Slow Burn (Book 7): City of Stin (15 page)

We burst out of a pair of doors on the northwest corner of the building. 15
th
Street ran between us and several empty parking lots across the street—empty except for a scattering of Whites moving toward the fire at the Governor’s Mansion, or the noisy, exploding fire burning out of the atrium in the buried office annex.

Murphy raced to the corner of a building to the west with all of us in tow. Way too many of the Whites in the parking lot saw the soldiers with us and immediately understood what was happening. Normals afoot.

“Damn.” I pointed at the Whites changing direction to run at us. I readied my machete and drew my pistol.

We arrived at a pair of glass doors on the new building. They were locked. Murphy stopped, thinking about the next step. The soldiers looked out at the Whites with their skin illuminated in the red flames. The soldiers raised their weapons, fear in their eyes.

“Murphy,” I shouted, “Put a few shots through the glass. We can’t stay out here.”

Murphy stepped back and fired three rounds sending a spider web of cracks through the glass. He rushed at it, breaking through in a shower of jagged little pieces.

“Let’s go!” Fritz hollered, leading the other two soldiers to follow Murphy.

I went in last and followed the line of the others past a desk in the lobby, past the elevator bank, down a hall and to another door—a metal one with a fire exit sign above.

I hoped the battery on the alarm was dead. I hoped no Whites were outside the door.

Murphy hit the door without slowing much, pressing down the locking mechanism with his weight. We all piled out onto the sidewalk.

A gang of Whites was coming around a corner to our right. Murphy immediately raised his weapon and fired.

Choices about silence weren’t available to us. The infected were too many. Fritz and both of his soldiers shot their weapons.

I raced into the mob, swinging my machete and shooting at any White who got too close.

A path opened up in front of me and I hoped the others fell in behind me. Gunshots echoed off the building’s walls. Explosions poured flames into the sky at the Capitol. Blood splattered in the air and Whites screamed in horror, or glee. It all sounded the same to me.

When the mob thinned, I cut a left turn down an alley, looking for another door. Actually, I was just running in the direction with the fewest Whites.

A huge explosion shook the night behind us. Another fireball billowed up casting more red light and sharp black shadows.

I hacked my way past a few Whites, spotted a fragile-looking wooden door on an old brick building, and bull rushed it, hoping for the best. I hit the screen door first, barely noticing it as the half-rotten wood of the other door behind it shattered—mostly. The bottom quarter held firm, and I tumbled into some restaurant’s kitchen full of rancid, slick oil and rotted bodies.

I got to my feet as the others piled in after me.

I adjusted my night vision goggles on my head to see through the cramped kitchen.

The soldiers behind me were shooting back out the door. That couldn’t last. They’d run out of ammunition soon. All they had was in the magazines loaded in the rifles.

Damn.

I cursed myself for not thinking of that. I cursed
them
for not thinking to strip the guards of their ammo when they picked up the weapons.

I ran out of the kitchen through a swinging door, past a waitress station, and into a jungle-gym mess of upturned chairs and tables. I kicked and shoved at the furnishings. I climbed over more as I made my way toward the door.

Behind me, the shooting stopped. I turned to see the two soldiers come out of the kitchen, followed by Fritz. A pause later, I called, “Where’s Murphy?”

“He’s coming,” said Fritz as he worked his way through the jumble.

I made my way to the front door, which had already been busted open by looters, vandals, or maybe just Whites. I turned and waited.

Shit. Where’s Murphy?

Just as I took my first step to go back, Murphy burst out of the kitchen, breathing hard with a big grin on his face.

Goddamn, that motherfucker can smile through anything.

Before Murphy had taken more than a few steps into the morass of dining room furniture, two Whites fought with each other as they tried to squeeze themselves simultaneously through the kitchen’s swinging door. I raised my pistol and shot—once, twice, again, and again—until I finally got lucky enough to hit both.

Murphy looked back. “Glad you can hit something.” He raced out into the street to follow the others. I chased on his heels.

Fritz was across the street already, trying to kick in a locked door. The two soldiers were nearly over to him.

A horde of Whites several hundred strong was running and screaming down the street from our right. Helicopter blades reverberated in the sky above.

I looked up as I ran.
What the hell?

The helicopter passed overhead and arced off to the left. Another helicopter hovered a few blocks away.

The door Fritz had been working on broke open.

Screw the helicopters.

I turned to run full-speed across the street and through the door.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

More Whites.

They were elbowing and kicking one another as they pushed themselves to get out through the door Fritz had just broken down. The room on the other side of the door had to have been full of them.

I stumbled trying to stop myself.

One of the soldiers was down, screaming and fighting, several Whites were on him with jaws snapping.

Fritz emptied his pistol into the Whites attacking his man. The other guy unloaded at those coming out the door.

Murphy was already there beside them, taking aim up the street.

The Whites on the soldier were dead or twitching by the time I dropped to a knee beside Fritz as he tried to staunch a pulsing gush of blood coming from the wide-eyed soldier’s neck.

“We gotta go,” Murphy hollered. He emptied a magazine and quickly pushed a new one into his rifle.

“I’m out,” the other soldier said, panicking.

“Take my shotgun,” I told him, handing it over.

Looking down at the bleeding man by our knees, Fritz shouted, “He’s dead.”

He wasn’t dead, but he was bleeding so profusely, it was clear he was going to die. I stood up, looking away. We were going to abandon the guy. It was necessary, the only thing to do. Trying to drag him off so he could bleed out a block or two up the road would almost certainly get more of us killed. But goddamn, it felt so wrong.

The soon-to-be-dead soldier reached out and grabbed my ankle.

Shit.

I looked up at the coming horde. Time was almost gone. I looked down at the guy as he mouthed something.

Fritz was on his feet. Murphy passed his pistol over to Fritz. We were all armed again with loaded weapons—for the moment anyway.

I dropped to a knee again and leaned in close to the soldier, now hoping he’d just die and make it easy on all of us. Still, it felt like a shitty thing.

He mouthed again. I couldn’t make out his words over all the noise. I leaned close.

“We’ve got to move,” Fritz shouted, stepping away.

Murphy kicked me. “C’mon dude.”

“Grenade,” said the guy. His mouth silently said it again.

He wanted a grenade.

I looked up at Murphy. He still had several.

“Murphy, gimme a grenade,” I hollered. “Right now.”

Without pause, Murphy yanked one off his MOLLE vest and dropped it down to me.

I pulled the pin. Guessing the dying soldier’s thoughts, I pressed the grenade into his hands.

He held it tight in a grip we both knew wasn’t going to last. He tried to smile through the blood in his mouth and the fear in his eyes. He didn’t want to die.

Who the fuck did?

“Thank you,” I told him as I jumped to my feet. I looked at the others as I started to move. “Run!”

We raced up the length of a short block. The grenade exploded behind us and I turned to see. The horde had reached the soldier, at least a dozen were lying in the street around him, now writhing and screaming with pain instead of bloodlust.

“That way,” Murphy shouted and led us all onto a side street.

For the moment, I saw no Whites.

Murphy took another turn into an alley behind a sprawling bank with a half dozen drive-thru teller lanes. Two Whites loitered in the middle of the alley, looking around like they couldn’t figure out what all the commotion was—like they couldn’t figure out what they should be doing about it.

Murphy shot them both down.

Thank God for the suppressor on his M4.

He pulled up to a stop beside a dumpster that was pushed up against the bank’s back wall and looked up.

With no Whites in view for the moment, it only took another half-second for everyone to guess what Murphy was thinking. We clambered onto the dumpster. I was last up. Still safe. Murphy was already helping Fritz onto the roof.

“C’mon.” Murphy looked at me.

He cupped his hand into a stirrup. I stepped in and he lifted as I jumped. Just like that, I was halfway on the roof and scrambling to get myself all the way over the edge.

As soon as I fell over the parapet and hit the gravel roof, the other soldier came climbing over. Fritz was already leaning back over, reaching down. I jumped up beside him and reached for Murphy. He grabbed our hands and climbed up, rolling over the wall and coming down in a tumble of elbows, knees, and bruises.

“Holy crap, that was intense.” Murphy got up on his knees, his eyes as wide as his smile.

I peeked over the low wall that surrounded the roof. Whites were already back in the alley. More were up the street. I couldn’t see the road out in front of the bank, not without standing and risking being seen from below. I said, “I think we’re safe for the moment.”

From our vantage point, we could see one, then the other helicopter angling toward the place a few blocks away where the soldier had detonated the grenade to buy us some time. I looked that way and put thoughts of the dead soldier out of my mind. One more death on a long, long list. At least his was over in one painless instant.

On his knees beside me and looking up at the sky, Murphy said, “We can’t stay here.” He pointed up at the helicopters. “I don’t know if those assholes are looking for us or just hunting Whites, but if they happen to see us on the roof, things will go to shit in a hurry for us.”

I looked around and said, “I sure wouldn’t want things to go to shit for us.” I put a smile on my face to support the joke, but it wouldn’t stay.

Fritz pointed up at the helicopters. “They are looking for us.”

Murphy said, “I guess we missed some things when we were vacationing at the lake house.”

A helicopter passed on the other side of the building next door. We scampered to hide ourselves on the opposite side of a large air conditioning unit.

Pointing at the helicopter and looking at Fritz I asked, “Who are these guys and why do they want you so bad?”

“Who’s Dalhover?” Fritz asked, drilling me with his eyes.

“Hey, Interrogation Boy,” I said to him, letting some of my tension turn to anger, “Don’t cop that ‘tude with me. You can jump your bad little ass back off the edge of the roof and fend for your fucking self.”

Fritz’s expression didn’t change.

“Be cool,” Murphy told us.

Fritz’s soldier put a hand on my back and said, “Thanks for getting us out of there, man.” He leaned the shotgun on his knee and put his other hand out to shake mine. “It might not seem like it, but we really appreciate it.”

I nodded noncommittally. “Sorry about your guys.”

He shook his head. “We take the risk every time we go out.” He looked back to Fritz.

Fritz looked at his soldier then back at me. He said, “We
do
appreciate what you did. I don’t know
why
you did it, that’s all.”

A band of howling Whites ran past the bank, heading for the fires at the Capitol.

I looked Fritz up and down. “I thought you were somebody else.”

Murphy laughed and said, “I told you, man.”

“Who is this Dalhover guy?” Fritz asked.

“I didn’t think you were him,” I said. “I thought maybe you were his son or something. I’ll be damned if you don’t look like a younger version of him.”

“He’s a friend of yours?” Fritz asked.

I nodded and looked out at the circling helicopters. “They’ve figured out were not over there and they’re starting to look around.” I looked back at Fritz. “If they really do have a hard-on for you guys, we need to get off this roof.”

Diesel engines rumbled out of the distance and I half stood up to see out into the street in front of the bank. Three armored Humvees were speeding past, heading toward the spot where we’d lost the last soldier with the grenade. I looked back at Fritz. “Jesus, did we just piss off the whole army?”

Fritz shrugged. “We should get going.”

It seemed like every White in the city was coming out into the streets.

We all went to the edge of the roof where we’d come up. I leaned over and looked up and down the alley. Three Whites were trotting in our direction. I nodded at them. Murphy took the cue and laid his rifle across the parapet and aimed.

“Don’t,” said Fritz.

“I’ve got a suppressor.” Murphy motioned toward the device attached to the end of his rifle barrel.

“It’s not the noise,” said Fritz as he looked up into the sky. “There aren’t any lights down here except for the fire at the Capitol. Muzzle flashes might reveal our location.”

“Shit,” Murphy admitted, “You’re right.”

I holstered my pistol, put a hand up on the top edge of the short wall, and jumped down onto the dumpster, machete ready.

When my feet banged the dumpster lid, the three Whites found a purpose for their lives and sprinted toward me.

Fritz warned me with a grunt and half a syllable.

“I got this,” I told him.

Murphy started his climb off the bank’s roof.

The first of the infected leapt at the dumpster from a few paces away. He landed halfway on the lid and I hacked down across his neck just as he grabbed at my leg. His grip went slack and he slid off as the other two reached the dumpster, grasping and screaming in voices that shrank. I think the sight of me frightened or confused something in their slow brains.

While they were trying to figure out whether or not I was a White like them, I hacked the hand off a female and chopped the other White across the face. That one fell, but the female kept after me with renewed conviction. I finished her with a blow on the side of her head that opened her skull and sent a spray of blood and brain matter onto the tan brick on the side of the bank.

I looked up at Fritz and the other soldier as if they needed instruction. “Let’s go.”

A moment later we were jogging down the alley, staying close to the walls and taking advantage of the big dumpsters and trashcans to keep us out of view from anything passing by on the street.

We managed five or six blocks without incident, staying quiet while putting some distance between ourselves and the last place the helicopter assholes thought we were. The farther we got from the Capitol and the more the fires burned down, the less red and yellow light illuminated the streets. The sound of gunfire and explosions from back at the Capitol steadily increased, giving us some cover for any noise that we were making. The sound also drew in every infected from around the center of the city.

The battle for the Capitol building was underway.

Six or seven helicopters were in the air by then, shooting down at the Whites. Armored Humvees and armored personnel carriers rumbled through the streets, back and forth, going to no destination that we could determine, shooting everything that moved. Maybe they were just out hunting Whites.

Murphy led us into a building that had apparently taken a beating during the initial breakout. Most of the glass on the first floor was broken out. Burned-out cars were parked bumper-to-bumper on the surrounding sidewalk, creating an ineffective wall. In the lobby, the remains of hundreds of dead lay on the floor. Splattered, dried blood stained the walls.

Outside of a door that had been torn off the hinges, we waited by a stairwell.

How the hell did that happen, I wondered? The door was steel and heavy.

Murphy quietly walked into the stairwell, listened and scanned up and down between the flights to see what he could see. He shook his head to let us know the place appeared to be empty. He motioned us all to come in close. He whispered, “I think we need to find a place to hole up for the night.”

Fritz looked over the burned-out cars and asked, “Do you think we’re too close to the Capitol?”

Murphy shrugged. “How far is far enough? Can they search the whole city for you two?”

“No,” said Fritz. “They don’t have that many guys. Besides, they need to defend the Capitol.”

I said, “It’s dangerous out on the streets.” Sure, it was obvious. We all knew it, but it needed to be said.

We looked around at each other and came to a silent consensus.

Murphy led us up the stairs.