Baker spoke next. ”You motherfucker, we’re all supposed to be on the same fuckin’ side. Humans shouldn’t be fuckin’ killing fuckin’ humans. We should be fuckin’ killing these fucking zombies.”
“
Whoever you are, all these zombies want is that boy. One boy and they’ll stop killing innocent people. Sometimes in war, there are acceptable losses. One boy to stop the destruction of our race seems logical to me. I have a signed accord with their leader, Laura E. Watson, that they’ll leave all the land from Virginia to Florida open for us, if we give them that one little boy. You have the fate of mankind in your hands Ken, yours and your foul mouthed friend.”
Chapter 11
Trina
Leo appeared at my side. Marshall and John took off running for where we were standing.
“
Oh look, Tookes, your little girl came to your aid. How… quaint.” Trina said.
Leo looked like she’d been lit on fire. She was shaking with anger, shaking so hard and so fast she was blurring, the edges of her becoming transparent.
“
Tookes, your little poppet looks mad. Should I be afraid of her?” She said with a giggle.
I saw the decision form, Trina was going to go for my neck. In a millisecond I sent out hundreds of shadows of my own, she was fast. She was smart, nearly every option I chose ended badly for me. None allowed me to kill her.
“
Leo. Now.
” Two words was all I had time to think at her before I let all the strength go out of my legs. I started falling straight to the ground while drawing my sig. Leo drew one of her short swords and disappeared, swinging left to right after appearing behind Trina. Trina stepped towards me, reaching for my neck, causing Leo’s swing to miss. Leo teleported again, appearing behind and above me. She swung the kukri in a downward arc as she fell narrowly missing my nose, removing Sherrie’s hand. My legs bent at the knees as I continued moving towards the ground. Leo poofed again, this time showing up on Trina’s left side, swinging for her arm. Trina dissipated, reappearing behind Leo, her hand almost completely re-grown.
“
Behind
” I thought to Leo. It was all happening as if time was moving at a snail’s pace. I’d fallen less than three inches.
Leo blinked again, leaving a swirl of black. She appeared upside down, like an Olympic diver, perfectly straight, from her toes to the point of her extended sword, just touching the blonde’s long hair. Trina’s momentum was carrying her downward already. Leo had just appeared and gravity hadn’t had a chance to take effect. A thick clump of Sherry’s blonde hair was left when she apparated again, this time to the ground to the right of me. Her lock of golden hair was still drifting downward as John fired two bullets. When the bullets where halfway to me, Trina blinked again and they passed harmlessly through the black smoke as the super zombie appeared to my left, grabbing my arm. I knew she could take me with her. She was so fast, all of this had happened in the time it took me to fall four inches. My hand had just reached my gun in its holster. I pointed it outwards, away from my hip still inside the holster and fired one shot.
Trina let out a scream as my bullet tore through her foot. She disappeared, cutting off her shriek and was still crying out when she reappeared, making it easy to figure out that she was directly behind me. I was building momentum, falling faster now. My gun had just cleared its holster when Leo swung her kukri at my side, over my head, slicing deeply into Trina’s arm. The cut closed quickly, but not as quickly as I’d expected, given how quickly she re-grew her hand.
I had a fleeting thought that she was going to run if we kept injuring her. I sent that impression to Leo, John and Marshall. “
Don’t wound her, if you don’t have a kill, don’t take the shot.
” It seemed easier to send whole thoughts than forming the words in my mind.
The sig finally cleared its plastic holster and I was pulling it up in front of me as I twisted myself to start the process of landing on my back. Trina and Leo were all over the place, staying in one spot no more than a millisecond or two. Both were feeling each other out, sometimes they’d clash together, sometimes they’d appear feet apart. Trina had had months of practice teleporting, Leo was fairly new to it but was learning very quickly. Leo was imaginative and inspired. She appeared at odd angles. She used gravity to her advantage. One time she appeared in a dive, fell a couple feet, then appeared horizontally, her body’s momentum now carried her forward, giving the effect of flying.
I started noticing trends in the black swirling mist left behind when they teleported. Trina always went in the same pattern. She moved too quickly for me to react to her decision making, shadows would appear, but solidify before I could do anything. My only hope was to get my gun into place in front of me, get my back on the ground and hope I could squeeze a round off before she killed me.
Before that happened, Trina appeared next to me, put her hand on my head and teleported me. I found myself at least a hundred feet up off the ground and falling quickly. Leo screamed and teleported above me. She misjudged how quickly I was moving and was unable to reach me as I fell. Trina was standing on the ground looking up at me from a few feet north of where I was going to land. I watched John turning around in slow motion, raising his gun. Marshall’s shotgun was pressed tightly against his shoulder.
“
Trina!” I yelled, trying to keep her attention. “I’m going to kill you now.” She arched an eyebrow at me as John raised his gun, firing a shot from less than eight feet away. He was so fast. Marshall was only a second behind him, firing the shotgun. Trina disappeared, avoiding John’s bullet and reappeared a foot to the left. Her body was immediately spun around and knocked to the ground. There was a large hole in her chest from Marshall’s shotgun blast.
Leo saw an opportunity. She disappeared from above me, leaving me falling. From my perspective, the ground was rushing upwards very fast. Marshall was running towards where I was going to splatter but he wasn’t going to make it. I braced myself for how badly this was going to hurt. Even if Marshall caught me I was going to break my back.
The blonde zombie was squirming down on the ground, writhing in pain, leaking bodily fluids all over the road. Leo appeared at her head, driving her kukri’s into the bitch’s skull. She twisted them as the fattest part of the blade penetrated through Trina’s forehead and face. The squirming stopped; Leo appeared right beside me. She kissed me. The second our lips touched, we reappeared on the ground.
I took a minute to make sure my drawers were still clean and to holster my pistol before grabbing her. I pulled her tightly against me and pressed my lips against hers. “Thanks, Leo. That landing hurt much less than I had anticipated.”
I searched Trina’s corpse, the only thing worth keeping was a single key, not on a key ring. It wasn’t a car key; it might have been her house key. I figured if she had a key, maybe it would unlock something I needed. It was likely she could have come from the Department of Defense and maybe this key was to something there. It seemed worth holding on to for a little while anyways. It was just odd enough to pique my interest.
“
Let’s head out. We have some humans to save; we’ve delayed here long enough. Keep your eyes peeled for Bookbinder. If he’s moving, assume he’s a zombie. He knows everything about us and now no doubt they do. I’m giving us two hours to get the prisoners out of the DOD and then we’re going home.” I said.
“
Assuming Bookbinder will go straight to whoever is in charge in the area, I’m mildly hopeful we’ll find him at the DoD building. Maybe we’ll get lucky enough to find him before he’s fully turned; maybe we’ll be lucky enough that we can rescue him or end him before that happens.” Marshall said sadly.
“
Charlie was my friend.” I said. ”I can’t leave him a zombie. At this point, that’s why we’re going there, screw Frye’s mission. If we can accomplish both, all the better, but Bookbinder is our number one priority right now.”
We loaded up in our trucks and headed the last two blocks to the Greyhound station. Behind the station in the yard we found four Greyhound buses. We all searched for nearly twenty minutes to find the keys and another thirty minutes to get them started and fueled up. We got ourselves ready for the next phase while they were warming up, belching plumes of black diesel smoke into the air.
“
From here out, follow the plan. Park the buses in the first lot you come to. Turn the lights off and leave the motors idling; I don’t want to risk one of them not starting again. Leave fifteen minutes after us. We’re leaving in five. Check your weapons and refill your magazines. Once you’ve parked your bus, get out and find cover. Do not wait in the bus, they’re going to be the first target attacked.”
“
We got it sir. You can count on us.” replied Dalton Reineer. ”We’ll be there when you need us.”
Marshall, Leo and I left in two of the SUV’s, leaving Reineer, Hostetler, Garrett and Johnson sitting in buses with idling motors and ten minute timers.
Twenty five minutes later, when the four buses arrived in the parking lot, they found our trucks smashed. One of them was fifteen feet off the ground up in the limbs of a tree. The rear wheels were still slowly spinning. The other truck was completely destroyed, leaning on its passenger side, with an arm sticking out from under it. Other than the owner of the arm, there was no one to be found. The members of M1 threw their buses into park and bailed out into the parking garage in the lot next door, looking to find a better observation position.
Chapter 12
Max
“
We’re coming down. Stand aside,” yelled a voice from the top of the stairs.
Baker and Leuty stood on the left at the entrance to the dining room, Gallard and Grieco across the reception room to the right in the entrance to the living room.
A huge man in military fatigues with a long black assault rifle slung across his back stepped into the room holding Max against his chest. Max’s head rolled to one side, his eyes closed, he looked unconscious.
“
Fuck, what did you mother fuckers do to lil Maxie?” asked Baker.
“
We gave him a mild sedative; it was dosed by our base doctor based on his age and size estimate. He’ll sleep for a couple of hours and by then we’ll have had time to examine him. Maybe they’ll even let him come back. He won’t feel a thing,” replied the soldier.
The second soldier followed the first across the room and stepped in front to open the door. Max opened his eyes and tried to wink, scrunching his whole face up, closing both eyes and then opening them.
The remaining members of M5 heard Max speak in their heads. “
Tell my Dad almost all my bugs are asleep. I can’t talk to him right now, he’s too far away, but I’ll be fine when they wake up. They said to say they took the medicine the bad man gave me, so I wouldn’t get hurt, but they had to go to sleep for a while until it was all gone. Don’t kill any more bad men tonight.
”
Baker almost broke into tears as he nodded to Max. “I’ll come get you lil Maxie. I’ll fu… get these fu… Badguys,” he said. He didn’t know of Max could hear him or not, but it made him feel better.
When the soldiers were gone, he said “Leuty. Grab a car, something fuckin’ quiet. Follow them fucks but don’t let them see you. Try ta at least get a fuckin’ idea of what direction they going.”
Max bumped along as the soldier had transferred him to his back laying over his shoulder in a fireman carry. He was running while carrying the small boy. When the two soldiers walked out the front door they immediately started jogging towards the field at the rear of the house. They ran at a fast jog down the hill and splashed through the cold stream that bisected the back field. They’d covered about two miles when Max felt around in his head, looking for the familiar connection to his bugs. “
I’m scared,
” he thought. “
I don’t know what to do and these badguys are mean; they’re going to hurt me.
”
There was no response from the companions in his head. “
This badguy has hard shoulders. I don’t like this. I’m scared.
” Max started to cry, trying his best to stay quiet; trying not give away that he was awake. The bugs had told him to pretend to be asleep. He laid quietly as tears streamed down his cheeks, face down over the hard, scratchy backpack the soldier was wearing. Every time the soldier’s foot hit the ground, a tear bounced off his cheek and soaked into the man’s uniform.
“
We’ve been running for one hundred minutes
,” thought Max. Really they’d run about three miles, when they caught up with the other group of soldiers. Once Max and his captors rejoined the rest of their team, the pace slowed a little bit. “
At least
they haven’t hurt me yet,
” thought Max.