The Last Outbreak (Book 3): Desperation (16 page)

Maybe the whispered stories he’d heard of Anton were just that… stories. Maybe he wasn’t as demented as Goodwin described. Maybe his outward demeanor was simply a façade. Because from where Dalton was standing, the man now running in the opposite direction, while carrying an MP5 in his right hand and a Mossberg 590 over his left shoulder, along with his two-man wrecking crew, was keeping this group alive.

Running away from the shadow of the twin hangars and ducking around the silent helicopter, Dalton moved out into the fading sunlight. He turned toward the glossy G280 and beyond that the eight-foot-tall chain-link fence. Something was wrong, and as the others turned toward the plane, he assumed he was the only one who had noticed.

He wasn’t.

Swallowing hard, his mind hadn’t fully finished making sense of just how screwed he and the others really were. Before this very second, he’d hoped that firing a weapon, firing the Beretta in his right hand, was something he was past. As the realization caught up with him, Dalton’s knees gave out and he dropped his only form of protection.

His only thought as he lurched forward and rolled to a stop, one hundred feet from the luxury jet, was that if hell had been recreated, piece by piece, and then set down on earth, he was absolutely sure this is what it would look like.

It was obvious that at some point since Anton and his men had left here, the horde had broken through the eight-foot-tall chain-link fence. They were told the crowd numbered between two and three hundred, but Dalton was sure that there had to be twice that amount, just between the hangar and the jet.

As Dalton reached for the Beretta and got back to his knees, he looked over his right shoulder to see Walter also raising his weapon, Goodwin sweeping the muzzle of his shotgun across the approaching crowd, and Nicholas backing toward the helicopter.

Pushing to stand, Dalton was tugged from behind and as he turned, Travis stepped forward.  The younger man moved quickly from left to right, and retrieving a second pistol from his utility belt, handed it to the Nicholas.

All five men were now armed; however, as the majority of the crowd took notice of their presence, the odds were far from being in their favor. And although the horde had lost all interest in the G280, and their numbers around the jet weakened, creating a path through the densely spaced corpses would be impossible.

As the crowd continued forward, Goodwin and Travis stepped out first. Leveling their weapons, a low rumble ran through the dry desert air. Twisting left and looking back over his shoulder, Dalton backpedaled three paces as the blacked-out Rolls Royce Phantom raced across the blacktop.

From the passenger window, the kid with the bright orange close-cropped hair fired one round after the next from his shouldered AR-15. Bodies from the outer edges of the horde were falling to the tarmac faster than others could fill in.

Pulling his weapon from the open window, Red ducked inside just as the most expensive vehicle any of these men had ever seen plowed head-on into the first row of Feeders. Coming to a stop almost instantly, the heavy framed vehicle forced a dike into the flood of decimated bodies pouring in from beyond the downed eight-foot fence.

Dalton started counting and was able to reach three before slowly, the oversized sunroof along the top of the Rolls began to slide back. Anton was the first to appear, and shouldering the Mossberg 590, he jumped out and knelt just behind the sunroof.

Leaning forward and reaching into the vehicle, Anton pulled Red through the sunroof and pointed him toward the others. Stepping left and moving around the younger man, Anton leapt onto the hood, fired off three precise shots, and eliminated a trio of Feeders that had begun to climb their way onto the destroyed vehicle.

Leaving the Rolls, Anton moved in between the next wave of infected and the men he was here to protect. But he wasn’t going to be able to handle the entire crowd himself, and as Travis and Red stepped in alongside, he shouted for Goodwin

“GET IN HERE, IT’S TIME TO TAKE A STAND!”

Before the behemoth had finished speaking, Nicholas had joined the men near the Rolls Royce and pulled off his white button down oxford. Tossing it aside, he readied the nine millimeter Travis had given him, peered down the line at the others, and nodded.

Also coming forward, and only a step behind his pilot, Goodwin moved in alongside Anton. The difference in the height between the two men was roughly six inches, however it was the disparity in their shoulder width that was most apparent. The muscled giant now appeared to outsize Goodwin and Travis combined. As absurd as it seemed, even the pair of weapons he trained at the advancing horde paled in comparison to his overwhelming physical appearance.

Dalton was next. He stepped to the right and stood near Travis, his feet now just a forgotten hindrance as he nervously held the Beretta at arm’s length and stared down the advancing horde.

Only one was missing. Eyeing the older man over his shoulder, Dalton watched as Walter froze in place. His shoulders were slumped forward, his arms low at his side, and as he gazed back into the eyes of the soulless beasts coming for him, he appeared unafraid.

“WALTER!” Goodwin shouted.

Nothing, the transfixed pilot didn’t even blink.

“MR. OSBORNE!”

Not even the twitch of an eye.

Goodwin turned back to Anton and motioned into the crowd. “He’s gone, but we aren’t. Let’s go.”

Dalton would have testified under oath that the first weapon fired was from the man standing twelve inches from his left shoulder. The sound exploded in his ears and sent shockwaves up and down his spine, but really it could have been any one of the six men holding a weapon. His knowledge of firearms began and ended with the many action hero movies he’d seen in his late teens and twenties. Safety off, squeeze trigger, loud fiery explosions.

The sensation was short lived as the others also opened fire, each new explosion more violent than the one before. Stepping left and giving himself a bit of room, Dalton closed his left eye, aligned his weapon with the head of an approaching Feeder, and without giving the act a second thought, pulled the trigger.

The round went high, tearing off into the late afternoon sky. But before it did, it skipped off the top of the beast’s head, sending it stumbling backward. Quickly recalculating the trajectory, Dalton fired a second shot, this one striking the large male Feeder less than an inch from its left eye socket, and sending it to the pavement.

Back to the right, Travis had dropped an empty magazine and was reaching to his hip, in the process of reloading, when a pair of female feeders broke free from the front of the horde and darted toward him. Taken by the moment, Dalton swung right and attempted to fire. The trigger pulled back, but the only sound was a soft click as the Beretta misfired.

He was out of his element. He didn’t have the proper training to even begin to help these men. Dalton looked at the weapon and then back at the others. He was in the way here. He felt like a survivor, but most definitely not a soldier. He wasn’t brought to BXF for this, no one was, but now he felt more like a liability than anything else.

Before the others even realized there was an issue with his weapon, the man at his side had reloaded, taken out the two Feeders, and was lining up his next victim.

The rapid explosions continued and for the moment, he was invisible. Not one of the others had even noticed he’d stopped firing, let alone that he’d only fired two rounds. They were busy emptying what was left in their weapons into the diminishing horde.

One at a time, the men took small steps backward. First to make room for the lifeless corpses dropping down all around them, and also at times to reload. Although with less than ten feet between the men and the chopper that Walter stood frozen next to, Anton dropped his shotgun and stopped firing his MP5.

Goodwin was incensed. “What the hell are you doing?”

“We gotta go around, boss.”

Scanning the airfield, Goodwin barked back. “No time, they’re already moving onto the runway.”

Anton shook his head. “We don’t have a choice; they’re locked onto this location. We can make it if we go now. If we don’t, we may as well lay down right here and die.”

Goodwin didn’t hesitate. He looked back down the line as if calculating their odds and then turned to Anton. “We do have one chance.”

“What?”

Goodwin strode quickly back to the chopper and stood facing Walter. Reaching down, he pulled the Glock 22 from the older man’s hand, stared into his lifeless eyes, and asked, “Mr. Osborne, can you fly us out of here?”

Walter didn’t appear to have heard the question. He continued staring straight ahead and only blinked every few seconds. It could have been so many things, but Dalton assumed he’d just reached the end. The older pilot had just seen enough. His mind was shutting down, even though his body was still present.

His eyes moving from Walter to the approaching crowd and then back to Walter, Goodwin ignored the shouts from the men as he asked once again. “Mr. Osborne, can you pilot that plane… can you get us home?”

Blinking through the fog holding him somewhere beyond this place, Walter exhaled slowly and finally met Goodwin’s eyes. “Not on my own, I’ll need—”

Raising the nine millimeter to Walter Osborne’s chest, Goodwin pulled the trigger. And as the pilot’s body crumbled backward onto the blood-soaked pavement, he turned and walked away, allowing the savages an uninterrupted feast.

Looking only at Anton, and marching quickly away from the chopper, Goodwin shouted over Walter’s tortured screams. “Now we have a chance.”

He knew Griffin had seen something inside the offices of City Hall. It wasn’t exhaustion and although his friend had quickly dismissed the idea, Ethan had a sense that whatever it was that moved out from the reception area and into one of the offices was somehow connected to everything else that was off about this little town. He didn’t know what, but he was afraid that he and his friends were about to find out.

At the rear door, Shannon and Frank sat in chairs they’d pulled from the lobby. They reclined with the use of a single footstool and smiled as Ethan and Griffin made their way back across the rear lawn.

Before reaching for the door handle, Ethan narrowed his eyes at Shannon. She held her hands out at her side and shrugged her shoulders. Playful was never a word he’d used to describe her before eight days ago, but since the world went to hell, she’d changed. They all had, but her new attitude seemed more in line with how she really was. He didn’t have one idea about who she was while they worked together, and now he was thinking that was a good thing.

Turning to Griffin, Ethan said, “Whatta ya wanna bet she unlocks it and when I try for the handle she relocks it?”

“You guys gonna make it official?”

“Make it official?”

“Hey man, you know better than anyone that time has no meaning anymore. You like her, she’s obviously into you. Why not make it, you know… official?”

Shaking his head, Ethan turned back to the door and looked through the glass, first at Frank and then at Shannon. He smiled and motioned toward the lock.

She curled her nose, reached for the deadbolt, and unlocked it, but stayed leaning forward.

Glaring up at Griffin, Ethan wrapped his hand around the stainless steel handle and pulled back. To his surprise, the door opened and his unexpected momentum pushed him back onto his heels.

“Really?” Shannon asked. “Didn’t you know I could read lips?”

Moving back and allowing Griffin in first, Ethan took one last look out over the courtyard and then stepped inside. He leaned over the chair that Shannon again reclined in, and resting his hands on her shoulders, kissed her on the head.

“Oh yeah, then you must have known I was going to do that.”

Shannon’s face turned a dark shade of pink, and as Ethan and Griffin strode away, she turned to Frank and smiled. Frank returned the gesture and in responding to their previous conversation said, “Yeah, I think that boy may just feel the same way about you.”

Into the lobby, the group once again sat around the stone fireplace. Ethan had moved his chair so that he had a vantage of the front and rear doors, while still facing the others. Ben sat with Carly and as she re-dressed his injury, he forced a grin, attempting to show the others that he was immune to the pain.

Griffin reclined on the larger sofa alongside Frank, although the pair had yet to utter a single word to one another. Frank had been with the group for less than three days; however, he’d quickly picked up on the group’s dynamic, as well as the special bond Cora and Griffin shared. There was a part of him that felt responsible for what happened out on that street the night before. He just didn’t know how to say the words the others needed to hear.

Helen and Shannon sat together opposite Ethan, both fighting to remain awake. Helen leaned into Shannon, yawned, and pulled her jacket snug around her torso. The temperature had ticked up a few degrees since they’d left Colorado, but not enough to make a noticeable difference.

As the others settled in, Ethan sat back in his chair eating a small bag of peanuts he’d found upon inspecting the kitchen’s pantry. He fished out a few, tossed them into his mouth, and finally turned his attention to his friends.

“So, part of the reason I pulled off the road when I saw this small town was that I figured that I needed to get some rest. And at this point, I think it would do us all a bit of good to slow down and figure out how to move forward.”

The others nodded, but no one spoke.

“We’ve all been through too much over the last week and although there’s no way that we’ll ever get back all that we’ve lost, we don’t have any choice but to keep going, to keep moving forward and supporting one another.

“I agree,” Frank said. “But there’s something you aren’t telling us. Something about this place just isn’t right. Where on earth is everyone? They didn’t just disappear.”

“You’re right, but we just don’t know. Driving in, Ben and I searched most every street and there wasn’t a single sign that anyone was here. It doesn’t make any sense, but I guess it’s better than the alternative.”

“Which is?”

Ethan didn’t answer and Frank immediately felt guilty even asking the insensitive question. “Ethan… man I’m sorry, that was—”

“Frank, don’t give it a second thought. We’re all a bit punchy, and like I said, I know we all need a break, including you. I don’t have any answers at this point, but as long as we keep our eyes open and don’t take any chances, we’ll be okay.”

Griffin sat up in his seat. “We’ll take turns sleeping tonight. It should be dark soon so we may want to decide how we’re going to do this. Maybe bring some mattresses out here and lay them on the floor. Should be good enough. I’ll take the first shift watching the doors.”

Carly turned away from Ben, only really catching the last few seconds of what Griffin had said. “I don’t think so. You need sleep, probably more than any of us.”

“I’m good for now, I slept better in that SUV than I have in a long time.”

“Griff’s right,” Ethan said. “We should all stay together in one room. Let’s get the mattresses out here before it gets too dark to see anything. Tomorrow we can figure out what comes next.”

As the sun escaped the day, they ate what they could find in the pantry. Potato chips, peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies, a bag of English muffins that were two days from expiring, and three green apples. It wasn’t much, but it was more than they’d had in days. After devouring the late evening snack, the group traded stories from before the world went to hell, laughed a bit, and then one by one, drifted off.

While dragging the surprisingly comfortable queen and king sized mattresses out into the lobby and pushing aside the sofas and chairs, the debate for who needed the least amount of sleep continued.

With a convincing argument that included a detailed description about how his age factored into the equation, Frank came out on top. He now sat in the same position that Ethan had earlier in the day, swinging his gaze between the front and rear doors.

Having retrieved the Glock from the black duffel, as well as a small handheld LED flashlight, Frank sat alone in the dark. Through the overwhelming silence, he kept his mind busy replaying everything that had taken place since they’d arrived in Green Valley. He’d sensed the change in Ethan and Griffin even before they’d taken the extended trip along East Main, and now he only regretted not asking what it was.

After what seemed like an eternity, and with his lids growing heavier by the minute, Frank decided to take a quick trip around the building. He quietly moved around the reception desk and stood at the entrance to what appeared to be the manager’s office. Only using the flashlight when absolutely necessary, he pushed the door open and swept the beam of illumination from left to right.

“Janet Hycomb.” He said the name under his breath as he stopped to wonder what had happened to the woman who at best guess occupied this room less than two weeks before. The name plate sitting on her desk didn’t give him any indication as to who she was; it only brought up more questions. The thought that she may no longer be a part of this world saddened him. He didn’t know her and had no reason to feel the way he did, but something inside told him he should.

Backing away, he moved through the café, into the kitchen, and stood in the spotless food prep area. He counted the stainless pots hanging overhead, ran his hand over the wooden cutting boards and for kicks, flipped the light switch on and off.

Exactly what had happened the first half dozen times he tried… and in every single room he entered. Not an ounce of power flowed anywhere within the building. It didn’t bother him and although the sounds of the night gave him the feeling that he wasn’t the only one awake, he knew better.

Back out into the hall, Frank nearly tripped as he stepped from the tile to the carpeting. Something had snagged his right shoe. Pausing, he looked down and could see that his shoe had become untied. Slowly kneeling, he braced himself on the chair Shannon had left at the rear door, and laid the Glock and the flashlight on the seat.

Quickly retying his shoe, Frank pushed off the arms of the chair and stood. As he reached for the Glock, a flash of light ricocheted off the wall opposite him. He tucked the weapon into his waistband and reached for the flashlight to turn it off… only it wasn’t on.

Following the focused beam of light back to its source, his eyes rested on a figure standing out on the patio six feet away, only a thin pane of glass separating the two. A bearded man holding a flashlight and carrying a rifle over his shoulder stared back at Frank and narrowed his eyes. Frank assumed that this was somehow related to the change in his friends, although at the moment, he had only one thought.

Stepping back, Frank reached into his waistband, pulled out the Glock, and leveled it at the stranger. But the bearded man didn’t react. He didn’t run and he didn’t reach for his rifle. He instead continued to study Frank for a brief moment, and then slowly switched off his flashlight and backed into the darkness.