Infected Freaks (Book 2): The Echo of Decay (9 page)

“Stay behind me,” Abraham ordered, taking two steps forward. Life wasn’t fair, but he would be torn to shreds if it gave his grandson a chance. “Fuck you and your red bitch mother.” He stood with his chin raised toward the advancing abomination, his angry eyes boiling in a crimson hate.

Hunter fired his rifle again. This time he aimed for the sloping roof. Part of the ceiling caved in, trapping the monster in a sudden mess of debris.

Abraham had never been so proud.

The stuck freak responded with an ear bleeding sound that was sure to peel paint. At that moment, a small swarm of bees, no locust, no something he’d never seen on God’s green earth came boiling out like missiles. The swarm burned forward, attacking sections of his heavy coat and jeans. Abraham ogled the freak with rebellious intent as he swatted at the outlandish bugs. He never saw anything like them, not even in his dreams.

Then, Hunter stumbled forward. His grandson must have been under some sort of trance. For whatever reasoning’s raging in his mind, he must have felt compelled to prove himself worthy of courage. This shocked Abraham. He reacted with a quick hand across Hunter’s chest. “Stay back!” The look in his grandson’s eyes was one tainted in hypnosis. He didn’t have any proof other than the lost gaze in his grandson’s eyes.

“Let me die,” Hunter screamed. Hunter was no longer thinking of his own accord. It was as if the abomination was willing him forward. His grandson struggled to get through him, ready to run into the unhinged jaws of the beast.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Abraham asked, holding him back

“Hey!” someone screamed from behind. It was Emme.

Abraham pushed and shoved his enthralled grandson through the open maintenance door and followed. A gang of the bugs managed to slip inside the maintenance bay before the door was secured. This was a problem.

***

A boom of thunder ricocheted through the ruins. The monsoon hammered against what was left of the structure. Jeffery howled and howled as he killed off the remaining bugs that resembled a dragon fly only bigger. The boy paced back and forth and resisted Emme’s verbal commands to quiet down. The bugs really upset him.

The air shifted between cold and hot. It had iced the sweat dripping down Abraham’s crumpled face. “This boy’s a nightmare,” Abraham snapped. Sure Jeffery walked on two legs most of the time, with real blood pumping through his veins. However, the boy’s mind was long expired. Whatever Jeffery had experienced would be a feast for a psychologist, but for a group of nobodies trying to survive, it was nothing more than the calling card of death. “Shut him up before I do!”

Emme pulled Jeffery into her lap and ran a finger through the tangle of his mane. “I’m sorry,” she said. He could tell she was exhausted and frustrated. “He needs to heal.”

“Healing,” Abraham bellowed. “Life has become a festering wound. There is no healing!” If there was an abyss worse than what the world had become, he didn’t want to know it. He slid his sweat stained back down the wall and closed his eyes.
What have I got us into?

The thing, the terrible abomination had slithered out of the collapsed hall. At least that’s the way it sounded. However, to Abraham that meant it was searching for another way into the maintenance bay.

For the moment, the wild boy simmered down. “I… Sorry,” he muttered. It was the first time the boy really spoke
.

“We should be safe in here until dawn,” Hunter said, out of breath.

Abraham didn’t understand whatever darkness came over Hunter. It was like a mind suck from the beast compelled Hunter to attack. It must have been drawing him forward only to tear him to pieces. This was something he didn’t understand.

Emme held her flashlight out in front of her, pointing toward a snapping sound. The wind ramped up as a sharp piece of metal thrashed against the side of one of the big roll down doors. Something swirling in the storm tore a huge gash in the garage styled door. Together they watched with nervous anticipation for several minutes. Would the dead attempt to use the hole?

Nothing came. Then, a cracking sound erupted outside the door.

Abraham shivered from head to toe, his imagination running wild. Nothing in the dying world was easy. What could it be? More of Bob’s men? Maybe it was Sam?

Instead, standing in the shadows, Bob Hatchet was drenched in cords of volley. His bandaged stump dripped in a mixture of water and blood. His footsteps echoed on the cold, hard ground.

“Did you think you were safe?” Bob asked, his teeth chattering loud as a hammer on a nail. He regarded the ebony-skinned girl huddled up near him.

Abraham felt stupid for not noticing Sam. He shot to his feet, ready to face his old comrade. A flick of Emme’s wrist brought the flashlight down a little, exposing the petrified face of Sam Downs. She was his prisoner now. Bob wrapped his bleeding stump around the damaged girl, biting at his lower lip.

“Caring has made you weak. Still, this beautiful black girl is young, sassy, and full of life and laughter. You remember a Russian girl like that? You remember what I did to her?”

Abraham couldn’t find the words to speak.
I did this to Sam.

It took a moment, but Sam snapped out of her psychosis. She had the appearance of a person who thought about resisting, but then the cold tang of a knife pricked her neck. Abraham was positive Bob was going to kill her, and that was the easy way out of this life.

“Bob, this isn’t you.” Abraham regarded him with eyes as dark as his soul. He raised his shaky hands and took aim at his old friend. “I’ll tear you apart if you don’t lower that damn knife.” His sore eyes misted with tears at his heartfelt words. He didn’t know Sam well, but he cared for the girl. Abraham was haunted by his silence during the Winter War. He should have tried to stop Bob, but he didn’t. This was fate coming back to punish him. The things Bob did to that poor Russian girl. Abraham squeezed away the memory unable to face it.

“Fuck you, Abraham.”

“Bob, this is your second chance.” His tone seemed to strike Bob harder than any fist he had taken over the years.

“You don’t know shit. You would rather side with the hammer and sickle. You must have forgotten what they did to us. I just did it back to them.”

“Except you did it to an innocent girl. She had nothing to do with the war.”

Bob backed up against the cement wall, eyes cast downward. He raised his stumpy forearm and pointed. “You could have stopped me. But you didn’t. That makes you just as guilty.” The absolute sting of pain must have caused him to sway as he laid his back against the wall for support. “I’m going to kill your little black girl. You think she would enjoy some of the techniques we learned overseas? Peeling flesh was my specialty.”

Abraham could hear faint buzzing sounds drifting from the gymnasium. It seeped through the cracks, reminding them what lurked in the shadows. He dared not tune out the song of death and decay. Nevertheless, he needed to focus on the perfect shot. If he jerked the trigger to hard, the bullet would sail into Sam. She stared back at him, tears escaping her eyes to trickle down her bruised cheek.

“Take the shot,” she begged. She appeared ready for the sweet relaxation of death.

Bob jerked her back and growled. “Abe doesn’t have the balls. Sure, he’ll hit one of us, but the old man can’t be sure of his aim. Look at him. Come get me, you old piece of shit.”

Heat crawled up Abraham’s neck and took over his grim expression. He took a step forward, fighting the shakes. He needed to get closer. Sam’s body language screamed for him to shoot. However, the humble old fool wasn’t sure of his target.

“Nobody calls me Abe except my mother.” Abraham was too focused on killing Bob. He failed to see the makeshift snare that lay before him in the dark.

The booming sound of the rope jerking him up toward the ceiling was minor compared to the popping of his old bones. “Oh, shit,” he wailed, dangling upside again, several feet above the spinning ground. By some sort of miracle, he maintained a grip on his pistol, but the sway of the rope gave him no clear shot.

“Put your guns down, boy,” Bob said, eyeing Hunter. “Or I’ll kill her and let her drip out every last ounce of blood upon your face.” He canted his head and kissed at Sam’s neck as if to taunt Hunter. “That snare was meant to trap some of the other survivors that held out in the school months ago. They didn’t want to live in my mountain kingdom, and every last one of them died. Most of them were women and children.”

“You piece of shit,” Sam slurred, tensing her shoulders. Abraham knew she wanted to do something, but what could she do?

“Take the shot,” Abraham muttered, trying to focus on Hunter from his upside down angle.

“I can’t do it,” his grandson said, full of defeat. Abraham knew Hunter didn’t have a choice. His grandson was sucking in a quick breath when he dropped his rifle and tensed his muscles.

“Good, now open the other garage door.” He looked up at Abraham and snorted through his hooked nose. “I always seem to get the better of you.”

Abraham exhaled.

Hunter hesitated.

“Hunter, do it now, or I’ll cut your sweet little girlfriend.” Bob inched the edge of the blade closer to Sam and drew a tiny cut from her neck. Then his foul tongue wagged back and forth like a windshield wiper devouring her sugary sweat.

Abraham watched the steady rush of sweat drip like a faucet upon Bob’s mouth. The sight brought a sickness to his gut.

His grandson marched with his head down like a coward. A distinct rattle on the pull chain brought the first big metal door open with a bang. The second opened to a degree before getting caught up in the tear of metal. It was a clatter loud enough to summon the countless infected plaguing the school grounds.

A blowing rain lashed inside as Bob ordered them all back. A gust of wind sent wet trash flapping around like a flock of angry birds. Bob placed the knife between his teeth and jerked Sam downward in a violent rage. He hit her, his only fist connecting with the back of her head.

“Keep the doors open or I’ll kill her,” he said. He gave Abraham another sardonic grin, then grabbed the back of Sam’s coat and forced her into the yellow school bus. Then, with a rattle to the engine, he drove out into the abhorrent storm.

It couldn’t have been easy for Hunter to watch.

Bob and Sam disappeared into the lethal storm with only the tail lights saying good-bye.

Abraham saw it in Hunter’s burning eyes. Part of him wondered if he would ever see her again. Then, Hunter scooped up his rifle and tore out into the rainstorm. He wasn’t going to give up on Sam.

“Hunter, wait!” Revenge must have beaten against the inside of his teenage head like a drum. What boy could hold back such a fury? This was something Abraham understood.

Abraham flashed Emme a hard glance as she came to him. “Get me down.” Emme studied the trap, her face scrunched. She turned away and examined the connecting parts.

“Cut down the counterweight,” Abraham advised, trying up curl up his neck for a better view.

“The engine block?” she asked, taking a step back shaking in waves. She turned and emptied what little was in her stomach while her hearing aids buzzed in the song of degeneration. Tears followed, wetting her eyes.

Abraham’s throat tightened and he fought to swallow a cough. A weighted engine hung in balance stretched over several metal support posts. The rope was a thick cord of cable.

“I need something sharp,” she said, turning and searching through a workbench fastened to the nearest wall.

Then a terrible buzzing sound vented a quavering note, half drowned beneath the weight of the storm.

“Shit,” he snapped, dangling upside. He didn’t have time to reach for his knife. Instead, he took aim, his muscles cramped. His first shot rang as an infected staggered into the maintenance bay. The explosion tore into the thing’s shoulder as it picked up speed. The second shot exploded its head, spilling its body to the ground. “Emme, hurry up,” he barked, sucking in the icy air. He saw the fear of God written on his innocent granddaughter’s face. But if he could see his own, he would have been more terrified.

“I found this,” she said, brandishing a knife fastened to a metal rod. She climbed up on top of the engine block and started cutting at the cable rope. Emme’s tiny weight brought Abraham up a nudge. Jeffery circled her in a manic rage. The wild boy howled and circled and howled some more. Abraham thought the boy might have been protecting Emme.

The force of the wind increased as a spatter of rain burned deep into the maintenance bay. It was already hard enough to maintain focus. With his pistol aimed up, he shot at the rope and missed. The fingers of death seemed to poke at his wits as he swayed back and forth in helpless abandon.

Then a second infected freak sprinted into the garage. It stopped a second to smell the air, and then it darted straight for him. It wailed like a crying mother at a grave. Abraham’s gun fired in haste.

Amongst the struggle, he felt Emme eyes staring him down. The infected freak was on him. “Stacy back,” he howled. Abraham was cursing as he twisted the things jaw upward, trying his best to keep himself from becoming a meal. The surge of adrenaline caused his heart to quiver.
I’m a dead man.