Riposte (The Redivivus Trilogy Book 2) (12 page)

Crestfallen, Ava could not bear to destroy the infected child, and she realized her only option was to flee the unimaginable nightmare sprawling around her. She tried to maneuver around the ghastly, one-legged abomination as it bared its filthy, broken teeth with a feral snarl. Before she knew what she was doing, Ava took a running step and swung her left leg with such force that the thing’s miserable head snapped back sharply before lolling unnaturally to the side. She felt the sickening crumple of facial bones beneath her foot, followed by the collapsing crunch of cervical vertebrae pushed far beyond their intended range of motion. For a brief moment, the thing’s reaching fingers flexed into a depraved claw before going slack, its unmoving digits still buried deeply in the dirt. It stared at her with lifeless eyes, completely void of the insatiable yearning they held moments ago. Ava saw something in those dying eyes, some expression just hazy enough to be unreadable.
Anger? Gratitude? Relief? Maybe it was nothing at all…

In the time it took Ava to dispatch the crawler, the infected child took a couple of uncoordinated, sidelong steps that put it directly in her path. Picking up speed once again, Ava parried the child’s outstretched arms, batting them to the side with ease. The rotational force off-balanced the little monster, sending it to the ground. As she rushed past, Ava’s blood went cold as the collective moans of the two hordes behind her converged and intensified.

Panic rising in waves within her heaving chest, she ran as fast as her tired and battered body allowed. To her right, she saw shapes, dark and malicious, dancing among the trees in her peripheral vision. Although she wanted to believe they were merely the first shadows of night playing a cruel trick on her frightened brain, she knew that was not the case.
Shadows don’t reach out for you! They don’t call for you!
Despite the pain in her ankle, Ava willed her legs to pump harder with everything her weary mind could muster, even as she felt death’s icy talons drawing steadily closer.

Vision blurring and ears roaring, Ava felt the overwhelming disorientation of sensory deprivation and oxygen starvation. Never in her short life had she been pushed to such extremes, and she found the sensation to be oddly surreal. Simultaneously merciful and cruel, she could no longer clearly see or hear the ungodly horrors that she knew lurked all around her. Having run full tilt for several minutes, Ava had depleted all of her reserves—her tank was bone dry.

As she slowed, the noise of the wind rushing past her abated, leaving only the sounds of her gasping lungs and the turbulent whoosh of blood flowing through her ears in its place. Exhausted, she stumbled and dropped to her knees. Struggling to slow her pulse and breathing, she wondered if her heart and lungs would explode before the infected reached her. Her head sagged in defeat as she waited for death to finish what it started nearly a month ago. As she wondered which of death’s minions would take her, she heard a sound so faint it was difficult to discern whether it was a quiet thought from within her head or an actual sound from outside. Focusing despite her imminent demise, she thought she heard a soft, angelic voice coming from somewhere to her left.

Ava regarded the incongruous sound with the hopeful skepticism of a water-starved desert traveller eyeing an oasis in the middle of the barren wasteland. At first, she remained rooted to the spot; afraid the tenuous auditory mirage might vanish completely with even the slightest disturbance. Despite feeling as though all was truly lost, she heard the beautiful voice once again.

“Hey! Over here!” the mysterious voice called.

Turning in the direction of the sound, Ava saw nothing but the nondescript landscape of the wooded area.

“Hey, girl! Over here! Hurry! They are nearly on top of you. Get up!” the voice cried in exasperation.

This time it sounded hollow, echoing as though it came from inside a barrel. Still unsure of its origin but spurred on by the frantic pleading, Ava climbed to her feet. As she did, she noticed a brief flicker of movement near the ground about fifteen yards away. Squinting through the inky darkness, Ava saw the frenzied movements of flailing arms trying desperately to attract her attention. Redoubling her efforts, her straining eyes discerned a circular opening approximately two feet in diameter, but she could make out no further details. In the back of her mind, she wondered if it might be one of the infected, trapped and flailing randomly in an effort to dislodge itself.

Seeing no other option, she forced the thought down and started in the direction of the opening. Drawing closer, Ava heard the voice once again.

“Hurry up! You’re going to get us both killed!” the voice exclaimed with unveiled frustration.

Finally confident she was not simply climbing out of the furnace and into the fire, Ava hastened to the spot.

Poking her head out and peering from side to side as though trying to figure out who just rang the doorbell, the squalid girl grabbed Ava’s arm and unceremoniously jerked her into the drainage culvert.

Worming through the narrow passage on hands and knees, Ava couldn’t help but feel as though she might be crawling into her own coffin. The sound of the two girls scuffling through the metal drain sounded deafeningly loud, and Ava prayed the acoustics of the pipe were such that they kept most of the noise inside. With every movement, pain shot through her knees as they landed on every rock and ridge inside the corrugated pipe. Ava wanted to ask the girl in front of her how much farther they had to go, but she could not spare the air required for speech. After what seemed like an eternity, Ava felt a slight gust of cool air on her face as she saw the girl in front of her disappear. At that moment, she could not recall having felt anything so wonderful in her entire life.

With one last great push, Ava flopped out of the pipe and onto the ground on the other side. Although she had no idea if she was out of danger, she no longer possessed the strength to do anything about it either way. Panting in exhaustion, Ava looked up to find a dirty figure looming over her, silhouetted ominously in the moonlight. Leaning in, its filthy hand reached for her as it opened its mouth.

“My God! You smell like absolute shit! Were you bitten?” the figure said, recoiling as though she just realized she was about to pet a cobra.

From her cowering position on the ground, Ava shook her head tentatively from side to side.

“My name is Annalee. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

8

September 26, 2015

Gaston County, NC

The world slowly drifted into focus in intermittent, blurry waves: pain and unimaginably bright light, smoke and the hiss of scalding hot water, warmth and the smell of burning plastic. With each successive blink, Connor’s bruised and battered brain received more sensory input, affording him a view of a world unlike anything he had known. What he saw when consciousness finally found him was an unrecognizable world of absolute chaos. The smoke filling the truck’s cab and the steam billowing from under the hood made the scene all the more surreal. His mind drifted back to the image of the mutilated woman just before his truck had annihilated her. Panicked, he whipped his neck around searching for the horrible monster but it was nowhere to be seen. Instead an intense, white-hot pain greeted him as the muscles in his neck protested the sudden movement.
Holy shit! I need to get out of this truck before I die of smoke inhalation.

Barely able to return his head to center, Connor slumped forward as waves of pain radiated through his pinned torso. He felt the pressure of the vehicle accordioned upon his chest as viscous warmth oozed down his face. The truck’s rearview mirror hung limply at an odd angle, showing him a long, jagged gash extending across his forehead. Every breath was a bittersweet victory of life-sustaining air laced with searing agony.

Connor’s attention waxed and waned with the tide of his anguish, and he gradually became aware of movement outside the truck. Through the smoke and shattered glass, he could not discern who or what was there.
Maybe it’s the paramedics…or her. Please don’t let it be her!
The moment the first bloody hand slapped against the spider-webbed glass of the driver’s side window, he knew that whatever was outside his wrecked truck harbored no altruistic intentions.

With renewed effort, Connor struggled to free himself as pain lancinated through his body. Somehow he knew the excruciating pain was nothing compared to the pain he would feel if he did not get away from whatever was trying to get in. He managed to wriggle free in slow, throbbing increments before falling across the front seat of the truck. As he moved his traumatized legs, Connor knew the fact that they had not been completely crushed was a miracle.
Thank God for good ol’ American steel!

The banging and scratching against the windows intensified in response to his grunts of pain. He watched as the first pieces of the broken driver’s window gave way under the barrage. More and more tiny shards rained down upon his legs until he heard a sharp
pop
as the entire windowpane gave way, showering him with a million miniscule fragments of glass.

Connor opened his eyes to see a monster nearly as horrible as the woman that had caused the accident. A low, strained sound like that of a man who just had the wind knocked out of him emanated from the thing’s slack jaw. Wan skin surrounded its wide-open nasal cavities; the cartilage of its nose missing, making it look rather like
The Swamp Thing
. Connor saw its hand swat the air where the window had been several more times, as though it did not yet understand that the glass had shattered. He watched as its movement shifted awkwardly from banging to reaching, with some chimera of the two in between. Connor thought it looked like the guy suffered from some sort of disorder that gave him only partial control of his own musculoskeletal system.

His reflection on the matter was cut short as the reaching hand closed around his leg. As if finally accepting he was not dreaming, Connor lashed out with a violent kick that sent electric shocks of pain through his entire body, smashing the thing’s outstretched arm against the closed door. There was a sickening crack like a dry branch being snapped over one’s knee as the arm was crushed underfoot. When the merciless fireworks of agony faded in his eyes, Connor saw that the thing was already reaching for him, heedless of its splintered arm that flopped uselessly to the side. It had managed to squeeze its head as well as its other arm through the narrow opening. With shocked disbelief, Connor realized that what should have been a fight-ending injury had no apparent impact on the guy clawing his way into the cab of his truck.
Holy shit! I don’t think he even made a sound when his arm shattered! What the hell is wrong with this guy?

Whatever it was, Connor knew he wanted no part of it. Ignoring the pain, he launched several more equally powerful kicks that landed directly on the thing’s face. Each successive blow was rewarded with a satisfying crunch akin to that of someone eating potato chips. When he pulled his foot back, he saw that the thing’s midface was completely caved in, and its lower jaw looked as though it had been shoved through his spine. To his horror, Connor watched as the thing persisted in its attempt to crawl into the truck with him.
The damn thing didn’t even flinch with those kicks! 

Everything seemed to click into place at once in his mind, and Connor accepted that whatever drove the monstrosity forward was nothing that he, or anyone else for that matter, had ever seen before. In that instant, he understood that whatever he thought he knew about the world and what was going on, was no longer valid. A guiding tenet of his combat training surfaced in his mind:
Move! If you move, you live.
Connor had always felt that inaction and hesitation were, at the very least, partly responsible for most fatalities in combat situations. Unwilling to accept such a fate, he plotted his escape from the hell he had awoken in.

Once again, Connor stomped forward, slamming his heel against the thing’s shoulder. He felt its collarbone collapse under the force, as he wedged its head and good arm behind the truck’s steering wheel. Craning his neck, he saw his pistol lying in the passenger side foot well. He scooped it up and checked the magazine. With the struggling monster still pinned, he brought his free leg around to kick the cracked windshield. Despite his best effort, he could not generate the force necessary to shatter the glass.

Unwilling to release the writhing creature in order to shift into better position, he raised the pistol and chambered a round. Eyes clamped shut and face averted; he squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession. The sound of the exploding windshield was lost amidst the deafening report of the handgun within the confined space. A million more tiny shards of glass showered the truck’s interior, peppering his face, and nicking his skin in several places.

Not wasting a second, Connor peered out of the opening as the sun’s bright rays filtered in through the smoke billowing out from under the truck’s crumpled hood. Shadowy figures moved ominously behind the cloudy veil, and he hoped he was as obscured to them as they to him.
Not likely. That double tap probably alerted half the county to my location.
Despite seeing movement all around the cab, Connor was still unable to get a clear sense of exactly what in the hell was out there. Even so, as he glanced at the squirming thing at his feet, he had a good idea about their intentions.

Realizing he was being surrounded, Connor knew his window of opportunity was closing.
Move and live!
With adrenaline curbing his pain by huge degrees, he pulled his leg back and released the monster in the window. Before it could extricate itself from behind the steering wheel, he stomped down hard on its neck. There was a sharp crack upon impact and the thing went limp instantly, its ear coming to rest on its shoulder as its head lolled grotesquely to the side. Connor immediately pulled himself out onto the truck’s crumpled hood, which clanged loudly in protest as the metal dented under his weight. Rising to his feet, he glanced around and took in the chaotic scene. What he saw nearly made his knees buckle.

All around, what he assumed were the infected shambled toward his crashed vehicle. There were old and young, male and female. Some moved with the pained slowness of a near-crippled arthritic while others moved at a fast walking pace, albeit with an unsteady gait.
Damn! I guess the news reports weren’t blowing this thing out of proportion after all.

While he could not remember all the details of the accident, he knew he had not seen all of these
people
…these things. Visions of the horrid woman flashed through his mind again, and there was no question that something had been terribly wrong with her. The more he thought about it, he decided the others had likely been drawn to the noise of the accident.
Just how long was I out?

As if in confirmation of his hypothesis, approximately twenty pairs of eyes shifted their gaze toward the sound of the bending metal of the hood—toward him. An unsettling moan erupted from the crowd as several of the things noticed him atop the truck. The chilling sound, filled with appetence, made Connor freeze until the closest thing took the first lurching step in his direction.

Like a running back picking a path through the defensive line, he set his sights on a clearing just beyond the thickest part of the small horde where a building stood in the distance. Using his elevated position to his advantage, he waited several more seconds until the first few were nearly upon him before he leapt over their outstretched arms. Landing in a narrow gap within the group, he rolled forward to absorb the shock of the impact. Before coming up to his feet, he hooked the leg of the closest one, kicking out and sweeping it to the ground. The intense pain that coursed through his body made him grimace, but he knew there was nothing for it. The rest of the infected were already closing in, blotting out the small office building in which he hoped to take refuge.

As Connor advanced toward the building, the decimated form of a teenage boy lumbered into his path—two arms and one hand desperately reaching for him. The bones of its left forearm protruded from the jagged wound where his hand had once been; the bright, white surface starkly contrasting the dark, blood-encrusted skin and blackened tissue. Connor ducked under its outstretched arms and drove all of his weight into the thing’s chest. The infected boy went sprawling into three others immediately behind him, knocking them to the ground like bowling pins. As he leapt over the tangle of bodies, Connor saw the building less than twenty yards ahead. His legs screamed from the exertion but he willed himself to press on, knowing his life depended on it.

Connor scanned his surroundings as he raced forward. Two infected monsters stood directly in his path, with several more to each side.
If I can deal with those two fast enough, I can be long gone before the others even become a factor.
Considering how best to do so, Connor surmised that if the things had been attracted to his location by the noise of the crash, then the damage had already been done.
No sense in staying quiet now!

Without breaking stride, he drew his pistol and fired three rounds at point blank range, scoring two headshots in the process. The two infected in his path wilted to the ground like marionettes with their strings cut. He hurdled over the inanimate corpses without a second glance. Agonizing tinges of pain shot through his leg as the door to the two-story office building came into view directly ahead.
Fight the pain! Push through it! Come on, you can do it! Move or die!
With a final burst of adrenaline, he pumped his legs even harder, making it to the front door of the building well ahead of his pursuers.

Enraged, he let out a grunt of frustration upon discovering the door was locked. He stepped back and fired a single shot into the lower panel of the glass door. A swift low front kick buckled the fractured glass pane inward. Connor quickly scurried through the opening and began sliding everything he could find in front of the hole in the door. He knew the makeshift barricade would not hold forever, but all he needed was a little extra time.

Slipping deeper into the office building, he saw no evidence of anyone currently inside the structure. Despite the stygian hallways, Connor did not think it would be wise to draw further attention to his presence by turning on the lights. He felt confident he would be able to hear anyone, or anything, moving within the building’s otherwise deathly quiet catacombs. Creeping cautiously through the inky blackness, he gripped his pistol with one hand and extended the other in front of him like an insect’s antenna seeking any obstruction in his path. Before his eyes were fully adjusted to the darkness, a sharp pain tore through his shin and a loud crash sounded directly in front of him. Connor felt as though the world canted to the side as he tumbled forward. Without any visual cues with which to orient him, he had no clue what was happening, and thus no chance to brace against the impending impact.

Connor’s left shoulder slammed hard against the cold concrete floor as his legs toppled over something large and heavy. Brightly colored bursts of light flashed behind his eyes as his neck snapped sharply to the side. Despite the renewed pain surging through his entire body, he quickly pulled himself up to a seated position, thankful he had not smashed his head against the unforgiving floor.

Gasping for air, Connor fought to control the howls of pain and frustration surging through his body. His mind seethed nearly as much as his body, being unable to grasp everything that had happened in such a short time. Things in his world had been status quo until the news started talking about small pockets of a new infection less than a week ago. When the media indicated things were rapidly spiraling out of control in many parts of the country, he finally decided to investigate the situation himself. Nothing could have prepared him for what he encountered.