Slow Burn (Book 7): City of Stin (18 page)

It was full dark again by the time Murphy nudged me with his boot. “Get up, Sunshine.”

I rolled over on my back, looking up at the underside of a desk. Apparently I’d been squirming a bit in my sleep. “What time is it?”

“Nighttime.” Murphy grinned and turned away. “Leftover beans for dinner. Get ‘em while they’re cold. Room temperature really.”

I leaned out from beneath the desk. Fritz and Gabe were also up. That made me the slacker. I groaned and crawled up off the floor, as the talking between Fritz and Gabe suddenly stopped. Murphy sat down in a chair near them. I looked over. “What?”

“What, what?” asked Murphy.

“You guys stopped talking,” I said, as I picked my pistol up off the floor, ejected the magazine, saw it held bullets, and made sure that the safety was off. I sheathed my machete and adjusted my gun belt. I picked my Hello Kitty bag up off the floor and sat it on a desk so I could grab it and go at a moment’s notice. That’s often the way it went. I was ready to face another night. The guys were still silent and looking at me.

“Nice bag.” Fritz pointed at my dirty pink and white pack. “Why not something—”

“More manly?” I asked.

“Less…” Fritz threw his fingers out as if in silent surprise. “Less dazzling.”

Murphy grinned silently.

“It’s my good luck bag.” I noticed a clean and empty plate sitting beside the bean can. They were all finishing up plates of their own. I figured the plate to be mine and helped myself to a big serving.

Murphy leaned back on a creaking chair and said, “What’s the plan, Batman?”

I shrugged as if I hadn’t already thought it through. “It’s dark.” I looked out the windows at the city. “Things have settled down. I’d say Fritz and Gabe can go find their way back to College Station, and we go get our car and go back to Sarah Mansfield’s place.” I’d wanted to say home, but the word ‘home’ didn’t seem right.

“Sarah Mansfield?” Fritz asked. “
The
Sarah Mansfield?”

Murphy nodded. “Sweet place up on—”

I shook my head and glared at Murphy.

“—up on a hill.” Murphy pointed west.

“You guys live with Sarah Mansfield?” Fritz asked. “Is she as pretty in person as she is on the screen?”

“She was, until Zed killed her.” Murphy laughed.

I didn’t laugh. Maybe I should have. I wasn’t in a good mood. I pasted on a fake smile. All I remembered about that night was hacking down a woman who’d been so brain-dead that she was following her robotic lawn mower around the yard. Was she even a danger? I had to wonder.

“Was she infected?” asked Gabe.

I nodded. “Of course.”

“I may be asking too much,” said Fritz, “But is Sarah’s place big enough that we could maybe crash with you guys if we’re back in Austin again.”

Murphy grimaced and shook his head. “The place is big enough, but you might not like it. Zed blew it up.”

“You must really hate her movies,” said Fritz.

“I didn’t
blow it up
,” I snapped back, sounding like a teased teenager. “It’s… it’s a mess. The naked horde came through.” I thought of all the bodies on the lawn and throughout the house. It smelled of burned flesh and rot. “Oh,” I asked, “have you guys run into the naked horde yet?”

Fritz said, “Murphy filled us in while you were asleep.”

“That’s a dangerous bunch,” I told him. “There are a lot of Smart Ones in the group and the rest are vicious as hell.” I put a spoonful of beans in my mouth and sat myself in a rolling office chair.

Looking at me, Murphy pointed a finger at Fritz. “Don’t know if homie gave you the recruitment talk, but he thinks we should go to College Station with them. You know, and get a job.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Not a job, exactly,” said Fritz.

I chewed and said nothing.

Fritz said, “Zed, when you and I talked last night, I told you we lose guys nearly every time we go out to collect samples.”

I nodded.

“Gabe and Murphy were talking about it last night, and it occurred to them that you and Murphy can go out among the infected without any risk.”

“
Without any risk?
” I laughed. “You saw ‘em chase us last night. Same as you?”

“After the shots were fired,” said Fritz. “I didn’t mean
without
risk. I should have said
less
risk.”

I shook my head. “It sounds like you guys are trying to do good work out there at A&M. I don’t think Murphy and I would fit in there.”

“Because you’re infected?” Fritz asked.

“Because we’re Whites,” I told him.

“I told you that won’t matter,” said Fritz. “You’d be doing us a great big favor. Hell, if we find a viable vaccine, you’d be doing humanity a favor.”

“Humanity?” I asked. “So far they haven’t treated us much better than the Whites.”

“Not everybody is an asshole, Zed.” Fritz got up off of his desk. “You know that, don’t you? There’s always been good people and bad people before the infection, after the infection—it doesn’t make a difference.”

“I heard that,” Murphy confirmed.

I nodded, focused back on my beans, but said nothing for a bit. Finally breaking the silence, I said, “I’ll think about it. Just don’t get your hopes up.” I looked over at Murphy. “What do you think?”

“I don’t have any plans.” He smiled and shrugged. “I have half a mind to find a Humvee, a bunch of diesel, and drag your dumbass out to Balmorhea.”

I glared at Murphy and pursed my lips.

“Balmorhea?” Fritz asked. “What’s out there?”

Murphy looked guilty for a moment and then glanced up at me. “The cat’s out of the bag now.” He looked at Fritz. “We had some people that went out there.”

“People?” Fritz asked. “Slow Burns like you?”

Murphy shook his head. “Normals. People who are immune.”

“How many?” he asked.

“Why is that important?” I asked suspiciously.

“A few or a lot?” Fritz asked. “I need to know whether it’s worth it to go all the way out there for samples.”

“Some.” I made it clear with my tone that was all the answer I was going to give.

“Well then.” Fritz stood up and paced around while he rubbed his hands together. “If you guys are going your way and we’re going ours, you wouldn’t happen to know where we can find an up-armored Humvee, would you?”

“I know where there’s one at the bottom of Lake Austin,” Murphy laughed.

“The last two abandoned ones we saw were up at the northeast corner of campus.” I got up, walked around the desk, opened a drawer and found a pen and paper. “I’ll draw you a map along with what I think might be the best way to get there.”

“How far?” Fritz asked.

“Three, Four miles?” I guessed. “A little farther than we’ve got to go to get back to our car.”

It took a few minutes to draw out the map and explain it to Fritz and Gabe. After all the questions were out of the way, we each checked our gear and prepared ourselves to leave.

Gabe stepped up in front of me and reached out with the shotgun. “Thanks,” he said.

I looked at the gun. I looked up at Gabe. Without it, he’d be defenseless. With it, well, shooting was only a last resort, but it came in handy when you needed it. Still, he had no white skin, no night vision goggles, no machete, no pistol, and no spare hand grenades. As much as I was scolding myself for the stupid charity of it, I said, “You keep it.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“We both know you’ve got nothing,” I replied. “If you had anything—a good knife, or even a water gun—I’d keep the gun.” I looked around. “I can always find another.” I hoped. Rust-free guns were getting harder to come by.

Under a shower of Gabe’s gratitude, I emptied my pockets and bag of shotgun shells. Without the shotgun, I had no immediate use for them. Sure, I could have held onto most of them, but choosing to carry something was always a complicated choice. In the equation of the decision was the amount of weight that would slow you when running for your life. It was a big factor.

Fritz and Gabe thanked us a final time and headed for the door.

Fritz undid the bolt.

I nodded at Murphy when the other two weren’t looking. I wanted them to go first. I wanted them to leave the building ahead of us and head off in their own direction. Somehow, in my mind at that moment, it decreased the chance that they’d follow us. I wasn’t overly worried about them following and eventually harming us. It was just getting harder to trust.

Fritz went out of the office with Gabe on his heels. Murphy followed with me in the rear. Fritz turned onto the narrow, dark staircase, navigating by flashlight.

With the other three in front of me, I was halfway down when the group came to a sudden stop, with feet stomping heavily to catch balance and shoulders bumping walls. Fritz gasped.

I was already moving backwards up the stairs. I didn’t need to wait to learn why Fritz gasped. I didn’t need to know why he’d stopped. All surprises anymore were dangerous ones, and nearly all dangerous ones were Whites.

Crossing three steps at a time, I leapt to the second floor, pressed myself against the wall, and turned to point my pistol. Murphy’s bulk nearly filled the entire stairway. I saw elbows, knees, and feet hurrying and clomping as the first of the infected howled below.

Murphy sprinted past me and headed through the door to the back office and toward the fire escape.

The surprised moans from a hundred infected throats grew to a hungry wail.

Gabe passed me by, and Fritz came up beside me as Whites shoved and wrestled their way past one another to be the first up the stairs.

Shit.

Tiny fractions of a second grew manageable under the rush of adrenaline. Would Murphy get the window open quickly enough? Would it matter? I didn’t know whether the four of us could pile out the window and onto the rusty old fire escape before the first of the infected got their hands on me, thinking I was Fritz or Gabe. Should I shoot the first three or four coming up the stairs? Would that delay the rest of them as they clambered over the falling bodies on stairs slippery with arterial blood? Should I toss a grenade and run? Both of those last two options were certain to buy me time, but at what cost? The noise would alert every White within a few blocks and turn this one problem into a much larger predicament.

I gave a thought to the machete even as I unsheathed it. I could hack a few—maybe more—but the opportunity for escape would disappear almost as quickly as it arrived. Once I started hacking, once the Whites decided I was adversarial food, I might never be able to disengage from the melee quickly enough to get to and through the window.

Or, I could step aside, let them see my White skin, and hope they would leave me alone while I sacrificed Fritz and Gabe. Hope?

No. I couldn’t do that.

I went with my only choice: Hack the horde, then escape. I glanced at the window thirty feet to my left—through a back office, over an obstacle-cluttered floor, around some desks, and barely visible through an open door—signaling my plan to Murphy and the others. As soon as the window was open and the last of my friends was passing through, I’d run.

I slashed the first White through her face at the farthest reach of my blade. It wasn’t a killing cut, it wasn’t meant to be. Her hands instinctively flew to cover her face as she screeched and fell, tripping up two others behind who were trying to squeeze past one another shoulder to shoulder. I poked one in the larynx and took a short swing across the other’s cheek.

The larynx-cut White toppled onto the bleeding woman in front of him on the stairs. The one I’d hit in the cheek lost his balance and fell as he spun on his back, his feet in the air, helping block those behind. He was nearly in grasping distance of my boots, so he earned another hack and blood gushed from his chest.

I cut a fourth in the back of the skull as I heard Murphy’s big voice yell, “Go!”

With no hesitation at all, I turned and ran.

All I heard were howls and the bumping and stomping of a hundred crazed Whites trying to mount the stairs at the same time. All I saw was the door and the window across the room. At the doorway, I grabbed the door jamb with one hand as I tried to round the turn at full speed.

I passed a desk. Out in the moonlight, through the tall windows, I saw Murphy on the fire escape urging me on as he raised his rifle.

The paper-strewn floor turned out to be more treacherous than I had expected, and I lost my footing, banging my head on the desk as I tumbled onto the floor.

For a second, all I saw was black, then stars, then everything seemed confused.

Murphy’s suppressed rifle was firing. Whites were screaming. The window near where Murphy was standing was shattered, its glass all over the floor.

How did that happen?

Murphy was yelling something.

Fritz was leaning back in the open window, hand outstretched, hollering urgently.

The wall on the other side of the room popped as bullets passed through it.

Then, just as quickly as everything had shifted out of the realm of rational purpose, it came back into focus. I knew I’d knocked myself senseless for a few moments when my head hit the desk. I knew the Whites were pouring up the stairs. Murphy was shooting them in the doorway and shooting through the wall to clog the hall with their bodies and slow them before they got to us.

The last thought to occur to me—damn, it should have been the first—turned into action just as soon as it came to mind. I clambered shakily back up to my feet as I moved toward the window.

Fritz grabbed my sleeve and pulled me off balance as he dragged me through the door. He shouted, “Are you okay?
Are you okay?
”

I was nodding and trying to get my feet under me.

He spun me around and positioned me by the ladder. “Go. Go.”

I glanced down as I started to climb. Good. At least the fall from the second floor won’t kill me.

At the bottom of the ladder, Gabe stood with his shotgun, looking up and down the alley. He was ready to slaughter anything that moved. It occurred to me that he didn’t understand that by pulling the trigger, he’d better be ready to die as well. Or maybe he had just given up hope.

My feet hit crumbly old concrete. I staggered, and Fritz dropped down beside me, trying to balance me again.

“I’m okay,” I told him, pointing at the rough footing. “I slipped. I’m cool.”

Murphy was on the ground a half-second later, his face inches from mine. “Can you run?” he urgently asked.

I nodded. 

We hauled ass up the alley, Murphy in the lead, Gabe behind, Fritz at my side nursing me along, although I didn’t feel like I needed the help.

I put a hand to the side of my head and felt a pretty damn big lump growing there above my ear. A quick glance at my hand as I pulled it away revealed red fingers and a palm covered in blood.

Thinking tangentially about the equipment soldiers took with them into the field, it occurred to me that perhaps I needed some protection for my head. Hell, even a bicycle helmet would have done the job. I said, “I guess that’s why they wear helmets.”

Fritz glanced at me, worried.

I opened my mouth to explain that I wasn’t babbling nonsense, but decided we had bigger problems to deal with at the moment.

Murphy turned left, coming out of the alley. Two Whites were rummaging through an automobile across the street. One of them looked up and took a few long seconds to understand that what he was seeing was running warm meat—
uninfected
meat. He jumped to his feet on the hood of the car and gleefully yelped. As he lunged onto the street to come at us, two bullets from Murphy’s rifle caught him in the chest, knocking him back onto the hood. The second White took a bullet to the head as he looked at us from the driver’s seat.

We ran through the intersection.

The howling of the white mob echoed off the buildings. They had to be coming down the fire escape. We needed to be out of sight before they came out of the alley or we’d be in trouble.

As it was, the howling was contagious. When one howled, all around heard. All around knew what it meant. Meat was afoot.

More howls.

We passed onto a stretch of sidewalk between a parked tractor-trailer and the wall of an old warehouse converted to a bar. For the moment, we were only visible from the front and the rear.

We cut another left turn into an alley, and for a second, no Whites were out in front of us. Some were several blocks back in the alley, hanging around trashcans and dumpsters.

All around us, the infected wailed. It was one of the ways they worked cooperatively to capture their prize. They were searching.

A metal door on the right was hanging open, swaying gently on the light breeze. Murphy ran in and we all followed.

Once inside, Murphy slowed and softly said, “Bolt that door.”

Gabe pulled the door shut, sealing us in near blackness. I pulled my night vision goggles down over my eyes and saw out through the storeroom and into an art gallery with colorful, abstract art hanging on the walls. The color, though, was lost. It was all shades of green and black.

The deadbolt clinked into place as Gabe whispered, “Got it.”

Murphy stuck his head out into the gallery and looked around. “Hey,” he called.

We all froze, waiting for a result.

Nothing.

“Hey,” Murphy said again.

Still nothing.

He came back into the storeroom, urgent but not panicked. Looking at me, he said, “How are you? Can you run?”

“I’m good,” I told him.

Murphy looked at Fritz. Fritz shook his head.

“No,” I said. “I’m good. Not one hundred percent but I’m in the game. Rock on, Mighty Murphy.”

He grinned. 

Gabe said, “We should hide here.”

Murphy shook his head. “We can’t. The Whites are riled up. They’ll be running through all the buildings around here looking for us.” He slapped Gabe on the shoulder. “Those fuckers love the taste of uninfected virgins.”

“What?” Gabe spouted, clearly not expecting to be teased. But that was just Murphy’s sense of humor.

Murphy looked at me one more time, “If you’re good, then we’ll go out the front. If not, we’ll stick you upstairs in a closet or something and come back for you later. You’ll be good even if they find you.”

I touched a hand to the bloody wound on the side of my head again. I held my hand up where Murphy could see as I hefted my machete in the other. “I may have gotten a good whack, but I can still kill plenty of ‘em. With all the blood, though, the hungry ones will think I’m injured and weak. That makes me a target.”

“Word.” Murphy loved his outdated slang.