The Infected (Book 5): Battleground Read online

  Fucking bitch!

  She killed a good man. Shawna’s heart rate increased. The idea of revenge crept into her mind, but before she could begin to plan a counter attack, the man under her care groaned loudly. Shawna refocused and tightened the bandage around his injured shoulder.

  Dallas had this man pinned to the floor with a knife.

  What would I do if a man was about to kill my husband?

  All the logic in the world wouldn’t make her loss any less painful. Dallas was someone she truly cared about and there was even a moment when she allowed herself to dream of a possible future with the man.

  Any chance of a life together was ripped away by these people. Her face went flush. Heat radiated. She fantasized about pulling the trigger. Ending the woman. Getting even.

  One of the little girls let out a cry of terror. The mother quickly comforted her.

  A wash of embarrassment fell upon Shawna. It wasn’t like her to wish ill on someone. That’s not the way she was raised. Eye for an eye went against the teachings she held close to her heart.

  I don’t have to kill her, I just need to get back to the church. She glanced out the window. The infected horse galloped past. It was an unholy vision, but it cemented a truth Shawna couldn’t deny.

  Making it across Vancouver, alone, without a vehicle will be impossible. She made a simple plan, keep the husband alive, earn their trust and escape with the bus in the middle of the night.

  Five times now she had caught the driver’s eyes upon her.

  He could be my ticket out. Shawna threw together the rest of the plan as she used her teeth to tear a length of medical tape.

  Jim’s eyelids fluttered. “Karen?” He was close to passing out. “Where are the girls?”

  Karen used her good arm to cover both their faces from the horrors outside the bus. “I’ve got them.”

  Jim steadied his voice, “Girls, it will be okay. That thing can’t get in here.”

  A hoof crashed through a side window. Karen and the girls were showered with shards of glass. She ducked and crawled from her seat. The back of its leg caught on the metal frame. A set of red stained buck teeth banged against the adjacent window. The creature bashed its mouth against the glass, causing it to spider web.

  A flash of black metal arched through the air. A machete landed a brutal chop onto the beast’s hoof. Sara gritted her teeth as she yanked on her weapon’s handle, but the blade had sunk deep into the horse’s flesh. Sara twisted her grip and placed her foot against the steel wall for leverage.

  “The damn thing is-”

  The horse’s mouth shattered the window, teeth snapped a frog’s hair from Sara’s arm. She leapt back in the nick of time, the machete left buried in its leg.

  Troy raised his shotgun and let a few rounds fly. Tainted blood spritzed the ceiling.

  Leon yelled at his terrified passengers. “I’ll back it up and get a running start.” He forced the shifter into reverse and mashed the pedal. The mangled horse ripped out the window and took the machete with it. The engine rumbled as they barreled backwards down the narrow highway. Once they were a football field away he mashed the brake with both feet, forced it into first and stepped on the gas. The tires lurched forward as they gained speed. He aimed for a slight gap in the bodies and prayed the plow mounted to the front would power through the rotting meat.

  Troy brushed cubes of glass from his beard, then ran his thumb across his brow and caught droplets of blood as they escaped from the bandage that circled his skull. His brain felt three sizes too big and he was sure he had a mild concussion, but there was no time to relax and take a smoke break.

  Pain and fear, is that all we’ll ever get to experience?

  The day’s events had pushed him miles past burnt-out and exhausted.

  Burying your mother before sunrise will do that to a man.

  His fingers worked quickly as he plucked shells from his half empty bandolier and thumbed two rounds into his shotgun. He scanned the beast through the front windshield. A thought occurred. “If it hits a wheel the damn thing could bust an axle.”

  He thumbed two more shells into the gun, popped his head out of the bus and opened fire.

  Sara followed his lead, rose to a window with a fresh rifle and leaned the weapon through the gap. She pulled the scope to her eye and sighted the infected horse as it galloped along the highway on a collision course with the front of the war rig. She tugged at the trigger. Bullets pocked its diseased torso and ripped at its bulging belly. The horse appeared to have been feeding all morning. Perhaps it swallowed a fellow barnyard animal, but Sara’s mind took a darker route. She conjured up an image of a farmer and his family stuffed into the guts of the monster. The idea sickened her. She shook it from her mind and replaced it with something positive. A piping hot, hour long, shower. More than anything Sara wanted to be safe. Jim’s childhood home was a start. The description he gave of the property sounded perfect. The house sat at the end of a two-mile long gravel road, surrounded by a sparse population. Paradise, compared to the war zones in Portland and Vancouver.

  We’ve got to get there. Sara summoned the courage to persevere.

  She sighted the infected animal’s ugly mug, took a long breath and squeezed. The horse’s forehead popped like a watermelon. Gray matter sprayed into the air as the steed tumbled to the ground. Its carcass skidded into the adjacent ditch. Sara didn’t spend any time high-fiving herself for the shot. She went to work and reloaded her magazine. She wanted to keep her mind on task. If she let up for a second she would be haunted by the images of Frank and Devon’s hollowed out faces. She continued to load rounds as she glanced across the aisle. Troy’s jaw was clenched, eyes narrowed, he slid shells into the bottom of his shotgun. There was a slight tremor to his hand.

  He’s dehydrated, that’s all. She told herself.

  She popped the mag into her rifle. A metallic click of the two becoming one was music to her ears.

  “Hold on,” Leon called out as he held the pedal to the floor. He aimed for the tail end of a cow. The plow hit the pile of meat with such force it broke every bone in the dead animal’s hind quarters. A sick sound cracked through the bus. The devastated corpses spun to the ditch as the bus punched through the barricade of flesh. He kept his foot to the floor. Thirty seconds later they passed a green sign. It proudly proclaimed that Battle Ground, Washington was ten miles away.

  Chapter 2

  The head of a shovel clanged against the top of a football sized rock. Brother Paul cringed. He ran his sleeve across his sweat covered face.

  Come on! Another one! He cursed his luck and wanted to snap the shovel’s wood handle over his knee. Thousands of years ago Vancouver was a riverbed. Now the earth was littered with smooth round rocks. The stones made this backbreaking chore even more painful. The muscles in his back were on fire. It had been decades since he last dug anything this size. He stretched his spine and glanced around the oval cutout in the earth. The grave was taking shape. A ring of salt caked his lips. Scotch oozed from every pore. His headache had gone from epic to legendary in the last fifteen minutes. He craved the bottle of booze in his office to make his brain go numb. He wasn’t falling asleep tonight, heck no. Brother Paul wanted to pass out, but that had to wait, there was work to do and he couldn’t afford to let his guard down.

  Not yet.

  Not until everyone is safe.

  His shovel skirted the edge of the rock. It took him five minutes to excavate the last one and this behemoth was twice the size. This job had burned up more of his day than planned, but Paul was compelled to finish. This was his task to complete and if anyone was going to put her in the ground, it was going to be him. He drove his boot onto the shoulder of the shovel. The blade slid under the stone. Paul pushed the handle with all his might, but the rock would not budge. He extracted the yard tool from the dirt, held it upright and rested his elbow on the shovel’s handle as he steadied his breath. He was surrounded, three-hundred-sixty degrees, with grie
f-stricken sobs. The sound of sorrow reminded Paul of Psalm 42:3. My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

  This was an excellent question. Where was God? Paul remained vigilant and prayed all afternoon. God never talked to him as man talks to man. It was more like impressions that Paul could interpret as God’s will and these interpretations never led him astray. The wisdom he gleaned from them told him to prepare for an impending disaster. Paul pleaded and begged for guidance, but no matter how hard he prayed, no message was received. It appeared Brother Paul was alone.

  Without divine inspiration, will I be able to make the correct moves? Only one thing was clear. He had to keep it to himself. If he let it slip that he had lost connection with the Almighty, panic would spread through the church faster than… well, this infection. Paul closed his eyes and focused his thoughts. The constant noise disrupted his concentration.

  The field around him buzzed as teams worked themselves to exhaustion. A row of six more graves were in progress next to Brother Paul. His people shed tears of agony. Cried for the world to go back to normal, but the Earth seemed to have gone cold with indifference.

  A few hours ago, the grounds behind the church were turned into an infected war zone. Thousands of bodies stretched from property line to property line and were stacked five feet deep at its peak. Church members carried their fallen brethren to separate them from the other wretched infected. The grassy field was soft with blood and rancid fluids. Their boots squished into the sticky mud as they fought to make sense of the chaos. There was no way to clear all the bodies. They would need a tractor, which they didn’t have, working day and night to put a dent into this wall of dead flesh. Hope seemed to be a thing of the past.

  These people are afloat in an ocean of pain. He was close to drowning himself. Paul suffered as much loss as any of them. His little brother, Eric, was ripped from him this morning. The promise he made to his father, as the old man lay on his deathbed, haunted Paul’s memories.

  His Father’s voice was raspy, as if he were dying from an unquenchable thirst. ‘Take care of Eric when I’m gone. He needs…’ the emaciated man hacked up a lung. He regained control and finished the sentence with, ‘…guidance. The boy has a demon inside him.’

  ‘I will keep him safe, Father. From himself and from the demons.’ His father gripped Paul’s hand and squeezed with all his might before he slipped into the void.

  I failed them both. Brother Paul’s head dropped.

  A gust of wind carried a horrible stench into Paul’s flared nostrils. The breeze turned cold, which felt good on his perspiring skin. Brother Paul gazed at the horizon. Dark clouds cruised in from the west. The last few sunny days were about to give way to a thunderstorm. He sensed it in his bones. Thirty years of living in the Northwest turned him into a human barometer. A sound caught his attention. He turned to find the tarp had blown off Dana’s corpse. The corner of blue fabric flapped in the wind. Her soft features were twisted and the frozen expression of pain turned Paul’s empty stomach. He climbed out of the waist high hole and crawled next to her. Dana’s face was the color of snow. Her lips sucked back tight against her gums. Her exposed teeth had gone dry. The incision on the side of her skull resembled a single thread of dark red string. Doctor Bryant did a good job of cleaning Dana’s wound before he carried her to the field. Brother Paul clutched the tarp, pulled it across her face and tucked it under her shoulder. Dana’s body had gone stiff and cold since he last touched her. She wasn’t even in the ground yet and his thoughts turned to who could possibly do her job.

  Is there anyone even remotely qualified to run her position? Not a single soul came to mind. Paul bounced around from one dark realization to another. Dallas and Blaine were gone as well and the people responsible for their deaths were on their way north, to Battle Ground. A burning hate pulsed through Paul’s system.

  Who could replace them? Dallas was the group’s best gunman and Blaine was one of the few in the church with a C.D.L. There were only two or three others that could drive a big rig.

  Both of their abilities were priceless in this… Paul could not think of a better word for their current predicament than…

  …apocalypse.

  Brother Paul grunted at Dana’s corpse as if she could still give him counsel.

  “Eric and his team, lost. Dallas and his team, lost. Seven others ripped apart at this battle.” He spotted Scott, the eyes and ears of the organization, as he stepped from the church. His expression blank. His shoulders closed in around his chest. Paul watched the man as he moped across the field in Paul’s direction. He knew exactly what Scott wanted to talk about and the topic made him cringe.

  Brother Paul slid into the grave as Scott knelt next to Dana’s body. He reached out to touch her through the tarp, but stopped himself. Instead, he dug his fingers into the pile of dirt and came away with a handful of earth. Paul lifted his shovel and worked at the damn rock, never acknowledging the other man’s presence. Scott shuffled his fingers around the dirt clod and slowly released the grains back to the mound.

  Emotions got the better of Scott. He cleared his throat three times before he could speak clearly. “We can’t stay… here.” He removed his thick glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose.

  Paul set the shovel aside and pawed at the rock with his bare hands as he said, “I know.”

  “It’s not safe. There’s no way to clear these…” Scott glanced at the wall of turned bodies. “…people. The smell alone will drive us out.” He reset his specs.

  Paul strained as he lifted the boulder. “I know.” He cleared ground level and forced the rock from the grave.

  “You need to give the orders to mo-”

  Paul’s hand reached out faster than a rattlesnake. His filthy fingers snatched Scott by the wrist and drew him in close. His words were sharp as a diamond’s edge. “We will put our people in the ground, perform a proper funeral and then we can depart. Do you understand?”

  Scott whimpered from the pain. His jaw quivered, “Yes.”

  Paul released his vice grip and Scott fell to his butt. He scooted away and rubbed the dark red fingerprints on his skin. Paul lifted the shovel and continued to dig. He got three loads cleared from the grave when he stopped, turned and faced Scott.

  “I sincerely apologize. I am… trying to keep…” Brother Paul bowed his head. “Tell Pastor Caruthers to get everyone organized and ready to move. We leave today.”

  Scott lowered his brow. “Pastor Caruthers?”

  “He wanted more responsibility, and he is going to get it. Tell him he needs to make this move into a positive. Turn it from a travesty into our best chance for survival. We need to get somewhere with a lower population. Check for one of our sister churches up north.” Paul recalled Blaine’s final words to him. ‘They’re going to Battle Ground… They’re going to his parents…’ Brother Paul owed Jim Blackmore and his group a visit. One they wouldn’t enjoy. “Battle Ground area, perhaps?”

  Scott’s features scrunched as he asked, “Why?”

  Paul glared. “Get it done. If the Mr. Caruthers has questions, tell him where he can find me.” Paul returned to his work.

  Scott lumbered to his feet and brushed the dirt from his pants. “I’ll get it done.” He pivoted on his heels, but before he stepped away he said, “I loved her too.” Scott walked briskly.

  Scott entered the back of the church. A few injured people lay on cots along the rear wall of the med-center. Doctor Lindsey Bryant sat with her back to Scott as she tended to a woman’s blistered hand.

  “What was I thinking?” the woman asked as she snorted. Her nose was runny and bright pink. “Grabbing the gun by the barrel, what a rookie mistake.” The woman winced as Lindsey wrapped the final layer of gauze around the wound. The woman rubbed a tear from her cheek. “Doc, what is all this? What the hell is happening?”

  Bryant placed a strip of tape to secure the gauze, paused for a moment and quietly s
aid, “I don’t know.”

  Doctor Bryant stood and moved for the next cot. A man lay in wait with his leg propped up by a few pillows. He had taken off his boot and the exposed ankle was twice its normal size.

  Lindsey spotted Scott as he headed for the hallway. She turned to the man and said, “David, I’ll be right with you.” She stepped in front of Scott, reached for his elbow and whispered. “What did he say?”

  “I’m on my way to see the Pastor now.”

  “And?”

  “We are giving the word. We leave, today.”

  “Oh my,” said the Doctor. She released his elbow, covered her mouth and tried to keep her emotions under control. She was petrified. The idea of leaving this building for the road was insane, but she knew it was the only way for them to survive. She quickly regained her composure.

  Scott nodded at her patients, “You better finish with them and start packing.” He stepped around her and continued to head for the hallway.

  Michael’s office was small in comparison to Brother Paul’s. Enough room for a desk, three chairs and a dresser. He frantically opened a dresser drawer and plucked a fresh shirt from the top of the stack. He mumbled a mashup of curse words. Most of the four-letter words had not been said since he was a teen. His hands shook uncontrollably as he unbuttoned his Oxford. He glanced around the room and paused for a moment on a wall of photographs. Michael feeding the poor, building a well, constructing a house, marrying a bright faced couple, performing a baptism, giving a sermon, handing out jackets to the homeless. Every picture featured the young pastor as if he was the star of his own reality show. In the end, his gaze landed on a mirror. It hung on the door to his office. There was a stain on his shoulder. Snot from a grieving husband. The thought of another human’s mucus on him made his stomach turn inside out. Tiny spots covered the front of his shirt.