Slow Burn (Book 8): Grind (14 page)

“It’s like a used clothing store,” I said, as I sorted through a stack of jeans, looking for the right size.

Murphy had already selected a t-shirt, sweatshirt, and jacket for me. He laid them on the arm of a couch beside the piles of blue jeans I was looking through. He groused, “This is some weird shit.”

Nodding, I said, “You know how some Whites get obsessed with weird habits. At least this one works for us. You need anything?”

He pointed to a jacket lying over the back of a chair. “Got me one already.”

“Did you see any food?”

“Not a scrap.”

Wondering how far our luck could run on this one, I suggested, “Maybe the food is in a different house.

Murphy walked over to the back wall as I slipped on a pair of jeans. I sat down to put a clean pair of socks on my feet before putting my boots back on. He looked out a window at the field of tiny, new plants. “Maybe this isn’t the work of Whites.”

“Because of the vegetable garden out back?”

“Yeah,” said Murphy.

“You think maybe regular people did this? Normals?”

Murphy shrugged. “Could still be around here in one of these houses.”

I pulled the T-shirt over my head. “Maybe they aren’t hostile.”

“Maybe they’re sneaking around outside to ambush us when we come out of the house.”

I walked over to get a look out a window on the front of the house.

“Finish getting dressed,” said Murphy. “We need to decide whether we’re going out the way we came or whether we’re going to check out what’s in town.”

“I don’t want to restart our conversation on luck,” I said, “but I don’t want to press mine anymore today.” I stuffed my arms into the sweatshirt’s sleeves. Looking out, I said, “Something’s off about this place.”

Murphy crossed the room, flipping a few sweaters off the top of a pile on the television. “This place creeps me out.”

“Back to the woods then?” I asked. “Maybe head down the road a bit and see if we can find a place to hole up before dark.”

Murphy pushed a curtain to the side to look across the green field. “That sounds like a—”

“What?”

Murphy scooted out of the window as he peeked around the edge, waving a hand to hush me down.

Shit.

I hurried as fast as I could to finish dressing and get my machete back in my hand. Once I was ready, I jogged across the room and took a spot on the other side of the window.

“Watch the line of trees,” Murphy whispered.

It took thirty or forty seconds to see, but a line of naked Whites jogged out of the trees, following one after the other. Twelve—no, thirteen. They cut a goodly-sized arc through the vegetable field, stomping on the new crop like so much grass. They curved back into the trees.

“What do you make of that?” I asked.

“That’s all they’re doing,” said Murphy. “Running in and out of the forest in that stupid curvy path they follow when they’re going nowhere in particular.”

“That might be the key,” I said. “When they're going nowhere in particular, they do that. When they're chasing, well, we got a pretty good idea of what that looks like."

“Yup.”

"Have you seen any more?" I asked.

“None yet.” Murphy rubbed a hand over his face, clearly thinking about how this new development affected our options.

“But you think there are more in the trees.”

He looked at me, angrily surprised. “Don’t you?”

“Just thinking out loud, I guess.” I shrugged. It was a stupid question. We both believed more Whites were in the woods. Whether they were the ones looking for us or just more stragglers from the naked horde didn’t matter. Naked Whites were fucking dangerous. And like roaches. For every one you saw, a hundred more lurked out of sight. “We should get out of here.”

Murphy turned and headed for the front door.

I followed. The decision was made. We were going to take our chances with the invisible townsfolk. Perhaps being chased by naked Whites for a good part of the day and thinking we were going to end up as food diminished our fear that we might be ambushed by farmers with guns when we went out the front door.

However, we had a short menu of choices, and they all sucked.

Murphy put a hand on the worn brass knob and paused, giving me a look that asked whether I was ready.

I raised a finger to indicate that he should wait for a moment. I peeked out a front window, a necessary step Murphy forgot in his moment of decisiveness. That’s why we were a good pair. We caught one another’s mistakes.

“Clear as far as I can see,” I said.

With a nod at me, Murphy swung the door open. He put the rifle to his shoulder, stepped out, and panned his aim across the other houses, pausing at items of interest. I stepped onto the porch beside him, machete in one hand, knife in the other, ready to do some killing.

The wind blew a tumble of big, crispy leaves across the yard and street. The branch beat on the eaves of the house. Trees rustled in the gust. Nothing alive moved anywhere.

“Follow me." Murphy leapt off the squat porch and hurried toward the street.

On his heels, I followed him to a house across the street not very different from the one we’d just left. It, too, was tidy enough. The doors were closed. Most of the windows were intact, with curtains opened wide. I couldn’t help but peep inside.

It didn’t appear to have been ransacked. Well, not much. All the cupboards and closets were open. In the rooms where the windows weren’t broken were stacks and stacks of dishes, pots, pans, and piles of utensils—all sorted. Forks in one, spoons in another. One for spatulas, one for knives.

“This place is fuckin’ weird,” Murphy whispered.

“No shit.”

We snuck around a garage with no door. I stopped Murphy and motioned toward a dusty car sitting inside. “I’m going to check it.” Driving a car, especially in the daylight hours with so many Whites around, was a damn risky proposition. But Whites were in the woods close by and we were stuck in creepy town with a hearty desire to get the fuck out—quickly.

“Don’t lollygag,” Murphy told me. “If the keys aren’t in it, let’s just go.” He tucked himself between a big bush and the garage wall and scanned for movement.

I hurried back around to the front of the garage and slipped inside. Out of the wind, it was suddenly quiet again. I avoided touching the car as I passed it. I didn’t want to knock away any of the accumulated dust, which would be evidence of my passing. After seeing Whites looking for our tracks in the field earlier, I didn’t want to leave any sign.

The car’s front door was unlocked. I swung it open and squeezed inside, feeling the awkward bulk of my clothing and thinking how quickly I’d gotten used to running around naked. Once in the driver’s seat, I saw the keys were not in the ignition. Having seeing way too many movies, I, of course, checked the visor. No keys. "Damn, doesn't anybody understand the rules?" I chuckled at my stupid little joke while I wished more people would have watched the same movies I’d seen. I checked under the floor mat, under the seat, and in the glove box. No keys.

Crap.

I got out of the car, crept back out of the garage and took up a spot beside Murphy and his bush.

“No luck?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“I thought I heard you saying something in there.” Murphy turned to me and grinned. “Did you try asking nicely for it to start?”

“Yes.” Lies are always a good defense against sarcasm. I stepped out from behind the bush and jogged to a house about fifty yards across two unfenced backyards. Murphy followed, trying to suppress his chuckles as he kept his rifle at his shoulder.

A peek through the windows showed stacks and stacks of blankets, sheets, and pillows. “What is up with this crazy place?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

We crossed a few more yards.

We came to a row of houses in various states of disassembly. Not destroyed, but methodically taken apart. One house had little left except concrete block foundation pillars, pipes, and a fireplace. One was torn down to the frame. In another, much of the wood used to frame it was missing, leaving mostly just the floor.

Still, we saw no more Whites, no living humans, and no houses stocked with food. Given the separation of items in each house by type, I figured we'd maybe come across one filled with canned goods, or bottled soft drinks. Hell, one of the houses might be full of liquor. I found myself looking at all the homes in sight, trying to guess which one was hiding the beer.

I thought I saw something moving between the houses in the distance. It was getting late in the day, and with the overcast sky, it was hard to make out shapes in the dimming light. Maybe they were bushes moving in the wind.

Murphy nudged me and pointed at the grain silos. A rusty ladder cage ran up the side of one, all the way to the top, where an unusual metal tower with numerous platforms stood precariously on the edge. Two of the towers appeared flat across their tops. Three others had some irregular constructions on the roofs.

I didn’t indulge Murphy’s pointless worry. Movement in my peripheral vision caught my attention and I looked, but saw nothing.

“What?” Murphy asked.

“Not sure,” I said, even though I was thinking pretty hard in that moment anything with enough energy to move probably had enough energy to try and eat me. “What’s your thing with the grain silos?”

“Might be a place to go up and spend the night in safety,” said Murphy. “Only one way in and one way out.”

I turned to Murphy. “I thought you wanted to get out of this creepy little village. Besides, with all the wind, I’ll bet it’s cold as shit up there.”

Murphy pointed back at the house with all the blankets. “Plenty in there to keep us warm.” He tensed as he finished his sentence.

That alarmed me and I looked toward the blanket house.

“Did you see that?” he asked.

I shook my head and pointed in the other direction. “Nope. But I’ve been seeing some other things. Over there and over there.”

“Whites?”

“I don’t know.” I looked around again. “If it’s Whites, they’re being sneaky.”

“And you saw them over there,” Murphy looked around behind us again, “and now back there. They’ve got us surrounded.”

“Run for it?” I asked.

“It’s worked for us so far.”

I heaved a big sigh and leaned on the wall of the house as I thought about our situation. “If it’s Whites, there’s got to be Smart Ones with them.”

“’Cause?”

“They haven’t attacked yet.”

Murphy nodded. “Okay, Professor, but make this quick. I’m getting itchy feet.”

“I don’t think this is the bunch that chased us this morning,” I said. “If it was, they wouldn’t be sneaking around. They’d come right for us.”

Murphy shrugged and nodded. “I’ll give you that. Or it’s the creepy people who live here.”

“Either way,” I said, “I don’t think there are that many of them. Again, if they had overwhelming numbers, they’d have come at us already.”

“Whatever,” said Murphy. “What direction haven’t you seen anything moving in?”

I pointed.

“You ready to scoot your ass?”

I nodded.

Murphy gestured in that direction. “We’ll run as fast as we can that way.” He paused and looked at me. “As fast as
you
can. To that blue house way over there. That looks like the edge of town. If I stop by the garage to look around, stop with me. If I don't stop, it'll be because I spotted a White, and I'll keep hauling ass to the woods on the other side."

“If I see a White?” I asked.

“Same deal. Don’t stop. I’ll keep running with you.”

“Got it, Sarge.”

“Stay close.” Murphy took off running.

A White howled to warn his buddies of our attempt to flee before we'd made it a dozen steps.

Shaking his head, Murphy muttered, “Motherfucker.”

If the situation didn’t feel so suddenly dire, I’d have laughed. We were having a run of shit luck.

Way off to our left, in the gaps past the houses, I saw a trio pacing us, running parallel to our path.

Off to our right, Whites were scattered, maybe six or seven of them, trying to close in before we got to the blue house. More Whites were behind, but I didn’t spend a lot of time looking over my shoulder. It’s damn difficult to maintain a sprint while looking backwards.

As we got close to the blue house, Murphy panted, “How many do you see?”

“Maybe fifteen.” I glanced around. It was mostly a guess.

“Two choices,” he said. “In the house or in the woods.”

The advantage of either choice was dependent on the number of Whites coming. If many more than my guess of fifteen were out there, any benefit of using the house for defense would be negated by so many attacking through the doors and windows all at once. If we ran into the woods, well, that might put us back in the situation we’d been in for most of the day, being chased by an ever-growing mob of infected boneheads.

Or, I suppose, we could have stood our ground and spent a good deal of Murphy’s last two magazines, while I hacked and stabbed as many as I was able.

“The woods,” I told him.

We ran past the blue house without pause.

Despite the cold temperatures, I wished I was still naked and able to fit in with our pursuers. That one thing would give me a lethally stealthy advantage that, so far, the naked horde hadn’t been intelligent enough to counter.

Murphy crashed between bare branches growing over a narrow path. I tore in behind him.

Whites were in the yard we’d just crossed. Moments later, they burst through the bushes to get on the path behind us.

I listened for Whites in the trees, skipping the path altogether. I knew they would. They had to. It was an intelligence thing. If a regular White saw you on the other side of a fence, he’d try all day to go through the fence before it occurred to him to go over. It was a different story with Smart Ones. I knew at least some of the Whites had to see us among the trees and wouldn’t go to the path to chase us, but rather, would run a beeline from where they stood to the spot where they saw us, even if bushes and vines were in the way.

Advantage us. Those Whites would come more slowly and be dispersed.

The ones bright enough to follow the path would get strung out in a single-file line. Whites are easier to kill that way than when they all come at you at once.

I don’t know why, but that made me think of the attack by that mob of white-skinned motherfuckers when Steph and I were caught on the shore of Lake Travis a few months ago. And like every time that memory found its way into my mind, it hurt. A fresh dose of adrenaline pumping through my veins mixed with that pain, and blurred into a rage with a biting hunger for revenge.

My rationality switch flipped to
fuck it.

I skidded to a stop on the trail. I turned to face the Whites coming up behind me and roared all of my hatred into a dead, gray sky.

I ran back up the trail, swinging my machete-shaped best friend.

Predators hate it when the prey turns and says, “Fuck you!”

The first White in line fell onto his ass as he tried to come to a stop. The two Whites behind him tripped and tumbled over.

Too bad for them.

I slashed and cut a chunk from two heads as I leapt over.

A fourth White, this one with a blade in hand, made a running Tarzan leap at me. I spun and ripped out his guts with a two-handed swing of my machete as I sidestepped his momentum.

The White who’d been leading the line on the trail struggled through the bodies of his three dying buddies to reach for my leg. He caught a big mouthful of steel-toed boot and went limp.

A quick little woman came around a curve in the trail before I had my blade up to hack her down. She made a quick move to get her face out of my fist’s way, but earned a throat full of elbow instead. Her larynx collapsed and the crunchy noise of it followed the gobs of spit on the last breath out of her wide-open mouth.

My blade found another White woman coming up the trail.

I ran further, seeing no Whites, only hearing them in the woods around me. I shouted, “C’mon, fuckers!”

I was full of victory and invincibility, thinking I could handle any number. I was loving the taste of revenge and the feel of warm Whites’ blood on my face and hands.

A big fellow tripped out of the trees and fell onto the trail a few paces away. Too bad for him, I was faster at covering the distance than he was at regaining his feet. I hacked him across the back of his neck and he collapsed face first onto the muddy path.

“There you go, motherfucker!” I shouted. “You want some more? Come on, I’ll kill every one of you shits!”

No more came.

Murphy said, “They’re dead, dude.”

I caught a big breath and found that the pace of my breathing was uncomfortably fast.

“You got most of ‘em,” he said, with his bloody hatchet in hand. “I finished off the ones who needed it.”

I nodded and pursed my lips. “Thanks.” Rational thought slowly returned as my anger settled to a simmer. “You have to shoot any of ‘em?”

“A few.” He turned back up the trail. “What do you say we get the hell away from Creepy Town and see if we can find us another barn to crash in tonight? Oh, and next time, let me know if you decide to run off in the other direction. I was a long way down the trail when I figured out that you weren’t behind me.”

I nodded and started to follow as Murphy moved up the trail.

Murphy said, “That was some shit.”

“Needed to be done.” It was the first excuse I came up with, though I wasn’t entirely sure I needed an excuse.

Murphy grunted noncommittally. A moment later, he asked, “You get hurt?”

“No.” I did a quick mental inventory of my parts—wiggled my toes, bent my elbows, swung my shoulders, and flexed my fingers. “I’m good.”

“None of that’s your blood, then?”

“You know how it goes sometimes,” I answered.

“Yeah.”

We’d gone a piece up the trail when I thought to ask, “You didn’t get hurt, did you? Bit or anything?”

“Nope,” said Murphy, as he held up his hand and flexed his fingers. “Something in the bushes got me.” He looked closely at his palm. “Maybe thorns or a scorpion, or something.” He shrugged and put the hand back on his rifle. “The ones coming through the woods weren’t hard. The ones on the trail were dazed, or too busy dying to pay me any mind after you tore through ‘em.”

“Yeah,” I said. “About that.”

Shaking his head, Murphy turned. “Don’t sweat it. You gotta do what you gotta do.” He reached up and tapped the side of my head with a big finger. “Before you can deal with some of the crazy that lives in here.”

I had no response. He was right.

Murphy turned and started forward again. “You forget, I’ve been there. There’s only one way past that shit for people like you and me.”

“To kill Mark.”

Murphy nodded.

Somewhere in the shadows far off to our left, a White screamed an alarm. Another added her voice. One by one, all through the woods, in the direction we were moving, White voices joined in.

“I knew we didn’t get them all,” whispered Murphy. “But—”

“But there’s always more than you think,” I finished.

The hunt was on again, and there were way too many Whites in the forest for me to kill, no matter how manic I let myself get.

We needed to evade them until dark. With Murphy’s night vision goggles, nighttime was the advantage that could save us.

We turned and ran back up the trail toward Creepy Town.