Read Infected Freaks (Book 2): The Echo of Decay Online

Authors: Jason Borrego

Tags: #Zombie Apocalypse

Infected Freaks (Book 2): The Echo of Decay (5 page)

BOOK: Infected Freaks (Book 2): The Echo of Decay
11.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Abraham sprang up to his feet and took back the gun. “Oh, sweet girl,” he chafed. He didn’t have time to comfort her. He saw another plague-ridden oddity approaching from the shadows. His feet spun as the gun cracked. The creature was dead as its brains spilled. He had a compulsion to look back at Emme. But he understood survival required him to lead them out of this infested structure.

“We have to go,” Emme pleaded, picking up the hammer. Her serious face told of hearing more of the abominations. And this time Abraham listened. Desperate, he tore apart the wooden boards protecting the door. The glass door didn’t stand a chance against his hammer. The sharp, shattering sound caused him to cringe as he looked back.

“Hurry,” he said, waiting for the rest of his group to exit the verminous building. Nothing was coming as far as he could tell, but he wasn’t going to stay and find out.

A steady drizzle fell from the sky as Abraham sprinted. A large hole was burning in the side of the building where he used the bomb. A slow stagger of wounded creatures poured out into the dark streets. The clouds in the sky blocked out all of the sun’s consecrated rays as if to punish him.

“We have to find higher ground,” he ordered. Bob’s garage was near. He cut the corner at the edge of the block, fighting to keep his grandchildren in front of him. “Keep running,” he spat, holding the pistol in one hand and taking Emme’s tiny hand in the other. He sprinted by a bakery, antique shop, and barber, recalling the way.

The rain turned heavy and blinded him as he smeared his hands across his face. He couldn’t believe his granddaughter was forced to kill. This put a stain on his wits.

Anxious, Abraham didn’t see the large man spring out at him from inside the barber shop. The brute dove at his knees and tackled him hard. It was impossible to see any details in the hammering rain. He knew he had to fight his way back to his feet to escape the brute and coming horde of infected. He twisted and turned, throwing punches. A straight right to the jaw took his breath. Still, he spat out the blood, and resisted. Then, something sturdy like a bat or pipe bounced across the back of his head as he heard Emme cry out to him.

It was hard to sort out all of the noises, and there was the buzzing screeches threaded with the heavy voices of men. “We are living,” he slurred, giving way to unconsciousness. On the contrary, he did manage to hear one last thing before he passed out.

The troublesome wild child was howling the only words he seemed to know. “Dr. John.”

IV

 

 

 

A fine, salty liquid dripped down the threads of Abraham’s hair. It felt like most of his blood had flowed to his pounding head. He managed to open his swollen eyes and the world appeared strange. Blinking, he realized he was suspended upside down in a warehouse. His blurry vision followed the concrete floor with cracks. The cracks stretched back to a wiry man with patchy pale skin. This blur of a man had shoulder-length hair clotted in dirt and grime, and a greasy smile curving his lips.
Shit
, he thought trying to settle back into reality. Everything in his body hurt. He felt like a summer pig hung in a meat locker.

“Who the fuck are you?” asked the man.

Abraham braced as the man shoved his suspended body without regard for his injuries. The sheer force of the sway caused Abraham to spew. It spattered down his aged face. He choked on the tiny pieces of vomit, spilling out of his arid mouth. The stains of puke burned as it bled into his eyes.

“You tried to break into my home. That, my friend, is a crime deserving of death.” The man raised a fist and snorted a curious laugh.

Abraham tried to focus, but all he saw was a peg board of tools that swayed with every wink. This was followed by a nasty grinding sound. He felt his legs lift higher toward the roof stacked with support beams. “That’s high enough,” the man said.

“Are you bitten?”

“No,” Abraham muttered.

“Why then are you painted in blood?”

“It’s not mine. Why don’t you let me down, asshole?”

“Next time you speak out of turn, I’ll drop you against the cement,” the man promised. “Back to the first question, who are you?”

He murmured through his swollen lips, “Abraham. Abraham Heinz.” Now his carnal fear came into focus. “Where are my grandchildren? I will do whatever you want, but leave my grandchildren alone.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Oh shit! Get him down. And be gentle about it.” Again the grinding sound initiated and soon after he felt his numb body spill back to the bitter ground. Abraham raised his sore head and cranked his neck to the side. “Bob,” he murmured, “is that you?”

Bob Hatchet smiled at him, showing the space where he was missing a tooth. “My old friend, you should have knocked. We’re not generous to thieves. Most of the time we shoot first and ask questions later.”

“I was trying to find you,” he said as one of Bob’s cronies sat him up and began to untie him. The rough leather straps rubbed his ankles raw as he winced at each touch. Looking around, he realized the warehouse-sized garage was where his son Benjamin worked for over a year. At the far end, he observed some of the mechanics unloading his grandchildren from a truck in the back of the shop.
Thank God.

Stacks of salvage were piled on the floor—bald tires, rusted pipes, and old car parts. A spot of color caught his eye near a window next to a big roll-down door at the front of the garage. An infected freak hammered at the folding metal door. Then he heard it, the shotgun erupted and the sound of the thing slithering down the door echoed with a thump. “We were running from them,” Abraham said, touching his swollen nose.

“I know that now. You guys let in a bunch of those zombies.”

“I’m sorry.” Abraham was helped to his feet. He heard his grandson choking on the unpleasant smell of cigarette smoke that permeated in the garage. “Hunter, you alright?” he asked as two more cronies brought his grandchildren, Sam, and the wild boy toward him. Abraham scrunched his brow as he used all of his energy to walk, trying to regain the only thing that mattered in the moment, his grandchildren. Struggling along the work benches and tool carts, he fell back to the pavement as his own body failed him.

“Take it easy, old friend.”

Bob and Abraham had served together in the Winter War. The brotherly ties were deep between the two, but Abraham kept this to himself. He didn’t want his family to hear of the terrible things he was forced to do and failed to act upon. Bob was ruthless and thrice as brutal when it came to war.

“Glad you’re alive, my old comrade,” Bob said.

Bob had the look of a man overwhelmed with sympathy. Abraham didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him. He didn’t like the way his old comrade watched his grandchildren with keen interest. Back during their time in the service, Bob never craved love or simple things. It was always the adrenaline rush. Abraham exhaled as Bob pulled up two chairs and unfolded them in front of him. He was busy questioning his decision to come here.

“Abraham, what brings you to my humble home?”

Abraham appreciated the helping hands of Hunter as he attempted to reposition his back on the icy metal of the seat. The bones in his neck screamed. “You got any pain killers?” he asked, mustering enough strength to look Bob in his deceiving green eyes. He knew what those green eyes were capable of in the heat of warfare.

“Help my friend out here,” Bob said to another mechanic with a bald head. The man shuffled through a locker and brought two horse pills and a cup of water. Abraham noticed how the mechanic gave Bob a hard look as if he had taken away the man’s prize.

After a few awkward seconds, Abraham swallowed the pill. He took a deep breath, thinking over his decision to come to Fairplay. Bob was dangerous, but was he Abraham’s enemy?

“About twenty-four hours ago, a convoy came and took my family away while I was out gathering supplies.” He paused and closed his burning eyes. Yet his world kept spinning. “So I set out after them. I was hoping you might know something about the convoy taking people in big, armored buses. I need to find my family.”

“Shit, I know about those convoys and those men in yellow chemical suits, a bunch of assholes. I told them I wasn’t going with them. They pulled out a few assault rifles and a stack of mandatory evacuation notices. I laughed and then pointed up toward the roofs. The fools saw I had a dozen bad ass guns aimed in at them. I then told them to get the fuck off my property and never come back. They’ve been using the dirt highways, avoiding the town ever since. I see them every few weeks coming back and forth, but they don’t dare come to my town anymore.”

“They’re taking people to Denver,” Abraham stammered. “It’s safe there.”

“So they say, but I don’t believe them.”

“Why? What have you heard?”

“Well, there are other survivors out there in the sticks. Haven’t heard shit outside of Colorado. But in Denver, I heard shit’s real bad. I heard one half of the city is owned and operated by the South, and the other half by the North. If it’s true, the only city worth a damn is going to be torn apart by their endless hate. But I kind of like that. Then, you got the Neutral Zone Federation crying foul on both. But these mountains, they’re going to belong to me. And when the opposing forces kill each other, all of Colorado will be mine.”

“The mountains belong to the infected.”

“The infected will rot away with time.”

Abraham’s nostrils flared, remembering the stench of death that followed war. He thought of both Robb and Alison, his grown children fighting on opposite sides of the Civil War.
God, I hope you’re both alive.
This was the first bit of news on Denver he had heard. There was no way his grown kids were still alive. However, he needed to see their dead bodies if he was ever going to stop looking for them. “Which side do the yellow suits serve?”

“I don’t think the men in yellow serve either. One of my sources tells me they keep busing people up to a fancy science tower outside of Breckenridge. Right before the bombs dropped, some megacorporation built a super compound or something they call the Red Tower. Shit, I don’t know, but that’s where they are talking everyone on those buses. They don’t ever go to Denver. We don’t get out much anymore, but I can promise you the men in yellow are not who they say they are.”

Abraham sighed. “They have my family.” If the pain killers were working, he couldn’t tell. “They took Beth, my kids, and grandkids. What the fuck am I going to do now?”

“The compound is posing as a sanctuary. I heard there are at least twenty armed men on the outside at any given time, and I’d guess thrice as many inside. It won’t be easy if they aren’t willing to compromise. Then again, you could slip on one of the buses. Don’t know how smart that would be, though, they take your weapons.”

Abraham spit out a wad of blood and curled his lips.

“Find strength, old friend.” Bob’s green eyes set out to one of his cronies, and the bald man stepped out to deal with whatever a raised brow required. “I like you, Abe. I like you and your family more than I’m willing to admit. Most of the time when strangers come into town, it doesn’t end well,” he said, tossing a wrench back and forth. “I guess what I’m trying to ask is how can I help you?”

“I need fuel,” Abraham stuttered. Only his mother had called him Abe. Yet, he wasn’t about to correct the only man who could help him, at least not at the moment. The tension was still too high, and his wits numb.

“I got fuel,” Bob said, lowering down and staring at Abraham at his hunched level. “But I’ll need a favor in return.”

Abraham felt the slow-falling blood drip from his nose. He hated how venerable he looked. Bob was a shark, and that meant he was sure to taste blood.

“It’s something minor.”

Abraham shifted. “Let’s hear it.” His knuckles were swollen as he pressed them into his cheeks to hold up his head.

“I need someone to get something for me at the local high school. It isn’t far.” Bob turned around and smiled at another one of his cronies positioned near the bay door.

There must have been at least a dozen men in the garage. They were talking without words. This alarmed Abraham. “A high school. What the hell do you need from there?”

“What I need is a piece of machinery. Well, that’s a lie. I need the last working bus in the town. It’s in the school maintenance bay. The problem is the school is infested with those zombies, or whatever you want to call them. We used to have more of the city under control, but those things are crafty and have found ways through some of my barricades.”

“Infected freaks,” Sam said. “We call them infected freaks.”

The look in Bob’s eye when he viewed the tiny, ebony-skinned girl gave Abraham the creeps. “She’s with me,” Abraham said, looking at Bob.

“We haven’t seen too many folks with dark skin. Or girls.”

“Have you seen black folks?” Sam inquired.

Abraham wished the teenage girl would shut up. But she needed answers all the same. Her brother was missing and most likely headed through the town at one time.

“I saw many faces. But only one colored man. He said he was traveling to Denver a while back. He didn’t say much else. He had a few Mexican dudes with him and was in a hurry. They gave us some good weed and we gave them a little advice.”

“Was it Tyrell?”

“In this business, it’s better not to know names. Why? Was he a friend of yours?” Bob licked his cracked lips and rested back one of his hands against the top of the chair.

“My brother,” she said, rubbing at her weight lifting gloves.

“That’s enough, Sam,” Abraham said, cutting the girl off before she could speak another word. He didn’t want Bob to have any information on them. He looked back to Bob and squinted. “Why do you need a bus?”

“My boys and I are going to fix it up into an armored vehicle and start looking for survivors. My town needs a lot of work, and we need hard-working people to help make this place safe. I told you the mountains are mine.”

“Nothing is safe,” Hunter said. “The infected freaks are everywhere.”

Bob turned his head left and then right. “Really, you think so, boy? I don’t see any of the infected things inside my garage.” He stared at the boy hard and then snickered as if he were only playing.

Abraham wasn’t surprised when Hunter started to speak. The boy loved to argue. He must have thought he was invincible. Abraham wanted to tell him nothing was safe in the new world. Instead, he hushed his grandson and fought the bad feeling swarming his mind. Bob was a bomb waiting to explode. One second the man was hot, the next cold. He would never admit it, but Abraham was starting to think his granddaughter was right.
We should have gone elsewhere.

“I’m only playing with your grandson, Abraham, settle down.”

Bullshit
, Abraham thought. He knew Bob didn’t give a shit about his grandson. “Give me a half hour to get my wits, and then I’ll get your damn bus.”

Abraham’s courage forced Bob to reveal his ugly teeth. “Abraham, my friend, you’re in no condition to fight. If you go, you won’t come back. Look at you, gramps. You can’t sit up straight in that chair. You’re not that young soldier I once served with.”

“I won’t put my grandchildren in danger.”

Bob’s smile faded. Abraham figured Bob must have been upset that his generosity wasn’t being repaid. “Sam, you’ll go with Scotty and bring back the bus. We need someone small to wiggle through some of the ductwork into the school’s maintenance bay. It’s locked from the inside and the door is reinforced. You’ll find it right through the gym.” Bob’s tone left no room for argument.

“Hell no,” Abraham barked, touching bruised ribs. “I’m still a tough son of bitch.”

BOOK: Infected Freaks (Book 2): The Echo of Decay
11.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

OCDaniel by Wesley King
Undercover Magic by Judy Teel
Maybe Yes by Miles, Ella
Shrapnel by Robert Swindells
The Tailor of Gloucester by Beatrix Potter