V Plague (Book 11): Merciless (21 page)

“They were pressed in tight around a door.  Best guess, they’ve got someone trapped in a room.  And they’ve probably been in there a while.  The infected weren’t too agitated.  They’ve had time to settle down.”

“What do we do?”  Johnson asked.  “Try another way?”

“Don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head.  “I caught a glimpse of elevator doors and a sign for stairs.  I might be wrong, but places like this will only have one way in or out, and that’s it.  Maybe we could find another airshaft, but we aren’t going that way.”

“What about the people trapped?”  Rachel asked.

“Don’t know there are people in there,” I said.  “That was just a guess.  And even if there were, we don’t have any idea if they’re still alive or not.  There’s no way we can fight our way through to find out.  There’s way too many of them.”

“What’s the mix?”  Long asked, meaning males vs. females.

I stopped and thought for a second, trying to call up the image from my memory.

“I think more males than females,” I finally said.  “All in Air Force uniform, but that’s to be expected.  Males should outnumber the females, but I only got a quick look.”

“What if it’s the Russians in that room?”  Johnson asked.

“Then fuck ‘em,” I growled.  “They can stay in there until they starve to death.”

“We can’t be sure there aren’t Americans still alive in there,” Rachel persisted.

I hated to admit it, but the possibility that she was raising was nagging at me.  And the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. 

Was this someone that had managed to barricade themselves inside?  But what if they’d turned?  There hadn’t been any uninfected people for quite some time.  Then I remembered Titus in Mountain Home.  He’d been immune.  What if we’d come across another, and somehow they’d managed to survive?  Shit!

I took a few minutes to explain what I was thinking to the group.  Told them about the immune prisoner I’d encountered in Oklahoma, then Titus in Idaho.  Rachel had heard the story, but Long and Johnson stared in amazement as I spoke.

“So you think there could be an immune in there?”  Long asked when I was done.

“Didn’t say that,” I said.  “I’m saying it could be a possibility.  There could also be a rotting corpse inside that’s all that’s left of whoever hid from them.  Or a rat could have knocked something over and the noise got them all excited.  But whoever, or whatever, it is, I think we need to find out.”

I looked at Rachel as I spoke and she smiled at me.  We’d been through this routine before.  I’d get so caught up in trying to survive I’d not be thinking about the people that might need my help.  She always managed to make sure I did the right thing.

“So what do we do?”  Johnson asked.

I shook my head, trying to think of some way to get past the infected.  All I was coming up with was a distraction.  But how?  If it was just males, Long or Johnson could lead them away and as long as they didn’t get trapped in a dead end, they’d be fine.  However, there were some females in the group, and none of us were going to outrun them.  But how many were there?

“OK, you three stay put,” I said.  “I’m going to go take another look.  Try to get a count of females.  If there’s only a few, we’ll put them down with a rifle, then someone can lead the males away.”

“Sir, you know going alone is a bad idea,” Long protested.  “I’ll come with you.  Watch your back.”

My first impulse was to order him to stay behind, but he was right.  If something went wrong, there was a better chance of survival if there were two of us.

“While you’re doing that, we’re going to go the other way and see where this goes,” Rachel said.

I opened my mouth to argue, but she cut me off.

“I wasn’t asking; I was telling you.  You can order him to stay,” she pointed at Johnson.  “But not me.”

I looked at her and she smiled back.  Long and Johnson were doing everything they could to suppress grins.

“Yes, dear,” I said sarcastically, handing her the suppressed rifle.  “Meet back here in fifteen, even if you haven’t finished exploring.  And don’t leave this level.”

Rachel nodded and kissed me on the cheek before she and Johnson stepped into the corridor and headed away from the infected.

“What?”  I asked when I noticed Long looking at me.

“Nothing, sir.”

He turned his head to hide a grin.  Grumbling to myself, I ignored him and began leading the way down the hall. 

We moved at a good pace for much of the distance, then slowed as we neared the corner.  Taking short, quiet steps, we came to a stop just before the edge of the wall.  Cautiously, I leaned out until only part of my head was visible from where the infected stood.  I had one eye around the corner and focused on the figures in the hallway.

I didn’t bother trying to get a headcount.  That was pointless.  All I was concerned with were the females.  And it wasn’t easy to pick them out in the crowd where everyone was in a uniform.  The differences between male and female uniforms were subtle, even more so since everyone in the crowd was dressed in blues.

Dark blue slacks and a pale blue shirt.  Men wore a tie and tucked in their shirt.  Women wore more of a blouse style that was outside their pants instead of tucked, and no tie.  Unfortunately, none of the females were in a uniform skirt, which would have made this much easier.  I couldn’t rely on hair as the first few women I spotted had theirs’ up in a tight bun, or just cut very short.

So, in the crush of bodies, I had to try and spot the occasional form that was wearing a female uniform.  It was even harder than it sounds as they weren’t exactly close to where I was hiding behind the wall.  But slowly, I made progress.  And came up with thirteen.  That I could see.  There could have been another thirty or forty hidden within the tightly packed mass.

Pulling back, I nodded to Long and we quietly moved away and returned to the airshaft tunnel.  I had hoped Rachel and Johnson would be there when we arrived, but they weren’t.  Long glanced at his watch as we looked around for them.

“They’ve still got four minutes,” he said.  “How many females?”

“Thirteen.  That I can see.  There’s probably more that are hidden by males.  And I think that group is closer to 200.”

“Shit,” he mumbled.  “You sure we should try this?  All due respect, sir, but we’ve got people back at the airport counting on us.  Things go FUBAR down here and we don’t make it…”

“I haven’t forgotten, Sergeant,” I said, stealing a glance at his watch. 

He looked into my eyes for a moment, then nodded when he was satisfied with what he saw.  I started to say something else, the words dying in my mouth when I heard the distinctive sound of a suppressed rifle firing.  It wasn’t loud, but in the near perfect silence of the tunnels it was very noticeable. 

A moment later there was the scream of an infected female from the direction Rachel and Johnson had gone.  I was already in the corridor, breaking into a run, when more screams erupted from the original group I’d found.

27

I pounded down the corridor, Long tight on my heels.  We hadn’t gone far when I heard him curse, followed a moment later by several rounds from his rifle.  The unsuppressed fire was intensely loud in the hard surfaced hallway.  If there were more infected that weren’t already aware of our presence, they were now.

Risking a glance over my shoulder, I was glad to see that he was still following.  He knew better than to try and stand his ground against the females.  Maybe, between the two of us we could have held them off as we thinned their numbers with accurate rifle fire.  Maybe.  But that was only if we weren’t having to worry about the other members of our group.

Behind Long, easily twenty females were charging after us.  Despite the number I’ve fought since the attacks, their screams still made the hair on my arms stand on end.  There were more screams ahead, from around a bend, punctuated with unsuppressed rifle fire.  That most likely meant that Rachel and Johnson had encountered a group larger than could be handled with just her rifle.

“Grenade!”  I shouted to Long without breaking stride.

“Got three,” he shouted back, then a moment later.  “First one’s hot!”

Perhaps I imagined it, but I thought I heard the sharp impact of the metal body of the grenade when it hit the hard floor.  Then, a few steps later, it detonated.  A concussive wave washed over us, momentarily erasing our hearing.  I glanced behind me again, without slowing.

Long had timed it perfectly.  It appeared the grenade had only been a few yards behind the leading edge of the pursuing females when it exploded.  Between the force of the blast and the razor sharp fragments it threw out, half the females were on the floor.  They writhed, as if in pain, but I knew it was only in their efforts to maintain pursuit of their prey.

The overhead lights in a short stretch of the hall had been blown out by the blast.  Before I turned my head back to the front, more females leapt over the injured ones as they emerged from the darker area. 

“Save it!”

Long had been getting ready to pull the pin on a second grenade.  While I agreed with his idea to use it, we might need it once we rounded the corner.  I was worried about Rachel and Johnson, but as my ears recovered from the pummeling of the detonation I was able to hear their rifles still firing.

Reaching the corner, I slowed and shouted out to announce my presence before suddenly appearing around the turn.  The last thing I needed was to be accidentally shot.  I gave it half a second, using the time to check on the females.  At least ten, maybe more, filled the width of the corridor and were coming fast.  We had maybe forty yards of open space.

“Hit ‘em again,” I said to Long.

He yanked the pin out of the next grenade, let the spoon fly and rolled it down the floor towards the females like he was bowling.  It wobbled as it approached them.  I grabbed the back of his vest as I stepped around the corner, bodily yanking him along with me.  A second later, it went off, the overhead lights in the entire hallway flickering.

Ahead, I could see Rachel and Johnson moving backwards, towards me.  They were firing continuously into a solid wall of infected.  Most of their attackers were male, but there were plenty of screams as females pushed through and surged forward.  They needed help, but first I needed to deal with the threat at our back.

Slapping Long on the shoulder, we rolled around the corner and faced the surviving females.  Four of them, and they went down quickly.  All were inside twenty yards and we had to step apart as the corpse of the last one to be shot tumbled between us and slammed against the wall.

Behind them, more females were still alive.  They were screaming as they pulled their shattered bodies along the floor.  Dust hung in the air and most of the hall we’d just left was now dark.  Movement in the distance caught my attention.

“Males,” Long said, peering down the corridor.

“Let’s go.”

I turned and ran to where Rachel and Johnson were still battling a much larger group.  Females were still appearing at the leading edge, leaping forward to attack.  Most were being taken down within seconds of appearing, but there were a few that were getting too close for comfort.  And it looked like the volume was growing.

As we reached the battle, more screams sounded from the corridor we’d just been fighting in.  More females coming.  Not good.  We were trapped with large groups coming from both directions.  I fired a couple of rounds, taking down two charging infected, then looked around quickly.

Behind and to our left was a door, the only one in this part of the hall.  It had nothing other than a small sign designating it as A-43.  Could be nothing more than a broom closet.  But that didn’t matter.  We couldn’t hold out in the hallway with females coming from two different directions.

Dashing to it, I tried the knob.  It was locked, and there was a small key card reader set into the frame next to the handle.  Leaning away, I hunched my shoulder and rammed it into the door’s surface as hard as I could.  It didn’t even wiggle. 

“Johnson, get this fucking door open!”

I shouted at the Ranger as I moved out of the way and dashed to the corner to see what was coming from behind us.  Long stepped up next to Rachel and they kept battling as I looked around at the other hall.  Females were coming fast, and they were close.

Taking an instant to verify Johnson was working on the lock, I focused back on the approaching threat and started firing.  The first female to drop was an Air Force Captain.  No more than five feet tall and very thin, she had outrun all of the others and was nearly in my face when I destroyed hers with a bullet.

If there had only been females to worry about, I’d probably have been able to hold them off.  They were well spaced, giving me an opportunity to take each out before they could draw close enough to force me to fall back.  But right behind them was a solid mass of males.  I didn’t think I had enough bullets to put all of them down.

“Got it!”

Johnson surprised me.  Long had sung his praises, but I still hadn’t expected him to open the electronic lock so quickly.  I wasted half a second looking over to see him standing halfway through the opening, aiming his rifle into the room.

“Clear,” he shouted a few moments later.

“Collapse in,” I yelled, then fired three more shots and began moving backwards.

Before I reached the open door, two females raced around the corner I’d just abandoned.  I shot the first one, then missed the second.  Her feet had come down on my spent brass, the empty shell casings rolling and sending her tumbling as I fired.  In the time I spent tracking and shooting her, two more appeared at the bend.

Screaming, they launched themselves forward.  Still backpedaling, I kept firing.  One of them went down, then I tripped over my own big feet and fell flat on my back.  The one I’d missed was after me in a flash, making a mighty leap.

Trying to swing my rifle up so it was between my flesh and the snapping teeth, I winced when a rifle fired from right over my head.  It was Johnson, his round taking the top of the female’s head off.  But it didn’t slow her momentum and her body crashed down on top of me.