Surge (103 page)

“Permission granted,” Wally says. “Retreat to east entry point through green territory. Do not engage infected.”

“Copy,” Patsy says. “4132?”

“On it,” Wally replies. “Over and out.” Wally hits another button on the walkie, before speaking. “4132, this is 2525. Sightings of infected in west quadrant have been reported, abort rally point.”

“4132, Hutchins speaking,” Ace’s voice says. “Report heard loud and clear, rally point aborted. New coordinates?”

“Mother Goose, calling her ducks home,” Wally replies.

“Copy,” Ace says and the walkie clicks off.

“So, where’re they going?” I ask.

“The van,” Wally answers. “We’ll head there soon, let’s clear this side first.”

He starts moving toward the bathroom entrance on the other side of the room with us trailing behind him. Cory walks over and unties Kelly’s rope from the pipe he knotted it around, before joining in. Wally pauses to knock on the door, and listen for a few seconds, then he opens it slowly. When nothing tries bum rushing the door, he opens it a little more and peeks his head into the dark corridor. Giving us the all clear, he slips out and we each follow after him.

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Wally keeps his pace a steady jog, but stops at every corner to peer around it, before signaling that it’s safe to move onward. The alley way is littered with trash, which has been strewn around after nearly two years without janitorial maintenance to take care of it. There isn’t really an odor to it, since whatever has spoiled, spoiled long ago and is no more than faded garbage, or has been eaten by some type of animal already; be that wheezer or wildlife.

With Wally keeping us moving, we reach the last quadrant of the outlet malls in ten minutes. It’s kind of like a series of strip malls all located on one road, so we peer through the store fronts’ windows for any signs of movement. We spot several with wheezers inside, but we avoid those completely, no need to attract a crowd like the last time.

Reaching the final store on this strip, Wally peers through the dark window. I don’t know how he can tell what anything is without shining a flashlight on it, but I’m guessing that he’d rather risk eye strain, than spotlight a wheezer and alert them to our presence. I’m good with that plan, because I’d much rather be able to move on from here as soon as possible, and check out Cory’s lead, since it’s the only one that we’ve got.

“Looks like we got us a couple of live ones,” a voice announces behind us.

I spin with my hunting knife in one hand, and my 9mm in the other, to find a greasy haired guy with a pot belly, holding a gun of his own. Beside him are four other men, all of which are dressed in fatigues, and covered in filth. I don’t know if it was purposely applied for camouflage, or if they just haven’t bathed, I’d bet money that it’s most likely a combination.

“And they’ve already done half the work for us,” another of the men says as he licks his lips at the bound Kelly.

“You can have her,” I say with a shrug. “But I have to warn you, she never shuts the fuck up.” I hear Kelly mumbling something behind the gag, but I can’t tell what, nor do I care. I just want to get these guys talking, and maybe if they think that we’re of a similar mold, they’ll see us as allies and spill the goods.

“Oh, we don’t mind a talker,” one of them says with a wave. “There’s always a way to train ‘em.”

“And she’s a screamer,” I add.

“All the better,” another says with a lascivious grin. “I like it when they scream.” Sick fucker. Even with the amount of hate I feel for the blonde bimbo shivering behind me, I wouldn’t hand her over to these depraved fucks; but maybe if I can make them think I would, I can get something out of them.

“How about a trade?” I propose. “You get her, and we get shelter.”

“Nah, we don’t like sharing,” the original one with the pot belly says as he cocks his weapon. “We take what’s ours.” He points the gun at my head. “And leave the useless trash behind.”

“Well, then I guess that we’ll have to leave your carcass in the dirt,” Patsy says as he holds his gun to the guy’s temple. “‘Cause you have to be the biggest waste of life around.” I glance at the bodies I saw the twins take down and grin as the potbellied pig in front of me, loses his cocky expression.

“Your friends were of a like mindset, so their chosen option was death,” Patsy continues. “What will yours be?”

The raider tries to catch Patsy off guard with a wild swing, but Patsy leans back to avoid it, before kicking his leg forward to boot the guy in the gut. The raider’s gun goes flying to the right, while Patsy lunges forward to jump on top of him. I run toward the pair to help subdue the fucker before he can get away, taking his intel with him.

“Patsy, knock him out,” Wally orders. “We’ll drag him, and he can take us to wherever they are.” I reach the struggling pair, well, actually it’s just the raider that’s struggling, since Patsy hasn’t even broken out a sweat. He has the guy pinned with a knee on his throat, but when he hears the order; he pistol whips the guy on his temple, knocking the raider out cold.

“He’s out,” Patsy says.

“Good, let’s move him quickly,” Wally says. “We made a lot of noise, and it’s attracting a crowd.”

I turn around, to see Cory, the twins and Webby holding off a pack of wheezers. Cory’s hurling knives, the twins are firing off silenced weapons, and Webby’s using that spray bottle thing he showed me earlier. I can’t tell exactly what it does from here, but whatever it is, it’s holding the wheezers back by ten feet like an invisible barrier has been put up. It has to be the craziest thing I’ve ever seen, but it works, and I definitely want one of whatever the fuck it is, as soon as we get back to the compound.

I turn my attention back to Wally and Patsy, so I can pick up the unconscious raider’s feet, while Patsy takes his arms. Wally takes point with a spray bottle of his own, which he holds in his left hand, and a gun in his right. He walks right over to where our troops are, and up to the pack that’s lined in front of them. Wally begins spraying the bottle, and the wheezers retreat further with screeches as they cower away from him. It’s like he’s holding up a cross to ward off vampires, I know; a bizarre comparison, but I can’t think of anything else to describe the phenomena that I’m witnessing of the wheezers turning tail, and running away on all fours.

Hell, I shouldn’t be surprised after Olivia’s whistle trick, but I wish that I could have figured out one of their weaknesses a long time ago. It would have made gathering trips a hell of a lot easier if I had a nifty back up trick to save my ass, as opposed to running for my life; which is essentially what I would have done if I were here alone right now. So, Olivia’s rescue mission has been a great learning experience for me.

Wally keeps his spray bottle out for the duration of the trip back to the van, but he upped his pace after we cleared any signs of visible wheezers. Patsy and I traded off with the twins about halfway, so that we didn’t have aching arms by the time we reach the van. Ace, John and Tommy are already there, all of which are standing around it with their weapons drawn out. When they notice our group incoming, they jog out and take the unconscious body from the twins and carry it to the trunk before shoving it in, as if it’s just another day at the office for them to shove a body into a trunk.

“We good to go?” Ace asks, as he shuts the door.

“Yeah, we’ll find a place to hole up,” Wally answers. “We’ll wake him up for questioning, and see where to go from there.”

“Sounds good,” Ace says and holds his hand out to Cory. “I’ll drive.”

“Fine with me, ain’t my beast,” Cory says with a shrug, and drops the ring of keys into Ace’s extended hand. “Just don’t drive us into a damn ditch, I don’t feel like pulling that two ton monster out.”

“I’ll keep her on the pavement,” Ace promises.

After Cory’s nod, Ace climbs into the driver’s seat. The rest of us pile in, leaving me a seat near the front, and Cory a seat in back with Kelly. I still don’t know what the hell to do with her. We can’t just cut her loose, because she’ll just find her way back, and unleash the crazy on us. I also can’t just kill her, I know that she committed a crime with intent to harm us, but I can’t do it. If she were to hold a gun to my head, obviously I would retaliate with intent to kill, but when she’s just sitting there, it feels like murder rather than justice. I’ll figure what to do with her eventually, for now, she’ll just have to sit tight and wait for sentencing.

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“You have a place in mind?” I ask Ace.

“Nope, just winging it,” he answers as he pulls out of the parking lot. “Not like there aren’t enough houses to choose from.”

“Sounds good,” I say. “Just make sure it’s close, we don’t want him coming to before we have him subdued.”

“Where’d you find him?” John asks from the passenger seat.

“He found us, actually,” I reply. “Him and a few of his buddies thought to pull a snatch and grab on Kelly, but Patsy and the twins put an end to that shit.”

“Not that we couldn’t have handled it on our own,” Webby interrupts. “If you’d have just kept talking, we were already in position to take ‘em out before we saw Patsy and the boys.” I turn to see the twins.

“Where the hell did you guys come from anyway?” I ask. “I didn’t even see you until the bodies went down.”

“We actually followed them,” Carlos answers.

“We saw them coming out of one of the stores with a ton of bags,” Oscars says. “They were loud as hell, laughing about how they couldn’t wait for her to model the shit for them.”

“Her? Who’s her?” Cory shouts from the back. “Is it Livi?”

“That was we thought,” Patsy says. “So, we followed them hoping to hear more, but when they saw you guys; they quit talking, and turned their attention to you.”

“Well, we’ll get the information out of this bastard,” I say. “Even if I have to cut it out of him, like Olivia did to Red.”

“Who the fuck is Red?” Ace asks.

“Some bitch that Olivia had a problem with,” I answer. That’s all they need to know, until Olivia decides to tell them herself if she ever wants to.

“A pumpkin carving whore,” John retorts. Or until John decides to spill the beans. I smack him on the side of the head, so he turns to me with furrowed brows. “What was that for?”

“You don’t talk about that kind of shit, without her giving you permission.”

“Why, they already seen her throat,” John counters. He points at Webby. “You dragged her in, even when there was a possibility that she had been bitten.”

“Mauled, more like it,” Webby says. “Her whole throat was one big, gaping wound that was dripping pus everywhere, and it smelt like rot.”

“But he still dragged her in anyway,” Patsy says. “Ally said that it wasn’t a bite, and Webby took her word for it. Webby took a lot of shit from Dennington about it, but he did it regardless.”

“Good thing, too,” Ace says. “She would have died otherwise. Habish said that she had a blood infection, and her trach tube wasn’t sterilized. It was just a piece of fish tank equipment that was shoved into her, which was probably why she had an infection in the first place.”