axe Marc brought if we need to clear one or two, but if there are any more just run. We clear?”

I nodded, then realised it was too dark for him to see and said “Yes.”

“Crystal.” Jay whispered.