Resurgence: Green Fields book 5 (6 page)

A sudden gust of wind made the door of our room slam shut, startling me enough to jump, but thankfully not scream. Heads all over the lot snapped in that direction, and barely a moment later the first two zombies came up the stairs—the other stairs, thankfully. I didn’t need Nate’s gentle push against my arm to make me start down toward the lot, using the rush over there to disguise my steps. He remained behind me for the first five agonizing steps, but then eased himself by me and down, pausing only for a moment to point from me to the car. I nodded, taking a second to catch my breath. Walking on even ground wasn’t that hard, but stairs? Not my favorite architectural element right now.

Within moments he’d disappeared in the shadows at the bottom of the stairs, silently melting away. I wished I was already down there, not fully exposed as I was right now. I still forced myself to wait until I stopped panting from discomfort before I eased myself down the next few steps, holding onto the rails to try to take as much weight off my wounded leg as possible. About the pain in my abdomen and chest I could do nothing. Before long I was sweating like a pig, my teeth clenched so hard that I was surprised that their grinding noise didn’t alert every single zombie in the state. But I forced myself to keep moving, even if it was at a snail’s pace.

Even without looking, I could tell what Nate was doing—trying to dispose of as many zombies in the lot as quietly as possible. Already there were several heaps on the ground, unmoving. So far he hadn’t drawn any attention to himself, but it was only a matter of time until he’d slip up, or one of the shamblers would put up just enough of a fight to alert the others. The buzzing at the back of my mind had turned to a constant annoyance, but at least it let me gauge that we still had about five minutes, maybe ten, until the two sources would converge on us. Splendid.

I was ready to just drop to the ground by the time I made it down the very last step, my body shaking so much from exhaustion that it was hard to keep holding on to the rail. Right next to the stairs I saw the slumped bodies of two permanently dead zombies, but already three more were coming in my direction, either drawn by the promise of food or because they’d seen me. Swallowing thickly, I stepped away from the stairs and into the shadows cast by the walkway above, pressing myself against the wall. Two of the shamblers halted while the third went straight for one of the heaps on the ground, the wet, crunching sounds that followed making it plain what was happening. One of the others soon joined it, but the third remained poised above them, its head slowly turning from left to right. Then it took a shuffling step forward, and another, dragging itself right by the others. Holding my breath, I tried to melt into the wall, but to no avail. It had seen me, and if not downright hostile, it was definitely curious.
 

Exhaling slowly, I tried to decide what to do. There was a chance that it would just sniff me, decide that I wasn’t on the menu, and join the others. Considering that they had no scruples whatsoever eating their own, I doubted that it would regard me as inedible. I was suddenly very conscious of the fact that I wasn’t wearing anything that could be considered protective clothing except for my boots, and I doubted that in my current condition I could deliver a good roundhouse kick—that option was a no-go, too. I could still punch, but the very idea of touching that thing without gloves made me want to retch. There was a chance that I couldn’t get infected anymore, but even that thought didn’t help. Running away wasn’t a good idea, either, as it would likely just lead to all three zombies coming for me.

That left one option—trying to intimidate it first. It had worked before—why not try that again?

I waited until the zombie was about three feet from me before I pushed myself away from the wall, hissing at it. It came to a halt, sniffing, but rather than shy away, it leaned closer—and hissed right back in my face. Foul air hit my nostrils, making me gag, and that was apparently enough to brand me the weaker of the two of us. The zombie let out a howl as it lunged for me, teeth snapping and hands clawing. I stepped back, trying to avoid it, but at the same time curled my right hand into a fist. The moment it took another step, I brought my fist up and slammed it straight into the zombie’s temple. I was rewarded with a satisfactory crunch, but unlike its living counterpart would have, the zombie didn’t even stagger back. Its hands came up, dirty, torn nails raking my arm as I pulled it back, trying to sidestep around it. Pain shot up my arm from the scratches, but it dulled compared to the rest. Exhaling sharply, I continued my retreat, but the zombie followed step by step, snapping at me whenever I made too sudden a move.

It was only when I passed the third door that I got an idea. When I was close to the next, I fumbled for the doorknob, but although it turned, the door wouldn’t open. Biting my lips to keep from cursing, I gave it a sharp twist, hoping that the combination of a cheap lock and an even cheaper door would turn out in my favor—but it didn’t. Then I heard another groan from right behind my shoulder, making me realize that they’d cornered me. Fear gave me strength—or made me plain stupid—and I slammed my shoulder into the door, the resulting crash loud enough to turn heads all over the lot. But the door gave, a small triumph. Staggering inside, I whipped around and pressed myself against the wall next to the entry. The two zombies came after me, howling—but were too slow as I pushed myself right past them and wrenched the door shut as soon as I was through. Then all I could do was to stay completely still, and wait.

It only took the zombies a few moments to batter down the flimsy wood, but by then several others had arrived from the lot. Because of the nice crashing and howling going on, they ignored the useless piece of meat right next to the commotion—me. I didn’t push my luck but instead started sneaking away slowly, moving in what I hoped was a continuous enough motion to seem uninteresting. As soon as I was sure that none of them were aware of me, I hastened my steps, until I was almost walking by the time I was parallel to the car. There was still no sight of Nate so I decided to just chance it, and ran the last remaining yards across the open ground. And because I was already panting heavily enough to bring the entire apocalypse down on me, I didn’t hesitate as I eased open the door and crept inside, closing it as silently as possible behind me.

The interior of the car stank almost as bad as the zombies outside, but I did my best to ignore it. Nate clearly had had other things on his mind than to deep-clean the seats, and it didn’t matter now. Looking all around me, I tried to gauge if any of the zombies had turned their attention to the car. A few were looking straight at it, but my maneuver with the room door turned out to be a blessing rather than a curse as the small tangle of zombies over there were much more interesting than this hunk of metal. Then my eyes fell on the road, and swallowing got a lot harder. Even with my enhanced nocturnal vision it was hard to make out anything that was farther away than three hundred yards, but I didn’t need to focus to judge that there were well over several hundred zombies coming our way. That crawling sensation in my mind was much stronger now, and it only took me a few seconds to find the two zombies it came from. And beyond them I could feel several more “pings” on the landscape of what I shouldn’t have been able to track.

I had no way of being sure, of course, but I had a certain feeling that we’d found the streak from Harristown again. Or rather, they’d found us.

Nate climbing into the passenger seat scared the shit out of me, but I tried to hash over the fact that he’d surprised me by reaching for the belt harness to buckle myself in. My heart should have been racing, but it felt sluggish rather than as if it were galloping, making my heavy breathing feel all the more at odds.
 

“You okay?” he whispered, giving me a concerned look.

I nodded, not bothering with an explanation. When I reached for the wheel, the moonlight hit my lower arm, the scratches dark against my pale skin. Nate made as if to grab my arm, but I shook my head. “Just a scratch.” That sentence almost made me laugh. Guess we would soon know whether I was immune to them now, or not.

Nate seemed to agree with that because his focus switched right from me to the oncoming horde. “That doesn’t look good.”

“Nope.”

“Any ideas?”

I shrugged, trying to get comfortable. “I don’t think that it matters. Whatever we do, if we’re still here when they reach us, we’re toast.”

“Run?” he suggested, snapping his own harness on.

“Run,” I agreed.

As soon as the engine roared alive, heads all over turned. My left leg protested vehemently as I stepped on the pedal, but I ignored it, kicking the car into reverse. The back bumper hit something, the entire car rocking as I backed right over it. As soon as I had enough room in front, I sent the Rover forward, accelerating as quickly as I dared. We tore out of the parking lot with a swerve around a bunch of zombies that were coming for us, narrowly avoiding most of them. One came right at me, but I plowed through it, wincing when the resulting bump shook not just the car but every single bone in my body. My vision went hazy with pain but I blinked until I could see the road properly again. A little more swerving around and we were in the open. Flooring the pedal, I sent the car into the dark night, praying that I hadn’t misjudged just how well I could see. The zombies fell away behind us, first from view, and finally that buzzing in my head stopped as well. I went another five miles before I allowed myself to relax, and finally slowed down to a less than breakneck speed, the plains around us coming into focus again.

I heard Nate exhale beside me, making me guess that I hadn’t been the only one not quite convinced of the soundness of our plan. Glancing over to him, I smiled weakly, but was sure that it got lost in the darkness of the car.

“Think that was it?” I asked, still a little winded.

Looking over his shoulder, he checked with his scope through the rear window before he nodded. “Let’s hope so.” I relaxed a little more, feeling a hint of elation slither through my exhaustion. Of course it was just like him to break the spell when he turned back to me and asked, “And now you tell me how exactly you knew that they were coming for us.”

I could have lied, but I didn’t really see much sense in that. As it was, things couldn’t get much freakier than they already were.

“I felt them,” I admitted after a long pause. “First one, coming from the back, then another down the road. I think they’re what’s left of the streak that hit Harristown.”

The look on Nate’s face was grim as I chanced a glance at him, trying to gauge his reaction. I hadn’t really expected him to freak out, but he still looked surprisingly disturbed. His tone was wry as he replied. “Guess that means we have our destination cut out for us already.” At my questioning grunt, he shrugged. “Remember that tech we recovered from that zombie? As far as I remember, we left it at the Silo. And that’s exactly where we’re going now.”

I had no idea how far we made it until I had to stop, too exhausted to go on. It was still dark outside, and we must have been on the move for at least two hours. Nate didn’t protest when I simply let the Rover roll to a stop and cut the engine. Cool air streamed in through the open windows—something I definitely could get used to, but still had to stop being paranoid about as well. We were in the middle of nowhere, close to a small rise that would hopefully hide our silhouette except from something standing right next to us. It was a quiet night, but the sounds of nocturnal animals going about their business let us know what we’d already guessed—we were all alone out here. Or rather, what Nate guessed. My mind wasn’t exactly capable of grasping details anymore. My leg was killing me, and while I didn’t exactly have cramps in my lower abdomen, that entire area didn’t feel too good, either. Punching that zombie in the face hadn’t helped the residual bruises on my chest, all but invisible as they were. Getting shot, not an experience that bore repeating any time soon. My temperature was down but I felt as if I was burning up again, paranoia making me twice as jumpy than I had a reason to be. Agitation and exhaustion where not two states that went together well.

After getting out and giving the area a generous sweep with his night vision scope, Nate grabbed a flashlight to check my arm. The scratches were deep and had bled somewhat during the first half hour, but now they were scabbed over and starting to heal. That was freaking me out as much as I was happy about it. Nate dabbed at the scabs to make sure that there wasn’t any dirt embedded in the wound—apparently residual bits of zombie were not good for keeping scars small—but eventually declared that he thought I didn’t need stitches. What he didn’t say was that, like me, he could only hope that I wasn’t hours away from dying again. Time would tell.

I considered starting the car again after five minutes, but my leg wouldn’t quite cooperate. There was a house about half a mile off the road, barely more than a hovel. We’d slept in sheds that were larger. Nate watched me shift tenderly for about a minute before he told me to shoot at anything that wasn’t him, got his AK and sniper rifle ready, and left for the house. It took him forever to return, although the dashboard clock insisted that it had been less than twenty minutes. Nate’s pack, previously empty except for some spare ammo, was stuffed to the brim, and he’d even went as far as juggling a six-pack of water bottles with his rifle. He dropped the water in the leg room of his seat before he went rummaging through the pack in the back, dropping a shitload of medicine bottles into my lap. “Not sure what all that is,” he offered. “I took everything that I could find. Not that I’m positive that painkillers will still work for you, but it’s worth a try.”

A lot of the loot was useless to me—blood thinners, statins; other prescription drugs that made me guess the inhabitants of the house had been elderly, or hadn’t exactly hit the genetic jackpot—but there was also a bottle of Ibuprofen and some Motrin. Nate made a joke about “vitamin M” that I didn’t get as I swallowed a handful of the Motrin pills, washing it down with what was left of our water. I didn’t ask, instead waited for the pain meds to kick in.