Slow Burn (Book 8): Grind (11 page)

“What the hell?” The words fell out of Murphy’s mouth as he stood beside a tree, watching.

I bulled through the thick bushes, grabbed a fence post, and vaulted over the barbed wire. I looked back at the bunch of Whites coming our way. I pointed at the Whites we’d just killed, “I don’t know if it was their yapping or what, but that bunch is coming this way, and you can bet your ass there're a couple of Smart Ones in there.”

Climbing quickly over to my side of the fence, Murphy asked, “What makes you think that? Because—”

“Because that’s the worst-case scenario.” I looked over my shoulder to make sure another mob wasn’t coming from behind us. That would have been really worst case. Still, a sorghum field stretched off for… for… Christ! It was a long-ass way.

Out here in the country with seemingly endless fields, the distances—I was learning—were deceptive.

That tree line way over there on the other side of the field wasn't a couple hundred yards away, though that's what my city-born intuition told me, because nothing I was used to seeing in the city was ever very far. The tree line was a quarter or a half or even three-quarters of a mile distant. It was plenty far that if Murphy and I sprinted for the other side, it would be a damn near-wasted effort because Whites would be coming through these trees and over this fence a long time before we got to the other side of the field. They’d see us out there in the knee-high stalks of cut sorghum, and they'd chase us—Murphy specifically, because he was dressed and armed like a normal human.

And everybody with virus-bleached skin knew normal humans tasted best of all.

I pointed down the fence we were standing beside. It cut a line perpendicular to the path the mob of Whites was taking toward us. “Let’s go that way. We need to stay close to the bushes and trees so that once the Whites get here, we can jump back in and hide. If they see us in the open…”

Murphy was already running. “C’mon Professor. I don’t need the explanation. This isn’t my first day on the job.”

I ran after him. Full speed and not sustainable but we didn’t care. We’d be able to catch our breaths in a moment when we were sneaking along at a much slower speed through the bushes and trees. Right now, we needed distance.

We’d gone maybe a few hundred yards when Murphy jumped off the dirt path we'd been following at the edge of the cultivated field and dove into the bushes. I was right behind him.

Before I got myself turned around he’d already put a boot onto a low tree branch and pulled himself up for a better view.

“What do you see?” I whispered as I leaned out from the bushes to look down our side of the hedgerow.

Whites were pouring over the fence in the spot we’d left seconds before and were fanning out into the sorghum field. A gust of wind rustled the dry, brown leaves and startled me as my brain told me it was the sound of Whites coming through the crops behind me.

It wasn’t. But God, I was jumpy.

I was in adrenaline-junkie-haul-ass-shoot-some-motherfuckers mode.

“C’mon,” said Murphy, letting himself down from the tree. “Stay close. Don’t let ‘em see you.”

“Yes, Professor.” I grinned as I followed.

He smiled widely, and his eyes looked a little bit crazy. His adrenaline was running hot too.

Junkies for the thrill.

Staying in the bushes and behind the trees that grew thickly on both sides of the fence made for slow going. It took us an unsettlingly long while to get to the corner of the field, our momentary salvation. That gave us three directions to move in while staying close enough to a hedgerow to use it for cover.

When we stopped, Murphy and I both climbed a tree just high enough to get a view over the scrubby bushes and between the mostly bare branches of the other trees along the fence.

The Whites who’d gone into the sorghum field were still spreading out, regularly spaced, staring at the dirt and shuffling slowly. Two Whites among them stood out for the fact that they didn’t appear to be searching but cajoling the others to work in certain patterns. Those two were Smart Ones. Not only that, but they weren’t casually trying to find a meal. Their search had more purpose—maybe a guess—and they were employing a process.

On the other side of the fence, a Smart One was busy kicking, punching, and herding other Whites who’d taken an interest in feeding on the infected Murphy and I had slain. Whites liked an easy meal. A second Smart One on that side of the fence was working more Whites along the hedgerow, searching for us there.

“This doesn’t look right to me,” said Murphy.

“No.” I was past understatement, past process, and was on to motive. “I think they’re looking for me.”

“For you?” Murphy laughed and sarcastically added, “You
are
the special one.”

“That’s not what I mean.” I climbed down from the tree. “Obviously that’s not the whole naked horde.”

Murphy jumped to the ground, turning to look at an empty field behind us. “And?”

“I wonder if the Smart Ones who run that naked horde left some of their boys to look for me after what happened last night. They have to be smart enough to know that somebody was driving that combine. They lost a lot of their minimum-wage help, and I’ll bet they’re pissed about it.”

“Not so many they’ll notice,” Murphy disagreed.

I pointed down the hedgerow in the direction from where we’d just come. “I think they did notice. I think these guys are their revenge.”

“Fine. You’re right.” More sarcasm. Murphy looked back and forth, leaning over as he did so he could see between branches into the neighboring field. “Which way, Professor?”

I pointed. “If we go that way, then we'll be moving back in the direction those Whites were coming from. I don't think any of them are smart enough to think we'd run that way.” I pointed the other way. “I think they'll likely keep searching in the last direction they saw us moving in.”

“Except that some are coming this way down the fence.” Murphy’s nervousness was clear in his fidgeting. He wanted to stop talking and get moving.

I huffed and pointed again in the direction of my choice. “That’s our best bet. But whatever.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Murphy shrugged, took a deep breath, and grinned. “Why don’t you just admit it’s all a guess and any direction is as good as any other. Let’s stop talking and get a move on?”

I rolled my eyes, pursed my lips, pushed through some bushes, and hopped the fence. I’d made my choice, even if Murphy thought it was an unfounded guess.

With no Whites able to see us for the moment, we ran at full speed. We only needed to cross a few hundred yards to reach the next fence line. Because trees and bushes grew up through most fences, they acted as barriers, limiting from how far away we could be spotted. At least where the fields were relatively small. Not all of them were.

Once over the next fence, we stopped to breathe and unfortunately re-evaluate. We were at a road. Across the potholed asphalt, a field spread flat for miles in all directions. To our right and down the road a little was the barn we’d just left and the combine still smoldering black trickles of smoke into the air. Roughly to our rear and probably to our left, the band of Whites was searching for us.

“How many rounds you got left?” I asked.

Murphy patted the magazines on his MOLLE vest. “These two and what I’ve got in the rifle.”

Shit.

Seventy or eighty rounds.

All I had were my machete and knife.

A White made a long, undulating wail from back along the fence line we’d just come down.

Murphy and I shared a look. We both knew that wail meant nothing but bad news.

I pushed my face back through the bushes to look. Near the far corner of the field we’d just crossed, a White was standing with his face to the sky, shrieking at the clouds. Kneeling beside him and staring at the dirt while he touched it with his fingers, was another White.

“Shit they’re tracking us.” I pulled my head back through the bushes.

“No way.” Murphy peeked through. “Dammit,” he said, as he jumped through the bushes. “Let’s go.” He leapt over a ditch and onto the asphalt. “They’re coming.”

I ran after Murphy.

More infected voices howled behind us. And then, like nighttime dogs frightening one another with barks spreading through a neighborhood, hundreds of Whites screamed.

At least we knew in which directions not to run.

“You hear that?” Murphy panted.

We were running through another field of knee-high sorghum stalks, and I was trying to gin up an idea to get us out of a mess that looked to be escalating past our ability to handle it.

“You hear that?” Murphy persisted.

I looked back the way we’d come. “Yeah. Of course, I do.”

“No.” Murphy pointed. “I think more are over there.”

No.

I looked. I didn’t see anything but another fence with the shrubs and trees growing through it. I listened. More Whites
were
over there. They weren’t as close as those we were running from. If they came through that tree line, though, we were in trouble.

Murphy veered away from the new band of screamers while he sped up.

It was a long, long way to the next bit of useless cover, a collection of oil pumps, piping, and rusty tanks. A place great for hiding if no one saw you go in. That wasn’t a luxury we had. Whites were already on the road behind us. Their screaming made it clear we had already been seen.

“Trees.” I pointed as we ran. A band of green and gray stretched across the horizon.

“Why did they have to find us in the flattest part of the whole damn state?”

Because that’s just the way being fucked works.

I kept that to myself. I didn’t have the breath to spare. Whites were behind us. More were crossing the expansive flat field off to our left, but moving on a parallel course. Way back and toward our right, a mob of several hundred was coming.

“We may,” I panted, “need some luck on this one.”

“If things,” Murphy gulped a big breath, “go bad,” another breath, “same as before.” He looked at me. “Fall back with them.”

“No way we can kill them all,” I pieced together between rapid breaths.

“You’ll have a chance that way,” Murphy argued. “I should have gone naked like your dumbass.”

“We’re in this together,” I told him. “Mighty Murphy and The Valiant Null Spot.”

Despite the benefit of general painlessness—a gift from the virus—we passed the dormant oil well, feeling the strain of running so far so fast. The chasing Whites were stringing out behind us, faster ones in front, slower falling behind. Some jogged off in the wrong direction. A few stopped and stared. Some stayed on task—chasing Murphy and me—and gained ground.

It had to be quite a job for the Smart Ones in those bands to keep their minions on task. Infected brains seemed unable to hold a thought in the center of attention for long.

Bad for them. Good for us.

Maybe if we ran far enough, that attrition rate would winnow down the number of chasers to a quantity we could successfully kill.

Yeah, right.

I find it helps to lie to myself in hopeless situations. It keeps me trying, and it keeps me thinking. And I knew that if I did enough trying and thinking, I tended to still be alive when opportunities arose—so far.

The line of trees we’d seen on the horizon when we’d started racing across this particular giant flat field was now close enough for me to see that it was a line of tall trees and greenery, not straight along a fence, but snaking from south to north across our path. It had to be a creek or a river, with dense foliage and steep banks towering above a deep, rocky bed, with a shallow sputter of water running through.

That’s what most of them looked like through the farm country.

I glanced back to measure the distance of our nearest pursuers. Some were scarily close.

We weren’t going to get caught in the open but were going to make it to the creek.

Was I lying to myself?

Who the fuck knows.

Things had gotten pretty grim, but I was still breathing. I was still on my feet. I had a pair of boots and a utilitarian machete with which I’d killed more Whites than I could count. And Murphy still had a decent load of ammunition.

One way or another, we were getting to that damn creek.

Whether that would give us enough of an advantage to leverage into an escape remained to be seen. But it was hope, and hope can keep your feet moving no matter how much your body tells you to succumb to exhaustion and give up.

“You gonna make it?” I asked.

Murphy didn’t spare a breath for an answer. He nodded as he glanced over his shoulder.

We passed out of the chopped sorghum, knee-high obstacles that had been slowing us for what seemed like a marathon of miles. With the resistance of having to push my feet through the dried stalks suddenly gone, I felt like I could run forever.

We bounded over a narrow dirt road and into a smaller field of nothing but scattered weeds growing in deep furrows that had been tilled but never planted. And of course, all the damn furrows were running across our path.

I immediately stumbled because of a bad landing, but I kept my feet under me and continued running.

“You okay?” Murphy asked.

“The ground,” I answered, watching it closely now to make sure my feet landed on the top edges of each furrow. It made for an awkward gait, trying to measure my paces by the regularly spaced ridges of dirt.

Murphy was doing the same but moving faster. The ridges between the furrows seemed better spaced for his natural stride.

He looked over at me and eased off his pace.

“Don’t,” I hollered.

“No martyrs,” Murphy scolded.

“Dammit,” I shouted. “Just get there.” I gulped a big breath. “Catch your breath.” More air. “You'll shoot better if you're not gasping.”

Murphy didn’t speed up.

“Go,” I ordered. “They won’t catch me.”

Murphy’s burst of speed immediately created a widening gap between us.

Damn, I didn’t know he was so fast.

I risked a glance over my shoulder.

Damn, again.

Three sprinters weren’t fifty yards behind me.

My foot landed badly and I went down, rolling and scrambling to my feet as I cursed myself for the mistake. Still, I looked again at my chasers as I got myself moving again.

Maybe I wouldn’t make it.

A pack of three were well ahead of the rest of the Whites who were spread out in a line behind, one or two every ten to twenty yards back until their numbers grew into a running mob of so many Whites it wasn’t worth guessing a number.

Murphy was already more than halfway from where I was to the trees, which were looming large.

Just as my foot landed, I chanced another glance back. I had some fractions of a second to spare.

The three sprinters would never catch Murphy, but they were going to catch me. Another glance back confirmed that.

It was time to make a choice between two crappy options. I could hope that my machete, boots, and choice to run beside Murphy all that way hadn’t marked me in the Whites’ minds as a target. If I wasn’t marked, I could let them pass and dispatch them as easily as I’d cut the legs out from the Whites who’d chased us away from the barn earlier.

I didn’t have any faith in that choice.

My alternative was to slow down and try something else. That appealed to me most, whether through logic or fatigue I couldn’t swear to know, but I told myself it was logic.

I started taking efficient, slow leaps from furrow to furrow. My breaths instantly felt fulfilling rather than insufficient. Sweat still poured off my skin even though a chill flew on the wind.

I thought through what I was going to do. I went through it again. Mental preparation, intellect, and imagination were my main advantages over the infected.

The sound of rapid breathing came up behind me. I glanced back to get the timing right.

A few more steps, slower and slower.

I leapt with both feet, planted my heels in the bottom of a furrow, covered my head with my arms, and pulled my body into a tight ball.

The Whites tumbled over me in a flurry of elbows, knees, and grunts.

Knocked to the side, I caught my balance and jumped to my feet, swinging my machete at any body part I could reach. An ankle took a gash. A wrist spewed a fountain of red. I wasn’t going for lethal cuts. I’d only bought seconds to slow the three fast bastards down. More Whites were coming on quickly.

Bleeders were on the ground with brilliant red—stark and tempting—on their white skin.

That might give my other pursuers pause. But not me. My work was done.

Successfully.

Ha! Bitches.

I stepped into a run as a hand grabbed my ankle.

My face hit the dirt, as a mouthful of it mixed with the breath I was gasping for.

The ankle-grabber, probably thinking he had me, was crawling on his knees and chortling through snapping teeth when I rolled over and cut a chunk of his skull away. Blood exploded into the brisk wind.

Running Whites howled.

I rolled over, bounced up, and sprinted for the trees.